Find the edges of checker texture for adding bumps or ridges?

A material such as this should be useful.

This combines a couple of Wave textures (at the same scale as the checker texture) to identify the edges - in this way you have a graduation as you get closer to the edge rather than a sharp edge. You can vary the Power node to bring the 'edge' closer to the edge of the Checker tiles (eg, 2000 would get it really close, 1 gives you a graduation over the whole tile).

I've not quite got it clear in my head yet why those values in the Location and Scale of the Mapping nodes - the scaling on the Wave textures is 1/4.5 and that seems to work fine (I'll try and figure out a more scientific reason for that at some point!). Obviously the Scale of both the Wave textures and Checker texture must match. Also, if it's different to 5.0 then you'll need to adjust the Location offset of the Checker texture to suit. I'll try and figure out a better way of getting these to line up but, for now, hopefully this will be useful.

I've combined it with the Checker texture with a Mix Shader just to show that they combine correctly - vary the Mix Factor to blend between the two.

Here's an example using this as a Bump map.

And here's the Blend

EDIT : Here's a "simplified" material using Cosine maths nodes in place of the Wave textures. This simplifies the scaling so that a single Value node can be used to set the scale for both the Checker texture and the Edges (the output of the Power node). Note that the second column of Multiply nodes are set to multiply by 'pi' (which blender kindly expands to the value of pi).

Blend file attached


Blender has closed when I re-openig some files

It happened with me too.Sometimes the file gets corrupted.Try copying your object in a new empty blender file and then save it with a different name.It worked for me.


Enabling Import & Export of DirectX 3D Model file format .X

Blender 2.70 comes with the "DirectX X Format" Export addon built-in.

However, the "DirectX Importer" Import addon is not built-in. If you'd like to have the ability to import .X files, you can download it in this addon bundle.   (Note: that post describes how to add the addon to Blender's scripts folder.)

To enable these:

Info header -> File -> User Preferences

Then, in the search box, type Direct. Two DirectX addons will appear:

The one named "DirectX Importer" provides the ability to Import .X files
The one named "DirectX X Format" provides the ability to Export .X files
Check the checkbox at the right hand side of the addon to enable it
If you want to always have these import/export options in your File menu, then click on the Save User Settings button at the bottom of the screen:

You will then have the .X file format as import & export options:


Cannot blur one render layer and then Z-combine it with another layer

Either disable Use Alpha or blur the Z as well:

Update

As pointer out by the OP, the above solution does not work when there is geometry behind the glowing object.

Here are some alternative methods roughly in order of number of steps needed to set up:

1. ID Mask:

This method is probably the quickest as it doesn't even require more than one renderlayer.

Enable the Object Index pass in Properties > Renderlayers > Passes:

Select the object(s) you want to blur and set the Pass Index to a unique number so that no other objects have the same Pass Index.

In the compositor, add an ID Mask node and set the Index to the same number you set the objects:

Also see this related question.

2. Z-Mask:

You'll notice that in method one that the glow appears in front of other objects:

You may want this effect or you may not. If you don't, then you can use the Zmask in Properties > Renderlayers > Layer:

Background objects are on Layer 1
Foreground objects are on layer 2
Glow objects are on layer 3


This will largely depend on how you set yourself up to re-use assets.

I personally like to put this kind of stuff in its own file, and create a group of everything needed. Save Save Save.

Then in my main working file I use Shift+F1 browse to my particular asset file. Double click on it. Then double click on groups. Then select my desired group name and pull it in.


How can I control the number of sub-panel instances from an IntProperty?

Dynamically register with python type
Can create a class using the type method.  Code below makes a class name, makes a class with that name and sets the bl_idname class attribute to it as well.  Note can pass draw methods et all in dictionary.
    id = f"OBJECTTOOL_PT_subx{n}"
    panel = type(id,
        (OBJECTTOOL_PT_sub_panel, Panel, ),
        {"bl_idname" : id}
        )

Hence with a dynamic update on int property can register or unregister a subpanel classes on the fly.  Used to be my go to method. It has since been my experience that quick scrubbing of a property can befuddle the registering and unregistering internals and start to fail and report missing RNA errors.
Getting the value of the scene property during restricted context when addons register is an issue if dynamically registering on fly with an update method.
Polling on the number

Instead for multi subpanels these days I go for a register them all (or in chunks as need be) approach and use a class property to poll against.  The parent class poll will take care of any outside polling needs.
Add a class attribute number to each on creations, register them all and poll based on the number.
Another bonus is if the file is saved with 4 as the count prop, it will show 4 panels (when next run)
import bpy
from bpy.types import Operator, Panel, PropertyGroup, Menu
from bpy.props import IntProperty, PointerProperty
from bpy.utils import register_class, unregister_class

class OBJECTTOOL_PT_main_panel(Panel):
    bl_label = "Object Tools"
    bl_idname = "OBJECTTOOL_PT_main_panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_category = "Object Tools"
    bl_context = "objectmode"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scene = context.scene
        objecttools = scene.objecttools
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(objecttools, "count")

class OBJECTTOOL_PT_sub_panel(Panel):
    bl_label = "Sub Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECTTOOL_PT_sub_panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_category = "Object Tools"
    bl_context = "objectmode"
    bl_parent_id = "OBJECTTOOL_PT_main_panel"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        ot = context.scene.objecttools
        return cls.count < ot.count

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.label(text="SUBBY")

class OBJECTTOOL_Settings(PropertyGroup):

    count: IntProperty(
        name = "Count",
        description="Number of objects to create",
        default = 1,
        min = 1,
        max = 6,
        )

classes = [
    OBJECTTOOL_Settings,
    OBJECTTOOL_PT_main_panel,
]

for i in range(5):
    id = f"OBJECTTOOL_PT_subx{i}"
    panel = type(id,
        (OBJECTTOOL_PT_sub_panel, Panel, ),
        {"bl_idname" : id,
         "count" : i}
        )
    classes.append(panel)

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

    bpy.types.Scene.objecttools = PointerProperty(type=OBJECTTOOL_Settings)

def unregister():
    from bpy.utils import unregister_class
    for cls in reversed(classes):
        unregister_class(cls)
    del bpy.types.Scene.objecttools

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Related
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/179031/15543
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/135374/15543


Why does this texture appear fine in material view but appears pink in rendered view?

@Sarsha W, I hope this doesn't come too late, I had the same problem yesterday, and i went through the same rectifications as in here. In my case all the objects were pink, and I could see the texture fine in texture mode. I found all the missing files. And in python I had no errors.

In my case, what solved the problem was to pack the images, save the "pink" file, and close it. Then I opened a brand new file, and appended the object from the "pink" file. After doing so, everything worked fine.

Other things you might want to test is to make sure the texture is not a corrupted image. And you can always test with a different texture that works in another .blend, that way if you still have it pink you know it's a different issue.


How can I convert these Blender video settings to ffmpeg please?

My answer was found on stackoverflow for anyone that needs it: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67011275/how-can-i-convert-these-blender-video-settings-to-ffmpeg-please/67038271#67038271


How to make a mesh deform accurately along curves?

Try setting the twist parameter to 'Z-Up':

You can also manually control the tilt of the curve for each vertex or control point of it in the n-panel:


Rigging is admittedly not my expertise, but if I understand correctly, this has to do with unapplied transforms, and the direction the model is facing. You have x axis mirror enabled, but are parallel to the x axis (model facing left ortho view) so are unable to properly mirror to get the expected results.

I would first rotate your model 90 degrees on the Z axis to face front ortho view, and apply transforms with Ctrl+A and you should be able to proceed as desired. See .gif below for the steps:


Scaling Rather than Moving Objects when Attached to Curve

OK, seems I've just figured it out and it's ridiculously simple.

Grab the tread AND the curve and then move.


Render shadows without denoise on a transparent background in cycles

This may not be ideal, but I solve this issue by passing the "Alpha" from "Render Layers" through a HDR Denoiser, then use the denoised alpha map to blend with the background image to generate the noise free shadow.


How to set cameras type to Orthographic with python scripting

Orthographic can be set with:

bpy.data.cameras['Camera'].type = 'ORTHO'


View follows object when object moves? How do I turn this off?

Press the N key to bring up the right tool bar, and delete your cog object from the Lock to Object field.


Click with the other side of the Mouse

Press
a
 one or twice so that nothing is selected and the image looks dim not bright.  Its a toggle.

Then Click Only

Then use
b
for box select and you should see a difference.

My opinion is that everything is selected in you original question.

You can also press
W
then select subdivide to have more variation in your selection.

Perhaps you  already know this.


For those of you who either have this problem, like I do, or will have the problem in the future, arklight posted a .dll to download. Once I moved that into the folder with my blender.exe it instantly fixed it.

  I have a nvidia geforce 9800 gtx/gtx+ also I made this thing I found in the link "Download opengl32.dll from ftp.blender.org/sergey/softwaregl and put it next to blender.exe. This will switch blender to fully software opengl" and now it seems i can open the program but it go slow... this means is a NVIDIA driver problem which means I need to wait for the next driver update to be fixed? – arklight Jun 12 '16 at 15:20


Drive shapekey based on activating a pose?

You could try driving the shapekey and an action constraint from the same property or controller. Or control the action constraint's influence directly and have the influence drive the shapekey. This will require explicitly loading the pose though, you won't activate anything just freely posing the rig close to a given pose.

It is also possible to add a set of marker bones indicating the pose and then create drivers using 'Rotation Difference' variables between the marker bones an the actual bones and make it so the dirver is fully activated when the rotational difference is equal to zero. This may be vary complex to setup and tune for complex poses though, but does give the advantage of allowing free posing of the rig.


Problem with transmission of a material that uses principled shader

Go to the Material Tab. Scroll down to "Settings" and Check "Screen Space Refraction"

You also need to enable "Refraction" in the "Screen Space Reflections" panel of the render properties. Render engine must be set to Eevee beforehand.

