Create noise texture and set its influence rgb value?

Here's some sample code for creating a new material, texture slot, texture and setting it all up together as specified in your question:

m                   = bpy.data.materials.new( "MyMat" )
m.diffuse_color     = (1, 1, 1);
obj.active_material = m

ts                      = m.texture_slots.create(0)
ts.texture_coords       = 'UV' # Assuming this is what you want, could be any of the following: ('GLOBAL', 'OBJECT', 'ORCO', 'UV', 'STRAND', 'WINDOW', 'NORMAL', 'REFLECTION', 'STRESS', 'TANGENT')
ts.color                = (0.45778, 1, 0.223341)
ts.texture              = bpy.data.textures.new( "TEXTURE", "NOISE" )


Sometimes it is just best to manually rotate your camera. If your scene has straight lines, you can use an application such as fSpy(https://fspy.io/) which will tell you the proper rotation of your camera after you draw some lines.


Currently the view3d.enable_manipulator command appears to be disabled in Blender 2.8 beta.

The next best solution that I could find is changing the Spacebar Action in your preferences to "Tools".

This will activate your tools menu when pressing the spacebar, allowing you to access the hotkeys for the manipulator.


Select all the faces and press u for unwrap and press reset, so all will be squares (Enable stretch in right properties in uv editor for better seeing). Now select the faces you want to repeat then enable uv and mesh sync in uv editor. Now select faces in 3d view then scale down in uv editor and move aside, similarly, repeat manually (press two adjacent faces and press shift+cltr+(numpad +) to grow selection based on previous selection). Finally press A to select all and cltr+a to average all islands. using box select b select group of islands move them where you needed. I hope this helps.


Unable to select more than one armature single bone in edit mode

I think you have to join the bones in object mode CTRL+J, then you can go to edit mode to parent them.


How to copy everything from one object to other

You won't be able to copy applied modifiers, but you could try looking through your backups to find a blend file with the modifiers unapplied.

You can read about this on the manual here.

  From the manual:

You can also check the folder where your blend file is for .blend1 and .blend2 files, etc. These are just backups that Blender will automatically make every time that you save your blend.


How to setup scene for Isometric workflow? In order to import 2D ISO image to make it in 3D

Step 01
Blend file - Dimetry

Set camera Dimetry (54.563/0/45) with dimension of your ISO-image
Increase camera dimension on Y axis *1.150
Add your image as Camera Background Image
Build your models and save

Step 02
Blend file - Isometry

Set camera Isometry (60/0/45)
Add Empty
Link Collection (or Scene) done in Dimetry
Parent link to Empty
Scale Empty on Z axis 0.81673
Render

Like that you can anytime to switch into correctly measured models in Dimetry, but just by opening Isometric file re-render for final output.


I dont know why my materials aren't visible, nodes aren't working

I suspect you have your render engine set to Workbench:

Set it to Cycles or Eevee to be able to edit your materials again.


I think I pressed something by accident, and now my regular movements are jittery.

You might have accidently turned on snapping tool. Check if the magnet button on the botton of 3D View is not turned on. Otherwise, please provide .blend file for better feedback.


Whole curve twisting when moving it's extremity

There is no way for the algorythms to predict how you wish the object to be twisted, you can specify manually for each vertex of the curve:


Armature twitches out of position for single frame during animation render

I can't speak for vers's 2.8+ but this is a common occurance and the solution has often turned out to be as simple as saving the Blend file, exiting Blender, deleting any cache folder(s) found in both the project folder and Blender's 'Temporary' folder (as designated in pref's), then reloading the project again. Hope this helps in your case... It may also be that the armature is working against some other modifier or constraint


It isn't smooth because the center part has one vertex, try to change the center part into a circle (to fill, use either press the button F or go to Mesh--> Faces --> Fill and add loop cuts with ctrlR.


Blender 2.8 - Wireframed objects not rendering

Freaky, somehow "Object/Viewport Display/Display As" was set to "Wire" instead of textured AND all "Cycles Settings/Ray Visibility" were unchecked (for only two objects)! I've never even opened these panels before..


You have 2 menu below that looks like icons with 2 arrows. In your screenshot  there are icons like "cube" (which is view port where you can see your objects, scene and anything you are working on) and "clock".

If you don't use the clock just click on it and choose Logic Editor, and then after all set up you can save this view as  "game logic" - just rename it from "default". So as we see even we accidentally delete any of menus we can add it by yourself


It's usually better to make a cloth sim with a single surface and add a solidify modifier under the cloth sim because this way it has half the number of polygons to compute for the simulation and it keeps the thickness of the cloth constant.


You can flip the animation around by actually inverting your animation data in your animation editor.

Go to your dope sheet editor.
Set the current frame to the beginning of the animation (probably frame one)
Select the frames you want to reverse. Press S and type -1
Move the inverted animation back to where it is supposed to be positioned (using G)
Play back the animation!

When you're scaling the frames by negative one, you are really just reversing the animation. Similar to turning a shirt inside-out.


Diagnosis first, solution second:

Problem

From the looks of it you used automatic weigthing (probably heat-based) and in the bind pose the IK bone finger1.L.IK is very close to both the belly and the finger, so both places are automatically weigthed to the IK bone.
Anything you move that moves the IK bone will therefor will move the belly.
This problem exists for all of your IK bones, they all have weights when they really should not deform anything, they are just helpers to move the real deform bones like finger1.L, finger1.L.001.

Solution

Your IK targets generally should not have any vertices weigthed to them if you only want to use them to drive your real deform bones. To make sure automatic weighting doesn't use helper bones, select them and switch off the deform option by clicking Armature>Bone Settings>Deform in the 3d View menu bar or by pressing SHIFTW and selecting deform (just unchecking the checkbox only changes the setting for the currently selected bone!):

Notice that I did not switch deform off for the IK targets of the feet, because you are using those as both an IK target and deform bones for the feet!

When you are done with this you have to redo the weigths.
Select the mesh ALTP then select Clear Parent and finally you can parent the mesh to the armature again like you did before and create automatic weigths again.
I've attached my result as a .blend file, so you can have a look if you have any further problems.

Additional Infos on Rigging

If you want a really incredibly great and thorough introduction to rigging, take a look at 'Humane Rigging' in the Blender Shop or on Youtube. It's not for the current version of Blender, but it is the best I know of (my knowledge of Blender rigging is dated too, I should add).


How to align two vertices on two planes?

While in the bigger User Ortho view, select the vertex you want to move, the one that cannot be moved in the Z axis. Once selected hit G, then Shift+Z (this allows the vertex to move in the X and Y axes, but not the Z axis). Then, holding Shift to limit movement speed and increase accuracy, visually line up the vertices. While not mathematically exact, you can zoom up quite close to ensure they are aligned to your liking.


Blender 2.8 eevee - Is there a limit for image nodes quantity in a material?

I recently posted a similar question here and had some adequate responses that suggested this is a limitation of Eevee, on both an image texture level, and a hardware limitation.
I saw another post that pointed to this tutorial by Creative Shrimp on a procedural asphalt that uses "layered" materials, to get around the issue in Eevee, but have yet to try it myself.


First of all, I believe the question was migrated wrongfully, but let me clarify some:
What is an overhang?
An overhang does not exist in a model per se. Overhangs only exist in the print, and areas that will become overhangs are pointed out only by slicing software. But now, what is an overhang?
Overhangs are parts of a printed model that are not supported by the model below. Bridges are overhangs that have support on both sides but not in the center.
A good example for what in printing is an overhang would be the left arm of Rodin's The age of Bronze:

I have colored some areas red and some in blue. Blue are areas with a pretty steep angle, where the structure below the print supports the print being not over the print. These are not overhangs
Red areas are where there is no structure below (left am, chin, fingers of the left hand) or where a very flat angle does not allow the structure below to support it (right arm).
So, now that we looked at the areas where there might be support needed for the overhangs, let me load a 90 MB 3D-Scan of the statue into a slicer (Cura). It highlights areas that the slier considers overhangs in red. To do this, the slicer compares the angle of the surface to the horizontal: a vertical is 90°, a horizontal 0° and somewhere in between that there is the set "overhang angle". To see areas the slicer points out, I had do pan into the ground, and to make it especially visible, I chose to set the "overhang angle" down to 40° in the first case, and a more normal 60° in the other case:

Now, you can do tricks to make an overhang not an overhang - For example, by angling the whole statue back so much that the chin is pointed to the air, it is no longer an overhang, but I buy that at making the back of the statue an overhang.

What has this to do with blender?
Nothing! Blender is a very powerful tool to modify 3D files, but it does (currently) not have a visualization of what is an overhang. It is good design to think of areas that will become overhangs in printing, but it'S ultimately the slicer that will show what is an overhang and what not.


Black patches on meshes that use transparency

One thing I know for certain is that this problem is getting less bad as I raise the number of transparency light bounces

You've answered your own question right there.  To avoid getting hung up tracing rays that will never reach a light source, Cycles has a maximum number of bounces for each ray.  If a ray reaches that maximum number without hitting any light source, Cycles assumes it never will and renders it black.
I am assuming your scene uses planes with a partially-transparent grass texture on them, this results in many rays which have to pass through a large number of the transparent parts of the planes.  If your transparent bounces are low, this results in black patches.
If you want to render your scene as-is then, there's no way of getting around raising the max transparent bounces until the black patches are gone.
If you want to change the way the grass is made, you can get around this issue by modeling grass objects and using a particle system or other method of instancing them across the ground.  This avoids the rays having to collide with a bunch of 100% transparent faces.  If you provide some images or a .blend file I may be able to give a similar example.


You just need to click the little 'plus icon' to open the 'Redo Panel':


Assign randomly a mesh to multiple faces

Yes, you can do this with a particle system.

Create some different rocks.

Group the objects by selecting them in object mode and pressing ctrlG; their outlines should now turn green. This is not into the same as putting them in the same mesh. This will leave each object as it is, so each object can have different modifiers, meshes, materials, and all that. "Grouping" is just a way to tell Blender that these objects should all be treated in a certain way, like as the particles in a particle system... or other things. Once you group them, you can go to the object tab and you'll see a "group." An object can be a member of more than one group. If it is, you'll see multiple "group" panels there. To remove an object from a group, you'll just click the X on that panel, like you would with a modifier.

