How to force compositor nodes to execute?

So, it turns out there is no easy way (if any) to trigger either compositing or file-save in both the GUI and the Python API. Or at least not without re-rendering the image.

Based on this anwser I made an extension that does the following:

Make a new dummy render layer
Disable all scene layers
Render the dummy layer (and only that layer)

As a byproduct it will re-composite all your render layers and thus re-trigger the compositing of your image.

Afterwards it will delete the dummy render layer.

To make it easy I made it so that you can search for "recompose" by hitting space or hitting the "Recompose" button in the Node Editor when you're inside the Compositing Node Tree.

You can find the addon here: http://cloud.webvi.be/index.php/s/NYbHNlrVX4ZikXn


Render always displaying as completely white?

You are looking at the Depth pass
I think you are just looking the wrong render pass (or at least, not the one you were expecting to see).
In the image editor menu's tab there's a field where you can control which one of the render passes you set up for the render layer should be shown.
The Combined pass it's probably what you are expecting to see, but currently you set the filed to Depth.

You just have to switch it back as shown in the image sequence above.
If you are wandering why the Depth pass (also called z-pass, or z depth pass....) is all white, I'll suggest to read this related question:
Z depth pass in Cycles, rendering white


How to swap / invert the RMB (that activates the "object context menu") with the LMB (that selects an object) in 2.8

Go to Edit > Preferences > Keymap > • Select with


Is it possible to make curves more visible in the 3D view?

Just as Mr Zak suggested, you can give the curve in question a bevel object. You can adjust the thickness of the curve by scaling it.

Just switch off render for both of them and it shouldn't affect your scene.


There's still residual color information in the alpha area of your png. The better way to fix this is to get rid of the color mix node. Create a seperate shader for your screen-print ink material and wire that and your glass shader node into the mix shader node. Now drive the shader mix with your alpha channel.

This also allows you to modify the material properties of the ink without the need for a much more complex setup.

You could also achieve a result with minimal effort using the following node setup:

But this might not be physically correct, depending on the exact production method for the label, of course.


Removing the then inside of the if statements and replacing the - and + with -= and +=:

def mimic_process():
    if own_rotation_x > mimic_rotation_x:
        own.worldOrientation.to_euler.x -= 1
    elif own_rotation_x < mimic_rotation_x:
        own.worldOrientation.to_euler.x += 1


Blender 2.82a sculpt brush cursor shape not fixed

I figured it out. The falloff shape option under the falloff menu should be set to project. This makes the cursor stay a circle no matter the plane.


One material, different colors on objects

You can use the Pass Index to discriminate between objects with the same material.

In Object Properties > Relations, assign a Pass index to each object, between 1 and [ your number of distinct colors ]. You can assign the index to multiple selected objects by right-clicking the Pass Index field on the active object, and choosing 'Copy to Selected'.
Replace the RGB node in your tree with the nodes illustrated here:

The Divide is just to map the range of integers to 0.0 .. 1.0 for the color ramp, and the subtract nudges the point to make the tabs in the color ramp easier to place)

If you need the Pass index for something else, you can drive a Value node from a Custom Property, but that's not quite so convenient to assign.


Splitting pieces of a mesh into a new object

Select the object.
Enter edit mode (press ↹ Tab)
Press P> Selection to separate the selection into a new object:

From the manual:

Options

Selected
This option separates the selection to a new object.

By Loose Parts
Separates the mesh in its unconnected parts.
By Material
Creates separate mesh objects for each material.

Note that if there are no disconnected parts of the mesh besides the armor, using the By Loose Parts option might be faster.
Also note that you can select linked geometry by:

Pressing L with your mouse over geometry will select all geometry connected to the element below your cursor.

Pressing CtrlL will select all geometry connected to any selected element(s).

To access the option from a menu use Mesh > Separate


Hair particles clumping in Cycles render

This is caused by the particle children.
for every 10 hairs displayed in the preview you render 2000 hairs with the same propertys in the final render. Thats why it looks smooth and lumpy.


If you know how to do it in the Game Engine, you're almost done. You can simply play the Game and bake the animation to keyframes while you're at it, reusing the animation later for rendering in Cycles. So after you exit the Game, the keyframes will be baked onto the objects. When you scrub through the timeline, you can see the animation. You can find the Record Animation checkbox in the menu here:

A related question regarding this has been asked here: Can you bake keyframes in BGE and have them work in cycles?

as a side note, as far as I know this technique has been used in an Open Movie project a while ago. To be more specific, it was the car chase scene of Big Buck Bunny


How to make smoke emission not be affected by force field?

It can be done by having two domains, on different layers, each sharing its layer with its force field.
I don't think that smoke particles within the same domain can be made to follow different rules based on where they're emitted from.


As I said you have vertices overlaying, so select all and press W > Remove Doubles, it will merge these vertices. Also, you need to recalculate the normals because some are flipped, so select all and press ctrN.


Offset spline vectors each on his own origin. (Animation Nodes)

One of the nice things about circles is that their points' locations are also the normals at those points. So simply scaling a circle's points locations based on frequency bins and adding that to the location gives you what you want:


You may have already solved this, but do this :

1/ Select plane and go into edit mode (tab)

2/ Select All (a)

3/ Activate Extrude mode (e)

4/ Depending on the orientation of your plane, limit extrusion to the X, Y or Z axis by selecting "X", "Y" or "Z".

You plane should now be a solid. Just note that you need to be aware of the normals for your faces you have created with this method. Normals explained here


Better way of marking a location for an object to copy

Suggestion.  Try a more casual approach if that is acceptable.

I believe no part of the wrist bone should touch the visible gun. The wrist  placement need not be in the mesh of the gun.   The placement could be near the gun.  See the abstract control note below. The wrist bone maybe able to be specified head to tail for placement.
You might introduce a gun contact bone non deforming if that suits you.
Consider a [track to] constraint. To control wrist bone or connected bone.
You may need to worry about cyclic dependencies.  Whether real or Blender defect.  You may need to have non rendered abstract effector to control both the placement of gun and the hands.The abstract effector could be a simple armature with bones for the left and right wrist placement and location and rotation of gun.   This may eliminate cyclic dependencies if they arise.
Currently your question does not show the hierarchical relationships or parent child relationships.
The placement of fingers tips can just be curled.


You don't need their names in a list. You can iterate through Material.node_tree.nodes collection which allows to test if the node type is Image Texture and set the position attribute in one go.

Operator example based on Templates > Python > Operator Node:

import bpy

class NodeOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Tooltip"""
    bl_idname = "node.simple_operator"
    bl_label = "Simple Node Operator"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        space = context.space_data
        return space.type == 'NODE_EDITOR'

    def execute(self, context):
        tree = context.space_data.node_tree

        # set the location if node type is
        for n in tree.nodes:
            if n.type == "TEX_IMAGE":
                print (n.location.x)
                n.location.x += 50

        # filter by type
        image_texture_nodes = [n for n in tree.nodes if n.type == "TEX_IMAGE"]

        # get the names
        image_texture_names =  [n.name for n in image_texture_nodes]

        # check the console
        print (image_texture_nodes)
        print (image_texture_names)

        return {'FINISHED'}

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


How do I import a Second -Life Avitar (XML file) into Blender?

As you said the Wiz Daxter addon is perfect for the importation of secondlife XML file.

If you have trouble for the installation here are some advice:

First this addon work only for 32 bits version of blender.

After downloading the Wiz Daxter addon, the 1.0.9 version, extract it in you blender folder. In my case it's :

C:\Program Files (x86)\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.71\scripts\addons

/!\ Put only the SLAV folder and not Blender263_SLAV_109 in your addon folder!

Now you can enable your addon in the user-preferences that you can acces with ctrl+alt+u.

Then the addon is in the Impot-Export Section and its name is Import Secondlif Mesh and Skeleton.


Watch out your upper right angle: one is a Cycles material, the second is Blender Internal. They are two completely different render engines, which require different materials.

To switch render engines use this menu:


Should I use bones or shape keys to control the movements of a cat models ear?

It would depend on what you want to do with the model after it was rigged. If it's going to be used in a game engine then you will want to see if it can support exported shape keys. If it will stay in Blender then shape keys will be fine.
You can always set up both then see which works best and is easiest to do for future work.


Help make script work on all selected obj instead of just one

You can get all selected objects in:

objs = bpy.context.selected_objects

then just make a loop:

for obj in objs:

and then your code.

Done:

import bpy

objs = bpy.context.selected_objects
for obj in objs:
    for ipoly in range(len(obj.data.polygons)):
        for idx, ivertex in enumerate(obj.data.polygons[ipoly].loop_indices):
            ivert = obj.data.polygons[ipoly].vertices[idx]
            col = obj.data.vertex_colors.active.data[ivertex].color
            obj.data.vertex_colors.active.data[ivertex].color = tuple(1-x for x in col)


Merging a shape onto another shape and removing excess polygons?

You can bool the shapes directly in Edit Mode, as long as they exist in one single mesh already. If you have two different meshes, joint them by selecting both and hitting Ctrl + J. Then make sure the normals are all pointing outwards (Ctrl + N recalculates normals if they are off), otherwise the boolean operation fails.

Now, select one of the meshes: Select one face, and using Ctrl + L select all connected faces), and using the Spacebar menu search for Boolean, like this:


How to procedurally generate an infinite terrain using perlin noise

Rather than dynamically load and unload chunks of terrain just move displacement mapping of a fixed static subdivided plane.

The displacement should be made from mix of blender procedural textures (if you mix multiple clouds and musgrave textures you can get mountains, rivers, etc.)

The plane should be big enough so you can't see its borders.

And the character, camera and ground will be obviously static except of some local animations. The movement would be done with rotating and offsetting (the order is important) the displacement and texture of ground.

The resolution of the ground plane should be detailed around character and less divided to the borders. If the ground will be too low res you will see the geometry "float" over the displacement. You can see how that looks here.

If you know how normal mapping works you can generate procedural normal maps to accompany the procedural displacement and procedural textures of the terrain. This would minimize the floating.