Also make sure the roughness value is not too high, above 0.5 it will gradually prevent refraction.


How can I control where smoke and fire are emitted from?

You can assign the smoke and fire to come out of just a vertex group.

Select the vertices you want the fire and smoke to come out of, and create a vertex group and assign the vertices to it:

Then go to Smoke Flow advanced and use the vertex group to determine where the fire and smoke will come out of.

Note: Every time you make any changes to the smoke/fire simulation you need to press Alt+A to update the simulation cache.

To set up the materials and actually render your smoke in cycles watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSiV5gg_lCs


Why are there 2 transformation orientations in the viewport header?

After some experimenting it seems that the left orientation is an override for the right one. If it's set to default then the right orientation works as expected. This was very confusing as the tooltip show the same for both. Maybe there is a scenario for the override but personally I can't see one.
That said Blender still rocks!


Constrain to any 2 axes during transform?

While Blender doesn't have widgets to do this, its fairly straightforward.

Using the Manipulator: Hold Shift and click on the Grab/Scale handles,
X locks YZ,
Y locks XZ,
Z locks XY
Using Transform keys: Grab with G or Scale with S,
ShiftX locks YZ,
ShiftY locks XZ,
ShiftZ locks XY

As @sambler notes, you can do G Shift X,X move along the objects Local YX axis, works for any axis of course.


Create Seamlessly Looping Animated Displacements

You generate the displacement mathematically by combining multiple Sine waves at different amplitudes, frequencies and orientations. By carefully selecting the frequencies of the waves you can ensure that they all coincide at the start/end so that the animation can be looped.

Here's the result :

This is produced by the following material :

This looks complicated but look closely and you'll see that it is actually made up of 5 virtually identical sets of nodes - to combine 5 waves.

Here the coordinates (adjusted to move the origin to (0.5,0.5) by the Subtract RGB node) are passed through a Mapping node so as to rotate them by a variable amount and this is then separated into its X coordinate (since we only need a linear value per wave). This is then passed through a Multiply node to set the frequency of each 'wave', with the multiplier for each being set to a multiple of 2*pi - this is what ensures the animation will loop correctly. This used to drive the Sine function and scaled by variable amounts (so the different waves have different influences) before being added together and passed to the displacement. The Value node varies the offset between 0.0 (on frame 1) to 1.0 on frame 51, with the animation running from frame 1 to 50 (since 51 should be identical to 1) - ensure to use Linear interpolation on your f-curve for the keyframed Value node.

Play around with the Mapping node orientations and the multipliers (for amplitude and frequency - but keeping the frequencies as multiples of 2*pi!) until you get suitably pleasing results.

Blend file included


Access material node drivers from python

Look in NodeTree.animation_data

Python console code.  Loop thru materials that use nodes and have animation data, if so loop the drivers collection.

In simple example below find the couple of simple drivers including a  driver on a value node with expression "frame" (the current frame)

The drivers datapath gives the node name and the index of the socket.

>>> for m in bpy.data.materials:
...     m.name
...     if m.use_nodes and m.node_tree.animation_data:
...         for d in m.node_tree.animation_data.drivers:
...             d.data_path, d.driver.expression
...
'Material'
('nodes["Value"].outputs[0].default_value', 'frame')
('nodes["Principled BSDF"].inputs[9].default_value', 'frame / 20')

>>>

Re socket index and name https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/160069/15543


The Blender interface is entirely customizable. You can create as many panes as you want, arrange them however you want, and any pane can be for any context/view. This is great... once you know what's going on ;-)

The default layout is very similar to what you're showing, so I'm guessing that you're wanting the 3D Viewport (where you edit meshes) to be back in the largest pane, where it usually is. You can do this by choosing the "3D View" from the drop-down menu on the bottom left of that pane.

The way you got there is probably by pressing F11, which brings up the render result (which is what you're looking at) without starting a new render. Rendering will also do this. Either pressing F12 or pressing the Render button automatically replaces one of your panes (I'm not quite sure how it chooses which one) with the Image Editor, which is also where you view the final rendered image. Typically, pressing Esc will return the Image Editor view to whatever it was before. Sometimes that doesn't work, but you can always* manually choose the 3D View again.

*The one case you can't change the view is if a pane is maximized. Pressing ctrlspace or ctrlup will toggle the pane your mouse cursor is in from its normal size to taking over the whole screen. This is a good way to maximize screen real estate when you're focused on a particular task, but it can be disconcerting if you don't know what's going on.

Incidentally, the 3D View is also what you have for the bottom right pane, which is usually the "Properties" view. If you change that back to the Properties view, it will be more-or-less back to the default layout.


Lamps are not visible to the camera directly, and hence cannot directly make pretty bokeh shapes. To make a directly visible light source, you'll want to use a mesh light.
To do this, add an emission shader to a mesh object:

And now you should be able to get some bokeh:

Creating the bokeh object:
For creating a sharp bokeh, a small and bright object is ideal (here I used an emission strength of 20):

click images for better quality
For creating a blurry bokeh, use a larger object (here I used an emission strength of 1):

The size of the bokeh depends on the size of the aperture and the distance from the camera to the object.
Adjusting the camera
It sounds like you have set up the camera already, but for completeness here are some settings to keep in mind:
Set the aperture size to be fairly large in order to get a shallow depth of field.
When setting the aperture size directly in terms of it's radius in BU, larger values mean a larger aperture. A value of 1 is really big (1 BU = 1 meter), you'll likely want something not much bigger than .1.
You can also set the aperture size in terms of f-stops, in which case smaller values mean a larger aperture. This is mainly useful when you have a particular look you want to replicate (e.g. from a photograph), or if you're just more familiar with f-numbers.
The number of Blades in the aperture controls the number of sides on the bokeh. Values below three will make the bokeh circular.
The Rotation setting rotates the aperture. This is useful for making the bokeh less straight and perfect looking.
For example, with 7 blades an little rotation:

Setting the Ratio to a value besides 1 will stretch the bokeh, simulating an anamorphic lens:

And of course you'll want to set the Focus. I usually set an empty as the focus object:

But you can also set the Distance by clicking in the 3D view:

Press E while hovering over the slider.
Click ( LMB) on the surface you want to focus on.

The viewport
The Viewport F-stop is used to set the size of the viewport aperture for approximating DoF real-time in the viewport. Note that this approximation is only active while in camera view (Numpad 0) with Depth of Field enabled in 3D view > Properties (N) > Shading:

One thing you might have noticed, is that the cycles aperture and the viewport aperture give very different results.
This is because the viewport DOF is not as accurate as the cycles DOF.
To solve this issue, in Blender 2.75, there will be a new high quality checkbox for the viewport, that gives a more accurate approximation of dof.

When enabled using the same settings, it looks like this


blender 2.8 - array modifier doesn't follow curve

You need to put the Curve modifier below the Array modifier


Light passing through paper layers. How?

It seems that using a translucent shader should work for this.

Just make sure in your render tab you have your lights paths set high enough to go through all the planes.


How to decrease the size of particle for fluid simulation(2.9)?

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


The Mix shader needs to be changed to an Add shader.

I don't know exactly how these each work, but depending on what color you want your mist to be, different mixing methods work better.


How to make the object follow another object's vertex

Select the 'Follower', then the Object containing the vertex to follow. Tab into Edit Mode then press Ctrl+P, a popup menu for 'Parenting' should come up (Set Parent To) with the options Object or Vertex. See the Manual for further details.


Blender equivalent of components in Sketchup

This sounds like a linked duplicate. Use Alt+D instead of Shift+D when duplicating and I believe that you will have what you are looking for. Editing any individual object will change them all.

For more info on duplicating see this link:

https://www.blender.org/manual/editors/3dview/object/transform/duplication.html


How can I make boundaries for a numerical value in the node editor?

Maybe there is a better/more efficient way to do that, but the Clamp parameter should do the job :


Is there a way to align multiple vertices to another vertex?

Set pivot point to 'active element' and transformation orientation to 'normal'.
Duplicate the edge you want them to be parallel to, move it with G and Z twice (along normal) and extrude it (E+Z) to create a clear normal.
Select your unstraight edge and afterwards the created polygon, so the polygon is the active element.
Hit S to scale, Z twice and move the mouse or just press 0 to make it completely straight.
Delete the temporary polygon.

Works always, no matter how your object is weirdly rotated in 3D space.


Check your Boolean Modifier if the Solver option is set to Exact. Although this sounds to be better, the Fast option sometimes works better for these things. Of course it is possible to cut a plane with a cylinder ;) I don't know when these Solver options were implemented, but since then it's the default so it sometimes gives bad results.


Information

If you create clothing for a rigged character it is not necessary to join the objects into one mesh. Proper parenting and data transfer is the key to get your clothes moving with the rig.

If you do not intend to change the clothes, you might be better off with a single mesh but then joining objects (and therefore meshes) produces unnecessary polygons.

I'm going to show the procedure for parenting and data transfer on the left boot, only.

Splitting the Clothes from the Body

Splitting the clothes from the Body is easy as long as there are no joined vertices.

Select your MainBody mesh and Tab into Edit Mode. Select one vertex of your boot (clicking somewhere near the surface helps) , then press Ctrl+Numpad + and keep pressing until all vertices of the mesh are selected. Then hit P and choose "Selection" then Tab into Object Mode.

Renaming and Clear Parenting

In the next step you want to rename the clothing piece into something appropriate (in this case boot_left), then hit Alt+P and choose "Clear and keep Transformation".

Clearing Vertex Groups

Next, we need to clean out all non-working vertex groups. In the Properties Area, select the Data Panel, go to "Vertex Groups" and hit the Minus Button until everything is gone.

Regenerating Vertex Data

Now we need to regenerate the vertex data in order to get the clothing mesh moving with the armature. Go to Properties Area, select the Modifiers Panel, click "Add Modifier" and select "Data Transfer".

