How can I add a checkbox in the tools UI?

For a 'checkbox' you have to provide a BoolProperty:

my_bool : BoolProperty(
    name="Enable or Disable",
    description="A simple bool property",
    default = True)

I assume you've got more than 1 property at the end, thus I would also suggest create a 'settings class' for your addon by using a PropertyGroup:

class MySettings(PropertyGroup):

    my_bool : BoolProperty()
    my_int : IntProperty()
    my_float : FloatProperty()
    ...

Following example appends a custom panel to the Tool Shelf of the UV/Image Editor (for more options see bl_space_type) and prints the 'current state' of the BoolProperty to the console:

bl_info = {
    "name": "tester",
    "description": "",
    "author": "poor",
    "version": (0, 0, 1),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "UV/Image Editor > Tool Shelf (T)",
    "warning": "", # used for warning icon and text in addons panel
    "wiki_url": "",
    "tracker_url": "",
    "category": "Test"
}

import bpy

from bpy.props import (StringProperty,
                       BoolProperty,
                       IntProperty,
                       FloatProperty,
                       FloatVectorProperty,
                       EnumProperty,
                       PointerProperty,
                       )
from bpy.types import (Panel,
                       Operator,
                       AddonPreferences,
                       PropertyGroup,
                       )

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    Store properties in the active scene
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------

class MySettings(PropertyGroup):

    my_bool : BoolProperty(
        name="Enable or Disable",
        description="A bool property",
        default = False
        )

    my_int : IntProperty(
        name = "Set a value",
        description="A integer property",
        default = 23,
        min = 10,
        max = 100
        )

    my_float : FloatProperty(
        name = "Set a value",
        description = "A float property",
        default = 23.7,
        min = 0.01,
        max = 30.0
        )

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    My Tool in the image editor
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------

class UV_PT_my_panel(Panel):
    bl_idname = "UV_PT_my_panel"
    bl_label = "My Tool"
    bl_category = "My Category"
    bl_space_type = 'IMAGE_EDITOR'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scene = context.scene
        mytool = scene.my_tool

        # display the properties
        layout.prop(mytool, "my_bool", text="Bool Property")
        layout.prop(mytool, "my_int", text="Integer Property")
        layout.prop(mytool, "my_float", text="Float Property")

        # check if bool property is enabled
        if (mytool.my_bool == True):
            print ("Property Enabled")
        else:
            print ("Property Disabled")

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
#     Registration
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------

classes = (
    MySettings,
    UV_PT_my_panel,
)

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

    bpy.types.Scene.my_tool = PointerProperty(type=MySettings)

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

    del bpy.types.Scene.my_tool

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Note: For demonstration purposes I've also added an Int- and a FloatProperty.

Further reading: How to create a custom UI?


Besides my comment about applying - which you should do - it seems you added a bit of animation to the metarig = which is a no-no. Go into pose mode and AltR, AltG, AltS - to remove all transforms. Back in object mode - generate your Rig and it all works fine.


What is a Duplivert, or a Dupliframe, internally?

I'll put here the data structure diagram for reference:

The material can be linked to Data (default) or to Object

The Object is just a container for the Object Data within, which is a separate datablock inside Blender, that can be used by any number of same type Objects.  Similar like a Material can have multiple users.

There are different ways you can make copies:

Duplicate Object CtrlD - duplicates the object and by default also the mesh. What is duplicated and what is instantiated can be set in User Preferences under Editing:

Duplicate Linked AltD - duplicates the object, but links the rest (like leaving all checkboxes from point above unchecked). In case of mesh object makes a mesh instance - shares only 1 mesh between them - object data is not duplicated
Duplivets, duplifaces, dupliframes:

tells Blender to use own object data (verts, faces, animation data at all frames) as transforms for copies of parented object(s)
the copies are instances of the parented object(s), nothing is duplicated, not even the object

Dupligroups

same as before, but whole group of objects is instantiated
makes only 1 copy using own's object transformation, doesn't make much sense to use enything else than Empty Object.

Particle/Hair systems:

transforms are taken from particle data

Linked object/group:

same as with Dupligroup, but links from another .blend file.

When you Make Duplicates Real CtrlShiftA, only the first relation in the chain changes from instances to real duplicates. You can now set different modifiers, materials (if you link them to object), constraints, etc. for these now real objects, but they still keep just one mesh linked between them - exactly same like a mesh instance.

To turn them into full duplicates use Make Single User U > Object & Data: this creates a mesh duplicate for each object, turning them into full copies (ctrl-d) effectively and you can now edit each copy's mesh data independently.


script or addon to add animation tools button in the N properties?

EDIT
Added repository. Can now be properly installed, activated and deactivated as an addon.
This script creates the desired section with other properties added.
import bpy

class anim_tools_ui(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_label = "Animation Tools"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_le_animation_tools_ui"

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

        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(context.tool_settings, "use_keyframe_insert_auto", text="")
        row.prop(context.tool_settings, "keyframe_type", text="")
        row.operator("anim.keyframe_insert", text="", icon="KEY_HLT")
        row.operator("anim.keyframe_delete", text="", icon="KEY_DEHLT")
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(context.user_preferences.edit, "keyframe_new_interpolation_type", text="")
        row.prop(context.user_preferences.edit, "keyframe_new_handle_type", text="")

        row = layout.row()
        row.separator()

        row = layout.row()
        row.label(text="Playback")
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(context.scene, "sync_mode", text="")
        row.prop(context.scene, "frame_current", text="Frame")
        row.prop(context.scene.render, "fps", text="FPS")
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(context.scene, "frame_start", text="Start")
        row.prop(context.scene, "frame_end", text="End")

        row = layout.row()
        row.separator()

        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(context.scene.render, "use_simplify", text="Simplify")
        row.prop(context.scene.render, "simplify_subdivision", text="levels")

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

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

register()

It is important that after pasting the script in the text editor, the name of the text data block ends with ".py" and Register is checked.
Further Resources
Building a UI Panel
Conversion into an addon


How to "impose" texture while sculpting?

To sculpt with a texture, go into sculpt mode, select the draw brush, and add a texture by clicking the New button as shown below:

Then go into the texture panel, and select an image for your texture with the open button:

Then, to be able to draw the texture in place while controlling the size as in the video, you need to set the stroke mode to Anchored in the brush settings:

Now just ensure your mesh has enough geometry (or use dyntopo with a high level of detail), and you can sculpt a texture onto your mesh.


Using python you can install an addon with bpy.ops.wm.addon_install(), you can then enable the addon with bpy.ops.wm.addon_enable() and disable it with bpy.ops.wm.addon_disable(). To keep the addon enabled every time you start blender you save your settings with bpy.ops.wm.save_userpref()
For addon_install you give it the filepath to the addon, this is the same file you would choose if you were using blender's GUI.
To enable or disable an addon you need to specify the module name, that is the folder name installed into the addons folder or the filename without .py for single file addons.
import bpy
bpy.ops.wm.addon_install(filepath='/home/shane/Downloads/testaddon.py')
bpy.ops.wm.addon_enable(module='testaddon')
bpy.ops.wm.save_userpref()

There are two ways you can make this work remotely through the CLI.
Save the steps in a script and run it.
blender -b -P enableaddon.py

Start blender as a python console and type each in directly.
blender -b --python-console
Python 3.5.2 <snip...>
(InteractiveConsole)
>>> import bpy
>>> bpy.ops.wm.addon_install(filepath='/home/shane/Downloads/testaddon.py')
>>> bpy.ops.wm.addon_enable(module='testaddon')
>>> bpy.ops.wm.save_userpref()

Note: For Blender 2.80+, things are slightly different:
>>> import bpy
>>> bpy.ops.preferences.addon_install(filepath='/home/shane/Downloads/testaddon.py')
>>> bpy.ops.preferences.addon_enable(module='testaddon')
>>> bpy.ops.wm.save_userpref()

Use ⎈ CtrlD to exit the python console and quit blender.


Blender particle hair coloring problem cycles render

Well if you are simply trying to give the mesh object that has the hair particle system a different material than that of the hair strands itself, under the particle settings tab there is a section called Render where you can specify a different material for the hair strands than the emitter object.


The main problem here is the topology of you mesh, no amount of smoothing will completely fix that.
You should avoid big changes in face size between neighbouring faces (smoothing will help with this)
Also try and remove all the faces with more than 4 edges, as these can get triangulated in odd ways when displaying the mesh.
Another thing to avoid is vertices with lots of edges attached to them as these can lead to pinching artifacts with smooth shading and also subdivision.

The general rule for modelling faces is to make face loops around each of major features (e.g. they eyes should have rings of faces around them like goggles). See the following image for an example of a face with good topology (taken from blender.org)

There are a number of tutorials around the net covering best practices for character modelling which would help you, for example:
https://cloud.blender.org/p/blenderella/56040ecf044a2a00a515ada6


It looks from your video as if you are rotating on the Global (World) axes, where what you would like is a rotation of the cube about one of its own local axes. If you haven't reoriented the cube in Edit Mode since it was created, its local axes will still run from the cube's center through the centers of its faces.

In that case, as you have, you can just set the Transform Orientation (in the header at the bottom of the 3D View)  to 'Local'. Set the pvot point to the center of rotation you want ..(e.g. 'Individual Origin(s))

The primary, default, orientation for transformations is always Global. To reach the secondary orientation ( the one in the header ), you have to hit the constraint key(s) twice. So hitting RXX, RYY or RZZ  will let you rotate the cube around its local axes.

(If you rotate all or part of an object's mesh in Edit Mode, that's all you have rotated. The object's local axes remain where they were before the edit.)


How to Animate The Child while the parent is already animated

In my case turning OFF [Preferences / Animation / Visual Keying] fixes the problem.


Creating a set of spotlights on one dimmer switch

You should copy them with Alt+D, which would mean they are linked duplicates. Then changing the emission value on one would change all them at the same time. This is the solution as long as it's okay for all of them to have exactly the same properties.

If you need them to differ on some properties, you would need to select them all, change the emit value and then right click on the emit value and select "Copy to Selected" if you just want to update one value on all the selected lamps.


Create a cube at the origin point position of the object you took dimensions from. That should help to resolve your issue.


