How create perfect mask using ID Pass ( "clown pass" in Photoshop)?

Workbench
It is not that easy :) and in some cases just impossible. If you want to just make parts darker or brighter, there is a change you just dont notice, but it would be there.
This "imperfection" comes from anti-aliased pixels generated on object edge to make them smooth. They consists partly from foreground color and partly from background color. So they are not purely defined only by single color.
To get a pixel perfect for selection you would have to render with Workbench > Render Properties > Sampling > No-Anti-Aliasing, but this renderhas ugly pixelated edged. What people use to do is render double size of final render and downsize after compositing.

Cryptomatte
Feature designed to work with "passes". Check some tutorials. Image saved as Open EXR Multilayer can store cryptomatte data and can be used also by other programs (like Fusion or Nuke). For work with Photoshop EXR – IO plugin should work for you (seems like only for Win).
Blender Manual – Cryptomatte
Cryptomatte tutorial example
Here I got a solution in Blender Compositor. Since this node tree based on InPaint node is technique before cryptomatte time it could work also on Workbench render too.
Result of default setup (issue on edge)

Result of edge refined by node group

Node Group

Detail default issue on edge vs refined edge. For the best result adjust ColorRamp nodes.


if you choose "render as object" -> and choose "cube" as object, your hairs will be shown as that object, as cube. So it works as it should be.
Blender 2.91 result for me:


Cycles 'vector' pass meaning of W, X, Y, Z

Guided by @micaelh in the comments, I ended up doing some experiments moving objects in a controlled way, the results are below.

Vector.X - X displacement from previous frame to current frame
Vector.Y - Y displacement from previous frame to current frame
Vector.Z - X displacement from current frame to next frame
Vector.W - Y displacement from current frame to next frame

Values are in pixels. X displacement is positive to the left, Y displacement is positive downwards.


Why are some objects visible in the outliner but not in the 3D view?

As I said in my comment, the pillar object is on layer 5 and you only have layers 1 and 11 set to be visible. Showing layer 5 reveals the 'banner' (shown as pink due to missing textures):

I can see it is on layer 5 because the orange dot appears on the 5th square of the layers UI, indicating the layer the selected object is on:

You need to press Shift while selecting the 5th layer to make it visible along with the other layers. The squares indicating the layers go a dark colour when they are selected (or in the case of your Blender theme, blue), which is how I could tell only layers 1 and 11 are selected in your original screenshot.

For more information on viewing and managing layers, see the Layers section of the Blender Manual.


How can I animate multiple properties of the same object at once?

You can use the Cycles Material Output node to control the strength of your emission shader where its value is controlled through an Animate Float node.

Where the Delay node controls the frame at which the animation will start.


How to deform a 2d shape to make a 3d object?

Using a script to make the two shape keys.  Change the r and h of result cone.

Example of radius 1, height 2, 1 and 0.5 cones.

import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector
from math import radians, sin, cos, sqrt

from bpy import context # for testing

r = 1 # radius of cone
h = 1 # height of cone
sectors = 16
l = sqrt(r**2 + h**2) # hypotenuse
# sector will have angle

theta = radians(360) * r / l
dtheta = theta / sectors

# build the base

bm = bmesh.new()

verts = []
for i in range(sectors + 1):
    a = i * dtheta
    verts.append(bm.verts.new((l * cos(a), l * sin(a), 0)))

topvert = bm.verts.new((0, 0, 0))
for i in range(sectors):
    bm.faces.new([verts[i + 1], topvert, verts[i]])

cone_mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("Cone")
cone = bpy.data.objects.new("Cone", cone_mesh)
bm.to_mesh(cone_mesh)

# add base as basis shape key
basis_shape_key = cone.shape_key_add("Basis")

# add second shape key

cone_shape_key = cone.shape_key_add("Cone")
offset = (radians(360) - theta) / 2
dtheta = radians(360) / sectors
for v in verts:
    a = v.index * dtheta - offset
    cone_shape_key.data[v.index].co = ((r * cos(a), r * sin(a), 0))
cone_shape_key.data[topvert.index].co = (0, 0, h)

# link to scene

scene = context.scene
scene.objects.link(cone)
scene.objects.active = cone
cone.select = True


Unfortunately, i don't think that's possible to bake a particle and export it as a collada file. If i'm not mistaken you can export it as .mdd to modo, but exporting it to an external game engine or something like that is not supported


How to have particles pursue a target around obstacles

I suggest to give each particle a steering actuator too.

Ensure that these particle objects are recognized as obstacles.


Trackball appears when I select any object but not in Rotate mode

If you've enabled it in the Viewport Gizmos panel it will appear whatever you do:


There are 2 main ways to curl a plane, using the SimpleDeform>Bend modifier, or using the Curve modifier with a curled curve object. I personally think the Curve solution is more accurate and controllable.

Create a curve with a long flat portion and curled portion at the end.
Line the curve up diagonally with the plane so that the curl part of the curve is beyond the corner of the page
Add the Curve modifier to the page and select the curly curve object
You may need to reposition the page or the curl object to get them to line up properly.
Keyframe the position of the curve so that it moved diagonally across the corner of the page. As it does so the corner will curl up.
You will need the page mesh to be fairly subdivied, and may also need to add a subsurf modifier to smooth it out even more.


A refraction shader with an IOR of 1 should do very little, but I think refraction shader by itself messes with light paths just a little.  I also seem to remember Transparent BSDF working better with an Add Shader.  From the reference:
Transparent BSDF.
The Transparent BSDF is used to add transparency without refraction, passing straight through the surface, as if there were no geometry there. Useful with alpha maps, for example. This shader affects light paths somewhat differently than other BSDFs. Note that only pure white transparent shaders are completely transparent.
I would start out with a reduced node setup, and you can add to it and verify the effects.  You could go to the principled shader if you feel more comfortable there.

If you use the color picker you'll see the light spot on the floor and the edge of the plane both top out around .68 Value, so I don't think this is doing anything too inaccurate.  The light hitting the camera from outside the window is around .88.

This should work fine for thin panes of glass.  For more complex pieces this may produce lighting that is too bright, such as in the following example where the transparent bsdf is set to .6 (.9 is pretty much unreasonable):

https://blenderartists.org/t/how-do-i-make-glass-cast-transparent-shadows-in-cycles/650692/5
Here's a thread from blenderartists where user theoldghost suggests the node group used in the following image where the transparent bsdf is set to .9:


Cycles - 2.79 vs 2.82 texture difference

Use All for your Material Output node,

Since 2.82 provide the ability to preview your scene like what EEVEE does in Cycles mode, the shader is actually using EEVEE rendering information despite that you set Cycles as rendering engine. See the example below:


Maybe this can be realised (if I understand your question correctly, that is) by utilizing Blenders ability to link materials to the object instead of the object data, as it does by default. What I'm talking about is this little dropdown here:

What that does is, it tells Blender to keep track of Material assignments by storing the assignment on the object instead of the object data (the mesh itself). The trick now is to use instances of the same object, and assign different sets of materials to those instances. You can instantiate the objects using Alt + D, and verify the presence of an instance if there is a number appearing at the mesh datablock:

Now, if you have a setup like this, which the three heads instanciated:

and you move a vertex in edit mode:

after getting back to object mode, you have this:

So you can now edit the mesh once, but export different objects with different materials at any time from it.


How to confine particles within a volume?

Duplicate your main volume in place
Remove the particle system from the main volume
Scale down the duplicate so that the particles fit into the main volume
make sure to turn Show Emitter off in the Particle Settings panel


Is there a shortcut to keyframe an entire skeleton?

In the timeline, activate the red record button to automatically insert a new keyframe every time you move a bone, and the "two keys icon" aside to use the selected option for keyframing; then select from the menu the "whole character" option to  keyframe all the bones of the character everytime you hit the "I" key.


An Armature never shows up during a render. If it sticking out is annoying while modeling, you can choose between five options for its shape. To change, select the armature and go to the Properties panel > Skeleton tab > Display dropdown and choose. I would describe the five, but it would take a while, so I'll just say that I believe Stick is the smallest.

Note that the image is a cropped version of one belonging to chichige bobo in this YouTube video.

Lastly, just thought I'd add that Octahedral bones (what is currently displaying) do stretch out like in your third image, but only when using a Stretch To Constraint. You would not want to employ this for just basic rigging.


Point Separate Node not working in 2.92 Release Candidate?

You should put Point separate before Point distribute.
After distributing, instances lost geometry data such as Vertex groups.


You can do it with logic bricks:

Explanation: This logic setting will suspend physics (Edit Object brick/Dynamics/Suspend Dynamics) at the beginning of the game (Delay = 0)
and restore it (Edit Object brick/Dynamics/Restore Dynamics) when an object with a player property is in a 5 blender units distance.


How to duplicate modifier on same object?

There is a Copy button near the top of any modifier:


Found the solution:
You need to clear the parent of the hand_IK.L
So hand_IK.L needs to be a separate object from the rest of the chain.

Go into edit mode, select hand_IK.L and press ALT + P. Choose "Clear parent".


Here's how I would create a propeller like the one pictured.

First create a cylinder and extrude 3 of the faces out and model them into a propeller blade shape.  To get decent topology you can extrude along the edge of the blade and then use Grid Fill to fill it in.

Then just add a Simple Deform modifier and set it to Twist, I used an angle of 90°.

Note: in the above example, instead of modeling all three fins at once, I deleted a third of the cylinder and used an Array modifier with the pivot point set to an empty rotated 120°.  That way I only had to model one blade.


Insert edgerings along selected edge loops

You can try this way:

P.S.: When using CtrlX, "Dissolve Verts" needn't being toggled every time. It will remember your last choice.


Lamps don't seem to give off light in object mode

A friend found out what happened- apparently the viewport shading switched on me!
 I switched it to material and it was as what I was looking for.


how to find close points between two values in animation nodes

You can create mask for filtering edges by finding intersection of Min and Max distances.


Using Python loop to attach empty to each bone in Armature

Script for 2.8

Test Script:

Select your armature object in object mode. Adds an empty at each pose bone location. Creates a child of constraint for each.