In the modifier's settings, choose your MainBody as "Source Object", select "Vertex Data", "Vertex Groups", then hit "Generate Data Layers" and you also should apply the modifier. Go back to the Data Panel and check if your Vertex Data is now reassigned correctly.

Parenting Clothing Piece to Armature

The last step is a little fiddly, because it has to be taken in Object Mode. Click on your clothing mesh, then Shift-select the armature.

  Sometimes, when you click on the armature, Blender automatically
  switches to Pose Mode for some reason. If this is the case, just
  switch back to Object Mode and Shift-select the armature
  again until Blender stays in Object Mode.

If your clothing piece is selected (orange outline) and your armature is active (yellow outline), press Ctrl+P and select "Armature Deform - With empty groups".

That's it.

Here's the revised blend file:

Enjoy.


Connect Float output to Float input causes an error

As pointed out by Jacques, in the problems panel we can see what has caused this issue. I highlighted this in red.

What I needed to do was to use another socket on the subprogram and loop input nodes, I have also highlighted these in red on the node tree.

Finally here is what the node tree produces, nothing spectacular but at least I'm learning how to use the amazing Animation Nodes addon.


The easiest way would be to add a solidify modifier.  If you don't want to actually go through the mouse clicks the python would be

mod = objectdata.modifiers.new("2d is for weaklings", 'SOLIDIFY')
mod.thickness=0.1


You can try changing the Subdivide UVs setting on the subdivision modifier in blender.

This setting effectively determines whether vertexes are shifted when applying the subdivision to the Uvs or not. In particular, if simple is getting the projection you want, changing this setting will probably help

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/modifiers/generate/subsurf.html


Blender rendering repeating same frame over and over

Most likely this is because you have an image sequence/single image in the video editing tab of Blender. Simply delete this strip, and your animation should render correctly.
This would explain the black frames, repeated frames, instant renders, and cycles-quality renders when set on EEVEE.


knife tool 2.8- used in past with no problems

In blender 2.8, the knife function does not work in view clip start 0.001, try to fix it to 0.01.


Model won't follow its armature in pose mode

try following these steps

after joining all the separate parts and the body mesh together, you should parent the body mesh to the armature by ( in object mode )

selecting the mesh then the armature and pressing Ctrl P
select Armature Deform >> With Automatic Weights
select only the mesh and go to Modifiers
deselect Bone Envelopes in the Armature Modifier

press Tab to enter Edit Mode and navigate to Vertex Groups
ensure only necessary vertices belong to each Vertex Group

press Tab to enter Object Mode
select the armature and press Ctrl Tab to enter Pose Mode
select a bone and move by pressing G or rotate by pressing R

hope this helps!


Why won't the pivot point/3D cursor move to center of object anymore?

You have you piviot point set wrong, try , on your keyboard:

In red is what you have it set to, in green are options that will achieve the result you want


Is it possible to assign a bevel curve to an armature like an object?

If you're gonna export the model, the best way is to select the curve and Alt+C convert it into a mesh.


How do I connect the end of the extrusion back to the surface a second time?

Using Bridge edge loops to make the mug one connected surface.
Use the Bridge operator to connect the open edge to a created hole in the mug
Use bevel operator to control the contour of handle to mug connection.

The bridge operator about to be executed. Note the hole at top is selected. The open circular edge of the handle is selected. Two holes aligned. Image above.  Please click on the image to see it larger in a separate web page.

The bridge operator finished. Surfaces are connected and ready for smoothing.  Image above

Create a second hole in the destination area.  The vertex count of the hole should match the extruded vertex count.
Use Mesh Loop Tools to change the hole into a circle, this is a time saver. Fine points not discussed here.
Use Bridge edge loops to make the connection
This whole operation could take 88 seconds for someone experienced.  If you take 8 minutes that is wonderful.

The Mug with Subdivision Surface Modifier and Smooth Shading.  No artistry intended.  You can do a better job.  Please improve and experiment.
There are often many way to do similar things in Blender.  You can experiment with extruding from two holes on the mug and having them meet in the middle with Bridge Edge Loops. Or something similar.  This technique follows.

Mug with two extrusions that meet in the middle of the handle.  In the top 3D View is the edit mode before bridge edge loops and finished version. In the bottom 3D view is showing the extrusion which uses the [Bevel] operator. This can be controlled by you for particular contours at the extrusion.  Handle formed with the Spin operator with a positive angle of 89 degrees and negative angle of 89 degrees.
Bridge edge loops is a time saver.  The other time wasting method is to connect each face separately by selecting the 4 vertices and creating a face with
F
Merge is also available.
There is also a way to get very convincing placement of vertices and lighting information using  two different meshes.  That can wait for another day.


There are several things unclear in the question, but I'll try to give a general answer:

if your light is just a Light object

you can keyframe its emission strength: 0 on the frame just before the switch goes on, your desired emission value on the frame when it is triggered.

To keyframe almost any value button in the Blender Interface, just hover your mouse over it and press I

if your light is a mesh with a Cycles material *,

whose appearance when "off" is described by a single shader (e.g. a Diffuse) or a more complicated node tree:

open the Node editor, add a Mix Shader in the middle of your rightmost connection (the one that enters into "Material Output").

To the unconnected bottom-left socket of the Mix Shader add an Emission Shader node and give it your desired strength.
you can now keyframe the Fac: value of the Mix Shader: 0 means light off, something around 0.7 and 1 means light on (it depends on whether you want to keep some shading to the light-emitter material).

Alternatively you can use an Add Shader instead of the Mix Shader and keyframe the Emission strength instead of Fac:.

(* depending on how detailed is your light object, this could be the entire lightbulb or just the tungsten wire or whatever the "active" element is.)


Custom hair particle system - wrong directions

There may be a few issues:
1. Make sure the origin is at the bottom of your particle object. LMB on the bottom of the object, then press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C, then press "origin to 3D cursor:

2. The rotation of your objects looks off. In the hair emitter's particle settings under "Render", check "Rotation":

Then, in the settings of the object being duplicated as hair, rotate the object until it looks correct. For me, it was XYZ 45/90/45, but it may be different for you:


Black border around scaled strip with alpha over

The transform strip appears to not handle premultiplication/alpha over correctly with the bilinear.

No borders are visible with the cubic interpolation mode.


Show unselected vertices in UV/Image editor?

Disable Sync Selection in the header toolbar of the UV/Image Editor.

Version 2.79:

Version 2.8+:

This stops the UVs only being visible if their corresponding vertices are selected. Now, even if no vertices are selected in the 3D view the UV image editor will still show them. If you do then select some vertices in the 3D view, the equivalent UVs will be selected in the image editor.
Geometry hidden in the view-port will be hidden in the UV editor too.


This is perfectly normal. It displays the last rendered frame while rendering another one. You can see the name of the currently rendering project - it is not the test project that is rendering.


The Add Mesh: Extra Objects addon has a step pyramid mesh. However, it has a maximum of 20 steps. That can be fixed though, by editing the script file.

The location of the addon's initialisation script is shown in the User Preferences window (see the image below, the part marked in green; this shows the location in my installation, and it may differ depending on what OS you're running). The script for the step pyramid is called add_mesh_pyramid.py, and it should be located in the same directory as the __init__.py file.
Open the file, locate num_steps and simply change the max value to something that works for you. With hundreds of steps, you may also need to change the min value of reduce_by to something lower.

To activate it, CtrlAltU to go to user preferences. Click the Add-ons tab, then Add Mesh, then the little check box to the right at Add Mesh: Extra Object. If you want the addon to remain after you close Blender, also click Save User Settings.

I haven't been able to get screenshots from Blender to capture the menus, so I can't show you, but the step pyramid will be available under Add > Mesh > Misc Objects > Step Pyramid. Here's the available settings to tweak it.


A normal is a vector in 3D-space that is perpendicular to two other vectors (determinded by two edges of a face). It is calculated by the cross prduct.

A basic use of normals is in shaders e.g. to calculate reflections

Imgage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_(physics)

Normals could also be used for backface culling. This is a performance optimization which allows to skip rendering of faces which will not be visible (normals pointing away from to the camera). OpenGl uses a different method for that described here.

Left image includes backfaces, the right one doesn't.


texture is facing the wrong side of the mesh

It seems to me the texture is facing the camera...

One issue I did find is that you are mixing a transparent shader using an alpha channel, but your image has no such thing (jpeg images do not support alpha chanels), so that section of your node setup has no effect.

The backside of the petal is indeed colorless, but that is the effect of the hue saturation node affecting the traslucency (as @gandalf3 pointed out).

If you want to change the texture to the back of the object, add a Geometry node and use the backfacing information to control on which side the texture gets mapped...

EDIT
(given that the question is so vague, the shared file linked to the different images, and the project layout open to so much interpretation...)

Is the error maybe that the UV mapping is upside down?

In the UV/Image_Editor window you can select the UV mapping and rotate it manually using the R key.

To rotate 180 degrees press R180

To flip the UV mapping press S-
1


Offset between rig and some mesh objects

You can simply set the rig in the center, select one by one the objects in the wrong position and Alt P "clear parent". Then, when everything is in place, re parent again with the right bone.


You can install Blender via Steam, which has a built in auto-update feature.

This should keep your Blender installation up to date automatically.