Add a particle system to the "pile." In the "render" section of the particle system select "group." Then choose the group that you put all your different rocks in.

This will randomly select rocks from that group and distribute them over the surface of the "pile." There are other settings for how to handle groups, but the defaults should work for your purpose.

Increase the "emission" value to make more rocks.


How to get rid of Jagged edges in objects

You can adjust that in Blender Preferences (Edit -> Preferences -> Viewport -> Quality):


How to make procedural very large/detailed volcano

A volcano can be approximated using an ANT landscape and a shader.

Procedure: (tested on Blender 2.79b)

Create the landscape using an ANT mesh and choose the 'vulcano' preset. Note you may need to enable the add-on for ANT in 'user preferences'

Switch to cycles render.
Create a new material for the landscape.
Add the following shader. This shader works by adding a red glow to the creases in the landscape using the pointiness property of the geometry. The height is used to control how far down the landscape the 'lava' flows.

Blend file with an example is available here


Import vertices from .OBJ and then convert all to dynamically linked objects

Blender's dupliverts feature can duplicate an object at every vertex of an object.

Parent the object to the vertices only object by selecting the object you want duplicated then shift select the object that has only vertices and parent them by pressing ⎈ CtrlP and selecting object. Then in the Object properties under Duplication enable Verts.


I think I found the solution myself. In this case it would be smarter to use Groups.


How can I determine the resulting numbers for dice throw on an animation?

Switch your Transform Orientations to Local, and once your dice has fallen and stopped, go in Edit mode and rotate it 180° or 90° or -90° on the right axis until you see the wanted face.
As Robin Betts says, if your cube has small differences of topology between its faces it may change the result, in that case you need to bake the result before rotating the cube.
Or, as suggested by user9746379, simply parent the dice to a basic cube of the same size and that contains it, this parent has the physics, not the dice, once the cube has rolled, rotate the dice as wanted, and at the end only render the dice. This way, the topology differences between faces won't be taken into account.


cycles volume rendering 3D image texture (CT or MR dataset)

I've had success importing CT data into blender using the free 32bit version of the open source DICOM viewer OsiriX, free registration required (1).

Import your data into OsiriX
Double click the image-sequence to open it in the 2D Viewer
Choose "3D Surface Rendering" from the "2D/3D" button in the middle of the toolbar
Select the desired level of detail and (most important) the brightness of the pixels which should be considered the "object" (2)
Use the "3D-SR Export" button in the new "Surface Rendering" window to choose your preferred output format (.rib, .vrml, .iv, .obj or .stl)

I went with .obj and it imported smoothly into blender.

(1) OsiriX is Mac OS X only. The site http://www.idoimaging lists free medical image viewing software for many platforms. Maybe there is one with a similar feature set…

(2) Maybe you have to experiment a little in finding the right values. The available presets for Skin, Bones and Metal usually work just fine, but I have to admit, that I have no medical knowledge and therefore cannot say if this would be the case with all the CT/MR data sets out there.


All but one objects not visible, yet in library, rendering. Alt+H doesnt work

It sounds like you're in local view. You can tell by looking in the top left corner of your viewport, it says something like User Perspective (Local). As xlxs said, you can use / to switch local view on or off. But be sure to use the one on the keypad. The regular one doesn't work.

It could also be that you moved the other objects to a different layer.
Below your viewports there are two 5 by 2 grids. If there are dots in a square it means there are objects on that layer. You can either show multiple layers at the same time by shift left clicking the grid squares and making them visible (the squares turn dark), or you can left click a square to only show that layer. If you select objects in a certain layer and press m, you can move them to another layer.


How to create black color in Eevee without any reflections?

To make an object that receives no shading, just plug the color directly into the Material Output with no shader in between.
As you can see from the image, the black planet is surrounded by lights and an emission object (I put planes to show that there in fact lights there). You can see with bloom on, that there will still be some color bleed-over, but there is no "reflection" on the black planet:

Here is the same thing without bloom (for reference):


Rather late but was trying to work this out myself recently and thought this might be useful to anyone who comes across this issue in future. bpy.ops.bridge_edge_loops() functionality can be replicated by calling bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges() after bmesh.ops.bridge_loops()
e.g. to replicate bpy.ops.mesh.bridge_edge_loops(interpolation='LINEAR', smoothness=1, number_cuts=4)
ret = bmesh.ops.bridge_loops(bm, edges=bm.edges)
bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges(
    bm,
    edges=ret['edges'],
    smooth=1.0,
    smooth_fallof='LINEAR',
    cuts=4)


Objects transforming with mouse movement

It matters where your mouse is relative to the pivot center before you start the scale. If you start far away from it, it will scale slowly, but if you start very close to it, it will scale madly.

You can change the pivot point in the 3D-Editor->Header->Pivot Point

And the 3-D Manipulator widget can also be changed from translate/rotate/scale.

You can switch the rotation mode from the regular to trackball rotation simply by hitting r a second time.


What's the most effective way to create a convincing horizon in the game engine?

Try enabling Mist in world settings:

Result:

Example .blend


How can I automatically render a preview when the scene has changed?

Just do the preview render in the viewport itself and set the viewport shading to "Rendered". Also type Numpad-0 to set the view and check "Border" to render only the important parts.

Everything you edit on the left side will cause the right screen to re-render.


Blender 2.8 edit mode. I can see through parts of my model

A little more information and visual examples would be helpful to verify exactly what is going on. It could be a couple things. Could be a feature or a bug(given the fact that 2.8 is still in beta). I want to lean more towards a possible bug.

There is a feature that can do what it sounds like you might be describing, in terms of "seeing through the mesh". However it appears disabled in your Header at the bottom of the viewport.

The button in the Header  allows you to make the whole scene transparent when enabled. Therefore see through the mesh. But only seeing the face dots and not the wireframe is why I think its a bug.

Image 1 transparency of the scene is disabled.

Image 2 transparency is enabled.

According to your image you are using v2.80.39. I am using v2.80.45 and cannot recreate your issue exactly.

I would recommend updating to a newer version of the beta(nightly builds), and see if the issue remains.

I could be wrong, but unless someone else can state otherwise and educate us both, I'm guessing its a bug.


How to bake two objects (an item and a shrink-wrapped decal on it) into one texture image?

1:UV Unwrap the sphere
2. Plug the image of the decal directly into the output of the material node.
3: Select the sphere so its active(Yellow) and drag to select the decal so it is selected(Orange)
4. In the shader editor, create an image with a resolution of say 1024x1024 or 2048x2048.
5. In the bake settings in the render properties panel, switch the bake type to emission, Check selected to Active.
6.Click Bake.
Also, you can apply this detail in texture painting by adding it as a mask in the brush settings.


transfer value (a.k.a score) in bge from scene to another in BGE

As these game status is part of your game model I strongly suggest to keep it in a way that does not get removed with the scene.

There are many ways to do that (e.g. use an overlay scene that you keep during the game).

Here is a more practical approach:

Store your game model in Python

To do so you need a Python structure to keep your data:

model.py

class GameModel():
   def __init__(self):
      self.points = 0

model = GameModel()

I hope you see it keeps the number of collected points starting with zero. This storage is your model. But you need some operations on it. Lets say you want to show the points in a scene via a text object. So lets add a points viewer - e.g. call it "Points.viewer":

Always sensor [no level trigger!]
    --> Python Controller Module: viewer.pointsToText

viewer.py

import model
import bge

def pointsToText():
    getOwner().text = "{:d}".format(model.points)

def getOwner():
    return bge.logic.getCurrentController().owner

This should be enough to show the "0" somewhere at the screen.

Now we need operations that change the points in the model. Lets say you want to add 10 points after the user gives the right answer.

Sensor that evaluates true when points should be added
    --> Python Controller Module: controller.addValueToPoints
        --> Property Actuator value: 10

Attention: The following code expects a single Property actuator that has the points to add in the Value field! The actuator will not be activated by the Python controller.

controller.py

import model
import bge

SUBJECT_POINTS_CHANGED = "points changed"

def addValueToPoints():
    if not allSensorsPositive():
        return

    points = getPointsToAdd()
    model.points += points
    notifyPointsChanged()

def allSensorsPositive():
    for sensor in bge.logic.getCurrentController().sensors:
        if not sensor.positive:
            return False
    return True

def getPointsToAdd():
    actuator = bge.logic.getCurrentController().actuators[0]
    return int(actuator.value)

def notifyPointsChanged():
    bge.logic.sendMessage(SUBJECT_POINTS_CHANGED)

You might see that this code sends a notification message after changing the points in the model. While this is not necessary to update the model with the new value, it is an efficient way to tell all interesting objects that the points changed. This way any point viewing object can update itself and show the new values.  So lets do that and add the according logic to the above "Points.viewer":

Always sensor [no level trigger!]
+
Message sensor [True Level Triggering] Subject "points changed"
    --> Python Controller Module: viewer.pointsToText

These are the basics.

Summary:

You can store the points in a model that is stored in an separate Python module.
You can retrieve the points from the model.
You can add points to the model.
You notify interested objects when the points change.

With the same approach you can store other model data and add more operations (such as saving to a file).

Model: describes the game status (at least the important parts of it)
Viewer: presents the data of the model to the audience
Controller: processes input from outside and changes t

The model will exist until the game dies.

I hope it helps


Retopology - move vertex + snap to model

I suppose you don't see your vertex sticking to the surface because of the modifier setting: you should activate Display Modifier in Viewport and Display Modifier in Edit Mode so that you can see the original mesh and its modified version, and put a bit of Offset if you want to see it out of its Target surface.

Also, I'm not sure about the Snap option, as you already use the Shrinkwrap modifier. I guess you should either use the Snap or the Shrinkwrap method. If you use the Snap option, select Face as Snap Element and activate the other Snap options.


How to render a video with audio in Blender 2.80?