As it is for 2.8 uses @ for matrix multiplication.  For prior, globally replace @ with *

import bpy

context = bpy.context
ob = context.object
mw = ob.matrix_world

mts = []
for pb in ob.pose.bones:
    bpy.ops.object.empty_add(location = (mw @ pb.matrix).translation)
    #bpy.ops.object.empty_add()
    mt = context.object
    mt.name = "MT_%s" % pb.name
    cl = mt.constraints.new(type='CHILD_OF')
    cl.target = ob
    cl.subtarget = pb.name

    mwi = (mw @ pb.matrix).inverted()
    cl.inverse_matrix = mwi

Notes:

after an add object operator, the newly added object is context.object or context.active_object.  Do not rely on it being context.selected_objects[0]
The target for the constraint is the armature object, the subtarget is the bone, by name.


just found out what my mistake was. I added the follow path as object constraint instead of a bone constraint


Using UVWarp modifier to position part of an image on an object

Found out how to do it through this forum. https://blenderartists.org/t/uvwarp-not-mapping-correctly-with-lego-mouth-annimation/1118084/3 When imported the image into the file, I scaled it up and then set the scale back to 1. This caused the issue. However, when trying to fix it, I imported the image again and did not adjust the scale. Now it's working.


beveling 2D cutout shapes not working as expected

Practice on some geometry that isn't this scene first, to get the hang of how bevel works and how to select the right geometry quickly. Bevel doesn't magically know what you want to bevel, you probably want to select the edges to get the right kind of bevel.

This is what you'd get if you bevelled using faces, it's probably not what you want:

But this is the bevel with edges:


Sharp edges while maintaining circular shape

Im not sure if it would help but, you can try separating the inside of the rim by selection and take off the subsurf in the inside of the rim.


What's The Best Way To Create These Objects And Match Them To Another Object (References Inside)

There probably  isn't a best way, but sometimes it's easier to start this kind of thing in the flat, to keep things simple early on.

Using that approach, with Pivot set to 'Active Element', Vertex Mode, starting with a plane. and the right vertex active. Numpad7 Looking orthographically down Z

ShiftDRZ rotate a copy of the plane out to the desired angle.
K with C and Z cut through with a constraint to the vertical
Face Mode, X delete the unwanted triangle
E extrude all the remaining faces
Edge Mode, all selected, CtrlB bevel the edges


I cant get the bump to show up on this soil texture

First, try changing where it says Add to Multiply. I also notice that you are viewing the soil at a pretty shallow angle, rather than perpendicular or slightly less (optimal for node based bump). If you are going to continue to do this, I would suggest also using the Displace Object modifier along with the node based bump as demonstrated at about 57:52 here.


Support for loading 8bit bitmaps was just committed to trunk recently. Grab any build of r59103 or greater and it should work and it will also be available by default in 2.69.


Cycles smoke always better in viewport compared to render

You need to bake the simulation. Click on the smoke domain wile the domain is selected go to the camera  properties tab and scroll down to the bake take. Set your simulation range to the number of frames in your animation and press bake all dynamics (or bake all). Then render and enjoy... Make sure you add emission to the smoke to make it pop a bit!


How do I make smoke dissipate after its stopped

Create keyframes for the density of the emitter. If you bring the density to 0 the smoke would disappear.

Add also keyframes to decrease the temperature difference and the surface.


Meshify a Graphic in order to form and deform it

Well the answer is yes you can do it with images but not with blender alone,
and not with a single image as well. What you need to to learn about the modeling
technique using photography.

Currently there are 2 free opensource software VisualSFM and Meshlab that allows
modeller to create 3d models from a set of images there is are tutorial videos
on the youtube that shows you how to use them.

Here is one of the video. The guy even uploaded a set of the images he took
so you could follow those steps. Installing VisualSFM can be abit tricky though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6eqW6yk50k

Good luck cheers.


The code snippet you posted is from the ImportSTL class. The ExportSTL class is defined below as follows:

    171    global_scale = FloatProperty(
    172        name="Scale",
    173        min=0.01, max=1000.0,
    174        default=1.0,
    175        )

You can simply change the values, save the file and restart blender like so:

    171    global_scale = FloatProperty(
    172        name="Scale",
    173        min=0.00001, max=1000.0,
    174        default=1.0,
    175        )


In the Nov material tab you have to raise some diffuse and specular values, and uncheck the "use alpha" option of the NovLight ke emission texture.


Blender's event system doesn't expose an event that triggers just once when an Object is selected (December 2015) - You aren't missing anything obvious.

You could make an event handler that listens for scene updates and only fires a custom function call once if the active_object changes between calls (these scene updates can be high frequency, 30 times per second).

read: bpy.app.handlers.html  see bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_pre (or ..._post)

The docs have sample code which you can extrapolate.

ps. this assumes your use case doesn't include clicking the same object a number of times in sequence.


Rigid Body Object Jumps back when keyframing "animation" off

You need to change the simulation Start and End frames under
Scene Properties > Rigid Body World > Cache.
[


I've recreated your scene, and after examining the renders, it seems that the HDRI/Scene that you've created for lighting is causing the dark spots;

Try using another HDRI, or rotating the view, to see what I mean. I'm using this HDRI;

Which can be found in various resolutions here;

https://hdrihaven.com/hdri/?c=indoor&h=lebombo

Edit:

I see. Forgive me, I don't eat gnutella, and so our bottles were totally different. While mine was perfectly round, yours has a very unique (and by the way nicely modeled) shape;

Your specific issue is the table (you didn't pack the images, so this is going to look a bit odd);

If I change the table to a darker color, you see that the issue with your bottle isn't dark parts, it's an especially light table, contrasting against a dark background;

I bet you could replicate these results in real life with a bottle of gnutella and a table.


On your file you didn't create any Curve modifier, so nothing happens. Put the Curve modifier below the Array modifier. You'll see that your object is completely swollen. That's because you have somehow played with the vertices radius as you can see in the 3D view T panel if you select the curve, switch to Edit mode and select all. Bring this value back to 1.


Make sure to have more faces on the donut than on your icing.
You can do this by adding a subdivision subsurface, you don't have to apply it.
If this doesn't work as well, you can use the shrinkwrap modifier. Make sure this is below the subdivision subsurface modifier.
Go to the modifier tab and add a shrinkwrap modifier. You will also need more verts on the donut than on the icing while doing this.
Good luck with your donut!
Emiel


just append the files from one file to another. just do FILE>APPEND and you are ready to import objects from one scene to aother


How to set scale across all blender objects and keyframes?

Set the scale to the value you need and all the scale keyframes will be updated accordingly :

import bpy

scale = 2     #change this value  'scaling factor'

for action in  bpy.data.actions :
    for fcurve in action.fcurves :
        if fcurve.data_path == 'scale':
            for p in fcurve.keyframe_points :
                p.co[1] *= scale


What is the proper way to turn a mesh into solid white?

pycoder's comment is correct. For future projects, you can directly adjust the background colour in the world tab.


Blender or CAD software for making a robot/character with swappable parts

Expanding a bit on Duarte Farrajot Ramos' comment above: if you want to engineer routinely, then there are more focussed tools than blender. For the purpose that you describe, blender might suit you fine.

I myself do use blender to prepare engineering models for simulations. Not needing some of the more advanced CAD features, blender turned out to be a practical and very cost effective tool for me with the added advantage that I can model and visualize results using the same tool.

When you want to do precision modelling there are a number of guides and tutorials available on how to tweak blender for that purpose:

Several relatively simple precision tips can be found in this answer: How to model effectively using exact measurements?
An older but very extensive tutorial can be found here: http://www.rab3d.com/tut_blen_precision_guide.php
blendermama has a nice collection of hints: http://blendermama.com/precision-work-in-blender.html
And there are some tutorials on youtube of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOxN4CHeBPQ

There are also a number of addons that help: Edge Tools and Caliper from http://www.blender3darchitect.com/ (which also has great tutorials) as well as tinyCAD.


Why are MakeHuman rigs' facial bones reversed?

Well, the problem just went away on its own, so I don't know how to explain it. After I tabbed back into Pose mode, the facial bones stayed the way they were supposed to, and the problem didn't happen again in any other files that I opened. If anyone else has this problem, please post a comment. Thank you.


animatable soft transition between sphere and cylinder

We can make use of Metaballs and Animation Nodes to achieve the desired effect.

The vertices of the mesh can be represented by a Ball Metaball, using such node tree:

We instance a Metaball Ball object, position it in place of the vertices and change its radius as we wish using an Object Attribute Output node and possibly its stiffness if you like.

Next, we can represent edges using Capsule Metaball, using such node tree:

We instance a Capsule Metaball, position it in the center of each edge, scale it using the size_x property based on the length of the edges using the Object Attribute Output node (We multiply it by 0.5 because capsule goes both ways), orient it along the edges using the Direction To Rotation node and control its stiffness and radius using Object Attribute Output node.

Which results:

Blend file for study:

Animating it and using non meshes structures is pretty easy in Animation Nodes. You may ask a question specific to exactly what you want to create. An example animation:


How to stack/layer two textures with alpha over each other with Material nodes?

The alpha channel of both images can be combined ( in this case  it works if you add them, but you can also do other operations depending on your needs) and used to control the mix for the colors or shaders:

or:


Is it possible to render a panorama in perspectives other than full 360°x180°?

This is not a very efficient way of doing this because it requires rendering the entire $360^\circ \times 180^\circ$ image and then cropping off a good chunk of it, but it seems to be the only option.

Here is a diagram:

$H$ is the height of the $360^\circ \times 180^\circ$ image, $h$ is the height of the cropped ($360°\times n^\circ$) image, and $n$ is the desired angle.  When $n$ is $180^\circ$ we can see that $D$ would be $\frac{1}{2}$ the height of the image so $D=\frac{H}{2}$.  From here it is just a little simple trigonometry and we can get:

$$
h = \sin(\frac{n}{2})\frac{H}{2}2 = \sin(\frac{n}{2})H
$$

Using your example of $30^\circ$ we get $h = \sin(15) H ≈ 0.26 H$  A slight rearrangement gives $H ≈ \frac{h}{0.26}$ which you can use to plug in the desired height and get the height you must use to render.