So the ground is sorted.

Any objects the character would encounter on it's journey must be instanced and moved around. The height of such objects (to sit on terrain properly) can be rigged the similar way as a box floats on an ocean.

You could also make the displacement mapping use world coordinates and move the plane under a character, but if you will walk huge distances I would rather keep everything close to the scene origin.

Here is done dynamic loading and unloading of terrain tiles, but it uses heavy scripting and is totally out of scope of this site.

You might want to use a different engine than BGE for this kind of application. I would use BGE only for some basic arcade platformer, not for an open world project..


pixel selection to cut, paste, and move pixels in texture paint

Texture paint as of yet doesn't allow actual selection of pixels in any way close to Photoshop or Gimp do. I have several workarounds that I use though to work from camera view on an image plane and then project from view to new geometry that serves as my duplicated pixels/selection. This is a bit of work for a novice, and only works on 2d images and not when painting on a 3d model with a wrapped texture. Many people just keep the image texture open in a separate image editor program and update the image texture in Blender once saved in PS/Gimp/etc.


To create bottle neck by extruding outwards all faces normally?

You can extrude along vertex normals to do that. AltE then 'Region (vertex normals)'

edit if previous version does not has this extrusion mode:

Remove the ring, for instance CtrlR then X
Extrude and scale and only on X and Y: E (extrude) s (scale) and ShiftZ (only along X and Y)
Then CtrlE, bridge the loop


How can I move keyframes of rig control properties in the timeline

You have hidden bones. Switch to Pose mode, go in the Properties panel > Object Data, unhide every layer, also unhide with AltH, and select all. Now you can move the keyframes.

For the Protected Layers check the explanation here.


Okay I think I found my mistake. Sorry for bothering you. It seems I have to keyframe the data of the curve:

for sel in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    sel.data.keyframe_insert(data_path="bevel_depth",index=-1,frame=60)


How To Stop a Texture from Tiling in the BI

You can change the texture 'Extension' type from 'Repeat' to 'Clip'. This option is in the 'Image Mapping' panel in the texture settings:


Looks like it's a bug T84287: [Mantaflow] Fluid volume loss with moving obstacle
The answer to this question Fluid in simulation disappears when from moving container also recommends applying the scale to the domain, obstacle, and the liquid. (But it doesn't help in this case)
(Side note: you have Auto Keying activated and your liquid object has unnecessary keyframes.)


You need to remove Doubles from your mesh for the solidify modifier to work correctly.
Open the Specials menu and choose Remove Doubles.

Then enable Backface Culling and you will see that your mesh is "inside out ".
Correct this by selecting all then open the Specials menu again and this time choose Flip Normals.


When are edges necessary and when can I get away with only vertices?

Don't blindly erase edges just because they seem useless, you should instead be focusing on overall topology.

A good mesh will maintain a predominantly quad based flow with 4 sided faces as much as possible.

Triangles and NGons are to be avoided above all, they are bad for animations and cause trouble with texturing.

This good topology guide may help.

Bottom line is: You can never get away with just vertices, edges are there for a reason, and only erase them in the process of modeling, never in the process of forced cleanup.

EDIT: About Edges D,E,F, those yes, should be erased, but again you should not be focusing on the edges themselves but the internal geometry.

Those are non manifold faces, (could not be constructed in a real world model) and the edges belong to more than two faces at a time. That whole loop of faces should be removed entirely.


.pixels is a python object and pretty slow, especially if you change pixels. That is 'cause the entire buffer / python object is re-created for every single change (if you do it in a python loop). Not sure why it's that slow on read-only actions though...

You can speed it up tremendously if you cast it to a native python type (tuple) and use that copy instead:

img = bpy.data.images['Untitled']

pixels = img.pixels[:] # create a copy (tuple) for read-only access
# -- OR --
pixels = list(img.pixels) # create an editable copy (list)

# Use the tuple object, which is way faster than direct access to Image.pixels
for i in range(0, len(pixels), 4):
    pixels[i] = 1.0 - pixels[i] # invert red channel

# Write back to image.
# Slice notation here means to replace in-place, not sure if it's faster...
img.pixels[:] = pixels

# Should probably update image
img.update()


Object shows up pink even when selecting and adding material?

It's showing up pink because you're actually viewing this model in texture mode, as indicated by this icon.

You can reassign the texture image in the Texture panel, or see the name of the missing image in File->External Data->Report Missing Files.


How to improve the prismatic approximations to the cylinders

Apart setting mesh shading to smooth (which fakes roundness using normals, see https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/meshes/editing/smoothing.html?highlight=smooth) you should probably learn about subdivision surface modifier (see https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/modifiers/generate/subsurf.html), which creates new interpolated geometry in a non-destructive way (unless you apply the modifier, of course):

here you see a simple example: a simple basic cylinder, where you see the "prismatic approximation"

using the smooth shading you get something better (but it's just a smoothing faked, somehow):

instead you could use a subsurf modifier which creates the "missing geometry", depending on the subsurf level (here is 2)

since the subsurf "smooths" all, you get this weird result, but adding some "corrective" edge loop it gets better:

and you get this

which still has some lesser "prismatic approximation", but now the "smooth setting" works better

which is really quite smooth (and you can improve setting subsurf to 3, 4 or higher levels).

Of course your example image is more complex to "solve" because those are more complex object which only partly have cylindric sides.

You need to learn starting from simpler shapes, and experiment adding some edge loop as I did above, to keep some geometry "straight" and some "smooth" with control. The provided links have much info about this process, but believe me, you need to learn by yourself, failing many times, until you find the way.

You can also upload your file here http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ and add the resulting link editing the question, paste it in the text. Then we can help with your specific file and setup.


How to edit inset face after executing inset command

Select the vertices which compose edges and scale.  S
You probably know you can scale in two dimensions.  Lets assume XZ in
your model.
SShift+Y
You probably know you can choose the center point of the scale if
necessary.  Moving the cursor to the bottom middle might be your style. Otherwise you might move the points in z direction.
Otherwise undo or delete your work and inset a second time


Texture Paint window not showing any light

In case someone comes across this, I finally found the same problem asked before with an answer that solved it: blender 2.8 texture paint material mode not showing shaded object, just flat color is shown?


Difference in lightning does Material 2 - Magic texture.
This node generates black material on some faces differently, depence on object position.
On the left side are black back sides of object on the right sides are black front sides of objects.
Disabling node from node tree fix the lightning issue.

Node attached into Normal socket generates blacks on all negative XYZ axis directions.

I don't know what is a proper way, but ussally you should plug node into Color socket. So try this.

Plus as already mentioned - you have overlaping objects with different materials. But even I kept only one side and Mirrored with modifier, issue was there.


How to create object instances with unique properties in Blender?

Alt + D creates a linked duplicate. You could just duplicate using Shift + D. Then each duplicate has its own copy of the properties and modifications are just to that object.

Alternately if you already have the linked duplicates (and only want have unique text), then go to one that you want to have a unique text and click the number button (number of users of this property). This creates a new data block, which you can then have different text (and text format) assigned to it.


If you're talking about materials or textures:

In the Node Editor, all the materials that have a "0 something" name have no user, it means that they are not used by any object and that they will automatically be deleted when you'll close the file.

You can delete them for good immediately if you go to the Outliner panel, select Orphan Data in the dropdown menu, then select all the materials displayed in the materials category and right click > Delete.

If you want to delete materials that have users, select them one by one in the Node editor and click both on shift and on the "X" button on the right of the material name. Now they will have a "0" displayed in front of their name, so again, they will be deleted when you'll close the file, or you can delete them right away in the Outliner.

After deleting materials, if some images (those that have been used by some materials) are also displayed in the Outliner > Orphan Data > image category, again, select them all and right click > Delete.

If you already know by their name the materials and images you want to delete you can directly go to the Outliner then select Blender File in the dropdown menu and Delete all the unwanted materials and images.


Dont give the same material to both meshes, since you are painting on the same image it will affect the other one.


Import an image as a reference to a plane but the image i am getting is lying on a another plane

I don't know if that helps but usually when you insert reference Images they get inserted the way you are looking right now.
So let me explain.
If you tap 1 on you Num-Pad and insert a reference Image it should appear in the XZ-Plane.
So maybe toggle to your desired view and try to insert your reference that way.
I am not sure if it is possible to get a reference Image to a plane...
You could assign the image to the Plane as a Material but I am not sure if that is what you want.


Why objects reflected in the mirror are darker than original, as they were not receiving light

You seem to have a (diffuse?)BSDF shader plugged into a glossy shader, this is not allowed by blender. Instead, add a mix shader, plug them both into it, and then plug the output into the material output.
This is just an example:


What Lens Model does Blender use for Camera Tracking?

As far as I know Blender works with a pinhole camera matrix. Where an image is created by a projection of the 3d coordinates into a 2d plane.

k1, k2 etc are radial distortion coefficients. Blender does not deal with tangential distortion.
For a deeper explanation refer to the following links:
http://lfa.mobivap.uva.es/~fradelg/phd/tracking/camera.html
https://calib.io/blogs/knowledge-base/camera-models
3x4 camera matrix from blender camera
You can get more information also reading on OpenCV and camera calibration.


Problem with creating edge rings on a model

This is happening because of two things.

Because you are using N-gons. N-gons perfectly fine when making hard surface models but when it comes on to topology, they get a bit difficult to work with.

You have faces on the inside of your model. This is a no no and the Edge Ring tool will detect these when you are trying to make a ring and won't allow it.

So to fix, you can use the Knife tool to try and cut the ngons into quads (See this post on how to use the Knife tool), don't just select vertices and press F. Next, remove all inner faces of your model, you can just go into Wireframe view and select the faces and use X > Faces.
Trying to create an edge ring with inside face(s).

Creating an edge ring without inside faces.

Trying to add edge rings to an Ngon vs trying to add edge rings to quads.