I added a Speed Control effect modifier, and I synched the audio and the video strips, and that seemed to have done the trick. Now the video is rendering.


It is in the "pulldown" part:

But it will affect all the pull down menus.


Updating scene properties when the active_object changes

If no object is active/selected display scene's properties which the user changes to generate geometry.

If some object is active/selected display the object's custom properties (which are saved to the object when generated) so the user can change them and re-generate the object or generate a new one.

Each generated objects should have 1 property group with all the properties inside, so there is no mess.


While editing my model, my camera jumps?

Walk mode camera "jumps" back when stopped

The fix/answer was posted in this question: Walk mode camera "jumps" back when stopped

In short, scroll as far in with the mouse wheel as you can, then it won't happen. That causes the camera to jump.


The Cache is designed to be as unobtrusive as possible. That's the reason, you don't see the orange cache bars. It should be working, however. If you want to see the cache bars, you should do the following:
(1) Enable Developers Extra in the Edit > Preferences > Interface panel.
(2) Enable the cache Bars in the View > Show Cache menu of the Sequencer.


User Preferences > Input > Keyboard and enable Emulate Numpad.
Use cmd + = to Select more.


Grease Pencil animation rendering only the background

In order to render a grease pencil animation, you have to use OpenGL render.  Using the blend file that you provided, if you open it, up there are two views,
directly under the view that you want to render there is a plus

If you click that and then scroll to the right by dragging the middle mouse over the bottom section(the panel menu) you will see the OpenGL render button.

The one on the left renders the current frame and the one on the right renders the animation.  Just make sure that you deselect everything before you render as it is just rendering the viewport at a higher resolution.


How can i fill an object that consists of 2D panes into a completely solid (water tight) model?

Looking at the image, the wall seems to have some thickness at the base of the building, but further up inside I can see darker faces indicating planes with no thickness.  I think you will need to manually work through the model to delete any internal faces in edit mode, leaving only external faces. then ensuring all these planes are joined by merging vertexes then finally creating a new face on the bottom to seal it off.

I am not aware of a simple shortcut.  There is a few hours work needed to convert this into a printable shell.


creating two groups of joined objects using python

Beware the naming system

There is an issue with this part of your code, I've added a print statement boolean  if the object you have chosen as currentSphere is also the newly created sphere.  bpy.data.objects["sphere0"] will always be the first object created with this name. Running again with any objects with the same name existing, will give somewhat unpredictable results.

for coord in coords:
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(location=(coord[0],coord[1],coord[2]), size=0.5)
    name = 'sphere' + str(count)
    bpy.context.active_object.name = name

    currentSphere = bpy.data.objects[name]
    print(currentSphere is bpy.context.active_object)

could use something like below, where the currentSphere will be the newly created object, but may not end up with the name you choose. (To make sure it has unique name would need to check and rename/remove others)

for coord in coords:
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(location=(coord[0],coord[1],coord[2]), size=0.5)
    name = 'sphere' + str(count)
    currentSphere = bpy.context.active_object
    currentSphere.name = name
    currentSphere.data.materials.append(materialColors[count%2])
    spheres[count%2].append(currentSphere)
    count += 1

I also contend in this case can set context, rather than overriding.

for i in range(2):
    for o in scene.objects:
        o.select = o in spheres[i]
    scene.objects.active = spheres[i][0]
    bpy.ops.object.join()

Bmesh approach

Another suggestion would be scrapping the primitive add and join operators altogether and use bmesh to create spheres at coordinates.  Test script, creates two bmeshes for odd and even coordinates, and writes the first to active object's mesh.

import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Matrix

coords = [(0, 0, 1), (1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (1, 1, 0)]
bmeshes = [bmesh.new(), bmesh.new()]
for i, coord in enumerate(coords):
    bmesh.ops.create_uvsphere(bmeshes[i % 2],
        u_segments = 16,
        v_segments = 8,
        matrix=Matrix.Translation(coord),
        diameter=0.5)

# for example sake to mesh onto active_ob
me = bpy.context.object.data
bmeshes[0].to_mesh(me)
me.update()
for bm in bmeshes:
    bm.free()


How to scale/rotate small trackers with mouse?

You can zoom in using the scroll wheel on the mouse until the tracker becomes large enough to manipulate.

The track area and the search area can be manipulated separately. Enable "Search" on the Marker Display section to make the search area visible. Then you'll be able to manipulate them to your needs.


How do I prevent the brush color using a gradient in the weights?

So from what I see, since 2.8, there's a difference in the way the weight painting gradient is displayed. In 2.79, if you have a vertex that has a weight of 1 and the next one that has a weight of 0, there will be a red to blue gradient (here with a simple non-subdivided cube):

Since 2.8 you have a red to blue gradient but with all the yellow and green nuances. But it doesn't change anything, the weight of the vertex on the left is still 1 and the weight of the vertex on the right is still 0:


How to create a realistic looking Ink spill from a bottle?

You could also try volumetrics and an image texture.

Use an image texture for the color bleed
Give your ink spill a Glass Shader and a Principled Volume shader
Use a texture to drive the volume's Density (there's more ink on one end)

Ink spill node setup using Principled Volume


How do I add a new panel to the Properties Editor?

Texture context
when adding a panel to the properties area we set the context as signified by the icon on LHS. This is set with bl_context.  To get a panel in the questions "Red Area"
bl_context = "texture"

all the examples given in question are in object context. Press the Object tab. (cube)
How to enable or disable panels with the click of a button
Eg for Hello World example.
import bpy

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "texture"

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

        obj = context.active_object

        row = layout.row()
        row.label(text="Hello world!", icon='WORLD_DATA')

        row = layout.row()
        row.label(text="Active object is: " + obj.name)
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(obj, "name")

        row = layout.row()
        row.operator("mesh.primitive_cube_add")

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Add proximity loops to sharp edge without affecting mesh shape

You could select those edges and bevel them using the interactive bevel tool (CtrlB) and move your mouse to adjust the level. This will create an additional set of faces that you also ring cut to get an even sharper edge without affecting the shape of the object.

Note that adding additional ring cuts to this face will create a pinch in the corners due to the clump of vertices on the side so you might have to use it sparingly depending on any other edges you selected.


How to layer movie clips with black backgrounds in compositor?

Two ways spring immediately to mind, assuming zero emission backgrounds:

Take the output of the image and roll it through a node to get the maximum value.
Set Alpha on the image from the result from 1.1.
Use a generic alpha over and done.

For a more abstract glowy vibe:

Take the output of the image and roll it through a colour to BW node.
Set Alpha on the image from result from 1.1
Use a generic alpha over and done.

The former is a generic alpha over on imagery with zero emission background. The latter is a generic alpha over, but will result in some values being semi-additive akin to fire / candle flames.


After dissolving faces, subdivide on the face doesn't work

because it's a NGon. dissolving faces doesn't dissolve vertices. if you're in vertex mode, you'll see subdividing won't affect the face but adds vertices (and then edges). It's not a bug, your face is and continues to be a NGon.


Downloaded a character model that has a skeleton but need help so i can pose it

It seems that the rig and the model were created by another 3D software and have been imported to Blender. I doubt that this rig works well in Blender, but to answer you question first.

In Object Mode Select the model RMB
Select the rig Shift-RMB
Ctrl-P With automatic weights

The bones shape can be changed in the properties panel:

For your first steps I would recommend to find another model that meets the blender conventions. Or use the rigify addon to create your own rig.


Apply vector mapping to displace texture?

I had a run in with this problem and I solved it by applying that displacement texture I want to an emission shader on the object I want displaced. I baked the mapped texture and then used that one as the displacement map.


How to do this in Blender and select multiple things at ones or is there a better way to do this?

I guess that you are using an array modifier since your pattern is repeating itself. I think you can very easily achieve your goal with a curve and a curve modifier.
Create you hull-block.

Create a curve and tweak it as you need. You can force the control points to be linear by selecting them and the shortcut V > Vector.

Add an array modifier to your hull, set the length to "Fit curve" to your new curve.
You may need to tweak the direction depending on in which direction you modeled your hull.

Add a curve modifier and set the object to your curve. You may need to tweak the axis or rotate your object in edit mode to get the correct result, You can also tweak the "Roll" parameter of your curve's control points.

Result :

Let's say you have a multitude of different objects to add to the array, you would have to use a "Constant offset" instead. Let's say the block dimensions are 2 meters in the Y axis :

Now you have your pipe elements which are 2 meters long and some kind of repeating thing on top.

Select all these elements and set their origin to the world origin. Make sure you apply the transforms with CTRL + A > Apply all. Now keep them selected and select your hull object as the last object, and choose Object > Make Links > Modifiers.
Result :


Moving a layer behind another one to apply a glow effect

In render tab, film options just click "transparent" to get alpha


Can We Make Blender's Island Packing More Space-Efficient When Unwrapping?

The "UVPackmaster" addon do what you asked for. It's good for automatic optimization of the shells in the UV space.
Here is the link: https://gumroad.com/l/uvpackmaster


Did I download Blender correctly, or was it CG Cookie?

Try downloading Blender from this page https://www.blender.org/download/.

Make sure you get the correct version for your operating system.

You can also download a program file that does not require installing by downloading the zip.

Simply unzip the folder to your desktop, and run the program (it will be the file "blender" and will be a program file. [or application/executable, depending on your os.])

Or you can download the "bleeding edge" test builds from here. It is the most recent version of Blender, and is a kind of test build, so be ware, it may not be stable.


This sample code will save external images before saving to .blend (overwrites the originals):

bl_info = {
    "name": "Auto-save external images",
    "author": "CoDEmanX",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 67, 0),
    "location": "",
    "description": "Save image datablocks on saving .blend",
    "warning": "Works on external images only!",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "category": "System"}

import bpy

def save_external_images(dummy):
    for img in bpy.data.images:
        img.save()

def register():
    bpy.app.handlers.save_pre.append(save_external_images)

def unregister():
    bpy.app.handlers.save_pre.remove(save_external_images)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Make sure you enable this addon by default!

It does not work on internal image datablocks, unless you extent above code to save to an external file or maybe pack internally.