What does the "Absolute" setting in the Math node do?

The Absolute mode is similar to the mathematics $\left\vert X \right\vert$ operator. Any negative value is turned positive.

The 2nd input on the node is meaningless and has no effect at all (thanks Carlo for checking this out in Blender's source code).

Below is an example that illustrates the mode. The image has values in the interval $[0, 1]$ (black to white). The first math node multiplies everything by $-1$, thus turning the interval to $[-1, 0]$. Everything that equals or is smaller than $0$ is rendered black, so the image turns black.
When you plug this into the absolute node, all negative numbers are turned positive, and the image is displayed again.


You can change the radius of a cirle by scaling it
By scaling up with factor 2, the radius will be scaled too by the factor of 2.
I hope that helps.


Importing objects from 3Ds Max to Blender with instancing

FBX supports instancing. I'm not familiar with now Max handles FBX, but I transfer between blender and maya with FBX all the time to keep my instances. As far as I can tell, Autodesk has done a pretty decent job of making FBX work between their own packages, so my guess is it will work for Max as well. Make sure you export from Max with the proper plugin version or blender won't be able to read it properly. Blender supports the 2014 version (7.4) for binary and 2010 (6.1) for ascii. I use binary constantly and have never had issues with it. All my stuff is simple geometry, though. It obviously won't transfer rigs properly.

Hope that answers your question. I don't have Max installed, so I can't test it myself.


Addon based on this answer, adapted to export all objects in selection to single .mdd files. Make sure 'NewTekk MDD format' add-on is enabled and install the add-on as usual:

batch_mdd_export.py
# ##### BEGIN GPL LICENSE BLOCK #####
#
#  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
#  modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
#  as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
#  of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
#  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#  GNU General Public License for more details.
#
#  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
#  Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
#
# ##### END GPL LICENSE BLOCK #####
# <pep8 compliant>

bl_info = {
    "name": "Batch export MDD files",
    "author": "brockmann",
    "version": (0, 1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "File > Import-Export",
    "description": "Batch Export Objects in Selection to MDD",
    "warning": "",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "tracker_url": "",
    "category": "Import-Export"}

import bpy
import os

from bpy_extras.io_utils import ExportHelper

from bpy.props import (BoolProperty,
                       FloatProperty,
                       IntProperty,
                       StringProperty,
                       EnumProperty,
                       CollectionProperty
                       )

class Batch_MDD_Export(bpy.types.Operator, ExportHelper):
    """Batch export objects to fbx files"""
    bl_idname = "export_scene.batch_mdd"
    bl_label = "Batch export MDD"
    bl_options = {'PRESET', 'UNDO'}

    # ExportHelper mixin class uses this
    filename_ext = ".mdd"

    filter_glob : StringProperty(
            default="*.mdd",
            options={'HIDDEN'},
            )

    # List of operator properties, the attributes will be assigned
    # to the class instance from the operator setting before calling.

    # Context group
    use_selection_setting: BoolProperty(
            name="Selection Only",
            description="Export selected objects only",
            default=True,
            )

    use_rest_frame: BoolProperty(
            name="Use Rest Frame",
            description="ToDo",
            default=False,
            )

    frames_per_second: FloatProperty(
            name="FPS",
            description="ToDo",
            min=1, max=60,
            default=25,
            )

    frame_start: IntProperty(
            name="Frame Start",
            description="ToDo",
            default=1,
            )

    frame_end: IntProperty(
            name="Frame End",
            description="ToDo",
            default=250,
            )

    def execute(self, context):

        # get the folder
        folder_path = os.path.dirname(self.filepath)

        # get objects selected in the viewport
        viewport_selection = context.selected_objects

        # get export objects
        obj_export_list = viewport_selection
        if self.use_selection_setting == False:
            obj_export_list = [i for i in context.scene.objects]

        # deselect all objects
        bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

        for item in obj_export_list:
            item.select_set(True)
            if item.type == 'MESH':
                context.view_layer.objects.active = item # Set active object
                file_path = os.path.join(folder_path, "{}.mdd".format(item.name))

                # MDD settings
                bpy.ops.export_shape.mdd(
                        filepath=file_path,
                        fps=self.frames_per_second,
                        frame_start=self.frame_start,
                        frame_end=self.frame_end
                        )

            item.select_set(False)

        # restore viewport selection
        for ob in viewport_selection:
            ob.select_set(True)

        return {'FINISHED'}

# Only needed if you want to add into a dynamic menu
def menu_func_import(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(Batch_MDD_Export.bl_idname, text="MDD Batch Export (.mdd)")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(Batch_MDD_Export)
    bpy.types.TOPBAR_MT_file_export.append(menu_func_import)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(Batch_MDD_Export)
    bpy.types.TOPBAR_MT_file_export.remove(menu_func_import)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    #bpy.ops.export_scene.batch_mdd('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

I added all possible arguments of the 'lightwave point cache' operator export_shape.mdd(), see line 117. You can change them or add new properties to the operator, wasn't sure.


How do I stop my tablet eraser from entering a grease pancil sketch session?

There are several options, depending on what you end up doing more often.

Option 1 - Disable the eraser keymapping:
* Pros: If you're doing a lot of sculpting and using the eraser when doing that, and using the Grease Pencil eraser less in comparison, then this will be a good option.
* Cons: You lose the ability to use the eraser to quickly erase GP strokes, and this is something you'll either have to save to your userprefs (or you're going to have to set it again on each session)

Option 2 - Lock the GP layers:
* Pros: If you don't want the layers to be modified accidentally, just lock them. Then the eraser won't do anything to them.
* Cons: It also means though that you can't easily draw quick new strokes on those layers anymore though. You'll have to remember to go in and unlock some layers to continue.


mesh shakes and detaches from my armature when in pose mode

Your mesh object is unnecessarily parented to one of the bones, meaning it is not only being moved by the bones it is weight painted to, but also by the parent, which is why it becomes offset from the armature as it is being moved twice.

Select the mesh and press Alt+P and choose Clear and Keep Transformation to clear the parent.

As for the shaking, you have a dependency cycle, which can be seen by looking in the System Console (the message appears when you toggle in and out of edit mode on the armature):

This means that Blender can't work out how to move the bones properly as they each rely on each other for their position. To fix this you can un-parent the 'launcher', 'pincer' and 'energy pistol' bones. This doesn't seem to effect anything in the armature, so it shouldn't cause any problems.


How do I put an image onto the surface of a mesh?

If you just want to make an object use your image texture, try creating a new material under your "Material Properties" tab, then choosing your image.

As long as you have unwrapped your Object, your image should be applied to the object. If it looks stretched, choppy or just tiled in a way you don't like; this is a reference to a node structure I use for my meshes.

But if you are planning on using images as like a background or even a wall, there is one option for you that I use pretty consistently and is built right into blender!

First thing you will want to do is go to your User Preferences under File -> User Preferences. next, go to the Add-On Tab in the middle and search for an Add-On called Images as Planes. Once you find it, click the little check box and close the User Interface window. Now, you can press Shift - A to add a new mesh as you normally would and instead of choosing a mesh, go to the bottom and select "Images as Planes". This will bring up a new window where you can choose your image file, and once it has been imported it will show up in your world as a plane.


Is it possible to scale only UVs to a specific value?

In the image editor you can select your UVs and scale them just as you would do with vertices on the 3D viewport.

S2 will scale the selected UVs by two

S.5 wil scale the UVs to one half.

S2X will scale by two horizontally.


How do I fix my models subsurf deformity?

As Georges said, your topology is not good, you have ngons and triangles. You need to rethink your topology with quads, sometimes triangles if it's really necessary. Here is a try that seems to works:


Workflow for modeling assets like this (picture included)

There are many ways, it depends of the type of asset you want to create (asset with handpainted texture, etc.).
 I use this sometimes:

model low poly first
UV unwrap the low poly model
texturing of the low poly model.  In "properties" panel, go to "data" tab and then "UVmaps", add a second UV map by clicking on the plus button, highlight this second by clicking on it, unwrap the low poly model for a second time for a good unwrapping because of the texturing
create a new image, bake textures and normal maps and remove all the materials and the the second UVmap
duplicate the low poly, add more details to the second low poly models and  bake normal map again.
And you can export textures if you want for more details on Photoshop or Gimp.


Blender 2.8 - AWS EC2 command line EEVEE render

The actual problem is that Eevee does not support headless rendering.

Besides that the command misses a flag that tells Blender to render. Right now it will just open the userpref.blend with your settings and then close.

If you want to render the first frame, your command needs to contain -f 1.

blender -b -noaudio -E BLENDER_EEVEE -o . -F PNG -f 1

  -f, --render-frame <frame>

  Render frame  and save it.

  + start frame relative, - end frame relative.
  A comma separated list of frames can also be used (no spaces).
  A range of frames can be expressed using .. separator between the first and last frames (inclusive).

All flags can be found in Blender's manual.


Python in 2.80: How to get the base color texture from a Material

For a simple setting, you can use this:

import bpy
from mathutils import Color

# try/except if the setting is not as expected
try:
    # Get active object
    obj = bpy.context.active_object

    # Get its first material slot
    material = obj.material_slots[0].material
    # Get the nodes in the node tree
    nodes = material.node_tree.nodes
    # Get a principled node
    principled = next(n for n in nodes if n.type == 'BSDF_PRINCIPLED')
    # Get the slot for 'base color'
    base_color = principled.inputs['Base Color'] #Or principled.inputs[0]
    # Get its default value (not the value from a possible link)
    value = base_color.default_value
    # Translate as color
    color = Color( (value[0], value[1], value[2]) )
    print( color )

    # Get the link
    link = base_color.links[0]
    link_node = link.from_node
    print( link_node.image.name )
except:
    print( 'not found' )


What you'd basically do is create a scene with a plane and a camera pointed at the plane, and make the plane use your cutscene or video file as its texture. Then, using a Delay logic brick or something similar, you'd switch from that scene to another scene, which contains the game stage or level.

If you want a live animation to play, just animate the camera and the objects in the first scene, and use a Delay sensor again.