Consistent triangulation when exporting shape keys

You could add a Triangulate Modifier, with either Fixed or Fixed Alternate as the Quad Method. Make sure to Apply modifier in the .obj exporter with:

for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    if not 'Triangulate' in obj.modifiers:
        tri_mod = obj.modifiers.new(name='Triangulate', type = 'TRIANGULATE')
        tri_mod.quad_method = 'FIXED'

bpy.ops.export_scene.obj(
    filepath = temp.name,
    use_selection = True,
    use_edges = False,
    use_normals = True,
    use_uvs = True,
    use_materials = False,
    use_triangles = True,
    keep_vertex_order = True
    use_mesh_modifiers = True)


How to store the selected points of a Mask

So, with @OmarAhmad's help I figured out a way to achieve what I want. Just for the sake of completeness I want to post the entire code here.
On Twitter I got told that storing the points the way I did was dangerous, because if the masks got deleted and I try to access them anyway it would lead to a segfault. So far I did not notice any problems like that. Anyway, here's the script. I think it can make Rotoscoping a bit easier:

import bpy

def store_mask_points(context):
    mask = context.space_data.mask
    layer = mask.layers.active
    pointlist = []
    # if the storage doesnt exist, create it, otherwise, reference it
    try:
        mydict = bpy.mask_storage
    except:
        mydict = {}

    # if there is an active spline, list all selected points
    if layer.splines.active:
        for p in layer.splines.active.points:
            if p.select == True:
                pointlist.append(p)
        # assign the pointlist to the layer
        mydict[layer] = pointlist
        # write the dictionary to the mask_storage
        # (I would rather write this list as an attribute of the masklayer,
        # but appartently I can only do that on bpy)
        setattr(bpy, "mask_storage", mydict)

def recover_mask_points(context):
        layer = context.space_data.mask.layers.active
        # if there is an active layer and
        # if that layer is stored in mask_storage, select the points in it
        try:
            if layer and bpy.mask_storage and bpy.mask_storage.get(layer):
                for p in layer.splines.active.points:
                    p.select = False
                for p in bpy.mask_storage.get(layer):
                    p.select = True
        except:
            print("no mask storage yet")

class CLIP_mask_store_points(bpy.types.Operator):
    ''' Store the points of a the active spline as Selection Set'''
    bl_idname = "clip.mask_store_points"
    bl_label = "Store MaskPoints"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        space = context.space_data
        mask = space.mask
        return (space.type == "CLIP_EDITOR") and space.clip and mask

    def execute(self, context):
        store_mask_points(context)
        return {'FINISHED'}

class CLIP_mask_recover_points(bpy.types.Operator):
    ''' Select the Selection Set of the MaskPoints'''
    bl_idname = "clip.mask_recover_points"
    bl_label = "Recover MaskPoints"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        space = context.space_data
        mask = space.mask
        return (space.type == "CLIP_EDITOR") and space.clip and mask

    def execute(self, context):
        recover_mask_points(context)
        return {'FINISHED'}

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(CLIP_mask_store_points)
    bpy.utils.register_class(CLIP_mask_recover_points)

    wm = bpy.context.window_manager
    km = wm.keyconfigs.addon.keymaps.new(name='Clip Editor', space_type='CLIP_EDITOR')
    kmi = km.keymap_items.new('clip.mask_store_points', 'Y', 'PRESS', shift=True)
    kmi = km.keymap_items.new('clip.mask_recover_points', 'X', 'PRESS', shift=True)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(CLIP_mask_store_points)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(CLIP_mask_recover_points)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


You can use a conditional if statement in the Driver expression which waits for a specific frame number before evaluating as true.

So for example, here a Camera is tracking an object (Sphere-X) based on a Driver but I don't want this to kick in until frame 130 (until then I want the camera to stay at 200 on the x-axis):

Using the expression:

var if frame>130 else 200

Based on a ternary conditional operator:

valueIfTrue if isConditionTrue else valueIfFalse


Pink means the image for the texture is missing. Make sure the image queenBee1.png is where blender thinks it is (which is in a directory called queenbee next to the .blend).
Unfortunately the textures are not included in the .blend by default (you must pack them), so if there are problems beyond this I can't tell what they are.
To pack all external textures, press Pack into .blend in Info > Header > File > External data.
I noticed that you changed the info panel (at the top of the window be default) into an image editor. You can change it back by clicking on the icon on the left and selecting Info:

There is also a operator in the External data submenu called Report missing files which will help you find what files are missing (if any).

If you have the image location right but it's still saying can't load image in Textures > Image and not appearing, some other common issues are:

If the location was set incorrectly but has since been corrected, try reloading it by pressing the arrows icon:

Make sure the texture is enabled:

Make sure the texture is allowed to influence the color of the material in Textures > Influence:

The reason everything looks odd is because the body mesh is duplicated, resulting in overlapping faces and z-fighting. If you select what appears to be the main body and press G to move it you'll see that there are actually two:

To fix it, just delete one of them. Note that one of the duplicates does not have UV selected for the mapping coordinates, so if you delete the other one make sure to set the coordinates to UV in Textures > Mapping:


You can right click on a menu item and select Header -> Flip to Top to restore the menu to the top.  If everything is all messed up, you can just add a new default workspace by hitting the + button at the end of all of the selectable workspaces at the top of the window and choosing the one you want.


Rendering an animation will create a movie file(or a string of .pngs) which is not an interactive format. It sounds like you want to create an interactive application with the Blender Game engine.

To export a Blender Game (as an Windows exe or Mac app):

Create the game using the Blender Game engine(which can be selected in the render engine dropdown). I'm not going to explain how to create the game, but there are tons of resources available.
Enable the "Save Game as Runtime" addon.
Go to File > Export > Save Game as Runtime


Prevent object from casting shadow in Eevee

FOR EEVEE:

make a material for the object and go to material properties > setting > shadow mode > none

Edit: Use contact shadows for small distances. if you want good shadows make the clips start of the light smaller and shadow resolution higher!
contact shadows are only for very small details that resolution of shadow map can't cover.


How to fix Beveled intersections/corners/inner edges?

As Duarte said, the Subsurf is not necessary and you need to clean your topology, the following method gives a good result:


Is there a way to remove an objects reflection in eevee render?

It may not be right for your scene, but you can make a material invisible to reflections in EEVEE, as below. The nodes for the yellow emissive material are shown.

Unhecking 'Show Backface' in the material options prevents the back face from appearing to be overlaid on the object. Not sure why that's necessary, but it seems to be.


How to find python source code for an operator preset

following advice by brockmann, here is the code (from editmesh_tools.c in source/blender/editors/mesh)

const int clamp = em->bm->totvertsel;
int span;
int offset;

if (RNA_property_is_set(op->ptr, prop_span)) {
    span = RNA_property_int_get(op->ptr, prop_span);
    span = min_ii(span, (clamp / 2) - 1);
    calc_span = false;
}
else {
    span = clamp / 4;
    calc_span = true;
}

so it appears span is the number total vertex divided by 4. The value is then modified by another utility which extract two loops from a single one dividing geometry by angle.
Everything is done for you if you call bpy.ops.mesh.fill_grid() from a script.


How to unwrap properly this bevelled mesh (see pic)

Your problem is that the rounded corners of your tiles don't have the same radius as the rounded corners of the texture.  You can work around this by marking the edges of your tiles so you can unwrap each face separately, and then using Unwrap with 'conformal' set.  After you've done that, manually center the top and bottom faces, and shrink them slighly to fit.  You end up with something like this:


If you start with a square plane, you can use a Simple Deform/Bend then a second Simple Deform, for the second one use the Taper mode with an empty as Origin:


Navigate the disk cycle, like you can navigate the loop and radial loop cycles in bmesh?

Something like this?

[edge for edge in vertex.link_edges]

Where vertex is bm.verts[n]. I assume it's in order, otherwise I have to fix my code too if it isn't.

If you want loops, there's also link_loops.

edit: Here's the current way I'm doing it that actually works ok (radially sorted 1-ring of edges for a vert)

def radial_edges(iv):
    loop = iv.link_loops[0]
    eg = []
    while True:
        eg.append(loop.edge)
        loop = loop.link_loop_radial_next.link_loop_next
        if loop.edge == eg[0]:
            break
    return eg


Why am I getting these strange artifacts when importing an MDD file?

The user M.O.Z.G on render.ru has solved this problem for us.


How can I add more god rays coming out of the holes?

Instead of adding mist to the whole scene you can cheat and just put the rays over your text.

I just extruded the text in z space and gave it a volume scatter and absorbtion material. All you need to do is change the density to have it look stronger.

hope this could work for you.

EDIT :

The problem is with your SVG file.

The "&" symbol and the other complicated part to the logo should only have the outline. You don't need all those lines inside the "&" symbol. So I would clean up the SVG file (edit>select all the vertices you dont need> delete). Make it as clean as possible. Also you need the inverse of SVG file. I would bring it back into Illustrator (or whatever you use) and Inverse the colors. You need the lettering to be extruding not the outline.

Here is a pic where you can tell the clean parts from the weird parts.

If possible go back to illustrator clean up the logo so it is more basic (just for the god rays). When you import it into Blender make sure after you scale it up so you can see it, that you go to OBJECT>APPLY>SCALE. And only after that go to the curves tab and go to the extrusion setting and I put in .10, but adjust to your liking.


Clean up mesh generated from overlapping curves

Being in face selection mode select the trunk with L, press Space and type Intersect. Unselect it, then select a branch and hide it (H). Delete all the faces inside the intersection edge, unhide the branch (Alt+H) then join verices to create a clean topology. Then remove the rest of the branch's vertices. Finally remove doubles (W-->Remove Doubles).

Result:


Help: cannot find vertex_normal as attribute in 2.93 beta

An alternative setup is suggested in the first (pinned) comment of the video.
TLDR : You can use normal instead of point_normal although it may be inaccurate. If you want an accurate result you can read through the rest of the answer.
Quotes from user Erindale :

A note on vertex_normal attribute: This has been removed as it as a
bit of a misnomer (although very useful). The method you'll need to
use now is to take normal attribute (this is the face normals) with an
Attribute Convert node (set to point (writes to point domain) and
vector (normal is a vector)) and then use an Attribute Vector Math
node set to Normalise to ensure those vectors all have length 1. I
recommend people make a reusable node group that handles this as it is
a pretty common thing to want. Here is an example of what that could
look like

From the twitter post :
https://twitter.com/erindale_xyz/status/1374764284811612161/

As a follow up, you can just use normal as an attribute instead of
vertex_normal and it will automatically convert to point domain if
it's used with another point domain attribute (eg position). There
will however been some inaccuracies without normalising. For effects
like this you may well get away with it unnoticed but with more uneven
geometry you may find that normalising is required. I just have a
group so that's what I recommend


Showing Hierarchy / Project view during UV editing

Blender's UI allows us to split the window into multiple sections, each using a different editor. These window layouts are saved as a list of Screens which we can switch between and add to. The default UV editing screen does not provide an outliner, or a graph editor or a properties editor or dopesheet...