Creating Realistic Close up Sand Material

Particle system

You can use a particle system to spread a big number of small objects across the surface.

In the following scene there are a bunch of planes that sketches the overall surface of the terrain. They were made with A.N.T. landscape add-on with the "Dunes" preset and stacked one after the other to fill the camera frame:

The planes have a simple pbr monocolor shader with high rougness and it's lit by an HDRI.

Then several pebble-like objects have been created and assigned to a common group. Note that each one has a slightly different shader assigned. Some are brown, some are white, some are glossy, some are rough... just to give variation.

Thw workflow consist in creating a hair particle system for the object in front of the camera (the other are to far to be seen) that pick a random object from the group. The distribution of the particles is driven by weight paint layer in order to optimize the rendertime.

Particle size has been lowered, while particles number and interpolated children numeber has been increased.

Here's the rendered result of the previous scene with camera depth of field enabled and glare node in post processing.


Based on a modified version of this OSL bricks shader, I added a smoothness parameter that generates a smoother transition from the mortar color to the brick color (Currently will work in the desired manner only with values ranging from 1-10. Will probably improve algorithm tomorrow).

# include "stdosl.h"

shader brick(
    float BMWIDTH = 5,
    float BMHEIGHT = 5,
    float MORTARTHICKNESS = 0.1,
    point Vector = P,
    int   smoothness = 1,
    color Cbrick = color (0.5,0.15,0.14),
    color Cmortar = color(0.5, 0.5, 0.5),
    output color Col_Out = color(0.7)
)

{
    color Ct;
    point Nf;
    float ss;
    float tt;
    float th;
    float sbrick;
    float tbrick;
    float w;
    float h;

    float x = Vector[0];
    float y = Vector[1];

    float smoothnessFac = 0.1;
    for ( int i = 0; i < smoothness; i++ ) {
        float MWF = MORTARTHICKNESS * ( 1 + i * smoothnessFac ) * 0.5 / BMWIDTH;
        float MHF = MORTARTHICKNESS * ( 1 + i * smoothnessFac ) * 0.5 / BMHEIGHT;

        ss = x / BMWIDTH;
        tt = y / BMHEIGHT;

        if (mod(tt * 0.5, 1) > 0.5)
        {
            ss += 0.5;
        }

        sbrick = floor(ss);
        tbrick = floor(tt);

        ss -= sbrick;
        tt -= tbrick;

        w = step(MWF,ss)  - step(1-MWF,ss);
        h = step(MHF, tt) - step(1-MHF, tt);

        if ( i == 0 ) {
            Ct = mix(Cmortar, Cbrick, w*h);
        } else {
            color current = mix(Cmortar, Cbrick, w*h);
            Ct = mix( Ct, current, 1 - i * smoothnessFac );
        }
    }

    Col_Out = Ct;
}


I believe having the same issue.

I'm new to VSE so I tried different setting in the proxy panel (resolution, timecode) and Proxy playback still not working.

Checked the Proxy footages generated by Blender and it look ok when playing on VLC.

Then tried with Blender2.78c on Mac OS10.9 which work normally.

Hope it would help.

Update 2017.11.05

Tried the Latest Build blender-2.79.0-01a3c95609 from https://builder.blender.org/download/ .
Import movie to VSE, and create proxy. Just work normally. The playback problem seems fixed.


Making particles collide with each other? Possible? (2.8)

Particles collision can be achieved with the molecular addon by pyroevil. There is a 2.80 port but you may have to do some digging to find it. Version of the addon I have for Blender 2.80 is 1.0.7 but I hear a 1.0.8 is out.
Where do I hear it, do you ask?

Here: https://blenderartists.org/t/addon-moleculars-physics/521682/255

Addon here:
https://github.com/scorpion81/Blender-Molecular-Script/releases

As for the shattering, there is a cell fracture addon provided with 2.80. I'm not sure how you'll manage to use it on particles, though.

You can try combining with the particles instance modifier. Worth giving it a shot. Or using animation nodes, maybe.


Using image sequence of medical scans as volume data in cycles

You can use an osl shader to do that.

The code in the capture above creates an osl node. Here are its inputs and outputs :

The input slots

Vector : the mapping position (in this config, this must be from object texture coordinates)
Directory : the folder where the image files can be found
Prefix : the image prefix (image are supposed to be in the format "prefix+counter+extension)
Extension : file extension including the dot
framePositions : the amount of position to form the file (ie to have 3 position like in "004", set it to 3)
zMax : the object elevation (I don't know if there is a way to find the object dimension and center in osl..). So for a default cube, set it to 2.
fromFrame : the first image number
toFrame : the last image number

The output slots

colorData : image data as a color output
nonColorData : image data as a non color output (here the image is encoded as non color in the tif files)

The code (see comments)

The principle is to use the Z (or here pos2) value to find the good image making the file name with it.

#include "stdosl.h"

shader volumeTexture(
    point Vector = P,
    string directory="//",
    string prefix="",
    int framePositions=3,
    string extension=".tif",
    float zMax = 2.0,
    int fromFrame = 1,
    int toFrame = 100,
    output color colorData = 1,
    output float nonColorData = 1,
)
{
    // Recenter the position around the object center to -1, 1 to 0, 1
    vector pos = 0.5 * (Vector + vector(1.0,1.0,1.0));

    // Calculate the image number
    int imageNum = (int)((1.0 + toFrame - fromFrame) * (pos[2] / (zMax * 0.5)));

    // Make a format string from the given length (ie "%03d")
    string frameFormat = concat( "%0", format( "%d", framePositions ), "d" );
    // Format the current frame/image number (ie "003")
    string imageFrame = format( frameFormat, toFrame - imageNum );
    // Make the full file name
    string fileName = concat( directory, prefix, imageFrame, extension );

    // Get the color from the texture
    colorData = texture( fileName, pos[0], pos[1] );
    nonColorData = texture( fileName, pos[0], pos[1] );
}

Here is the blend :

Don't forget to set your rendering to CPU and to check 'open shading language'.


How do I modify this script to affect bones instead of shape keys?

Something like?
Speculating that the data file is akin to
name value
Bone 10.0
Bone.001 22

and using a string to emulate the file, ie data.splitlines() to emulate a text file buffer. Example below, pose bone "Bone" keyframe location 0 at frame 0,
Run script  with the armature object active and not in edit mode.
import bpy
import csv

context = bpy.context
ob = context.object
frames_per_line = 20

data = '''Bone, 0
Bone.001, 0.4
Bone.002,  1.0
Bone, 10
Bone, 20
Bone.002, -2.9'''

for frame, (name, value) in enumerate(csv.reader(data.splitlines())):

    pb = ob.pose.bones.get(name)
    if pb:
        pb.location.y = float(value)
        pb.keyframe_insert(
                "location",
                 index=1,
                 frame=frames_per_line * frame
             ) # y location


texture in material preview differs from rendered preview

Make sure the location of the skin image hasn't changed. If it has, try putting the skin on the character again.


how would I change the camera viewpoint or scene object and output the image at the runtime

Well there are 2 options you have here.
1. Optimize all your materials and bake all static shadows. That way the rendering will take as little time as possible.
2. Once you load the scene, move the camera to all locations you want to render but don't render, just add keyframes. When you add keyframes to all locations then start to render the number of frames you need. That way you will only prepare for rendering and load into memory once and then render everything you need in one pass.


Texture that doesn't get affected by scaling?

I was able to do that with Texture/Mapping/Coordinates set to global.


I could solve it! If I limit bevel by angle in the modifier, the weird face disappears.


You can call the ivy_gen operator with specific values for all the parameters you would later edit in the context menu:

bpy.ops.curve.ivy_gen(
    maxIvyLength         = 1,
    primaryWeight        = 0.5,
    randomWeight         = 0.2,
    gravityWeight        = 1,
    adhesionWeight       = 0.1,
    branchingProbability = 0.05,
    leafProbability      = 0.35,
    ivySize              = 0.02,
    ivyLeafSize          = 0.02,
    ivyBranchSize        = 0.001,
    maxFloatLength       = 0.5,
    maxAdhesionDistance  = 1,
    randomSeed           = 0,
    maxTime              = 0,
    growLeaves           = True,
    updateIvy            = False
)

To fully automate this, all you need to do prior to calling this operator is to place the 3D cursor where you want your ivy to start growing:

bpy.context.scene.cursor_location = (x,y,z)

And to also select the object you want to grow your ivy on:

bpy.context.scene.objects['MyObject'].select = True
bpy.context.scene.objects.active             = bpy.context.scene.objects['MyObject']


I figured out what I did wrong, I had the faces backwards and had to flip them.


How to IK Rig a human arm with external controllers?

As Josh said there are many ways to rig an arm, here is one basic:

Add a Target bone and a Poletarget bone to your arm. The Target will be the arm controller, the Poletarget will determine the arm orientation.
Parent these 2 bones to the Root bone of your armature.
If don't have a Root bone yet, at least deparent these 2 bones.
Disable their Deform option in Properties panel > Bone > Deform: When you'll parent the armature these 2 bones won't deform the mesh.
Parent the Hand bone to the Target so that when you'll move the Target the Hand will also follow, which is very convenient.
Give the Lowerarm an IK constraint, choose a Length of 2 so that it will move Loweram and Upperarm only, and choose the Target bone as the Target and the Poletarget bone as the Pole Target.
If you want your Hand to stick to the Lowerarm, give it a Copy Location constraint with the Lowerarm as the Target and a Head/Tail value of 1.
For the fingers: give the second phalanx a Copy Rotation constraint with the first phalanx as the Target, and give the third phalanx a Copy Rotation constraint with the second phalanx as the Target so that when you'll rotate the first phalanx the rest of the finger will follow.

A good thing would also be to choose a B-Bone Display for your armature (in the Properties panel > Data > Display), and to segment the Upperarm and Lowerarm so that they will bend smoothly (Go in the Properties panel > Bone > Bendy Bones > Segments and give 5 segments for example). In that case, give the Lowerarm an Copy Rotation constraint with the Hand as the Target and Space > Pose Space / Pose Space: when the Hand will rotate the Lowerarm and Upperarm will follow. Also, you could limit the rotation of these bones in the Properties panel > Bone > Inverse Kinematics, but it's a bit tricky and most of the time you won't need it.