This video does a good job of explaining a method of implementing the same method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2W_fQayYcA It's a video by SuperGloop.


How can you make a scratched metal procedurally?

If we take a Voronoi Texture set to Distance to Edge, and do a Math -> Less Than operation we get this map:

We can use another Voronoi Texture set to F1 to generate a map that lets us subtract out most of the corners.

Note that we are using the same scale for both Voronoi Textures, and we are clamping the Math -> Subtract operation to prevent our values from falling below 0.

The Less Than threshold controls the thickness of scratches, the Greater Than threshold controls how much of the initial map we remove.
You can stack up as many layers of this as you want:

And then plug it into a Bump node with distance set to -1 to sink it into the mesh instead of pushing out.

Here's a setup attempting to resemble your reference image.


Export simple .fbx animation to Destinations VR

After 2 days I managed to graps some of the inner working :

There is no problem having multiple separated objects linked to the
same armature
When importing from blender's .fbx, uncheck the
"convert units to inches from :" checkbox
In the mesh, uncheck "skin parented objects" and check "skin parented transforms"
Never EVER let anything like : suns, lights or cameras when exporting to .fbx
Don't bother painting materials in blender, I
didn't manage to export them to Destinations, just assign names and
build them in hammer

I managed to import a 1000+ part .obj in blender, rigged it with 18 bones with three pistons kinematics, and imported four 120 frame animations with ease respecting those five points.

You can find Here the simple piston that I rigged to test the import.

Bottom line is: to work with destinations VR you need to learn how to rig.


What is the reason that this material makes rendering smoke simulations take so much longer?

My relatively uninformed guess is that it is likely caused by Cycles shader optimization, or in this case the lack thereof.

Textureless volumes are probably assumed to have constant color or density, and as such optimized to render disregarding variations across the smoke depth.

This probably saves considerable processing power by skipping color or density checks at every depth step, as the rendering rays traverse the volumetric shader.

It may also be the case that by using heat as input into your shader, Cycles requires more data that either consumes more (system or GPU) memory, or requires uploading CPU computed data from the smoke simulation into the video memory (when GPU rendering using CUDA or OpenCL) at every frame, which is generally a slow process.

After a simple test I'd go with the theory of shader optimization. Just having a simple color input like texture coordinates on a basic volume shader almost duplicates render time.

Constant color about 15 seconds

Simple color variation about 30 seconds

I guess a smoke simulation with varying density and heat based colors will only worsen the calculation.


If your are using bones, you need to use constraints
Copy location and copy rotation// Target is the Armature and Bone is the the closest to the end

Hope that helps


Using Lattices to create non-spherical eyes cause problems when rigging the eyes for tracking. What can I do to fix it?

I made this work using an eye-bone and a bone track-to constraint.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/428467/eye-lattice-rig.blend

Use an eye-bone at the center of your eye, parented to the head bone, pointing out the eye. Add a bone constraint for the eye-bone to track your eye-target. Test that the eye-bone properly tracks your target as the head moves.

Parent your lattice to the head bone (you might need to manually create a lattice vertex group with the same name as the head bone). Test that the lattice moves with the head bone.

Select your eyeball, and add a copy-rotation constraint copying the rotation of your eye-bone. It should be local space to local space.

If your eye doesn't line up afterwords, go into edit mode on it and rotate it to line up. (if you have an object scale on your lattice, edit-mode rotating your eye will cause it to wobble out of the lattice. I don't scale my lattice, I edit it's shape in a shape key.)

The copy-rotation is local-to-local because the rig is rotating both your bone and your eye-lattice. As the eye-bone tracks the target, you want to copy it's local space rotation to the local space rotation of your eyeball.

One consequence of using a lattice to flatten an eye-sphere, is that as the eye-bone tracks the target further off-center, and the eye copies it's rotation, the eye itself will appear to be looking a bit further than the bone is pointing. This is a consequence of the deformation. If you center your head and turn off the lattice deformer (edit mode your eye-sphere), you'll see that the un-deformed eye is pointed the same place as the eye bone. If it is important to compensate for this, you can use a driver equation instead of a copy-rotation constraint to set the eyeball rotation. This will give you a coefficient to tweak the relative rotations.


select all the bones shapes go in to mode edit-mode and go back to object-mode you will see...tell if it work


Some options. See which may apply to your situations.

I am not sure I agree with the -z setting for inflow as you currently wrote. 0 or +y seems more appropriate.  Fluid will flow with gravity.
Make your pipe thicker or surround the spout with an outflow.
If the fluid is only visible coming out of the pipe use a smaller pipe spout with more thickness.  One pipe for obstacle and no render. Another distinct pipe for render and not a fluid component.  This may preserve more resolution.
Make your pipe thicker while preserving internal wall.
See Fatten Shrink on the Blender Menus in edit mode.


You could use the Stitch tool to stitch together the vertices along each edge.

Select two edges that you want to join then open the UV menu and choose the Stich option. (shortcut key =  V  ).

At the bottom of the UV editor view you will see a list of the Stich options.  Use the Snap option:  S key.

Left mouse button the validate Stich.

Select the other two edges, then  V  followed by  S  again.

Note that if you don’t want to move the vertices of the lower UV island you may have to use the Switch Island option:  Shortcut key =  I .

Left mouse button to validate.


How to to split an element to make a rotation point to animate a follow path

Take two:

I looked into the Follow Path constraint a bit more, but could not come up with anything. I instead decided to rig the bus. Basically, I added a base bone with a Follow Path constraint and two bones on either end with Follow Path constraints and an Offset: value to make sure they stayed at the front and rear of the bus. I then added two bones for the two halves of the bus. They are following the base bone's movements (parented) and have a Track To constraint so they point towards the two end bones. I did all the weight painting myself, so it would take forever to write a lengthy tutorial. Instead, I explained what I did, and am including a second .blend file. Note that you may want to adjust the start and end values in the .blend file.


Material emitting one way for interior scene?

If I got your question right you can achieve it using a Backfacing output of a Geometry node.

Set the nodes as pictured below. Use Backfacing as a factor for mixing between Emission and Transparent nodes.

To make each side emit different light values and colors set the nodes in similar way.


How to have collection where collection origin is not world origin?

Seems like there is a way to do it.  Once you add your object to a collection, you then move the 3d cursor to the place where you would like the origin to be, go into the Properties/Object Properties/Collections panel and then select Set Offset From Cursor from the drop down menu.


You can change shortcuts in the Keymap section of the Blender Preferences. Just open up the preferences and search for either the name of the function you want to remap, which in this case is 'view selected' and all the bindings for it will appear. You then simply click on the current shortcut and Blender will ask you to press the key you want to change it to.

Note that in Blender 2.80 you can also bind keys by right-clicking on buttons or options in menus and selecting 'Assign Shortcut'. Since the frame selected function doesn't appear on any menus, it must be assigned in the preferences.


The smoke domain settings become uneditable if smoke simulation was baked.
Note that the file must be saved in order the baking to work:

  Baking can only been done once your .blend is saved. If your .blend has not been saved, the Smoke Cache panel will be disabled.

manual page

Press Free Bake button in the Cache rollout in domain settings (it's called like that only if simulation is baked). This will remove the calculated data with the next modification or frame change and it should be baked once more. However it'll be possible to continue editing any settings of smoke sim.


How can i make the railing follow the curve on these stairs?

To make a non-deformed duplications, you must not use Array and Curve but Duplication, called Instancing in 2.8. 2.8 makes it a bit more complicated than 2.7 in my opinion, but if you don't need to keep a bezier curve you can do it with Instancing > Verts:

Convert your curve to a mesh.

Give it an Instancing > Verts.

Select your pillar, delete the modifiers, parent it to the curve. It should be duplicated along the curve.

You can equalize the gap between the vertices with a W > LoopTools > Space. If you need to move a pillar, just move its corresponding vertex. Also, you can hide the original pillar if needed.


How to create a center pivot point for mutiple mesh files?

If you want all meshes to have the same, centred origin:

Select all meshes you want to average the centre from
Snap - Cursor to selected (or place your 3D cursor where you want their centre to be)
Snap - Origin to 3D cursor

I use the "3D View: Dynamic Context Menu" addon to easily find these

You could also join the meshes together with Ctrl+J, depends on the use case I suppose.

I guess in your case for export you might want to move their centre to the origin of the scene afterwards to have their centre be the same in the export


Spiral array but with fibonacci sequence

Use Dupliverts

Result using icosphere as "seed"

Organic yet accurate modeling with the golden spiral

  @Rekov Hi, Thank you for your response. While it does answer the
  question on how to create the spiral, it does not show how to create
  the spiral out of the objects which currently exist in the scene
  collection. To clarify, I have modeled a "seed" and I need the python
  script to take the data of that seed to create the spiral instead of
  simple vertices. Please let me know what you think.

Similar to the dupli part of answer here, https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/163958/15543 and using the fibonacci sphere from Closing "Fibonacci's Hole"

Since I already had it: Grabbed the code from https://gist.github.com/batFINGER/64db074e95b716f839a71882b7efcc50 appended code below to make a 2048 point Fibonacci sphere, added an ico sphere, (pick up your own seed object) make it a child and dupliverted it to the sphere.

Set the normals of the mesh to the radial direction from origin.

n = 2048

me = SFBMesh(n).mesh

for v in me.vertices:
    v.normal = v.co.normalized()

ob = bpy.data.objects.new("Fibo", me)

bpy.context.collection.objects.link(ob)

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_ico_sphere_add()
ico = bpy.context.object
ico.parent = ob
ico.scale *= 0.1
ob.instance_type = 'VERTS'
ob.use_instance_vertices_rotation = True

Here is one made of Suzannes, removed all verts with negative z coord, and scaled the sphere to one tenth in z.


How can I create multiple variables in a PropertyGroup?

Annotations

Quite possibly this is a dupe of Blender 2.8 - Field property declaration and dynamic class creation

I found that using the type method do define a class in 2.79 was very handy, but for annotations very tricky.