Color ramps with normals, 2.8 Eevee Style

I found one solution through random experimenting:

A freznel input feeding into a color ramp. I used constant for my own toon applications, but I suppose this would also work for a smooth effect.


Which properties should I read in a Mesh struct inside the .blend file?

For a basic engine you need to extract mvert which is an array of the vertices of the model. Within an item of this array the co attribute will contain the local vertex coordinate of a vertex. the no attribute contains the normal of that vertex.

The mpoly contains the face data as edge loops around the face. As a face within Blender can contain a finite amount of vertices you will need to triangulate the faces yourself. At forehand in blender, or later in your own code. An mpoly contains a loopstart as an index into mloop and a totloop as number of sequential entries that construct the face.

The mloop contains the data for the edge loops. It has a v for vertex index and a e as edge index.


Hiding "lastest rendered frame" in renderfarm sheepit for confidentiality?

The core concept of Sheep It involves transferring the project being rendered on other people's machines. As the Sheep It owners have no control over the 3rd party computers, keeping work private is a challenge.

There are, however, paid solutions (for instance, RenderStreet) that can get the job done without breaking the bank and in complete security. As working professionally implies receiving monetary compensation for the projects, the rendering costs can be factored in the project budget.

As a final comment, I would recommend checking the privacy policy of any service you intend to use for professional work.


Rendering smoke issue: How to get realistic smoke trails from particles?

Have you tried animating the size of the smoke particle size to increase from 0.1 to say 2 or 3 over the first 20 frames?
They will emit thicker smoke as they get further from the start point.


To make the shadows stand out the most, a point light with a small radius is ideal. However, if you are using an area light or a sun light (or other large scene lighting), you can still achieve clean shadows by disabling "Soft Shadows" in the Render Properties settings. This will give the shadow an "aliased" look, however, so you may have to increase the Cube Size accordingly. Also, make sure to check "High Bitdepth".

For any lights you are using, go to the light properties, and make sure "Contact Shadows" is checked. This will make sure adjacent touching surfaces don't allow light to leak through.


Flow type

"Fire" -  lets the flame generate first and then the smoke is created when the flame dies off (depending on your settings). The smoke is generated FROM the FIRE not the mesh.

"Fire+Smoke"- Generates fire AND smoke at the same time. Does not wait for the flame to die. The MESH generates the fire and smoke at the same time.


When trying to unwrap my model with subdivision applied to it, the distortion issue is solved, so I first mark seam in low poly, then I apply the subdivision to the character as level 3 and then unwrap all good to go. :)


How to rotate with two reference points?

Put the 3D cursor where you want the pivot of your rotation to be. This is easiest to do if you already have a vertex there, which in your case you do. go into edit mode, select the desired vertex, SHIFT + S, then 'Cursor to Selected' or 'Cursor to Active'.
Set your pivot point to 3D cursor. This can be done with . or in the UI.
Set your snap settings to the following. The important parts are Snap to Vertex, Snap with Active, and Affect Rotate in your case. Make sure snap is turned on.

Go into edit mode of the plane you want to rotate. Select everything by hitting A. Deselect and then reselect your 'active' vertex, which is the part you want to align.
Hit R to rotate. The plane should rotate so that a line from the 3D cursor (pivot point) through the active vertex now points to the vertex closest to your mouse cursor.


Imported Obj and MTL files do not display correctly

If you're importing MTLs for your OBJs you need to make sure both the MTL and supporting UV texture JPGs/PNGs are selected during upload
Otherwise your model will be missing textures ,
 another noob here , just read this in a chat though, hope it helps


N64 style vertex shading/lighting for low poly models?

I'll give this a shot since no else has answered yet.
The N64 had a semi-programmable color combiner, but the most likely mode is probably "modulate" where the texture color is multiplied by the shade color to produce the output color.
The shade color can be either be static vertex colors, or it can be calculated dynamically from the lighting.
Vertex Colors
For the vertex colors, you can hand-paint the shading into the vertex colors, or have Blender bake to vertex colors. Use a node setup like this:

This should be pretty accurate to the N64.
Lights
In this mode, the shade color is a Gouraud Phong-type shading computed from the normal and the lights. The N64 had one ambient light and up to eight directional (diffuse) lights. You can emulate the ambient light in Blender by setting the Background color for the World. For the directional lights, use Suns.
For the nodes, I don't know if you can do Gouraud shading (shading computed per-vertex, then interpolated) with Blender. But you can do it per-pixel with something like this

The diffuse node computes lighting. The node labeled "Clamp" keeps the shade color in the 0-1 range.
Also set Shadow mode in the material settings to None.
However, this is less accurate to the N64 than using vertex colors since it isn't Gouraud shaded.


How to repeat an image which uses Sphere mapping in Cycles

The problem is that the texture coordinates node is not outputting a UV coordinates it is a genereted 3D coordinates ranging from 0 to on each axis ( X,Y and Z ) and since the Sphere mapping is not linear like the cube , scaling these coordinates will not get the desired result.
instead of manipilating the 3D generated coordinates I extracted the UV coordinates from the sphere projection and used this as a UV coordinates for the real image which is mapped using Flat projection.
extracting the UV coordinates from the Sphere projection is done by two gradiant image texture ( black to white direction is the same as the U and V axis direction )

here is the node setup :

Now you can manipulate the texture mapping as you want :

Note : you can eliminate the need for two image texture nodes in the first stage by using one image with  red gradient ( horizontal) and a green gradient ( vertical ) in one image

first image : used for U axis

second image : used for the V axis


Here is a "simple" solution.

It involves two objects. A vehicle and a "waypoint jumper".

It is a kind of "Carrot on a stick" approach. The vehicle follows the waypoint . When the vehicle collides with the waypoint it jumps to the next waypoint location -> "waypoint jumper".

Vehicle

You are free to create an vehicle as you like. It needs to have two operations:

move forward
turn towards the waypoint jumper

here is an example:

I'm sure you have your own version of the vehicle. Just ensure it turns and moves forward all the time.

To make the vehicle detectable add a property car

The type does not matter. It has no further purpose. It just should exist at the vehicle.

Waypoint jumper

We need an object that can detect the vehicle from a certain distance. I suggest to use a mesh object that detects collisions with the vehicle. A plane or circle should be fine.

To avoid stopping the vehicle the object gets Physics type Sensor.

When you have the object you can define the waypoints. Create an action with location keyframes at subsequent frames (1,2,3,4...). You do not need fine granularity. Just ensure the direct line between waypoints is not blocked and there is enough space for turns.

The jumper should know what the current waypoint is. We store it as property 'frame' a whole number, starting with the first frame.

First we play the current waypoint position. We do not need to do that all the time - only on startup or when the waypoint changes. We let the waypoint jumper play the pose according given by the property frame.

When the car comes near  we switch to the next frame. If the car happens when it collides with the mesh. We filter collisions by property car, to exclude any accidental collisions with other objects.

Now you can start your game engine and watch your vehicle follow the carrot ... waypoint jumper.


Test if the mouse is over any object in the 3D View with python?

There's no property or function to find it out, there's an example script to find mesh objects under the mouse however. It casts a ray on LMB and selects an object if there is one (only mesh objects and duplis).

You find the script in the built-in Text Editor, in the menu:

Templates > Python > Operator Modal View3D Raycast

AFAIK it can't be changed to also hit objects like lamps and cameras, 'cause they don't have actual faces (they are kind of virtual objects only).

If you tell more about your ultimate goal, we might find a different approach that doesn't require to know whether there's something under the mouse cursor or not.


Cannot activate addon "Import Images as Planes"

Interesting, according to the traceback, your "io_import_images_as_planes.py" add-on file is corrupted. The line in question should be a comment not a procedure. This error alone can be easily fixed with putting one # character at beginning that line, like this.

Python 3.5.1 (v3.5.1:37a07cee5969, Dec 6 2015, 01:54:25)(MSC v.1900 64 bit)] on win32

to

#Python 3.5.1 (v3.5.1:37a07cee5969, Dec 6 2015, 01:54:25)(MSC v.1900 64 bit)] on win32

However it most likely has other corruptions. My guess you got your add-on from the wrong place, because it should start with the line of

# ##### BEGIN GPL LICENSE BLOCK #####

A possible solution:

Open the

C:\Users\user\AppData|Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.76\scripts\addons\io_import_images_as_planes.py

file with a text editor like notepad, delete everything.

Get the add-on from the github repository.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sambler/myblenderaddons/master/io_import_images_as_planes.py

Ctrl-a Ctrl-c to copy everything, and paste it in your notepad.

Than try to install it again.


Why can I not change Particle System settings anymore?

That's because you have baked data. Simply press the Free Bake button under the Cache section, and you'll be able to edit your settings; you will have to re-bake, though.


Find the largest open editor window, split it and set its type

Your code is working as expected as it is setting the type of the context area, which is where the button is, or the text editor if run from there, or the py console if run from there etc.

You could fix by overriding the wm.context_set_string operator.

However it's prob much easier to find the other area with maximimum area.

import bpy
from bpy.types import Operator
from operator import itemgetter

class OpenNodeEditor(Operator):
    """Open the node editor"""
    bl_idname = "screen.open_node_editor"
    bl_label = "Open Node Editor"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        screen = context.screen
        areas = [(area, area.width * area.height) for area in screen.areas
                  if area != context.area]
        if len(areas):
            maxarea, a = max(areas, key=itemgetter(1))
            maxarea.type = 'NODE_EDITOR'
        else:
            #split areas
            direction = 'HORIZONTAL' if context.area.width < context.area.height else 'VERTICAL'
            bpy.ops.screen.area_split(direction=direction)
            screen.areas[-1].type = 'NODE_EDITOR'

        return {'FINISHED'}

Also note: your operator above is the equiv of

row = layout.row() # some layout
op = row.operator("wm.context_set_string")
op.data_path = "area.type"
op.value = 'NODE_EDITOR'


Weight paint mode wont paint on the mesh

To do this you need to select which vertices you need to paint first then paint them. So select the vertices as shown below using shift + right mouse click, then paint them using left mouse click. Updated .blend file can be found here.