Edge won't go away, no matter what I try, and it can't be selected

The edge is a separate object from the rest of the mesh; it appears orange because it was also selected when you entered edit-mode. Tab into object mode, deselect the main object so that the only object selected is the mystery edge, and delete. (X or Delete)


Issue with 2D Shrinkwrap (Circle onto Cross)

Make sure both shapes have a height and faces with area, so that Shrinkwrap modifier as normals on which to operate in.

Make sure you circle is big enough to encompass the whole cross.

Make sure your cross is high enough to cover all the circle height.

The point here is to guarantee all face normals encounter the other object operand. If you wish to have 2D shapes you can then after applyinf the modifier remove undesired faces and make them an edge wireframe only.

Change the Shrinkwrap modifier to Project mode, and the Direction to Negative. That should do it


How do I change right click to left click when in timeline mode?

Found this online and it worked for me:

The Timeline scrubbing is under: File > User Preferences... > Input > Animation >Change Frame (Timeline Scrubbing).

The "Change Frame" default was set to "Action Mouse"(I still have no idea what action mouse button is).

I changed that to "Left Mouse."

However since Left Mouse in Timeline was already used for interacting with the "Time Marker" in Timeline, I had to change that input to something else(I changed it to Middle Mouse).


How to use material index from Object Info node?

Maybe a slightly obscure one.. I've used the Material Index for discriminating between materials hit by a forward-cast ray in OSL.

Examples here and here... it's one of the few attributes actually returned by a shader-cast ray, at the moment..


How to show wireframe on shaded object in 3D View?

It is possible using the object properties of your sphere.

Go in the display options under the properties tab of the object and check Wire and Draw All Edges.

This will affect the Solid, Textured and Material view-ports.


Animated Passive Object Does Not Work With Rigid Body Simulation

You've got two problems:
 1. You baked the physics simulation, effectively key-framing all objects that are part of it. Baking the simulation is useful if you don't plan on changing the simulation again, but it's not necessary to render an image/animation.
 2. You have two planes which you are trying to animate in the same spot - Plane.003 and Plane.013; they have different settings.

First, free the bake:
https://imgur.com/a/GBrIuOG

Second, set Plane.003 to be animated, or just delete it since it is a duplicate:
https://imgur.com/a/hqoxvVt


GPU Rendering in Cycles crashing blender (Mac)

Starting with MacOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple is discontinuing support for OpenCL and OpenGL, in favor of their Metal 2 technology. Maybe this has something to do with your problems.


Why have I got an extra vertex when exporting to ply format?

This script will set all vertex color alphas to 1 on the active object (I couldn't find a way to do it through the UI). Select your object, make sure you're in Object Mode, paste it in the text editor and hit run.
import bpy
assert bpy.context.mode == 'OBJECT'
for vc in bpy.context.active_object.data.vertex_colors:
    for c in vc.data:
        c.color[3] = 1

However a vert might still get split up if there are different vertex colors at the different corners that meet it, like this:

This will export with 16 verts. There's not really anything you can do about that, I think that's just how .ply works.


Make a bezier curve into a subdivided mesh?

For subdivide you need quads. Upper face is unsightly ngon and can't be subdivided. Remesh modifier should be helpful in this case.

If Remesh doesn't  do its job well, you can delete ngon and fill area manually with smaller parts by selecting two opposite verts and pres F to fill and press J to connect.

You can combine this procedure with Grid Fill - Ctrl + F > G

I don't know a better solution, I hope someone knows one because this is really good question.


How can I use the curve modifier with curves that have sharp corners?

You have to add edgeloops or subdivide the mesh to get smooth deformation:

Plane without Edgeloops:

Plane with Edgeloops:


You can use a video as texture the same way you would use any other image texure


method 1

The answer here shows how to add extended unicode characters to the body of a Text Object

For the subscript digits it's this range.

import bpy

obj = bpy.data.objects['Text']

start_char = ord(u'\u2080')
end_char = ord(u'\u2089') + 1
subscript = ''.join([chr(i) for i in range(start_char, end_char)])
obj.data.body = 'Regular' + subscript

The above image uses a font called "Junicode". Support for the sub/super script characters depends on the font you pick. Blender's default font (Bfont) has limited extended characters. You can find many good unicode TrueType fonts with extensive extended character sets.

For more superscript and subscript unicode sequences see the tables here:
Unicode subscript and superscript block

method 2

Add a Driver to the offset_x parameter of the superscript text object, to tell it to update its value based on the obj.dimensions[0] component of the regular script text Object.

You'll have to enable Auto Run Python Scripts from UserPreferences > File

You tweak the superscript size an offset_y to look right, and you might also include some default spacing between the regular script and superscript, here I added 0.1 to the width of the regular script to avoid getting too cramped.

Reasons not to use parenting or drivers

In quality typefaces (fonts) a lot of effort is put into the spacing between letters to make all letter combinations look as good as possible. Adjacent letters should never be too close or too far apart. Find a good font where this is implemented and you'll save yourself a lot of work.

Valid reason to use parent or drivers

If you need superscript and subscript at the same time. Blender isn't a dedicated typesetting tool for notation like LaTeX, and provides no convenient syntax for it. The suggested work-arounds might be sufficient.

wikipedia article about superscript and subscript subtleties in typesetting
The unicode chart at unicode.org


This is intended behavior, At the moment circle selection in object mode uses object centers only.


Applying numeric input attribute changes on multiple objects at the same time

The Transform in the N panel only reflects the active object. If you want to set the  value to all selected objects, you can also try the following:

Select those objects;
Setting the value as you want;
Keep those objects selected, right click on the value input field, select "Copy to Selected".


How can I make an existing mesh appear to be drawn in animation?

You can use animate the size of another object (e.g. the radius of a cylinder) using keyframes, and then apply a boolean intersect modifier to your mesh.

Step by step

Create a cylinder with the middle in the point where you want the "drawing" to start. Make sure that it's thick enough to cover all the mesh on the Z direction

Scale it down on the X and Y directions hitting S then Shift+Z

Set a keyframe to the current size using I > Scaling. Then move to the end frame, scale it up (again only along X-Y with S and Shift+Z), and set another keyframe (I > Scaling).

Optionally, you can avoid the visualization of a solid cylinder by setting its maximum draw type to wire

Last, select your mesh and add a Boolean modifier, using the Intersect method and your cylinder as the reference object


Mesh not moving with Armature in pose mode

Regarding the first image, those vertices aren't weighted to any bone, you'll have to select the corresponding bones and weight paint them, and in the last image:
1 Put the main mesh in object mode
2 Select all the bones in pose mode, hold shift and click the main mesh, then click back on the bones while still holding shift
3 parent with automatic weights
4 reapply weights on the parts that don't deform as intended


Correctly combining a two layer material in cycles

This link might be helpful. It has a cycles material that has thin film interference. Here is a Wikipedia article on what thin-film interference is.

Excerpt:

  Thin-film interference is a natural phenomenon in which light waves
  reflected by the upper and lower boundaries of a thin film interfere
  with one another, either enhancing or reducing the reflected light.
  When the thickness of the film is an odd multiple of one
  quarter-wavelength of the light on it, the reflected waves from both
  surfaces interfere to cancel each other. Since the wave cannot be
  reflected, it is completely transmitted instead. When the thickness is
  a multiple of a half-wavelength of the light, the two reflected waves
  reinforce each other, increasing the reflection and reducing the
  transmission.

Here is the blender file download link. I think it can be applied to what you want. It puts a bit of "thickness" on your object. If you want it to be more dramatic/visible, let me know and I'll try to brainstorm another solution.


Need help with modelling a cylinder with a piece cut out?

I think this topology doesn't work too bad. You'll have to move a bit some edges to prevent a bit of pinching, I don't know if it can be perfect with an only 12 vertices cylinder though.


How to programatically emulate bookmark selection?

I did not see the "answer my own question" so here it goes. I found the following to work.

bpy.ops.file.select_bookmark(dir=dirname.decode())

This gets me to the folder where the file was saved. I would like to update the file name also but for now this works for me.


The easiest way to fix this would be to decrease the radius of the point light through the point light settings

This will make that yellow blob pretty much disappear but if you want it to look like its actually fire, you have to give an emission shader to the fire


How to set material underneath a texture?

Prepare the sticker image, give it a transparent background (Alpha 0%). Select the faces where you want the sticker to be displayed, unwrap them, give them a new material.

Prepare your node setting: Create an Image Texture and load your sticker picture, plug it in a Diffuse node. Mix this Diffuse with another Diffuse node that has your object background color (red in your case).

Plug the Image Texture Alpha output in the Mix Shader Factor input so that the sticker background appears transparent.


My previous card was a R7 200 series, my actual card is a R9 200 series. While both cards actually seem to work with Blender, there are two major drawbacks.

The actual driver is faulty and renders "TV stripes" into your image (see https://community.amd.com/thread/198677)
Blender's development team (like many others) sadly seems to focus on NVIDIA, thus AMD GPU (OpenCL) rendering is not that optimized than NVIDIA's (CUDA) (see https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Blender-Slow-OpenCL-AMDGPU)

Even with the "good" drivers I haven't experienced much faster rendering.

Update: I just tested the current driver hotfix 16.8.1 under Windows 7. They seem to work significantly faster and also the "TV stripes" seem to be gone. Linux test might follow by the end of the week.


How to change scale of a texture through nodes

Add a Vector Mapping node.  You can control the scale and placement for different axes:

Or plug it to the scale depending on what kind of effect you are after:


You've chosen to bake with the Emit option, it will bake what's emitted, but your object doesn't use any Emission node. In the linked page, the Image Texture is plugged into a Viewer node, which acts like an Emission node. If you want to bake the Diffuse, choose Diffuse instead, and under Influence only enable Color.


Why my texture lines show up distorted and not completely straight at few parts?

your UV sphere has uneven faces but the unwraping made them even, distorting the texture


simple deform modifier not working properly

Bend simple modifier rotates an axis around the specified one in the modifier.
When Z is chosen, the X axis is bent:

That why you have the result indicated in your question when all is aligned along Y.
If you want to keep things along Y, though, you can add a deformation origin object (an empty) and rotate 90 degrees it so that its X is align along Y:


Mesh with cloth simulation not responding to wind

The mesh is actually responding to the wind, but it takes a value of 20k force to make it respond as desired. The flag has a much larger distance to be suspended by the force of the wind so it takes a much greater force. The sails are suspended so they respond much more readily.

