Is it possible to execute two functions on a Pie button via an additional key pressed?

I've found an answer on this, but it still need some coding

Standard Pie Menu looks like this:

class PieMenuClass(Menu):
    bl_idname = "pie.pie_menu_class"
    bl_label = ""

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

        pie.operator("mesh.subdivide", text="Subdivide")
        ...

This Pie adds a subdivide operator. Let's say we add more two options - unsubdivide while holding "Shift" and Smooth subdivide with CTRL pressed.

First add register!!! =)  one more class:

class MYSubdivide(Operator):
    bl_idname = "class.my_subdivide"
    bl_label = "Ctrl - unsubdivide, Shift - Smooth"

    def invoke(self,context,event):
        if event.shift:
            bpy.ops.mesh.subdivide(smoothness = 1)
        elif event.alt:
            bpy.ops.mesh.unsubdivide()
        elif event.ctrl:
                bpy.ops.mesh.subdivide_edgering(number_cuts =1)
        else:
            bpy.ops.mesh.subdivide()

        return {'FINISHED'}

First declaration then changed to call this class:

class PieMenuClass(Menu):
    bl_idname = "pie.pie_menu_class"
    bl_label = ""

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

        pie.operator("class.my_subdivide", text="Subdivide")

The only problem is that after using this method it's impossible for me to use REDO LAST function F6 ==((  steel need a solution.


Turn off the completed frame presentation

Blender isn't pausing the render to show you the frame it just rendered, 'around a second' is just the time it is taking before it can start rendering the next frame in your scene. As gandalf3 mentioned in the comments, that could be because it's writing the image to disk, doing some pre-processing of the file, reading in textures (or in your case a movieclip) or doing any memory freeing that might have to happen between frames.

(Note: I don't actually know the specifics of what blender does between frames, I'm just trying to get the point across that blender doesn't delay things on purpose).

If you render blender's default scene of just a cube at a low resolution you will see how quickly the frames advance. There isn't much 'pausing' happening because the scene is so simple that it requires very little processing (or barely any time to write the frame to disk).

However, there is a way you can potentially speed this up a bit, which is by locking the interface while the render is happening. This is done with the lock icon in the 'Render' panel:

This may give a minor speedup as the render result doesn't have to be drawn to the screen while rendering, but bare in mind that it's probably the processing happening that is causing the most delay, not the drawing to the screen.

Maybe if you render from the command line you will get a more detailed log of what is happening at each point in the rendering process.


Blender 2.76b and Three.js exporter not showing in Addons list after install?

I checked my console output, apparently I had 2 versions of blender installed and I installed it to the wrong folder:

It outputs connect failed: No such file or directory
Read new prefs: /home/USER/.config/blender/2.76/config/userpref.blend

I didn't even know I had a .config folder, I put it in the ../config/scripts/addons folder and now it works great!


You can achieve a much much faster cross section effect (almost real time) by using a simple mesh circle with a Shrinkwrap Modifier.

To set this up:

Add a mesh circle (Add > Mesh > Circle) with at least 64 verts.
Scale the circle so it's bigger than object you want to slice, and position it so that the center of the circle is at the center of your object more or less.
Add a Shrinkwrap modifier to the circle object and set the Target to the object you want to slice into cross-sections.
Set the Shrinkwrap mode to Project, and toggle both the Negative and Positive Direction on.

That's about it. You can move the circle up and down to see the cross section effect. You can hide the target object or move it to another layer to see only the cross section.

You can add depth to the circle and make it renderable by adding a Skin Modifier.

If the Shrinkwrap modifier is misbehaving, try to scale the circle or change its center position.

Here's how it looks with Skin and Subsurf modifiers added, played in real time in OpenGL:


How to stop text input affecting movement keys in BGE?

character movement whenever they contain letters a,s,d and w, so how
  do I "disable" the movement while typing?

The same way you talk to your friends:
Before typing text tell the character to ignore whatever you type.

(Be aware you need to define a way to let the character know that it should stop ignoring your typing.)


how do I animate a geneva drive with animation nodes?

Here my solution:

First, I use modulo to get 360-rotation cycle.
Next I divide degrees to get 0-1 range.
When I use Curve interpolation to mach each cycle with rotation of secondary object. (Curve is drawn by hand)
Finally, get back to degrees with some scale (6 times smaller)

Note, that i'm don't care about real 360-degree rotation of secondary shape. It rotates in 0-60 degree range. If you want to get real rotation, you need to add each cycle to the result.

UPD:

  It works for this example where there is only those two gears, but not
  for what I need because it will control a whole clock gear system, so
  the second gear can't have its rotation being reseted

As I noted, If you want to get real rotation, you need to add each cycle to the result:

To get cycle number you need to divide rotation by 360, and convert result to integer using Floor function. When just multiply it by same number, -60 and add it to rotation


Scripting alternative to editing colour based on vertex coordinates using Nodes editor

I have devised a way to do this kind of hassle free.

I include my .

To set up your scene like me, you need:

a plane with 1 subdivision per 1 meter centered around world origin
(limitations of math used)
a material 'Material.001' with Image Texture as the source for color

When you hit run script you should see

The function runs from -32 to +32 on the X and Y axes to make the script a bit easier thanks to vertices with integer X and Y coordinates, but we would typically require a finer grid around 0 and so I use (kind of improperly named) zScale when displacing the vertices

v.co.z = -0.2 * (((v.co.x * zScale) ** 2) - ((v.co.y * zScale) ** 2))

Feel free to adjust zScale to quickly preview how the script behaves when the Z extremities are more extreme.

How does it work

displace the vertices
get the min and max Z coordinates for coloring purposes (in separate for loop for clarity, could be done in one loop)
create a square image with the same amount of pixels, as there are vertices
loop over vertices and color pixels at XY coords matching the XY coords of vertex (that's why they are integer) based on the Z coordinate, utilizing the min and max Z coordinates to go from green to red
assign the texture

Edits I leave up to you

allow non-integer XY coordinates
you might want a fixed color scale, not an automatically adjusting as in my file
rotate the image (might be necessary for non-symmetrical functions, have not checked) seems to work correctly as is
always rewrite a single image file to reduce the clutter
add a script to set up the scene automatically for a drop-in capability
fixed resolution image for high density meshes (for speed reasons)

Alternative

The commented out section at the end of the code

I was playing with an idea to use the depth buffer to color the graph.

Set up an ortographic camera above the graph, looking down at it
render
use Viewer node to use the depth buffer in script
create image same size as the depth map
loop over pixels in depth map, assign colors to the new image based on that

Works even if you displace the vertices on the Z axis by hand.

References

The how does it work section should allow for the code to be reconstructed at any time, I will drop here some answers for reference:

creating and modifying images
editing material nodes
accessing 'Render Result' through the Viewer node


How to place checkboxes in the same row?

You need to split your layout or column or whatever with split() method.
def draw(self, context):
    layout = self.layout()
    props = context.scene.my_props # your properties
    col = layout.split()
    col.prop(props, "x_axis") # your property name
    col.prop(props, "y_axis") # your property name
    col.prop(props, "z_axis") # your property name

More on UI Layout


Two Questions: How do I move faster in Blender & My Object Keeps Moving Away

1st: Speed Increasing / Decreasing with mouse wheel

2nd: Increase Camera Clipping --> N in 3D View --> View --> Clip --> End --> Increase Number here


Ok, I found something, but surly is not the right way to do it, also having some issue with this method:

Select one part of the side
SHIFT + D to duplicate
Delete the primary part of the side you just duplicate
in edit mode select the vertex you want to stretch.
press E then right click to cancel.
on the submenu add the value you want (4cm in Z in my case)
move it back together.

In my case it's not really smooth


adding an obj to new layer in blender 2.79 and linking the existing object to the new collection in blender 2.8 same?

My aim was to hide the plane object while rendering. I achieved by adding plane and fish in different collections and unlinking the plane object from all other collections and then disabling that specific collection for rendering.


how can I make my particle affects not glow?

If you are using Emitter particles, you have to change the render type from Halo to something like Object, and use an object like a cube with a non Halo material on it.


So I figured out how to do this for me, instead of tracking rotation with the trackers, I did it manually by creating and x in the 3d world than making it to the boots X then parented it to the boot, this worked for me but was time-consuming

I may also try to color them in the real world as a reference for the 3d object tracker.


How can I add vertices to intersection of two edges?

If all you really want is to add a vertex at the position of intersection, then something like this script would work: (this even adds the vertex at the  projected intersection of two lines, or the closest point if they never intersect)

import bmesh
import bpy
from mathutils import geometry

def add_vertex_to_intersection():

    obj = bpy.context.object
    me = obj.data
    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

    edges = [e for e in bm.edges if e.select]

    if len(edges) == 2:
        [[v1, v2], [v3, v4]] = [[v.co for v in e.verts] for e in edges]

        iv = geometry.intersect_line_line(v1, v2, v3, v4)
        iv = (iv[0] + iv[1]) / 2
        bm.verts.new(iv)
        bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)

add_vertex_to_intersection()

this does not attach the vertex to any edges/faces. Here it is packaged as an addon accessible from: W > Place vertex at intersection

This is now part of mesh_tinyCAD

A while back I added this feature to mesh_tinyCAD, and called it (Vertex to Intersection) V2X. I use it to add guide-vertices to intersections and it is less potentially destructive than the XALL or VTX operations.


You have a fourth diamond, called "Diamond1" in your scene.  You have it enabled for render but not for viewport shading:

When I disable it from the render, the two match as closely as can be expected:

Viewport

Render

The remaining difference is because there are more samples in the render than the viewport.


Align to vector using  Vector.rotation_difference(v)

Altered the script from this answer to find the quaternion rotation difference between the local z axis of the edit mesh and the normal of its selected (active) face.