Click on the current editor

What ever you have it will drop down a big menu and select
(i) icon i.e info

And you will find your file menu


How to highlight selected Faces in Texture Paint?

In the UV Editor, disable the Sync UV option:

And in the Image Editor, enable the View > Display Texture Paint UVs option:


How can I get the projection matrix of a panoramic camera with a fisheye equisolid lens?

I needed to do this recently. I think the following code should do the trick.

p is our point in 3D space.

camera = bpy.data.cameras["Camera"]
scene = bpy.context.scene

f = camera.cycles.fisheye_lens
w = camera.sensor_width
h = (3/4) * w # Depends on aspect ratio. For some reason I don't get the correct value from camera.sensor_height

camera_ob = bpy.data.objects["Camera"]

p = camera_ob.matrix_world.inverted() * p
p.normalize()

# Calculate our angles
phi = math.atan2(p.y, p.x)
l = (p.x**2 + p.y**2)**(1/2)
theta = math.asin(l)

# Equisolid projection
r = 2.0 * f * math.sin(theta / 2)

u = r * math.cos(phi) / w + 0.5
v = r * math.sin(phi) / h + 0.5

x = u * scene.render.resolution_x
y = v * scene.render.resolution_y


Unexpected render result, height map too bumpy?

The Distance in the bump node is by default in meters. Since it is approximated without actually displacing the geometry, at that scale even very small details in the bump map get blown out of proportion.
Try decreasing that value, it should smooth out the bumpiness.
You can also play with the normal map node strength although I don't think you should have to.


How 'Remove Selected from Active Collection' feature works?

This is functioning properly, but you must understand two concepts:

The active object is one of the selected objects, always
If you remove an object from all the collections in a scene, it will appear as though they have been destroyed, although they are still present in the file memory. It can also still be loaded in another scene's collection.

The way I see it, Add Selected to Active Collection should be relabeled to Add Selected Objects to Active Object's Collection(s). In fact, if your active object is part of several collections, the UI will ask you to which one you want to add the selected objects, or if you want to add them to every one of these collections.
Similarly, Remove Selected from Active Collection should be relabeled to Remove Selected Objects from Active Object's Collection(s). It also prompts the user whith which collection they want to remove the selected objects from.
However, if by doing so you remove one or several objects from their last container collection in the scene, it will effectively disappear from said scene. You can see they are still in the file if you change the outliner display mode from view layer to Orphan data. You can then manually re-add it in your scene.
I agree that there should be a warning if you are removing an object from its last collection saying something like "Warning : This will remove this object from the scene"
To do what you want to achieve in your last set of screenshots, you just have to deselect the cone and call the operator.


Can I constrain a vertex to never move beyond specific coordinates?

Unfortunately, you can not limit vertex transformation in Edit mode.


Working with lower resolution in compositor viewer?

Scale Node

Something I do is put a 'Scale' node (Shift+A > Distort> Scale) just after any high-res image I want to reduce, setting the scale type to 'Render Size'. This will mean that any inputs will be scaled to your output resolution, set in the Render panel.

Using this method you can then reduce the render size to 50% using the resolution percentage property in the render settings and the compositor will reflect that change (though the compositor may only update to the new resolution when the frame is recalculated).

Here, I have the scale node after a 4k image, but with the resolution percentage set to 50% I only do the compositing with a 2k image, meaning the blur node is processing less pixels and will be faster.

When you want to do the full render you can just disable the scale node with M, which 'Mutes' the node or set the resolution back to full. Other scale node types will also work, instead of 'Render Size', this is just my preferred method.

Note: It is important to put the Scale node directly after the input image/movie so all the compositing is done on the low resolution image. Having the scale node at the end of the node tree would have no effect as the scaling would be happening after all the intensive compositing of the node network is computed.

Compositor Quality

You can also set the 'Edit quality' of the compositor to 'Low' in the Performance area of the Properties menu (N) in the compositor.


How to get Color and Z-Depth from Viewer Node?

I am trying to do something similar. I (think) I made it by connecting the Render Image to Viewer Image and by connecting Render Z to Viewer Alpha. I used your code as a starting point.

import bpy
import numpy as np

bpy.context.scene.render.use_compositing = True
bpy.context.scene.use_nodes = True
tree = bpy.context.scene.node_tree
links = tree.links

for n in tree.nodes:
    tree.nodes.remove(n)
rl = tree.nodes.new('CompositorNodeRLayers')

vl = tree.nodes.new('CompositorNodeViewer')
vl.use_alpha = True
links.new(rl.outputs[0], vl.inputs[0])  # link Renger Image to Viewer Image
links.new(rl.outputs[2], vl.inputs[1])  # link Render Z to Viewer Alpha

#render
bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_percentage = 100 #make sure scene height and width are ok (edit)
bpy.ops.render.render()

#get the pixels and put them into a numpy array
pixels = np.array(bpy.data.images['Viewer Node'].pixels)
print(len(pixels))

width = bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_x
height = bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_y

#reshaping into image array 4 channel (rgbz)
image = pixels.reshape(height,width,4)

#depth analysis...
z = image[:,:,3]
zf = z[z<1000] #
print(np.min(zf),np.max(zf))

I wouldn't use Viewer Depth channel since Image pixels (RGBA) are floats whereas depth are ints.


How to colour vertices of a beveled curve mesh without converting to mesh?

Check use UV for mapping in the curve tab (this act as unwrapping the curve mesh ):

use the U input from the texture coordinates node to control the color using ColorRamp node along the curve :

render result

UPDATE
It seems that the UV space is divided equally between the bezier points , and using this info we can use the ColorRamp to assign a color to each point using knowing its order in the spline :

the number of elements in the color ramp should be the same as the number of bezier points
distribute the color ramp elements evenly
the color of each bezier point is the color of its corresponding element in the color ramp

this is a curve with 3 splines each spline has each own material :

using the previous idea gives the following result( color-ramp interpolation is set to constant to show thee relation between elements and bezier points ) :

Scripting : the following code has been used to create the last image materials

assuming you have

a dictionary of points' colors
material slot for each spline
-each material has a ramp node ( the material should be as the previously used one ^)

import bpy

curve = bpy.context.object

colors = {  0 : [(0,0,1,1), (0,1,1,1), (1,0,0,1), (1,0,1,1), (1,1,0,1), (1,0,1,1), (1,1,0,1)],
            1 : [(0,1,0.3,1), (0,0,1,1), (1,0,0,1), (1,0,1,1), (1,1,0,1), (1,0,1,1), (1,1,0,1)],
            2 : [(1,0.4,1,1), (0.8,0,1,1), (0.5,0.5,0,1), (0.6,0,0.2,1), (1,1,0,1), (1,0,1,1), (1,1,0,1)]
         }

if curve.type == 'CURVE' :
    i = 0
    if len(curve.data.splines) <= len(colors) :
        for spline in curve.data.splines :
            spline.material_index = i
            color_ramp = curve.material_slots[spline.material_index].material.node_tree.nodes['ColorRamp'].color_ramp
            l = len(spline.bezier_points) -1

            for e in range(1,l) :   # if i>0  create new color elements
                color_ramp.elements.new(e/l)
                print(e/l)
                color_ramp.elements[e].color = colors[i][e]

            color_ramp.elements[0].color = colors[i][0]
            color_ramp.elements[-1].color = colors[i][0]

            i+=1


How to lock camera to Follow automatically and rotate only on command without scripts, empties

Instead of parenting, try a Copy Location constraint. Enabling the offset option allows the camera to follow the object at a set distance and it will ignore any rotation of the object it is following.


Strange mesh behavior with proportional edit

LukeD was right, following his tips the "rip" seemed to happen along the local Y axis of the object, moving the mesh in Edit Mode along the X axis so it would no longer overlap the Y=0 axis, would alleviate the problem.

The problem it seems is the Mirror X option that was active in the object editing options. In the 3D View Tools shelf > Options Tab > Mesh Options disable X Mirror option.

There did seem to be some sort of symmetry in the works, I searched for the setting but could not find it anywhere myself, this video however helped shed some light on the issue.


Thank you for the advice!

I used the grease pencil to mark the cut lines and booleans to split the skull into pieces.
At first I drew the outline of the cuts on the skull, then decimated the mesh so I could edit the boolean meshes in real time. It worked quite well. It would be really nice if I could just draw the cut lines on the model.
Here is the end result-->


Is there an Equivalent to the tool "To Sphere" but to Cube?

There isn't a tool that works the same as 'To Sphere', but there is a Cast modifier which can do the same job, as shown below:


Imported zbrush mesh cannot be parented with automated weighted

It looks like the main problem is your rig and your mesh don't line up very well (at least in the file you provided). I would suggest starting by making sure each bone is where it should be. If the bones aren't close to any geometry blender is going to have a really hard time determining which bone should control each vertex.


How To Export Blender Mesh w/ Shaders to Unity

You cannot use Blender cycles shaders in unity. Unity has its own nodes, you need to bake out the cycles rendered texture on the model in the scene, and then export them with the FBX exporter addon.


Subsurface scattering always gives red glow

You need to tweak the Subsurface Radius values. They will determine the RGB coloration.
As the manual says, this value corresponds to the average length the light travels between each bounce. The longer the path length is, the further the light is allowed to scatter. This is the main source of a material’s perceived « scatter color. » A material like skin will have a higher red radius than green and blue. Subsurface scattering is the diffusion of light beneath the surface.


How do you make a jagged circle edge smooth?

To make it a smooth circle, first go into user preferences and enable an add-on called "Loop Tools" (search "loop" in the search box).

Select the edge you want to "straighten" into a circle, right click and select Loop Tools > Circle.

This should leave you with a clean circular edge.


How can I "unsplit" (ie reconnect) vertices that I split (not separated) from mesh in edit mode?

I think you are overcomplicating it way too much. If you only want the shape that you uploaded a picture of, it can be done in just 2 steps:

1: Inset the top face of the cube by pressing I.

2: Extrude the inset face up by pressing E.