Try reducing the mass of the flag so that it doesn't take as much force.


Blender Cycles how to import image sequence?

First, convert it to a video. You can do this with FFmpeg or a similar tool.
Then drag and drop it into a UV/Image Editor. This will get it into Blender.
Add an image texture node to your material. You will need to open a Node Editor, go to the Object Material section (the ball and the cube on the two tab bars in the header), and make sure your material is using nodes (the Use Nodes checkbox, or from the material section in the Properties panel).
Select your video in the node's pop-up.
Connect the Color output to the Color input on the Diffuse BSDF node.
Enjoy! (Hit ⌥ Alt+A to see it in action.)

I haven't actually tested this, but it should work.


Instead of copy and paste, have you tried duplicate shiftD and drag, (or type in the number of frames) to the required position?

You will find that copy is applied to the selected object/s (or in pose mode the selected bones) As shown in your example Finger-2_L is selected, the highlighting across the whole line indicates this, and therefore that bone has the only copied keyframes.

Duplicate however will duplicate all selected keyframes (all the diamonds highlighted in yellow) which is the action you want in this case.


Lines appear if multiresolution is enabled

This is a known issue with the multiresolution modifier that is caused when you increase the subdivision level to a certain level, but then later lower the level and sculpt on a lower level. If you tried level 7, that then becomes the highest level for the model, and level 5 is then a lower level. The only way to get rid of it that I have tried is to pick the final level that you want to use for the model and use the smooth brush to remove the jagged bits. In general, try to only increase the subdivision level when sculpting, as this issue is only when you decrease the level and sculpt on it. If you ever do increase past the final level you want, use the Delete Higher option to remove the higher levels.

A possible solution that could work (haven't tried it), is to use the Save External button on the modifier to save the displacements to an image, edit out the bad sections, and then use it with a displacement modifier. Not sure how this would work if you want to keep sculpting though.


The option is settable in the Viewport Overlays.


Changing views in 2.8 jumps out of ortho

You need to deactivate Auto Perspective in Preferences > Navigation > Orbit & Pan.


Automatically change the properties of multiple materials

Try this. It affects all materials in the file.
import bpy
for mat in bpy.data.materials:
    if not mat.use_nodes:
        mat.metallic = 0
        continue
    for n in mat.node_tree.nodes:
        if n.type == 'BSDF_PRINCIPLED':
            n.inputs["Metallic"].default_value = 0


Is there a way to append all materials in a Blender files with Python?

Example using BlendDataLibraries based on How can I import BI materials from another blender file with python?. The script scans the given directory for blend files and appends all materials:

import bpy
import os

blend_files = []
for root, dirs, files in os.walk("/home/<USER>/..."):
    for file in files:
        if file.endswith(".blend"):
             blend_files.append(os.path.join(root, file))

# Append all materials from all blends within the folder
for filepath in blend_files:
    with bpy.data.libraries.load(filepath, link=False) as (data_from, data_to):
        data_to.materials = data_from.materials

A little bit of housekeeping might be nice in this case:

with bpy.data.libraries.load(filepath, link=False) as (data_from, data_to):
    data_to.materials = [m for m in data_from.materials if m.startswith("MATLIB_")]


Use 'contact shadows' (Eevee) in the lamp settings:


I'm trying to make my plane (ground) explode up into the air

Introduction

The discribed method is only one of several methods to create an animation of a ground explosion and it's the fastest method that I know.
It will cover only the basics of preparing the plane, creating the debris and setting up the physics to get this result.

I won't go over the task of texturing here, since BlenderSE is not the best medium to create long tutorials. A good method to texture the debris is described in one of the Timster's videos which you can find here: Project Assets: Low Poly Rubble

Blend file:

Prerequisites

In order to get nice debris, we are going to use the Cell Fracture addon. Hit Ctrl+Alt+U to show the User Preferences, to to the Addon Panel and type "cell" into the search field. On the right side, activate "Object: Cell Fracture", (if you plan to use the addon regularly, you also might hit "Save User Settings"). Close User Preferences.

Preparation of the Base Meshes

Add a plane, resize it to a reasonable size and subdivide it (If you already have a plane or a terrain of some sort, you can use that as well, as long as it has not too many faces). Move your vertices around in the area where the explosion should take place, until you have a nice uneven jagged area. To get a nice shape you might enable proportional editing mode for the rough shape and disable it again for the finer details.

Select the faces for the hole, then press Numpad 1 to go to front view, then press E and Z extrude the vertices down on the z-axis.

Enable Face Select, turn off "Limit selection to visible" and select all the faces below the ground plane. Hit Shift+D to duplicate them, then hit P and select "Selection" to create a new object out of the duplicated mesh. Tab into Object Mode, hit M and 2 to move the new object to Layer 2.

You should now have two objects like these below, each on its own layer.

Rename the object on Layer 1 into "ground" and the object on Layer 2 into "debris".

Go to Layer 2 and tab into Edit Mode. In front view (Numpad 1), enable "select vertices", "Snap during transform", set "Type of Element to snap to" to vertex and also enable "Automatically merge Vertices". Select all vertices of the ground plane. Hit G and Z to move them up on the z-axis until it snaps and fuses with the original mesh.

Still in Edit mode, hit A until everything is selected, then hit Ctrl+N to make the normals of your mesh face outwards. Select the vertices of the ground plane again and move them on the z-axis until the height of your mesh is about 3/4 of its original size. Then scale the ground plane down to 0.9 (Hit S then 0.9).

Hit Ctrl+R to add two loopcuts (Mouse Wheel up), then tab into object mode.

Add a Subdivision Surface modifier, set its type to "Simple" and the Numbers to 3 and click "Apply". Then go to the Tool Panel (T), go to "Tools" panel and click the Cell Fracture Button (it should have been added by the Cell Fracture addon, see Prerequisites). In the now opened Settings Window, set "Source Limit" to 250, select "Random" and click OK.

You should then see something similar to to this in the 3D viewport.

You now still have your original debris mesh in Layer 2 and the newly generated fragments in Layer 3. Switch to Layer 3, then go to the Outliner and select the mesh that should be called "debris_cell". This is now your active mesh. Move your mouse pointer to the 3D view and hit A to select all objects.

Physics

Go to the Tool Panel, then to "Physics" and click on "Add Active" (note how the outline of your selected objects turn from yellow to green in the 3D Viewport). Then go to the Properties Window, switch to the Physics Panel, go to "Rigid Body Collision", enable "Collision Margin" and change it to 0.15 (this influences the force). Go back to Tool Panel - Physics and click "Copy from Active" to apply the changes to all the selected objects. Reminder: You'll have to do this every time, when you change something in the Physics Panel!

Play Animation

Go to Layer 1, select your ground mesh, then go to the Tool Panel - Physics and click on "Add Passive". The ground mesh now should also have a green outline. Go back to Layer 3, hit A until everything is selected, then M and 1 so move everything to Layer 1. Hit A until nothing is selected go to the timeline area and hit the "Play Animation" button.

Enjoy!


Matching group Dimensions in Blender with Python

This is the process that worked for me.
I basically just select all objects of type MESH and join them. Then I remove all objects of type EMPTY that might be parented to the mesh (eventually normalising the transforms with transform_apply(location=False, rotation=True, scale=True)).
From there it becomes very easy to programmatically manipulate the object.


How could a lightsabers bright core be maintained when motion blurred?

Your core is not bright enough, give the core emission strength between 500 and 1000 and then it should be bright with shutter at 1.0. Do the soft red glow in postpro also.


Mantaflow is not in Master yet so you have two options for now:

You can grab a build with Mantaflow here: http://graphicall.org/
You can build Mantaflow Branch by yourself from sources: https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Building_Blender


Ctrl Left Click

In most editors, can Ctrl Left Click in name field to rename.  Image example showing graph editor and dope sheet.


Is it possible to export a 3D object made in Illustrator to Blender as a mesh?

I'm guessing that what you see is something like this.

I don't know what Illustrator is capable of, because I do not have it, and I have never used it. However, Blender can clean it up, by use of the Remesh modifier.

It has three modes, Sharp, Smooth, and Blocks. They work a bit differently, and which one you use, depends on what you want the resulting mesh to look like.

The Octree Depth setting sets the resolution. The Scale setting twaeks the resolution on a more fine-grained level. Smooth Shading should be self explanatory. Remove Disconnected Pieces removes small pieces of geometry that are not connected to the main mesh, and the Threshold value controls how small/big pieces get removed.
The Sharp mode also has a Sharpness setting; lowering it makes the mesh smoother and increasing it makes it sharper.

N.B. If your SVG has several unconnected parts, do not join them into a single object until after remeshing, or you will lose individual materials. Moreover, vertex groups and UV maps are not retained by the remesh.


blender 2.78-RC1 is out what is the major difference between these two linux versions?

The difference is the version of the GNU "libc" it is linked against. There is no benefit to one or the other -- different versions of Linux use different versions of "libc". Just pick the one with the latest "libc", in this case blender-2.78-rc1-linux-glibc219-x86_64.tar.bz2. It'll most likely work. If it doesn't, try the other one.

Really, there is no difference between the two, except one will work on your system, and the other might not.


try these videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L3gxMC5AqY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcM7wBlvA4c

They won't solve your problem but they will highlight the fact that there's no answer to your problem because it hasn't been created. I believe it will require some scripting and creativity to get what you are after.

I was looking for an answer to this for hours. The best I could come up with is to do join functions and then clean up the results. Boolean functions will not work because the faces being exactly in the same location will cause rounding errors.

Edit: oh, someone made a script: How to combine multiple cubes with double faces?

Edit: Oh, Blender 2.81 will have a voxel re-mesher? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEnRAgvIsf8


How can I add an ant terrain to an arbitrary shape?

Start with a cylinder with 6 vertices. (a hexagon shape)

Then, add your landscape. Play with the settings until you like how it looks.

Now, add a Boolean modifier on your landscape mesh. Make the operation set to Intersect and the Object set to the 6 sided cylinder we added previously.

