You can achieve this result by duplicating your first Camera and than rotating it:

I reccomend not using seamless rotation. If you have a small overlapping part it is easier to match it up in the compositor.

To match the to renders up you can use the translate node:

The first part of the image.

The second part off the image.

Combined.

First, you take your to images. For demonstartion purposes I use to files on my computer. One file can also be the rendered image. Than scale the images to the right size. Make sure that your scene has the size of the combined image.
Than you need to add these to images together. To get the combined size I reccomend using a mask of scene size. Use a "translate" node to get the images into the right position. Using half your image height is a good starting point. Add the first image on top of the mask with an "add" node. Add the second image with a "lighten" node.
If your images don't overlay you can also use an "add" node.
If your images overlay match up the second image to the first one with the "translate" node. Also add another scale node to make the image in  this case a perfect square. This last step is only neccessary if you have overlaying images.

I personaly reccomend doing the matching up in an image editor like Gimp ore Photoshop. It will save you a lot of time.


How do I seperate two faces by shared vertices?

Select the 2 vertices you want to split and press v to Rip the edge. You'll have a result like that

(from the blender manual)

  Rip creates a “hole” into a mesh by making a copy of selected vertices and edges, still linked to the neighbor non-selected vertices, so that the new edges are borders of the faces on one side, and the old ones, borders of the faces of the other side of the rip.


Pressing 'Tab' will move certain bones slightly

You have a IK-solver applied on some bones. This constrain does not work in edit mode, so when you go to object/pose mode, constrain starts to affect and moves bones a little.

Other thing that you show in video - it is bone in the head, it is hidden in edit mode, so you need to press Alt+H to show it.

And by the way, do you know that rigify addon, that you use, has a Rig generator, witch builds all logic for you and you need not to add constraints and additional bones manually?


In Cycles the settings for a background do not work the same as BI.
Add a Sky Texture in Properties > World if you want an automatically generated sky, or use an Environment texture for using an HDR image as the sky.
To "connect" a node to the backround color from the properties editor, click the little dot next to the color field, then select the type of node:

Note that you will have to manually align it to your sun lamp, or try this addon.
The best technique I have found for manually aligning the sky texture is:

Select your lamp and press . and then CtrlShiftNumpad 7 to align the view looking straight into the lamp:

Make sure you are in perspective view (Numpad 5 to toggle) and enable viewport rendering (ShiftZ)

Click and drag on the sphere in the sky texture node settings to rotate the sky texture until it is lined up with the view:


Is there a difference in doing Anaglyph 3D directly in blender instead of using other apps?

Ok after doing many test, it is absolutely better to render it directly from Blender itself. Mainly because you can control the convergence.

If you do it in post (with the method described above) it will fake convergence and instead of giving depth to your objects it will give depth to the entire screen with a slight depth to the objects (when I have time I will post examples).

You can get a much deeper 3D effect if you set your convergence correctly and dividing the interocular distance by 30.

So to recap if you can always render your Anaglyph images directly from Blender instead of faking the effect in post.

EDIT:

For sake of completeness I will post the differences. Keep in mind you will need 3D glasses (red/cyan) to view the below pics.

First is the 2D pic made into 3D from Photoshop (Cheat):

Second pic is Minimum convergence rendered directly out of Blender:

Last pic if Maximum Convergence directly out of Blender.

As you can see (if you had the glasses on) that doing it the cheat way gives you less depth than the minimum convergence. Although it still gives some.

The maximum convergence you can clearly see the chair popping out of the screen. So this is the best route to go for Anaglyph.

Keep in mind the maximum convergence will not always be best for your scene. It would depend on where you consider the middle, front and back of your scene. So don't always use maximum. I was just showing it as a reference.


You can set more output directories in Compositor editor.

For a movie set output directory and format in Properties editor > Output Properties
For an image sequence use Compositor editor > File Output node

See: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/compositing/types/output/file.html


Try decreasing the Step size in the material settings:

Note that this will increase render time.


One way is to use the animation nodes addon. In this example I take an fcurve from cube.001 and use a random number as a frame offset, then feed that into the rotation of each cube.

The nodes start with an object list that I filled with the selected objects and then hid the inputs in the advanced node settings. The loop input is used to apply the same node tree to each of the objects in the list


You can check it in the Outliner. After you open the armature's hierarchy you can see how many bones are directly below of the armature. The "left" has two root bones, the "right" has only one. So if you click on the triangle near the armature data and you see more than one bone immediatelly, then you have multiple root bones.


How to make 360° renders for Virtual Reality devices (ie Oculus, etc) using Blender?

With Cycles you can set your Camera to Panoramic and Equirectangular

Make sure you have recent Blender builds. Also see the Blender manual docs for Camera


How to keyframe_insert without moving the object

You can surround your code with something like:

current_frame = bpy.context.scene.frame_current

obj = bpy.data.objects['Cube']
obj.keyframe_insert(data_path='location', frame=0)
obj.location.z += 5
obj.keyframe_insert(data_path='location', frame=100)

s.frame_set(current_frame)

So that the current (or the frame you want) is restored once the key frames are inserted.

Though, that does not guaranty that the object will not move, as its movement is dependent on the key frames you have set.


Never mind, I fixed it. I had an image strip in the video editor but I deleted the images and so it didnt render anything. I deleted the strip and it renders like it used to.


Select the object and press Bake Action in 3D view > Header > Object (or Pose if you are baking an armature from pose mode) > Animation:


I just solved this problem. My thinking was wrong. I realized, that it is impossible to draw meshes using indices when one vertex is shared among few faces, where each face has different UV mapping on that vertex. The solution was to change format to face list.


How to unwrap and bake object created with array modifier?

Array modifiers will duplicate the uv of the original mesh so any texture you are using on the base mesh will automatically duplicate it over to the array. If you are wanting for each segment to have its own individual texture then you will have to apply the modifier first before you can make adjustments individually.


UV Unwrapping so that every face takes the whole UV?

Just to illustrate Robin's comment (and show off my gif skillz)

Select the whole mesh
Go UV > Reset
Done


The bmesh fails in some cases, try the Carve solver instead.

[Click on the image to enlarge.]

The documentation is very sparse about the inner workings of this option.

  Solver
  Determines what set of algorithms are used to calculate the boolean operation. Carve uses the external Carve Library while BMesh uses Blender’s built-in library and should give better results.


Circles and Quads are always a strange mix.

You can use Grid Fill to get quads.

Go to CtrlF or Mesh->Faces->Grid Fill on the menu.
Or just press the space bar and type Grid Fill.

Pressing F6 will bring out the different options for the tool (or you can set them on the Grid Fill tab that appears on the Left Side of the screen by pressing T)

Other option to deal with edges on a cylinder is  to select the edge, extrude (E) and scale to bring the edges in, then extrude again and press Esc without moving the mouse. Then just merge the edges at the center AltM into a pole. This oPtion will give you some triangles, but in a manageable topology.

Other way to deal with the issue is selecting the edge and using Fill F. That will create a N-gon.

Then you can use inset (I). To fill the center you can choose then between an N-gon (Using fill again) or triangles with a common pole.


Shortcut from 2.7x was changed from Shift+Z to switch between Rendered <> Current mode.

In 2.80 press Z on your keyboard to bring Shading Pie Menu and choose desired mode.


Duplicate along a path WITHOUT transform

The method you follow is fine, but you've got problems with the scale and orientation of your objects.

Lets start with the Curve.

Make sure its Origin (A, the orange dot) is located at one extremity of the curve. Otherwise, make them fit in Edit mode.
Make sure its Scale (B) is (1 1 1) and Rotation is (0 0 0): otherwise, in object mode, press Ctrl+A / Rotation and scale.

Now we'll set up the plane and its modifiers.

Make sure the plane's origin is at the same location than the curve origin : in Object mode select the Curve, Shift+S / Crursor to selected. Then add the plane.
Make sure the plane is oriented like the yellow ones in my picture. Make sure its Scale is (1 1 1) and Rotation (0 0 0), or Ctrl+A/Rotation and scale.
Add an array modifier. In Fit Type, select Fit Curve, then select your curve. Crank up the offset to space them a bit.
Add a Curve modifier, select your curve.

You should obtain something very similar than the grey planes in my picture. If not, check every step again...

Let's add the box:

Select the plane, Shift+S / Cursor to selection, Shift+A Cube.
You'll want to resize it : please, do that in Edit mode ! I'm pretty sure 90% of your problem is that you resize/rotate in object mode.
It should be oriented like in my picture.
Once again, Ctrl+A/Rotation and Scale

Make the box a child of the plane, activate Dupliface on the plane. Tada! Once you're here, you'll probably want to disable Render Instancer (so only the boxes will be rendered, not the planes).


How can I make curves "stick" to a model?

Starting with  version 2.78 you can Draw Freehand Curves.

First create a curve > bezier object in object mode.

Enter edit mode (Tab). You can delete the existing curve segments by pressing A to select all vertices and pressing Delete.

In the Options tab enable the projection depth to surface, that way the drawn curves will stick to the surface of other objects.

Then go to the Create tab and select Draw Curve to draw a curve directly in the 3D viewport.

For more info watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAsUGy7XGOA


Keyframing Constraints - Is it possible?

You can do this by animating the Influence value (hover over it and press I). This tells Blender how much the constraint will affect the object.


Render layer causing image "shearing" in video sequence editor

As cegaton mentionend, the file you uploaded won't produce such problems on my side neither:

http://sendvid.com/tbu3umgk

Though I had to disable your dust layers to get another result than lots of white:

However, I suppose, it's a driver problem on your side. I already had a graphics cards driver problem with Blender. The developers helped me out to find out whether the problem is one with the driver.

You should use the opengl32.dll from http://download.blender.org/ftp/sergey/softwaregl/ and place it next to blender.exe as described by sergey to find out if the problem is your driver. Beware, that Blender might be very slow while using this wrapper dll as everything is done on CPU only without using your graphics card.


Make Particles Point Towards the Camera?

You can create a particle system with the following settings.I also made a short video demonstrating the effect.