UV mapping node in the compositor. Why can't I subtract some pixels from the alpha channel with a mask?

This difference is in the original alpha channel.
Same view, same zoom level:


There could be a few things going on, but your Device in the Render Engine selection for cycles is greyed out. This could mean that your GPU is not able to be used (old or not supported) - or the preferences are not set correctly (Edit->Preferences->System).

After this is resolved, your lighting setup could also be an issue.


How do I create metal materials in Cycles?

I would recommend applying a normal map, using a glossy shader and then bumping up the roughness to your liking.

Example

Here's what I did

Glossy shader color (hex)

616161

Roughness amount

0.05

Normal map


How do I apply the texture paint to a specific object?

Go into edit mode. Select the polygons that you want a different material on. Go to the Material tab. Click (+) to add a new Material slot. Choose a material  or create a new one and then click "Assign".


I've had a similar situation while modeling a complicated scene in a bottle. It works eventually; but there seems to be some kind of pre-caching and precalculating involved which is related to the obstacle complexity. For me, on a reasonably good machine, I was at around 10 MB of memory with a lot of wiggling for the fluid to do, and it was close to a minute of wait time before the meter started to move.

I would suggest starting with some simpler subset of your scene, and verifying that the fluid simulation works as intended. I would also suggest at times of long 0% waits simplifying your modeling to rely on the fluid sim as little as possible.


Blender start with (large) Python script crashes Blender

If you are trying to add one object per polygon, then yes, it is a quite bad idea with current Blender - adding object can indeed be O² because each time you add one, Blender has to check all (or at least a large subset) of existing ones against name collision. Would suggest to add your 12000 polygons in a single object…

Further than that, it's pretty much impossible to help you without having access to the code.


Make an Object not reflected by a Surface?

You can do this with the Light Path Shader Node.

EDIT: Do note that I what I posted works with the default settings in cycles, but EVEE reflections behave differently so it might not be the exact same.

FOR CYCLES:

Here is a basic shader setup that prevents reflective surfaces from seeing your object. In fact it prevents it from casting any reflected light at all.

You can turn this

Into this

By using this Shader setup Involving the afformentioned Light Path Node.

You can read more about the Light Path Node here but the value you are interested in is the "Is Reflection" value.

Long story short, things that have light reaching you only as a result of reflection from other objects (in this case the underside of the ball) are flagged as "reflection" rays by this light path.

For reference:

This shader setup works by using the mix and transparent shader nodes, driven by the light path. If a ray is a reflected light path, it has a value of 1 being put into the FAC value of the mix shader. This makes the mix shader choose 100% of the SECOND input shader.

Non reflected light gets classified with a 0 in FAC therefore it only chooses 100% of the FIRST input of the mix shader

You can use this effect to for example, make reflections semi transparent if you replaced the second node with a translucent shader instead of a transparent one or you can put a complicated node graph to use in place of the reflection while leaving the original directly viewed object as its normal shader.

This is especially interesting if you plan to do NPR (Non photo real) renders etc.


Freestyle: control the Thickness of stroked curve using Radius?

Animation Nodes can be used here. Essentially, if you add a 2D curve and copy the 3D spline to it using this simple node tree, you will get what you need:

It also works for multiple splines:

But what if we have multiple spline objects? In this case we append all splines from all objects into a single list and use it instead, and the 3D spline objects can be sourced from a blender object group that the user will add:

What if we want the fill objects(2D Curves) to be separate objects so that we can add different materials for instance. In this case, the 2D curves can be dynamically generated using the Instancer Node:


Each bone has a head and a tail. The head is the centre point of any rotation, so you position the head at the centre point of the pieces rotation, for the turret that is the centre of its connection to the base and for the gun it is the end that is connected to the turret. Position each bone so that its movements make sense for the piece of the tank that it will control.

Now parent each bone to the piece that it is connected to, the turret is the parent of the gun and the base is the parent of the turret. When parenting bones you can choose between connected and keeping offset, choosing connected will move the head to the tail of the parent but keep offset will parent the bone without moving it, this allows the bone to follow the parent and keep its position for its rotations.

To make animating easier you can add some constraints.

For the turret and gun, under transform locks in the bone properties, enable the location locks, this prevents you manually moving the bones in pose mode.

For the turret add a Limit Rotation constraint and enable Limit X and Limit Y and change World space to Local Space, now it can only be rotated on its Z axis. Any time you press G or R it will only rotate the one direction you want it to rotate.

For the gun also add a Limit Rotation constraint. Enable all three limits and change to local space. Now set a min and max value for the X axis, in my quick example I found a max of 32 and a min of -4.2 looks about right, allowing you to rotate the gun up and down without hitting the tank body and not point straight up in the air.

Here is my simple example rig.


This is the mesh in layout where it doesnt show the colours


Loop cut shortcut not working on Blender 2.8

In a comment you write

  I was in edit mode and have selected the loop cut tool, the same tool you have there in the image.

That is exactly the problem. If you have the Loop Cut tool selected in the toolbar, choosing the number of cuts with the mouse wheel doesn't work and LMB does not allow you to slide.

Try selecting the Select Box tool (or any other tool really) and then Ctrl+R will work as shown in the tutorial.


Select all the meshes: (hold SHIFT while clicking them one by one)

Press CTRL+J:

I haven't done any extensive checking on the rigging, but the character still walks:


How can you tell if something is shiny?

Because there is something reflected on it...

When you deal with reflective objects don't expect reflections to come out of nowhere. Put something in there to be reflected on the surface of your object.

Here's a black glossy belt with no environment and only one top light.

If you add a few white elements to be reflected you will have the black golssy qualities of your material. It will be bright in the areas where something bright is reflected and dark in the areas where there is nothing to reflect...

For a longer explanation read: Why does an object with a glossy shader render in black?

As for the texture of the leather, just add some texture and use it as a bump map.


How do I model the secondary reflection coming from the inside of the back surface of glass?

Don't use Clamping (especially with such a low value of 1). It prevents the lights from being simulated realistically in something as complex as glass. Turning on Caustics also helps.

Here are some render comparison:

To me, the glass material is unnecessarily complex, unless you have a good reason to use it (for dispersion, etc), I suggest you looking into the Principled Shader. With one shader, we can achieve even better caustics and faster renders.


Alpha over node is including unwanted objects in the image?

You need to Connect the matte output of the Crytomatte to the Alpha Over Node for it to work as shown in the image. It will get rid of the Asteroids.
Pls pack the textures if you are sending a blend file as the textures go missing as you can see the image.

EDIT
As mentioned in the Comments If you set it up like in the Image you can use Cryptomatte. Also I cleaned up the nodes a bit


Can I make drivers read values from textures?

Each image datablock in Blender has a pixels property. This is an array of pixels starting from the bottom row left to right.

The RGBA values of a pixels are listed after one another. The RGBA values for the bottom-left pixels will be indiced with 0, 1, 2 and 3. The RGBA values of the second pixels can be called with the indices 4, 5, 6, 7 from the pixel list.

Starting with this post, this blog has lots of informations about pixels in bpy.data.images.

I have created a sample script which manipulates the object location based on frames of an images. (Compare the attached file.)

import bpy

def updateFromImage(scene):
    frame = scene.frame_current
    obj = scene.objects['Cube']

    pixels = bpy.data.images['InputImage'].pixels

    # read the green pixels
    greenPixelAtFrameNo = pixels[frame*4 + 1]
    obj.location.z = greenPixelAtFrameNo * 5
    obj.location.x = frame

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(updateFromImage)


Cursor to selected not working while an armature is applied

I guess your problem is that Blender put the 3D cursor on the original vertex position, i.e. its position without the modifier, it doesn't take the armature modifier into account, which can be annoying sometimes when for example you try to modify a mesh that is affected by an armature: The cursor won't come at the vertex or vertices position, it will stick at the original vertex position, not convenient to grab the XYZ widgets. To make it clear:

Let say you've parented the cube to the bone With Automatic Weight.
Move or rotate the bone in Pose mode.
Select the cube, go in Edit mode. Display the cube's Armature modifier on your right panel. If you enable the Adjust Edit Cage to Modifier Result option, in Edit mode you'll see the mesh fitting to its modified position.
Select a vertex.
Press shiftS > Cursor To Selected.
Contrary to what is expected, the 3D cursor doesn't move to the selected vertex. Actually it sticks to the original vertex position, i.e. its position without modifier. It's Blender's choice, it might have some reasons(?).
If you disable the Adjust Edit Cage to Modifier Result option, you can clearly see what I mean, the 3D cursor stays on the original vertex position.


Render a wireframe with equal thickness in Cycles?

Update

As of this commit (will be in 2.72), freestyle is now natively supported in cycles.

This means that you can set up the freestyle lines how you would in BI, then render them straight in cycles:

Select your object and enter edit mode (Tab)
Mark everything as a freestyle edge by selecting everything (A) and pressing CtrlE> Mark Freestyle edge:

Enable Freestyle in Properties editor > Render settings:

Enable Edge marks in Properties editor > Render layers:

Render.

Original answer:

You can use two scenes, one which will render the lines in freestyle, and one which will render the scene in cycles.

Create a linked copy of the new scene by pressing the + icon in the info header and selecting Link Objects:

This way moving objects around in one scene will update them in the other scene too.
Enable freestyle in Render settings > Freestyle, and adjust the line thickness as desired.
For each object, enter edit mode (Tab), select all (A), and press CtrlE>Mark Freestyle Edge:

Disable everything except Freestyle in Properties > Render layers > Layer:

In the compositor (be aware that nodes added to the compositor are scene-specific), add a new renderlayer node and set the scene to your BI scene:

Combine with an alpha over node:

When you render, both scenes will be automatically rendered and combined.

Example .blend


What lighting settings would be used to achieve colored and soft directional light

There is not that much to this.
Any big light source with the color you want will do.

The bigger the light source the softer the shadows on the scene.