Apply the modifier. You may now delete the cylinder. it is no longer needed. Enter edit mode on the landscape mesh, and select the bottom faces using face selection. Using vertex selection, deselect the 6 vertices on the bottom. Then, with proportional editing enabled, scale the vertices that are still selected along the Z axis to 0. Move them down slightly. Delete the vertices at the bottom.

You now have a hexagon shaped landscape.


At least in the lastest version of Blender, you can press Ctrl + C while overing any button (of sorts) to get the Data Path; This, however, doesn't work with Fields (text or numeric), since it copies the value that is already in the field. To fix this there's a "workaround", press RMB (right click) and select Copy Data Path, this however only copies a relative data path;

Also, it wasn't working in 2.72 for me, but I updated to 2.72b and it did.


add parameters (Grid, Random...) with python

After you add your sphere with bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add() the new sphere will be the active object which you can get through bpy.context.active_object, you can then add a particle modifier to it and adjust the settings which you can access through the particle modifier.

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(size = size, location = location)
obj = bpy.context.active_object

ps = obj.modifiers.new(name='particles',type='PARTICLE_SYSTEM')
pset = ps.particle_system.settings

pset.emit_from = 'FACE' # VERT FACE VOLUME
pset.use_emit_random = True
pset.use_even_distribution = True
pset.distribution = 'JIT' # JIT RAND GRID

To adjust other properties you can use the tooltips to find the property name to use -

And if you don't know what values can be used for enumerated options like distribution you can find them in blender's API documentation.


What is a good tutorial series to learn Python for BGE?

Here is a text based tutorial, for if you learn better from reading tutorials: CGMasters Python Scripting
Here is a video based tutorial, for people who like watching tutorials: (See Below)
The video tutorial is a little outdated, but the basic python still applies. I know that the text based tutorial is not a series, but the video one has some more, as it is part one of twenty three. Here is the link to the full playlist: Blender 2.6 Basic BGE Python Playlist


Once camera angle is locked into place with location rotation, how do I delete?

You can do it by selecting the camera then pressing these buttons:


Cannot replace a packed image in the uv image editor

Your image is packed, replacing it is not possible (in newer blender this option is now grayed out in this case). You have to unpack it first, if you want to replace it.


Long rectangular quads? Or neat squarish quads with tris?

Topology is a weird thing. It can be done a few different ways, and there isn't always a right answer. However, a few rules to keep in mind while modeling:

Edge loops should be around defining features and edges. For example, if you have a hole in your mesh, there should be a loop around it. It makes the shape easier to change and makes creasing the mesh with more edge loops much simpler.
Try to keep a quad based mesh. If you are forced to use a triangle or n-gon, try to hide it away on a flat surface, or a hidden part of the mesh, where, when it messes with the subsurface modifier, the distortion will not be as noticeable.
Try to keep quads even sized and square. Otherwise you'll have weird stretching issues.

So, to answer your question, you want an edge loop around the bottom with squarish quads inside:

It will be easy to change the shape of your mesh and it will work nicely with the subsurface modifier.


How can I edit the values of modifiers on multiple objects at the same time?

If multiple objects are already using the same modifier, you can modify a value of it, which will be propagated to all selected objects, by holding the Alt key while changing the value or by AltLMB clicking into a field and entering its value.

Modifying properties of multiple objects simultaneously with Alt is not restricted to modifiers.


Hovering mouse over something in Blender shows python code, but how does one use it?

The error occurs because true is not a python keyword. You meant to use True (capitalized).

Use bpy.context.scene, this gets the active scene instead of a scene name "Scene".

The code usually refers to the operation or the datablock, which the button or UI controls changes or calls.

The following code works.

import bpy

# Next two lines assign absolute values ("True" / "False")
# bpy.context.scene.use_audio_scrub = True
# bpy.context.scene.use_audio_scrub = False

# method changing the use_audio_scrub state
def Custom_Toggle_Audio_Scrub():
    bpy.context.scene.use_audio_scrub = not bpy.context.scene.use_audio_scrub

# call and execute the method
Custom_Toggle_Audio_Scrub()


What settings influence Z-Fighting in files with identical geometry?

One of the parameters that affect Z fight in 3D view window is the distance between clip start and clip end of the camera view. This distance on the  rendering camera can affect Eevee renders also, and should be set as short as possible.


You first need to make sure that the backrgound of your render is transparent, render, then plug the text alpha into the alpha socket of the Alpha Over:


As explained in answer to your earlier question, items can be added to existing panels and menus by appending a function to the existing class that draws the new additions you want to add.

While most buttons in the interface represent operators that will be run when the button is clicked, the item you are pointing at above is not an operator. When you get several buttons attached together that represent a choice of multiple values they are representing an enumerated property.

Based on the code that defines the property you can alter the displayed addon options with the following. Unfortunately with enumerated values you will often find that other code changes would need to be made to handle any new values you want to add, meaning they are often not an easy change.

bpy.types.WindowManager.addon_support = bpy.props.EnumProperty(
        items=[('OFFICIAL', "Official", "Officially supported"),
               ('COMMUNITY', "Community", "Maintained by community developers"),
               ('TESTING', "Testing", "Newly contributed scripts (excluded from release builds)"),
               ('NEW', "New stuff", "New stuff here"),
               ],
        name="Support",
        description="Display support level",
        default={'OFFICIAL', 'COMMUNITY'},
        options={'ENUM_FLAG'},
        )

In contrast the enumerated values for the addon categories listed under the supported levels is a dynamic list and you only need to add a new category to your addon's bl_info property to have it added to the list.

bl_info = {
    "name": "My addon",
    "category": "Special addons",
}


To take a somewhat @Gorgious-flavoured approach ;)..
You could use the same mesh for the head and tail caps, and the arrayed mid-section, but with different areas removed using a Mask modifier.
Assigning groups in face mode ensures the shared vertices are selected in each group:

Then 'Head', 'Mid', and 'Tail' objects can be AltD instanced, and each given a Mask  modifier, aimed at their respective groups. 'Mid' is the arrayed element...

The offset of the caps is unlikely to marry the midsection. As shown above, that can be fixed by giving them  a Displace modifier, along the array-axis.
Then you can edit the original, unmasked, instance, ('All', below,) and the array elements and caps will follow.


Adding some mesh to existing rigged mesh

There is a data transfer modifier, which can transfer the weights between meshes. Depending on the meshes you might need to go in and change some things manually afterwards, but it sure takes care of most of it.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/modifiers/modify/data_transfer.html
I would go with the Nearest Vertex sampling method. Topology option would not make sense in your case as the topologies are different.
The meshes should be joined after the data transfer modifier is added and applied


The object has been scaled in Object Mode.
Apply the scale through Ctrl+A > Scale and the cursor will be evenly scaled as well.


Sample code

Your example is designed to run in a console. It does not fit the BGE in any form.

You need to understand that a Python controller is part of the BGE's game loop. Therefore you should never ever hold the processing in your Python code. You have to exit as fast as possible. Otherwise the game loop will not continue (Remember you have only 16ms for process everything incl. render, logic and physics).

Text Input

The usual way to enter text within the BGE is to use a keyboard sensor. Typical it reacts on a single keystroke. But you can switch it into log mode to log subsequent keystrokes into a string property.

When the log toggle property (here: enabled) is evaluated as True the sensor converts keypresses into characters and adds them to the target property (here: Text).

Be aware:

The BGE does not support Keyboard mapping. Therefore the converted key-codes match EN-Keyboards only. (Which means strings entered by other keyboards are incorrect, especially at the special character keys and the Z/Y keys).
The target property can be any property (it does not need to be "Text")
The sensor will not trigger connected controllers on key press unless you enable Key or All Keys.
You need to determine when an input is completed. You can do that either by sensing when the target property changed (property sensor) or when a key was pressed (All Keys enabled).
The Keyboard sensor only adds characters. You need separate logic to clear the target property (e.g. after completing the input)

Text output

To present the entered text to the user I suggest to use a Text object. Copy the target property value from the keyboard sensor to the text attribute (or Text property) of the text object and it will be displayed.

The above example logs directly to the Text property.

I hope it helps


How do I bake a bone animation that has a constraint?

In Pose Mode go to menu Pose > Animation > Bake Action

Check: Visual Keying
Check: Clear Constraints
Bake Data: Pose
OK

The constraints will be removed from the bone but instead the bone will be keyframed to act as if the constraint is affecting its motion.


Intimidated Beginner Daunting To Animate

Doubtless this sort of intro question has been answered elsewhere, but briefly -

Press CTL-SHIFT-Down arrow to reset the timeline to frame 1.  This should be the default anyway.

With the cursor resting on the cube, select it with right mouse button.

Drag the cube to the left and near the edge of the grid.

Press 'i' and select "Location".  This will register (keyframe) it's location at frame 1.
It means that no matter where the cube is later, returning the timeline cursor to frame 1 will pull the cube back to this same spot.

With your cursor in the timeline at bottom, left click on frame 40. That will take the timeline cursor to this frame.  You can use the left/right arrow keys to manually step frame by frame.

Select the cube again and drag it to the right this time, to the other side of the grid.

Press i once more, choose 'Location'.

This registers (keyframes) the cube's new location for frame 40.  As with the first keyframe, it guarantees the cube will be pulled to this same location whenever the timeline reaches frame 40.

press CTL-SH-Down arrow to reset the timeline to frame 1. (or drag it there in the timeline)

Press the play/stop icons below to see the result, or use the shortcut keys - ALT-A to play the animation.  Press this combo again to make it stop.

You'll see the cube slide from one side of the grid to the other.

There are a stack of Youtube videos that take you through basics such as this.  Just search for "Blender Animation"  or perhaps - "Blender Basic Animation"

Ball bouncing as mentioned in your query is easiest using the physics engine but get used to animating manually first.

You can rotate and scale the cube the same way as you did to make it slide.  Just choose the desired effect when pressing 'i'.

If you get stuck, just leave a comment at the bottom of this answer.

Happy Blending -


press alt+e and assign shortcut to extrude manifold, so you don't need to keep toggling dissolve orthogonal edge every time you extrude


Why don't i have an option called collection?