I used the boolean difference method as described on the boards as well, but it can do funky stuff to your geometry if, for example, you were engraving the inside of a cylinder (like a ring). Instead, I prefer to go into UV editing mode, select the faces where I want the text to be, then unwrap the UVs to a new map. From there you can export the UVMap or import the image you exported from Illustrator and apply it to the UVMap. Now, apply the image as a texture to the object, add a displacement modifier and apply the texture to the UVMap.
More on displacement modifier here there are tons of tutorials to be searched for.


Modify node value in all materials with variable name?

You want to iterate over all materials and check each material's name. IF it starts with 'mb:' then modify it.
import bpy
for material in bpy.data.materials:
    if material.name.startswith("mb:"):
        material.node_tree.nodes["Value"].outputs[0].default_value = 10


How to disable reference images projection on top of all objects when rendering (blender render)?

You added texture to both your lamps, thus the image was projected onto the objects, which were lighted by those lamps. Image below explains how to check if you have a texture added to a lamp.


How can I position the object origin precisely on a specific axis?

You can directly move the origin point by checking Origins in the Tool tab > Transform.
To snap it precisely to axis, enable Absolute Grid Snap.

Example of moving origin point with and without snapping


How do I make it so the object will stick to to my character's hand while posing it?

One way to do this is as follows (assuming you want to keep the drumsticks separate from the character).
In edit mode on your character's armature, create two more bones, one in each hand where you'd like the drumsticks to be held. Name them say, handL and handR. Make sure they are parented correctly to the arm bones.
Next enter edit mode for the drumsticks and select all the geometry of one of them, doesn't matter which. Press P and choose "Separate by Selection". Now your drumsticks should be 2 separate objects.
Go back to your armature and select one of the hand bones you made. Press Shift + S and select "Cursor to Selected". Exit the armature and select the drumstick on the same side as the bone you just selected. Press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + C and select from the menu "Origin to 3D Cursor". Now the origin (pivot point, the yellow dot) should be where the hand bone is for that side of the body. Do the same process in this paragraph again for the other hand and stick.
Select one of the sticks and enter edit mode. In the side panel choose the tab that has the triangle icon and create a new vertex group, naming it the name of the hand bone the drumstck is on the same side of (i.e. the left stick in this example should now have a vertex group named handL). In edit mode select all the stick's geometry and in the Vertex Group side panel click the Assign button. Exit edit mode and repeat the same with the other stick.
The last thing to do us for each stick go to the Modifiers tab on the side panel and give them each one Armature modifier, choosing the Armature of your character in the box and making sure the Bone Vertex Groups checkbox is marked. If done correctly the sticks should now automatically move with your character's hands. If you want to disable the tracking at any time to control the location of the sticks manually then for each stick simply disable the Armature modifier.


how can I fix this generated coordinated texture wrap?

ok... this is not simple or there is something I really ignore about brick texture.

So here is some nodes which aim to determine which direction (X, Y, Z) has the most influence on a face.

After that, the idea is to fake the brick texture giving it a false Z direction depending on the axis which has the most influence on the face.

Here are the full nodes:

The top part is a comparison based on the dot product of the face normals respectively with (1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0) and (0, 0, 1) vectors.
Then it tests which is the bigger value (X, Y or Z).

The bottom part, recombine X, Y, and Z into "fake Z direction" and this fake Z direction is driven by the mix RGB (applied as vectors) with a factor determined by the calculation above.

Here is the blend file :

(probably, I will be ridiculous when someone will answer "hey ! there is this simple option here ! ...)

edit : for the smooth shading meshes, replace the "normal" from texture coordinate, with "true normal" from geometry, like this :

The result is better :


Add a Subdivision Surface modifier

Make sure the edit cage is turned on

For more info on the subsurf modifier, here is a link: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Modifiers/Generate/Subsurf


Software to work with 3D scan and prototyping

As this is a blender specific website, may I recommend blender?
Blender has some basic tools for preparing models for printing, see this, and there are plenty of tutorials out there, but here's a few things to note that most of them don't cover:

Blender unit system is not like CAD software. See here for info on working with it. I would recommend using metric, as imperial can get quite messy.  If you need models in inches, change the scale factor (multiply by 25.4, as that's the number of mm per inch) when exporting.
Blender is very flexible with normals (the direction a face points).  3d printing software is not.  Before exporting go into edit mode and hit ctrl+N to recalculate the normals.
Use the decimate modifier to simplify geometry before exporting. Enabling planar mode on this modifier is one way to make edges smoother.
The laplacian smooth modifier may also be helpful if the data is noisy.
The shrinkWrap modifier may be good, if the data isn't too complex.
A good approach to learning to do this with blender would be
Import the file to blender as a mesh object.
Apply a decimate or smooth modifier to the model, maybe play around with some of the others too, until you find what gets good results.
Apply the modifiers, after making a backup of the scene or file.
Do any manual editing of the mesh needed
Export as an stl file with an appropriate scale factor.


How to blur a texture node in cycles material?

I have found that b°wide NodePack contains a blur node! It's called ImageBlur.

What it does is play with the vectors to blur it, something like if a ray comes it collide to multiple points (effectively blurring the texture). I don't know exactly how, but here is a screen capture of the node expanded.

Note that in the background I have used it for testing in a ImageTexture node with a camera vector, that is processed by the ImageBlur and then passed to the ImageTexture vector input.

You can see all its nodes for your use (it is in public domain) from b°wide nodepack for blender and you can download it in blendswap. It have many usefull nodes.


This is probably caused by the modifiers added to the mesh.

In Orthographic mode Numpad-5,  Back view Ctrl-Numpad-1.
You can unwrap it with U Unwrap from View without the distortion:


Blender 2.80 no option to "delete hierarchy" in Outliner

FYI - "Delete Hierarchy" still exists, but only for collections - as mentioned is missing for objects.

Related to this (an example why this is still needed):
1. File > New > General (creates the original cube)
2. Switch to edit mode (modify or not the original cube)
3. Add > cube (accidentally in edit mode)

The added cube is a child of the original cube. This child cube automatically gets a material child - without doing any shading or such.

Once created this way, there seems to be no way to delete it from the hierarchy. Selecting the child cube object, also selects the parent. Using delete here will delete the parent too. Likewise deleting the child from the outliner hierarchy will also delete the parent.

Selecting the child vertices in edit mode, then deleting vertices or faces will delete the visible object. But there will be the empty object still in the hierarchy of the outliner. You can delete the material, but it seems to be still lurking around unused.

Also just after creating the child cube, you select it in the outliner, it becomes attached to the original cube (both same size). Then there is no way to select the child to move or modify it independently.

Also you will note, that both cubes are named "Cube". In other instances, I have seen this happen when intentionally creating child objects in the edit mode. This seems to confuse things - editing one of the same name will edit both.

The old method of shift-g > children and then alt-p to un-parent also seems not to work - or do anything obvious.

The only solution is to delete the parent and start over. This time being careful to be in object mode instead of edit mode. Save often (every edit?) so you can revert!

In general the UI menus lack interlocks (gray out/disable) where actions are inappropriate or will have no effect. You will also note that most menu items of the outliner say "(undocumented operator)" - probably means the help text is missing. My guess would be that this menu is not yet fully developed.


Why does my mesh change when i render it?

Modifiers can be disabled in viewport and/or render. The subsurf and multires modifiers also have different settings for render and viewport.

The camera icon controls the render view and the eye icon controls the viewport.


How can I make a mirror which reflects only chosen things?

Composite view layers
You can take advantage of view layers and compositing. It's very flexible and collection-driven.
Create a collection with the objects that you don't want to appear in the mirror (s_vampire in this case).
Create two view layer and in one Disable the collection you created before: one with everything enabled called for example ref

And one othe called for example n vis with the collection disabled.

Now, just use cryptomatte layer to pick the mirror plane as a mask in the compositor:

The scene will be rendered 2 times and the mirror will show only the scene where the collection with s_vampire object is disabled. This is the result.

You can download the file here to explore the scene:


How to properly apply all this image textures? Cycles

This did work, still unsure where to plug the micro-normals but the results achieved from this are quite good. You can also play with the cavity color and value to give a overall color to the skin.


How to make an object switch from a animated animation to a dynamic animation in Blender Game Engine?

I change the physics of "Plane.001" to no collision, delete the action actuator and add a python controller, finally apply force on the bullet.
from bge import logic
logic.getCurrentController().owner.applyForce((0,7000,0))

Press P and see it!, you will need to take care of when the vase broke.


Blender theme for old people with vision problems

You can change the DPI under the System Tab in the Preferences. It also has the drop down option to Double. Double has the advantage that things like the widgets also get bigger...


Creating volumetric lighting (crepuscular rays) in Cycles

Update

As of Blender 2.70, cycles has had volumetric support. See this answer for details on how to set up crepuscular rays with the new volumetric features.

As mentioned by Wchargin, this will be possible once volumetrics is integrated.

However, there are some ways to fake this:

Using motion blur:

  Basically you use a plane that moves through the entire scene
  perpendicular to the camera, then turn on motion blur and increase the
  frame blending enough so that cycles is calculating the entire motion.
  The plane will catch the light and blend it through the whole scene
  giving the illusion of volume lighting. I used a mix of diffuse and
  translucent material for the plane but wouldn't be surprised if there
  was a better material method.

Using BI to render halo volumes and then use compositing nodes to combine with Cycles render


How to cull the backside of a mesh but keep the lights inside?

In your picture, lights look like point. try with out lights and change the color of cubes:
picture 1

secondly, add black ground with a material with many roughness: picture 2

And play with cube's nodes
according to me it's the only solution.


I think you mean for the bottom element to yaw (turn left and right) but not to pitch (forward and back). Either way, you can lock any bone to the desired rotation by clicking on the appropriate padlock icon next to the x/y/z rotational axes for the bone at the top of the Properties panel.


Meshes added depend on the viewport and are not placed on their default place

Open the tools panel (Press the T key) to have access to the creation parameters (or press F6 after adding your mesh). Make sure that the Align to view box is disabled.