If an __annotations__ is defined on our propertygroup class, can add to it prior to registering.

import bpy

class Test(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    __annotations__ = {}

for n in range(1, 20):
    k = "line_%d" % n
    Test.__annotations__[k] = bpy.props.StringProperty(name=k)

bpy.utils.register_class(Test)
bpy.types.Scene.test = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=Test)

Or in the class

class Test(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    __annotations__ = {'line_%d' % i: bpy.props.StringProperty(name="line_%d" % i)
            for i in range(1, 20)}

Test in py console

>>> C.scene.test.line_1
''


Bmesh: how can I import custom vertex normals

I believe since Blender 2.74, this was made possible for the bpy Mesh type. You can use the mesh normals_split_custom_set method to do this.

In this example, I only have per-vertex normals so I create a new list with one normal corresponding to each loop.

normals2 = []
for l in mesh.loops:
    normals2.append(normals[l.vertex_index])
mesh.normals_split_custom_set(normals2)
mesh.use_auto_smooth = True

Note that auto smooth needs to be enabled for this to work.

In my case, I could have used the normals_split_custom_set_from_vertices method, and passed in normals directly.


Do you have any modifiers on your project? If so try hit the little eye icon, so you cant "see" it. It will still be rendered, but your pc wont have to work so hard while you are still working on your project.


From what you have mentioned- you can try adding a mesh as a shrink wrap modifier. Use a Png to add the logo on top of it. since there's less details on your question - cant really say what the requirement is :\


Boolean glitch on object - Creates duplicate rather than subtracts

If you switch to Union it will do the Difference and vice versa that's even though the normals look okay the object in fact is inverted on the Y axis look at the scale on the Y it reads -0.5 just change it to 0.5 and it will work as intended


How to render an object with arbitrary edges shown?

To draw clearly defined and 'arbitrarily' chosen lines on the surface of an object, one effective method would be to simply lay one or more 2D planes onto it's surface(s).

Add the first plane and -

Reduce it's thickness so it ends up as a very thin line.

Give it a material slot and colour it black, remove it's specular so it won't reflect light.

Add as many of these as you wish, (or duplicate the first) and drag them around as required

Once positioned correctly (a tad above the cube's surface), either parent or join them to the cube when animation is involved.  (so they don't get left behind)

You could as an alternative subdivide the cube's surface to form the lines but that may introduce unnecessary complication at some point down the track.  The planes on the other hand are independent and can be removed, reshaped, and changed about at will.

-=====-

The ico sphere was treated a little differently but again the 'lines' end up as a separate frame
and is simply laid against the sphere.

The procedure -

Some ico surfaces are selected in Edit Mode, then duplicated.

The copied surfaces were (P) "Parted by selection" and moved to another layer to make it easier to work with.

In Edit mode these faces are all removed so we only have a wireframe. (2nd image)

The wireframe was duplicated and "Shrunk" (scaled down) enough to give us double edging.  (this is where the lines' thickness is adjusted.  Lines can be given their own individual thickness if required)

Both edge-sets were "Joined" (CTL-J) and their vertices filled (F) at the ends so we get enclosed areas which can be filled in to form surfaces.  These are all coloured black.

Combining the two layers give us the overlay picture.  The frame is moved a tad out from the Ico's surface so we don't have surfaces conflicting and tearing each other.

Some ico panels were deliberately left open with only one or two edges included in the end frame.  This was done because of the word 'arbitrary' used in your your question.  You're not bound or limited to which edges are to be drawn, which aren't, or each line's thickness.

Parenting the frame to the ico sphere is a good idea.

EDIT:

On reading @cegaton's links in the comments above, the wireframe modifier idea could be combined with what I've posted here to give full control over the lines themselves as to which will remain, their size and thickness and even individual line colours.

Duplicate the 1st model, move that into a 2nd layer and in Edit mode subdivide as required.

Expand that so it's easily distinguishable from the original when viewed together.

Apply the wireframe modifier to the clone so we have a mesh cage.

Colour all or individual faces of the wireframe and re-combine the two models again but don't join them, just parent the wireframe to the original model.

Rescale the clone so it wraps neatly around the original.

We get this -

When the original model is to be textured there'll be no interference
from the cage lines.  These too can be modified at will and again, without affecting the original.

For a movie the lines could be made to appear and fade away using keyframed transparency, expanded or shrunk to disappear inside the model's skin.


Swirly bokeh like that of a Helios 44m 2/58?

This answer will achieve a similar effect, not quite the same or as good as what you are probably looking for. The problem is I couldn't find a way to get the bokeh dots to 'light' up or contrast against the other ones more - essentially I couldn't get them to look more like bokeh dots... maybe less motion blur? I am not sure. With that being said, this may work well enough for whatever project you are doing. Hopefully, this answer can serve as a good starting point for you to build off of or give someone else an idea to build off of as they form their answer.

Essentially I will just be using tiny refraction circles with traditional depth of field combined with motion blur to achieve the swirling effect. Here are a couple of example renders that I added the effect.

How to achieve the swirly effect

We will follow these steps in making this swirly bokeh effect:

Make the small 'Bokeh Dots'
Adding Depth of Field
Adding Motion Blur
Compositing (Optional)

Make the Small Bokeh Dots

Create a circle and fill in the face
Put the circle close to the camera in your scene as shown in the pic with two array modifiers. Look at the picture for guidance on how big the circles should be and how to set up the modifiers. I find that the circle should be just big enough to fit 70 by 40 (array modifier values) on a 16:9 ratio camera.

Add a Material to the Circle and set the surface node to a refraction node with a Roughness value of 0, IOR value of 1.2ish and set the color to as white as you can go.
Apply the Array Modifiers and then go into Edit Mode and press p and select separate by loose parts - separating them may take a while!
In Object Mode with all the circles selected, go to View->Set Origin->Origin to Geometry.
Open search by hitting F3 (or space if you go legacy hotkeys) and type Randomize and click Randomize Transform.
On the bottom left, change the randomize transform settings and click "Scale Even" and change the x scale value to a value around .5 (or whatever you like). You could also mess with the random transform values a bit, not a lot, but a bit.

And boom you have small bokeh dots! (I skipped this step in the render with the white balls and monkey heads because the white balls were the bokeh)

Adding the Depth of Field & Motion Blur

Go to your camera and enable depth of field. Adjust the values to how you like. I find that distance values around .5 with F-Stop values of around 3 work well.

For the Motion blur

Press 0 to open your camera view, stay in camera view for the rest of the steps.
Select your camera and press i and click key frame rotation.
Go back one frame from the current, press r, type in -45, press enter, press i and click rotation.
Return to the current frame by going forward one frame. Then go foward one more frame and press r, type in 45 (this time its positive), press enter, press i and click rotation.
Return to current frame by going back one frame.
Go to the render panel and turn on motion blur. Set the shutter speed to around .05ish

 Optional Compositing

I noticed that the blur seemed a little more oil painty than the results so I attempted to make the render a little more oil painty using this post-processing trick. It is easier to set up than you think. For the color ramp, just select a point and keep pressing the plus button to add more points halfway in between. Then just change it to constant and duplicate it for all the RGB channels. This is the only post-processing that I could think of, maybe someone else will think of more.


How do I implement the color I have on vertex paint onto my faces?

In 3D View, hit N to bring up the right panel, then enale Textured Solid.

Now in Object Mode and Edit Mode, you will see the vertex colors.

EDIT: This appears to only work with Blender Render.


When I try painting a texture with the fill brush i get a weird result

Umm not sure if this is a bug of blender. Because I had the same issue too,  so a workaround is using the uv image editor and painting your texture on the image editor directly, avoid painting throught the 3d viewport blender doesnt like it, dont know why. :)

To enable painting on the image editor only change the tab that says view to paint.

Goodluck


How to use mirror but affect different sides differently?

It will be difficult in this way, you may make it simple in following ways;

First work for the model in all aspect in which both sides are same - using mirror

When you satisfied with your model apply the mirror.

Secondly, Now you are able to select any side as per your need and change any side individually


Can I make character hold hands using contraints?

This is not a perfect solution, but it meets my needs for this project.

Created an Empty
Applied an Inverse Kinematics bone constraint to the hand bones of each character.
Set the empty as the target in the bone constraint and the chain length to 3.

This snaps the hands of each character to a single location. The chain length ensures that only the arms of each character move toward the empty.


The issue is not with the light itself, but with the Velvet material used for the backdrop.

If you make that material just a diffuse material you'll see that the light works perfectly...

(I switched the window emitter in the scene just to show the effect clearly)

Whatever effect you are after with the velvet you might need to achieve through different means.

Also if you are interested in a more realistic light bulb (no need for a different mesh as emitter) you can read: Glass render problem and Light-bulb Filaments: Brightness and Internal Reflections in Cycles


It has to do with specific font properties.
And also copyright rights :).

Modern computer fonts don't have fixed proportions like meshes do.
They're ever so slightly adjusted when you scale them up/down, to look optically correct.
In low resolutions, they also take advantage of hinting data, to avoid pixel distortion.
Good fonts also contain kerning data. This tells them how much space to put between different character pairs. And allows for ligatures.

When you convert text to mesh/rasterize it, it loses all of these important features.
That's why some font creators explicitly prohibit rasterizing.

Font characters slightly change when scaled, to keep their legibility

Ligature - joining two glyphs into one. Not possible to execute with rasterized text.


Camera view doesn't match what it is actually pointing at

Its hard to tell from the video, but it looks like you have two cameras in your scene. Go into the "Scene" tab and make sure you have the correct one set as the rendering camera.


Curve from selected vertices/edges using low level api

Walk the edges.
To give them some order walk the edges.  It may take more than one spline to make the curve, since we cannot branch.  For example the default cube when "de-faced" and converted to curve has 4 splines.
Here is test script to walk the selected edges. It does not make the curve, rather creates an ordered list of the edges to use in each spline.

Get all selected edges.
Pop an edge, get its two end verts. Tag the edge.
Grow spline from each end on a non tagged and selected edge, prepend at one end, append at other.
Add spline to splines.
Repeat until no more edges to process.