Either you have not changed the Particle Emitter to use collections, or you have not created a collection for the sprinkles. BlenderGuru changed the particle emitter to use collections earlier in the video here.

If you did not create a new collection, you right-click in that window in the top right corner, and press New. This will create a new collection that you can rename by double-clicking, or pressing F2.

Alternatively, you can select all the objects you want to move to the new collection (in this case, all your sprinkles), press M and select + New Collection. BlenderGuru showed this process in the previous video here.

Edit: unrelated to original question, related to comments

Looking at the objects list in the top right corner, The donut and the sphere both have Particle Emitters applied.

To remove them, first, select the object (either the donut or the sphere, you don't want to delete the particle emitter from the icing), then go to the Particle Properties tab (blue icon with a couple of dots connected with lines). Then, press the minus button shown below.


Particle Color based on where the particle is emitted?

Texture coordinates from Dupli

You can make your particles materials inherit the Emitting Object's UV Coordinates to project the texture onto your particles.

You can simply unwrap the parent object (particle emitter in your case) and with the Texture Coordinates node set as in the picture, you'll be able to acces to the coordinates of the UV map of the surface point where the particle is born.

By assigning the same material to the Emitter an Particles and using the texture as a shader mask you'll be able to achieve a perfect correspondecy between the objects:

Above you can see a plane initially emitting diffusive blue particles, than some areas of the surface switch to glossy-pink shading and particles follow this change because the material is the same.


Freestyle External Contour has Large Gaps. Error Related to Topology?

I ran into a similar issue, in my opinion this is a bug ocurring when working with larger geometries. Try scaling your geometry down (dimensions below 100 units) and try again.

For bigger geometries sometimes whole lines or part of lines (always when crossing with hidden lines as seen from the camera) are disappearing, this goes away when simply scaling down. See the screenshots below.

I've file a bug report here, including a testfile: https://developer.blender.org/T49479

Update: According to the bug report, this bug has been fixed end of December 2016 and should not occur anymore in newer versions of blender.


How can I switch the direction of a Curve on Blender 2.8?

In edit mode:

select all (A)
right click > Switch Direction

(or   right click > D)

There isn't a more direct shortcut, but these are pretty quick! However, if you need to use this option so often that you'd like to only use the keyboard, you can Right click on the "Switch Direction" menu option ad do "Add shortcut".

By design, in Blender 2.8x, the buttons F5 to F8 are free for add-ons and users to use with their favorite shortcuts.


Auto toggle between isometric when using 1, 3, and 7

That would be the Auto Perspective setting. You can find it in the preferences under Interface.


How do i fix armature deformation (robot rigging)

For objects like that (machine, non-organic), don't use With Automatic Weight when you parent, because it will create weight gradients along the mesh and this is not what you want, instead use With Empty Groups, it will create as many vertex groups as you have bones but for the moment it won't assign any vertex to those groups. Then, in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Groups, assign each part of your mesh to the group it is supposed to be part of.


Is there a way to bring in vectors from an AutoCAD file without them being filled?

There's a plug-in for importing DXF files that gives  you a lot more options than FBX and it looks like it imports linework as paths instead of meshes.


How to create a checkbox in the Properties>Render tab?

I am no python expert however the reason why the bool wasn't showing it was because it was assigned to some property that didn't exists.
If you launch blender from the terminal is easier to spot those problems.

code...
    rd = scene.render
code...

output
    rna_uiItemR: property not found: RenderSettings.my_bool
    /Text:58

--

Looking the documentation,

  layout defines the structure of the panel in the UI and prop
  exposes the RNA item and places it into the layout.

The prop function takes data and property as arguments which in your case was data=rd property=“my_bool”. now the problem was arising because the variable rd was assigned to scene.render thus layout.propr(data=scene.render,  property=“my_bool”)

looking the error property not found: RenderSettings.my_bool we can understand that the scene.render was in fact the wrong call as it was calling the RenderSettings where there was no property "my_bool".

hence creating the bpy.types.Scene.my_tool and assign it to PointerProperty(type=MySettings) (that points to the BoolProperty where my_bool exists) solved the problem when calling layout.propr(data=scene.my_tool,  property=“my_bool”) because in fact now we know that my_tool has an attribute my_bool

--

I am not really familiar with the blender addon workflow so I look  How can I add a checkbox in the tools UI? and made the changes to your code accordingly
.

import bpy
from bpy import context
from math import degrees, floor
#from bpy.types import *
from bpy_extras.io_utils import ExportHelper
from bpy.props import (StringProperty,
                       BoolProperty,
                       IntProperty,
                       FloatProperty,
                       FloatVectorProperty,
                       EnumProperty,
                       PointerProperty,
                       )
from bpy.types import (Panel,
                       Operator,
                       AddonPreferences,
                       PropertyGroup,
                       )

class MySettings(PropertyGroup):

    my_bool = BoolProperty(
        name = "render scene",
        description = "render a reference copy of the scene",
        default = False
    )

class BlenderCam_exportFile(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "myops.blendercam_export_file"
    bl_label = "Export File"

    def execute(self, context):
        #------------------------------------
        #    my code is here....
        #------------------------------------
        return {'FINISHED'}

class BlenderCamPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Render context of the properties editor"""
    bl_label = "BlenderCam"
    bl_idname = "blendercam_panel"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "render"

    @classmethod
    def poll(self,context):
        return True

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

        # --> new line here <--
        rd = scene.my_tool

        #label
        layout.label(text="Label")
        #chechbox
        layout.prop(rd, "my_bool", text="Bool Property")
        #button
        row = layout.row()
        row.operator("myops.blendercam_export_file")

def register():
    # --> new line here <--
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)
    bpy.types.Scene.my_tool = PointerProperty(type=MySettings)

    #bpy.utils.register_class(BlenderCam_exportFile)
    #bpy.utils.register_class(BlenderCamPanel)
    #bpy.utils.register_class(MySettings)

def unregister():
    # --> new line here <--
    bpy.utils.unregister_module(__name__)
    del bpy.types.Scene.my_tool

    #bpy.utils.unregister_class(BlenderCam_exportFile)
    #bpy.utils.unregister_class(BlenderCamPanel)
    #bpy.utils.unregister_class(MySettings)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Is there a way to create a collision between the hair and body in my character in Blender 2.8?

The way to solve this would be setting the particle emitter to collision. You can do this in the physics tab. There is an option labeled collision.


You can use the Theorem of Pythagoras:
I added three bones, for clarity:
j3 is simply child of Crank.
j2 uses a copy loc constraint to copy only X loc of j3
j1 is the traget of Rod track to constraints, and piston copies loc of j1.
We know that a = square root of (square c - square b) by the Pythagoras theorem.
c is a fixed value, equals to Rod bone lenght.
b is equal to the distance between j2 and j3.
We want that the x loc of j1 is equal to x loc of j3 + a.
So I've set a driver on its X loc to follow this formula.
In the drivers panel the first variable uses a "distance" operator, while the second variable (varj3) use a transform channel (x loc of j3 bone).
The fixed number .067 is simply the square of the rod bone lenght, measured in Blender units (I suggest to do the operations using  blender units, then switch back to imperials when you have finished).


Channels and keys of animated bones do not appear on Graph Editor

Problem answered here:
Graph Editor does not show any keyframes

Apparently the button "show_hidden" on the view controls at the botton on Graph Editor must be set to true to allow the visualization of keys from objects or bones that are "hidden". To the right is the button "show_only_errors" to show only keys with errors or a red bar under (usually unupdated or related to a deleted object/bone/shape key) and to the left is the button "show_only_selected" for showing only keys from objects you selected, which if set to "false" makes all keys from any object and bone appear.

*Examples made from Blender 2.79b. The buttons do the same thing and are on the same place on the newest Blender's version to date

I cannot explain the status of "hidden" yet. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with "hidden from view", it is another type of "hidden"


How to drag rigid bodies with a rigged mesh?

Rigid body objects only interact with other rigid body objects. To make the loader bucket "pick up" the rocks it will need to have rigid body enabled. As you are using an animation to move the bucket you should enable the animated option. You also need to set the collision shape to mesh so that the bucket will be hollow to allow the rocks inside it.

You will also want to use similar settings for the truck.


I tried importing some footage .. and assigning them to proxy when i tried playing back the footage with the proxy enabled it freezed on first frame .. the only way i could make it work is to use full render no proxy setting .. which basically defeated the purpose of creating a proxy in the first place.. Now i don't know if they have totally changed the way the VSE handles proxies in 2.79 as opposed to how it WORKED in 2.78.. but i would be bold enough to make a general statement that in 2.78 VSE works great.. in 2.79 its effectively broken..


here a simple answer using one of the TextEditor -> Python templates:

import bpy

class LayoutDemoPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the scene context of the properties editor"""
    bl_label = "Layout Demo2"
    bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_layout"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "scene"

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

        scn = context.scene
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop_search(scn, "vgr", context.active_object, "vertex_groups", text="Density")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(LayoutDemoPanel)
    bpy.types.Scene.vgr = bpy.props.StringProperty(name="vertex_group_density")

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(LayoutDemoPanel)
    del bpy.types.Scene.vgr

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Here we use

bpy.types.Scene.vgr to register a StringProperty to keep the string name of the prop_search choice.
Accessing the 'vertex_group' happens by passing an object reference, this can be done by using context.active_object or ob if you alias it earlier in the code.. you could have something like:

ob = bpy.data.objects[some_object_name]
row.prop_search(scn, "vgr", ob, "vertex_groups", text="Density")


How to hide a portion of a mesh that is blocked by another mesh on a nonrendered layer

You need to use the Exclude boxes for this. Go to Properties > Render Layers and make sure all the layers including the objects you do not want to have render on that layer are selected in the Exclude portion. This will basically do the same thing as hiding it, but for that render layer only.


How do I simulate only part of a object as cloth?

Yes. Use the Pinning vertex group in cloth settings. Any vertices with full weight of 1 will not be affected by the simulation. Partial weight will be partially effected. It is common to use a slight weight gradient for it to work smoothly.


Why is part of my model not being rendered?

There are a lot of reasons why this might be happening. While these may not be the reasons for why it's happening for you, it's a good place to start.

Render visibility disabled in outliner

This is one of the most common reasons for something not appearing in a render.