If the question is about why is the mesh not created at the center of the grid, then the answer is that objects are created where the 3D cursor is on the scene.

To reset the 3D cursor to the center of the grid press Shift+C


What does Lightmap Pack's "Pack Quality" option do?

Packing quality controls how efficiently laid out the UV islands are on the texture.

A low pack quality means there is more texture space wasted (but faster unwrap), a higher value means the UV islands are better optimized to use the entire texture, at the expense of unwrapping time.


If your question is about the path itself, you can create a bezier circle. In Edit mode select all and press V > Set Handle Type to switch from Automatic to Aligned:

Then select the left part of the circle and press X > Delete Segments:

Then select the 2 ends, press E to extrude then type the axis:


Include images added to 3d model when exporting to glTF, OBJ, or DAE

The glTF Blender addon supports meshes with textures, but I'm not sure about standalone image imports... You'll probably need to create planes and add your images to them. For best results, see the guidelines in https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.80/addons/io_scene_gltf2.html.


Since you're using something from bpy.ops, you need to get the editor state right (this is the failing of most of bpy.ops).

You probably need to set bpy.context.scene.objects.active = target

and in 2.8+

context.view_layer.objects.active = target


Is there a way to solidify model only when it explodes to pieces?

You can keyframe the Thickness value of the Solidify Modifier or enable/disable the modifier with keyframes.


You can use the Randomize Transform operator with all objects selected in Object mode.
Press the Spacebar (or F3 with default 2.8 keymap)and then begin typing Randomize until the option appears, and adjust the desired axis for location/ rotation/ scale  in the operator panel, or by pressing F6.
You can also access the operator from the menus via Object>Transform>Randomize transform to do the same thing.


If You didn't move that part yet, select all in edit mode, press W and choose Remove Doubles.


This by all means is not common-it's probably a mistake in your domain settings. Check back at your bake location, your viscosity settings, and your particle settings for the fluid.


Why are the highlights and specular gloss disappearing in this toon shader setup?

If I'm understanding you correctly, then I think this covers what you are missing:

See the whole article from BlenderNPR for the full explanation: http://blendernpr.org/solidify-modifier-contouroutline/


Use a texture as an influence map without showing any diffuse color

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

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


First make sure you are in 'Display material preview mode'

add new material to the object via '+' button.

Go to edit mode. Select the desired faces.

Select the desired material, click assign.

Done!


Derformities in mesh: This is what happens after I Shade Smooth + Subdivision Surface

Ok. I think I found the problem. There were additional Vertices at certain parts of the ankle, hidden like. I must have Extruded or something. I Merged these Vertices, then applied Shade Smooth and Subdivision Surface and the deformity is now gone.


how to move origin point to center of object

I think your problem is this one:

Your armature has an origin, like any object. If you move and animate the whole armature in Object mode the origin will follow, because its position is linked to the object. But if you go within the object in Pose mode and begin to move the bones, it won't affect the origin position in any way, because the origin is linked to the armature position, not to the bones position within the armature, so with some animations the bones can move far away from the origin.

Generally, when you animate in Pose mode, you don't move the root bone, so this bone will stay close to the origin. But if you begin to move it, for a reason or another, it may also move far away from the origin.

If you want to see what is the real position of the bones within your armature, relatively to the origin, go in Pose mode, select all your bones and press altR, altG and altS, or in the Properties panel > Data > Skeleton, press Rest Position, or switch to Edit mode... you'll come back to the rest position and you'll see that the bones will probably come back close to the origin, so you'll probably won't find any reason to move the origin position.

Now if, in rest position, the origin position doesn't please you, which in my opinion is probably not your problem here, you can change it: Switch to Edit mode, then, like for any other object you need to put the 3D cursor where you want the origin to be, then shiftctrlaltC> Origin to 3D Cursor.


why is the render image not the same as camera image

In the Properties panel > Output > Post Processing, disable the Sequencer option, otherwise you'll render what you see in the Video Sequencer.


How can I upload Blender videos to Youtube?

Blender files are not video files. You need to render and export your video sequence in order to get a playable video.

(This is my workflow for Youtube publishing. Based on the "Advanced encoding settings" article and Blender's limitations. Of course, there are plenty of other ways to do it, but this is how I do it.)

Be advised that there are issues with Blender's output interface since 2.71. This is planed to be fixed around 2.74.

Video settings

Open the properties window and open the render context with the triangle button.
Under the Dimensions panel, select an appropriate resolution and frame rate. The resolutions that Youtube uses are the following:

2160p: 3840x2160
1440p: 2560x1440
1080p: 1920x1080
720p: 1280x720
480p: 854x480
360p: 640x360
240p: 426x240

All of these use the 16:9 aspect ratio. So if you're using a different aspect ratio, such as 4:3, youtube will covert it to 16:9 by adding black empty space on the left and right sides. Use one of the above resolutions for predictable results on Youtube. Note that this is not the same thing as the aspect ratio shown in Blender!
Make sure that you have set the end frame for however long you want your video to be. This can be calculated by frame rate x length of video in seconds.
Open the Output panel. Select H.264 for the file format. When you select that, a new panel named Encoding should appear.
Open the Encoding panel. Select the Quicktime format.
Select the H.264 codec.
Set the max bit rate to 0 to make Blender ignore it.
Set the bit rate to one of the following depending on your video resolution (These are only suggestions given by Youtube themselves. You can find higher quality suggestions on this page.)

2160p: 35000-45000 (kb/s)
1440p: 10000 (kb/s)
1080p: 8000 (kb/s)
720p: 5000 (kb/s)
480p: 2500 (kb/s)
360p: 1250 (kb/s)

Audio settings

If you want audio in your video:

Select AAC as your audio codec under the Encoding panel
Use whatever bitrate your source audio was recorded in.

Render and export

In order to finally render and export your video:

First, make sure you save your blend file somewhere. I've had issues of it not wanting to export if hadn't saved the blend first.
Under the Output panel, set where you want to export your video.
Go to the Render menu and select render animation.

You will get a .mov file in the folder where you exported your video. You can upload this to Youtube.

If you want to be finicky, you can convert that Quicktime file to MP4 using ffmpeg.

ffmpeg -i INPUT.mov -vcodec copy -acodec copy OUTPUT.mp4


Can I set max render time instead of samples?

There is no such an option for it now (Good feature for sure). The similar way is to enable progressive refine in your Scene Performance panel.

It will treat all render area as a chunk, which give you the ability to manually stop at the point you think your image is well enough.
Here is the official description:

Progressive Refine
Instead of rendering each tile until it has
finished every sample, refine the whole image progressively. Note that
progressive rendering is slightly slower than tiled rendering, but
time can be saved by manually stopping the render when the noise level
is low enough.
For rendering animations it is best to disable this feature, as
stopping a frame early is not possible.

Note: If you found out that Progressive Refine check box is grey out. Then check if you are using Denoising option in Scene Render Layer. You cannot use them simultaneously.


How can I set an audio strip in 2.8 so it plays according to where the playhead is in the timeline?

I actually missed the AV Sync onption at the top of the playback menu.

Selecting AV sync,  makes things much better;)...  though still too jumpy, when compared to the same audio strip on 2.79. Is Frame drop the missing link or else?

Cheers


Use a glass shader.

The Glass BSDF is used to add a Glass-like shader mixing refraction and reflection at grazing angles. Like the transparent shader, only pure white will make it transparent
Color
Color of the surface, or physically speaking, the probability that light is ransmitted for each wavelength
Roughness
Influences sharpness of the refraction; perfectly sharp at 0.0 and smoother with higher values.
IOR
Index of refraction (IOR) defining how much the ray changes direction. At 1. 0 rays pass straight through like transparent; higher values give more refraction.
Normal
Normal used for shading.

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/shader_nodes/shader/glass.html?highlight=glass

For reflections, set something in the scene or the environment that will be reflected on the surface.
Read:
How to turn off reflections on glass


How do i add a transparent texture over my material?

Here - This is a common setup for mixing 2 textures (especially rust, as the noise texture works well to create random "rusty patches, however I used concrete here). You can also use your own texture (if it has a built in alpha, connect as shown). Sometimes as well, texture packs come with alpha "masks" that are their own separate texture. You connect these as a factor the same way. Ultimately, any B&W image can be used as a mix factor. Play around to get what you like. See below:
This is all done on one plane with only one face.

Also, it's a bit hard to follow what you were doing with the roughness thing, however, if you have a roughness map, and want to apply it "correctly", mix the maps together with the same mix factor.


More time is spent on render preparation than on the actual rendering. What can I do?

If scene preparation takes a very long time, here are a few things to consider/try:
General
Before the actual rendering part starts, a few things need to happen. All the necessary data in your scene needs to be turned into its final form that will be handed off to the renderer / loaded onto the render device.
For every object, all modifiers will be applied and meshes will be triangulated. The resulting geo will be copied to the memory of the render device. Also, a BVH will be created for every object.
Any textures also need to be copied.
(disclaimer: no renderings expert, please correct in the comments if any of this is wrong)
Now, this gives us a few hints to possible optimizations. I'll focus on things concerning preparation times.
I'll start with the simple one:

1. Textures
Every texture needs to be copied, which takes time in the preparation phase. Reduce size and amount if possible. Less data = shorter times to copy.

2. Objects
Count: In general, it will be faster to have fewer objects with more polygons than many objects with fewer polygons (if both have a similar total poly count) as each object is treated separately. So, join as many objects as possible to reduce the number of objects. (You might want to keep a copy in a disabled collection, so you can go back at any time)
Modifiers: Modifiers have to be evaluated before rendering. We can take that time from the preparation stage by applying all modifiers beforehand. (Again, keep backups if you need to go back.)
Then we come to the BVH part. BVH can accelerate raytracing quite a bit and is usually a good thing, when most of the render time is actually spent rendering. But BVH building takes time. Again, fewer objects will make this faster, because a BVH will be created for every object. (please correct me if this is incorrect.) Also, we can accelerate BVH building by turning off "Use Spacial Splits" in the Performance Tab under Acceleration Structure.
This is something you'll need to try and see what the impact on overall render time is.