Run script with target object in edit mode, one face selected and active. An object in scene named "Cube.001" will be located at face centre and oriented by face normal.

import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix, Vector
import bmesh
context = bpy.context
obj = context.edit_object
mw = obj.matrix_world.copy()
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data)
# for this example jmake a face active
face = bm.select_history.active
o = face.calc_center_median()
# calculate the axis dif in local coords

axis_src = face.normal
# local z-axis
axis_dst = Vector((0, 0, 1))

matrix_rotate = mw.to_3x3()
matrix_rotate = matrix_rotate * axis_src.rotation_difference(axis_dst).to_matrix()
matrix_translation = Matrix.Translation(mw * o) #

obj2 = context.scene.objects.get("Cube.001")
obj2.matrix_world = matrix_translation * matrix_rotate.to_4x4()

Result of script. Moved cube in edit mode, showing local coords.


Absolute rigging fails as my mesh is distorted

Well from the second image your issue is that not all meshes are parented to the bones.

First off, use the mesh with already applied weight painting. Go to weight painting option when selection the mesh and then see where the weights of bones are applied under Vertex groups (downward triangle).

Go through each bone and if you added automatic weights, edit them by selecting Draw or delete extras with Subtract brush on top left.


it is first necessary to check whether the images are compatible with each other.
Are the same places in the same direction in all the pictures?


Creating a curved rectangle on outside of a sphere?

It sounds like you want to do something like this:

To model that:

Add a plane (ShiftA > Add > Mesh > Plane).

Give it some extra geometry with a Simple Subdivision surface modifier:

Add a shrink wrap modifier and select the target object in the Target input box:

Add a Solidify modifier to give it some thickness:

And you get:


How to Reassign Input Strip in Blender? (Linux)

I think you can follow the procedure as outlined in this video. In summary, you have to duplicate your original strip with its transform strip attached. Then, change the source of the duplicated strip to the one that you want the effect to be copied on.


How to get rid of the shape inside a shape

Do you still see the shape if you go to wireframe mode ("Z" on keyboard...)

If it is still there but you do not see the vertex points it is another object which is placed inside your object... Leave the edit mode and move away the outer shape to see (and delete) the inner object...


had this same head ache i found the following video by andrew price at blender guru helpful in his anvil series

also same process for other types of image files too eg: specular, diffuse, etc

how to bake perfect normals blender 2.79


0 frames on disk, cache is outdated : unable to reset multiple cloth physics cache

Hello i saw this post and i have a workaround. do 2 cloth sims at the same time by pressing "bake". and magically you have working cloth simulations again. it worked for me don't know if it will for you my guy.


when baking normals, do I have to set shading to smooth or flat for the low mesh?

A tangent space normal map is a bake of normals relative to the low poly's normals.  Whenever you make a tangent space normal map, it is going to take your existing normals, whether they're flat shaded or smooth shaded (or custom split normals, for that matter), and bake them into your normal map.
So I think you just have a bit of a misunderstanding of what a tangent space normal map is.  You shouldn't be looking at your baked image to judge a normal map-- it can't be judged on the basis of the image alone.  You should be judging it on the mesh for which it was built.
Now, it should be said, there is someplace where it's important whether your low poly is smooth shaded or flat shaded or something else.  That's because whenever Blender bakes anything, it looks in the direction of the baking normals to figure out what to bake.  So, for example, if you bevel a cube, and then bake to a flat-shaded cube, you'll find that some bake samples never actually hit the high poly.  Unless you know really well what you're doing, you generally want a smooth-shaded low poly that completely encloses your high poly.
It's not very clear exactly why you want your normal map to somehow be independent of your low poly's normals.  I think there's probably some misunderstanding of what a normal map is, or what the colors mean.  But if you're really sure that you don't want your normal map to depend on your low poly's normals, you might consider baking an object-space normal map instead.  Object space normal maps are stored relative to object space, rather than relative to the sample's normal (which turns into the Z axis for the tangent space.)  However, object space normal maps will still be affected by your normals in that the low poly normals will still determine which way the rays shoot from the low poly (or cage) to hit the high poly.  Object space normal maps are not any good for deforming geometry, which is why tangent space normal maps are seen more frequently.


How to smooth multiple vertices at a point?

The tool is working, you just need more geometry and bump up the number of times to smooth the mesh.

So the tool works but I doubt it will give you the results you are looking for. It's best if you model this curved bit by just add some supporting edge rings through the top of you mesh and moving these outwards.

Later as your model gets more refined, you can add a Subsurf modifier and some supporting loops along the edges to get a nice sleek look.

NB: It's best to get the basic outline/shape of your model down before adding any deformation modifiers.


Part of body not staying with armature when bone moved

I figured out that I had two bones affecting the same part of the mesh and I was moving both bones.


Blender isn't snapping to the grid, its shift 1 grid space away from the original

Check the Absolute Grid Snap box in the snapping popover to enable absolute grid snapping:


How to set world sky environment for use in libgdx?

You would need to flip the normals, they are pointing outward, go to Edit Mode with your sphere selected. Select all A, from the mesh menu select Normals / Flip Normals

After that you normals should look like (display of normals can be activated by the highlighted button):


Enumerate through geometry objects in scene

You can check for an objects 'type':

for ob in context.scene.objects:
    if ob.type == 'MESH':
        print ob

Other 'types' include:

CURVE, SURFACE, META, FONT, ARMATURE, LATTICE, EMPTY, CAMERA, LAMP, SPEAKER.

If you want to check for multiple types you can used Python's set notion.

for ob in context.scene.objects:
    if ob.type in {'MESH', 'CURVE', 'SURFACE'}:
        print ob


Editing a primitive's values AFTER initial placement

No, you can't do that right now. Blender is a software that focus primarily on artistic rendering of complex scenes, and not much on motion graphics or other kinds of precise projects. That's why Blender doesn't have effectors or parametric objects, and why its modeling style is quite destructive.

Once you create an object, Blender sees it as a mesh, so a 3D model with a number of vertexes, edges and faces, so it doesn't know anymore if it is a cylinder or a sphere. This could change in the future, but I've heard Ton Roosendaal (Blender Foundation's Chairman) doesn't consider it a priority.

You can also check the answers of this similar question: How to edit Parameters for an Object after it is created?


Confused with chained Python script when creating data block

Although I don't understand what you're doing, I know that the approach you're doing throws an error. If you go to the default scripting widow, at the bottom left it shows all the API calls you have done so if you shift+a>light>point, it will show
bpy.ops.object.light_add(type='POINT', radius=1, align='WORLD', location=(0, 0, 0))

And sure enough, if we run it it will create a light.


Blender preview in video editor is really slow, barely using my computer's resources

Actually, there are a couple of things you could test, if they will improve the performance.
Try the Prefetch Frames(Cache) in the Preview Sidebar:

Try the new Disk Cache, which may be fast enough if you point it to save on a SSD:

Another thing to test is to make the project resolution(default 1920x1089) match your footage resolution(1080x1920), by selecting the strip and select this:

Cache handling seems to have improved in 2.91: https://builder.blender.org/download/
Finally you can try to use proxies. This add-on makes the process very simple and fast:
https://github.com/cgvirus/blender-vse-easy-proxy
FYI: Work is being done in this area currently. Ex. yesterday a dev found a way to speed up ffmpeg with 24%:


Rigify and Root Motion in Unity. Latest Version not working?

The problem is that ORG-Spine and DEF-Spine should be together. Click on ORG-Spine and under its bone settings - Relations- Set the parent to DEF-Spine. Now you can import it into Unity without any problems.


You are applying transformation at object level with bpy.ops.transform.resize() and on data level with myObj.data.transform(). The data transform is directly applied to vertices. The vertices' position simply is updated and the transformation is lost. When applying the transformation to the object the matrix is stored (if possible) in the translation, rotation and scale properties of the object. The object transform is applied on the vertex positions. In your case this results in objMatrix @ dataMatrix or scaleMatrix @ locrotMatrix.

You want to swap that order. I would advise you to either apply the transformation to the object or the data.

You can construct the final matrix separately first.

import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix

mat_rot = Matrix([[1,  0,     0,     0],
                  [0,  0.707, 0.707, 0],
                  [0, -0.707, 0.707, 0],
                  [1,  0,     0,     1]])

mat_scale = Matrix([[1, 0, 0, 0],
                    [0, 2, 0, 0],
                    [0, 0, 3, 0],
                    [0, 0, 0, 1]])

mat = mat_rot @ mat_scale

If you want to apply this matrix at the object level, use object.matrix_world.

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()
myObj = bpy.context.object
myObj.matrix_world = mat

If you want to apply this matrix at the data level, use data.transform().

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()
myObj = bpy.context.object
myObj.data.transform(mat)

From the comments: If you don't import your matrix, but are constructing them from scratch, use the Helper constructors from the Matrix class, such as Matrix.Diagonal or Matrix.Rotation


I just found this way of doing it.
Put this at the top of your add-on (you can also test it alone in the text editor):

import bpy

def ShowMessageBox(title = "Message Box", icon = 'INFO', lines=""):
    myLines=lines
    def draw(self, context):
        for n in myLines:
            self.layout.label(text=n)
    bpy.context.window_manager.popup_menu(draw, title = title, icon = icon)

You can then put the following anywhere in your code:

myLines=("line 1","line 2","line 3")
ShowMessageBox(lines=myLines)

Reminder: you can use a custom title and icon each time you call this function:

ShowMessageBox(title="Uh-oh.", icon='ERROR', lines=myLines)


How to enable shortcuts for the Node Wrangler add-on on macbook?

Try disableing it and then re-enable it. Do restart in method.
i'm using MAC and it never showed me any error. It worked smoothly.

just pressed Ctrl+Shift and click on any node.

What is appearing in "Quick Access" in "N" menu under "Node Wrangler" options, in your Blender Node Editor.


How to change the visible angle when using a background image

After adding the background image to the 3D view simply change the axis the image is displayed on.


This is happening for one of several reasons, most likely because you moved the mesh while in edit mode changing the origin point (the little orange dot where the widget is).

Looking at the image, your pivot point is most likely already on the default Bounding Box Center and what you want is to have the widget on the object. So to fix, select the object in Object mode and set the object origin back to the object with CtrlAltShiftC and choose Origin to Geometry.