There is weird artifact inside my model its not letting me sculpt properly!

using the simplify brush and smooth you should be able to smoothen the transition.

Another possibility would be some uneven normals or just a corrupted boolean operation. Therefore check out your normal direction and check your topology in wireframe view.

if none of those are helping, pease upload some further details by editing your question. Uploading a file is often also helpfull.


The size of "amandaModel.fbx" is 4 kilobytes while "bullet1shell.fbx" is 17 kilobytes, that didn't seem right. I suspect the actual mesh geometry is not in the amandaModel.fbx but that was just a file where various models from files were linked into.

You can access the actual models by importing one of the animation files in the "animations" directory. Here I imported "amanda@idle.fbx".

The object relations aren't imported properly, so you have some setting up to do after importing.


The addon seems to be broken due to api changes in Blender, either use the addons bug tracker or try an older version of Blender that is compatible. According to the video tutorials version 2.66 was used.


How to move a soft body object in the scene towards a "goal position" while physics is active?

The Soft Body Goal can be used to manipulate the soft body by also manipulating the original mesh to apply forces to shape the soft body. Different weights applied to different vertices allow some control over how those forces are applied.

Create your mesh to use as a soft body - in my case I'll use a simple string of vertices and add a Skin modifier later.

In Edit mode (Tab), add a new Vertex Group and name it something appropriate (eg, 'Pin'). Select the two vertices at the 'base' (the point where it is to be anchored) and click Assign to the Vectex Group with a weight of 1.0. These will be effectively unmoveable and 'pinned' to the mesh vertices.

In order to have the soft body retain its generate shape we need to also assign the rest of the vertices to the vertex group - but with a lower weight. This will give them a force towards the goal while still allowing them to be pulled out of position. While the 'base' vertices are still selected, invert the selection (Ctrl+I). Change the weight to 0.5 and click Assign (different weights will affect how tightly the body tries to return to its 'at-rest' position).

In order to control the location of the 'tip' of the arm we need to assign a higher weight - almost but not quite 1.0 (1.0 would fix it directly to the control point - we only want to draw it strongly towards the control point). Therefore, select the vertex at the tip, set the weight to 0.999, click Assign.

To control the tip we can use a Hook modifier - while the 'tip' vertex is still selected (and still in Edit mode) press Ctrl+H and 'Hook to New Object'. This will create an Empty linked to the selected vertex. Moving the empty will drag the vertex. You can now return to 'Object' mode (Tab).

Add Soft Body physics and set the Goal to the newly created Vertex Group ('Pin'). Assign the Goal to strength 1.0 and you should find that the Base is now pinned to the base and the tip drawn to the location of the 'hooked' vertex. Ensure the Hook modifier is above the Soft Body modifier in the modifier stack.

Increase the Edge spring strengths to the desired soft body settings. Switch off Gravity in the field weights and perhaps set some Friction in the main Soft Body settings so as to dampen the simulation. Also, adjusting the Soft Body Goal Stiffness can affect how strongly the arm is tied to the goal. Now, moving the hook should drag the arm.

You can set up different shape keys for different 'at rest' positions of the arm - but ensure each shape retains the position of the 'tip' - otherwise the hook will be offset from the target empty. The Strength setting on the hook modifier allows the influence to be switched on (1.0) or off (0.0) and this can also be used to have multiple 'hooks' (switching each on/off in turn to affect which empty has the influence - this can be used where multiple shape keys result in different starting hook positions). It's a good idea to start the simulation with the hook strength initially set off, and switch on over a number frames to let the soft body adjust to the new shape (otherwise it can jump to the new location and take a while to settle down).

Once enabled, simply move the Empty to where you want the arm to reach. Any collision objects in the way will deflect the arm.

Note that I used a Skin modifier for the skin of the arm. The rotation of the generated geometry is dependent on which vertex in the chain is designated as 'root'. To avoid twisting ensure the 'base' of the arm is the root.

An alternative is to model the whole arm as soft body (rather than a string of vertices with a Skin modifier). Use self-collision to give the soft body volume to prevent it folding together when it encounters obstacles.

Blend file included


Darker and less contrasted 3D viewport and 2D canvas - Latest build of 2.8

Not really sure why this happens but I fixed the issue by going to the render settings and under color management I changed the view transform from filmic to default.


I hate answering my own question, but in hopes it might help someone else...

Create a giant cube that surrounds all edges of your problem hollow object.
Add a Boolean + Intersect modifier to the cube with the target object as your hollow object.
Apply the modifier and delete the old hollow object, and now
you should have a filled object on the new "cube".


reflecting direct light on glossy surface in Cycles

Unfortunately cycles isn't very good at rendering caustics yet, due to the way it traces rays "backwards", from the camera to the light source; it's very unlikely for a ray to bounce off a diffuse surface, a glossy surface, and then hit a point light source.

However there is a working patch which adds Metropolis Light Transport (MLT) and adaptive sampling based on noise detection.

In the mean time, if you don't want to compile blender with the MLT patch, you might want to try Luxrender, an open source render engine which supports unbiased MLT and Bi-directional sampling. It can also use openCL to render using a GPU.


Fluid simulation not baking, no fluid input object in the scene

As @JtheNinja said above, you didn't set the simulation right.

The "text object" (it must be converted to mesh for this to work) must be set as "fluid", and another surrounding shape (usually a big cube) must be set as "domain", and then baked. As soon as you start baking, the big cube domain will become a fluid-like shape resembling your text:

Without any other setting, or obstacle, this will generate a fluid "text shaped" object that will suddenly splash onto the "ground" (ie: the domain bottom face):

With higher domain resolutions, the fluid-like shape will better fit the text shape, of course (here I used 120 with other standard default fluid settings)


Problems with extruded curve and solidify modifier

It seems logic that if your angle is very sharp, your Solidify modifier may create a problem, because the thickness profile can easily overlap itself. So I guess what you have to do is either change the Thickness to a negative value (in your case), or convert your curve to mesh and bring some corrections manually.


Final:

Node overview:

This is method is quite simple, it's basically make gradient as mask add facing mix and repeat. You can use this approach to extend this material even further and add some more colours, rims, and maybe more.

So here it is:

Mesh:

Flame is modeled from Cylinder, but you can make it as you like. Even from beveled Bezier Curve (easy animation).

Compositing:

As a final touch you can add some Compositing. I've done very simple colour correction, added Glow and Lens Distortion.

Everything should be pretty clear, but if you have any question don't hesitate to ask in comments.


Thumbnail preview image default to Viewpoint instead of Camera

Deleting the camera will default to the viewport preview image.

This fixed the problem of not showing vertex colors in the preview image, too.


If you want each light to be a single color, and respond to the distance between itself and an Empty, one option is to create your lights as a particle system.

In this example, the particle system is static (there is no
physics, all the particles are emitted on frame 1).
Here, the particles are randomly scattered, but you could arrange them geometrically, per face of the emitter
Set up an input to your shader for the dupli object used to render the particles, (the Combine XYZ,) driven by the location of your empty. ( This means assigning drivers to its X,Y and Z entries)
Add a Particle Info node, using its 'Location' field, and a group of nodes to return the distance between particles and the empty.

Here, the distance is used as an input to a Color Ramp node

This is the scene, with an empty:

This is the result:


Need advice on turning a 2D image into a 3D model

I started off by adding the image you posted as a material texture on a plane that was UV un-wrapped using the default option that shows up at the top of the list which is called Unwrap.

Then I unchecked the Color channel for this texture and used the Normal Channel instead.  Sometimes when adding a color or greyscale texture as a bump map will cause the effect to look inverted so if this happens then you can use a value of -1.0 instead of 1.0

The image at the left is the Tangent map I baked that captures the bump map as surface normals.

There was some noise in the baked image so I saved it and opened it with GIMP and blurred the tangent map using Gaussian Blur set to 10 pixels.  Now I reloaded this tangent map into Blender and replaced the image that you posted and changed the Mapping Type to Normal Map-> Tangent.  I also changed the -1.0 to +1.0 for the Normal value.

Here is now what it looks like after the blur.

For simple planes like this, it's fine to blur the normal map but for complex objects this will not work well since the seams will become immediately obvious even for a very subtle blur.

One thing I forgot to mention is that normal maps that are saved as .png are in sRGB format and if you plan to use Cycles then they should be set to non-color format.  It doesn't seem to matter for Blender Internal View-port drawing.


Why does a white background look grey once added to the VSE as a scene strip?

A friend sorted it out for me. Color Management was the issue. In Video Editing>Render Properties>Color Management>View Transform> Change it from default Filmic to Standard.
Pls don't ask in detail what Filmic is etc, I don't understand.


Can I use Blender's Python API from a Python IDE?

You can develop Blender Python add-ons from external IDE's easily, and without compiling Blender as a Python module. The often referenced method of compiling Blender as a Python module has long been defunct, and only works for certain OS's.

Most add-on developers work by opening a project in the 2.8x/scripts/addons/ directory of their Blender installation. From here, you can develop directly in Blender's filesystem from your favorite IDE, then hit F8 in Blender to refresh/re-compile your add-on live.

See this post for a more detailed discussion: The Best Way to Develop Blender Python Add-ons

F8 refreshes the addon list. To bind it to a hotkey in 2.8, insert the command preferences.addon_refresh.


How do I fix vertices that aren't following the armature?

In Object Mode, select the character mesh. Go into Edit mode and makes sure the Properties Shelf is exposed (to the right of your 3D View). If it is not, press n to open it, so that you can see what happens when you select various vertices. Now select any of the vertices which is currently behaving properly. Immediately, you should see an entry appear in the Properties Shelf called Vertex Weights, which will have vertex group names listed, and their associated values.

Now select the vertex that's refusing to behave. You will likely discover that no Vertex Weights section appears in the Properties Panel when this vertex is selected. That would be because it is not assigned to any vertex groups currently, which would explain why it doesn't move when the bone moves.
To fix this, while still in Edit Mode, go to the Object Data tab in the Properties Panel, and then the Vertex Groups Section. Locate the vertex group in the list which you would like the problem vertex to become part of. Select the desired vertex group in the list of such groups, and then press the Assign button. Note the Weight bar. You may not want the vertex to have a weight of 1.0, which it will usually get when pressing the Assign button, because a weight of 1.0 is usually listed by default. Wherever you set this bar is what weight the vertex will get once assigned.