3. Meshes
Poly count: Again, we have the simple rule: Fewer polygons will be faster to process and to copy. A few things to watch out for are: (1) High poly background objects, that could be simplified a lot without appearing visually different in the final render. (2) Having the Subdivision Surface modifier set too high. See what the lowest setting is without affecting your result.
Instancing: Another way to avoid unnecessary geometry is to use instances rather than copies of meshes. This means that two equal objects use the same mesh data 'under the hood'. Therefore, the mesh will only be copied once to the renderer.
In your example, that could be a building. If the same building appears twice in the scene, you can make sure that only one instance of the mesh data is used for both of them. This happens automatically when you duplicate with Alt + D rather than Ctrl+D. If you already have made duplicates, you can select all objects, you want to use the same mesh and press Ctrl+L -> Object Data.
In this screenshot you can see that I have two Cube Objects using the same mesh. (The number 2 indicates the number of users of this mesh.)

4. Debugging
Sometimes, for no apparent reason, you can experience a great loss of performance by one single 'thing' that's not working correctly in your scene. So it's good to look for the cause. With more experience you'll be able to judge if a scene takes roughly the time it should take, or if something is actually wrong.
Here are things to try: Turn OFF rendering on all objects and start with one or a few and see how long it takes. If it renders quickly, add some more, and so on. You don't have to go one by one of course, the important thing is to narrow it down and find the problem.

This is by no means supposed to be a complete list, rather than a good starting point to cover the most common cases. Again, feel free to add more information.
And as always: Happy blending! ;)


Edge Loops are not missing, it is expected behavior, it's an optimization done by Blender for faster viewport drawing.

If an edge angle is not sharp enough to be considered an actual corner it is not drawn in object mode unless you tick the option Draw All Edges under the Properties Window > Object > Display

If you have a Subdivision Surface modifier on your object, the Optimal Display option may also cause some edges to appear to be missing.


Sculpting grab tool causing pointy mesh?

Try using a bigger brush radius (F + drag to change).

Small radius:

Large radius:

Also try to drag close to the edge of the object.
When you grab closer to the center (thinking in 2D), you are really grabbing the side of the object, affecting geometry "closer" to the screen more than geometry near the actual center, which is at the edge of the visible portion of the object when in side ortho view.


How do I use python to hook control points of a bezier curve to bones of an armature without inexplicably deforming the bezier curve?

It appears that hook modifiers are not truly initialized when you create them.  They need a bpy.ops.object.hook_reset(modifier=mod.name) to clear out some hidden state that might be leftover garbage from the heap.


If the Tab key for some reason doesn't put you in Edit Mode, try changing into edit mode using the dropdown menu:

You can find more information about text editing in the manual: http://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/texts/introduction.html#editing-text

Also, if you are a new user and do not have special reasons, there is no point in using an older version. Try the latest release, it's faster and has more features.


I came up with the solution below, which seems to work. Generally I just create faces in the holes (the black on the figure above) and finally dissolve degenerate (since the newly introduced faced has the area of zero).

import bpy
import bmesh
from math import radians, degrees, pi, atan2
from mathutils import Vector, Euler

def isEdgesOverlapping(v, e1, e2):
    if e1 == e2:
        return False
    v0 = v.co
    v1 = None
    v2 = None
    if (e1.verts[0] == v):
        v1 = e1.verts[1].co
    else:
        v1 = e1.verts[0].co
    if (e2.verts[0] == v):
        v2 = e2.verts[1].co
    else:
        v2 = e2.verts[0].co
    dir1 = (v1 - v0).normalized()
    dir2 = (v2 - v0).normalized()
    if dir1.cross(dir2) < 0.00001 and dir1.dot(dir2) > 0.5:
        return True
    return False

def fixTJunctions2(bm):
    for e in bm.edges:
        e.select = False
    for v in bm.verts:
            for e1 in v.link_edges:
                for e2 in v.link_edges:
                    if isEdgesOverlapping(v, e1, e2):
                        e1.select = True
                        e2.select = True
                        bpy.ops.mesh.edge_face_add()
                        return True
    return False

def fixTJunctions(obj):
    if bpy.context.mode == 'OBJECT':
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT', toggle=True)
    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data)
    for e in bm.edges:
        e.select = False
    continueLoop = True
    count = 0
    while continueLoop:
        bm.faces.ensure_lookup_table()
        bm.edges.ensure_lookup_table()
        bm.verts.ensure_lookup_table()
        continueLoop = fixTJunctions2(bm)
        count = count + 1
    if count > 1:
        bpy.ops.mesh.dissolve_degenerate()

obj = bpy.context.active_object
fixTJunctions(obj)


Particle System Instances Retaining Dimensions of Original Object

Particle System properties > Emission > Hair Length 1
Particle System properties > Render > Scale 1

Notes:

If Hair length is set 2, than Render Scale should be 0.5, and so on to keep size equal.
If dimension of source object is not 1 check also if Particle System properties > Render > Object > Object Scale is ON


How to make blend file take up less space

A few things come to mind. These affect not only filesize, but also performance.

Keep modifiers procedural as long as you can (Subdivision Surface, Array, Mirror, etc. Basically any modifier that adds geometry.)
Use linked duplicates, instancing and collection instances whenever you can. Instances don't increase filesize and are also better performance wise.

Procedural Modifiers - filesize 650KB

Applied Modifiers - filesize 20MB (30x increase)


Firstly you need to determine whether the bottleneck actually is the RAM.... This is dependent on operating system - if Windows you can use Resource Monitor to view how much is in use. On Linux you could use 'top' or System Monitor - either should give you what you need. The key is to see whether Blender is using up all of the 'free' memory - and causing swapping out to disk - you'll see the 'free' drop away to zero and disk activity drastically increase if that is the case. If you have free memory available while baking then the problem isn't the amount of RAM but elsewhere - so increasing the RAM won't give you any benefit in that area (but could still be useful elsewhere!)


How to make backround image transparent?

Select the image
Go to object data properties

Check Use Alpha and set the transparency


How to change minor radius of a torus in blender 2.8

In Blender 2.8 after adding the torus (or any primitive) a notification will pop up in the bottom left corner of the 3D View.

After pressing it, a list of options will appear, including the minor radius.

Alternatively, you can use shrink/fatten in edit mode (ALT + S).


Cycles render changes to Blender render when I open it?

Cycles is indeed an add-on, as your error message suggests. I don't remember if it's enabled by default or not, but nevertheless it seems to have been disabled.

To enable it:

Open up user preferences (File -> User Preferences or CtrlAltU).
Go to the Add-ons tab.
Click Render in the Categories list to the left.
Make sure the checkbox next to Render: Cycles Render Engine is checked.
Click the Save User Settings button.


Blender 2.8 make objects unaffected by light

I would maybe try to limit the Custom Distance of this specific light (so it wont really reflect on the arm) + add a clone of that light near the ground to make it reflect there.

When I cant solve issues i usually try to fake them.


Cloth Bake: Save frames in timeline as shape key?

Make sure the "NewTek MDD format" add-on is enabled in the user preferences, and then select the object and go File > Export > Lightwave Pointcache (.mdd).

This will save a mesh cache file of the cloth simulation. Then you can remove the cloth simulation entirely (or just disable it if you might want to make changes later), and then import the .mdd file you just exported (File > Import > Lightwave Pointcache (.mdd)).

This will apply each frame of the simulation as a separate shape key on your object, and animate them on and off automatically for the appropriate frames.

You can then delete all the shape keys that you don't want and remove the animation by right clicking on them and choosing Clear Keyframes.

If you have a few too many shape keys to remove by hand, a little bit of python can save a lot of time:

import bpy

obj = bpy.context.object

keys_to_keep = ["frame_0020", "frame_0040"]

i = 0
for s in obj.data.shape_keys.key_blocks:
    obj.active_shape_key_index = i
    if s.name not in keys_to_keep:
        bpy.ops.object.shape_key_remove(all=False)
    else:
        i += 1


I want to apply a difference boolean using a collection and not an object

Starting with Version 2.91 you can use a collection as input in a Boolean modifier.
Warning : The Exact solver can be quite slow when used with multiple meshes. I suggest setting it to Fast first.


In Cycles In your World properties change this color to whatever you want but it'll will affect how your objects are lit, if you don't want that just copy this node set up. In Eevee it's the same set up.


How to set and change a Grease Pencil object's material in Animation Nodes

The Material Instancer node didn't work on my AN-version, so I used a Create Material List node and fed that in the Invoke Subprogram node. Now that I had a working tree I played around a little bit. After checking the Deep Copy option of the Object Instancer the different colours for the individual strokes appeared.


Saying that the face "scales" when moved is uncorrect. Instead, mesh is deforming in a different way than expected. The reason lies in weighting, as some vertices are assigned only to the "face" bone while others are assigned both to "face" and "head" bones, as shown in the picures.

"A" vertex is the "correct one, as it follows exactly the face bone: face bone is child of the head bone, so the "face" vertices are moving without the need to be assigned also to the head bone: this double assignement is leading to the unexpected behaviours: double assignement (or even triple, or more) is OK only in proximity of joints, where you want the mesh to deform and stretch to get better creases and wrinkles.


In order to move an object with a key shortcut, press G to move the selected object(s).  If you choose to cancel movement before you hit enter or click LMB, you can click RMB to cancel the movement.  You can choose to move it just by moving the mouse, but you can also choose an axis by pressing x, y, or z after pressing "g".
If you want it to not move on a specific axis, then press Shift-(axis).  For instance, if you don't want it to move up or down, press Shift-Z.
After pressing G, you can just move it a certain distance with your mouse.  However, if you want to move it an exact distance, you can type in an amount after pressing G.  You can also backspace, so you don't have to try al over again.  Also, you press the - symbol to change the value you typed to a negative amount so it will travel backwards along the axis.  The negative symbol switches the current amount's symbol, so if you hit - when the amount is set to a negative amount, it will change to a positive amount.  Try this out to fully understand.
One more thing: It doesn't matter if you specify distance before choosing the axis you are moving on.  You can even change amounts and change axis in-between each other, if that makes sense.  The only important thing is that you press G before choosing distance or axis.
Please ask if any of this doesn't make sense.