Skin Modifier 'Skin Resize, Ctrl-A' Not Working!

Try this one test and see what happens: place the surface subdivision modifier above skin modifier. Sometimes, modifiers clash with each other, so you have to test them by moving them up and down within the panel.
If that does not work, try moving mirrior modifier down. If nothing, try applying surface subdivision.
If that fails, I hope somebody else will have a solution.


Blender 2.71 Preview Showing Incorrectly

The preview is unlikely to match the finished render because you are using UV mapping. To have the preview cube match the finished render would require the preview cube to be using the same uv mapping that you are using. The preview isn't able to do this because it isn't aware what object the material is being applied to and has no connection to your object.

The material preview is used to answer the question "What would my material look like if it were applied to different objects?" but not "What will the material look like on my specific object?" The fact that your object, a cube, looks like the preview, also a cube, is just coincidence.

Setting the viewport to 'Rendered' shading mode is the best way to preview how the material will look on your object.


This keyframe is related to an object currently not editable because of selection issues. If you engage the little phantom button near the arrow in the header of your dopesheet window, it should become editable (and disengage the arrow).


Blender cycles texture flickering issue when rendering unique simple solid

You have a double surface issue. you made the object in edit mode I presume. and 2 times!
ALWAYS check for face orientations:

quick fix:
on edit mode, select all with A then press M and merge distance.
and recalculate your normal after that:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/editing/mesh/normals.html#recalculate


The original object can have a Shrink Wrap Modifier added. Later you may choose to press the Apply Button or Apply as Shape Key.

Objects and Outliner above.

Original yellow object with Shrink Wrap Modifier not visible in 3D View in the image above.

Original yellow object with Shrink Wrap Modifier visible 3D View in the view above.

The vertex group selected in the image above.

The target of the shrink wrap.  Cube Scaled on X axis in edit mode with Mirror Modifier and Empty placed at center.  You can be more artistic.


I can't scrub the Movie set as image texture in cycles

Do you need the textured plane to rotoscope from? The background image works fine if you change the input button from "Image" to "Movie Clip", and deselect "Camera Clip". The movie (that I used - yours wasn't attached) worked fine for both scrubbing and playing. The plane would update OK after I stopped playing the video and would snap to match the background image. Oddly, if the properties panel in the node editor was hidden, or if another node was selected (other than the texture node), the texture stopped updating on the plane. This looks like a bug to me that you might like to report (from the menu choose Help --> report a bug). Good luck.


"Ctrl B" Bevel operation performance is slow in 2.8

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


I edit this answer to be better than previous and to actually work for 3D-printing. This is going to be a long one. This works for procedural textures and for ones made with a displacement map. You could try to start from step 6 If you have a good displacement map but for some reason it didn't work for me.

At first I have a plane with 5x Subdivision Surface Modifier and a Displacement Map image connected to the Material Output Through a Viewer. Color Space Non-Color

Next I add an Image Texture node but don't connect it. Select New and adjust Width and Height to be 8192 px. This can be lower if you are ok with lower quality. Check the 32 bit Float box.

Render Engine Cycles. Device CPU (You could use GPU but for me Blender crashes when I try that). In Sampling Render 1 (You don't need more. It just slows down.) In Performance and Tiles Tiles X and Tiles Y should be the same as the image size you created earlier. In my case it is 8192 px x 8192 px. Color-Space Non-Color

Under Bake select bake type to Emit. Make sure the lonely Image Texture node is selected and press Bake.

Go to Image Editor and select Image and Save As. File Format OpenEXR and Color Depth Float (Full). Save As Image.

Give your plane a Subdivision Surface modifier with Level 5 or 6. 6 is better. If this is not enough you can always add More. Modifier type should be Simple. Give it also a Displace modifier and press New.

Press Show texture in Texture tab.

Press Open and find your saved image

Deselect Half Float Precision and go back to Modifiers panel.

Change Displace Modifier Coordinates to UV and Decrease the Strength. If the displacement is wrong you can change the direction to RGB to XYZ but this shouldn't be the case if your images are in non-color format.

Select your object and Export Stl.

Check Selection Only and Apply Modifiers.

Now you have a stl with your displacement.


I'm having trouble applying a bevel to curve

Nevermind, I've figured it out: I just had some vertices which were too close together.  I'd already tried merging by distance at 1.0 mm, but it required a merge radius of 2.1 mm before it would finally take that bevel.
Cheers.


Connect 4 objects with rigid body constraint?

I have a similar setup with multiple hinges. and I got it all to work properly except there is A LOT of play at the actual pivot points. Like rubber or something. The faster the object moves the more play there is in the joint.

This seems to be a real problem because I have used the exact setup in blender and unity with the same results. I can't find anything anywhere online about this rubbery pivots problem. I've tried making the mass of the objects 0. It had little effect, but it did help. The only thing I can think of is you can't have multiple pivots working on each other.

The way I did it was following this tut.

step by step description on how to connect two objects with a hinge constraint

Again, I think, hinge joints are useless in this case. Sure would be nice if the joints were actually rigid.


Alignment of surfaces to a curve (loop) or vertex...?

It looks, in this case, as if you should just be able to set your snap to 'Vertex' and 'Active'... select the vertex at the peak last, (so it's the active one) and GY the lot,  hovering over one of the vertices on the central vertical loop to induce the snap.

Either switch on 'Automatically Merge Vertices' in the header before the move, or CtrlVR.. Remove Doubles when you're done.


Object disppear when i change to the render cycle view

It's kinda tough to answer that. Have you checked in the outliner if the object is visible for rendering? Look at this:
Object appears in Object mode but not in Render


Make sure you're in object mode, then try running this script from the text editor. Save beforehand just in case.
import bpy
for mesh in bpy.data.meshes:
    for poly in mesh.polygons:
        poly.material_index = 1 - poly.material_index


Modal Operator that is mapped to a value

Using Update
For this example I've used the modal timer operator available in the templates > python menu of the text editor.
Around line 16 add this bit, I've used an operator named CSharpen (from a prev answer to test, change to suit the operator you want to "go modal" from.
    if event.type == 'TIMER':
        print("timer")
        op = context.active_operator
        if op is None:
            self.cancel(context)
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        if op.name == 'CSharpen':
            op.angle += 0.001
            if not op.run_modal:
                #stop it
                self.cancel(context)
                return {'CANCELLED'}

Leaving in the bg color change lets you know it's running, as well as the angle value of your operator changing.  Change the events to suit your needs.
In your operator set up an update function
class sharpenOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    '''ToolTip'''

    def go_modal(self, context):
        if self.run_modal:
            bpy.ops.wm.modal_timer_operator()

and a property to turn on the modal timer
run_modal = BoolProperty(update=go_modal)

and in the draw
    box.row().prop(self, "run_modal")


Can't offset even with Extrude to Cursor

The edge loop created as you extrude is staying the same size, but when an angle is forced, the "wall" thickness changes based on the new angle.

The only way to correct for this is to rotate the edge loop as to go along.


Combining vector displacement and standard black and white displacement nodes

Try this setup with a Vector Math set to Add.  It should work for you.


You need to select Cycles render under render properties >>> Render Engine >> Cycles


How to scale multiple objects on a given axis?

Parent the duplicates to an Empty and then scale that empty by -1 on one axis.


How to merge objects and keep the interior hollow

Your answer is the addon "BoolTool"

You can download the addon here https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Object/BoolTool

Ok the Steps the steps...

1 Created multiple objects and set them up to intersect.
2 Select all the object.
3 Hit T to Open the booltool panel on the tool panel in the 3d viewport.
4 There are 3 section Brush/Direct/Draw.
5 Under Direct. Select "Union"

That's all to it.


Is this what you mean?

Blender/Cycles has render-time displacement in the (still in 2.81) Experimental feature set.

It can be combined with Adaptive Subdivision

This plane is subdivided only once in the working geometry:

The rest is done at render-time:

(In its Properties tab > Surface panel, the material's Displacement settings include 'Displacement')


Why texturing in game engine looks different than in render mode?

The game engine is rather limited in this regard, as it only supports UV and GLSL textures, along with vertex colours of course.

You can bake your procedural textures to UV maps, but this is a time consuming process. If you don't, however, you will not see them in the Game Engine.

Sources: Google, Wikipedia, my limited experience with the game engine ;)


How does bone roll affect the rig importing into Unity game engine if it does at all?

Bone roll is important when using constraints, drivers, curves editing, clarity of animation programming; but after an animation is done and saved as Fbx, generally it's baked, so that a "pure" rig (a rig without constraints, drivers, control bones: made with deforming bones only) is exported.
This behaviour is set in the Fbx exporter preferences (bake animations, deforming bones only). The baked animation will correctly perform in Unity with any kind of bone roll.
Be aware that if you change the bone roll every previously made animation will be broken.
A common good practice is to set the "main" rotation of a bone as positive X axis.


If i understood the question are you looking for this. No need to remove doubles or delete extra mesh. This addon do the best.

With the Default cube sub divide it twice. With the edge selected scale to Y axis. Select the top 3 Faces and with the Destructive Extrude Addon
Push it downwards. Holding control key you can align with the edges.


The bar at the very bottom of the screen has gone away?

Click on a transparent '+' button in the down right part of a screen.

Maybe you accidentaly collapsed menus. Hover your cursor over the bottom bar, then press RMB and uncheck the Collapse Menus box.

If you want to have many different windows (editors) opened at once you can add them by:

clicking on the corner of the window and dragging it in any diection:

using a Split Area option (press the RMB while hovering cursor over the border of the window)

With multiple windows opened you can change the editor type for each of them by clicking on area type button as I've shown above. In your case change the editor type for one of them to Timeline.


When you do the update the installer file it should be an .msi file. if the one you have is zipped, unzip the file in a temporary file location, and the double click the [filename].msi file.  You should ensure that you install it in the same directory as previous installations, if you did not use the default for your previous or first install.