Once the offending vertex has been added to a vertex group that the bone already controls, and it has a level of influence greater than zero, the bone will control it. To further refine the influence, you can either use Weight Paint mode, or you can look in the Properties Shelf again for the Vertex Weights section, and now you will see the weight values listed for the newly added vertex.
One nice thing about this list view is that it displays every source of influence for the currently selected vertex, not merely one single source. You can manually adjust the level of influence for each source, or even remove a source altogether, using this display.


Why can I not select vertices located behind others?

Instead of moving the vertices or just changing the view you can change to Wireframe view with the Z button (by default). Then you can select all vertices hidden by faces, edges or other vertices. I use the Z key a lot since sometimes two vertices are in the exact same position.


How can I delete mesh parts with python?

using the bmesh simple template from the text editor, and a bit of snooping around. You should experiment with the geom and context parameters.

The context is enumerated so (source: bmesh_operator_api.h):

enum {
DEL_VERTS = 1,
DEL_EDGES,
DEL_ONLYFACES,
DEL_EDGESFACES,
DEL_FACES,
DEL_ALL,
DEL_ONLYTAGGED
};

This example assumes we have a mesh object in edit-mode and several faces selected. Running the script will delete edges and faces associated with the selection.

import bpy
import bmesh

# Get the active mesh
obj = bpy.context.edit_object
me = obj.data

# Get a BMesh representation
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
faces_select = [f for f in bm.faces if f.select]

bmesh.ops.delete(bm, geom=faces_select, context=5)

# Show the updates in the viewport
# and recalculate n-gon tessellation.
bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me, True)


How do i Parent a mesh to an armature that is not in rest Pose?

I got feedback from Bassam Kurdali on Blender's bf-animsys mailing lists. Here is his slightly edited answer:

There is no "bind pose" in blender. There is just a rest position and a pose. Armature deform happens based on the rest position.

the only exact solution to this problem is:

create your 'bind' pose
duplicate object to a new armature
apply the pose as new rest pose on the new armature
Use the new armature as your modifier target
Constrain the new armature to the old and use the old one as the control rig, if you desire rest pose as T pose.

One more remark: It is not possible to use the Pose library as temporary storage for the original rest pose, because the Pose library stores poses relative to the current rest pose. If the rest pose changes, the poses in the library will no longer result in the same pose as before.


Yes,I feel nothing to reflect might be your problem.

You can use an HDR to check reflections and lightings. Just a google search would help, or just go to https://hdrihaven.com/ or http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html

You can get some free HDR and just plug the .exr into "world" shader-node.

This would solve issues if some are there with your scene itself.

You can also try checking the screen-space reflections box in the render options. Might help. I would uncheck half-res to hoping that no half-res makes it full-res.


For a 45° angle that can be done from generated texture coordinates with "X+Y distance" and the euclidian distance from the square center.

The node tree is in two parts:

Top line calculates the main diagonals
Bottom line adds random to it

top line
Add X + Y or 1 - X + Y to invert the direction.
Take the modulo in order to repeat regularly the diagonals.
Plug it back as X to the noise texture.
bottom line
This part is to add random variations along the diagonal.
As we want it to be symetrical, we take the distance from the center.
Then we divide the value so that it as less influence (compared to the main diagonal) for the noise texture.
And plug it as Y input of the noise texture.
noise texture
Use its scale to play on the thickness of the lines (adapt the Y influence scale in consequence).


The mesh looks TERRIBLE, It contains so many unnecessary vertices, edges, faces. And the faces, NO.

And in the render, you turn the smooth shading on, but in your mesh, the edges, they are probably in flat shading. You don't even get enough bevel edge for the smooth shading, that's a reason for your bad rendering.

You may abused the Boolean tool and accidentally apply it to a high-res mesh. Or you just download, import the mesh from other file format.

There are two way to fix this mess:

Join those unwanted topologies manually
Remesh it by some tool and decimate to a reasonable resolution. (Instant Meshes might be a powerful one)

But the mesh it self isn't that complicated to craft, you might want (and need) to start it over again, with some good topologies.

Here is a good tutorial for this task: Blender Guru - Anvil


Creating a graph on the surface of an object

You may do it using a curve and then convert it to mesh.

Add a curve, scale it to make it longer and then subdivide many times with W (set the segments number in a Tool Shelf). Form its shape as you like (to be accurate use background image as a reference).

Select all points with A, then press V-->Vector to change the handle type. Add bezier circle and do the same with it. Rotate it 45 degrees (you may change the circle's shape as you like though).

Select the curve and go to the Curve header, set it's type to 2D. Set the bezier circle as a Bevel Object target. Check the Fill Caps checkbox in a Geometry panel. Scale the bezier circle to adjust the curve's thickness. Finally press Alt+C-->Convert to Mesh in Object Mode.

Enable Auto Smooth checkbox in the Normals panel of the Mesh Data header to make the object smooth.

Use a snapping tool to attach the curved mesh to your robot. Click the magnet icon and change the snap element type to Face.


3 part mechanical joint following 1 bone?

Dissolve the middle bone (you just need two bones for your rig). the first bone's constraint wouldn't be changed. for the second bone set world space to world space.

if you want the hinge to be oriented as you wish do above works and add another bone called hinge and make it child of your z bone. assign a locked track constraint to it and set either tail of ctrl or last deforming tail as the target and also set y as the locked axis and -z as the following axis. the result is like below.


How to populate UIList with all material slot in scene? 2.8

Scene.material_slots

If I understand question you want to display all the materials used by all the objects in the scene.  Every bpy.types.Object has a material slots collection, a scene does not.
Added a material slots collection to the scene.
Used an old fashioned python property to populate Scene.materials from the non None materials on the objects in the scene.
def get_scene_materials(self):
    return set(s.material for o in self.objects
            for s in o.material_slots if s.material
            )
bpy.types.Scene.materials = property(get_scene_materials)

To use a UIList AFAIK need the list to be a collection, the index to be an int property.
The scene material slots is not populated automatically. If the set of materials in scene, does not match those in material slots a toggle button appears to repopulate the slots.  There are a couple of ways to make this automatic, but AFAIC are not worth the overhead.
The property Scene.materials will always return a set of all materials on all objects in scene.
bl_info = {
    "name": "Scene Materials",
    "author": "batFINGER",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "View3D > UI > Scene",
    "description": "List All Materials in Scene",
    "warning": "",
    "doc_url": "https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/141207/15543",
    "category": "Materials",
}

import bpy
from bpy.types import PropertyGroup
from bpy.props import (
    CollectionProperty,
    IntProperty,
    BoolProperty,
    StringProperty,
    PointerProperty,
)

def get_update_materials(self):

    update = set(s.material for s in self.material_slots).symmetric_difference(self.materials)
    if update:
        set_update_materials(self, True)
    return False

def set_update_materials(self, value):
    if value:
        self.material_slots.clear() # update (or get) instead?
        for m in self.materials:
            s = self.material_slots.add()
            s.name = m.name
            s.material = m

def get_scene_materials(self):
    return set(s.material for o in self.objects
               for s in o.material_slots if s.material)

class SceneMaterialSlot(PropertyGroup):
    def get_name(self):
        return getattr(self.material, "name", "")
    material: PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Material)
    #name : StringProperty(get=get_name)

class MATERIAL_UL_extreme_matslot(bpy.types.UIList):

    def draw_item(self, context, layout, data, item, icon, active_data, active_propname):
        ob = data
        slot = item
        ma = slot.material

        if self.layout_type in {'DEFAULT', 'COMPACT'}:
            if ma:
                layout.prop(ma, "name", text="", emboss=False, icon_value=layout.icon(ma))

class SceneMaterialsPanel(bpy.types.Panel):

    bl_label = bl_info["name"]
    bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_materials"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_category = "Scene"

    def draw(self, context):

        scn = context.scene
        layout = self.layout
        col = layout.column()
        if scn.update_materials:
            col.prop(scn, "update_materials", toggle=True, icon='FILE_REFRESH')
        col.template_list(
            "MATERIAL_UL_extreme_matslot",
            "",
            scn,
            "material_slots",
            scn,
            "active_material_index")

classes = (SceneMaterialSlot,
           MATERIAL_UL_extreme_matslot,
           SceneMaterialsPanel)

def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)
    bpy.types.Scene.materials = property(get_scene_materials)
    bpy.types.Scene.update_materials = BoolProperty(
        get=get_update_materials,
        set=set_update_materials,
        name="Update Scene Materials")
    bpy.types.Scene.active_material_index = IntProperty()
    bpy.types.Scene.material_slots = CollectionProperty(
        type=SceneMaterialSlot)

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

    del bpy.types.Scene.active_material_index
    del bpy.types.Scene.material_slots

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Edit.
Updated code to make it installable as an addon. (Add a filters to show only materials of selected / visible / etc objects in scene)
Related:
Your layout code was nuffed, see @p2or's fabulous answer to
Create an interface which is similar to the material list box
Notes:
Not sure how would correlate scene material index vs active object material index. Rather than using the list UI a more basic UI, with labels

    for m in scn.materials:
        col.label(text=m.name, icon_value=layout.icon(m))

or with operators could be considered.


Boolean half the time doesn't work but does union?

A Boolean Modifier usually fails for one of two reasons:

Your face normals are pointing in different directions. To the modifier it seems like the mesh doesn't have a clear distinction between inside and outside. Happens often through extrusion. Select all verts and hit CTRLN to recalculate them.
Your mesh isn't watertight. That happens when any edge of your mesh has more (or less) than 2 faces attached to it. Deselect all verts and hit CTRLALTSHIFTM. That'll select most troubling parts. It can be useful  to do this twice, first in Vertex Select Mode, then in Edge Select Mode because the clues from what gets selected are different. If that's the case, recalculating normals won't work either. I usually go paranoid and avoid holes (only one face attached to any edge) as well.