There are three places that screens can be defined, the default screens programmed into blender, the startup blend that has your settings or each blend file that you use. When you open a blend file there is a Load UI option which decides if you want to use the screens in the file you are opening or keep the screens you are currently using. You can set the default for this option in the preferences.

Every time you adjust the window layout you are altering the current screen and that adjustment is kept in the current screen and saved with the blend file. If you don't like the default screens that blender provides you can define your own screen layouts.

You define custom layouts by starting blender, create and adjust as many screens as you want and then save your startup blend. This makes them available every time you start blender, if you also disable the Load UI option in preferences and save that you will use your layouts unless you choose to use the layouts in the file as you open it.


My 3D Cursor follows my selection cursor everywhere I click. How do I stop this?

You discovered the Pivot Point

This is a very useful feature in blender

Your pivot point is for example the rotation axis.

Maybe you want to rotate something around a Point then select a Vertice/Edge/Face/Object  press  Shift s to position the 3D Cursor.

Now press r and you will rotate aroud the 3D Cursor


How to turn off image tiling in the game engine?

In the UV Image Editor, bring up the properties toolshelf with N and under Game Properties, under the Clamp group, tick X and Y, you can now scale your map larger than your image without tiling your texture..


I ended up updating Blender to 2.81A - Importing the .stl now without any issues!

--Solved


Eevee rendering images in a higher resolution than 1980 x 1080

Computing power is limited, most computers cannot deal with that size images.
You can try adding a lot more RAM or getting a more powerful GPU (again, wtih more vRAM).
5400x3600 pixels is over 9 times larger than 1980x1080, so that will need at least 9 times more resources. Remember that increasing size means exponential increase.
If your computer cannot handle that then you have to come up with different strategies, like rendering in sections and stitch the tiles together later.
Or you can try using cloud computing or a render farm.


In Blender 2.8, to see the hair in Particle Edit mode you need to have overlays switched on.

To see the children in Particle Edit mode, open the tool bar (press N) and in the Tool tab there is Options. In that tab is Viewport Display where Children needs to be switched on.

The Path Steps will display less/more of the children hair length.


If you don't need your objects to appear gradually:

Select your object, go into the Outliner, deactivate the Show In Renders option (camera icon) and create a keyframe (i).
Now in the Timeline move to the frame where you want your object to appear, go into the Outliner, reactivate the camera icon and create a new keyframe.
If you duplicate your object, you just have to move the 2nd keyframe in the Dopesheet to change the time of its appearance.

You can also keyframe the Show In Viewports option (monitor icon) so that you can see in the viewport what will happen in your render.

These 2 options, Show In Renders and Show In Viewports are also available and keyframable in the Properties panel > Object > Visibility.


Is it possible to use compositing to remove patterns in rendered images?

You could use the Mist pass with a color ramp and color invert to strengthen it, or you could do like the included image, enable an Object Index pass so you could then get a strong mask and invert it to affect the areas outside of the object. In this way, even if you need to render frames again, you can lower your settings all the way so that the result is as small as possible and just use the pass to affect the frames you already have.


2.79: Only some grass(Hair) particles showing up in render?

You have child simplification, turn it off.


Move randomly a plane with cut parts| Paper Furr

SOLVED:
I watched some tutorials about flags, flying plastic bags and posters from IanHubert YouTube channel and I found the solution.
I made a plane as a piece of fabric, cut some faces and pinned all the vertex. Then I created the small faces with the same dimension of holes and let free to move with a wind force. Then playing with subdivision surfaces, boolean division and simply deform I get the right surface and shape of this "sail".


Rotating a 2d drawing so I can animate it the other way

In the Outliner select your grease pencil object. Item>Transform>Y scale = -1 will flip the object holding the drawing.


How to convert a text object directly to an ngon?

No. But there is another way to achieve it.

Select the mesh and hit Spacebar to invoke the function search menu.
Search for limited dissolve and initiate it. You can change the parameters by hitting F6.

Also note:

After you do a limited dissolve there may still be some manual cleaning up to do.
Limited dissolve is also in the Delete menu accessible with X and Delete
Limited dissolve is the same as the Planar setting in the Decimate modifier, so this can be done non-destructively
Blender does not support N-gons with holes in them. you will have to have a split along it somewhere.
If the n-gon is not co-planar you may see artifacts.


Is it possible to slice a 3d object into many 2d images?

It is absolutely possible to do this and I just covered the method in my upcoming book on OSL, in order to address volumetrics (given the pending support of OpenVDB or Field3D for them). It isn't exactly a menu option so much as a technique, but I suppose it could be worked into a plugin at some point.
What you'll want to do is set your scanning camera to face straight down (0, 0, 0 rotation) and put it at location (0, 0, 1). Scale your scanned model down to fit within the (-1, -1, 0)-(1, 1, 1) range. (Basically you'll want your setup to map every single slice of your mesh, and this is the active area for it.) You will want to set that camera to orthographic mode (not perspective) and set its orthographic scale to around 3.0; you may need to tweak this for the sake of your geometry.
Next, you'll want to add a cube to your scene matching that (2.0, 2.0, 1.0) scale, and make the following modifications to it. Set it to bright white, and go into edit mode. Add two slices to the cube with Ctrl+R and then rolling the mouse wheel up, left-click once, and then right-click to use the default adjustment. You'll want to scale them down along z to match your slice width. We're going to call this middle-of-sandwich space the "aperture". Then, select all four internal faces, and delete them; then (F)ill the space left between the edges of your two remaining capping shapes. The gap should typically be very narrow, you'll want it to be roughly 1.0/(number of slices) in height.
I've enclosed a picture of my general setup here.

The total number of frames rendered should be the number of image slices you want to get.
Now, you'll want to animate the aperture box to go from a starting position at (0.0, 0.0, 1.0) to (0.0, 0.0, 0.0). It should start moving at the beginning of your animation, and stop at the end, on a linear interpolation. Note that your aperture itself should be right on the shape's origin, and directly over the (0.0, 0.0, 1.0) coordinate; otherwise you'll have a skewed scan.
Lastly, you will want to add a Boolean modifier to your mesh, set to Difference mode, with your new clipping cube selected as its object. Here, I've called my modified cube "Clipping". That's effectively what it's doing—the only part of your mesh which will show in the render is the part that's between the two sandwich-slices of the cube, right on the aperture. Everything else is ignored because of this specific modifier.

Now, all you need to do is go to Output Properties and under the Output tab, give it a proper directory (since this is a whole array of images, I suggest a specific single-purpose directory per render). Choose your favorite image file format, and render. You will get an even-stepped set of images, of effective voxel size (2.0/[image width] x 2.0/[image height] x [aperture height]).
Obviously this method is extremely adjustable and tweakable, but this has worked for everything for me so far. The only modification you might need to make is the color of the background, and if you want specific diffuse colors you'll need to map them directly to the surface output in a shader. (Don't bother with emissive or diffuse shaders, just plug the color in directly—unless you want bloom screwing your image up.) By default, this is black on white. And—admitted shameless self promotion here—if you're interested in the full run-down and are interested in learning OSL, the book is "The Warrior Poet's Guide to Open Shading Language", completion and publication pending on Amazon. I'll have my actual Blend file on a public git repo eventually.
My general usage is to create a 3D coordinate space for volumetrics, where S and T map to image coordinate and P to image name. (STPQ is UV, when you need more than two dimensions, so it doesn't bump into W, which would be confusing and annoying.) Handy when you want to, say, map a shape onto a rendering of a cloud, or a liquid volume.
The thing to remember about Blender is that it's effectively a full-featured Python IDE at this point. There isn't a heck of a lot that can't be done with it anymore, if you've got the time and motivation to dig.


I have the same GPU, and older versions of Blender support it. I think 2.78 was the last version to support this GPU generation. I don't know if there is some way to make new versions work with it.
Edit: Yes, 2.78 is the last version to support GCN 1.0 GPUs for Cycles rendering. From the 2.79 release notes:

Due to various issues with drivers for AMD GCN 1.0 architecture, those cards are no longer supported for Cycles rendering

You might not see a big improvement over rendering with your CPU though; this GPU isn't that powerful after all. I made a quick comparison between my CPU and GPU:

CPU (i5-6200U) took 8:13.03 with 4 threads rendering 48x48 blocks
each
GPU took 9:53.98 with 512x512 blocks, which actually got split
up into two 256x512 blocks by Blender because of some GPU memory limitation

You might get better results compared to your CPU, but just don't expect a lot from it.


Need detailed instructions on how to make a football image rotate using Blender 2.83

Assuming you want to rotate the ball as an object (the question is a little hard to understand, sorry), the best way would be to keyframe animate it.
At the bottom of the layout there is a timeline, pull that up so you can see it a bit better.
Keyframe animation works this way: you define a bunch of key poses that will occur at given times. The computer then will fill in the transitions making a smooth animation without much effort.
So to spin the ball:

Select the ball, make sure you are on frame 0.
Press I and select "rotation".
Move the bar a few frames forwards, for example 20.
Rotate the ball 90 degrees (any direction)
Press I again and select "rotation".