The addon, after it is unzipped should be a *.py file; you can find help on this installation at this location: Installing an addon


As mentioned in the comment by moonboots, the origin of your character might not be in the center of your object. The origin is indicated by the little orange dot in the viewport.
In Object Mode you can set the origin. Select Object → Set Origin → Origin to Geometry in the menu of the viewport to center it. This should fix it.


Why is my Face Fill doing this strange thing

You need to use Vertex > New Face.
Shortcut: F

(while it has a similar name, Face > Fill is a different operation)


2.8 was a compatibly braking release, meaning files edited in 2.8x will not work in older versions, even 2.79b.
That interface acting weird is normal and expected when opening a 2.8x file in 2.7x (or any pre 2.8 version). I've had blender flat out crash when trying to open a 2.8 file.
Fear not, you are not locked to 2.8.
Create a new file in blender 2.7x  and append whatever you need from the 2.8 file. I have had appending the whole scene fail, but appending objects always worked for me. Simply
From the Info window File > Append or ShiftF1 then find the 2.8 file. Go to the objects category, and if needed simply select everything.
Proof this really works
I just tested this with this Tesla Model S made for eevee. It is setup for eevee so obviously it's 2.8, even the description says "Blender 2.80 required"
Yet I simply selected all the objects when appending and as you can see it works perfectly (even the materials!)


Trying to make object look like metal doesn't work

To get the effect like in the video, you have to do a few things. Firstly, arrange your nodes like I have them in the image below. You can play with the values to tweak it if you want. Secondly, the metal look in the image is the result of smooth shading and the reflection of an area light. You can see in the image, I added a square area light above the monkey, and smoothed the monkey itself by using a subdivision surface set on 2 subdivisions (ctrl+2 with monkey selected), and applying smooth shading from the right click menu. To get a basic metal look, see the settings below:

However, I see from the video that the look you're aiming to achieve is chrome, which would be better suited by this setup. Play with the ColorRamp values (even switch their positions) to change the tint - you can make it either light or dark.

You can change the color of the glossy to change the color of the object including the metallic tint. Note I accidentally connected the fresnel output of the layer weight instead of the facing output, however, you can try both and see what gives you results you like better.


Out of the box Blender has no pre-installed API that can be accessed from the outside. Although there are 3 ways how to accomplish this.

Use BlenderAsPyModule. This is a headless blender that can be accessed and controlled from any Python Interpreter.
Use Pythons http.server module to create a custom API that you can access from other processes (even on different machines) using the HTTP protocol. You write an addon that starts the http server. and your external client can connect to it.
Use blender command line with a startup script. This will start blender run a python script and stops executing when the script is finished.

All three options have pro's and cons and depends on your specific use case what will work best.

BlenderAsPyModule I use for generating thumbnails (also animations) on a webserver of blend files that users upload. Here Blender runs inside a celery process to be sure that only one generation is happen at once.

server.http I typically for render farms or when networking comes into play or when the client has no python possibilities.

And the command line I used for simple automation tasks or when I want to do many tasks at a time (start 5 blender instances doing something)


I figured it out myself. I did the first pulling back of the slingshot like I did before. From there I duplicated the mesh and applied the cloth simulation as a Shape Key.

So I now have the current mesh as a shape key where the first mesh stops with its cloth simulation. Then I had to change the order of the shape keys so on top I have the output mesh from the cloth simulation and on the bottom a shape key of the very initial mesh (The idle shape of the slingshot). So on the second mesh in the cloth simulation I just put the initial shape as the rest shape. So when I play the animation it first plays the first cloth simulation and when I want to shoot, I play the second cloth simulation with the so it snaps back to the rest shape defined in the cloth simulation settings.

How it looks now:


MakeHuman character not appearing when rendered

Properties Editor->Material->Transparency

You have to do that to every texture you can select them one by one in the Outliner Editor

Plus it looks like the Specular Hardness is set too high
Properties Editor->Material->Spectacular->Hardness

Basically the textures need alot of work.
Was probably imported from a different program.


How can I make a neck and body for my head mesh?

If you want to stick to sculpting you could click the Dynamesh button (in this gif I also checked constant detail and upped the resolution).

I used the snakehook brush here, but the normal clay brush works too (the grab brush does not work though, it does not add new typology).


Flipping rectangle grid (or flipping tiles) with animation nodes

You can start by inspecting "Transform Individual Polygons" template. THEN, if you are using AN version 1.6, you have this handy pivot thing:

http://animation-nodes-manual.readthedocs.io/en/latest/release_notes/v1_6.html

There is actually an example over there that allows you to flip polygon face.

A little bit of observation and experimentation and you will have the flip setup.


You want to make sure that when you are using bevels you don't want any ngons  on your model. These are faces that contain more than four vertices.

In this situation sense you are trying to only bevel the center of the model try using the inset tool.

This can be accomplished by the "I" key while you have the desired faces selected.

Here is a link for how to use the inset tool from the Blender documentation.

https://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/meshes/editing/duplicating/inset.html


So you want something like proportional edit, where you can grab any vertex and the neigbouring ones move along with it as well?

To do this, simply making sure the weightings (between the bones and the mesh) extend so that some vertices are controlled by multiple bones.

So this is the weight normally:

And this is it expanded:

If you expand all of them, then, although the neighbouring bones won't actually move, there will be the right effect (As far as I understand what you want):

In this case, I could probably have expanded the area of effect some more. And, you may notice you have to move the bone further to get the deflection you want. This is because the vertices you are moving are also influenced by the surrounding 8 bones, so will not move quite so much.


Why doesn't the baked texture match with the render preview?

It's hard to answer this question because it will look harsh. But don't take it bad, it's only for giving you the chance to realize what 3D is so you can improve your knowledge and skill.

You can't start learning to drive and go directly to a formula 1 competition. It's the same in 3D.

You want to bake and use Unity but you haven't learn the basics (how to model something, how to unwrap...)

Your mesh is really bad, you have inverted faces, self intersected mesh, edge over faces, ngons,... try to learn what topology is about (quads, tris, ngons... why and when to use or not), even if it's just a hobby and you don't want to model like a pro you really need the basics.
The same for your unwrap, there are overlaping parts, in fact quite all is overlaping, so no chance at all to even have an acceptable bake.  And I don't speak about using it in Unity.

3D is hard at the begining but if you like it learn step by step, I swear, it'll really be easier than moving forward with a collection of crappy things at each level.

One more time, sorry if it looks harsh but I opened your Blend, and there is a lot to learn before going to the baking part.

If we really want something there is nothing we can't learn.

Edit:

Regarding the first point of my answer, the flaps (wings parts) have inverted normals, the small parts on the hood are self intersected, the wing is mostly a big really not suitable ngon.
The unwrapping part need to have different places in UV space (not overlapping), otherwise you'll end up with bake parts covering other piece of the mesh.
You have more marging parts than the bake itself, learn about resolution of baking image, if you have an image really too small like yours the marging take most of the picture and covers baked parts.

One more time, the question isn't about having a simple answer but about learning a bit more. Hope it can help peoples who start to learn 3D to not rush to "advanced" topics and make baby steps.


Camera - follow path and change rotation

For the object add a Follow Path constraint and select the curve you want the object to follow as target. Enable Follow Curve and Enable Animate path.

Your object will follow that path:

Add a second curve.

Place your camera at the same in the same origin point of your second curve (the you want to use as travel path) and add a Follow path constraint with the curve as target, and animate path enabled:

Your camera will travel on that path.

On the camera add a Track to constraint with the object as Target, To -Z and Up Y.


Place objects on mesh using snap with Python script

Make a shrinkwrap footing.

Oops just saw the 2.79.. see edit below.

Demonstrate the setup, the red dot foot is shrinkwrapped to grid. The wireframe cube is parented to it.

Similarly to how a tyre rig would be made, can make a 2d mesh footing and projection shrinkwrap to the landscape.

The "block" can then be placed in relation to the shrinkwrapped footing.

In the example below have used a simple circle as the footing and 3 vertices as a parent.

Setting the matrix world of "block" to a copy taken before removing footing places the "blocks".  Set remove_block to False to keep the footing.

The script below sets random x, y locations in range -20, 20 to test.  GIF became too large to demo,.. can arbitrarily rotate footing in z.

Result of running 20 times with subsurfed upscaled 10x10 grid with texture displace

Object mode. Select grid, run script. Resets the grid to context so can repeat.

import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix
context = bpy.context

from random import uniform # random 20x20 to test
x, y = uniform(-20, 20), uniform(-20, 20)
remove_foot = True

target_surface = context.object

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=(0, 0, 0))
#make the origin the pottom of cube
cube = context.object
me = cube.data
me.transform(Matrix.Translation((0, 0, 1)))
cube.scale = (4, 1, 1)

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_circle_add(
        location=(x, y, 0),
        fill_type='TRIFAN')
foot = context.object
sw = foot.modifiers.new(name="SW", type='SHRINKWRAP')
sw.target = target_surface
sw.wrap_method = 'PROJECT'
sw.use_positive_direction = True
sw.use_negative_direction = True
sw.use_project_z = True

### set the relation to foot
cube.parent = foot
cube.parent_type = 'VERTEX_3'
n = len(foot.data.vertices)
cube.parent_vertices = range(1, n, n // 3)

if remove_foot:
    dg = context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()
    mw = cube.evaluated_get(dg).matrix_world.copy()
    bpy.data.objects.remove(foot)
    cube.matrix_world = mw
context.view_layer.objects.active = target_surface

Notes:

Could also look at the vertex coords and normals of the evaluated footing

Here the "block" is located at the middle circle (footing) vert and rotated such that vert normal is z up.  For the default circle, vert 0 is the centre, vert 1 is at (0, 1, 0).

### set the relation to foot
dg = context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()
me_inst = foot.evaluated_get(dg).to_mesh(depsgraph=dg)
v = me_inst.vertices[0]

cube.location = foot.matrix_world @ v.co.copy()
q = v.normal.to_track_quat()
cube.rotation_euler = q.to_euler()
if remove_foot:
    bpy.data.objects.remove(foot)
context.view_layer.objects.active = target_surface

The angle between the vertex normal and z axis will give the grade, and could be tested so as to not add above a certain slope.

z_axis = Vector((0, 0, 1)
if v.normal.angle(z_axis) > radians(45):
    # don't put it there

Another way would be to add vertex groups to the footing and transform the block to it via constraints.  eg copy location and a track to constraint targeting different vert groups.