Script
import bpy
import bmesh
from collections import defaultdict

from bpy import context
tag = defaultdict(bool)

ob = context.edit_object
me = ob.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
edges = list(filter(lambda e: e.select, bm.edges))

splines = []
def tag_remove(edge):
    tag[edge] = True
    edges.remove(edge)

def grow(end, spline, idx):
     while True:
        nextedge = next(
            (e for e in end.link_edges if not tag[e] and  e.select),
            None
            )
        if not nextedge:
            return
        tag_remove(nextedge)
        spline.insert(idx, nextedge.index)
        end = nextedge.other_vert(end)

while edges:

    edge = edges.pop()
    spline = [edge.index]
    tag[edge] = True
    a, b = edge.verts
    grow(a, spline, 0)
    grow(b, spline, len(edges))
    splines.append(spline)

print(splines)

Result for default cube. Notice 4 splines as with convert.
[[5, 1, 0, 3, 6, 11, 7], [4, 10], [2, 9], [8]]

Result for default circle.  Since edge 30 shares a vert with edge 31 could make this cyclic.
[[30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, 31]]

To reverse order, could try swapping which end to append / prepend...


Incomplete node setup

Normal maps need a conversion  before you feed them to the shaders. The black spots you are experiencing are not shadows, but an incorrect calculation of the surfaces normals.

A Normal Map node must be added between the texture and the shader.

As said in the manual:

  The Normal Map node generates a perturbed normal from an RGB normal
  map image. This is usually chained with an Image Texture node in the
  color input, to specify the normal map image.


How can I recreate this well-lit, vibrant, hi-contrast lighting setup?

Use the concepts of three point lighting-
First is the Key light

It usually is quite bright light, facing the subject at certain angle (Basically to lit the subject from one angle)

Second is Fill light

To lite the subject from another side/Angle(To fill the Dark shadows created by the Key light).

Third Rim Light

A VERY Bright light from the back of the subject to create an outline of Brightness on the subject also it helps to highlight the shape of the Subject .

Now you have a basic 3 Point Light Setup.
Now you can use your Imagination and creativity to explore the lighting setup by changing the Intensity or Colors and the Size of the Lights also additionally, if you are trying to lit a subject/object and not a scene in particular; Then create a Backdrop or just a ground plane to have a nice bounced light on your subject. Also please consider the Size of your lights while lighting your scene as the Size of the light will affect the way the shadows are being cast and also it can change the look and mood of your subject or Scene."
Please, refer to this tutorial. This can be a good help for you for lighting in blender.


I found the answer. RMD the plane in Object Mode. Go to Physics and then to Collision, then give Stickiness a high value, like 5. Now the flow of sand slides from the plane before continue falling by the side.


In order to calculate a normal, you can decide to take three samples in texture space. Typically that's the current sample location, and two other positions in texture U and V directions. This "nabla" value defines how far away these positions are. You will see how it works best on a high frequency procedural texture.

Typically tiny nabla values give minimal normal changes. Optimal is half the texture frequency (which you have to figure out by guessing unfortunately :).


There is a lot, you can check before printing.

-triangulate faces to make them planar. Go to edit mode select all and triangulate

-check if the normals are as they should be, by turn on face orientation in viewport overlays, any red is a bad sign.

-You can turn on a 3D-print addon where is an option to make manifold, also when in edit mode under mesh>clean up there is a few tools that deal with bad geometry.

-ultimately, which iam using when working with a chaotic and more complicated models, there is an awesome voxel remesh. When you set a right voxel size (by try and error) it makes your model clean for print, but in hight mesh density, so I usually use a decimate modifier after that, to make it more "light" to work with.

In your case, it needs some repairing after the boolean. I went to edit mode selected all and triangulated faces. After that I used 3D-Print add-on and clicked make manifold. it did some cleaning. I think it should print completely fine.

Not all warnings are dangerous for print. Like overhangs, it just informs you that there is a place that needs support. Or zero faces - the size that trigger the “degenerate” test to result in that, if you would select all your mesh (in edit mode) scale it and you’ll see the toolbox will not find any “0 faces”. Problem could be intersecting faces or non-manifold.


How can I tell if Blender is using all 64 GB of RAM?

You can tell how much memory Blender is currently using by looking in the info bar:

You can use that to see if Blender's memory usage is hitting a plateau, but it seems to me your issue is your graphics card. More memory won't make your viewport faster, that's what a graphics card will do. More memory means Blender doesn't have to swap as much data onto the hard drive. That means more memory makes:

Getting cache for simulations faster (this won't necessarily make it run faster, it'll just make the data easier to grab). Apparently it also is necessary to compute high resolution fluids (thanks gandal3)
Viewing undo history faster (again, this is just accessing the data, not computing it).
Speed up loading large images (because it won't have to swap to the hard drive every time you adjust the image)
Video editor/tracker cache will also be stored on memory if it is available (which is of course faster than storing it on the hard drive) (thanks again to gandalf3).


How can I execute Blender from a script?

If you are using Blender 2.5 onwards, it doesn't have a Blender module, the script you are trying to run was written for 2.49 or lower.

The equivalent script for Blender 2.7+ would be something like:

import bpy

c = bpy.context.scene
r = c.render

r.use_file_extension = True
r.filepath = 'c:\\temp'

#Set PAL 16:9 settings manually
r.resolution_x = 720
r.resolution_y = 576
r.pixel_aspect_x = 16
r.pixel_aspect_y = 11

r.image_settings.file_format = 'TARGA'
r.fps = 25
c.frame_start = 1
c.frame_end = 100

bpy.ops.render.render(animation=True)


How come when I render my animation, the audio is clipped when I stitch together the pieces?

It is good practice to not render out movie strips to a single move file. Instead you should render images as .PNG files and add the images together in the video sequence editor. Then add the original audio clip afterwards, in the final edit. I wouldn't recommend using a script at all.

Change output to PNG:

Set range to 100 frames(to test with):

Then press the normal animation-render button:

When that's done, you go to video editing and press "Add" -> "Image" and select all 100 images.

Blender will then treat this as a movie strip.

Then you add the audio clip, and adjust so the timing matches


Why is blenders hair system making spikes?

The setting for hair particles in cycles are in Particles > Cycles Hair Rendering and Particles > Cycles Hair Settings.

To make the hairs a constant thickness, set the root and tip thickness settings to the same value and disable Close Tip:

To get a cylinder-like result, you will also have to disable Particles > Cycles Hair Rendering > Cull Back-faces so the backs of faces are not hidden:

See the manual for more information.


Script to output vertex coordinates and triangles

current_obj.data.vertices contains all the vertices of the object. You can read these before you loop over the faces. As you already got the vertex indices of the faces, all is left to do is using the desired format string for your output.

import bpy

current_obj = bpy.context.active_object
verts_local = [v.co for v in current_obj.data.vertices.values()]
verts_world = [current_obj.matrix_world * v_local for v_local in verts_local]

print("="*40) # printing marker

for i, vert in enumerate(verts_world):
    print("vertices[{i}].SetVertex ({v[0]}, {v[1]}, {v[2]});".format(i=i, v=vert))

for i, face in enumerate(current_obj.data.polygons):
    verts_indices = face.vertices[:]
    print("mesh[{i}].SetTriangle {v_i};".format(i=i, v_i=verts_indices))

This will generate output like below. But it does not check whether the faces are really triangles and will call for the creation of “triangles” with four or more vertices if your object does contain quads etc.

========================================
vertices[0].SetVertex (0.0, 1.0, -1.0);
vertices[1].SetVertex (0.8660253882408142, -0.5000000596046448, -1.0);
vertices[2].SetVertex (0.0, 0.0, 1.0);
vertices[3].SetVertex (-0.866025447845459, -0.49999991059303284, -1.0);
mesh[0].SetTriangle (0, 2, 1);
mesh[1].SetTriangle (1, 2, 3);
mesh[2].SetTriangle (3, 2, 0);
mesh[3].SetTriangle (0, 1, 3);

If you want to differentiate between triangles, quads and so on then you might want to differentiate the format string based on the length of the vertex list.

N.B.: In my version of Blender, by default the text in the systems console can't be copied. I copied the text above from a text file that was generated by writing the output to a file instead of printing it to the console. Another option could be to start blender from a terminal from which you can copy text.


Importing X, Y, Z data with a know datum

Don't know if you need this anymore, but as another archaeologist who just went through this, I'm gonna answer it.

For importing a point list into blender, you're looking for this add-on: https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?211735-A-Script-to-Import-a-CSV-File-and-Create-Meshes-(for-Blender-2-5x-or-later).  It has multiple options when importing, such as making a line from the sequence of points in the file or just importing the vertices without adding edges.

As it sounds like you're coming from geospatial data, you may need to re-project your data before bringing it into blender.  Blender (and other 3D programs like Unity3D and Meshlab) don't play well if your coordinates are over 1,000,000.  I work in a projected national grid that has eastings and northings that are all over 1 million and any time I forget to re-project into a local coordinate system before importing, things get VERY wonky.

Another concern you may need to address (that I'm still fiddling with) is the fact that geospatial data uses a right-handed z-up coordinate system while many 3D applications use a left-handed y-up coordinate system.  Depending on what you want to do with your models after blender, this may or may not be an issue.  It is for me, as I'm bringing each model individually into unity and need them to all match-up with one another.