This is one way to do it, by using the 3D cursor.


Is it possible to make seams thicker in Bender?

At the minute, no, that does not appear to be an option. You can view all available theme options for the 3D view by going to File> User Preferences> Themes> 3D View:


How to place a vehicle on a sculpted landscape?

In my driving games, I use a python script that's supplied with the Blender docs for controlling my vehicles. The link to that script (and example) is here. This script makes everything a lot easier and offers greater control of your vehicle than with logic bricks.

In studying the script, you'll see that the body of the vehicle is a rigid body with Collision Bounds turned on, and it's suspended on the wheels by constraints. The wheels are set to No Collision with Collision Bounds turned on. This keeps the vehicle body off the ground plane while still letting the wheels rest on it without that jumpiness, which is normally caused by the collision between rigid bodies and static objects.


It's possible to create a 360 Video in blender?

There is a great App VRAIS which uses Blender and they provide a tutorial of how to render stereoscopic panoramas for this App:

  Render dimension: 2048x1024 for starters, and for final rendering 4096x2048 (just type in 200% in the render percentage).
  In the Render Layers Panel, enable "Views"
  Set your camera to Panoramic. Choose "Equirectangular" from the dropdown menu
  Enable "spherical stereo" (Only available in Dalai's version)
  set the pivot point to „Center“

Or you could watch some not so static 360° Videos on YouTube. Pedro Gaspar made a tutorial of how to create them in Blender. Blenderrendersky already created some videos in the BGE with this method.


How to set a random value for multiple shape keys?

I'd recommend random.uniform(a,b) for a random float range:
import bpy
import random

# iterate through the shape keys of the context object
for shape_key in bpy.context.object.data.shape_keys.key_blocks:

    # check if it's not the first one
    if shape_key.name is not 'Basis':

        # assign a random float between 0 and 1
        shape_key.value = random.uniform(0, 1)

        # print the values
        print (shape_key.value)

The values should look like this:
0.5418003797531128
0.4634256660938263
0.77964186668396
0.37678709626197815
0.8787218332290649
...

For better access, I've implemented this functionality into this Add-on:

Exclude input field checks whether the 'name' of the shape key starts with 'your input' and also accepts multiple values (comma seperated)  in order to ignore placeholder shape keys like  --- Test --- or ### Test ### via *, - at once.


Image textures are only displayed in edit mode

Apparently this was being caused by a Remesh modifier. Deactivating the modifier fixed the issue.


How can I avoid this camera tracking error? "Some data failed to reconstruct (see console for details)"

Simple:
Here are a few measures to fix this issue:
Take good footage that isn't to shaky or blurred.
Double check that all of your tracks are accurate.
Add more accurate tracks.
Delete a track, then solve camera motion if it didn't help, chose a different track and then and repeat.
make sure that not all your tracks are on one single plane in space (eg. on a wall)
If all fails, then your shot is simply to difficult to solve.


Blender stores its configuration and startup files in a directory specific to the user. This differs depending on the operating system.

For example, on Linux this would be something along the lines of :

/home/rich/.config/blender/2.76/config

On Windows it would be something similar to :

c:\Users\rich\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.76\config

Obviously the user ID ('rich') and the Blender version (2.76) would be different depending on your setup.

When you save the startup file, Blender saves the file in the configuration directory mentioned above. If there is no startup file when Blender starts then you'll get the 'factory default' startup file (ie, the default cube). If, however, blender finds a file named 'startup.blend' in the config directory then that will be loaded as the default state.

Therefore, to reset back to the 'factory default' startup file you simply need to locate the config directory and remove the 'startup.blend' file.

For example, on my (Linux) environment I have the following files in the 'config' directory :

(/home/rich/.config/blender/2.76/config)
-rw-rw-r-- 1 rich rich    308 Dec 14 12:45 bookmarks.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 rich rich    441 Jan 18 10:41 recent-files.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 rich rich 371104 Jan 25 11:39 startup.blend
-rw-rw-r-- 1 rich rich 116252 Sep  8  2016 userpref.blend

Removing the 'startup.blend' will reset blender back to the default startup file.


This is where terminology is important (area vs. window). Your current Blender window is full screen, so duplicating that window results in another full screen window. You might have better success if you try the bpy.ops.screen.area_dupli() operator and duplicate the area that contains the existing Properties Editor in your layout. The only caveat is that you need to first set that as your active area.


Detect user event (bpy.types.Event) anywhere from blender?

What i really need is bpy.Types.event, unfortunately, it is only accessible from an Operator invoke() or modal()
so here's the trick
_event = None

class SCATTER5_OT_get_event(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname  = "scatter5.get_event"
    bl_label   = ""

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        global _event
        _event = event
        return {'FINISHED'}

def get_event():
    global _event
    bpy.ops.scatter5.get_event('INVOKE_DEFAULT')
    return _event

event = get_event()

to get event from anywhere in your script
what would have been be nice is something like bpy.context.window_manager.event, unfortunately this API does not exist (not sure why this type is only accessible from operators?)
Also, it would be ideal if there was a built-in python module that can detect keyboard input, unfortunately, I didn't find one.
feel free to propose an alternative method

example of implementation by @batFINGER
press alt/shift/ctrl/oskey while interacting with foo prop
import bpy

_event = None

class SCATTER5_OT_get_event(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname  = "scatter5.get_event"
    bl_label   = ""

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        global _event
        _event = event
        return {'FINISHED'}

def get_event(exec_context='INVOKE_DEFAULT'):
    global _event
    bpy.ops.scatter5.get_event(exec_context)
    return _event

def foo(self, context):
    event = get_event('INVOKE_REGION_WIN')
    print(
        "Shift" if event.shift else "",
        "Alt" if event.alt else "",
        "Ctrl" if event.ctrl else "",
        "OSKey" if event.oskey else "",
        event.value)

def draw(self, context):
    ob = context.object
    if ob:
        self.layout.prop(ob, "foo")

def register():
    bpy.types.Object.foo = bpy.props.IntProperty(
            update=foo,
            )
    bpy.utils.register_class(SCATTER5_OT_get_event)
    bpy.types.TEXT_HT_footer.prepend(draw)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Rig doesn't keep X-Ray enabled when linked into new file

The object properties used will depend on the way you link the object in. If you link an object directly it will honour the external X-Ray setting.

When you link in a group, which contains a mesh and an armature, a local empty object is created which uses DupliGroups to show the mesh and this ignores most of the linked object's settings. Only the properties of the local empty are used, think of the local empty as the parent and the external mesh inherits the parent settings.

When you create a proxy rig, you are creating a new Armature object that is local to the current file, which then uses the external rig data and the external armature's object settings do not get consulted.

An addon could be created that will copy various settings when linking and making a proxy rig, or add a button to copy these properties between the external and local objects. You may also ask a developer to adjust blender so that it copies some of the object properties when linking or making a proxy, which sounds like a reasonable request to me.


I accidently hit a key combo and it messed up my view

You can try this:
File > Load Factory Settings.

Of course, this will reset any custom settings you set up.

I don't know what that thing is. Kinda looks like a lamp. Try alt+H to un-hide everything? Or check other layers?

Sorry about your lost work. Did you check .blend1 files?


Is there a way to make a render animation take its information from texture mode?

You can trigger what is called an OpenGL Render in any of the Viewport Shading modes (solid, textured, wire, matcap,...). Switch to the mode you want first (in your case Textured Mode, make sure the output settings in the render panel are set correctly, and use the Render OpenGL Animation or Render OpenGL Image button from the 3D Viewport:

That should only take a few seconds to complete on short animations. If you need to tweak the quality, you can use the menu in the Info header bar:

You can set Anti-Aliasing and the background transparency directly from there.


Cycles Image as Plane: How to improve the quality of Image? Sampling rate?

Have you tried to raise the Map resolution in multiple importance under the world settings?

It can also be a UV map issue. The texture is stretched over the UV map's surfaces. If the surface is too small, it will become blurry and pixelated.
This also applies for the texture source itself, if it is to small it will become pixelated.

If you use light sources, you can make the shadows more sharp (become more crisp and clear) by reducing the light source's size (to something around 0.01).

With the shorthanded information you gave, I hope one of these suggestions will help you.

EDIT
Why are you importing it as emission? That will emit light and for sure as light spread, it will become blurry. Why not wrap the image on a plane as a texture?

Color/contrast etc.. can be altered in the Compositing editor for the scene.


- Child Parent bones are attached to objects on both sides of mirror? How to fix to only apply to one side?

Simply, your vertex groups (which attatch the armature) are copying to the other side of the mesh, so both the left and right arm are in the same group: The mirror mesh modifier, as far as I remember at the moment, does not automatically split and mirror vertex groups. Check that the "vertex groups" option is checked, and if it is, this is a bug.


How to change the scale of dots in a shader in gradient-like pattern?

This setup is far from perfect but can give you some direction :

The trick is to use the "Shader To RGB" node to convert the lighting result into some usable value. This is an Eevee-only node.
For a greater variety of sizes, you can add more Voronoi textures and mix them in cascade, with greater then greater values in the top GreaterThan nodes.
I didn't manage to get a cleaner transition between the zones (some dots are cut in half, that doesn't look good).


Boolean modifier not working with hiccup

Booleans are odd things and need certain things to be right before they work, one of the things that stops them working is Scale.

Make sure you have the scale of both objects set to $1,1,1$. by pressing Ctrl + A to Apply Scale (adjust geometry to match the scaled version and set scale to $1$.

Also try and make sure your models are fully closed (solid with no holes). Since  your working with  a scan of a face, try to add geometry on the back, or use the Solidify modifier with a large thickness, to turn it into a solid object.

I also find the Bool Tools addon helps me a lot as well.

Occasionally I have also used a work around of copying the Boolean objects and pasting them into a fresh scene and voila, it works! Not always a reason given, you can then paste them back to where they need to be.