Recommend making a more apt footing shape. Perhaps a poked plane matching bottom block face.

To do for many would use Object.copy()

EDIT 2.79 version of script above.

import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix
context = bpy.context

from random import uniform # random 20x20 to test
x, y = uniform(-20, 20), uniform(-20, 20)
remove_foot = True

scene = context.scene
target_surface = context.object

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=(0, 0, 0))
#make the origin the pottom of cube
cube = context.object
me = cube.data
me.transform(Matrix.Translation((0, 0, 1)))
cube.scale = (4, 1, 1)

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_circle_add(
        location=(x, y, 0),
        fill_type='TRIFAN')
foot = context.object
sw = foot.modifiers.new(name="SW", type='SHRINKWRAP')
sw.target = target_surface
sw.wrap_method = 'PROJECT'
sw.use_positive_direction = True
sw.use_negative_direction = True
sw.use_project_z = True

### set the relation to foot
cube.parent = foot
cube.parent_type = 'VERTEX_3'
n = len(foot.data.vertices)
cube.parent_vertices = range(1, n, n // 3)

if remove_foot:
    scene.update()
    cube.update_tag(refresh={'OBJECT'})
    mw = cube.matrix_world.copy()
    bpy.data.objects.remove(foot)
    cube.matrix_world = mw
scene.objects.active = target_surface


Why doesn't everyone use the 'Auto Tile size' add-on?

Some tutorials were created before the addon.

People don't know the addon exists or just forget to enable it.

Old habits die hard, adjusting the tile size was an option you learned to adjust when starting to learn cycles. This would be the main reason more experienced blender users keep doing it manually.

I'm sure if you asked the tutorial creators, they will answer the same, and I doubt anyone will tell you the addon is inaccurate or no good.


Transform Rotation into location problem

Add driver to the location property with right-clicking:

Setup the driver like this:

Now the Empty's Z rotation controls the object location.


Is there a way to have faces with equal thickness?

This is a good place to use a Solidify modifier:


Selecting all faces on a plane on imported mesh

Option 1: press shift+g and select normal. This will select all faces with the same orientation.

Option 2: Press some number on the numpad to snap your view to a specific axis. Snap you view so that all of the faces are seemingly 2 dimensional, and you are looking at the from the side. Then you can press z to change to wire frame mode. Next, press b (box select) and drag a box across all the vertices you want.


Star Trek: Impulse Engine Material in Blender

This problem has been a really interesting one to work on. At the start I didn't think this would be possible with 'pure' Cycles nodes - without resorting to OSL - but was surprised to discover it is. I've certainly learned a lot along the way.

Here's the material :

(glare added in compositor)

And here's the node tree (click to enlarge) :

The pattern can be generated by measuring the distance of each point being sampled to each of a number of fixed reference points in a similar way to how the Voronoi texture is produced. By carefully positioning the reference points we can generate a hexagonal pattern.

Starting with a single reference point (held in a Combine XYZ node), the vector between the reference point and the texture coordinate can be calculated simply by subtracting one from the other using a Subtract Vector Math node. This is passed into both inputs of a Dot Product Vector Math node to generate a scalar distance (actually 'distance squared').

This structure can be replicated for multiple reference points and the results of each combined using a Minimum node. This will effectively return the distance (squared) to the closest reference point.

Greater Than nodes can then be used to compare each individual output with this combined 'Minimum'. This will produce 3 outputs that will be '0' if the corresponding reference point is the closest, otherwise '1'. These values are also passed through Subtract nodes to invert their output. We now have two sets of 'mask' outputs - one set that's 0 if the corresponding reference point is the closest, another that is '1' if the corresponding reference point is closest.

To be able to control the edges of the cells (rather than having a gradient emanating from the centre) we need to be able to detect the boundary between one cell and the next. The boundary occurs at the point where the distance to one cell equates to the distance to the next closest cell. This can be achieved by determining the minimum distance to all of the reference points excluding the one we already know to be closest. Subtracting the closest distance from the next closest will give a measure of the distance to the cell boundary - this will be zero at the boundary (where the distance to each reference is the same) and increase as we move further towards the centre of a cell. For the first reference point we can do this as follows :

Note the multiplication by the mask - this is to ensure that each value is only used when the point being measured is closest to the corresponding reference point - the output will be zero outside the corresponding cell.

Replicate a similar structure for each of the other reference points - in each case this will need to combine the outputs from all reference point distances of the other reference points excluding the one corresponding to the 'current' one - which we know will be the actual minimum if the mask will include that point - ie,  the first combines 2 and 3, the second 1 and 3, the third 1 and 2. Since each of the resultant outputs are masked to zero when the sample is outside its cell we can simply combine them all as shown :

To be able to colour the individual cells we need to be able to determine the vector coordinates of the corresponding reference point. Again we can use the masks to pick out the relevant value for the closest reference and these can be simply combined to produce a single vector. In this case, the 'anti-mask' (set to 0 where that reference point is closest, otherwise 1) is most useful as it can be used in a Multiply Colour node to multiply the vector by zero when it is not the closest, otherwise allow the vector through unchanged.

For a hexagonal pattern we need to position the reference points in a grid representing the centres of the cells. By calculating only those reference points that are closest to the point being sampled we can re-use the above nodes to cover the whole texture space. This would technically be possible with only 3 reference points but becomes much simpler if we replicate the node structures to work with 5 cells at a time.

To position the cells, the 'grid' coordinates are determined by dividing the texture coordinate by the horizontal and vertical pitches (chosen as 1.5 and 0.866 to generate the correct spacing for regular hexagons) and rounded down to integers. Modulo 2 is used (which returns '0' for even rows and '1' for odd rows) to determine the Row Type and Column Type to allow alternating rows to shift across in the hexagonal pattern.

Once the location in the grid is known, the Generate Point Coordinates Frame calculates the locations of the "nearest" reference points. These are multiplied by the Horizontal and Vertical pitch to get coordinates that can be used with the current sample point to determine the distances. This can be illustrated as follows with the current sample point indicated in white with the 5 nearest cells shown :

The cell border can be adjusted via the Edge Offset and Edge Power values. Larger Offset results in thicker borders to the cells while the Power affects the hardness of the cell edge. Negative values can give some interesting effects (eg, Offset = -0.5 with Power = 1.0 provides a quilted effect with soft borders, while a small positive Offset and Power 0 gives hard narrow lines between cells).

For the cell colours, a noise texture is used to generate a value between 0 and 1 based on the cell vector and this is multiplied up and passed through a Modulo 1 node to generate a (mostly) linear distribution. An Offset is added to allow it to be animated and the result passed through a further Modulo 1 so that the value wraps around at the edges of the 0 to 1 range. This is then passed through a colour ramp to generate the final shade for each cell. Using the cell coordinate as a basis for this colour generation ensures each cell is coloured consistently.

The maths used to manipulate the grid and dynamically position the reference points works fine with positive coordinates - so plain old 'Generated' coordinates should work well. However, switching to Object coordinates will result in negative values which upset the calculations. To work around this you need to increase the Location of the Mapping node to avoid the negative texture coordinates.

Blend file attached.


GPU Rendering issue "Cuda error at cuCtxCreate: Illegal Address"

Updating the driver should fix it but you might have stability issue white blender instead. We will probably just have to wait on another update for blender to fix the stability problem.


Start with the animation showing the light patterns.

By baking the shadow from this animation to the surface, the light at each time step is determined.

Using GIMP, the average amount of light on the surface can be calculated from the frames in the baked shadow animation. The lighter areas will fade more than the darker areas.

Then, by combining the average shadow map with the original texture and using nodes, the faded texture is created. The node network to combine the shadow map with the texture is:

Where the average light was low, the original texture is preserved. However, where the average lighting was high, the texture is faded.

The original and faded texture follow.


Python : hide collection (turn off the eyeball icon of collection) in outliner

I don't think there is an API for that.
But some geeky experiments, as you said this is "too slow".
First build a test case for 40000 collections: 1000 root collections each having a 3 x 3 chidren hierarchy (1000 + 3000 + 9000 + 27000).
The code to create it (runtime will be a bit long):
import bpy
import random
import time

def generate_children(parent, amount):
    new = bpy.data.collections.new
    collections = [new("test") for i in range(amount)]
    for c in collections:
        parent.children.link(c)
    return collections

def generate_hierarchy(parents, amount, depth):
    children = parents
    for i in range(depth):
        children = [c for p in children for c in generate_children(p, amount)]

parents = generate_children(master_collection, 1000)
generate_hierarchy(parents, 3, 3)

Now, direct search (recursive) can be:
def search(parent, name):
    if parent.name == name:
        return parent

    for c in parent.children:
        result = search(c, name)
        if result:
            return result
    return None

And search using a map between a child name and its parent collection. The map is slower to build than a direct search but can be used several times:
def create_search_map():
    all = bpy.data.collections
    d = {c.name: p for p in all for c in p.children if p.children}
    return d

def search_on_map(d, parent, name):

    path = [name]
    while True:
        p = d.get(name)
        if p:
            name = p.name
            path.append(name)
        else:
            break
    path.reverse()

    result = parent
    for name in path:
        result = result.children[name]
    return result

So we can compare:
layer_master_collection = bpy.context.view_layer.layer_collection

start = time.time()
for i in range(1000):
    collection = random.choice(bpy.data.collections)
    search(layer_master_collection, collection.name)
end = time.time()
print(end-start)

start = time.time()
d = create_search_map()
for i in range(1000):
    collection = random.choice(bpy.data.collections)
    search_on_map(d, layer_master_collection, collection.name)
end = time.time()
print(end-start)

First print gives 17.58s, 17ms per call.
Second print gives 1.84s, 2ms per call (but again, use the map only if you need to search for several).