How can I get rid of multiple normals in a face with more than 4 vertices?

I solved it extruding and addind faces in every key


EDIT: New Version

Same Principle, but how about ditching additional Subprogram and using Get List Element instead:

Old Version

I put actual Subprogram(red) inside another one (blue) as a Parameter to get ability to dynamically change number of iterations. Condition is controling execution of blue Subprogram

New:

Old:


What you see here is automatic triangulation. You have quad faces in your model that are not planar and polygonal faces that are not planar cannot be printed so they are triangulated and since there is no way for a computer algorithm to determine where to insert the edges it sometimes fails to guess.

The solution would be to enter edit mode with your object selected(tab) and use something like the knife tool(k) to triangulate the mesh manually so it fits your expectations. you can also join vertices with an edge by selecting 2 vertices and hitting j.


Add a Boolean property to it to keep track if it's active.
A Boolean is a simple True / False variable.

Have the idle animation loop while True,
then reset to the first frame when False.

Use a Property Sensor to check it's value.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/game_engine/logic/properties.html


To get the cloudy effect, create a cloud texture and mix it into the image with a Mix node. I find a Soft light mix type looks about right.

For the split RGB look you use the SeparateRGB and CombineRGB nodes with a Transform node for each channel using different offsets for each. A Glare node set to Fog Glow gives a nice soft glow.


I don't think you can avoid this triangulation with the bevel tool. But you can add edges with knife, or, easier, with a simple subdivision: il will keep your edges parallel, you'll just have to guess the good distance between them when you'll slide them:


How to change 3D Viewport Color in Blender 2.49b?

Expand the top Info window bar, navigate to the Theme tab, and press Add to create a new one.

From the menus make sure you pick 3D View, then choose Background and adjust the color from the sliders or the color picker as desired.

You can also adjust the grid color by picking Grid from the second dropdown.


Use "Add 3D Function Surface" addon via python

All of blender's plugins are python scripts, so I looked up the script and was going through it's code when I realized that was a really bad idea.  If you grab the bottom of the top menu bar and pull down it gives you a list of all the commands blender has recently executed. Add a couple surfaces, and voila, it looks like these commands should be a good start to what you want:

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_z_function_surface(div_x=20, div_y=17)
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_xyz_function_surface(x_eq="cos(v)*(1+cos(u))*sin(v/3)", z_eq="sin(v)*(1.3+cos(u))*sin(v/8)")

They can be used in a script (blender's user interface uses python, so everything that shows up in the command list is valid python), just don't forget to import bpy.


bmesh - extrude face and end up with closed mesh

You don't need to duplicate the geometry prior to extruding (this will remove the need for removing doubles as well), and using bmesh.ops.extrude_face_region is what you're looking for to generate a closed mesh from the extruded face/s.

This worked code fine with a 1-face plane with its sole face selected in edit mode:

import bpy, bmesh
from mathutils import Vector

bm      = bmesh.from_edit_mesh( bpy.context.object.data )
newGeom = bmesh.ops.extrude_face_region( bm, geom = bm.faces, use_select_history = True )

bmesh.ops.translate( bm, vec = Vector((0,0,1)), verts = bm.select_history[0].verts )

bmesh.update_edit_mesh( bpy.context.object.data )


How to reduce amount of edge lines as in picture?

A better workflow would be to use “Loop Cuts” to form the edges of your doors and windows. In “Edit Mode” place you cursor near an appropriate edge and press “CTRL” + “R” then right Mouse click to insert it then you can move it by moving the mouse. When satisfied “Right mouse click to lock it into place. Rinse and repeat for the other edges.

If you need to delete an edge loop press “X” then select “Edge Loop” from the drop down menu.

If you need to move an edge loop after the fact press “CTRL + “E” and select “Edge Slide” from the drop down menu. This will work for a section of an edge loop as long as it is bound by at least two vertices.


Is there any technique to give a metaball effect to the particles emitting from a UV Sphere?

You can't really emit particles directly from Meta Objects themselves, so you'll just have to fake it.
Just add a large Metaball overlapping your real UV sphere covering the actual emitter.
Adjust its size so it covers it entirely, or alternatively make the real UV Sphere emitter non-renderable.

Make sure it is named with a similar prefix to the particle Metaball (MBall## by default), so they actually interact with each other.

Off Topic - This is beyond the scope of the original question, but by user request for anyone interested, first demo image uses these settings below, relevant properties circled in screenshots.
Simple particle system with Newtonian Physics, pointing to a small Metaball object.
Under Velocity turn off Normal and increase Object Z slightly. In the Field Weights disable gravity so they "float up", then add a texture to it.

Make the texture is Blend type, and turn off all influences except Size. Switch Mapping to Strand/Particle so it maps out "through time" rather than any spacial coordinate. Under the Color panel enable the Color Ramp and flip the default result so they shrink with age rather than grow.


Move the mouse to the border between the 3D view and properties.
Right click and select Split area
Position the split
Select the outliner from the dropdown for the newly created window area.


How to create face between plane and cylinder objects?

Those vertices belong to two different objects.
You need to join the objects into one, before you connect the vertices.

Object > Join, Ctrl + J


How to make balls fall in Blender without passing through each other?

Yes, as Sanbaldo says. If you're still having problems, you might need to increase the "steps per second" in the scene properties tab > Rigid body world.


What is the most efficient way to invert a mesh so as to inform a key, coupler or mold?

To better explain what I said above in comments, here is an example.

Starting from a "positive" cube object, this below is a possible setup to use a boolean:

after applying the boolean modifier, you get a cube.002 like this:

Note, to make the boolean work as "difference" I had to scale up a bit the second cube: you may need to rework a bit the resulting shape to get a perfect "shape inversion" as in your image above.

Lastly, in this simple cube topology works very well:

but using more complex meshes, and less simple booleans, you'll get bad topology quite soon... if that matters to you, take into account to get the overall shape from booleans, and then spend some time to fix it, by retopologize.  Sometimes is simple, sometimes is so bad that is better to avoid booleans and choose another approach (manual modeling).

See this case: How can I make holes on a wrist strap?, where booleans had to be avoided, while in the above link (Partial shape subtracting only) due to very complex shapes it could work well (but it probably reuired using high density meshes)


When I add a new object / mesh to the scene, I can't edit previous objects

You should go to object mode then right click the object you want to edit and then press tab ;).This will solve the problem.


Via RGB Curves node (whether Cycles or Compositor) you can adjust contrast, gamma, gain and also offset adjustments. The displayed curve refer to a given color input brightness. The horizontal axis represents the input values, and the vertical axis represents the output values.

Enable C (Composite) to adjust RGB channels simultaneously. Enable R, G, or B if you want to limit the adjustment to a particular color channel.

Also see the manual:

Cycles RGB Curves: https://www.blender.org/manual/render/cycles/nodes/types/color/rgb_curves.html
Composite RGB Curves: https://www.blender.org/manual/compositing/types/color/rgb_curves.html


How to fix model after subdivision surface mod?

Try to avoid ngons because it will mess up your render, especially if you use Subdivision Surface as it will try to smooth the shape between the faces. Try to keep only tris and quads.

I kept all your vertices but you don't need so many, for example to make holes, 8 or even 6 would be enough. Here a nicer topology for a hole:


What you are trying to do is already possible using a hook modifier. Manually you can go into edit mode, select a point and press ⎈ CtrlH->Hook to new object. This is also available to mesh objects which hooks the new object to the selected vertices.

We can create hooks using python. I'm not sure we can do this without the hook_assign operator, so we need to select the specific point and be in edit mode when we assign the point to the hook.

import bpy

obj = bpy.data.objects['BezierCurve']
# select and make it active (for later edit mode)
obj.select = True
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = obj

b_points = obj.data.splines[0].bezier_points
for p in b_points:
    p.select_control_point = False
    p.select_right_handle = False
    p.select_left_handle = False
b_points[0].select_right_handle = True

# create empty to hook to
hook_obj = bpy.data.objects.new('Hook', None)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(hook_obj)
hook_obj.location = obj.matrix_world * b_points[0].handle_right

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode="EDIT")
hook_mod = obj.modifiers.new(name='Hook',type='HOOK')
hook_mod.object = hook_obj
bpy.ops.object.hook_assign()
bpy.ops.object.hook_reset() # needed if handle is not a 0,0,0
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode="OBJECT")


how can i best bend/curve a mesh or fix this glitchy looking bend?

Using a curve modifier and starting from this position (curve modifier on the canon) :

Go to edit mode
ctrl+R, the move to the straight cylinder part and mouse wheel or use page up to increase the number of cuts
Validate using LMB, eventually move the cuts, then LMB again (or escape to stay at the initial position)


How to UV unwarp and keep the original face proportion?

If your texture is 800x600 do some simple math: 600/800=0.75, so scale the whole UV by 0.75 on X axis (A to select all UV, S X 0.75 Enter).


Is there a hotkey for making a face from the inner outline I did in this picture?

Select all inner edges (like on screenshot), then go to Mesh - Faces - Fill (Alt+F), it will fill all with Triangles, selecting all of them. To turn Most of them into Quads, go to Mesh - Faces - Tris To Quads (Alt+J).
If there's any Triangles left - dissolve their edges, and then just continue the needed loopcuts through created faces, where needed (mostly at the place, where Triangle's edges were dissolved) with Knife tool (K).

I'm pretty shure that there's a better method, but this will work, too.


How can I check if the active object is a mesh and selected?

Here's what I ended up with that worked:

@classmethod
def poll(cls, context):
    obj = context.active_object
    objs = context.selected_objects
    if len(objs) == 0: return False
    if obj.type == 'MESH': return True
    return False


Can't get UV mapping on "back side" of plane mesh

The ‘unwrap’ operation works on the base mesh. If you have any modifiers (such as Solidify) these need to be ‘Applied’ before you unwrap your mesh - otherwise the geometry generated by those modifiers won’t be included. By applying the modifier the base mesh will be updated to include the new geometry and the ‘unwrap’ will include the additional faces.