If you stopped now and pressed the play button and started from the beginning, you will see the ball spin... a quarter of a rotation. So repeat this process to have the ball make an entire 360-degree spin.
Now open a graph editor window with the ball selected and you will see a bunch of points. Each point represents the value inside a certain attribute of the object (e.g. rotation x) at the given time.
Press A to select all and V. Choose "Vector". This will make the ball's rotation smoother. Then press N to open up the side panel. Go to properties and add a "Cycles" modifier to every attribute that was animated. This will make the ball spin infinitely.
That's it! Keyframe animation is a very useful animation method because the user only needs to specify a few poses and the computer will fill the rest.


You have two options:

Manually place a marker.
Use (the default) Stretch to input strip length with Multiply Speed to 1 and set the Trim Duration (soft) end point of your footage to length / 3 (for 1.5 speed).


How to keep clean geometry, when beveling boolean cutouts

The artifacts are caused by beveling too tight geometry.
It good to keep some space near edges specifically for beveling.


How can I add UV Sphere to Stickman to later add Armature?

The easiest solution will be to keep the head separate of the body, place the "ball" in place. Change armature mode to Pose, select the ball, Shift select the armature. It'll be in pose mode, so you will be able to select single bone. Select "head" bone and press CTRL+P - Set Parent to - Bone.


Update your graphics card drivers, if Blender works, your graphics card supports required OpenGL version if not, it doesn't.

In this particular case a quick Google search reveals that Intel HD Graphics 2000 Adapter supports only OpenGL 3.1. This means the graphics card will not be suitable for running Blender 2.80.

The good news is that pretty much any new graphics card will most likely support required OpenGL version and you will not struggle finding a wide choice of suitable graphics cards in a very wide variety of prices. Even cheap graphics cards are capable of running Blender 2.80. However, if you are planing to use EEVEE, you will probably want a more expensive one.


How to switch texts in Text Editor by script

You can change it via bpy.types.SpaceTextEditor.text

So if you run an operator from the text editor you can change it in the execute method like this:

def execute(self, context):
    context.space_data.text = bpy.data.texts['your_text']

Otherwise you have to find the text area in screen.areas (given there is a text editor in the screen):

for area in context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == "TEXT_EDITOR":
        break
    else:
        raise RuntimeError("Nothing found")

area.spaces[0].text = bpy.data.texts['your_text']


I am a beginner so I don't know perfectly but you can use ⎈ Ctrl+⎇ Alt+0 then use ⇧ Shift+f then use the mouse and w a s d in keyboard to change the position. It's very useful


After beveling (Ctrl+B) select the top vertex of the n-gon, enable the snapping tool (Vertex) and snap it verticaly to create a straight line.

Clean up the mesh a bit using dissolve option and remesh it. Note, that the topology pictured below is just an example. You have to think how to arrange it to make the subsurf modifier work properly.


What is the simplest way to generate a dodecahedron?

Go to User Preferences and Navigate to Add Mesh, install the Regular Solids addon and close the preferences window. Now if you hit Shift + A you should see a new menu.

UPDATE

In newer versions of blender (2.75 and up) the Regular Solids addon has been merged with the Extra Objects addon.

To create a dodecahedron go use Shift + A to Add Mesh > Math Function > Regular Solid.

Then on the toolshelf you can select Dodecahedron.


OK, for anybody interested, I figured out what I was doing wrong.  Clearly a newbie mistake.
My mistake was to try to make the arrow mesh the child of the body mesh.  Instead, I needed to make the arrow mesh the child of an individual bone in the armature. The trick was to choose the right bone, since in my case the spine had a few of them. Nonetheless, once I chose the right bone, it worked great.
The other thing that misled me a little was that my human is an export from Makehuman, and the naming of the parts was a little confusing.  When I first tried to add constraints I couldn't find the armature to try it, but on review, it was there.  In my case Export: was the mesh, and "Export" itself was the armatureds and the human in general.
So, here you see me making the arrow a child of the left clavicle of the "Exports" armature (and also note that everything seems to be labeled "Exports").  Also note that I did not include Scale in the parenting.

Now I go into pose mode with the human, and move any of the bones, and the arrow follows the clavicle like it should:

So, it turns out that it was easy (once I spent a few hours working on it...)


Greeble Cube Microdisplacement - how to prevent edges from opening up and becoming black

I can't replicate your problem with Blender 2.79.6 as I don't have access to 2.79.6 and I can't load your file into 2.79.5 since I don't have a 'safe' environment that I can risk loading "foreign" blend files). I did try loading into 2.79b but without success (from your file I couldn’t get any displacement working - even after tweaking the material to remove the unsupported nodes).

I tried replicating your situation afresh in 2.79.5 using the default cube, adding Subsurface modifiers (one set to '6' and the other set to '3' - so 9 subdivisions) and with the following material :

This produced the following result :

I don't see any dark gaps and the edges all seem to displace correctly without splitting.

Can you try following these steps in a fresh file to see if you get the same results? - or identify anything that you have done different that may have resulted in the issue.


How to convert a single vertex into a plane within a mesh?

Select the vertex and press CtrlShiftB that will bevel the vertex, creating a new face.
Do note that doing so will create Ngons in the surrounding faces.


How to align pivot to the center of a hole

In Edit mode, '2' for edge select then ALT-click on the top edge round the inside of the hole and SHIFT-S > Cursor to Selected.
If you want it half way down the hole, go to Face mode, ALT-Click one of the edges inside the hole to select the ring of inner faces then SHIFT-S > Cursor to Selected again.


Blender error - Incorrect armature for type 'base_generate'

I think I have the solution, although I'm fairly new to this. If you find the bone referenced in the error message, in your case cheek.T.L, and then click on the bone up from that in the chain (so travel towards the head of cheek.T.L and click on the next bone) to check its parent. When I got this message I noticed that the parent attribute for this next bone was blank. I changed it to "face" and that error disappeared. Keep on attempting to generate your rig and every bone in the face that has this problem will be highlighted one after another.


Thanks again batFINGER

The following works great:

import bpy

class ModalOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "object.modal_operator"
    bl_label = "Simple Modal Operator"

    def execute(self, context):
        print("This is the modal operator")
        return {'FINISHED'}

    def modal(self, context, event):
        if event.type == 'ESC':  # Confirm
            print("This is finished")
            return {'FINISHED'}
 # .value == 'PRESS' will trigger the event once.
 # or do: if event.type == 'P' and if.event.value == 'PRESS':
        elif event.alt:
            if event.type == 'P':
                if.event.value == 'PRESS': # Confirm
                    print("This is a continuous pass through")
            return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

        return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        print("This is the invoker")

        context.window_manager.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

bpy.utils.register_class(ModalOperator)

bpy.ops.object.modal_operator('INVOKE_DEFAULT')


Getting vertex weights with the vertex proximity modifier

Use bpy.types.Object.to_mesh:

to_mesh(scene, apply_modifiers, settings, calc_tessface=True, calc_undeformed=False)

  Create a Mesh datablock with modifiers applied

This leaves your object unchanged and gives access to the modified vertex groups, e.g.

import bpy

mesh = bpy.context.object.to_mesh(bpy.context.scene, True, "PREVIEW")
for vertex in mesh.vertices:
    for group in vertex.groups:
        print(vertex, group, group.weight)


Where is User Preferences now in Blender 2.8?


How to make god rays with png transparent image

Decrease the Density of your Volume Scatter down to 0.007, switch from Sun to Spot, increase its Power up to  20,000, and Alleluia!!


Unable to select only mesh on Rigged Object

There are couple of scenarios that this may happen:

Make sure the mesh and armature are parented, to do this, select the mesh first then shift and select the armature then hitctrl+P then Automatic weighting
The object you are trying to select is not selectable, do fix this you need to check the selectable mouse pointer icon beside the object in the object outliner view as shown:


Blender 2.8 - Get Environment Texture Path from UI to python script

Finding things with the python console.

The scene has a world.  context.scene.world. When nodes are being used the object will have a node tree. world.node_tree The tree has nodes. Consult the manual or the many questions / answers re nodes for more info.

Note: The properties space has a world member of context context.world other spaces may not

Here is a simple example using the python console.  C is a convenience variable C = bpy.context

>>> C.scene.world
bpy.data.worlds['World']

>>> C.scene.world.node_tree
bpy.data.node_groups['Shader Nodetree']

Here I've used autocomplete CtrlSpace to expand available options

>>> C.scene.world.node_tree.nodes['
                                   Background']
                                   Environment Texture']
                                   World Output']
>>> C.scene.world.node_tree.nodes['Environment Texture'].image
bpy.data.images['Untitled']

See that the environment node has an associated image.  Since I've simply added a blank untitled image it has no filepath.  A loaded image will.

>>> env_img = C.scene.world.node_tree.nodes['Environment Texture'].image
>>> env_img.file
                _format
                path
                path_from_user(
                path_raw
>>> env_img.filepath
''

Adding an environment node, given you have a path to the image path

>>> world = C.scene.world
>>> world.use_nodes = True
>>> enode = C.scene.world.node_tree.nodes.new("ShaderNodeTexEnvironment")
>>> enode.image = bpy.data.images.load(path)

Related:

How to set a background using the cycles render engine with the API


Can you render a PNG animation with smoke and a transparent background?

Yes, you can render to .png as an image sequence - the first part is already set as default for you in the output panel. The next step is to change form 'sky' to 'transparent' if you are in blender render, and if in Cycles you need to set 'transparent' under the Film tab.


Pixels artifacts when rendering glass BSDF with Cycles

Those bright pixels you are seeing are Caustics - the stray rays of light that pass through or reflect from a refractive or reflective surface. Given enough samples they will form a meaningful image of the light that passes through your mesh - but they typically require a lot of samples for this - see @bertmoog's answer to Will increasing samples reduce fireflies? for a really good example of different numbers of samples and the effect on the quality of caustics.