Grease Pencil - How do I hide the system cursor?

Under the overlays tab (top right of the viewport screen) press the dropdown arrow and uncheck 3D cursor


how to get the archieved version of 2.79b which WON'T install?

I think what you are looking for is the portable version.

You don't say which operating system you are using so here are all versions.

https://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.79/

I am guessing you are asking about windows, you want the ZIP version, just choose between 32 or 64 bit versions


You have pinned vertices. Here are two images which describe how to fix the issue.


How to delete all the keyframes from multiple objects?

The fastest way I can think of:

Select all the objects
Press ⎈ Ctrl← Left arrow twice to get the the Animation screen.
Hover over the dope sheet and select everything (A), then press ⌦ Delete.


Is there any open software to provide cloud rendering via P2P?

There are Blender render farm services similar to folding@home: (Anyone can volunteer their computer time; the work is done and sent to a main server for collection by the project submitter.)

BURP - Big and Ugly Rendering Project
http://www.renderfarm.fi/
http://www.renderweb.org/RenderWeb/index.jsp (Inactive?)
http://www.vswarm.com/ (messages in forum saying that it appears to be abandoned.)

The list of blender farms I found these on, that also includes normal payed and free render farm services.

(I did not find any that are strictly P2P though. The ones I found are master-slave, but such a setup can be considered "cloud" too, (meaning computers on the internet are doing work for you) but one of them-- the master/main server is in charge of managing the workers and jobs.  A headless P2P distributed farm, like bitcoin or something is likely possible, but is perhaps more complicated than it's worth for now.)

Concerns from ideasman42's answer do apply though, especially privacy.

There are also tools for building your own private distributed render farm: (These can be setup on spare machines, cloud/vps servers...)

http://brender-farm.org (thanks Gwenn)
BURP can also be used as a private render farm. (thanks jesterKing)
"Render: Network Render" A network rendering plugin included with Blender, with farm management tools. Video tutorial on how to set it up.
More listed in this answer by Aldrik


It's a bevel, shortcut Ctrl+B.  They then delete the resulting face to leave a gap between the planes.


Physics are not simulated past a certain frame?

The problem you are having is not with timeline, but with the length of the rigid body cache.

The physics systems have cache length settings independent of the scene frame range, so you must ensure that they are set accordingly as well as setting the frame range.

To do this for rigid bodies, set the End frame of the cache in Properties > Scene > Rigid Body Cache to the last frame you want the rigid bodies to be animated:

For 2.8 The Cache settings are under Rigid Body World> Cache

If you Baked the simulation (rather than just playing the scene animation to make a temporary cache of the simulation), press Free Bake in Properties > Scene > Rigid Body Cache to remove and "unlock" that cache:


Can I set object viewport colour from cycles nodes?

Sadly you cannot set more than a single color per Material on an object in cycles, it is possible to get multiple colors as you showed in the LookDev (2.8) view mode.

the reason you do not see the random color array is because in cycles the random, just like the pointiness is only claculated in the render.


How to get the distance between two objects in the game engine?

You can use mathutils.Vector locations

import bge

scene = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()
# the object the sensor is connected to
owner = bge.logic.getCurrentController().owner
# the other object you want to get the distance to
obj2 = scene.objects['obj_name']
length = (owner.worldPosition - obj2.worldPosition).length

print(length)

This allows for easier manipulation, so for example if you only want to measure distance on a map (without taking altitude into account) you can do.

length = (owner.worldPosition.xy - obj2.worldPosition.xy).length


while in Blender Render, when you unwrap your model, in UV Image Editor, toggle to edit mode, make sure you select all the faces by press A once or twice, and remeber to select there the image, so you can see the UVmap over your image. I've just done this and it worked.


How can i install Blender 2.8 in ubuntu 18.4 with only console?

Installing from repositories is not recommended, they are hardly ever up-to-date.

Blender doesn't need to be "installed".

From a command line use wget.

wget "https://www.blender.org/download/Blender2.82/blender-2.82a-linux64.tar.xz/"

(or whatever is the link to the current version)

Then untar (uncompress) the resulting  file, and move the newly created blender folder to your home directory or a location that is convenient for you. From within the blender folder run the blender executable.

To use blender as a global command from the terminal, add the path of the blender executable to your path environment variable.


How to exit animation mode when using physics

You can go back to the first frame of your animation to return objects and physics to their starting states and positions.  Click the  button or press Shift+Ctrl+Down Arrow while the animation is paused.

To pause playback, press Esc, or toggle play/pause with Alt+A.


Looks like a material problem, but I can't find anything to remove?

When you solidify, make sure that ALL the faces are selected. Judging by your picture, it seems that you did not do this.  If I am incorrect, please upload your .blend file, and I'll see what I can do.


Blender UV unwrap making too many islands

It isn't that you have non-manifold geometry, it is that the UV seams "cut" the mesh into pieces.

You need to find the separated faces on the mesh and remove the seam from one of the edges so it stays connected.

With both the UV/Image editor and 3D view visible, enable the sync selection option so that the two editors use matching selections. Then Select the UV islands so you can see them on your model and clear some seams to keep them connected to the rest of the mesh.


Using self in a driver is not as straight forward as thought, though it is really easy once you know where to put it. In short: In your driver, simply don't declare a variable, but use self in the expression itself to reference to the object. Check this screenshot here:

This driver is hooked up to the scale.y property of an object. The important bit here is to check Use Self as indicated in the upper screenshot, so Blender actually declares what object self is pointing to automatically.

Now you can copy and paste this driver to any other object, it will take the scale.x from there as a driving source.


You could add a scripted driver to the desired rotation axis of the object with the intermittent rotation, using the following expresion:

var*(int((var/(2.0*pi))%2))

where the variable var, (or whatever you want to call it) refers to the relevant rotation (X,Y,or Z) of the driving object.

Here, the Z rotation of the triangle is  being driven by the expression, in which var refers to the the Z rotation of the square.

EDIT in response to your comment:

We can make the expression a little more general by implicitly casting True and False to 1 and 0:

var*(int((var/(2.0*pi))%3)==1)

In this version, the number where the 3 is determines the number of turns in the cycle, and the number where the 1 is says which of the turns to follow, with 0 as the last, counting back. So this example would make the driven object follow the driver on the second of every three turns.

So, in order to have alternating rotations, in the example below, the green triangle uses:

var*(int((var/(2.0*pi))%2)==1)

..and the yellow triangle uses:

var*(int((var/(2.0*pi))%2)==0)

Any more than this - say, "the second and fifth out of every seven".. and it would probably be tidier to write a little function, and add it to the driver_namespace.


import bpy,bmesh

ob   = bpy.data.objects['Cube']
mesh = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(ob.data)
for v in mesh.verts:
    v.select = True

# trigger viewport update
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = bpy.context.scene.objects.active

Docs


I figured it out. You just have to use armatures. What this means is:

create an armature from the create menu Shift+A.
position the bones in the Edit mode.
switch to the pose mode, shift+RMB click on each object and its corresponding bone.
press P to connect them using "bone" from the parent menu.
finally animate the entire armature.


Bump Maps are missing after exporting as glTF 2.0

The glTF format uses normal maps, not bump maps1. If you can bake your bump map into a normal map it should export correctly and appear the same. Sketchfab also allows you to download your model as glTF, so it may be worth trying that.

1The term "bump map" can mean different things, so I'm generalizing here... For a more precise answer I might need to see your material setup in Blender.


I merge 2 points and i want to get it back no ctrl + z available


Blender python array modifier transforms

Using modifier array, e.g.:

def array(self, obj):
    mod = bpy.data.objects[obj.name].modifiers.new(name='array', type='ARRAY')
    mod.count = 10
    mod.relative_offset_displace[0] = 2.5

position and rotation can be calculated from the formula, e.g. 5th element in array would have x = 5 * mod.relative_offset_displace[0], so if original is [0,0,0] then 5th will be [6.25,0,0].


Duplicate Question. See: Is it possible to make Blender a Y-up world?

"The standard orientation, where the xy-plane is horizontal and the z-axis points up" is part of the Right Handed Orientation coordinate system. It is not "being different" as much a choice between Left or Right Handed systems. Each design team makes there own choices when they first start coding.


Reference images are visible when you are in orthographic top, down, back, front, right or left view. The shortkeys are, respectively: Numpad 7, CtrlNumpad 7, Numpad 1, CtrlNumpad 1, Numpad 3 or CtrlNumpad 3. And also in camera view Numpad 0, with thanks to cegaton :)


Possible to make Vertices from overlapping Edges?

Install the TinyCAD addon, then select all, press W > TinyCAD > XALL, all edges intersections will give vertices, but you'll probably have to recreate faces.


"Correct" way to add texture for a photo print in a scene. Fix "over-exposure"

Ok, here's what I ended up doing. Thank you @virgil-sisoe for the pointers.

First up, I may have been overly concerned about gamma correction: it looks like Blender automatically gamma "uncorrects" (wrongs?) texture data when it's loaded, so the output of the texture node can be assumed to be linear.

From there I added a "Separate RGB" node, and added a Multiply node on each of its 3 outputs, followed by a "Combine RGB" node. I set each of the multiply nodes to 0.5, so -1 stop.

(arguably it should have been -1.6 stops, but -1 looked right given the brightness of the rest of the scene).

I added gamma nodes to the input and output, but have the input gamma set to 1 (so no gamma adjustment), and the output a little over 1 to add just a touch of contrast.

The last thing I did was to switch from the principled BSDF shader to the diffuse BSDF shader. I figured that I only want diffuse here, and I don't yet fully understand the principled shader.

This looks ok, and I think it will suffice for my current purposes.

Here's what I ended up with:


The Boolean modifier is additive rather than removing mesh

First of all, I suggest you work with a lot less subdivisions, and use Smooth shade to hide the hard edges (Right Click -> Shade Smooth). I reduced your number of subdivisions to 1 and the Boolean worked fine, you'll also need to apply the Mirror modifier first.