Hard shadows after render (cycles & eevee) V2.92

Since it looks like almost everything is outlined (has a dark border), my guess is that you have Freestyle enabled - the image below shows both viewport and render with it enabled:


Any Idea how to get rid of those shading issues?

Delete the half of the mesh that's giving you trouble.  add a mirror modifier with the axis set to x.  apply the mirror modifier.  hopefully this correct your shading errors.

I hope this helps :)


Is there a way of applying the true displacement

There is no way to do that (at least currently) and unless your object covers a distance that would make adaptive subdivision useful (has parts that are far and others that are close), you should use a Subdivision Surface and a Displace modifier. If your object does cover a big distance and you want to have a decreasing amount of detail over the distance, the only workaround I know is dyntopo.

in sculpt mode, select the SculptDraw brush and set the strength to zero.
enable Dyntopo in relative detail mode
from your camera's point of view, paint a stroke at each distance step. Don't paint a single stroke ! The detail is defined from where you click and stays this way until you release the click, so if you paint multiple strokes in multiple steps, it should give a very similar result to adaptive subdivision. However it may not be as easy to paint on for every object. I tried with a plane and it worked fine (I selected Subdivide Edges in Dyntopo to avoid deforming the sides).
If it's impossible to do from your camera's point of view because of the shape of your object you'll have to move around and tweak the detail size manually and maybe select the Constant Detail mode in Dyntopo instead.


Rigid Body not working with Passive / Animated / Mesh / Deforming

This is a bug with Blender 2.9. Works fine in Blender 2.8.


Bending curve/object around another object

Have you tried the Curve modifier?

Create your shape. If it's a svg you'll need to convert it to a mesh and subdivide it a bit. Put its origin on its geometry.

Create a curve > circle. Put it at the same point as the shape origin.

Give your shape a Curve modifier, choose the circle as Object.

If you think that the shape is not long enough you can either scale the shape (on one axis or on all axis) or scale the circle.


how to model plane with a lot of vertices

LoopTools add-on has a few operators that you might find useful, particularly bridge or loft:

Above you can see how I make sure all curves have the same number of vertices - had to subdivide one curve and remove 2 excess vertices, then Relax it to make it smooth and equalize Space between vertices for the best effect of the Loft.


There is more than likely a better way to go about this… but for the time being, it seems this can occur for several reasons, such as how dense your canvas is and the size of the part of the 'brush' touching the canvas etc.

Using the default canvas and brush settings for the most part, you can get around this easily enough by cranking up the number of subdivisions in your canvas mesh and optionally by increasing your Sub-Steps.


Apparently, increasing frame steps fixed the issue and made the whole thing look a bit smoother.


Depending on what you want, there are a couple ways to approach this.

Increasing the Size (in Properties > Lamp) of the main lamp to produce softer shadows:

Or Angle value if you are using blender 2.8 :

Here's a gif showing the size animated from 0.1 to 1:

Adding a second lamp to to put more light into the shadowed area:

Disabling Shadow rays for an object allows light to pass through and illuminate surfaces behind it. If this works for you, then all well and good, but be aware that this isn't a physically accurate phenomenon and may look strange in some situations.


How do you animate objects coming out of objects realistically?

A softbody could do it. Now I'm far from a specialist in all the softbody knobs, but here is a collision object going through a low poly softbody. Would be better with higher poly I guess and by having the whole basis more rigid.


Wind force field only works in the center of the scene

The Wind force field gives a constant force in a single direction. It's like a Sun light but emitting force instead of light, so You can imagine it as an endless flat plane emitting force.It's a global force. You can change only direction of it.
I checked your file and everything seams to be ok. It worked wherever I put cloth or wind source, so when You noticed it's not working You must've not back the animation to start position.


Random objects to grid (Animation Nodes)

Starting from version 2.1, we have a Transform Mesh Node instead of the Replicate Mesh Node. First, we create a list with all possible meshes (One can use the Objects From Group Node to get all objects in a group and get the meshes from them.), then using the Random List node, we generate a list filled with the possible meshes, then meshes are transformed to the required location using the Transform Mesh Node. Which results in:

If it is not required that the output be a single mesh, one can instance a group of empty objects using the Object Instancer Node and then copy the meshes from a list filled with possible objects just as we did before. Which results in:

If you want to selectively add an object at some indices, then manual source object list creation is needed. For instance, if one wants to use the object Cube for the vertices at indices 0,1,...,9 and 40, 41,...50 and use the object Icosphere for the rest, then the object source list can be created as follows:

The Fill List Node can be used to fill a list with a certain number of objects, and the Combine Object List node can be used to combine multiple lists, so we can combine an object list filled with 10 Cube then another filled with 40 Icosphere and then another filled with 10 Cube. Then we can use the Fill List Node to fill the rest of the elements with Icosphere.


How to cut a piece off a mesh using another mesh/edge as the cut shape

I’ve run into this type of problem before. I recommend extruding the circular background, and then using the resulting edge-to-faces to cut the wave tube. You may have to move the circular background a bit to make it offset, so it doesn’t just cut half the tube.
Use Boolean or the Boolean modifier for cutting. Selecting the mesh to be cut (I think, maybe it’s the other way around and you select only the mesh that’s DOING the cutting)


UV mapped textures not affected by lights

The issue is you're not rendering the layer with your lamps.
Your model is on both layer 1 and 11, but your lamps are only on layer 11.

Go into the RenderLayers tab, select the foreground renderlayer and select layer 11 under Layer:


How would industry-professionals approach this?

It depends.

If the final result was to be animated, then they would most likely make any moving part a different object. But on non-moving parts, such as the Door Overhang, it would probably be left to the individual artist's discretion what to do on that individual piece. For your purposes, I would do whatever you are most comfortable with, and whatever you think will be most efficient for that individual scene.


Use the keyboard
For Top 1 to 10 Layers Press 1222267890

and

For Bottom 1 to 10 Layers Press Alt+1, Alt+2 and so on.

If you're are using a Laptop, Go to File -> User Preferences -> Input -> Emulate 3 Button Mouse and Emulate Numpad


Have your first button in the game trigger a new object (lets call it menu2) to be added to the game, or play a animation to move menu2 on screen. Then on menu2 have several other objects parented to the menu, each with logic set up like in this question.

In the blend file you will find the object menu2 has a animation to move it in to view. That animation is triggered by the first button (a cube). The trick to playing the animation is to have the Action Actuator on the menu. The logic bricks look like this.

So every time there is a click on the cube it triggers the animation to play on the menu. You can have logic bricks go between objects, just select both objects and they will show up on the logic brick editor.

BGE menu demo blend file.


My original UV image had a middle stripe of a blend of the two colored sides creating an illusion of two colors mixing in Blender.
I recreated the UV image with no stripe. It's working now. Also, I recreated a plane mesh, and instead of subdividing it a lot as I had originally tried, I used a ton of loop cuts in the axis of distortion (y), and then another loop cut perpendicular to that (x) and marked as seam to bisect the plane.

https://gph.is/2Dh8vDE


What you have is an extra edge. From what can be told from the picture, the positions of the vertices forming that face are not flat, and so you are asking it to make an impossible shape. You cannot have a square with diagonal verts at different heights that do not create a flat plane. It is showing the triangle because you are asking for something that is not possible.

Smooth shading may help. But for the shape you want, you need more geometry for it to be possible.


How to post a new entry to the help menu with python

You need to make a custom menu drawing function, accepting two arguments: the parent Menu object and context access object.

def draw_help_item(self, context):
    self.layout.operator('wm.new_help_item', text = "New Help Item")

Then either append or prepend the function to the menu's class upon registering the new class, and remove it when unregistering:

def register():
    bpy.types.INFO_MT_add.append(draw_help_item)
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)

def unregister():
    bpy.types.INFO_MT_add.remove(draw_help_item)
    bpy.utils.unregister_module(__name__)

The appropriate class' name, in this case bpy.types.INFO_MT_add, can be searched in Python shell assisted by autocompletion. It's usually prefixed with the area type, then either _MT for menu or _HT for header, and is fairly easy to deduce which UI element it corresponds with.


Creating lots of random cuts on a surface

The cell fracture tool should do what you require.
Press SPACE and search for
CELL FRACTURE

.


Export render from Cycles as floating point RGB in scene linear color space?

Yes!

You can export the image in OpenEXR format, it will save the information as scene linear. You can choose to save as Half Float (16-bit floating-point} or as Full 32-bit floating-point.

In the basic OpenEXR format you can save RGBA + Z depth information.

Using OpenEXR multilayer you can save all of your layers and render passes on the same file.

To save all of your layers you need a file output node and create the links to the layer pass information you want to save.

To set it up please read:

Save all render passes to a single EXR image

and

How can I render all render passes to files in Cycles?

More info on OpenEXR format here: http://www.openexr.com/


Why are my renders being rendered by my CPU and not my GPU?

You are enabling Open Shading Language.
Currently it's only support by CPU instruction.
Disable it first.

Please check your preference setting,

Check only GTX 1080 for CUDA device, save the preference and you might need to restart your Blender (most of the time don't need).


Solidify modifier causes black artifacts on mesh

Solution
I switched into Edit-Mode and selected one face that was wrong. Then I pressed Spacebar and used Remvoe Doubles UV. Now the incorrect face was correct and I continued with the other faces.


How can I move separate edges towards each other at the same time?

They seem to be aligned along the world x axis, so with the selection shown, hit S, Y and move the mouse. Pressing 0  will make them form one line through their exact center, which should be the x-axis.
If they are not aligned to a world axis, switch the transform orientation to normal first, edges have normals, too, they are not as reliable as the ones of faces, but more often than not, they get the job done.


How can I animate colors spreading over an object?

I set up a quick test and the way I would do it is to use the Build modifier.

Create a 3D mesh of the area to be coloured, remove any vertices to make it 2D. If you do not do it like that I have found the Remesh modifier either does not work or produces strange results.

Apply a Remesh modifier set to create blocks. This creates a "pixelated" mesh but you can tweak the Octree depth to de-pixelate it. Apply this modifier, as we need direct access to the new geometry.