Trying to make a menu using multiple modules

Modularise your modules
IMO rather than importing and cherry picking classes from submodules, instead can import the module and call its register method.
For testing have placed the addon in a  testing_testing folder, and given it the "Testing" category... will of-coarse need to rename to something more suitable.
Notice the submodules are imported from testing_testing rather than from current folder . which requires the addon must have the name specified by folder. This makes the imports viable when run from main thread. (eg tested in text editor).
Can alter the submodules by adding removing other classes without the need to edit init file. Only need to edit again for a new submodule.  Can use something like pkgutils.list_modules to look for modules in root folder and automate the imports of each, hence never needing to touch init to have any module placed in folder registered.
Reworked code.
testing_testing/__init__.py
bl_info = {
    "name": "Popup Macro",
    "author": "",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 83, 0),
    "location": "DC_MT_macro_menu",
    "description": "",
    "warning": "",
    "doc_url": "",
    "category": "Testing",
}

# can use importlib.reload here instead
import bpy
from testing_testing import operators, menus

modules = (operators, menus)

def register():
    for m in modules:
        m.register()

def unregister():
    for m in modules:
        m.unregister()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

testing_testing/operators.py
import bpy

class DC_OT_bevel_subdiv(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "3dview.bevel_subdiv"
    bl_label = "Subdivision Workflow"

    def execute(self, context):
        ob = context.object
        bm = ob.modifiers.get("Bevel")

        bm = ob.modifiers.new(name="Bevel", type='BEVEL')
        bm.segments = 2
        bm.profile = 1
        bm.limit_method = 'WEIGHT'
        bm.miter_outer = 'MITER_ARC'
        bm.use_clamp_overlap = False

        return {'FINISHED'}

class DC_OT_bevel_second(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "3dview.bevel_second"
    bl_label = "Second Bevel"

    def execute(self, context):
        ob = context.object
        bm = ob.modifiers.get("Bevel")

        bm = ob.modifiers.new(name="secBevel", type='BEVEL')
        bm.limit_method = 'ANGLE'
        bm.miter_outer = 'MITER_ARC'
        bm.use_clamp_overlap = False

        return {'FINISHED'}

classes = (DC_OT_bevel_second, DC_OT_bevel_subdiv,)

register, unregister = bpy.utils.register_classes_factory(classes)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

testing_testing/menus.py
import bpy

class DC_MT_macro_menu(bpy.types.Menu):
    bl_idname = "DC_MT_macro_menu"
    bl_label = "Macro"

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

        layout.operator("3dview.bevel_subdiv")
        layout.operator("3dview.bevel_second")

classes = (DC_MT_macro_menu,)

register, unregister = bpy.utils.register_classes_factory(classes)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()
    # test call
    bpy.ops.wm.call_menu(name=DC_MT_macro_menu.bl_idname)

Note can test if a module has a register method using
if hasattr(m, "register"):
    m.register()

On linux can select the folder and compress

A zip file that follows convention recommended here Addons: Only some .zips will install
Note: look for the error if it is saying the folder already exists then choose overwrite option, remove previous installation (delete folder, or hit remove button on addon)
The enabled addon,

after which the menu can be called from  for instance the python console

Running menus.py in text editor will also make the menu popup via a test call.
To hang your menu onto another during register, recommend writing your own register and unregister methods instead of using the factory generated methods.
Finally to make a shortcut to popup your menu, as displayed above the operator is "wm.call_menu" and set its name property to the bl_idname of your menu.


How to install Filmic Blender under Ubuntu?

SOLVED!

Under Linux Ubuntu, the colormanagement folder is located here:

/usr/share/blender/2.78/datafiles.

To rename it, since it's a system folder, you must be logged in as administrator. It's easy. I opened Thunar file manager and navigated to the folder location. Once there, I right-clicked and chose "open terminal here". In the terminal, the command is:

sudo mv colormanagement colormanagement_oldbackup

Insert your root password and it's done.
To place the new folder in here, first place the "filmic-blender" folder on your home folder (in my case it's /home/gigabyte). Rename it as colormanagement. Then, open the terminal and type:

sudo cp -R /home/yourusername/colormanagement /usr/share/blender/2.78/datafiles

Insert again your password and it's done.
Remember that you doesn't need really type the whole lines. Use "Ctrl C" to copy from the file manager (right click on the folder/file and, and you'll see the label "location"). In the terminal use "Ctrl Shift V".

The Reluctant Computer

On the computer with Ubuntu 14, I had to allow Blender to access the new colormanagement folder. To do this, you must open the terminal on the folder "datafiles". Then, type:

sudo chown -R yourusername colormanagement

The system will ask for your password and it's done.

Ok, it's a little less easy than Windows, but what can I do? I love Ubuntu...


how can i make a model from several smaller objects

You can join meshes by selecting two meshes and hit CTRL-J. After that go edit mode and tidy up the resulting mesh by removing overlaps and by adding connections.


Black areas after rendering in Cycles - Material Issue

It's your "Normal Map" "Tangent Space". Try a different value and the blackness will in- or decrease. Or, maybe, if you like this: put the alpha-plaster17 as strength (Normal Map) and color to color.


Here is what I came up with:

A bone, parented to the character's head bone, that points at the camera using the "Track to" bone constraint
A value input in the material node setup with a driver applied, driven by the rotation of the camera tracking bone
If the rotation of the camera tracking bone is negative, flip the UVs.

I use a "less than" node to threshold the value to 0 or 1 depending on if the rotation of the camera tracking bone is positive or negative (i.e. if the camera is viewing the left or right side of the face). Then the other math nodes change those thresholded values to either -1 or 1, which when multiplied with the x value of the UV input will either flip the UVs or do nothing.

I hope this crazy thing proves helpful to someone else!


This tool doesn't work if you have Emulate 3 button mouse enabled in preferences. The alt-click is used in this function, and so select edge loop using alt-click is disabled.


Inside of mesh is see through when trying to make a hole?

After finishing your model do the following:

press A to select the entire mesh
press W, select remove doubles
press CTRL + N to correctly orient the normal ones
press A to deselect everything
exit to object mode and export following the instructions

NOTE:

your blender is probably damaged, or some addon is causing you conflicts

I made the following example I exported it to unity, roblox and U4, and it worked well, it is possible to say that the risk of having a bad problem or having problems is greater because I use my own compilation and fork of blender to work, which I have modified in many parts, if you use a release version of blender.org you shouldn't have any major problems than the ones I could have


Scaling the maximum range parameter of BVHTree.ray_cast

I now found a solution to this problem myself, so I post it here in case someone comes across this question. Instead of building the BVHTree directly from the object and transforming all returned values into the global coordinate system, it is way more handy to transform the object's coordinates once into the global space as it is shown here:

def bvhtree_from_object(ob):
    import bmesh
    bm = bmesh.new()

    mesh = ob.to_mesh(bpy.context.depsgraph, True)
    bm.from_mesh(mesh)
    bm.transform(ob.matrix_world)

    bvhtree = BVHTree.FromBMesh(bm)
    bpy.data.meshes.remove(mesh)
    return bvhtree

The ray_cast function then returns all values in global space so that no more transformation is needed.


How to constrain an object's motion with the Simple Motion Actuator

Constraints in game engine are defined using logic bricks or Python.

See the example file using the Constraint actuator: http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=48429

BGE Manual: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/game_engine/logic/actuators/types/constraint.html#location-constraint


How can I make an object invisible when I render in Cycles?

These are some of the options to make an object not render in Cycles.

To make the object invisible/unrenderable

Disable the object for rendering (turn off the camera icon)

Move the object you don't want to a layer that is not renderable

Give it a transparent shader:

To make the object invisible to camera but keep the shadows and interaction with other objects (reflections, etc)

Restrict the visibility for camera:

Using Nodes: use a light path so the object is invisible to the camera only:

To make the object transparent as alpha channel:

use a holdout shader so it renders as transparent

Place the object on a different layer and use that layer as mask:

Use a Pass index for the object and use that on the compositor to subtract the object from the final render:

(click on the image to enlarge)
Similarly, you can assign a pass index to the material and use that as alpha on the compositor:

(click on the image to enlarge)

For the last three options the Transparent Background option has to be enabled:


You could try parenting the character rig to something else, maybe an empty or a non-printing object, that is centered right at the base of the rig. Then rotate that parent object, and everything should be good.

Actually, rigs often have a base object included. Check to see if your character's rig already has a base or handle that everything else is parented to. Then instead or rotating the whole character, just rotate the base. You should get better result.


Crazy Distortion when Subdividing with Multires

Edit Mode > Mesh > Normals > Recalculate Outside/Inside.

And check for overlapping vertex


So i figured out what my issue was. First problem was that, (some how) my compositor nodes came undone. After i fixed that i was my image but it was in black in white, so i had to adjust from RGBA to RGB in the output section of the render tab. Now everything is back to normal.


How to create texture for sculpting from mesh

You may render the AO of your sculpt and use it as an alpha texture for sculpting. Though I don't think it's a perfect method it gives a decent result.

I've quickly sculped some rocks to show you an example.

First remove all the lamps from your scene. Then add a material to your sculpt and set its specularity to 0.000

Select your camera and set its type to Ortographic. Set the Ortographic Scale to fit the sculpt borders as you want.

Go to World header, set the Horizon Color to black. Check the Ambient Occlusion checkbox (Add, Factor 1.000). In Gather panel choose the Raytrace and set the Samples to desired amount (the more samples, the more detailed alpha texture for sculpting'll be). Render, then save rendered image.

Now load your rendered image as an alpha texture in the Texture panel of the Sculpt Mode.

I used the Stencil mapping type with a harsh curve type to sculpt, but you may experiment with it.

NOTE: You may try to bake the AO (from the sculpt to a flat plane [selected to active]), save the result and then use it as the alpha mask for sculpting. I haven't tried this method though.


When extruding, why can't I extrude any faces or edges because I am stuck on extruding vertices?

Select the object you want to edit by right-clicking it.

Tab into Edit mode.

Select the vertices, edges, or faces you want to extrude.
Use any of the selection methods listed in the previous section.

Extrude your selection in one of several ways:

Use the E hotkey.

Left-click Add→Extrude Region in the Tools tab of the Tool Shelf.

Choose Mesh→Extrude→Extrude Region from the menu in the 3D View’s
header.

After you extrude your selection, Blender automatically puts you into grab mode on the newly extruded parts.


Why my highlights getting lost when re-importing a rendering into the compositor?