Also, try changing the geometry of that concave section (the top part of the "cutter") as it's producing very fine geometry when subdividing, I assume that was the problem here.


As well as Recalculate, there's the "Flip Direction" tool in the Shading/UVs tab of the tool panel, you can try using that on the specific selection where there's a problem.


How to add an object from another scene?

If the scenes are in the same .blend file:

Be in the destination scene
From the Outliner, make sure you see all scenes
In the Outliner, expand the scene with the object you want and drill down to that object
Left-click and drag the icon for that object into your 3D View
Boom... you've copied it over

If the scenes are in different files

File > Append (or Shift+F1)
From Blender's File Browser, go to the .blend file you want to pull from
Left-click the .blend file and go to the Object sub-directory within it
Choose the object you want to get (you did give it a sensible name, right?)
Click the "Link/Append from Library" button in the upper right corner


Change Display Color Of Wireframe object

You can do it in Preferences > Themes > 3D Viewport > Wire


Omit certain bones from Automatic Weight calculations?

For bones that you don't want to deform the mesh, uncheck deform in the Deform Panel of bone properties.


How to twist radial vector to make spirals?

In order to produce a spiral effect, you need to effectively rotate the 'banding' based on the distance from the centre, 'wrapping' around at 1.0 back to 0.0 to continue the pattern.

This can be achieved as follows :

Note the lower branch of nodes - the Dot Product, Power, Multiply nodes. The Dot Product with both inputs set the same will generate the square of the distance from the origin. The Power(0.5) node takes the square root, resulting in the actual distance from the centre. The Multiply node can be adjusted to control the "tightness" of the turns of the spiral.

The Add node then adds this distance into the offset around the spiral - effectively rotating further around the centre the further away from the centre, while the Modulo(1.0) function allows the values to wrap around from 1.0 back to 0.0 to continue the pattern.

Note that I've also added an Add(1.0) and second Modulo(1.0) node - this is to allow for negative rotations to allow the spiral to be twisted in either direction (the normal Modulo function produces odd results when presented with negative values - the additional nodes correct for this - see https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/122489/29586 for more of an explanation for this).

I've also added a Multiply after the radial Texture node. This allows the number of repetitions of the banding to be adjusted. Stick with whole numbers to avoid breaking the pattern - eg, 3.0 will produce 3-times the number of bands.


how to keep your model scale from an animation?

Choose the object (not the armature), go to the frame you want it to be and apply the armature modifier.


How do I uniformly apply the same texture to many uneven faces on a mesh, such as a road?

You can use the Follow Active Quads command.
It's fast and gives good results since none of your roads is perfectly straight.

Select the segment you want to unwrap
Go UV > Follow Active Quads
Scale and move the UV islands in the UV editor (they will all end up on top of each other)

Note: Sometimes the command doesn't work properly, so just reset the selected faces (UV > Reset) and try again


Create animation videos from 3D joint positions

You start with a blend file that contains a mesh which defines the appearance of your character. You then have an armature, which is made up of a collection of bones that deforms your character mesh. The armature is then used by an animator to control the position of the character during an animation.

The script you have takes a pre-recorded list of locations and automates the animation of the armature instead of someone manually animating it.

The line rig = objs['myrig'] is referring to the armature named 'myrig' that you have setup to deform your character, this needs to be an armature with bones matching the names in your mocap data, not an empty.


Press Shift-F to enter Walk/Fly mode and you can then use the mouse to 'look around'. Pressing WSAD moves Forward, Backward, Left, Right. LShift for 'fast' mode, other keys listed in the status bar at the bottom of the window. Esc to exit Walk/Fly mode. You can choose Walk/Fly from the View/Navigation menu.


How do I blend textures of joined objects?

If you can add an image of the wireframe, that would be helpful.

The short answer is that you'll need to make the mesh for the bullet (top) and the casing (bottom) connected. Once you do that, there will be a less noticeable seam.

That having been said, normal ammunition has a very distinct seam between the bullet and the casing. If you make the bullet orange-ish and the casing yellow-ish, it'll look like a real bullet.

If that's not what you're after, then you should explore how to model the bullet and the casing together as one mesh. One approach might be to delete the bottom half of the spherical bullet (the part that I'm assuming is hidden inside the casing). Then extrude the bottom ring downward into a cylinder. Then close the cylinder at the bottom. This will result in a bullet and casing that are one piece, and might make your texturing job easier.


How can I use outliner dots(?? I don't know it's name)?

Mode toggling is a 2.91 feature. You need to update your Blender version.

Move mode toggling to the left column. When in non-object modes, icon buttons are shown in the left column for toggling modes. Clicking a dot icon will switch that object to become the new active object, Ctrl+click adds the object into the current mode. (2110af20f5)


OSL Shading issue with Diffuse Roughness > 0

By dupilcate the Diffuse shader as in the node setup belowe an lowering the amount of the second Diffuse Roughness to something like .95 you should get the expected result.

There seems to be an issue in the usage of that parameter. It leads to strange behaviours. Note that if you don't double the node but just try to lower the Roughness of the Diffuse shader node, you'll need to set it lower than 0.5 to achieve the given result.

Notice that is not related with the use of the OSL script because it still happens even with default nodes...

..when the same scene, rendered with OSL Shading disabled, gives expected results.


Can I use gt1030 for rendering while useing igpu for my vga display?

Yes of course it's possible.
Blender used openGL. It's very old API and utilizing different GPU on it is hard. So most of the time blender use single GPU for normal usage. Note, if you useing motherboard's VGA port to open blender. It want to use iGPU instead of discrete GPU. As I am using windows, the OS smartly want to use the powerful graphic-card. Because powerful one is better then.
This two different requirements makes blender to crush before opening. This can be solved by silencing Windows's smartness.
To do that :---   Open setting in windows 10 -> Search Graphics Setting -> Open it -> Below the classic app click on browse -> Find and select Blender.exe (executable) -> Click OK/Open -> Then on Graphics Setting goto blender -> options -> set Power saving ( for motherboard's display connection) else automatic -> Save it -> Reboot and Check.
This solved my problem. But this tweak is OS specific. What about linux / MacOS? Question remains and testing needed. This problem should be solved on blender or openGL level.
Any suggestions or improvements is welcome.


Is it possible to guide a smoke simulation along a curve?

Yes, this is possible - you can use a Force forcefield set to act along a curve and set to a negative strength to draw the smoke to the curve as in the following example :

However, this isn't intuitive to set up as the 'curve' type is not normally available on Force fields - so this is possibly unintended behaviour - but useful nontheless. Note that this works on Blender 2.79b.
To set this up, first add a Curve Guide force - the Curve Guide doesn't actually affect the smoke simulation but does allow a curve to be defined for the direction of the force. Use Edit mode (Tab) to edit the curve into the desired shape.
Now, change the Type in the Force Field physics properties to Force. Since this force now has a defined curve you should see the addition 'Curve' option in the Shape drop-down list. Select this to have the force act along the curve.
Set a negative strength to have the curve draw the smoke together rather than blow it apart.
Here's the result :

Blend file included

EDIT : I recently discovered that it’s also possible to add the curved force another way - instead of ‘fudging’ the force type (as above) to get the curve you can simply add a curve to the scene (bezier, nurbs) and add the force to the curve using the Physics tab. This then allows you to set the force to Curve as described above. Similar applies for surfaces.

Further Edit : The provided file doesn't load correctly in more recent versions of Blender - it is not successfully converted to Mantaflow. Instead you can simply build the simulation as follows :

Use Quick Smoke on default cube
Shrink and move it to the desired location
Add a curve and and edit it to the required shape
Add a Force to it and set the strength to, say, -5
Set the force Shape to 'Curve'
Enable 'Noise' in the domain settings
Run the simulation


How to make multiple rigid bodies behave as a single object

You can use Rigid Body Constraint and keyframe Enable checkbox or set it to be Breakable (they will disconnect after collision - use Threshold value to control how strong this collision should be).

Without Constraint:

With Constraint:


Armature keeps spinning around root bone in pose mode when I try to move anything

This spinning effect many times is caused by an incorrectly set up IK constraint. Please check the Tutorial again for two things:

to which bone is the target of the IK chain parented to? The target is the bone which you actually move by hand. It must not be a child of the bone chain which is deformed by the constraint
what is the chain length in your IK constraint? By default it is set to 0, meaning the IK constraint affects every bone in the hierachy, so each bone which is a parent of the bone which holds the constraint. Try setting it to 2 for a start and check the deformation. Chain length is the number of bones which are affected by the constraint, including the bone which holds the constraint


Best way to make a concept for a videogame model?

I will do my best to answer your question within the bounds of the Blender Stack Exchange focus.

If you've ever seen professional concept art, they often have 3 view of a character/concept object.

-Frontal
-Profile
-close up

This is so the entire concept can be displayed. In blender, the frontal and profile views are often used in character modeling.

A common practice is to enable the "insert images as planes" add-on and place the planes in front of and next to the character you are modeling.

There are many tutorials and examples of this. A quick internet search will probably prove fruitful.

I hope it helps!


Stereoscopic camera: how to see objects visible only from the right and left camera

Sometimes, you need to use scene.update() once you've modified some properties (location, rotation) of the objects. When the scene is updated, you can use the new values.
You forgot the parentheses after the function call :)


why is part of my mesh clear in solid view port even though in the render view it is white diffuse?

i pressed alt h in edit mode and that fixed it


Backface visibility for Blender exported JSON files

In Blend4Web you can do it by disabling Backface Culling https://www.blend4web.com/doc/en/materials.html#rendering-properties


Automatic Heat Weighting: Failed to find a solution for one or more bones error

Changing the scale of mesh and armature to bigger solved my problem.


Subdivision surface viewport problem - edges buried in mesh

Found it!

The trick is the little triangle icon (Adjust edit cage to modifier result) on the shrinkwrap modifier

Again, not on the subdivision surface modifier but on the shrinkwrap.


There are many approaches to solve this kind of problems.
Some of them:

In edit mode select the vertices you need and "assign" weight instead of painting.