An easy way to avoid them is to disable caustics in the Render Light Path settings :

Another option is to increase the Filter Glossy value on the same panel. This will effectively 'smear out' the single bright dots of caustic to produce more pleasing results with considerably fewer samples - at the expense of the accuracy of the caustics. Interestingly, at Blender version 2.79 this value defaulted to 0.0 (pinpoint caustics) whereas at 2.79.5+ (and 2.8) it defaults to 1.0 which produces a more generally acceptable rendering of caustics 'out of the box'. Adjust the value lower for sharper caustics and higher for rendering with fewer samples.


Scaling objects without scaling children

There are many ways to do what you've described. It's kind of difficult to know which method will suit your particular project. But I will offer some ideas.
Method 1.
Parent each object to the bones of a two-bone Armature. Then set the child bone to not inherit scale.
Method 2.
Use Vertex Parenting to parent the upper object to the vertices of the top part of the lower object.
Method 3.
Join them as a single object, then create a Shape Key wherein the bottom part is taller but the top part is simply raised (not scaled).
Method 4.
Just move them (super-basic).
If this doesn't need to animate, then it's as simple as grabbing the upper object, translating it up on the Z axis by some value (you can type it in), and then going into Edit Mode and doing the same for just the vertices on the upper part of the lower object.
Vertex Snapping is also a handy tool for this kind of situation, because you can snap the lower object's vertices to the bottom of the upper object.
As I stated in the beginning, there are so many ways to do this, plus I don't know your skill level or the details of what you are aiming to do, so it's hard to know how to answer. But I hope this helps. Feel free to ask questions.


How can I queue different blender actions to be rendered?

There is nothing built into Blender that will batch or queue renders, at the moment.

The simplest, most portable way is to make an animation that consists of those actions one after the other. Render the whole thing to frames, then take the first set of frames for one sequence and render it into a video. Then the next sequence, and so on. Depending on how sophisticated you want to be, you could even make a new Blender file, link (or append, but link would be better) the actions into a new file, and set them up to play one after the other. Then render that one, instead of modifying your original file.

Another way, for things that aren't or can't be in the same .blend file, is to launch Blender from the command line using some kind of command-line script like a batch file on Windows, or a bash script on Nix or Mac. E.g.

cd c:/<blender folder>
echo Rendering the first one...
blender -b filename_one.blend -a
echo Rendering the second one...
blender -b filename_two.blend -a
echo Rendering the third one...
blender -b filename_thr.blend -a
echo Done rendering.

The most robust, but most complicated, way would be to write a Python script that launches Blender with certain command-line arguments. A Python script could be programmed to choose certain arguments based on certain criteria. It could check to see if there are as many frames as there should be in the results, and if there aren't maybe run the render again with overwrite turned off. Interesting things like that.

I hope that helps!


Alrighty, then this script creates a text file with the transform matrix [see answer here to understand blender's transform matrix format] of the active object as it is represented in blender. Just copy and paste it into a text editor window in Blender, save your blendfile where you want your text file to be created, and run the script:

import bpy
from os.path import dirname, join

if bpy.context.object and bpy.data.filepath:
    fname = bpy.context.object.name + ".matrix"
    fpath = join( dirname( bpy.data.filepath ),  fname )

    f = open( fpath, "w" )
    f.write( str( bpy.context.object.matrix_world ) )
    f.close()

Example:

For this transformed cube with the following transform values:

You get this result in the generated textfile:

<Matrix 4x4 ( 0.6416, 0.2411,  0.7263, -0.8912)
            (-0.8174, 0.1801, -1.0416, -2.1409)
            (-0.8864, 0.0084,  1.4863,  3.1665)
            ( 0.0000, 0.0000,  0.0000,  1.0000)>


Filling box-like object with random objects

You can use a particle system.

Create a new particle system on the cube, and tweak it's settings so the particles fill the cube (something like : "Emit From : Volume", "Physics : No", "Render/Unborn : checked", "Render/Emitter : unchecked".

Select all your random objects and add them to a group (Ctrl+G). Place them on an hidden layer.

In the particle system settings, in Render, select Group, then in Dupli Group select your group.


How can i copy the object position to the edit position to meet the rest position?

Any movement done in pose mode will also be shown in object mode, any keyframed movement will change this position as you change the current frame.

One option you have is to clear any pose mode changes made. While in pose mode press ⎇ AltG, ⎇ AltR and ⎇ AltS to clear the location, rotation and scale of the selected bones, putting the armature back into the rest position.

Another option is to set the current position as the rest position by pressing ⎈ CtrlA and choosing "Apply pose as Rest Pose"


Extract the rotation (or heading) from local matrix (Blender Python)

Quaternion.rotation_difference(...)

Can represent the matrix world of both your objects as a quaternion. Its rotation_difference(...) method returns a quaternion describing the rotation required to go from one alignment to the other.

Test script, select objects, then axis last so it will be active object. Script below prints the XYZ Euler rotation required by axis  to match object.

import bpy
from math import degrees

context = bpy.context
ob = context.object
others = context.selected_objects
others.remove(ob)
axis = ob.matrix_world.to_quaternion()
for o in others:
    q = o.matrix_world.to_quaternion()
    rotdif = axis.rotation_difference(q)
    print(o.name, tuple(degrees(a) for a in rotdif.to_euler()))

Result of running on default file with "Camera" as axis object.

Cube (-54.05801712949699, -40.65919063845337, -25.28499489226661)
Lamp (-10.627706900421787, 53.1995955395152, 34.18299651274404)


Facial movements distort the face of the character when auto-rigged in mixamo

Im not sure about the distortion, but if you want your materials to show up in Mixamo just take the .obj and the .mtl of the model and zip them. (select both files, right click, --> send to ---> Compressed Zip) Then upload the entire zipped folder in Mixamo


What does it mean that part of my mesh is darker grey in edit mode? Boolean Problems

@Dimali was correct, there appears to be two faces on top of each other that share MOST of the same edges, but not these two.

I discovered this after trying to select the edge loop and those two would not be included.

Deleting those two turns the mesh a uniform grey.

Now, the edgeloops go all the way around and I can start making quads by grabbing two vertices and using J

there is probably a simpler way to "quadify" this but I haven't figured it out yet.


Damped track : is this behavior expected?

The erratic motion appears to actually be due to the Path Animation 'Follow' setting - it seems to be interfering with the constraint. When the Follow setting is disabled the erratic motion no longer occurs and it snaps back to the rotation based only on the constraint.

The Damped Track constraint isn't really ideal for camera tracking - best to use the Track To since that is capable of maintaining the expected orientation of the camera (ie, so 'up' points towards the global 'up'). I believe Damped Track is better suited to bone or object rotations where it perhaps makes more sense (but only if the 'initial' rotation is not being modified before the constraint is evaluated).


Rig a strand with multiple control points?

You should take a look at DanPro's Advanced Tentacle Rigging Series.

It not only has what you want, he builds it up in real time, moreover while explaining what he does.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLizSCQYO0I6OtQ479WlMGZE1ssFk2CIUP

Fair word of warning, the videos run 2h all together and building the actual rig took me another 2.


How to have multiple same editor panels (eg. two user preference window) with different states?

keyword : active_section

Steps:
Replicate the following sRNA fragment from makesrna/rna_userdef.c to rna_space.c :

    prop = RNA_def_property(srna, "active_section", PROP_ENUM, PROP_NONE);
    RNA_def_property_enum_sdna(prop, NULL, "userpref");
    RNA_def_property_enum_items(prop, user_pref_sections);
    RNA_def_property_ui_text(prop, "Active Section",
                             "Active section of the user preferences shown in the user interface");
    //RNA_def_property_update(prop, 0, "rna_userdef_update");

Then reverse transcript it into makesdna/DNA_Space_types.h:

/* User Preferences View */
typedef struct SpaceUserPref {
    short userpref; //new field
    short padpad;
    ……
} SpaceUserPref;

as field short userpref. Refer to the original UserDef structure.

By above two steps, we have replicated active_section property for the python type SpaceUserPreferences.

On the python side, by using this property instead of UserPreferences.active_section, the beheaviour of tab selection is now independent for each instances :

space_userpref.py

class USERPREF_PT_tabs(Panel):
    ……
    def draw(self, context):
        st = context.space_data
        if not hasattr(st, 'active_section'):
            st = context.user_preferences

        self.layout.row().prop(st, "active_section", expand=True)

def getContextualSection(context):
    st = context.space_data
    if not hasattr(st, 'active_section'):
        st = context.user_preferences
    return st.active_section

# edit poll method for every tab:
    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        userpref = context.user_preferences
        return (getContextualSection(context) == 'INTERFACE')

docs:
bpy.types.SpaceUserPreferences
bpy.types.UserPreferences


Mesh is not smooth, How should I fix this mesh?

The subdivision surface modifier will smooth out the entire mesh by default, which will lose hard edges. You can prevent this by going to Edit mode, Edge selection mode, selecting the "hard" edges (edges that should remain sharp) and choosing Edge -> Edge Crease. When you do this, it will look like nothing is happening, but your mouse is controlling a sliding scale parameter. Click anywhere in the viewport ONCE to complete the operation. You will see a small panel appear in the lower left corner. Open it if it collapsed. Manually set the edge crease in that panel to 1.00. This overrides the value set by your mouse.

Now if you append a subdivision surface modifier to the object, the hard edges will be respected.

If your car's body, tires and rims are all one object, it is likely that not every part requires a subdivision operation. You can separate part of a mesh into its own mesh in Edit mode by selecting the faces you want to detach and typing CTRL + P in the viewport. Choose to detach the selected faces. Even though you are in Edit mode, both meshes will now be selected. You must get out of Edit mode now to limit your selection to one object again.

Tip: if faces on a mesh are difficult to select but no faces on that region are connected to the rest of the mesh, you can type CTRL + + (specifically the "+" symbol on your numpad, not the secondary key) to grow your selection outward from a current selection. If you do not have a numpad on your keyboard (ouch!), you can choose to simulate one in the preferences.