Just make sure that this is always checked for any objects that you want to render.

Blender Internal Specific Issues

When working with Blender Internal, there are some issues with materials that could be causing your object not to show up in the render.

Having those settings in your material will cause the material to be completely transparent. Having a texture effect the alpha can also cause this.

Cycles Specific Issues

There are a few ways an object can be accidentally hidden from a render in cycles.
Probably the most common, is to accidentally uncheck camera from the ray visibility in the objects tab of the properties panel.

Unchecking camera will basically make the object not show up in the image (although reflections, shadows, etc. may show up and the visibility of those can be controlled using the other checkboxes)
In cycles, an object could also disappear from the render, if the material was transparent (contained a transparent shader).

Layers

The last major reason why an object might disappear from a render, is layers and renderlayers. Always make sure that the object that disappeared is on one of the currently viewed layers.
For renderlayers, be sure that you have all of your scene layers selected. These are the same as your currently viewed layers, and are tied to them. If you select or deselect a layer from there, it will also be selected or deselected in the viewport.

The layer section is where you include the layers that you want used in a specific renderlayer.

The last things to check is your exclude and mask groups. The exclude group simply excludes the contents of a layer completely. No lights or anything similar from those layers will be shown.

For mask groups, just make sure that you aren't masking out any of the layers that you want visible. If you have a mask layer enabled, it will automatically cut out any pieces of it that appear in a higher Z-Depth.


how to make object to follow curve with bending rather than it staying rigid

You want the Curve modifier. That will cause the mesh to distort to follow the curve. Don't forget to make sure the mesh and curve's origins are at the same location. Then animating it moving along the curve is as simple as animating it moving along the same axis the curve modifier is using.


How to change the axis of rotation of an object?

I'll try to show here what I said above in comments.

This is the drum from your object and I highlighted its pivot point as it is in the file. I also placed an empty to its current position, as a marker.

But if you think that the pivot point is well positioned, you should try to "recalculate" it origin to the geometry

And you get this: you see it is now a different position... this is what makes the drum to rotate wrongly even after correcting the local axis...

If this mesh was designed better, this following method would have worked, to reset the local Y axis to get a better rotation animation:

first, I selected a ring from the mesh (which is supposed to rotate well around a corrected Y axis), duplicated it as a separate object, and used it to calculate the current rotation using an empty:

the empty is placed at the new ring center (obtained with "origin to the geometry") and in side view, with the help of vertex snap tools, rotated until it matches the ring mesh, and you so you get the (wrong) rotation angle between the empty and the ring.

you then have to use that angle to correct the real "drum" angle

as you see the drum Y local axis has now the right rotation, but if you compare the empty position and the drum pivot, it is easy to understand that this will not work good in animation either...

I cannot model the drum for you (btw I'm on holiday) but at least you know something more than before :D maybe someone else will add more help...


Bump Node Not Going Through When Connected Into Normals

Connect a texture to the bump. Either a normal map into the normal input or a texture (such as noise) into the height input. Then control the strength with the distance and the strength values.


I found my timeline cursor as here, but it won't move at all.

In Blender you cannot do that with Left click, you have to Right click and drag the cursor around your timeline.
Hope this helps.
All the best..


Same animation is displayed different in edit/object mode when animated object is selected

There are transformations and deformations by modifiers.Enable Display Modifier in Edit Mode on the modifiers to see the modifier effects in edit mode. Optionally also Adjust cage to modifier result.


How do i keep HDR background without having to see it when rendering?

Select Render Tab in properties view & in FILM section, check Transparent.
However, The reflections of HDR will show up.


Blender includes a sample template file that uses from_pydata() which you can get in blender's text editor from Templates->Python->Addon Add Object

The key portion is -

def add_object(self, context):
    scale_x = self.scale.x
    scale_y = self.scale.y

    verts = [Vector((-1 * scale_x, 1 * scale_y, 0)),
             Vector((1 * scale_x, 1 * scale_y, 0)),
             Vector((1 * scale_x, -1 * scale_y, 0)),
             Vector((-1 * scale_x, -1 * scale_y, 0)),
            ]

    edges = []
    faces = [[0, 1, 2, 3]]

    mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(name="New Object Mesh")
    mesh.from_pydata(verts, edges, faces)
    # useful for development when the mesh may be invalid.
    # mesh.validate(verbose=True)
    object_data_add(context, mesh, operator=self)

Of note is that the vertex list is a list of Vector() items and the face list is a list containing items that are each a list of vertex indices (eg. a list of lists), multiple faces should be entered as [[0,1,2,3],[1,2,5,6],[0,1,7,8]] - this is most likely the source of the error you see.


Just add 5 more bones, each connecting (connected) the hand to each palm finger bone.


In Blender 2.92, I can't see the bloom effect like in the previous versions. Is there any settings to change that?

Activate bloom effect
Go to the material section and click over the surface option and select Emission.
Than you can change the strength on it.
Go to render mode and you can see your bloom effect.


Why are modifiers not applied to child objects?

This is just not how modifiers are intended to work.
Perhaps it's just me, but I never thought of modifiers being applied to child objects. Indeed, this would seem rather strange to me.
But why?
Modifiers are another kind of datablock which can be added to objects, much like materials or constraints.
Yet neither materials or constraints are applied to child objects, as this would be quite limiting. Imagine if child objects always had the same materials and constraints as the parent!
If this was how it worked, parenting objects would be pretty much equivalent to joining them with ⎈ CtrlJ.
I think the same reasoning holds true for modifiers.
And for the record, I'm not convinced that your assertion that "modifiers don't work in the way a lot of people would expect" is correct. At least in the question you linked, I don't see anything that suggests to me that the OP was expecting modifiers to affect child objects..

To answer your question about arraying an empty, I think parenting is not the tool you are looking for. Group instances sound more like the kind of "compound object" you want, however it isn't possible to add modifiers to them. This is because modifiers operate on mesh data and not objects, and empties don't have any mesh data (group instances are empties with dupligroup enabled).
Instead you could use a particle system or dupli objects to place objects along an arrayed face, e.g. like this.
Or of course you could copy the modifiers to all the child objects.


How do I get into edit mode as shown in this video?

You have added the modifiers, but you have not applied them yet. That's why it looks different. The transparent cube on your screenshot is the unmodified mesh. The sphere is the result of the Subdivision Surface modifier. The Displacement modifier is disabled in Edit Mode (see icons of the modifiers).
In Blender 2.9x the apply button of modifiers has been removed. It's now hidden in a drop down menu. Apply the modifiers and it should look like in the video.


Blender Internal:
Method 1:
You could disable Sky in Properties > Render Layers > Layer:

With Sky enabled:

With Sky disabled:

Method 2:
Another way is to set the Alpha to Transparent in Render settings > Shading:

This will give the same result as disabling Sky in Render layers > Layers.
Cycles:
For cycles you could set the Film to Transparent in Render settings > Film:

With Transparent disabled:

With Transparent enabled:


How to color an object when touched by animated character?

This sounds right down the alley of dynamic paint.
To get a tile to light up, I recommend using an image canvas with single pixels for each tile, and when it goes into the material, set the interpolation to nearest neighbor (no interpolation). As for the wave effect, that should be fairly easy as well with a second canvas set to wave. In the floor shader, you can use the light from the first canvas to control the appearance of the waves from the second so they don’t go outside the lit tile.
I have not tested this.
For more information, check out dynamic paint in the physics section of the manual at docs.blender.org


How do I jump to a keyframe time on the dope sheet?

In the Dope Sheet Editor or the Graph Editor you can select the keyframe and press CtrlG.

Or use the menu Key->Jump to keyframes.


What you can do is converting it to a mesh and grid fill the result:

AltC: convert to mesh
CtrlF: grid fill (in edit mode)

You have two options, allowing to tune the resulting geometry:

Giving more or less vertices to the curve
Adjusting the grid fill parameters


Get all the objects intersects or falls inside a specific object

I have found a solution with two different approaches. The first is to find the cubes that intersect with the cone and usually on the side of the edge. Second, finds the cubes that sit inside the cone. In the second part, there will be some cubes that actually intersect with the cone. Thus, there will be some cubes present both results. You can just join both lists and get rid of the duplicate cubes for the correct answer.
# import libraries
import bpy, bmesh, time
from mathutils.bvhtree import BVHTree
from mathutils import Vector

obj_list = [e for e in bpy.data.objects if e.type == 'MESH' and e != bpy.data.objects['Cone']] # get all the cubes
cone = bpy.data.objects['Cone']

# part 1: find the cubes intersect with the cone create cone mesh and it's BVH Tree
cone_mesh = bmesh.new()
cone_mesh.from_mesh(cone.data)
cone_mesh.transform(cone.matrix_world)
cone_BVHtree = BVHTree.FromBMesh(cone_mesh)

intersect_obj_list = [] # the cubes intersect the cone create cube mesh for each cube and their BVH Trees
for cube in obj_list:
    cube_mesh = bmesh.new()
    cube_mesh.from_mesh(cube.data)
    cube_mesh.transform(cube.matrix_world)
    cube_BVHtree = BVHTree.FromBMesh(cube_mesh)

    # get the intersected faces using BVHtree, if result is non-none, the cube is intersecting
    inter = cone_BVHtree.overlap(cube_BVHtree)
    if inter != []:
        intersect_obj_list.append(cube)
print (len(intersect_obj_list))

# part 2: find the cubes sits completely inside the cone
falls_inside = []
for cube in obj_list:
    cube_location = cube.location
    x,y,z = cube_location
    dest_point = Vector((x, y, z+100)) # destination will be point far from the origin
    origin =  cone.matrix_local.inverted()@cube_location
    destination = cone.matrix_local.inverted()@dest_point
    direction = (destination - origin).normalized() #normalizing
    # shooting ray from origin to the destinantion, if it hits then the object is sitting inside the cone
    hit, loc, norm, face = cone.ray_cast(origin, direction)
    if hit:
        falls_inside.append(cube)

interset_inside_cubes = list(set(intersect_obj_list+falls_inside))


Looking at your screenshot, I can see that it is a generated image. It is blank, which is why it is black. When adding a new image from the UV/image editor, choose an option other than blank, (color grid or uv grid) if you want to use a default image from within Blender.