Python script for camera following a moving object during an animation

You might want to try some of the built-in tools instead of python (my compliments for your algo-oriented lifestyle!)
The solution is in Object Constraint properties.
For a created camera I created an empty that "Copies transforms" of the object I want to track (a "car" named "Cube").   Then the camera Copies Transforms constraint of the empty "before original" to keep the original offset, and also "Track To" constraint of the Empty (to keep looking at it).
I then did a simple animation (keyed) of the Cube (standing in for your car).   You might have a roadway "path" (curve) that the car follows instead.  I include a link to my example blend file.


Textures not showing after Collada Export

Don't export from cycles but from the Blender internal.
Make sure the model is unwrapped.
Make sure the mapping coordinates is set to UV Map.
Make sure the UV map is assigned.

This video shows the steps for applying the texture to a sphere (with "cillinder projection"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaA_YJx7Auw&feature=youtu.be


Modify size of bevel object at certain points along path

Instead of using the Bevel object, simply set Bevel Depth to a fixed value. You can then use Shape Keys on your taper object - for the 'growing branch' stage you would simply have a gentle curve, starting high and tailing off. Animating the Start and End will allow the branch to 'grow'.

Once it has grown you can then use the shape key to blend to a new taper shape where different sections of the taper curve are higher or lower to vary the thickness at the corresponding point along your curve.

In order to achieve this your Taper curve would need to have enough detail to allow for your final shape. An alternative is to use a Lattice to make the deformations and apply the shape key to the lattice instead of the curve itself.

This is a very rough example (the first time I've attempted this and knocked up in a spare half-hour - so excuse the lack of artistic talent!), but the following can be achieved :

The two lines below the 'Text' are the Taper curve (the top one) and the Lattice used to deform it. A Deform modifier on the taper curve uses the lattice deformation to deform the curve. The Lattice uses a Shape Key to control its deformation.

Blend file included


How to render an animation at a higher framerate?

Blender has settings to help with this.

Let's start with 250 frames at 24fps

Let's say we want to get 4 times as many frames for the same time. Change the end frame to 1000, the frame rate to 96 (you could also leave the framerate and alter the framerate base to 0.25) and everything plays faster. Just under the framerate we have time remapping, change the new value to 400 as we have done 4x to everything else. Now when you render you will get 1000 frames and the animation will cover the same amount of movement.

Warning- You will notice that this feels "not fully supported" throughout blender, a keyframe in the timeline will remain at frame 250 while the timeline is highlighted to show the render ending at 1000, the current frame marker will only move to 250, as you try and position the current frame in the timeline, dopesheet or graph editor the frame marker will lag behind the cursor. It can be strange to have the frame move to nowhere near the cursor until you remember why. I recommend you alter these settings only during rendering.


You can convert a curve to a mesh 'as viewed' in at least two ways:

Alt+C -> Mesh from curve
In user preferences, under addons, enable 'Corrective Shape Keys', then there will be an operator available for converting this and other types of objects to clean meshes with modifiers applied. In the spacebar menu, it will be named 'Duplicate and Apply All' (I like setting  a shortcut to Ctrl+Shift+D, YMMV)


Refresh Viewer Node's image data when pass index of ID Mask node has changed in python

The answer to this question is the answer to the alternative question: "How to get the image where all pixel values are set to the pass_index of the particular object". Instead of using "ID Mask" node, the IndexOB output of "Render Layers" node can be connected directly to the Image input of "Viewer" node. Then the function can be modified like this to get the bounding box for particular objectPassIndex:

def getVisibleBoundingBox(objectPassIndex):

    S = bpy.context.scene
    width  = int( S.render.resolution_x * S.render.resolution_percentage / 100 )
    height = int( S.render.resolution_y * S.render.resolution_percentage / 100 )
    depth  = 4

    pixels = np.array( bpy.data.images['Viewer Node'].pixels[:] ).reshape( [height, width, depth] )
    # Keep only one value for each pixel (white pixels have 1 in all RGBA channels anyway), thus converting the image to black and white
    pixels = np.array( [ [ pixel[0] for pixel in row ] for row in pixels ] )

    bbox = np.argwhere( pixels == objectPassIndex )
    (ystart, xstart), (ystop, xstop) = bbox.min(0), bbox.max(0) + 1
    return xstart, xstop, height - ystart, height - ystop


Blender 2.75 to 2.76 When adding an object I can't find the tool menu now!? Add (Vertices / Depth etc)

Click the + icon at the bottom of the region.
When the redo menu is resized to nothing, it is hidden and the + button for re-showing it appears:


Make this effect in a glass shader, normal map or displacement?

I would definitely go the displacement route. You can achieve what you're looking for rather easily by mixing a couple of Noise Textures - one "Large" and less detailed one for the warped shape of the bottle, and another "Smaller", more detailed one for the little surface bumps. I inverted the mix and darkened it a little to make the roughness of the Material as well. I mixed the result with white before the displacement to soften the effect and make it more realistic (default "contrast" is often too strong).

Result in Cycles (denoised):

If you're willing to subdivide your model quite a bit (using a subsurf modifier), you can enable true displacement to make the whole bottle warp (shown below with exaggerated effect - 0.4 displacement scale) - make sure to switch to "displacement and bump" or "displacement only" in the material settings (only works in Cycles):


How can I run a python script before anything else?

There is a checkbox in the Python controller which seems to be suitable for your needs. It's tooltip says "Mark controller for execution before all non-marked controllers (good for startup scripts)". See screenshot:

Since you did not mention that you already tried this - you may want to check this option on the controller carrying your scene-defining script.


Snapping to vertex when scaling (Blender 2.8)

The snap scale to vertex tool can be a bit finicky, so here are a bunch of things to try. Basically, any time the vertex you're snapping two doesn't perfectly line up, the snapping is way off.

I don't know your exact set up, but I would be cautious about using Median as the pivot point with a mirror modifier. The Median pivot point doesn't take into the mirror geometry, so you might not be scaling from the right point:

I almost always use the 3D cursor as the pivot point. It can be a little more tedious, but you have much finer control. Select two vertices on opposite sides of the circle and move the 3D cursor to selected.

Then, set your snapping element to 'Active' in the snap settings, and make sure you're targeting the right vertex. You can see below when I initially am snapping to the wrong vertex, it overscales my selection.


This is because when zoomed out, floating point errors cause incorrect detection of what edges are visually obstructed by other geometry when the edges are small compared to their size on screen.
You can get around this by going into a view mode where visually obstructed geometry may be selected.  Either x-ray or wireframe mode will do this.  It's unfortunately not a prefect solution but I find it works fine most of the time.


How to make CUDA work in Ubuntu so as to enable GPU rendering in Blender?

After long trying I could solve this problem

I found out that my NVIDIA card was not being recognized by the NVIDIA driver I had installed. So NVIDIA X server settings was "empty" like in this thread: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2342538 but it was recognized by Ubuntu, what I could see by entering the command lspci -nn | grep '\[03' in terminal and getting PCI info about the "3D Controller".

But if I ran prime-select query in terminal I was getting unknown. My Laptop has a NVIDIA and an Intel card and I thought NVIDIA was working because I had graphical acceleration, but I think it was the whole time using the Intel controller. Tried to change the output by typing sudo prime-select nvidia and then I got nvidia by checking prime-select again. But if I restarted the system it was again unknown and nvidia-settings remained empty. I followed all helps I found in forums or stackexchange posts and my problem wasn't solved.

The solution that worked for me was uninstalling NVIDIA drives completely (did this several times) and installing nvidia drivers in a specific order:
First Ctrl+Alt+F1 to enter the tty and then:

sudo service lightdm stop # to kill the user interface process
sudo apt purge nvidia-* # to remove all nvidia packages
sudo dpkg --get-selections | grep nvidia # check that no nvidia packages remain
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa # if you still didn't add it
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nvidia-375 # installed the NVIDIA drivers v.375.66
sudo apt install nvidia-prime nvidia-settings # Probably already installed
sudo apt install nvidia-cuda-toolkit # if you want to use CUDA
sudo apt install nvidia-modprobe

when restarting I disabled IEFI secure boot in the secure boot blue screen. After doing everything the NVIDIA card was not recognized yet. So I went to the tab "additional drivers" on the software-properties-gtk (just type this in terminal to open) and selected the driver Nvidia version 340.102 (proprietary) and clicked apply changes. After rebooting the machine again the card was recognized by NVIDIA X server settings (or nvidia-settings) and everything worked fine, Blender recognized CUDA and so on. I just don't understand why NVIDIA put my GeForce GTX 760M in the list of supported cards for the drivers version 340, 375 and so on, but actually just one (or some) of them works, in my case this (older?) version nvidia-340. I had already tried to install nvidia-340 directly from the repository and also select it in additional drivers without previous installation. It should have worked, but it hasn't.

Conclusions: the nvidia drivers for Linux are there, but it's a huge mess! Ubuntu does its job fine by recognizing it with the command List PCI lspci, but the nvidia support is messy and unclear with this several versions. So, if you still have problems on making your card work, try to install different propietary driver versions or select them from the additional drivers list. Maybe the driver you tried to use is actually not the one that works with your graphics card. Let's see if NVIDIA decides to make that better and start to opensource their drivers!


Overview:

It's fairly simple setup but there is a little thing you should be aware of at the start. Proportions of your model should be even or squared (I'm not sure how to put it). In this example it's a box 1x2x0.8m. When you put something like 1.12x2.43x0.63m pattern will not create perfect grid. Also remember to Apply Scale of your mesh.

Mesh and Seams:

  First of all it's a bad topology (ngons) but I've leaved it as is for
  simplicity sake.

For beveled corners you should use even number of Faces to have an Edge in the center of them.
Mark Seams in a way to cut off walls, floor and ceiling.

UV Map:

Select all and Unwrap the mesh (U > Unwrap).
Go to Image Editor, select UV Islands one by one (L while hovering over an island) and Snap them to the cursor by Shift+S > Selected to Cursor (Offset).