You need to decrease the Step Size in Properties > Materials > Integration > Step Calculation:


Model a tube with round ends and apply a colorful gradient

You may achieve it using Curve Modifier for modeling and a Gradient node for material.

Add a Curve, subdivide it and make a patern. Then add a Cylinder and subdivide it with Ctrl+R (the more subdivisions the smoother mesh will look). Remember that Curve and a Cylinder have to have the origin points placed in the same position. Apply the Rotation ans Scale to both objects (Ctrl+A). Select the Cylinder, give it a Curve Modifier and set up its settings as pictured below. To make the Cylinder fit the Curve select the Curve, go to the Curve Data header, and check the Stretch and Bounds Clamp checkboxes.

Dissolve some of the Cylinder edges (X-->Dissolve Edges). Select the top face and press Ctrl+B to bevel it. Play with its settings for different results. Select the face on the other side of the Cylinder and press Shift+R to repeat the process.

Add Subsurf Modifier, then scale some of the Cylinder mesh parts using the proportional editing (Alt+O).

Set up nodes as pictured below. To recreate the reference image you may need to add some additional color lamps.


2.8 Cycle Render Mode ignore Local view mode

This is a bug. As brecht as confirmed:

  It will be fixed for the next release.


How do you make bullets do damagein the BGE?

Your problem might be that the character is not detecting the collision from a static object. If you make your bullet a rigid body object, with all of the translations locked (rotation and location along X,Y, and Z) as in this picture,

Your bullet will have the same behavior as a static object (It will not fall due to gravity and it will not bounce off of other objects), but the rigid body type can detect collisions with a static object. Another thing you could try is changing the collision bounds on both your character and the bullet to something closer to it's actual shape. Normally, a box will work for the projectile, but for the character you will want something more precise such as a Triangle Mesh


I am not aware of a method to merge the UV islands.  The best way that I am aware of is to turn on the vertex snapping to overlap the islands.

Then you can hold down CTRL (or click the magnet to automatically snap) and drag the vertices to the desired locations.


How to remove HDRI background in lookdev mode?

Very easy. Go to shading tab and set the world opcity to 0.


How to rotate the 3D manipulator to match object's rotation?

Make sure your Transform Orientation is set to Global


How to ID NLA strips for appending elsewhere

Rename the action

You have given "catchy" names to the nla track and nla strip using your actions.  You want to rename your action.

Can be achieved via the UI

In Dope sheet (or outliner) Ctrk left click the action name and rename

before pushing down

after pushing down

by putting the dope sheet into action editor mode and renaming

via the python console, example image below, the action "CubeAction" is renamed to "walk".


Latest version of Blender doesn't boot in Windows or Linux

tl;dr : If you have an AMD GPU, try uninstalling beignet.

I was getting the same Command Line error on Fedora 28 \w XFCE. Found a thread at https://askbot.fedoraproject.org/en/question/121807/how-fix-blender-and-run-on-fedora-28/ (archived from ask.fedoraproject.org) suggesting removal of the application 'beignet'. Checking my repo, I found that beignet is for running OpenCL programs on Intel GPUs and that it was installed. However, mine is an AMD GPU. Uninstalling the unnecessary beignet application resolved the problem.


Once you use a Generate Modifier (decimate counts as well) you don't have much control over the mesh anymore. Since modifiers are by nature dynamic, you can't change individual faces, since they might not exist in another frame.
Usually you would use vertex paint in a situation like this, but that's also not easy.
One method to cheat I can think of right now is: Use a texture, unwrap your model and make the decimate modifier respect the seams. It's fiddly, but you might get this working.


Blender allows you to set a custom orientation for transformations, but, unfortunately, does not provide custom orientations for snap projections.

However, if you enable the Mesh:TinyCAD add-on, (included in 2.78) it will do what you need, and some more.


You have (what looks to be) several orphaned edges in the model that I found by selecting all vertices in Vertex select mode, then switching to Face selection.  I can't say if this is what's causing the error because I don't have MakerBot, but I've removed the edges which serve no purpose.

EDIT (from your comment): With faces it's a little more complicated than just drawing an edge from point to point, especially when exporting to a different format/program.  The face needs to be planar (existing in a single plane) and no geometry should exist that doesn't support at least one particular face.  In your case, there were multiple 2D edges (in other words, they can't exist in real space... matter always exists in 3D) that I'm guessing Makerbot couldn't resolve because they weren't adding to the box's substance.

For the addition you made to the question, it looks like MakerBot isn't recognizing a face on the outside.  It also looks like it's missing the faces on the rim.  I deleted those faces, added two corner edges for more geometry, and then re-faced the rim and side.

Please try it and let me know, hopefully it will help.  If not, it's difficult to say what's going on:


Missing texture in cycles, it renders Pink

The color texture in your material is missing. That would be the one plugged into the color slot on your diffuse shader. Click on the file logo on the texture that goes into there and re-find your image. If this doesn't work, save your work, close, and reopen your file. IF this doesn't work, append all your objects into a new file.


Spiral unrolling/rolling animation in Animation Nodes?

It has the following steps:

1) First sample the base spline (which going to be folded) i.e sample points and divide the sample points into two lists L1 (length_Max - length_L2) and L2 (length_L2).

2) Get the last point of L1 and use this point to transfer the folded shape (circle or spiral)

3) Then map the L2 points to folded shape (circle or spiral which can have any number of points) and then store the mapped points in the new list L.

4) Combine the list L and L1 i.e (L + L1) and use these points for the new spline.

5) By animating the length of the L1 and L2 lists, you can animate the folding spline or curve.

Step-1:

Sample the spline and divide the sample points using slice node, one with start (L1) and other with end (L2) option which is control by the integer input node (called it as Offset Index). The use of reverse node to start the folding from the end of the base spline.

Step-2

Use the same Offset Index to get the last point point of L1 list

and use Distribute Matrices node for folding shape (circle or spiral) with transform node which will allow us later to transfer this shape along the spline with the last point of the L1 list.

Step-3

Then use the last point of L1 to transfer the shape along the spline. This will transfer the whole shape points (folding shape) at the last point. But to offset the shape (in this case circle) such that its circumference touch the spline, use vector math node (ADD) and add the radius of the shape into z-axis (you can choose any direction) and adjust the rotation such that it align correct along z-axis.

Now, use base spline normal (last point as in L1 case) to align the folding shape on every point i.e you do dot need to align the shape manually, this automatic align the shape with respect to the the base spline normal when you change the Offset Index.

Step-4 and Step-5

You have the transferred shape points and L2 points. Now mix them using the vector mix node in a loop with factor = 1. Then combine the mixed points with existing L1 points using vector combine list node and these are final points (yellow) which you can use to make new spline.

One with shape as spiral

Final Animation


Since BI was already mentioned, I'll try to tackle Cycles.  The Blender 2.79 Candidate Build now includes a working Microdisplacement.  You can enable it by changing the feature set to Experimental (must use CPU rendering) and under the Materials tab, set Displacement to "True" or "Both".

Now to address your application.  First, there is no simply no way to model real, cleaving, natural-looking, dried clay with microdisplacement using a 2D Texture (generated or otherwise).  If you look carefully at the photo you posted, the blocks fold under themselves.  The sides are textured in the same way that the tops are.  There's no way to do that without modeling geometry.

The reason is because the displacement affects the mesh in relation to the normal of the underlying geometry... a top-down approach.  This is why you need subdivisions.  This makes files, BVH cache, and rendering extremely bloated and time-consuming.

Now, let me explain why using "an image from the Internet" is not the biggest problem.  I procedurally generated this texture using Cycles nodes.  Currently, there's no way to use "Crackle" with nodes so this is a hacky way of creating a similar effect.  It takes the difference of two identical Voronoi Cell texture nodes that are slightly offset using the Mapping node.

(Click the node image to enlarge)

But even though this is procedurally generated, you can clearly see the stair-stepping.  That's because the microdisplacement algorithm attempts to produce the generated geometry as quads and the contrast between the edge pixels in this noise texture is very high (similar to your second picture).  The mesh grid is mapped onto the texture and a value (height) is assigned to each quad.  Observe:

So you either need eased-edges (blurry corners) or you need a lot of subdivision or both.  Fortunately, the 2.79 build also comes with Adaptive Subdivision so you can have lots of subdivision up close and less as distance increases.  In layman's terms, it does this by dividing the Camera Plane into sections and subdividing the meshes based on how many subdivisions are required for a particular section.  This is determined by the Subdivision Rate you set in the Properties>>Render>>Geometry panel as well as the Dicing Scale in the Modifier pane.  For instance, if you set the Subdivision Rate to one pixel, it will subdivide the mesh so that each quad is the size of each pixel of the final render.

So while you can technically do this procedurally by using the Voronoi noise, you gain almost nothing over an image texture.  In fact you'll have to do more processing and tweaking in order to generate the proper noise required to make the edges frayed and random.  Then you'll need to generate a texture for the top using several more noise nodes.

The image I used for this render was downloaded from Google after 20 seconds of searching.  It's resolution is 1300x1300 (I doubled that with Photoshop and then blurred it slightly).  I created two UV's (one for the detail cracks, one for the large cracks) and I used the same image for both.  I added a noise texture to give it a little more unevenness.  (Heat distortion effect done in Photoshop)

(Click to enlarge)

Here's the blend.  Make sure you have the 2.79 build and then download your favorite cracked earth image texture:


I would combine the two options above, and use use the V key to rip edges in edge select mode to outline the strips that will fall. I would still suggest alpha texture to get the edge roughing and then possibly look at the stuffed animal tutorial on CGCookie, using particles for the fuzzy stuff. Of course, the cloth sim would need to be rerun or manually unfold the strips. You might add some weight to the vertex group to make them hang.


You can set different bevel widths using edge bevel weight.

Set default edges at 0.5 bevel weight using CTRL+E - Edge bevel weight and "red"  edges at 1.0. When in modifier settings increase  width twice and set limit method as weight

You can also get an artifacts because of using subsurf after bevel. But, its easy to fix:


Can I paint a texture within the UV viewport?

In Uv Editor switch the Mode to Paint. Open a Tools panel (T) and select a brush.

Now you can paint.
Remember to save your image when you're done with painting (Image-->Save As Image). When you see a little star (*) next to the Image in header it means that the image isn't saved.

Here are some useful shortcuts that can be used in a UV Editor window:

press S to pick a color sample
hold S and press LMB to add a color sample to your palette (you may also do it pressing a + button located under the circular color palette).

press F to change the size of a brush
press Shift+F to change the strenght of a brush

After pressing the shortcuts you may also change the attributes of a brush using numerical keyboard buttons.

press E to change the stroke method

Here you can find many interesting options (like a Curve stroke- very useful for precise painting).

press X to quickly flip the color slots


How can I make the 'delete' key immediately delete faces instead of displaying the 'delete' menu?

There is no specific way to change that. The delete menu is important, because blender needs to know what part of your selction you want to delete, because there is a huge difference between deleting only the face and deleting all selected vertices.


Check to make sure you don't have the [Grease Pencil layers] and [Grease Pencil Colors] set to invisible (eye icon).  I spent an hour trying to figure out why, but forgot that I turned them off.

For the new players:
N to open the right hand menu.
Uncollapse the  ▼ ☑Grease Pencil and ▼Grease Pencil Colors
Look to make sure the eyes are visible for both layers.  Also try creating a new Grease Pencil layer and seeing if that fixes any issues.


issues when baking normals in substance painter with a blender model

At what resolution you are baking your maps usually if you dont have visible artifacts on the normal map, and everything seems to be even, without any artifacting it may be your resolution if you are texturing at lower resolution like 1k for a small object, try to use 2k up to 4k for a standard game model, maybe if its not a game model but for a commercial or animation try 8k or 16k as its going to be close to the camera.

Also, if you are using the creasing option of blender DONT! unless you want a really sharp  edge, dont use it or you can create artifacts, i. If you want a crease that is not as sharp in your lowpoly add a subsurface modifier and add loops were you want the crease. You may need to redo the UVS though, maybe.

And one last thing, if you have the lowpoly and the highpoly models coming from blender make sure their origin points, the 3 axis manipulator is exactly the same. A slight change of positioning in one mesh or the other can cause severe artifacting. if they are not position right, just put the mesh that is out of place were the other mesh is preferibly if you can both meshes at The world's origin point and export it again.

I hope it helps I had those kind of issues everytime, the struggle to bake perfect and beutiful normal maps...sigh.

Goodluck.


An operator represents an action or task that can be performed in blender. A button is blender's GUI representation of an operator which allows the user to initiate the action, while a keyboard shortcut is a non-gui method of executing an operator. Keyboard shortcuts can be edited in the user preferences and each belongs to a group that (should) represent the context that it is available. For example, the loop cut operator can be found in the 3DView/Mesh group so is available when editing mesh objects.

When right clicking on a button, the "Change Shortcut" and "Remove Shortcut" menu items are available if the button's operator has a shortcut assigned to it. See interface_handler.c

The "Add Shortcut" menu item, represents blender having some idea of what group the shortcut should be added to. Blender "guesses" the group based on the operator's bl_idname property and the menu option is only available if a valid group can be guessed from the operator's name. See wm_keymap.c where you will find the available group names that can be used. The group names used there are the uppercase version of the first part of the bl_idname of the operator with the _OT part being optional. For example giving your operator bl_idname='screen.my_operator' will enable the add shortcut menu item which will add a shortcut that will be found under "Screen" group in the shortcut settings.


How do you change camera safe area transparency?

This is called the passepartout.  It can be changed or disabled (with the camera selected) under the Object Data properties panel > Display rollout.

Note: the Amaranth Toolset addon adds a passepartout slider to the Specials W menu when in camera view.


How to bevel a screwed tunnel into a seamless backdrop?

From your question I'm not sure about final desired shape, but you can try Lattice modifier or Surface Deform modifier
Step 01

First you would need to straight ends of cable - just change your Screw.001 modifier > Screw > 0 m

Step 02 - version Lattice

Now you can add Lattice object under Lattice Properties change Resolution to 3. Position it at the end of cable. Add Lattice Modifier to cable, choose object Lattice. Select Lattice switch to edit mode and scale bottom part.

If you don't mind make cable circular increase Screw.001 > Steps Viewport/Render to 20. Also there is not a necessary to have first Screw modifier Steps 64 ... 24 seems to work as well.

Step 02 - version Surface Deform
if you want the cable from flat segments (as in your example) try it with Surface Deform modifier (but there is probably many other ways)

add Subdivision modifier to get more segments on straight end edge
add Cylinder, in edit mode add two Edge Loops, add Subdivision modifier too
add Surface Deform modifier, select Cylinder as object, than BIND
now if use change Cylinder shape (like scale bottom edge loops it will shape Cable end)

anyway modifiers use in order - Displace, Array, Screw, Screw.001, Latice or Surface Deform, Curve, Solidify, Bevel

Step 03
To let "trumpet" shrink on "backdrop" curved part ... try your luck with Vertex Weight Proximity modifier with backdrop object as Target, it will generate a vertex Group with weight that we can use for ShrinkWrap modifier .


Blender says model is UV Unwrapped but cycles does not render?

Your problem is having two UV maps in the same object, and the one you want is not the active one.

Normally this is not a problem but you have to choose which one to use for rendering, or change from a Texture Corrdinate node to a UV node.


Assume you already have the Pivot Point set to 3D Cursor (although this could be done in Python also)

You can use the operator bpy.ops.transform.rotate(), but you need to override the context or else it will only rotate around the object's median point.

import bpy

def get_override(area_type, region_type):
    for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
        if area.type == area_type:
            for region in area.regions:
                if region.type == region_type:
                    override = {'area': area, 'region': region}
                    return override
    #error message if the area or region wasn't found
    raise RuntimeError("Wasn't able to find", region_type," in area ", area_type,
                        "\n Make sure it's open while executing script.")

#we need to override the context of our operator
override = get_override( 'VIEW_3D', 'WINDOW' )
#rotate about the X-axis by 45 degrees
bpy.ops.transform.rotate(override, value=6.283/8, axis=(1,0,0))


How to rotate all objects along their local Z

First set the Pivot Point to "Individual Origins".
Now change the Transformation Orientation to "Local".
Both settings are found in the 3D view header.

Now when you rotate, either by dragging the blue handle of the rotation manipulator, or by pressing R ZZ it will work like you want.


Why doesn't a value node set to 1 evaluate to pure white in the shader editor?

Start by reading this link:
Render with a wider dynamic range in cycles to produce photorealistic looking images
Done reading the whole thing? Don't skip the link. Come back when you are done.
As you would know by now, when using filmic as color space you are working with a much wider dynamic range, and what you call "white" is not at a value of 1, but at 16.19
You have two options:

Keep filmic as color transform in the color management section and work with larger values.

Set the view transform to "standard" and use a much smaller range, where 1 will be "white". Note that this might result in oversaturated colors and might not look as pleasant or "photorealistic"

Read also:
White background with filmic blender
and maybe this one too:
Make texture visible in sunlight


Maybe Windows remote desktop connection application does not use the GPU to display the screen somehow. You could try some other application for remote connection. I use Google's Chrome Remote Desktop(that is free) and it seems to work fine.


How to create a ribbon and attach it to a balloon

a ribbon like that can be done extruding an open curve object (not pressing E, but using "extrude" slider in the curve panel). But you'll have to model its curves by hand, positioning the curve control points manually.

Making it behave "automatically" like a real ribbon with spring effect, gravity, is more difficult though. I guess it would be more like a sort of cloth or soft body thing...

[edit]
First, experiment with something simple: another answer shows you how to create a simple bezier, and shape it as you wish adding control points, an that is right but slightly slow and tedious.

There is also a way to easily get a complete "twirled" ribbon, already shaped as a spiral, which you can perhaps more easily adapt to your taste, and get something like this:

This is what I suggest:

starting from a "vertical" (along z) plane, delete all vertices but 2 connected
in this way you should get a vertical segment of just 2 vertices, like this below

as suggested in the image, press the toolbar "screw" command: you immediately get what follows:

before confirming, adjust "steps" and "turns" (I suggest 3 steps, and a few turns, will explain later why)
then, you only need to keep one of the two the "edge loops" of the shape created by the screw command, like below (ctrl-right click on an edge to select it, or select 2 connected vertices on it and then CTRL-E => "edge loops"):

so, press "x" and delete those vertices (ot use CTRL-I to invert the selection, and delete the others, you get the same result for this purpose): you will get something like

now, convert the shape (objlect mode) to curve, with ALT-C:

this is now a curve but I know it doesn't seem a ribbon, now, since "screw" command had only 3 "steps" per "turn". But you can now apply a "subsurf" (subdivision surface) modifier to smooth it and you can change several levels, in a non-distructive way (you can change idea, try several versions):

then, since is a curve you can give "depth" using the extrude slider as said starting this post (I prefer "extrude" and not "bevel").
Just smooth the shading, and see what nice ribbon you have now!

Plus, since you chose only 3 "steps" per turn, you have fewer control points to change its shape, meaning: it's easier to pose, and animate! (this is why I suggested 3 steps, and several turns)

But if you need more points, you can always select 2 of them and "subdivide", and get more fancy ribbon shapes!

Happy ribboning!


Accessing the active custom node tree in a script

Although there could be any type of nodetrees in bpy.data.node_groups, their names are unique and used as Identifiers.

So bpy.data.node_groups['Name of the Nodetree'] means exactly the nodetree with that name, no matter what type it has.

About the active node_tree you need to use the Node Editor's context, either by checking if the active node or the active node_tree is a node_group.

For example, if you have a custom node in a node_tree, and you want to access the node_tree itself from that node, you can look in the context:

node_tree = bpy.context.space_data.edit_tree

This will return the current tree being edited in the editor.


Blender Render Smoke, vs viewport how to match?

I overcame this by rendering in OpenGL. (Top left of 3D window, open "Render" tab and select "OpenGL RenderAnimation")