Never use png, it is not a good format to store images that are meant for compositing or further manipulation, plus is a format that does not deal with alpha channels correctly.
Use EXR. Think of EXR as a way to save your render layers intact, as blender generated them.
The compositor does works using scene referred, unlimited linear data (there is no such thing as "linar space"). If you want to save images to be composited later or do any kind of post processing you need to keep the rendered images as scene referred, comopositing operations work better if the data is in a linear scale.
PNG is a display referred format, not only has a limit in the sense that it cannot store values larger than 1, but most likely the image information has gone through a display transform, set in the color management section of blender, which applies a transfer function (also known as a "gamma curve"), so the data is no longer linear.
If you "must" use png, or any other display referred format, that has an image that is meant to be viewed as sRGB, then you need to set the color management view to sRGB when you import it back to blender, so that it is interpreted correctly using "view as rendered. Otherwise the information will be processed using "filmic", which is the default color transform.
Images displayed in a different color space will always look wrong
Another way to understand the issue:
When you import an image into the compositor, you have to let blender know what kind of color space the image is using, so that blender applies an inverse view transform to "linarize" the data, then that it can be composited correctly. If the data comes from images in display referred formats, and the color space in blender is set to filmic, then the values are too low, and what used to be white in the picture(1) will only be gray, as filmic expects much larger values for white (aproximately 16.19). If you set the view transform to sRGB, then white will be set to 1 again...
read:
Render with a wider dynamic range in cycles to produce photorealistic looking images
and
Why We Bother With Linear and Nonlinear Encodings At All?


Is there a way to create a model and export it into a spriteset of that model 360 view?g

You can't export a model as a picture, you have to render it. To make this easy you can animate the camera. For this method of course you have to compose your image so you have to adjust the lights and the materials (or the freestyle lines if you want) of your model. I made a test file what renders the sprite what you ask. Below on the picture you can see what has been adjusted. Here you can download it: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cycLaGQa0nDICk0urIDQMv2DqP8xw_aO

Just swap the monkey to your own model and click on Animation.


No, apart from setting theme color and default line widths there is no way to color lines.

If this was necessary, it's possible to write a python script that draws an overlay on the mesh using custom-data to store colors on edges, but this is quite an involved solution and not really ideal, because higher detail meshes will draw more slowly(since Python is not very fast for these kinds of tasks).


Can't edit driven number value, see graph editor for the driver setup

So. I finally solved the problem by following this video  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3JWNIkwBZ8). To fix it, in the Driver window add  Modifier Generator and change Y in it from -1 to 1.


Yes the video will be smooth with the added benefit that you can process each image before creating the video from them.

First you need to create an animation sequence using key frames
By default Blender will save the animation as images, frame by frame after clicking the 'Animation' button as the image bellow. When you give the animation a name, before the clicking the 'Animation' button Blender will number the images in each image name for easy identification.
You can do composition in Blender or you can individually or batch process the images created for the animation, if you desire.
Switching Blender into Video Editing mode you import the images and create the video as in this YouTube tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SNoV-EmDYw&t=2s. The actual video creation starts 1:15 in the tutorial


Blender 2.76 does appear to have support for opengl 1, but i thibk that is the CPU doing most of the rendering, and alot of the lighting is miscalculated when loading projects from newer versions of blender(not sure about older ones)


Blender loop cut e boolean doesn't work together. How to fix this ? How to create an arc on plane of loop cut?

Not sure that responds to your question for some other reason.

But to keep things simple, you can make a hole in the wall, and place the windows in it as a separated object (you can join them later if needed):


Snap to Face will allow you to project the elements onto other faces, similar to what a shrinkwrap modifier would do when set to axis projection mode. However, if you want to snap every vertex onto the target, there is two buttons to enable. Face Snapping (marked on the left), and project individual, marked on the right:

Then, a source geometry which looks like this...

...would snap like this:


How to use template_any_ID() into Ui Layout?

Look at the code
With any blender layout, try grepping the bl_ui code to see if it has been used
and will see this has been used in the scene properties panel.
 bl_ui/properties_scene.py
class SCENE_PT_keying_set_paths(SceneButtonsPanel, SceneKeyingSetsPanel, Panel):
    bl_label = "Active Keying Set"
    bl_parent_id = "SCENE_PT_keying_sets"
    ...

    scene = context.scene
    ks = scene.keying_sets.active

    ...

    ksp = ks.paths.active
    if ksp:
        col = flow.column(align=True)
        col.alignment = 'RIGHT'

        col.template_any_ID(ksp, "id", "id_type", text="Target ID-Block")

Target ID Block: where I've selected camera
and will see that this is not unlike a driver variable target, in that it lets us set the ID type of object, before selecting an object of that id_type
>>> ks = C.scene.keying_sets.active
>>> ksp = ks.paths.active
>>> ksp.id
bpy.data.objects['Camera']

>>> ksp.id_type
'OBJECT'

or alternatively to the camera data part
>>> ksp.id
bpy.data.cameras['Camera']

>>> ksp.id_type
'CAMERA'

ie we are setting a pointer to object  ksp.id to "any type" based on the id_type.


Is it possible to make a non-animated rope for game engine?

Separation

split the rope into hanging part (maybe two or more)
winch part
hook part (if even needed)

Now you can care each part individually. As you already wrote: it just needs to look like.

Hanging Rope

Assuming the rope is always straight:

small cylinder with origin at one of the caps
scale along it's length axis to change length
trackTo actuator to let it connect to a target object

Assuming the rope bends

Assumption: binding with less detail (no loops and high detailed waves etc.).

armature with a certain number of bones (e.g. 10)
skin mesh as cylinder (with enough vertices to deform with the bones)

Now you can use fixed actions or you manipulate the armature (e.g. via IK) get the animation you want. Be aware this does not consider any physics. Your animation technique should make it look like physics is involved.

You can use some wort of ragdoll methods. (You have an invisible physics model and copy the result over to the visible rope). As you said this is not the best option due to stretching.


How to export Blender 2.8 for Elements 3D/After Effects (+ Node material)?

I don't now about Elements 3D / After Effects material system, but I'm sure there is no direct solution for node setup export.

Nonetheless typical workflow is to bake material textures in Blender and apply them in other editor.
I prefer Principled-Baker addon.


How to switch from ctrl-b render selection to default selection


Holdout Layer not using AlphaMaps in Blender 2.8

Create two View Layers.
In the first one, check only Indirect Only for your Small_Bushes collection. Nothing else.

In the second view layer, disable your others collections with the checkbox to the left of the collection.

Add an alpha over node to mix the 2 layer.


The mask modifier can hide unuseful vertices, but it's an internal Blender modifier that will not work in Unity or others softwares. I think it's better to select the unuseful vertices, press P to separate them into another object and include or exclude this new object during FBX export, as needed.


Your Subsurf modifier is set to the "Simple" algorithm, which in this case adds a lot of extra geometry without giving you any actual geometric smoothing (The normals are sampled more densely though which makes some difference in appearance). In any case you still have those strong edges in your geometry, that, combined with problably some form of floating point precision irregularities during raytracing give you these 'artifacts'. If you switch the SubSurf algorithm to "Catmull-Clark", remodel your tire pattern to make use of close proximity edge loops and the likes to retain the original shapes while gaining actual geometric smoothing via the SubSurf modifier, and then reattempt baking the normals, I would very much believe that your artifacts will be gone.

If anything (or all) of this sounds like gibberish, please let me know and i'll try to clarify further. :)


The main reason is usually because Material is not selected under Viewport Shading.

But there may be other causes such as lighting, CPU/GPU usage, and other things.

*edit: This qualifies for blender 2.8 and 2.79


VSE: Can I move an audio track in smaller increments than one frame?

Blenders VSE aligns clips to the frame, I don't know of any plans to change this.

I would suggest adjusting the audio clip in Audacity or other audio editing program where you can move the audio the desired amount from the start of the audio file.


Why does rendering nothing take 45 seconds?

It is not a big surprise.

This is the time it takes to render nothing on an old i7 2600K processor:

And this is the time it takes to render the same nothing on the same old i7 2600K processor 2048 times(2048 samples):

Cycles is not very adaptive. It does not care much that it is the same plain color you ask to be sampled 128 times. It will do precisely that. This is pretty normal. The GPU you are using might not be a very powerfull solution for rendering. You could try CPU rendering as well see if that is any better with the CPU you have.

If you need simple results, you could also look into OpenGL rendering. That will render whatever you see in the viewport. It has a few settings so you could use better antialiasing as well.


.STL Files in Blender to be used for an animation. Should I recreate them in blender?

I do not think there is easy way, start by removing doubles link,then check all other technics in the link, start cleaning it manually, then it is more time management. If you think that  cleaning it manual is more time consuming tha building it, build it.


There was a project called BlenderPlayer for Android, which let you run .blend files and even develop games on an Android device:

https://www.blendernation.com/2012/06/26/blenderplayer-for-android/

But this has been discontinued. I'm not aware of any other way to export Blender games as mobile apps.

You might also want to research this, but I'm sorry I don't know more detail about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8RzsJfh3Gc


One way to do that is by manipulating with startup.blend's.

(I feel Python solution probably should be somewhere here... Also this way is a little bit strange because of dealing with multiple config files)

I save user settings so the main startup.blend (default one) looks
like this:

In this .blend which will be the startup for the main
project, continue setting up new preferences. Change Grid color in 3D View so it differs from default settings, activate some addons etc. I also dropped default lamp and made deselecting everything to happen on Ctrl + Shift + Alt + A, so the startup-for-CurrentProject.blend looks like this:

Create backup of the main startup.blend (renaming it to
startup_Main.blend), save User Preferences in the opened .blend.
Open file browser, find there new generated startup.blend (how to find Blender's config file), cut it
from there and paste in work folder. Also rename this one in
something user-friendly, like startup-for-CurrentProject.blend
(for ease). Now, you'll be opening CurrentProject.blend using this
file. Also, make sure to rename the main startup_Main.blend back
to startup.blend so Blender to find exactly this one, not
something else.
Without closing Blender continue creating something or open .blend which will be the main project, I call it CurrentProject.blend. I added something so
it to differ from that bunch of startups. Saved it.

Now if creating / opening blend (or reloading default one by Ctrl + N), you'l see that default user preferences remained unchanged.
To work on your project now you should open work folder and that
    startup-for-CurrentProject.blend you've saved earlier. Press
    Ctrl + O to open saved project using these
    settings. Find CurrentProject.blend and load it.

New settings were saved including enabled addons and keyboard
shorcuts.

Now, you have two .blends in work folder -
startup-for-CurrentProject.blend and CurrentProject.blend.