You can rotate islands that are vertically placed if you want but it's not necessary.

Lining up grid:

There are two methods to line up grid and resize it (I don't know how to do it perfectly).

You can just select all UV Islands and Scale them up/down.
You can use Mapping node to set the grid size. I've used this method.

Blend file:


How can I snap to the projection of a mesh element?

You can achieve this by aligning the view to the desired plane with Shift Numpad 7 and then constraining the movement to view.

To constrain movement to the YZ plane, you can press ShiftX (where X is the axis to not allow movement on) after pressing G. See Scaling a cylinder along both X and Y axis.

You can set the transform orientation  in 3D view > Header:

Local uses the orientation of the object.
Normal uses the normals of the selection.
View Uses the orientation of the view.

Note that you must press the axis constraining keys twice in order to use the selected orientation, otherwise global is used. E.g. GShiftXShiftX.

For using the View orientation, some useful tools/techniques are:

ShiftNumpad 7 will align the view to the normal of the selection (Numpad 1 and Numpad 3 will align the view to the side of the normal). This can be useful to use the normal of one part of a model to translate another part.
Using a separate 3D view for orientation and transforming, and viewing the model in a perspective 3D view from a better angle.


my subdiv modifier pulls the model out of shape

The issue you are having is caused by not connected topology, those faces are separated from the rest of the mesh. Let me illustrate:

This is how a basic plane looks with a Subdivision Surface modifier:

Notice that the edges are all rounded. Now if I extrude an edge, it will remain connected, while if I duplicate it then it is disconnected and I will need to remove doubles:


How can I create a realistic space ship click based controls like EVE Online using BGE?

We need to start with a object that tracks to the mouse. Before we can do that, we need something for the object to track along. for this we will use a highly modified cylinder that resembles an inverted cone.

We need a shape like this so that the player can not ever move the mouse outside of the tracking zone.

Now the higher your mouse is, the further away it the mouse will be.
Once we have the basic setup, we can get the mechanics working.
By basic setup, I mean, a player, a camera, a tracking object, a subdivided plane (to show movement), and a cylinder. (The cylinder is irrelevant now, it can be no-collision object and be invisible. It only needs to be parented to the player) I am going to name the player Space Ship Cube and the tracking object Fly_To_Target We also need the camera slow parented to the player. the giant tracking field also needs to be parented to the player
(still named Space Ship Cube)

Although I always try to avoid python if at all possible, sometimes it can not be avoided, and this is one of those times. we must add a script named Trackto.py
from bge import logic

def main():
    scene = logic.getCurrentScene()
    cont = logic.getCurrentController()

    mouse_over = cont.sensors["MouseOver"]

    if mouse_over.positive and scene.objects["Fly_To_Target"]['ActiveYesNo?'] :
        tracker = scene.objects["Fly_To_Target"]
        tracker.worldPosition = mouse_over.hitPosition
        tracker.worldPosition.z += 1

There is some thing that this script references that currently does not exist. We need a Boolean property on Fly_To_Target named ActiveYesNo?

Of course none of this helps us if there is nothing to run the script. (don't worry, were going to make that now)

Now we if we press play it should look like this. (the plane has been hidden to show the tracking object and the field it runs along.)

Now we have a wonderful object tracking to the mouse. This is good, because now we can have the player (yes, It is Still named Space Ship Cube) track to it
Getting Space Ship Cube to track to Fly_To_Target is not hard at all.
For now, this is all we need on the player. All this does is make it so when the Boolean property Drive? is true, the cube will move in the direction of our tracker object named Fly_To_Target

Now the Space ship cube will always fly to the the object Fly_To_Target we have tracking to the mouse.
There is one thing we need to change before we can test it. Because we are using linear velocity, there will be a significant overshoot problem. for details on why, view this question.
Realistic Jet Flight
If you do not care why, and just want the problem fixed, set the damping on the Translation to .8

Now we can test it and it should work.

This is obviously not what we want, but it is very close.
We can start by setting the Boolean property Drive? to false, and adding a mouse sensor and property actuator to set Drive? to true, because, when it is true, our space ship (Space Ship Cube) flies to object Fly_To_Target It is very important that Drive? is False when the game starts, or it will begin flying to Fly_To_Target as soon as the game is started.

Now if we test it, we should expect Space Ship Cube to remain still until we click

Unfortunately we still have the problem of Space Ship Cube indefinitely trying to reach Fly_To_Target. Do not worry, There is an easy fix for this. We can simply use that same mouse sensor to assign the Boolean property ActiveYesNo? to False

Now when we click, Fly_To_Target will no longer move.

That only fixed half of our problem. Space Ship Cube Still flies indefinitely. We still need something to make the cube stop moving once it reaches Fly_To_Target There is no need to worry, because I would not be writing this answer If I didn't know how to fix this.
Remember the cylinder that we added earlier and strangely parented to Space Ship Cube? we will now make use of that. Until now it has been invisible, because we didn't need to see it. However, for illustration purposes, we can now make it visible again. While we are in the physics tab, we need to change a few settings.

I did not want to draw big blue arrows over the entire thing, but all of the settings there are important. It is very important that the physics type is set to sensor (detects collisions with static and dynamic objects but not other sensor objects) It is also important that the check box Compound is checked. this will basically make the collision bounds of the cylinder part of Space Ship Cube.
Of course for this to work the same check box needs to be checked on Space Ship Cube

Now we have a wonderful collision sensor! - Whoopee. Now we need it to do something. We are actually going to use it to detect a collision with Fly_To_Target
We can do this by placing the sensor on Space Ship Cube

If we test it, Space Ship Cube should stop once it reaches Fly_To_Target

Unfortunately, Fly_To_Target will not move again because we assigned it's Boolean property ActiveYesNo? to false, essentially deactivating it. If we want it to work, we need to assign it to True
This is easy enough to do by adding one extra logic brick.

Now we can test it and everything should work.

Yay! everything works!
Until now I have been using a subdivided plane to show movement.
In space however, there is no floor. so we can hide the plane. Remember, it is a no-collision object so it is effectively gone now. (Gravity is set to 0 so the objects will not fall)

If you had any trouble following that, (Don't worry, this even confused me the first time I read through it) you can always look at/take apart the blend file.


Poles not correct in Rigify add-on after skinning

Closed; mentioned in manual:
"Limbs: Keep the legs as straight as possible in the front view (Rigify human works better in predictable cases). Give the knee and the elbow a slight bend angle (Rigify needs to know where your knee/elbow is pointing)."
A limitation just to be aware of


How can I reset all custom properties into a "Redo Panel"?

Ditch your operator and use the one designed for this.
As a suggestion, add imports and register etc to question code, to make a minimal run-able example.  This would only be a couple of lines and is appreciated by those answering not to have to do this themselves. (It adds up)
There is no need to re-invent the wheel and write a new nested operator to reset the defaults of another. Simply use the one designed to do this.

bpy.ops.wm.operator_defaults()
Set the active operator to its default values

eg in the layout of the operator to restore defaults.
layout.operator("wm.operator_defaults")

Would strongly consider looking at the 'PRESETS' system for operators, or using addon preferences to set and save preferences.  Reset to defaults and settings prior are lost. Blender will start with the defaults.
As mentioned in comments the reset single or all to defaults is available via context menu (right click over property).
To have an operator always invoke with defaults see Force a Blender operator to always start with default values


Strange lines appearing when rendering glass

The cube was intersecting with the floor which created this effect :

Select the object and hit G then Shift and move the mouse up slightly
or you can enable face snapping and move the cube to place it on top of the floor plane

Here is the render after moving the cube


I had the same problem and I found a solution to it. It's a function called "Bake Action".

Select all the kinect-empties, select the armature you want to have the action on and either use the space bar to search for "bake action" or click the button at the side menu under "Animation". In the pop-up window deselect "Only Selected" and select "Visual Keying", "Clear Constraints" and "Pose". Press "Okay" and your selected armature should now have an Action that is suitable to be played in Unity.

Source for Action baking: https://www.blend4web.com/en/forums/topic/271/


How to create a Light with the Python API in Blender 2.92

Recommended way is to use low level API calls. Create a new light data block using BlendDataLights.new(), create a new object using ObjectData.new(), link the light data block and add the object to the collection in context using CollectionObjects.link(object):
import bpy

# Create light datablock
light_data = bpy.data.lights.new(name="my-light-data", type='POINT')
light_data.energy = 100

# Create new object, pass the light data
light_object = bpy.data.objects.new(name="my-light", object_data=light_data)

# Link object to collection in context
bpy.context.collection.objects.link(light_object)

# Change light position
light_object.location = (0, 0, 3)


The alpha channel needs to be associated to the image. Use an Alpha Convert node and choose Straight to Premultiplied.


Why does my glass fishbowl have a gray sphere inside it, even without an object there?

Your faces are flipped inside out. Select all faces and press Ctrl+N, to correct this. Additionally, you have double vertices. Select all vertices in your mesh, and in the toolbox to the left click 'remove doubles'.


Welcome on the forums, to get you started...
I used a modifier to spiral a curve line
next added a modifier to make it solid
next added 4 cylinders by mirroring one.
next i did a boolean operation to subtract the 4 cylinders.
for visibility i altered the 4 cylinders so you see them as wire frame.

Note you can change this file, the modifiers, or in edit mode change the curve or the cylinders.


How Can I Keep Blender From Remembering Bad File Paths?

If you are referring to the "Recent Locations" in the Blender File View, there is a button to reset the recent file locations.


Emitting sparks or dust at rigid body collisions

This is not yet possible. However, this is one of the many great things Particle Nodes will allow - these are still in development but can be tested here.


Why are my particles getting cut off the top and bottom of my render?

Following my comment, considering the context (new to Blender, etc.), here is some more information.

The rendered scene parts (text and particles) are reworked using the 'compositor'. This compositor allows to tune how all this is mixed.

Here, it uses a box mask which is too small in its height (0.35).

To fix this, open another view. Set it to 'nodes editor' (1), then select the compositor (2), find the box mask and change its height (3).


Is it possible to transform an armature into a curve?