Tab into Edit mode and select all ('a') then position the cursor at the location you want the colour to spread from. From the Mesh menu select "Sort Elements" and select "Cursor Distance".

Tab out of Edit mode and add a Build modifier, set the duration and hit play.

The mesh will build itself one face at a time spreading from your sorted start location.

If that solution does not produce a neat enough solution then I would suggest a black & white animation as a factor mask in Nodes. Or you could use Dynamic paint and "paint" the colour with another object.


Mesh is having trouble following bones correctly

Your "pirate" head looks better in my blender:

but the head, at least, moves wrongly because you are not seeing bones axis rotation, in stick mode: try octahedron mode:

but I also inspected weight influences, and some bones have slight influence on the head, too, so do a complete check again, maybe.

I always reccomend to get help from custom weight paint color to help visualize difficult wrong spots...

see this other old (my) answer about it: When IK bone moved wrong part of mesh deforms


I used the Node Expressions add-on (available via https://baldingwizard.wixsite.com/blog/node-expressions) to create the nodes from the mathematical expression, using the following expression :
Val1 = abs(y-(9-8*abs(x))) < Threshold, Val2 = and(abs(x)>0.75, abs(x)<1), Combined =Val1 * Val2

This creates two sub-expressions (Val1 which returns 'true' if y is close to '9-8|x|' and Val2 which is true if 0.75 < |x| < 1.0) and a Combined output which is true if both sub-expressions are true.
This produces the following result :

Blend file included


Modeling question - twist/bend part of a mesh

Great method for shapes like that is shown here in the picture. Here is what you have to do:

place 3 profile (can be more) meshes depending on what form you want. Profiles must have the same vertex count.
join all the parts into 1 mesh.
with profiles selected press W and then 'Bridge edge loops'.
check 'Tools menu (T)' for more options if you need.
apply subdivision modifier.

You can see the result in the second picture. This is similar. For your case you must adjust the placement of the profiles and then adjust the 2nd. profile to match the one you need. I think you will need 4 profiles to get an accurate result.


Can faces of one object be selected by the shape of another object?

1. Using Vertex Groups with Data Transfer modifier

Assign all the vertices of the sphere to Vertex Group with value of 1 and scale the sphere to very small size.

Create a vertex group and add DataTransfer modifier to the landscape object.

Then in the modifier select the sphere as Source Object, enable Vertex Data using Vertex Group(s) and set Vertex Mapping to Projected Face Interpolated.

2. Using Vertex Groups with VertexWeightMix modifier and spherical blend texture.

Create a Vertex Group with a value of 1 on all vertices of the landscape object.

Then add VertexWeightMix modifier, in the modifier select created vertex group in Vertex Groups A and B, set Mix Mode to Difference and create a new Texture Mask with Use Channel set to Value.

Then open texture settings, change Type to Blend, in Colors enable Ramp, set interpolation between color stops to Constant and Blend Progression change to Spherical.

Change to Weight Paint mode and adjust the texture color ramp till you get desired result.

3. Weight Paint mode with Transferring Weights to active object.

May not be as precise as previous methods but quicker to setup.

Assign all the vertices of the sphere to Vertex Group with value of 1.

Then in object mode select the sphere and holding Shift button select landscape object and switch to Weight Paint mode.

While in Weight Paint mode create a Vertex Group and in Tools tab click Transfer Weights button, then in Operator panel change Data Type to Vertex Group(s) and Vertex Mapping to Projected Face Interpolated and adjust Max Distance to get desired result.


Cannot enter edit mode or change to orthographic view?

No, I don't think so. What matters is that the cube is Active (usually the last selected, with a yellow outline).

In Blender there are three selection states:

Unselected
Selected
Active

There can only be one active object at a time. The active object defines which object will go into edit mode when you press ↹ Tab, which object's options are shown in the properties panel, etc.

Selecting an object with A, select by layer, etc. will not change the active object.

To make the cube active, click on it with  RMB.
That's odd.. Are you sure the mouse cursor was over the 3D view?
I suspect this is because your active object was either the camera or the lamp, not the cube.

You can tell which layer the active object is on by looking at the layers in 3D view > Header. The orange dot represents the active object:


create gaps between spline points with animation nodes

This answer will be using the technique described in my answer here. After getting the parameters of the intersections, we prepend it with zero and append it with 1 representing the start and end of the spline respectively. The prepended list represents the starting parameters of the sub-splines between intersection points while the appended list represents the ending parameters. We can generate those sub-splines by trimming as follows:

We can then loop over the sub-splines, evaluate a point in the middle and see if it is inside the object or not, if yes, we append the spline:

And that is it, you now have the interior splines which you can evaluate to get what you want. For instance:


How can I add major geometry to a mesh in Sculpt mode?

Have you tried applying the multires modifier when you are happy with it? Then adding your primitives by joining (with all my desired mesh objects I wish to join selected I use Ctrl+J  to join them together)?

I enable dynotopo once I join my meshes to each other.

Depending on how rough/fine you want your sculpt to be at this point, will depend on how you set dynotopo's value. I personally like to use 5 or 6px.

I then lighten up the influence of my brush by setting it to near 0.0 with Shift+F and then dragging my mouse away from the center and click when I'm at my desired value.

Then I lightly cover my transition points between my sculpt and my primitives with my sculpt brush (If this is slightly above 0.0 it will seem like it is not doing much, however you are adding mesh density).

Then I hold Shift and go back over and smooth the transitions.


Diffuse Colour not showing in compositing render layers

Your material simply has no diffuse component, which is why diffuse direct, indirect and color passes are completely black. This happens because the material is partly metallic and uses subsurface scattering.

The way the light passes are combined to produce the final image is documented in the manual.

The Blender 2.80 Manual by the Blender Documentation Team is licensed under CC-BY-SA v4.0.


Is there any python code that can join two objects without losing the logic from the other object?

Copy sensors.

Here is some pretty untested code to copy sensors from active object to other selected objects.

import bpy
context = bpy.context

def copy_props(v1, v2):
    ''' copy props from v1 to v2 '''
    props = v1.bl_rna.properties
    for k, v in props.items():
        if (k in ["rna_type", "type", "name"]
            or v.is_readonly):
            continue
        setattr(v2, k, getattr(v1, k))

def copy_actuators(actuators, c):
    ob = c.id_data
    for a in actuators:
        bpy.ops.logic.actuator_add(type=a.type,
                name=a.name,
                object=ob.name)
        a2 = ob.game.actuators[-1]
        a2.link(c)
        copy_props(a, a2)
    return c.actuators

def copy_controllers(controllers, s):
    ob = s.id_data
    for c in controllers:
        bpy.ops.logic.controller_add(
               type=c.type,
               name=c.name,
               object=ob.name)
        c2 = ob.game.controllers[-1]
        s.link(c2)
        copy_actuators(c.actuators, c2)
        copy_props(c, c2)
    return s.controllers

# sensors
def copy_sensors(o1, o2):
    ''' copy sensors from ob1 to ob2'''
    for s in o1.game.sensors:
        bpy.ops.logic.sensor_add(type=s.type, name=s.name, object=o2.name)
        s2 = o2.game.sensors[-1]
        copy_controllers(s.controllers, s2)
        copy_props(s, s2)

scene = context.scene
o1 = context.active_object
to_objects = [o for o in context.selected_objects
                if o != o1]
for o2 in to_objects:
    copy_sensors(o1, o2)

Result on your file.


Use vertex path on one mesh to cut a hole in another mesh

Got it!

<3 Blender :]

I did it using the Knife Project tool:

Load full resolution mesh
Duplicate to 'LoRes', hide the original, select the duplicate
Remesh to a low resolution
Edit Mode
Create a vertex path around ear using CTRL+Click
Copy these into a new 'cutpath' object:
   3dView ToolShelf -> Duplicate (click twice)
   3DViewMenu->Mesh->Vertices->Separate->Selection
Object Mode -> Select 'cutpath', SHIFT+Select 'LoRes'
Edit Mode -> Knife Project
Circle Select to select bits of the ear that got missed out

x to Delete verts

OK, now I have the LoRes mesh with the ear cutout.  Now I just have to use the same 'cutpath' to cut the ear from the original mesh, and stick it in.


This is because the shortcut you re-assigned only applies to the Non-Linear Animation Editor.

To find all conflicting shortcuts, search based on key binding instead:

There are U shortcuts in the 3D view (both in object mode and edit mode) which call the call_menu() operator. This is different from the NLA editor, which just runs nla.make_single_user() directly when called since it has no options.

Disable or re-assign the conflicting shortcuts, then it works as expected.


The dots are transparent and the background shines through. Pretty sure the dots will change color if you turn the background red.

This happens when a very thick line style is used. GP seems to place lots of short stripes perpendicular to the stroke and the gaps happen when the strokes don't overlap. I tried 2.76 and the line was smooth and even. So some time after that, the way to draw GP has changed. Cranking up 'smooth' seems to help a bit, using a thinner stroke helps, too.

If you need really clean results, converting the strokes to a curve should work, giving it a bit of extrusion and a shadeless material. Sadly GP seems to connect all curves together, so a bit of cleanup is necessary.


Blue spots in compositing after color mix

You should be using the Add mixing mode when you want to add more white pixels to the image, then plug the specular image in the top (so it adds to the bottom image).

Example:


Instead of using a gradient you can build a mask really quickly. Use the shift drag function to extrude a feathered edge from the shape. Invert the color of the mask using the little invert icon in the mask window.


how to move, rotate and scale multiple objects in edit mode

You can modify your objects in OBJECT MODE, then apply the transformation to the mesh (CTRL + A).


Final:

Node setup:

This is pretty simple setting, mixed Wave Texture with Noise and used as Bump for Glass.

Before this you have randomization for Z position per object to make icicles looks different from each other. They should be separated objects.

Mesh notes:

It's not part of the question, but I'll try to briefly describe how to use it with this add-on.

To get this working you need to have UV Map for icicles.
I've used Cylindrical Projection on all of them.