First of all you need to change Pivot Center to Median Point from 3D cursor, and secondly you still have some parts that needs Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C > Origin to Center of Mass. Mostly on handle.


Can I snap an objects so their edges line up?

I not sure what problems you have had in the past with blenders snapping in the past but I'd personal use the snapping options here as I believe it'd be the fastest and most simple way to get it done. I apologize in advance if you were tying to avoid the snap tool completely for some reason.

My solution:

Set the snap element to vertex, by using the button next to the snap button on the 3D views header bar OR press ctrl+shift+tab to bring the snapping options menu up by it's shortcut.

Select the cube. Press G to enter grab/move mode. Hold ctrl down and point the plains lower right vertex and click to confirm the move.

If it all went right the cube should be perfectly aligned to the corner. If you duplicate it then hold ctrl and point to another corner it should make a new copy and snap it to whatever corner you point to.

Note on How snapping works in blender:

When snapping two elements together blender will try and snap the closets points together, from where The moved object starts.

So if your cube is above and to the left of the vertex you are trying to snap to, The cubes bottom right vertex will be the closest point and that will be the part that snaps into position.

I hope I've explained this all clearly and that it helps you out! good luck!


Try replacing the circle with a full 3d object. mantaFlow can only use 3d objects in the full release. If this still doesn't work, try an ico-sphere as a last resort method.


How to display render stamp outside the frame?

Custom Render Stamp

(Click the image for larger version)
Based on this answer by Campbell Barton, I made a small very crappy script to put the render stamp outside the rendered frame by using the render border.
It sure could be improved by a million percent, but for my petty purposes it's good enough.
(Although, all improvement suggestions are of course full-heartedly welcomed!)

Installation

Download the Script and open it in the text editor
Adjust the settings to your liking
Press Run Script
Enable the Register option in the text editor (so it runs automatically)

Usage

Define the Monitor Aspect ratio in the script's settings. The script expands the frame vertically until the defined aspect ratio is met.

For example, if the Monitor Aspect setting in the script is set to 16:9, a 2048x858 (2.39:1) sized camera frame gets expanded (not stretched) vertically to 2048x1152 (16:9).
In other words, stuff gets added to the top and the bottom of the frame.

Define the Frame Resolution in the script's settings. The script resizes the render border accordingly.

For example, if the Frame Resolution is set to 2048x858, only that sized border render will be rendered out of the full 2048x1152 frame. The rest will be seen as black (or transparent) along with the stamp information.
In other words, the same amount of stuff gets removed from the top and the bottom of the frame and the stamp gets added.

If you change the percent value of the render resolution, run the script again in order to make the stamp's font size to adjust nicely to the correct size.

Download: custom_render_stamp.py

##############################################################
#                                                            #
#                   CUSTOM RENDER STAMP                      #
#                                                            #
##############################################################
#                                                            #
#                        Settings                            #
#                        --------                            #

# Define names to the render stamp:
Animator = 'Pedro'
Compositor = 'Fabio'

# Define the name of the scene:
Scene_Name = 'Scene'

# Define render frame resolution (without the stamp sections):
Frame_Resolution_X = 2048
Frame_Resolution_Y = 858

# Define desired full frame aspect ratio (stamp section size):
Monitor_Aspect_X = 16
Monitor_Aspect_Y = 9

##############################################################
#                                                            #
#                         Script                             #
#                         ------                             #

resx = Frame_Resolution_X
resy = Frame_Resolution_Y
aspx = Monitor_Aspect_X
aspy = Monitor_Aspect_Y

# For example 2048x858's height inside 1920x1080 (= 804)
#~ aspx / resx * resy

# For example 1920x1080's upper stamp section height (= 138)
#~ (aspy - aspx / resx * resy) / 2

# For example 2048x1152's upper stamp section height (= 147)
Stamp_Height = resx / aspx * (aspy - aspx / resx * resy) / 2

# Full frame height (= 1152)
Full_Frame_Height = resy + 2 * Stamp_Height

# Render Stamp:
import bpy
import socket

# Uncomment to automatically use the name of the current scene:
# Scene_Name = bpy.context.scene.name

def stamp_set(scene):

    render = scene.render
    Render_Percent = render.resolution_percentage
    is_cycles = (render.engine == 'CYCLES')

    render.use_stamp_note = True
    render.stamp_note_text = (
        "Samples: {samples}  |  "
        "Aperture Radius: {aperture:.4f}  |  "
        "Blender {ver} {branch} {hash}  |  "
        "Resolution: {res_x} x {res_y}  |  "
        "Animator: {anim}  |  "
        "Compositor: {comp}  |  "
        "Rendernode: {hostname}"
    ).format(
        samples=scene.cycles.samples if is_cycles else render.antialiasing_samples,
        aperture=scene.camera.data.cycles.aperture_size if is_cycles else "NONE",
        ver=bpy.app.version_string,
        branch=bpy.app.build_branch,
        hash=bpy.app.build_hash,
        res_x=int(render.resolution_x * Render_Percent / 100),
        res_y=int(render.resolution_y * (1 - Stamp_Height * 2 / Full_Frame_Height) * Render_Percent / 100),
        hostname=socket.gethostname(),
        anim=Animator,
        comp=Compositor,
        )

bpy.app.handlers.render_pre.append(stamp_set)

# Set Render Resolution Width:
bpy.data.scenes[Scene_Name].render.resolution_x = Frame_Resolution_X

# Use Render Border:
bpy.data.scenes[Scene_Name].render.use_border = True

# Render Stamp font size:
bpy.data.scenes[Scene_Name].render.stamp_font_size = 18 * bpy.data.scenes[Scene_Name].render.resolution_percentage / 100

# Set Render Borders:
bpy.data.scenes[Scene_Name].render.resolution_y = Full_Frame_Height
bpy.data.scenes[Scene_Name].render.border_min_y = Stamp_Height / Full_Frame_Height
bpy.data.scenes[Scene_Name].render.border_max_y = 1 - Stamp_Height / Full_Frame_Height


Set your main layer(s) as a mask layer.

This makes it so that when something covers up the layer in space, it becomes transparent in the renderlayer.


Importing SVG sequence, joining all separate curves

A quick hack script (not elegant at all) is something like below.

I manage to do these steps:
1) import svg
2) select and join them as one
3) rename it somewhat (not perfect)
4) turn each one into mesh (for remove doubles?)

############# IMPORTING ALL SVG WITH SEGMENTED
import bpy
import glob
import os

# path to your folder

importDir = "C:/tmp/silhouette_svg"
print("Importing all SVG from this directory", importDir)

os.chdir(importDir)

for files in glob.glob("*.svg"):
  print( files, "... imported!" )
  bpy.ops.import_curve.svg(filepath=files)

  # deselect nothing, select all curves, join
  bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
  bpy.ops.object.select_by_type(type='CURVE')
  bpy.context.scene.objects.active = bpy.data.objects["Curve"]
  for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    if obj.select:obj.name = "snail.000"
  bpy.ops.object.join()
  bpy.ops.object.convert(target='MESH')
  bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

Any suggestions to make the code more elegant?


How do I copy/paste pose in blender 2.83

Select Bone-6-8 (upper arm) of Armature.001, go in the Dope Sheet, select all the keyframes, copy, then select Armature.003, and paste in the Dope Sheet, the animation is copied. You could also simply switch the Dope Sheet to Action Editor mode and select the animation if you want to use the exact same animation.


How to make a "reflective tape" material in cycles?

Such a material works by reflecting the incoming light back towards the direction it originated - since your car headlights are very close to your own line of sight, you see a strong reflection of your own lights. You can replicate this behaviour in a material by simply manipulating the surface Normal in a Glossy shader that can then be mixed into any other shaders on the material - as shown :

The key here is to connect the Geometry Incoming socket to the Normal of the Glossy shader so that any reflections occur back towards the source. You can manipulate the Roughness to control how sharp the reflection is (ie, roughness of zero would reflect all light direct back to the source but a slight roughness will spread it out, to allow it to be visible (but fainter) at wider viewing angles) - and so how close to the light souce line of sight the viewer must be to allow them to see its reflection.

Any light source close to the line of sight of the camera will now strongly reflect back and make the material appear to 'glow' with respect to other (non-reflective) materials. You can vary the Color of the Glossy node to affect the color of the reflection.

Example showing one reflective cube and one 'normal' cube :


How do I create this crease effect on glass?

I'm sure there are other solutions but i came to an very fast result with the help of the Screw Modifier.

click for flowerpower (Margarita by INFAMEDAVID)

The advantage of this modifier is that you can build your mesh with the desired angle of the Edge Loops which makes it a lot easier to model the creases.

Model

add a circle Shift+A
add the Screw Modifier

I used following settings:

You can use Z for wireframe to see the result

apply the Screw Modifier
add a Solidify and a Subdivision Surface Modifier
bring the object into the shape

Like you mentioned in your Question I also used a combination of Checker Deselect, selecting Edge Rings and Edge Loops to get the desired Selection and scaling it on the X and Y Axis.

S then Shift+Z

Node-Setup

I used this Glass Shader Setup from here

If you like to edit your existing model:

You can use Propotional Editing O

to rotate R your mesh around the Z-Axis
to scale S on X and Y axis to create the creases

You control the size of Propotional Editing with the Mousewheel

For more Information how to get every Nth Selection you can have a look here:

How can I select every Nth edge in only one direction on a plane?
Select every other face loop


How to rename Animation Node's Invoke Subprogram;s Generator Output?

Yes, it is possible to rename the Outputs of the Invoke Subprogram node and there are two ways to do that:

Select the Output Node:

Open the N-panel or properties panel --> Node --> Advanced Node Settings, there you can rename the output (blue box)
Or, press the U-key (which is a shortcut for the Output Node Settings), then a menu will appear in which you can rename the outputs (green box)