In edit mode press P and separate some parts into a new object, weight paint the new object, then rejoin (Ctrl J): the weights will remain intact.

In weight paint mode use Alt B to isolate the zone you want to paint and change the tools behaviour, unclicking the "front faces only" button and selecting the "projected" falloff shape, so that every vertex under the cursor (in a 2D fashion) will get painted.


Simplest way to create a database symbol

create a single piece out of a cylinder.

To make the edges less sharp read this question:

Weird deformation between large ngon and edge ring

Add an array modifier, and move the relative offset values for the Z axis like this.

Add a mix of glossy and anisotropic shaders.

EDIT Want an even simpler way?

Add a Curve->Circle.

Make it a 2D curve, fill in on both sides, give it some extrusion and bevel:

Add the array modifier, and texture.

For Info on how light a shiny object read this: Make a gold reflective object


Blender (Cycles Render) Normal Map Baking goes wrong

Your normals are inverted. Some of them are broken appart (they are not united) try going into edit mode and move them, you´ll see how they get appart and break from the original mesh. You got all traces needed since the normal map already tells you where this is happening. ALT+M will join vertex together (choose AT CENTER).

Another solution is to check out the normals. Definelty looks like the ones you have problems with are INVERTED NORMAL faces. Delete them from your model, recreate them in EDIT MODE and then select your object CTRL+N to average normals while in edit mode. Hope that fixes. It will certainly.
Cheers.


snap objects of same topology together by vertex index

I don't think there is something about that except Python.
This script will report vertex coordinates of active object to all the selected objects.
Version 1
Just give object the same topology:
import bpy

def snap_by_vertex_index(obj, target):
    for o, t in zip(obj.data.vertices, target.data.vertices):
        o.co = t.co

target = bpy.context.active_object

if target and target.type == 'MESH':
    objects = [o for o in bpy.context.selected_objects if o.type == 'MESH' and o is not target]
    for o in objects:
        snap_by_vertex_index(o, target)

Version 2
Or, as suggested @batFINGER in comments, that can be moving vertices to the target:
import bpy

def snap_by_vertex_index2(obj, target):
    mat = obj.matrix_world.inverted() @ target.matrix_world
    for o, t in zip(obj.data.vertices, target.data.vertices):
        o.co = mat @ t.co

target = bpy.context.active_object

if target and target.type == 'MESH':
    objects = [o for o in bpy.context.selected_objects if o.type == 'MESH' and o is not target]
    for o in objects:
        snap_by_vertex_index2(o, target)


The map could be a roughness map, metallic, Transmission, and so.
GrayScales give you a value for drive a single parameter.

Can you post images?


Trying to create a script that makes roofs on selected boxes

Here is a quick script that extrudes selected faces of selected mesh objects, if the face has 4 vertices and the angle between the face normal and the up axis is lower than 3°:

import bpy
import bmesh
from math import degrees
from mathutils import Vector

up = Vector((0, 0, 1))

for ob in bpy.context.selected_editable_objects:
    if ob.type == 'MESH':
        me = ob.data
        if me.is_editmode:
            bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
        else:
            bm = bmesh.new()
            bm.from_mesh(me)
        bm.normal_update()

        for face in bm.faces:
            if len(face.verts) == 4 and face.select:
                try:
                    angle = degrees(face.normal.angle(up))
                except ValueError:
                    continue
                if angle < 3: # some threshold
                    ret = bmesh.ops.extrude_face_region(bm, geom=[face])
                    verts = [e for e in ret['geom'] if isinstance(e, bmesh.types.BMVert)]
                    faces = [e for e in ret['geom'] if isinstance(e, bmesh.types.BMFace)]
                    bmesh.ops.translate(bm, vec=face.normal * -0.7, verts=verts)

                    e1, e2, e3, e4 = faces[0].edges
                    if (e1.calc_length() + e3.calc_length()) < (e2.calc_length() + e4.calc_length()):
                        edges = [e1, e3]
                    else:
                        edges = [e2, e4]
                    bmesh.ops.collapse(bm, edges=edges)

        if me.is_editmode:
            bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)
        else:
            bm.to_mesh(me)
        me.update()

The two shorter edges of the top-face is collapsed to create a sensible roof.

Note that it doesn't account of degenerated quads (non-planar, self-intersecting), but should work good enough for your use case.


How can I use fractions with hotkeys for translation/rotation/scale?

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


What you are looking for is the Poke Faces operation.

In Edit Mode, with your plane selected, press AltP. This operation creates a node at the face's center, and then triangulates the face around that central vertex.


Create rings for ringed planet procedurally

One way to do something similar is to get the length from the object center and apply a noise (random) texture on it.

The first three nodes:

Get the length from object origin (center of the disk)
Calculate a sinus of the length (alternate from -1 to 1)
Map it in positive values to -1/1 to 0/1

The next three nodes are about to add randomness and control over it:

Rgb curve to distort the mapping
Noise texture to get randomness
Color ramp to choose how the values are mapped


How to extrude X and Y axis on a traced object (flatten)

Not sure I understand you correctly, I am assuming you want a wider on top, narrower on the bottom section for the cookie cutter, one cutting side sharper edge, and one wider side to make pressure, is that correct?

If so, I'd say it would probably be easier to design the section you desire as a separate curve object, then use it as bevel object in your chicken curve.

It would probably work best if your chicken was a "single stroke curve" instead of a double curve with a designed stroke width.

Otherwise if that is not possible (I see bifurcating strokes in there) you may achieve a similar effect using a "half section" instead. Just make sure the wider part of the section is always narrower than half the with of the chicken stroke to avoid self intersections and artifacts.

EDIT

Here is an example file. Have in mind that if this is for 3D printing or other Computer aided manufacturing process, there may be geometric issues with production. Shape cleaned up and slightly altered to reduce some of the self intersections. Edit the "Chicken Cookie Cutter" object to control the shape of the section to your liking.


How do I animate a Vertex Paint Brush? Is this a bug?

By configuring the "fade" setting (in the surface object), it's possible to obtain the same effect, or something close to it.


How does the GPL apply to code in Blender files? (e.g. Drivers)

Short answer: Yes, the GPL applies to drivers too.

Just as the GPL applies to addons, it applies to drivers (any scripts running inside of Blender). However this doesn't automatically everything you do in that blend file is suddenly GPL.

Consider:

In many cases drivers on their own don't constitute an original work, Obviously you can't copyright 1 + 1, rot / pi or other simple expressions.Exactly what is original enough to be copyrighted isn't totally clear and depends on local laws.
In the case where the client/customer has the blend file, they can see the driver expressions anyway, and use them, however drivers are rarely useful on their own, typically they are only valuable because of their use within a rig and data they reference (the rig, objects etc).
In many cases, the deliverable content from a project isn't a blend file, The finished work may be image / video / exported-model, therefor there is no need to distribute the blend file, a driver can be treated as in house software.

So the main case this prohibits are:

If you made a rig and wanted to charge licensing fee's for using the drivers.While this remains possible, you would have to use a GPL compatible license for the drivers.
If you give a blend file to someone, you could not prohibit them from reusing or sharing a driver-expression in that blend file.

In practice, the drivers in a blend file are plain-text anyway, and not all that useful on their own.

But might mixing the scripts with the .blend file data, also make the blend file GPL?

It's worth looking into this more, however Wordpress lets images in a theme be exempt from the GPL. (Where the theme may contain code & data, this is a precedent where the data is exempt while the code isn't).
http://wordpress.org/news/2009/07/themes-are-gpl-too/

Obligatory - I am not a lawyer disclaimer, however this is how the GPL applies as I understand it @ideasman42


Ctrl+Shift+Numpad 7 will align your view to the normals of a selected face.


Is it possible to bake multiple emission materials to one single texture?

I tried your problem and came up with this solution. if you are in 2.8 it's easier.

First you create a new UV map for each object that is affected. Then you select all, enter edit mode, this should let them all be in edit mode together, you select all, and unwrap it all to that UV-Map.

Now you create a new Image with your desired resolution.

In the ShaderEditor you add that image to all the affected materials and select it. this will bake the taxture to that image.

Now you make the texture. It all should be now on this one Image.

It worked for me in 2.77? and in 2.8, sure it will work in other versions aswell.


You cannot add a driver to the frame_current property of the scene object, error message from console.

>>> C.scene.driver_add('frame_current')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: bpy_struct.driver_add(): property "frame_current" not animatable

You could do something with frame change handlers.

import bpy

def lockscenes(scene):
    if scene.name == "Scene": # master scene
        f = scene.frame_current
        for scene in bpy.data.scenes:
            if scene.name == "Scene":
                continue
            scene.frame_set(f)
    return None

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


How can an Android photosphere be used as a scene background?

Yes, there's a easy way;
Cycles
Just go to the Node Editor, change the type to World.

Then, check Use Nodes, if it isn't already, press Shift + A and add a Texture>Environment Texture node; Point the to your file, and connect it to the Background node.
If you don't like/understand the Node Editor, you can go to the Properties, switch to the World tab, and click Use Nodes, then besides the Color field, click the dot, and select Texture>Environment Texture and point it to your image.

Blender Internal
Go to the Properties panel, switch to the World tab, go to the World subsection, and check Blend Sky and Real Sky.

Then go to the Texture tab, click New click World under Preview and open your image. Scroll down to the Influence subsection and check 'Zenith Up', Zenith Down, Horizon and Blend.
Then go to the Mapping, and change the Coordinate field from View to Equirectangular.


How to put all armature bones under 1 root bone

Select only top level bones.

Select only bones that have no parent, to be children of the new root bone. As can be seen in the picture fore_arm has been re-parented from presumably upper_arm to the root bone via incorrectly selecting all and parenting to new root.

Suggest, after adding new root bone (before any parenting), select all other bones on the same level, and parent those to new root.

For means of demonstration have added the rigify human rig and deleted the spine root bone, then added a new bone "Root".

Shift-select the bones in same level in outliner, lastly "Root" , parent CtrlP and choose either connected to have children connected to Root without offset, or, probably in most cases, offset.