After this I've separated icicles - P > By loose parts.

Another issue could be Smooth Shading. Check here for solution: Smooth cone with glossy or anisotropic texture gets dark spot or use Flat Shading.


Boolean Intersect - Cannot execute boolean operation

Try this:

1) In edit mode select all and remove doubles (W -> remove doubles ) when recalculate normals (Ctrl+N )

2) If it doesn't help, try newer version of Blender. It has a new Boolean solver "B-mesh" that can work with more complex geometry.

3) Check your model with 3D-printing toolbox add-on: Checks -> Solid must output 0 manifold edges.

If it's not so, you can select all bad edges by pressing button here in edit mode:


How to change number of vertices in add object in 2.8?

The "Adjust last operation" menu is found at the bottom left of the viewport. You may need to click to expand it, as it appears collapsed by default.

Alternatively, you can look under Edit > Adjust last operation, or hit F9.


Problems with Using Substance Designer Height Maps

Go to User Preferences > Addons, search for and enable "Node Wrangler".

Once you have it enabled, when you are in the shading tab, with the Principled BSDF selected, press Ctrl + Shift + T. This will allow you to load a whole PBR set at once (navigate to the folder and select multiple files). It works fine with Substance Designer's default naming scheme, except I think it has trouble connecting the BaseColor. You can do this by pressing Ctrl + T with the BSDF selected to load a single image texture connected to the basecolor and then choose your image that way, or you can Shift + D duplicate one of the other image textures, load it that way.

This shortcut method sets up the displacement for you, however how much of an effect it has in EEVEE is somewhat a topic of debate (as far as I know, it's not supposed to do something, but it does - but not always the best result). Instead, I sometimes prefer to run my displacement through a Bump Node. Either way you choose, also note that the default strength of 1 (on any of the bump/displacement/normal nodes) is often too high and gives undesirable results. I've sometimes needed to go as low as 0.1 before it looks right.

As a side note, make sure to make use of the Scale values of the Mapping node - I find many textures exported from Substance are scaled too large (1/4 tiled or so) and benefit by scaling by at least 2 or 4 on the X and Y.


New vertices added to vertex group automatically

Seems like there is no way to prevent new vertex assign to near vertex group, even if it's locked. This is due to the gradient vertex weight distribution.

To better understand the mechanics turn on Vertex Group Weights:


Can you view 2 or more layers simultaneously?

Yes, to see more than one layer at a time shift-click on the other layers you want to view. It will make them visible without closing the others.


How to get rid of geometry protruding inside while sculpting?

You should be able to fix this with the smooth brush. Just go over the required area and it should get rid of the bubble. Just be careful to not set the strength of the smooth tool too high. Otherwise the flatten brush will help to. To stop this from happening in future you can use the mask brush to paint the area you don't want to affect.


--bpy.ops.nla.bake(frame_start = context.scene.frame_start, frame_end = context.scene.frame_end, visual_keying=True, bake_types={'OBJECT'})--

which means you bake all your frames using an NLA editor.


Euler list output in steps (Animation nodes)

By using Float Range and Repeat List Element node you can do this.


Cannot modify or delete mesh without it collapsing

The Upper Torso shape key likely needs to be removed, or at least you need to disable the Shape Key Edit Mode option


"wings" appear when I add a subsurface modifier to some simple geometry

Ngons (faces with more than 4 sides)

Join some of those vertices (manually subdivide edges where needed) so that you have at most 4 sides for each face.
You have a lot going on in this scene. Blender can highlight ngons for you.
In Edit mode, go to Select -> Select All By Trait -> Faces By Sides.
A little menu will appear in the lower-left. Choose 4 and Greater Than.
Do this with the Subdivision Surface modifier turned off, it will be easier.
Here is a .gif showing you how to isolate islands to work on (subdivision surface modifier has been turned off)


how can I invert the weight paint of dynamic paint?

In Weight Tools panel in the left, there's a option "Invert", it solves your problem?


Can i hide the mini axis per 3D View (instead of globally via preferences)

No, it's not possible. I don't know much about inner workings of Blender as I have taken only a very beginner course on Python coding. Maybe you can achieve it by coding, but by just messing with Blender's settings you can't do it.

Hope it answers your question.


Array Modifier

If I want to join A with B, I can add an Array Modifier to A with zero count, using Object Offset with B and setting End Cap also to B.

Drawback

If A is not centered, scaled or rotated, the two B objects will not align.

Workaround

I can add a C object and use the End Cap method two or more times, with A and B and other objects I like to join together.


Selectively mix shaders based on color input

To pick out similar colors in a spectrum, there has to be a notion of a distance between colors, which more or less makes sense to the eye. One (perhaps naive) way to do it would be just to take the 3D distance between colors in whichever space you are using for comparison. If that's RGB, that would be sqrt(dR*dR + dG*dG + dB*dB). You could put this in a node group:

Starting with the colors in the top left, supposing for the black light effect we generally just saturate the colors a bit. (top right).

Then we can use the RGB-Distance node group to pick out colors similar to examples we've picked.

The bottom left square above shows the output of the top Color Ramp node in the tree below. It's a mask of colors which are quite-like-white in the original (top left) square.

Masks like that can be used as factors to mix between the saturated tiles and the ones we've picked out for special treatment. The top branch picks out whites, and replaces them with a darker blue, and the bottom branch replaces yellowish squares with magenta.

This might do it for you on its own.. but it could be tweaked to place more emphasis on hue, brightness, etc., by changing the definition of distance between colors.

I should point out that to keep things linear, and let me E use an eyedropper to pick colors from the  screen, I've set the color-management in the .blend to Raw, with no sRGB in the display. You will probably want to change that.


Creating a leaf material that shows transparency from UV image (Blender Internal)

Either use these material notes. Or use blenders addon that imports images as planes and enabling transparency on the left


Bizarre Outer Shell on a model? Only Appears in pose and object mode

Your issue lies in the topology. You have double vertices almost everywhere (multiple vertices at the same position in space). This would probably ruin the weight painting leaving parts of the mesh stretched as shown in your pictures. On top of that, back face culling is enabled so any back facing normals will not be shown. This meant that very small slithers of the mesh was being shown making it look like as you said, a ghost mesh.

To fix it you will probably have to remove double via W in edit mode, and then the remove doubles button. Probably a good idea to recalculate your normals with ctrl+n. Then you will likely have to redo the weight painting on the bones.


Select your armature, go in Edit or Pose mode, select your bone, go in the Properties panel > Bone and enable the Deform option (it should be enabled by default):


Well, that's a normal behaviour. You can either add a bone to control the Neck part as WhovianBron3 suggested, or you manually fix it. The reason this happens is because the bone has high effect on this part of mesh because it is close enough to it.


Blender 2.8 Crashed and cannot reopen the project anymore

While I can't tell you what happened exactly, I did find a way to recover your sculpt.

What seems to have happened is that somehow the object got removed, but the mesh data still stayed (I believe the technical term here would be Orphan Data). How that happened I'm not sure, but I tried appending the mesh again, and switched to the Data API view in the outliner and noticed it said 0 objects but 1 mesh.

The way to recover your object is to add another mesh object, go to the Mesh Data tab of the properties panel, and right at the top where it says the name of the object, on the left you can select different mesh data. Select the name of the object you're trying to recover and whatever mesh data the object you added had will now be replaced by the sculpted object.


How can I compare normals in AN with python

The only issue I see here is comparing vectors that are float vectors and that can give false negatives.

For vector comparison it's better to use "distance", rather than "==".
(Also, in blender precision appears to go up to 6, so use at most < 0.00001)

For more see: https://github.com/JacquesLucke/animation_nodes/issues/327

However, that means in your code:

if (Normal - mirando_arriba).length_squared < 0.0001:
    result = rotateY
    TextBlock = "Mira hacia arriba"

and same for the rest.


First things first: "good" lighting is highly subjective, and depends on the look or mood you want to portray.

I'd say that in most cases, a sun lamp is what you want. Also pay attention to

Size
The size setting controls the size of the lamp, which indirectly controls the softness of your shadows. This is very useful for getting e.g. a soft overcast look, or a hard and sharp desert sun look.

Here's a comparison of a very large sun and a very small sun:

Direction
The direction light is coming from plays a very important role. By using this together with strategic arrangement of your scene, you can highlight the parts you want while leaving others in shadow.

Here's a comparison showing the difference a simple change in direction can make:

Also don't forget that you can change the "altitude" of the sun, e.g. for dramatic sunsets/sunrises.
Color
Sunlight isn't white (unlike my previous examples :P).
I like to use a blackbody node to set the color temperature of my sun lamps in kelvin, e.g. for golden sunset lighting or blue and rainy overcast daylight.

According to wikipedia, sunlight is approximately 5,500 K around noon and closer to 2,000 K at sunrise/sunset. Note that this only applies to sunlight scattered through the atmosphere, sunlight above the atmosphere is approximately 5,900 K.  And of course you can adjust these numbers to whatever suits you best.

Here's a comparison between a low angle small sun at 3,000 K  and a larger sun at 6,500 K

The sky
The light coming from the sky (sunlight scattered through the atmosphere) plays an important role too (e.g. giving shadows that bluish tint). I'd recommend using an HDRi as an environment texture, but for lighting purposes the procedural sky texture can work well too (just make sure you align it).

For display purposes you'll want to make sure your sky texture matches up with the rest of the attributes of your lighting, e.g. a sunset for a low color temperature, cloudy for a large lamp size, and of course direction.
Other light sources
Other things can emit light too. This can help make things seem more "alive" and less flat.


You could do this with a slight work-around.

In Edit mode select the top half of the object

Separate it from the bottom using , P -> Selection

In Object mode select the object you wish to fracture and run the cell fracture command

If you want to you can join them back together afterwards with Ctrl J


This error has already been fixed by commit 5eea1995659bf17a0c716b1207207333f85fb67b. Remove the currently used add-on and install the most recent version of the .mu importer/exporter add-on to solve this problem.