You do need to save the image that you create as well if you use a generated image. You will notice an asterisk next to image in the editor header if the image has not been saved as it is in your screenshot.


You need to be in Object Mode and then either right-click on the mesh or expand the Object menu and select Shade Smooth.


Problem with knife project tool: the result is not smooth

Check camera position

Knife projection projects rays from the camera, trough the cutting geometry, till they reach the object to cut. The more your point of view is distant from the cutting geometry or your are not perpendicular to it, the less precise the operation can be.

Imagine that you have to redraw the cutting object on the plane by hand using, for example, the grease pencil. Would you be more accurate in tracing the contour by working close to the geometry or far away?

If you take the same cutting object and run the command far away and with the camera not perpendiculart to the cutting geometry (best fitting) plane:

While if we get close, we would get:


Animating the use_texture property should change textures but will give a sudden change not a nice transition between textures.

The influence settings of the texture can be animated allowing a texture to gradually replace another texture.


How do I copy the vertices, edges, and faces of one mesh into another?

One way is, as you are doing, Swapping the mesh

ob1.data = mesh # assign mesh to ob1
ob1.data = mesh.copy() # assign a copy of the mesh to ob1

how to use another meshes verts, edges and polygons to pass to the mesh.from_pydata method.

cone = context.object # some other object
mymesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("mymesh")
vertices = [v.co for v in cone.data.vertices]
faces = [[v for v in p.vertices] for p in cone.data.polygons]
# let faces take care of edges
mymesh.from_pydata(vertices=vertices, edges=[], faces=faces)
# could make edges
edges = [[v for v in e.vertices] for e in cone.data.edges]

Using from_pydata isn't going to fix the shader issue.


I get something pretty close:

I've created this mesh from the logo:

Then I've given it a pure white Emission shader for the bottom, and this node setup for the walls, which is basically a mix between an Emission of a multicolor ColorRamp and a Transparent, with a gradient along the Z axis, and before the Output, a Layer Weight to give it a pink emission on the edges:

If you want to animate, use an empty in the Texure Coordinate to mix the materials with a Transparent node:


Is there such a thing as free standard standalone character armatures?

The Rigify addon includes a basic armature that sounds like what you might be looking for.


Complete Armature disappears when switching to "pose mode" /nothing is hidden, alt+h has no effect

i was able to do my pose while switching to "animation" tab and after i was done it seems they are apearing also in "pose mode" selected from "modeling".
Also could be caused by clicking another "layer" square on "outliner>pose then object data properties" but i am not sure.


You can use dynamic painting.

Subdivide your cylinder to create a dense geometry. Give the ball a subsurf modifier and smooth it. Apply transformations to both objects (Ctrl+A).

Select the sphere and enable dynamic paint in Physics header. Set it as a brush and play with the marked red settings pictured below.

Select cylinder and set its type to canvas. Increase the sub-steps amount and check the anti-aliasing checkbox for smoother result.


How do I move all children objects away from parent empty (by scaling the empty) but NOT scale the children?

If this is the same problem i had, and you are using version 2.81, try this:


ZBrush sculpting brushes equivalents in Blender

During months afetr I asked this question I was able to piece together some experience from various sources that now allows me to answer it, at least partially. I'll probably be editing this answer in the future and adding new items to the list.

The goal was to be able to use gazillion of ZBrush sculpting tutorials from Youtube and use them as a learning tool in Blender Sculpt mode. The conclusion is, in order to understand them, you have to learn ZBrush, there is no way around it. But you don't have to download and use the program itself, you can simply watch a few beginner tutorials. The best way to familiarize yourself with ZBrush basics is the latest playlist by Pixologic, published on 24.06.2016:

ZClassroom - How to Start with ZBrush

Another source that confirmed you can find some equivalents is a book "Blender 3D By Example":

https://books.google.pl/books?id=gtdOCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&vq=zbrush#v=onepage&q=zbrush&f=false

Here is my list:

    ------------------------------------------------------------
ZBrush                      Blender

Standard   ------------->   SculptDraw
Dam Standard  ---------->   Crease
Clay Buildup  ---------->   Clay Strips
Move      -------------->   Grab
hPolish   -------------->   Flatten
Trim      -------------->   Scrape/Peak [1]
Pinch     -------------->   Pinch
Smooth    -------------->   Smooth
Layer     -------------->   Layer
Inflate   -------------->   Inflate/Deflate

Some equivalent settings and keystrokes:

ZBrush                      Blender
------------------------------------------------------------
Z-intensity (U)   ------->  Strength (Shift+F)
Draw Size (S)   --------->  Radius (F)
Focal Shift   ----------->  Curve (submenu in the Toolshelf)
Rectangle Mask (Ctrl+LMB)   Box Mask (B)
Erase Mask       -------->  Clear Mask (Alt+M)
Inverse Mask (Ctrl+I) --->  Invert Mask (Ctrl+I)
Polygroups (Ctrl+W) ----->  Face Sets (Draw Face Sets brush in 2.83)

[1] see video by Gleb Alexandrov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKPrGh1HTog


how to push back / repel clothes from a surface?

Go into edit mode with a piece of clothing selected.

Enable proportional editing by pressing O. Turn on x-ray with AltZ in order to help you see the mesh stuck inside the model more easily.

Select a vertice that is inside the person, pull the vertice out of the character. Adjust the proportional size with your scroll wheel. This will determine how nearby vertices are affected. Repeat with other clothes.


To get 3D Sound you could add a Speaker to the scene

and choose the sound file in the Properties window

You can adjust the playback time in the NLA editor:

Or as another variant you could just use the Video Sequence Editor and add a sound file there. This will be plain playback with no positional audio.

The synchronization of audio and video/viewport playback can be set in the timeline. AV-sync will drop frames in the viewport if the scene is too heavy, so the timing will still be correct.


Unable to change number of vertices after adding a bezier circle in blender 2.83

You have added a curve circle, instead of a mesh circle. A curve circle does not have vertices, it has control points, but these cannot be adjusted when adding the object. A mesh circle will have the option to adjust the number of vertices.
Press Shift+A> Mesh> Circle to add a mesh circle. Then the Adjust Last Operation panel (the panel in the bottom left) will show the option to adjust the vertices.


Is there a way to simulate convection with a particle system?

EDIT: Per Erik's comment...

Here's an example of a Node setup where the individual particles are on their own program.  I changed the particles to be emitted over time instead of all at once to give a little more separation between particles . The smaller particles move faster than the larger ones but you can easily remove that if it doesn't suit your requirements.

The modulus operator (Math Node) is for looping the simulation indefinitely.  This setup essentially uses the Minimum of the two range nodes as well as the length of time the particle has been living to determine where the particles should be along the Z-axis.

Of course there's a lot of room for tweaking, improvement, randomization, etc.
In this gif, I added a little velocity in the X-direction using Blender's own particle settings.

EDIT 2:

Just saw your edit to your question.  Here's an example with smoke simulation.  You just need to add Smoke to the original object and make sure you select Copy Full Object so that it also copies the Smoke sim with each Instantiation.

EDIT 3 (per Erik's comment):

The single-tri smoke emitter objects will simply have no bearing on bake, simulation, or render times.  Blender will crash from the smoke and particle sim long before the number of triangles.

I would concentrate on making the smoke more realistic before adding more particles.  I understand that you'll need more than hundred, but the smoke is going to be the makeup of the cloud and there's a lot of "tweakability" in the smoke sim.  The particle objects are only for emitting and serving as a method to give you control over location.

Here is a sim with a little bit of turbulence added (affecting the particle objects and the smoke).  Sorry it's so small and crappy, I had to keep it under 2MB for upload:

And here's a happy little cloud render from this scene:

Here's the unbaked blend:


I will start the example with creating a texture from a box mapped image texture set to blend as a way to get something baked to the initial uv map.

I've set up an image texture to bake to as a target and am using an emission shader to avoid shadow

I leave the image target disconnected and selected before baking Emit

Here you see in the UV editor the newly baked pixels on the target image in relation to the UV map, save this image now to disk

Here we set up a New UV map and set it to viewable, then unwrap to a new scheme

Here we check the new mapping to a new image texture target so you can see we are not dealing with the previous UV map - reference the new map in the UV node

We need to reverse the connection so that we leave the target image node disconnected and still selected and then press bake emit

Our result on the new UV map is visible now, and we have gone from generated texture coordinate image texture to UV mapped image texture to a second UV mapped image texture. Save you result image to disk if satisfied with the mapping.


I'm not sure that they actually setup a shortcut to edit the values. A background colour of green indicates that the values are keyframed but not on the current frame, while a yellow background indicates a keyframe exists on the current frame.

See below, the location is keyframed on the current frame while rotation has a keyframe on another frame.

When the mouse is over the values pressing I will insert a keyframe for the values at the current frame. You can also right click and choose Insert Keyframes, you also have options to Delete (only current frame) or Clear (all frames)  Keyframes.

Clicking in the centre of a number field will enter edit mode allowing you to type in the value to use.


Bevel question: it is possible to bevel in different directions?

..Expanding on @francois gibon's answer..

in Vertex Mode on the corner-vertex, AltD duplicate it, dragging slightly in the direction of interest, and right-clicking to cancel the move. (Don't deselect)
GG slide the duplicate vertex along the edge to the point you want the bevel to stop.
Repeat for the other direction(s)
CtrlShiftB bevel the corner with 'Width Type: Percent', to 100%. If the bevel tool is already set up from previous use, that's just dragging the bevel as far as it will go.
With all vertices selected, AltM merge > 'By
Distance', to tidy away the duplicates.


Sure. Just use this node arrangement for your glass. Pay attention to the blend modes highlighted on the right:

EDIT - My bad, I didn't see you wanted a refraction component. Adding it is easy, just add  a Refraction BSDF and use another Mix Shader to combine it with the existing glass shader. See below (Note - I used a sphere in the image because the gem doesn't refract so well - surprisingly).


Grid floor disappears and cannot see outline of selected objects

You have ticked an option that displays only objects that will be rendered. Open the Properties panel with N and untick Only Render under Display. You can actually select objects (the 3d manipulator widget is still being shown) and move them as normal, you just cannot see the visible outline.