Yes, you can make the armature match the position of a bezier curve with a spline IK constraint.  Setting it up is a lot like making an IK constraint but with a couple extra steps.

1) Setup your bones.  It looks like you have done that already, though be warned: since it is an IK constraint it works from the tip of the hierarchy towards the Root, not the other way around.

2) Add a bezier curve and add the number of control points you want in the form of edge vertices.

3) Add some control objects for the curve.  Many people just add some empties for this purpose, but there is nothing stopping you from just making armature bones.  However: it is not a good idea to use bones from the Armature that is being controlled by the Spline IK, as it will likely create a cyclical dependency.

4) Hook those vertices of the curve to the control objects. (go into the curve's edit mode, click a vertex, ctrl+H, choose appropriate option).

5) Apply the Spline IK constraint to the last bone of the chain.  Configure "Chain Length" to match the number of bones in the curvy part of the armature.  Play with the other settings as you see fit.

When done, you should be left with a curvy poseable armature controlled with your control objects.  You can mess with the control handles of the curve by rotating and scaling your control objects.

The rig shown here is a bit more complicated, since I did want bones to control how this armature worked.  It involves creating two armatures, one parented to another, and the top level armature controls everything (including the Bezier curve).


Yeah I have never figured this properly myself :D

Changing cm to mm or m does not rescale your model it just change the way it shows the length 1 cm will be just 10mm or 0,01m it does not scale. You need to use unit scale and move that 1 to 0.100 or 10.00 depending on what you want actual size to be. The bummer is that the newly created objects will be sized to the original scale, so when modeling it can be annoying as new cube will be big as hell or small as dot.

You can always check with the measurement tool.

Or scale the object with S to actually make it bigger or smaller. I use another 3D software to check the measurement after export. I had problems to understand units setup in Blender as well.


What causes a face to be created only partially?

There are a lot of double vertices around the face, which meant that the selected edges around the missing triangle were not actually connected to the rest of the selection.
To fix this, select the vertices around that area, or select all (A) and press WR to remove doubles.
You seem to have a lot of doubles, it removed 305 vertices for me. Perhaps an accidentally applied edge split modifier or edge split operator (CtrlE>Edge Split or D)? It's possible to split edges without.
Identifying doubles:
You can tell that the upper left edge is not connected to the selected vertex because the orange gradient that normally appears along selected edges is not visible.

After merging the double vertices with Remove doubles it looks like this:

Now fill will work as expected:


Make the "Ruler/Protractor" measurements to appear on renders

A small trick is to temporarily increase the DPI value (located in User Preferences > System (maximum to 144), then maximize the 3D window and capture the screen. (Maximize the desktop resolution before that if possible).

However, you are right about the limit of resolution, so this is the last choice, I guess, unless capturing several parts and tiling them manually.


Is there any root motion workflow that doesn't require feet adjustments on frame by frame basis?

So a guy on Blender Artists gave a suggestion that worked in my first test. Create 2 auxiliary bones and link them on each foot using the copy transform modifier, this makes the feet follow these auxiliary bones instead of the root, overwriting the original parenting of the armature for the animations, while keeps the original parenting scheme in place for exporting.
If anyone need more details on this method, the complete answer can be checked at:
https://blenderartists.org/t/is-there-any-root-motion-workflow-that-doesnt-require-feet-adjustments-on-frame-by-frame-basis/1247260


Objects clamped to curve shift after moving or extruding the curve

In order to make an object follow path rotation check "follow curve" in Follow Path Constrain options.
I don't know how to prevent the object's shift when curve's shape changes.


Generating nice heightmaps for bas reliefs:

1) Add a camera facing the model(s).

2) If there are multiple models, make sure the models are the same distance from the camera and have the same "thickness" (Y scale/size in the camera's local Y axis), make the latter 1 blender unit.

3) Set materials to black, shadeless.
Set background and ambient colors to white.

4) Set renderer to Blender Renderer.

5) Enable Mist.
This is where the magic happens. Have the mist appear where the closest polygons to the camera are, have it completely fade in when the farthest polygon from the camera is located.
If the camera is 4 units away from the closest point of the model, set Mist Start value to 4.0, and if the model has been scaled to 1 Blender unit in the Y axis, set the Mist Depth to 1.

A Bright/Contrast Node can be used in the compositing nodes to further adjust the rendered heightmap.

6) Important! Render in OpenEXR or another 32 bit format, otherwise the depth data stored in pixels won't look smooth when applied as a Displacement modifier later.

A model like this (download link in the question, in Blendswap),

Should render into something like this:

Use power-of-two resolutions for this image to save render time when used as heightmap.
Use a high resolution, such as 2048x2048.

Now, add a plane and subdivide it 10 times, or any other flat mesh with many polygons.
Add a Displacement modifier, and set its texture to the image you have generated.
Change the Strength value until it looks good for you.

You should end up with something like this:

To make the edges of your relief less sharp, blur the edges of the model in the heightmap image, or in Blender Compositor nodes when generating that heightmap.

Done.

There is probably a different way to do this besides using Mist. The point is to just have the closest points to the camera colored completely black and the farthest yet visible completely white, or the opposite way.


Pivoting an object with respect to two objects

I actually figured this problem out. I selected the cylinder. Entered into edit mode. Then selected the top vertices of the cylinder. I hit "CTRL H" and selected "Hook To New Object". This created an empty which I then parented to the floating grey box using "CTRL P". I deselected all and then selected the bottom vertices of the cylinder. I hooked these to a new object also which I parented to the blue box. This way if the blue or grey box moves the red cylinder is attached to both of them.


Final:

You can also make it with Principled Shader only if you like to keep things simple.

Node setup:

As mentioned above, add Principled Shader, set Subsurface Scattering to around 0.2-0.3, tweak Roughness and you are ready to go.

Scene setup:

For this setup (and reference image) you will need some strong directional light in front of your object. I've used Area Light, scaled on X axis.


Is it possible to bake from the point of view of the render camera?

You can calculate the dot product between the Geometry -> Normal and a Vector -> Normal that you specify. It will give you a similar effect, ranging from -1 for surfaces pointing away, 0 for tangential surfaces, and to 1 for surfaces facing towards the specified normal.


I figured out that using the Workbench renderer was the wrong way to approach it. Using View -> Sequence Render Animation was what I needed.


How do I make the feathers on a bird wing bend with physics?

blender physics likes simple shapes, you can get around this by using mesh deform modifiers, and surrounding the mesh you want to deform with a simple shape.  For a feather, something like a 4 segmented rectangle around each feather.  Then apply soft body or cloth physics to the rectangle.


On the first picture the fluid is displayed as particles, on the second it is displayed as mesh, to display as mesh, go in the Properties panel > Physics > Liquid, and enable the Mesh option:


Import the class def
If a type is in bpy.types.FOO it implies it is registered.
Wouldn't recommend unregistering using
bpy.utils.unregister_class(bpy.types.FOO)

particularly if you wish to re-register it, as unregistering it removes it from bpy.types.
Rather, would recommend importing them. If you are not sure where the classes are defined,  turn on developer extras and view source or check the classes module property
>>> bpy.types.SCENE_PT_physics.__module__
'bl_ui.properties_scene'

Hence can import it, check if it is registered by looking at its is_registered property
>>> from bl_ui.properties_scene import SCENE_PT_physics
>>> SCENE_PT_physics.is_registered
True

>>> bpy.utils.unregister_class(SCENE_PT_physics)

and then re-register if need be to "uncustomize"
>>> SCENE_PT_physics.is_registered
False

>>> bpy.utils.register_class(SCENE_PT_physics)

Note, since most Blender UI code sticks to the convention of putting registerable classes in a list named classes can use this, or the modules register methods.
>>> from bl_ui.properties_scene import classes
>>> classes
(<class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_UL_keying_set_paths'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_scene'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_unit'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_physics'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_keying_sets'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_keying_set_paths'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_keyframing_settings'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_audio'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_rigid_body_world'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_rigid_body_world_settings'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_rigid_body_cache'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_rigid_body_field_weights'>, <class 'bl_ui.properties_scene.SCENE_PT_custom_props'>)

Note.
The module bl_ui is blenders UI written in python. The classes listed above are all the UI elements listed in bl_ui.properties_scene ie the PROPERTIES area in SCENE tab.
The idea here is to not use the class from bpy.types rather import it from its appropriate UI submodule.
Hence in your addon code would
from bl_ui.properties_scene import SCENE_PT_physics

As an example, to take out all panels in the Scene Properties
import bpy
from bpy.types import Panel

import bl_ui
# all panels in PROPERTIES > SCENE
scene_prop_panels = [cls for cls in bl_ui.properties_scene.classes
        if issubclass(cls, Panel)]

def register():
    # unregister default scene props panels
    for cls in scene_prop_panels:
        if cls.is_registered:
            bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)

def unregister():
    # unregister default scene props panels
    for cls in scene_prop_panels.reversed():
        if not cls.is_registered:
            bpy.utils.register_class(cls)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Make force field only affect objects while they are within a specific area

You can set a max distance on the force field, after doing that the force field will only affect the objects if they are within the set distance rather than affecting the whole scene.


Easiest way to make snow covered leaves?

Is this something you are looking for?
Conifer trees - shader

Conifer trees - mesh - 3DM Snow add-on

Deciduous tree - mesh - select one top face, Select Similar > Normal (Shift+G), Separate > Selected (Ctrl+P), add modifiers Solidify, Remesh, Subsurf, Remesh, Solidify


How can I improve my render of a Minecraft map?

It seems, the light is too intense in your scene. Try to select the Sun Light and adjust it's Strength until you get more acceptable results:

You may also want to add a bit more light bounces or some ambient light and experiment with Filmic color management:


Quads snapping up or down when displacement is animated

I have converted my mesh into triangles and used this to wireframe it instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67Q2Z4vVrMI&t=588s
It seems to have resolved the issue.


Is it possible to animate textures scale?

Add a mapping node to control your texture node. The scale values can then be animated by adding keyframes.

for blender internal the same principle applies: