Apply scale to armature works on rest position but breaks poses

A script to do this.

Result of running script, idle action, note unit scale

Method

For each action select and remove the location fcurves,

via UI select all pose bones, search for "location" select and delete

Alternatively scale the location keyframes. In this case after applying scale to rig any translation fcurve would be 100x more than need be, this was the visible problem moving hips and spine apart a hundredfold  As mentioned only rotation keyframes are needed for any bone with a parent.

for all pose bones set location to 0, 0, 0 if not already  Select all pose bones, Set active pose bone location to all zero, right click copy all to selected will set all pose bones back to zero.

Then apply the scale.  CtrlA scale.

Here is a script to do this.  As with all scripts, backup first. Script rundown.

For a parent hierarchy of bones and in place animation will find location
keyframes are not required.  First part of script removes all
location keyframes.
Any residual pose bone locations are reset to zero.  All zero
location and rotation is the rest pose.
Finally the scale is applied to your rig.

Select the rig object in object mode, and run script.

import bpy
for a in bpy.data.actions:
    for fc in a.fcurves:
        if "location" in fc.data_path:
            a.fcurves.remove(fc)

ob = bpy.context.object
for pb in ob.pose.bones:
    pb.location = (0, 0, 0)

bpy.ops.object.transform_apply(scale=True)

Finally you have rotation keyframes on the rig object, which also appear unnecessary.


Why is my render is a completely different perspective than what I am seeing through the camera view?

A number of things happend when you hit 'Render', prior to actually rendering the frame. One of these actions is to re-evaluate any keyframes. If you have keyframes set on your camera or mesh, these will be re-positioned based on the keyframes - effectively undoing your manual positioning prior to hitting 'Render'. This is a common problem when objects unexpectedly jump back to their positions when rendering or changing frames.


It looks like the "this layer only" setting on the Lamp includes "this layer only" at the shadow too (without explicitly setting this checkbox).

You might workaround that by using a second set of lamps that creates the shadows only.


I can only find two formats in import/export

I just had this issue, to fix it I had to uncheck "Filter Add-ons" under the first tab in the outliner.

Maybe its the answer but could be something else, hope this helps.


Pressing E performs "Extrude and Move on Normals", for a basic cube extruding the top face will appear to be extruding on the global z-axis while extruding a side face will match the x or y axis.

I don't know which version you think this performed different, not certain with 2.5x but I have 2.62 through to 2.72 available here and they all work that way.

There is a chance that you had a bad habit before. Pressing E will extrude and start moving the new geometry, right-clicking will cancel the move, but you can right-click again on the selected face/s and start moving the new extrusion. Maybe you had been cancelling and picking up the geometry without realizing it.

You can change this behaviour if you wish by opening the preferences and adjusting the method used. While in the Input settings search for extrude and adjust the one saying "Extrude and Move on Normals" under Mesh. When you expand it you will see a text field with view3d.edit_mesh_extrude_move_normal - change that to mesh.extrude_region_move. This should give the behaviour you are looking for.

You can then Save User Settings so that it is set that way each time you use blender.


Problems with viewport orientation and reverse camera view

Somehow, your camera is showing a negative scale transform.
I would:

Swipe the camera's 'Scale' fields in the Item tab and set to 1.
Readjust the camera using its internal settings (Focal length, or Lock Camera to View,  etc)..

Maybe even swipe the padlocks next to the camera's scale to lock it off. You need special reasons to alter it.


Extruded sphere has loop with no normals - how to fix?

I just created a similar object by extruding from a circle,dragging upwards then extruding and not dragging, then extruding a third time and dragging up.

The resulting ring of faces with no surface area I removed by selecting All then going to the Tools panel > Remove > Remove Doubles.


Cannot mirror bones, weight mapping impossible

You can absolutely have weight mapping in asymmetrical meshes. If the automatic weight assignement fails, probably is because the mesh is not manifold: maden of spare parts, or it has holes or bad junctions, or doubles, or something like that.

In those cases you can either improve the topology of your mesh or go with manual weighting (weight paint or weight assign in the properties panel, vertex groups section): or - even better - both.

What do you mean for "mirror tool": the mirror modifier or the mirror option checked in edit mode? Anyway they both need the origin of the object set in the proper position to act as pivot point of the mirroring.
In the mirror modifier check the clipping option for proper behaviour.


Here is a quick attempt to a wax shader... not as nice as the example but there's room for improvemment. Let me know what you come up with.

start with Principled BSDF
play around SSS values
add dust in crevasse and other areas using AO, pointiness and normal Z value and noise
add some translucency


For creating a real mesh you can use the array and boolean modifiers as follows :

create a cylinder 'C1' and put in the right position
add an empty 'E1' rotate it 36°
add an array modifier to C1 and use E1 as offset object, with a count of 5
add a second empty 'E2' and rotate it 18°
add array modifier to 'C1' and use 'E2' as offset object,with a count of 10 or more
create a cylinder 'C2' and put in the right size and pose
remove the top and bottom faces of 'C2'
add a boolean modifier with target set to 'C1' and type to 'Difference'
parent 'C2','E1' and 'E2' to 'C1' and hide them (so you don't need to apply the modifier until you are satisfied with the results)

Note : i have add Bevel modifier to 'C1' and subsurf and solidify to
'C2'  to get the previous result

To avoid having a dense mesh and dealing with the boolean modifier you can use a texture and transparent material to achieve the same results :

use the following node setup for the material (you can replace the defuse with more complex shaders )
use Follow active quad to unwrap the cylinder and map it correctly on the texture
if the texture has an alpha channel use it instead of the RGB_BW converter in the material nodes

The result render :


Found the problem... I had increased the size of the mesh and skeleton. Therefore, I did not see the generated rig as it was hidden in the butt of the mesh. Stupid or me, to not notice this earlier...

Thx for answering me batFINGER. Appreciate it :)


Cycles render, noisy even when using a high number of samples

The issue here is that even though you set your scene to render at 500 samples, that number is being overridden and is controlled by the number of samples on the render layer.

And there you have set the number of samples to 6...

Any number other than zero here will become the total number of samples used for this particular render layer.

On the on the scene sampling section you will see a new control for "Layer Samples" the default is set to Use (meaning that it will use the number of samples set in the render layer section).

So instead of 500 you are just using 6 samples...

To fix this issue you have a two choices:

Set that Samples number to 0 in the Render layers, so that the control reverts to the scene settings.

OR

Set the layer samples to Ignore.

Then you'll get a nice clean render using all 500 samples.

Other tips:

To bring the noise down without a high number of samples you can also use branched path tracing

For cleaner images enable the Multiple Importance sampling for your lights, Emitter planes and environment.

For More info read this posts:

What is multiple importance sample option

When should MIS be used and when should it be disabled?

Now as a final note, not necessarily related to the noise: it seems to me that polygon density for your objects is too much: The total number of vertices for such a simple scene the is over one million vertices and faces... just the emitter object on top of the table has 4225 vertices, when it could easily have just 8 or even 4... In your subsurf modifiers you are using way too many unnecessary subdivision levels, bringing the polygon count way up for such simple objects. Most of the subsurf modifiers you have set at 6 for rendering...Do you really need that many? You certainly don't need subsurf on the flat floor or walls or for most of the flat table... Having that much unnecessary geometry will have a negative impact on the performance of your computer. To get an idea of how many more polygons you generate when you subsurf please read: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/15667/1853


Gun Turret -

Blend file - Gunturret.blend

Not to take from Batfinger's comment above, this has been a common albeit minor problem for myself when emitting lines as particles.  Thanks to your
question I sat down and think I've cracked it at least for the gun projectile situation.

When using the generic "Line" particle for gun projectiles, reducing the emitter's vertices to just 1,  forces the launched lines along the correct trajectory.    There are no strays.  (Blender Vers 2.77a)

The emitter must be parented to the gun barrel if it's to be aimed or moved about.

Halo effect -  Rendered with Blender Internal

If using "Halo" in the Material slot, (e,g, for a space cannon) the emitter should be moved at least one line length from the end of the barrel.  When it's too close, the halo effect looks as though the plasma bolt (?) is being emitted from the turret and not launched from inside the barrel.

Emitter Object -

Using an Emitter Object for projectiles, comes up against the problem of rotating those previously launched when the barrel is aimed elsewhere.  They continue on their own trajectory but are pointing the wrong way!  Great for comedy!

Details -

The Particle plus Material settings are too numerous to list here but if you use the same as in the attached Blend file, none should stray from their intended trajectory.

Be mindful of BatFinger's mention about vertice normals.  Your single vertice may well be pointing elsewhere, not in line with the cannon.


There are several tools you can use to smooth out edge loops.

Use the Smooth Vertex tool (Ctrl + V, Smooth Vertex).
Use the Relax tool (W, Relax).
Use the Curve and/or Relax tools from the LoopTools addon that comes
with Blender.
Use proportional editing (O).
Use a Smooth or Laplacian Smooth modifier.
Use a Subdivision Surface modifier (this will add new geometry to the mesh).


How to make particles on specific vertices of a model

You can use vertex groups for that.
Setting up the vertex group
Select your mesh and go to the mesh tab. Under Vertex Groups, click the + button to create a vertex group:

In edit mode, select the vertices you want to emit the particles from:

To edit the vertex group, switch to weight paint with the object selected:

Then limit the editing to the previously selected vertices by clicking on the Vertex Selection button:

Select Weights>Set Weight to set the weight of the selected vertices to one.
Using It In The Particle System
In your particle system, under Source, select Vertices:

To make it use the vertex group, go to Vertex Groups and change the Density group:


You can trying to make a new Workspace

I had that problem with the OLD (2.79) files


Ok... As I am a new user, and have insufficient reputation points to post this as a comment (which I think is what it should be) I am reframing it as a PARTIAL answer, as the meta.stackexchange.com post suggests I should: (see Why do I need 50 reputation to comment? What can I do instead? )

I wanted to add to what Duarte Farrajota Ramos said about surface tension. Remember the surface tension and the bubbles make the liquid surface non-flat, so you need the surface normals to form a dome over bubbles and to creep up around the edge of the marshmallows and cup to look real... Also good to think how the bubbles interact with each other, and with the marshmallows: The bubbles should clump togeather and eventually merge or pop, they also stick to the sides of the marshmallows and cup, but they can't occupy the same space as each other nor intersect the edges of the cup or marshmallows. You may want to look at Jean-Francois Gallant (pyroevil)'s "Molecular Script" blender addon to allow particles, that you may use for bubbles, liquid, and marshmallows, to interact with each other. (Standard Blender particles can interact with their environment, but not each other.)


After a little more work I found it.

fonts = bpy.context.blend_data
scene = bpy.data.scenes['Scene']
col.prop_search(scene, "Font", fonts, "fonts")

For anyone else trying to use this, here's a quick breakdown.
The second argument is a variable to store the selected font in (see the link in the question for an example).  The first argument is where blender looks for that variable (in this case, the variable was created with bpy.types.Scene.Font = bpy.props.StringProperty(), so it needed to be passed bpy.data.scenes['Scene']) .  The last argument is what it populates the drop down list with, and the argument before that is where it looks for that property.
my problem was I was searching for the variable in the fonts instead of the scene where I created it, where of course it didn't exist.


How can I setting OperatorStrokeElement?

Try to use
def context_override():
    for window in bpy.context.window_manager.windows:
        screen = window.screen
        for area in screen.areas:
            if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
                for region in area.regions:
                    if region.type == 'WINDOW':
                        return {'window': window, 'screen': screen, 'area': area,
'region': region, 'scene': bpy.context.scene}

bpy.ops.sculpt.brush_stroke(context_override(), stroke=strokes)

where "strokes" is a list of viewport coordinate-tuples, like [(0,0,1),(0,0,-0.5),...]
Source is here.


if you'll be using cloth physics than yes, the clothes will collapse if you delete vertecies uder clothes, you could delete them if you would rig the clothes as well as part of the character. But I don't think you should worry that much about render times, due to body under clothes. I don't think you would gain much speed by deleting those parts.


Extruding from the base of a bone doesn't automatically create a parent relationship.

Select your extruded leg bone
Select your back bone (keeping both selected)
Press CTRL + P
Select keep offset

The bones won't move each other in edit mode because edit mode is for positioning/creating bones. However, the leg bone will now be parented in pose mode.


I found I could work around my issue by optimizing a few things. I want to stress that these are all to lighten the load of the CPU during playback and I have not found any way to make Blender's playback as reliably smooth as Mixamo's web player or Maya. I suspect this issue stems from how Blender's code handles hardware acceleration during playback. Something that would be far outside of my realm of expertise.

OPTIMIZING:

Models --

Merged Unconnected overlapping Faces(Merge by distance)
Remove Doubles
Tris to Quads
Apply Decimate modifier for a low res proxy model.
Erase nonessential faces from low poly proxy model

Viewport:

Use WorkBench
Shade Single if possible

Ui:

Remove as many panels as possible, this includes N and T menus.
Ctrl+alt+space to fullscreen for smoothest playback

Misc:

remove any VSE Preview panels

1a. If you need a vse preview panel, set it to the lowest resolution proxy settings

In Solid mode, with these changes I was able to go from 7 fps to 45 fps with my single character
In Eevee the difference was from 2fps to 14fps for the same scene.

Not a perfect solution but certainly a significant performance improvement, especially in solid mode.


You have to hit Enter right after you hit Duplicate with Shift+D. This locks in the duplication. If you don't do that, Blender deletes the underlying verts once you do the separation step.


How to rotate an object from a reference plane

import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix, Vector

def scale_from_vector(v):
    mat = Matrix.Identity(4)
    for i in range(3):
        mat[i][i] = v[i]
    return mat

o1 = bpy.data.objects['Object.001']
o2 = bpy.data.objects['Object.002']

loc_src, rot_src, scale_src = o1.matrix_world.decompose()
loc_dst, rot_dst, scale_dst = o2.matrix_world.decompose()

Apply the rotation of object o1 to object o2

o2.matrix_world = (
    Matrix.Translation(loc_dst) *
    rot_src.to_matrix().to_4x4() *
    scale_from_vector(scale_dst)
)

If you only want to align an axis use the following code instead:

#only align z-axis
axis = Vector((0.0, 0.0, 1.0))
z1 = rot_src * axis
z2 = rot_dst * axis
q = z2.rotation_difference(z1)

o2.matrix_world = (
    Matrix.Translation(loc_dst) *
    (q*rot_dst).to_matrix().to_4x4() *
    scale_from_vector(scale_dst)
)


Randomizing Texture Locations

Here are 3 node tree setups that allow one texture to be randomly placed on multiple objects:

(NOTE: If you can't see the node tree graphics easily here, you can download them to see them in much higher resolution)

Node Tree #1:

NOTE: In the Vector Curves node here, see how the curve has been changed from it's default straight line to a curve and how the X button is selected above that on the left? Well, in order for the randomization to be most comprehensive, you need to similarly change the curve for Y and Z -- just click on each and adjust it's curve.

Node Tree #2:

Node Tree #3:

NOTE: The node called "Object Variation" is a node group. To expand the group so you can see and/or edit all the nodes in it, select it and press TAB (and TAB again to collapse the group). Here are the nodes in the group:

Points to Note

You probably will want to use a seamless tileable wood texture so you don't have seams showing on occasion.
You can use either Photoshop or GIMP to create your own seamless texture:

In GIMP:  Filters -> Map -> Make Seamless
NOTE: GIMP's "Make Seamless" works very well if the texture is very vague, like sand on the beach, but it doesn't work well at all if the texture is very well defined, like zebra stripes.
In Photoshop

And to give credit where due:

The 1st node tree came from Benjamin Dod on BlenderArtists.org  and here is his blend file
The 2nd node tree came from User2554615 here on StackExchange and here is the blend file
The 3rd node tree came from Rich33584 also on BlenderArtists.org  and here is his blend file


Yes, press T in the image viewer to reveal it, among other things.
In addition, clicking on the image shows some useful information about the pixel under the cursor (in particular, the scene referred and display referred RGB values. Plus some fun things such as screen-space XYZ coordinates, where Z is depth).
You will have to render first to use these features, but you can use low-resolution, low sample test renders for fine-tuning.

That said, you might also be interested in utilizing the wide dynamic range of the images cycles spits out to avoid so many small lighting changes.

See
How to put a Linear Workflow in practice with Cycles and
Render with a wider dynamic range in cycles to produce photorealistic looking images


Materials show up in solid view, but just appear black in material view

Make sure your light source diffuse and specular check box options are checked.  Later you can adjust more artistically.

If needed.  Delete all lights and materials and add new ones with no modifications except color.  Sometimes through experimenting we click many settings and do not know the click history.  Deleting and adding again may restore defaults.


Problem with fireflies and denoise on surfaces

These "splotches" are because of Blender's default denoiser. They can be removed by increasing the denoising radius (something like 14 px or so). However, it has other serious side effects (eg, incorrectly blurring the sharp shadows of things like individual leaves of a plant). Try using Intel's Open Image Denoiser in compositor, or Nvidia Optix denoiser (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGAjsSNtX6E) instead. They're relatively better denoisers.


Where do I configure the pressure sensitivity settings for Sculpt Mode?

The small buttons next to radius, strength and autosmooth that look like fingers pushing in something will turn that on for you.


You probably weren't in a front view when you imported your image, so select it and press AltR to reset its rotation. S to scale it, G to move it.


Camera acts like it has a child of constraint, when there is none

Its position in the outliner indicates that it is a child of the armature (possibly, of some bone in the armature.)  Not a child-of-- literally a child.  Select the camera and use a clear parent operation (alt p for me) with keep transformation.


I guess the method depends on the level of realism you want, for realism you should probably try smoke (tutorials here by Iago Mota and here by Polyfjord).

I've tried to fake it with the Principled Volume node in 2.8:

You need to create a cube that you subdivide smooth. Give it a Subdivision Surface modifier. It's your first cloud.
Plug Principled Volume > Volume socket of the Material Output. Play with the Principled Density value to change its transparency.
Plug Noise > MixRGB > Color socket of the Principled so that the surface of the cloud is a bit textured.
Plug 2 Musgrave (or other textures) > Math (Add mode) > Displacement node > Displacement socket of the Material Output so that the cloud has 3D bumps.
Put some additional nodes like Texture Coordinate > Mapping at the beginning of the nodes chain.

Duplicate this cloud. Increase its size, rotate 180° on the Z axis. Decrease the Principled Volume Density value of this second cloud to make it more transparent. This second cloud will encompass the first one.

To make them "roll" on the X axis, play with the X location value of the Mapping that comes before the Musgrave nodes.

Also, for more realism, on the forefront you could generate some particles, with a Force Field to make them move the way you want.

Blend file:


Can not render via GPU ERROR Illegal address in cuCtxSynchronize() (device_cuda_impl.cpp:2016)

Solved. I yet again reinstalled my nvidia drivers, except this time I made sure Windows did NOT automatically update my drivers, and manually updated with the latest. For the record, the Nvidia driver version I am now using is 432.00.


It looks like you've changed the Rest Length of your bendy bone, so click on the Reset button to bring it back to its normal value. Also, in the Bone panel, don't forget to give this bone its Start Handle and End Handle bones (well, if you need).


Can't see camera composition guides using default dark theme in 2.83

I found it, though not it wasn't apparent at first.  Its in Edit> Preferences> Themes> 3D Viewport> View Overlay


How to save NLA action but don't use it?

There is a Muted checkbox in action strip properties. While in NLA editor hit N and open Active strip scroll (see wiki for more info).

This exactly strip will no longer play while in animation.

Note that when Muted is turned on, it pauses on the current action of animation. So you might want to start animation again to make character return to his beginning position.

As another way it's possible to turn on Animated option in Evaluation scroll and set its value to 0.

The advantage is that the current position of character will be automatically set to beginning position when Alt+A pressed.


Does Blender have a tool that does auto lip sync

Blender has a plugin for automatic lip sync.  You can download it here: https://morevnaproject.org/2015/11/11/automatic-lipsync-animation-in-blender/  However, I do not know if it works with shape keys.


Is it possible to make a single-faced cylinder in Blender?

Cylinders have as many faces as you accept when you create them.  Reduce the number of faces when you create a cylinder.  Have the information panels open when you create the cylinder so you can see the information. Press T to show and hide the panel.

You can render a 3D view as a png with a transparent background.  So you could apply the texture to a single plane with little geometry if that suits your situation.


Your problem is Very simple to fix. Currently, your shading is set to solid. Change it to textured view, and your textures will display.


It's Shift+F2-F12 buttons.

You can change hotkeys in User Preferences (Input Tab) They are in a window section:


Object gets darker when I zoom in to the object

It looks like you have a Point light (or maybe a Spot) as light source in your scene. If it were a Sun than a value of 40 would be extremely bright, also a sun's strength value would be shown as a decimal 40.000 without a W for watts.
Go to the light settings and switch from Point (or Spot) to Sun. Or delete the light source and add a new Sun.


Just doing copy/paste with ctrl-C ctrl-V will not copy the keyframes.
From your diagram I will assume that you want to re-use an effect strip in the VSE.

To copy keyframes you must make a duplicate strip using Shift-D .


Because transparent shader brings alpha channel information.

Diffuse shader by default contributes to the final image alpha with a value of 1.

Transparent shader contributes with a alpha value that reflect its colour HSV value's... value. High values corrispond to a low alpha (not in a proportional way).

By using an Add shader you are combining the shaders's alpha info (or you can  call it Transparency values) in the final render too. I can't exactly tell you the math between the values combination (see below for some thought about it)... anyway the important thing is that the low values rules!

If the Transparency values would be the imputs of a logical operation, the Add shader node would work quite like an OR operator.

In this particular case, the white transparent shader would bring to an almost completely black alpha channel in the final rendered image. If you examine the composite pass without enabling alpha channel I bet you'll see the image correctly rendered, and the alpha channel almost completely black, resulting in an empty final image.

What about the preview?

The difference from the preview cames from the fact that the preview has no alpha, and the grey checker pattern that looks to us as if there is nothing...it's merely a simple, true, background image! It gives the illusion of transparency but it's not related with the final alpha channel. It's the same result you would get in the final render by adding a checker background.

In fact if you put an object with alpha behind your geometry, it will shows up correctly (same thing if you disable Transparent option in the Film panel).

As the resulting shader bring not exactly to a completely black alpha channel, you can try to exaggerate the difference of the values stored into by adding a Math node set to Greater than as in the following picture:

By the way, the most common way to use alpha from texture in shaders involve using the mix shader node as in the following picture:

So the final alpha will be composed from a mix of values of the diffuse alpha (1) and the values from transparent shader (0) masked by the texture's alpha channel.

Here's a brief analysis of how Add Shader node combines two imput values.

Testing scene setup:

Some values:

As shown by the blue function in the graphs above, the resulting alpha is quite similar to the sphere sector equation. The difference is probebly due to the use of some dampening factor, anyway there is no doubt that should be something not too far away from:

Alpha = (1-Value1^2-Value2^2)^0.5

As stated before the Diffuse shader gives you an alpha value of 1, so it means it behaves as a black transparent shader, so it's Transparency = 0. By setting a full white Transparent shader (Transparency = 1) and adding the two shaders you'll have:

Alpha = (1-1^2-0^2)^0.5=(1-1-0)^0.5=0

Which means that with that node setup your images will always have an empty alpha channel.

I wasn't able to find any evidence in the documentation of what I said, so consider it as my personal opinion.


Change Vertex Position During Rig Animation

In the modifier panel for your object, activate "Display modifier in edit mode" and "Adjust edit cage to modifier result" for the Armature modifier:


When pressing A it doesnt select all 2.81

This really sounds like a keyboard issue where you're getting double "A" keypresses registering.  In my experience, it's not unusual to have a bad connection on a keyboard that you don't notice much during regular typing but that acts up when you use a key shortcut, just because of differences in the positioning of fingers and force of keystrokes when touch-typing versus using shortcuts.  Also remember, if you do any gaming with this keyboard, the WASD cluster tends to suffer some of the worst abuses.

I'd suggest disabling the dbl-A ("double click A") mapping in the Keymap preferences, to see if that resolves the problem.  In Preferences -> Keymap, search for "Key-Binding" of "A" and unclick the checkboxes for the dbl-A bindings -- note that there's a binding for each mode, so maybe disable "Object Mode" and "Mesh" to start.  If that fixes the problem, then Blender is registering double-taps on the "A" key, whether your keyboard is to blame or not.  You may also want to try checking in an editor whether hitting "A" at different angles or with less than usual force occasionally registers multiple keystrokes.


Samples has changed to path tracing tile

Square Samples

You have Square Samples feature turned on, which squares specified amount of samples.
This means that if you set 150, it will calculate 22 500 samples (not the task you should try imho).

In case of using Square Samples you'll see exact amount of them to be computed in the bottom of Samples scroll (it will be shown there only if Squares Samples turned on):

In your case, you have 12 samples specified in Render samples quantity, thus it'll render 144 samples.

Tiles or What is shown in the top of the rendered image

When rendering, in the top of the UV/Image Editor screen you have shown:

elapsed and remaining time,
memory usage,
current scene and Render Layer which is rendered,
and amount of tiles - already rendered / remained to render.

Tiles are those small boxes which appear on the rendered image where calcualting is being done at the moment. They are the amount of work which Blender is able to calculate at once taking into account saved user preferences, scene specifics, and hardware.

So taking this situation, it calculated 570 small orange boxes of 2125. Tiles' quantity will change in several cases:

changing output resolution;
changing Auto Tile Size in Performance scroll

You can read more about tiles quantity vs. performance here. Generally, most likely you won't have to change Auto Tile Size setting, which is turned on by default.


How can GPU be used instead of CPU for background processing in a Python script?

Not an answer re using GPU.

Not sure re using GPU, can however suggest
stripping this back to have only import and export operators and use API methods to add modifiers, create modified mesh, remove modifiers, swap in modified mesh.

May not speed it up too much, will if looping multiple imported objects.

import bpy
context = bpy.context
# import
ob = context.object

#add decimate modifer
dm = ob.modifiers.new("decimate", 'DECIMATE')
dm.ratio = 0.03

# Add Laplacial smooth modifier 10 1.0 0"
lsm = ob.modifiers.new("ls", 'LAPLACIANSMOOTH')
lsm.use_y = False
lsm.use_x = False
lsm.lambda_border = 0
lsm.iterations = 10
lsm.lambda_factor = 1.0
# create modified mesh
context.scene.update()
me = ob.to_mesh(context.depsgraph, True)
# remove modifiers
ob.modifiers.clear()
# swap in the mesh
ob.data = me
# export

Note this is for 2.8.  Check the docs for ob.to_mesh(..) in prior versions.

A modified mesh can also be created from object via bmesh module.

If there are materials will need to link those to new mesh too.


What is the space used by Scene.ray_cast()?

@ batFINGER was correct in his commentary.. All vectors are in World Space,  the matrix, the hit object's matrix_world.


Is there a way to lock edge lengths of a mesh in edit mode?

It sounds like using a curve modifier might be the most practical and fastest solution. This might distort the shape of the thread (if it is a mesh) slightly but should (as far as i know) preserve length.

But if it has to be in edit mode you could alternatively use the rotation tool when the rotation center is set at "active". Then, for example, if you select half of the string and the middle vertex is active you can change the angle between both halves of the string without changing any lengths.

Happy Blending! :)


I will not dive deep into explaining, but show some basics.

Main thing here is to have dynamic Vertex group, created by Vertex Weight Modifier, that correspondes with collision spots.

Duplicate mesh you want to cut (in this case I prefer Alt+D to share data);
Create new vertex group, add all vertices in it;
Add Subsurf modifier with 2-4 levels of division. High levels produce more accurate collisions, but are slowing things down.
Add Vertex Weight Proximity modifier with Laser-mesh as target (set it to geometry - faces, adjust lowest/highest values).
Add Mask modifier with the same Vgroup as in previous modifier, but invert it with Arrows button near Vgroup name. At this step, all geometry that is too far from Laser faces will be cut off in order to emit only from intersections. NOTE: Mask modifier is needed, because Density option in PS is kind of glitchy with dynamic Vgroups.
If you need to render emitter object along with particles, you can optionally add Shrinkwrap modifier (target is original mesh) with a small offset
to avoid Z-fighting.
Add Particle System on top of it (it is important to enable Use Modifier Stack in PS settings, otherwise effect won't work). Also tweak Start frame to match the frame, where Laser intersects mesh first time. In other words Start frame should compensate travel time of Laser or mesh will emit particles too early.
Same purpose as in step "6". Add Laplacian Smooth modifier, it helps to smooth jagged geometry after Mask modifier did its job.

Open GL preview:


In the UV editor the units are either pixels (default is a 256 x 256 pixel square) or when Normalized is checked the square is 0.0 to 1.0.


Save rendered image before compositing without re-rendering

OK, I found it in the meantime. The EXR file of image B actually also contains image A, I just have to switch the "Layer" in the Image input node. I hope in the future this question and answer will still help somebody.


If you're not using textures and you want the diffuse material to be transferred "as is" to Unity from Blender, use basic Blender Internal materials (no nodes). Cycles materials are not being transferred to Unity at all. If you're using textures, there is no such limitation, you can create the textures in any render engine of your liking.


Select the eyebrows, on the right of the Vertex Groups list there's a dropdown menu, click on Remove From All Groups, then assign to the group called spine.006.


Simple deform > Bend modifier doesn't work as expected

To get the expected result your object needs to be subdivided first. See more at https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/modifiers/deform/simple_deform.html?highlight=simple%20deform%20bend


How to export object list to text ordered by name?

bpy.context.selected_objects is a list of objects, it is not guaranteed to be in any specific order, to get the list in order you need to sort it yourself.

Python has the builtin function sorted() to sort lists. As it can't sort objects directly you need to specify a key function that can provide a sortable key. Using the example from pythons Sorting How-To you can use attrgetter() to get the objects name attribute to use for sorting.

import bpy
from operator import attrgetter

for obj in sorted(bpy.context.selected_objects, key=attrgetter('name')):
    print(obj.name)


Bone is deforming vertexes but shouldn't

You have to assign the vertices in the vertex group of that bone to adjust which vertices to be deformed by the bone, not a limit scale.
Do this, select the armature and SHFT+Select the mesh making sure that the mesh is the active object. Then go to edit mode, and on the right properties panel go to the vertex groups tab, and select the vertex group assigned to the bone of the character's arm. It should have the name of the bone.
Make sure no vertices are selected before selecting any vertex groups by pressing A once. Then select the vertex group for the bone.
The vertices assigned to that bone should appear. If some are showing up that you do not want to deform from that bone, deselect them.
After this, press CTRL+I to select inverse, and then press "Remove". This will then remove the vertices selected from that vertex group, so that they don't deform with that bone.
EDIT:
So I found the issue to be that you have an unnecessary bone in between the arm and the shoulder. By deleting this bone, the arm deforms properly.

Now the arm deforms properly:


Blender 2.82.7 - Animation sequence from images - how to reverse/backwards?

Finally found it, maybe this post will help someone else.


Is there an alternative to the Geometry -> Normal Output?

Taking the dot-product of the Normal output of the Texture Coordinate node with (0,0,1) will return the Z component of the surface normals, in Object space.

This ring has a curved profile on the inside, and is tapered on the outside.
This discrimination is good.. if you had displacements on the curved surfaces which resulted in |Z| = 1 normals, you could further discriminate by absolute Z location in Generated texture space...

Either way.. or both ?


How to use dual scroll wheel mouse in Blender?

A hacky solution could be use AutoHotkey script:

*WheelLeft::Send % ((A_PriorHotkey=A_ThisHotkey)&&(A_TimeSincePriorHotkey<20))?"":"{Blind}{F14}"
*WheelRight::Send % ((A_PriorHotkey=A_ThisHotkey)&&(A_TimeSincePriorHotkey<20))?"":"{Blind}{F15}"

And then use HorizontalScroll as it was F14 and F15 that is normally unavailable in most keyboards. (it works with modifiers keys also)


Reflections are displayed nicely in preview, but not in final render

This is caused by the simplify option in the scene-tab (at the bottom  of my screenshot).
simply disable it and you're good to go. you can also set the "AO bounces render" to 0 if you want to use other options of the simplifier (simplify subdivisions etc.). This option limits all non-diffuse bounces (0 = no limit)


How can I align a text object to curve without deformation?

You can use the text on curve settings in the text panel.

The behavior of this setting requires practice.  Note the curve is in the XY plane, but the text is positioned in the ZX Plane.


How do I get more control with Displace modifier mesh and subdivision surface?

Control your displacement modifier with a vertex group.  More to follow.

You can search here at BSE or other video sites for the easy process of creating a vertex group.  Essentially creating a vertex group in the [vertex group panel], selecting vertices and assigning weights by pressing the button in the panel.

In the image above a vertex group is created named [DisplaceGroup] and used as the vertex group name in the Displace modifier.  The vertex group is shown in [Edit Mode].  The yellow arrows show the relevant settings.

Note how the red area in the Edit Mode has weights of 1.0 and is affected by the Displace Modifier. The blue area has weights of 0.0 and is not affected by the displace modifier.  The use of the vertex group name makes this all function correctly.

This is guide for you to get quick results.  This is not a tutorial on vertex groups which are better demonstrated previously and elsewhere and can be found with a quick search.


How to fix this Mesh please (two planes with merged vertices)

Select all of the mesh A in edit mode and press CtrlShiftN.
This will recalculate the normals.


You need to add a material to your mesh to have it show in the render. Also, after adding a material, go to the Properties panel > Textures tab and add the texture. Don't forget to assign the UV map in Textures tab > Mapping dropdown.

See this screenshot for more details:


Smoke render problem, transparent triangle artifact

Camera Clipping End Distance
One thing to check is to see if your Camera's Clipping End distance is set deep enough to render all parts of your scene. If it is set too close (i.e. to too low of a number), then anything beyond that distance (in Distance units) will not be rendered -- instead, beyond that point, your render will show only the background color, which here is transparent.
To see if this is your problem, check these 2 things:
If this happens when rendering

Select the camera

In the Object Properties window, click on the Camera tab

Increase the Clipping End to a higher number (i.e. farther distance). Here the End distance is set to 100, but you might need to set it higher:

Now render again and see if all of your scene is included in the render.

If this happens when navigating in viewport (i.e. not in camera mode or render)
If this happens when navigating in viewport, then you have to change the clipping end in the Viewport Properties panel:

Press N to open the Viewport Properties

Under View, set the Clip End higher:


Ray was correct in the above comments.

The Compositor and Sequence settings are enabled by default, so if there is any data in the compositor or the sequencer blender will render from that instead of the scene.

Or go to your sequencer and delete that info.


What is the difference between the SculptDraw brush and the Brush tool?

Other than a couple of adjustable default settings, this looks like the only difference.


How do I add an .obj file from a relative file location?

import bpy
file_loc = 'C:\Models\Model.obj'
imported_object = bpy.ops.import_scene.obj(filepath=file_loc)
obj_object = bpy.context.selected_objects[0]
print('Imported name: ', obj_object.name)

Result


Why is the array modifier scaling my object?

Your object and your empty have different scale values. Hover over your object's scale values and press CTRLC, then select the empty, hover over its X scale value and hit CTRLV. Repeat for Y and Z (provided your object is uniformly scaled).

Alternatively: Select your empty, then shift-select your object, rightclick on the scale values and say: copy to selected.

Any differences of rotation, location or scale between the two objects get multiplied for each new copy. That can be pretty powerful.

Two array modifiers on top of each other. The empties just differ a bit in scale, rotation and location.


This is possibly related to the issue of Delta Time issues. I am not familiar with Blender as a game-engine, but this is a common issue in game programming.

For those not familiar with the issue: The amount of movement the engine needs to make between frames depends not only on the mathematical/physics calculations, but needs to consider the time (in real life) it takes between two frames, ans use it as factor in any transformation (translation, rotation, scaling) to mitigate lags. This factor is known commonly as deltaTime.

It seems like blender game-engine doesn't have a built-in deltaTime factor you can use, but this post seems to suggest you could easily create it.

Blender seems to be even more peculiar on the issue, by trying to use a fixed frame-rate of 60fps to calculate physics, and that decision is most likely affecting you. I suggest you read this post by SolarLune and try out his and MrPutuLips's solutions.


How can i get the weight for all vertices in a vertex group?

For The RNA mesh API, your example is quite good, one minor change you can make is to break once the group index is found.

Instead of making a large list, you could use a generator function, this can save memory for the cases you can iterate over the elements, and be converted to a list or tuple if you need, it has the same worst-case time, but in practice will often save some looping.

import bpy
obj = bpy.context.object

def get_weights(ob, vgroup):
    group_index = vgroup.index
    for i, v in enumerate(ob.data.vertices):
        for g in v.groups:
            if g.group == group_index:
                yield (i, g.weight)
                break

import bpy
obj = bpy.context.object
vgroup = obj.vertex_groups[0]

# iterate over index, weights
for i, w in get_weights(obj, vgroup):
    print(i, w)

# if you need as a list...
weights = list(get_weights(obj, vgroup))
print(weights)

Note, in some similar cases to this, you can use list-comprehension, however having to check the vertex is in the group causes the checks within the list-comprehension to become quite convoluted, so best avoid in this case.


How can I update a text object dynamically in the Blender Game Engine?

you can do this using logic bricks, the following are added to the text object :

the Text object has a special property called text, i have added an integer property which is incremented by space key then it gets copied to the text property at each logic tick

here is the test play :


Yes.
It is possible to code tools for generating all kinds of geometry with Python and Blender's Python API.
You can simply script it in the text editor as you go something like that:
import bpy, random
from math import radians
from mathutils import Vector

amount = 20

for i in range(amount):
    l = Vector()
    r = Vector()
    d = Vector()
    for xyz in l:
        l.xyz = random.random()
    l.x +=i*1.5
    d = random.uniform(2,5)
    for xyz in r:
        r.xyz = radians(random.random()*360)
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(vertices=32,
                                        radius=1,
                                        depth=d,
                                        location=l,
                                        rotation=r,
                                        )

and then run the script:

Obviously, what exactly you do with objects(or you could also work with geometry) and how you manipulate them is up to you and this example is a very random choice of mine since you did not specify what exactly you are after. Possibilities here are pretty much infinite.


Problem with Baking Dynamic Paint with Ocean modifier


I have had the same problem. For me, the problem was with the visibility of the individual geometry components (vertices, edges, or faces). Please make sure to enter edit mode, select all components, hide selection, then unhide again.

Hope this solves the problem for you too!


If you set your curve to full, add some depth and leave the resolution at 0 it seems that it will just create the look you are going for. You need to set the shading to flat so you can see the sharp edge.

There is also a star curve that you can tweak with the curve settings to get the desired look of a Mercedes star. Not sure it will yield the perfect results for any shape, but you could try.

Settings for star:


The normal loop-select shortcut in Blender is to click one edge of the loop while holding down alt. This works in both 2.7x and 2.8x. control+alt clicking an edge will select an edge ring. Make sure you are in edge select mode and not face or vertex select. In face select mode, these will select loops/rings of faces. In vertex select mode, it will try and select a loop/ring, but since edges often share a vertex this will probably select more than you intended.


Lets assume the donut has the same number of particles for the animation.

Make sure the lifetime is large enough such as 400 frames.
If I wanted to see all Particles visible from frame 1 to 400

All the particles could be emitted in Frames 1 to 2. (Quick Birth)
Lifetime can be large as in 400
I might [bake] the particles.  I might save, close, and open,  the file to refresh.  Particles can sometimes be out of synchronization.  Sometimes change a value by a small amount might help or running the animation from frame 1.
Ezvinete. Ya ne ponimaish pa Russki.


How can I make an object show up on different layers

Shift + LMB on the layer boxes in the Relations section of Properties->Object.

Or in 3d view hit M in Object mode, and Shift + LMB on the layer boxes there


Grease Pencil Wont Convert into Bezier curves in Blender V2.80 beta

I am not familiar with that tutorial but this is how I do it in Blender V2.80 beta, a bit different to V2.79b.
At the time of writing this I could not find shortcuts for these functions.

Once you finished with the drawings, press F3 on your keyboard.
The search box will pop up and type in Convert Grease Pencil and click the Gpencil: Convert Grease Pencil option, see image below. You may see more selection in the list

The below menu will pop up and select the one you need.

The Bezier is created which you can see in the Outliner. The below image is in Edit mode showing the Bezier edit points, which I edited a bit to move it above the object and curved it to make it visible. I created an offset 3D tube extrusion here from the Bezier, that is what you see in green next to the Bezier.


How to merge two objects in edit mode without shading and UV errors?

The best way to merge those two mesh is by using a Edge Loop to connect them together. That way you avoid all the shading and UV errors.


Can't see the object in rendered image after motion tracking

The problem is that the render layer has no alpha channel.
Enable Film> Transparent.


Disallow objects to be rendered from specific cameras during playtime

You can dynamically toggle visibility of objects. So when you switch a camera you toggle the visibility to your needs.


How can I turn this math formula into a 3d model?

I guess you could, but I can't think of efficient way of doing it. Your snowman is a procedural geometry, when most of the 3d computer graphics are based on triangles.
I think problem will be the precision, especially those equations describe volume rather than surface.
I've made quick test for the lemon from surfer example:

import bpy
import math

for x_ in range (-20,20):
    for y_ in range (-20,20):
        for z_ in range (-20,20):
            x = x_*0.05
            y = y_*0.05
            z = z_*0.05
            left = x**2 + z**2
            right = y**3*(1-y)**3

            if left-right<=0.05:
                bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(segments=3, ring_count=3, radius=0.005, enter_editmode=False, align='WORLD', location=(x, y, z))

you could probably generate a point cloud, and then use Meshlab or CloudCompare to reconstruct the mesh from point cloud


Vector Imported curves not moving on Z axis

Using a 2D curve implies that the Local Z coordinate of each control point is 0.

From the Blender manual's page about the topic:

  By default, new curves are set to be 3D, which means that Control Points can be placed anywhere in 3D space. Curves can also be set to 2D which constrain the Control Points to the Curve’s local XY axis.

In a 2D curve you can't even set it's origin's Z coordinate with the 3D cursor. It is forced to lay on the plane where the the control points are.

You should switch the curve nature to 3D to be able to move them up and down.


How to make (focused on modeling) burnt wood

You can create a burnt wood look by sculpting. Disclaimer: I am not very good at sculpting

Here is how I did it:

First add a cube and scale it to the dimensions of the wood plank.

Add enough edge loops so that all polygons look square

Subdivide the mesh in edit mode to a point where the square are about the size of the detail you want.

Add a displacement modifier.

Switch to sculpt mode and use the clay stripes brush

Repeat until happy.


How to avoid Mesh Distortion when Curves cutting themselves, especially with Subsurface Modifier?

As you're talking about booleans it looks like you're open to do it with mesh (rather than only curve), so here is a solution:

Create a torus (Major Segments: 24/Minor Segments: 8).
Duplicate one of its circle, make it another object, extrude on the Z axis.
Boolean the 2 objects.
In Top Ortho view cut in half with the knife, then mirror the whole object.
Use the knife to add some topology: K to activate, Z to cut through, C to cut orthogonally.
Give your object a Subsurf and Shade Smooth to test the result.
Use the same technic and also the Spin tool for the top of the object.


Means by which this could happen:

Object added in 'edit' mode then scale/move/rotate in 'object' mode

Is the object 'parented' to it?

Constraints or drivers can also affect loc/rot/scale.


Export FBX with full collection hierarchy

import bpy

sCollection = bpy.context.collection

def parentCol(_colParent, _objParent):
    for col in _colParent.children:
        newObj = bpy.data.objects.new("empty", None)
        bpy.context.scene.collection.objects.link(newObj)
        newObj.name = col.name
        newObj.parent = _objParent

        if len(col.objects) > 0:
            objs = col.objects
            for obj in objs:
                obj.parent = newObj
        else:
            parentCol(col, newObj)

root = bpy.data.objects.new("empty", None)
bpy.context.scene.collection.objects.link(root)
root.name = sCollection.name

parentCol(sCollection, root)

The script is originally from this question. Since I see you spotted the script as working for you I wanted to flag your question as duplication, but system doesn't allowing me to do that. For that I copy&pasted the script here as answer. So you can accept it here if this solved your needs.


Can't Convert to Curve|Mesh using ALT+C in linux

Shortcuts on the OS take precedence over those in blender.
There are two options:

You can remap the shortcuts on linux to the super (windows) key.
Read: How to use the Alt + Right click in edit mode in Linux

You can customize the shortcuts on blender, just know that any books or "tutorials" you watch will not match with your personalized keyboards.


How to create flat circular spiral made from quads?

With your description, cubes with inset Faces, an Array modifier and a curve modifier is a good option. you might need to explain a bit more about your final goal.

using a cube with inset faces, adding an array modifier and curves modifier, then, inside the curves modifier you need to add an Archemedial Spiral (Shift + A > Curves > Spiral >Archemedial)


Images as planes (Video texture) not working with cycles

It is a bug (any version newer than 2.83.4), This is fixed in 2.90 beta and 2.91 alpha.
Thanks @vklidu for helping me out.
developer.blender.org/T79952


How to switch different sequences of characters with Animation Nodes?

Oh that's an interesting problem. Here is my solution:

I started by making a group that 'interpolates' between two characters (numbers in this case, but I wanted it to be more generic).
The group takes the Start and End character as well as a list of the ordered characters. Additionally it has a Step input. The output is the current interpolated character after the given amount of steps.

With that given the first effect you described is fairly easy to archieve:

The second one is a little more complicated because we have to calculate the amount of required steps to get the timing right. The group that does that is very similiar to the other group.

The two most important nodes I used to archieve the effects are the Search List Element and Shift List node. This screenshot hopefully shows how they work:

[EDIT:]
To have a text list as input you can reuse most of the existing nodes. The final setup looks like so (I don't show the nodes that did not change here):


How to select animation channels using Python?

ActionGroup.select

As an example set the "spine" group to selected / unselected from the python console.

>>> C.object.animation_data.action.groups['spine'].select = True


How to get a lighthouse to shine a lightbeam

It looks like this node setup works not too bad:

I've created a simple light ball for the light source, maybe you should add a bit of glow around as it's explained here: How do I make a luminescent gas cloud?
Now, for the beam, first, create a conic cylinder.
For the length gradient, mix an Emission node with a Transparent node, use a Gradient as factor, and a ColorRamp to control its intensity.
For the width gradient, mix the first Mix Shader with the Transparent node, use a Layer Weight as factor, and a ColorRamp to control its intensity.
To add a bit of noise you could mix the previous nodes with the Transparent node, with a Noise texture as a factor.


When you clear measurements through View > Annotations, they don't vanish immediately.
Simply switch tools or modes and they will be gone.
Changing tools or quickly tabbing into edit mode works


Can my organization use Blender internally without giving up our valuable changes to our competitors?

The question starts with Can..? and indeed it's possible. All your coworkers and people who come in contact would have to willingly not distribute it any further and to your competitors.

If anyone decides that he wants the source code and he wants to either build upon it or further distribute it (even to your competition), he has all the rights to do it, because the software is licenced GPL.


Why my blender will show such an error color in render preview mode?

Thank you all for replying my post, I have already solved this issue by switching (forcing) my graphics card preference in NVIDIA Control Panel to NVIDIA GTX 1060, ( By default is Intel Integrated Card), and the error shown in the picture disappeared right away after i restarted blender. It seems like blender is not compatible with my Integrated Graphics Card, ( or maybe blender cannot run on Integrated gpu at all?) By the way, this error will only show up in Eevee render mode, Cycles is working fine.


Beginner: Wrong workflow? 8x8x8 LED Cube to complex

I honestly see no problem with this, there is not much you can do except
for making the mesh at a lower resolution,
you do not mention what engine you are using this in, but one option might be to look in the engine you use, then see if it supports instancing of meshes which then can have separate materials assigned (I assume you are assigning materials to the different LED's during runtime.).

The you only export one LED, then create it all by code (instance,move the instance, assign materials and so on). That way the mesh memory is kept low, because it will only load 1 LED mesh.

But again - this scene is not big at all compared to other game content that typically exists in a scene.


Some of your faces don't have smooth shading.
They are shaded flat, creating those ugly triangular artifacts.

Just right click you model and select smooth shading.


Why does my smoke domain stretch the simulation?

When resizing any object relating to a simulation (domain, flow, rigid body, etc.) you should always Ctrl+A, Apply Scale to ensure Blender is aware of it's new dimensions (actually, whenever you rescale anything it's generally a good idea to Apply Scale anyway - uneven scale can cause all kinds of problems with simulations, texturing, etc.). In your case, you should just need to Apply Scale and then re-bake the simulation.


It looks like you have duplicated the mesh without moving it. Try selecting all vertices in edit mode and pressing W to bring up the specials menu and selecting remove doubles. You may also want to recalculate your normals after doing this from the shading/UVs tab on the toolshelf of the 3D View.


Can't do accurate weight painting with Blender

The solution is Blender v2.78

Weight Paint bug fix for v2.78: Blur now smooths between connected weights

Previously it would average all the points under the brush and applying that value, giving an off a feedback loop that often depended on the direction of the brush stroke, giving a not-very-useful smearing effect. Now blend brush smooths between connected edges as it should.

Now there is a real smooth brush that was greatly needed. Now I can do all the weight painting in Blender, also I discovered Alt+B to make a square slice to isolate part of a shape to have an unobstructed view of where you need to edit.


Render certain passes only WITHOUT the combined

You should be able to get the result you want by unchecking "Combined" and just using Z and Emit. However! I strongly recommend that you first back up your existing render (and any other render layers) as 16-bit TIF images or EXRs incase of: Blender crashing during re-render, overwriting existing renders, etc.


How to make a menu like the Sculpt Brush/MatCap menu with Python?

The matcap menu is written in C, so you can't define your own menu in Python for showing arbitrary images.

To see where the menu is called...

Open the text editor view.
Right click on the menu, select Edit Source
the line of python script that shows the matcap is displayed.

See that this is a template which means its a preset UI.


Why should I never ever use "Convert Premul" on Cycles renders?

You misread the answer, and my suggestion wasn't terribly clear. Any imager should be "pro" associated (aka crap term "premultiplied") alpha.
There is a good reason, and I will expand this answer when I find some time later.
The bottom line is that only associated alpha models a real-world correlation, where unassociated doesn't.
Only associated alpha manages to model both occlusion and emission. Glows, convolutions,  motion blurs, and a plethora of other transparent / translucent effects can only be modeled with associated alpha.
Think of alpha as selecting the over operation. The Alpha over node actually assumes associated alpha and performs the correct over operation, which is FG+(1-FG.a)BG.RGB.
Unassociated alpha can do none of these things. This is at least one of the reasons that PNGs are never used in a post production pipeline as they are incapable of using associated alpha. From the EXR Technical Introduction:

Calling the color channels “premultiplied” does not mean that the
color values in an image have actually been multiplied by alpha at
some  point  during the creation of the image, or that pixels with
zero alpha and non-zero color channels are  illegal. Non-zero color
with zero alpha is legal; such a pixel represents an object that emits
light even though it is completely transparent, for example, a candle
flame or a lens flare.
In  the  visual  effects  industry  premultiplied  color  channels
are  the norm, and  application  software packages typically use
internal image representations that are also premultiplied.

http://www.openexr.com/TechnicalIntroduction.pdf
From the actual TIFF specification, regarding TIFFTAG_EXTRASAMPLES tag that denotes what type of samples are stored:

The difference between associated alpha and unassociated alpha is not just a matter of taste or a matter of maths.

Associated alpha is generally interpreted as true transparency information.

http://www.awaresystems.be/imaging/tiff/tifftags/extrasamples.html
Again, never, ever, use unassociated (crap term "straight" or "key") alpha, and instead associate it. This is what the unfortunately named "Convert Premul" does in the Alpha Over node. However, on direct Cycles renders, it is already associated and is never needed.
There is exactly one edge case that you must unassociate alpha before processing, and that is on colour corrections. To do so, you must be careful and skip on zero alpha. An alpha value of zero with nonzero RGB is entirely valid, and represents an emission without occlusion. Examples include reflections, glows, glares, flares, fires, etc.
The only time "Convert Premul" should ever be used is if the imager knows she is feeding it unassociated alpha, but like a good imager, she would never be using anything except the One True Alpha, associated alpha.
Further reading:
Zap Anderssen of Autodesk now:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php?t-278718.html
Larry Gritz of OpenImageIO and Sony Pictures imaging team:
http://oiio-dev.openimageio.narkive.com/aaTdld9U/handling-unassociated-alpha#post2
Jeremy Selan, two time Academy Award winning imager behind OpenColorIO, now at Valve:
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/ocio-dev/ZehKhUFqhjc
The Infamous Adobe Photoshop thread. Pay key attention to the names, as there are many imaging legends in it, including Zap Anderssen dismantling one of the head developers of Photoshop, only to have Florian Kainz of ILM back up Zap's take on it:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/369637
EXR Technical Introduction:
http://www.openexr.com/TechnicalIntroduction.pdf
I likely misspoke in the original question as, from memory, I can't remember exactly what that goofy keying node delivers in terms of alpha. I suspect it is unassociated, which makes the "Convert Premul" option work. Generally however, to avoid oopsies in the code etc., it is prudent to manually associate your alpha and control the merging to prevent data loss in the RGB channels. I still stand by the advice, however; always try to maintain a consistent state of alpha, and when you deviate, do so under scrutiny.
Additional information for implementation via nodes or software
There are three states for imagery with emission values encoded in the RGB channel, and an additional occlusion channel.

Associated. The RGB emissions are “as is” and represent the final emissions required. This may include zero alpha with nonzero RGB, such as the aforementioned case of reflections, fire, etc. To disassociate the emissions from the degree of occlusion, use a divide skip zero alpha. Leave any RGB emissions in the zero alpha case, as they could be glares, flares, fire, or reflections.
Unassociated. Here the alpha is not encoded. That is, the RGB represents the emissions without occlusion taken into account. To associate in the case of Unassociated alpha, use a simple multiply which will scale the RGB emissions by the linear degree of occlusion.
Disassociated. Here the alpha started life properly encoded as associated alpha, but has been disassociated to conduct colour transforms. To properly reassociate the data, multiply but skip zero alpha. That is, leave any emissions in the RGB channel as is.


Blender 2.8: I can't enter into Fly mode to move the camera

(With the default key bindings) If you hold grave/backtick, it brings up the pie menu for various views. However, if you just tap it, it should bring you into fly mode.


How to change the appearance of an object?

You can turn on Shadows and Cavity Shader from the Shading Popover to the right of the 3D View Header while in Solid viewport shading mode.

You can also simultaneously combine those with different matcaps that give objects different colors, studio lights, or random colors for each object. If those aren't enough you can also base object colo from the assigned materials, or even a specific per-object color.


Creating a static smoke, saving it and making it interactable

I found the solution I was looking for and thanks for the tip about baking. I'll post the link to what solved my problem. https://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quicktip-store-a-single-frame-from-your-blender-25-smoke-sim--cg-5366


Armature modifier deforming mesh slightly

In blender 2.8+ there is a new Save as Shape Key which keeps the modifier in the stack and allows you to config the shape key to have the power of -1.


In Cloth settings open the Cache panel, and find Simulation start property.


I cant quite get cloth sawing down on my character

The simulation looks good, it just needs a few tweaks.

Fix the arms first ;-) The sleeves can collide and get messed up there. Either rotate them in Edit mode or use the Pose Brush in Sculpt mode (increase the brush size)
In Object mode apply the scale to the shirt (Ctrl+A)
In Edit mode, select the whole mesh the shirt (A), then flip normals (Alt+N) because your shirt is turned inside out
In Edit mode, scale the shirt a bit up (~20%) because you need more fabric to wrap around the body
Move the shirt closer to the body by scaling it down along the X-axis (S, then X). Make sure the threads to not intersect with the body.
In the Cloth settings, reduce the distance for Object Collision and in Self Collision to 0.005 m. If Self Collision is too low the mesh can 'explode', if Object Collision it's too high the fabric starts to 'crawl' and flips over the head.
Start the simulation. It should look good after 15-20 frames. If not, cancel it, and tweak the settings or try another start position for the shirt.
The seams might have some gaps. I could not find out why this is so. And there can be rough wrinkles. But you can fix this after you applied the cloth modifier.
If you're happy with the result duplicate the shirt (D) in Object mode to create a backup object.
Apply the Cloth modifier in the drop-down menu on the Modifier panel.
To remove the gaps switch to Edit mode, select everything, and do a Merge By Distance (M, 0.017 m). You can adjust the distance in the dialog that appears (F9 brings it back if you missed it). Have a look under the arms if they are all gone.
To smooth the rough wrinkles on the shoulder switch to Sculpt mode, use the Smooth brush with a strength of 0.2 and smooth it. The Inflate brush can be used to bring the volume back if you have smoothed too much. (The Cloth brush can be used to add more wrinkles. Use a Subdivision modifier is needed.)
Congratulations! You have made it! The simulation is a bit choppy. Small changes in the values can have big effects and it usually takes several attempts to get a good result.

Back view:


2d texture eyes that can move around freely

So it's been a couple of months now and I figured out a way to do this a while back so I figured I should post it so that anyone looking for this specific technique can use it! Here goes:

1.Select a couple of faces of the mesh where you want the eyes to be and create a split mesh from this. It should be a second "layer" for you to place the eyes texture on.

2.Create a texture for the eyes. Place the different types of eyelids (default, closed, bored, surprised...) at equal distances from eachother (this will make a later step easier) and leave enough space for the pupils. Here's what my eyes texture looks like:

3.Create 2 different UV maps for the eyes: one for the eyelids and one for the pupils. That way you can animate these seperately.

4.Now create a new material for the eyes. You will need to plug the 2 UV maps into the texture nodes and use a multiply node to overlap them. Here is how I set up the shader for the eyes:

5.Use the UV wrap modifier to rig the eyelids (youtube.com/watch?v=5NlvgMYZgaY) and an empty connected to a bone to move the pupils

To make the eyebrows, you'll want to follow the same steps, except with just one UV map and a simpler shader (be sure to have some overlap between the eye mesh and the eyebrows mesh! It's hard to make someone look angry when there's a lot of space between the 2)


First apply the Mirror modifier. Then remove the eyes and the head from all vertex group (in the Properties editor > Object Data > Vertex Groups, click on the down arrow menu on the right of the Vertex Groups list and choose Remove From All Groups). Now reassign each eye to the bone that is supposed to control it, and assign the head mesh to its bone. There was a bone somewhere affecting the head, it made it deform so the eyes seemed to pop out.


Animation Nodes - Animating transparency with wait times

First, you get the length of the current text being displayed and you subtract it from the relative time like so:

This will give you the time starting from when the text got fully displayed. Next, you may subtract another constant to delay the fading effect and divide the result to slow it down. The result is then clamped to the 0-1 range and is used as the factor in a material:

Note that the delay and speed constant are related to your time constant (The value of the divide node after the time info node). So a delay of 5 actually means a delay of 5m where m is the time constant.


UV - sharp edge and uv seams overlapping

When you are in edit mode you press N. Then search for the box called Mesh Display under Overlays you can uncheck the options you want to hide.


How to use Blender Filmic in After Effects?

Video tutorial explaining how to do it.

To get it to work in After Effects you need to make a copy of Blender's config.ocio file. Open it up in text editor and add a line of code.

Find this in your text editor:

CIE XYZ color space
XYZ: XYZ

Delete that and add what is below.

# CIE XYZ color space #XYZ: XYZ
# XYZ: XYZ

# Need a general default
default: Linear

Save the text file and you are done. Brendan Bolles fixed it the creator of the openColorIO plugin for After Effects.

Video tutorial explaining how to do it.


I have to run to class, but I'll upload a tutorial to YouTube in an hour for this. If you need it now, here is a test file where I extruded the S.

Basically, I imported the .svg into blender and converted it (Alt + c) to a mesh. Then I extruded the meshes. I used a boolean modifier to delete/hollow out the middle of the S.

Here is a screencast of the process. I will upload a more comprehensive video later if needed.


cannot see the geometry of the imported stl file

The STL will import in the position of the 3D cursor using the origin point of the STL object - the little orange dot. In theory that is the absolute centre 0/0/0 in the X/Y/Z. Some models are created far from their origin and while they might appear not to be there, they might actually be off screen.

Make sure the object is select the object in the Outliner...

Before trying scaling - set the origin to the geometry...

With the object still selected press ALTG which will move the object back to 0/0/0.

Another possibility: Blender STL [both import & export] have a scaling approach which makes [most] STL files prepared in other applications one thousand times larger - here too, they could have imported, but are not visible...yet.

In either case pressing the Home button on the keyboard, will show everything in the scene - if it jumps back and turns grey it just means it has exceeded the visible parameters, and as suggested, you will need to expand the View clip values.


Controlling polygons by index value, from list of vertices (sverchok addon) part 2

there is something wrong with data or representation - extra islands appears and it have to be additionally separated as closed polygon. so, data about one country covers all its parts


How to apply mutiple images to the material of UV Unwraped mesh

What I'm going to show you one possible way to to join different textured objects into a single object with a single texture.

Here's the roadmap:

Assuming that we are starting with two separate object with assigned textures as in the picture (Texture A for the cube, Texure B for the sphere):

First step is to create a material based on the assigned texture to each object.

Part One - Creating basic textured materials in Blender Internal

Select one object (Cube in this case)
Go to the Material tab
Create new material (rename if wanted)
Go to the Texture tab
Create a new Material texture
"Type" must be "image or movie"
Choose the right texture from the built in browser (it will show you all the textures related to your file, so images you based your UV to must shown in the list)

A basic material where the texture is by default applied to the diffuse color of the shader has been created. Repeat the same processing for the other object.

The process is better explained in this video, or in this related answer

Part Two - Join texture in a texture atlas

First step is about obtain a single object

Merge all objects by selecting all of them and pressing ctrl+j

Now there is only one object with several materials applied. Blender conserves the information about what material was assigned to each face during the join operation.

By going in the "Object data" tab, you can see that there is only a UV map. This is because both of my objects had an UV map called "UVMap", so in the merging process the have been joined under the same name. Tey are now overlayed...but they still act as before in their proper texture space, as you can see in the viewport. If we want a single texture, we must avoid overlaying, so:

Create a new UVMap by clicking the "+" button.

This new UV, called UVMap.001, will contain the uv info about the texture atlas we are going to create. Select this map, but don't set as "Active for rendering".

You can see here what UVMap you are working on:

In the UV/Image editor, clic on the "X" to clear the editor and than create a new image. This will be the image to bake to.
You can rearrange the UVs as you wish or let blender do the job by clicking "Pack island":

Go to the "Render" tab, in the Bake panel, bake mode, select "textures" in order to bake the textures of your object's materials (Texture A and Texture B) to the Image (Untitled.001) which is below your selected UV map (UVMap.001).


A single vertex can have multiple colors at the same time, because it can belong to multiple faces (with different colors). The vertex colors are stored per face loops and not in vertices themselves:

Vertex colors can be viewed in Vertex Paint mode. In this mode individual vertices can also be edited with brushes:

The drawing can be constrained to selected faces, but not selected vertices. Blender doesn't allow this from the UI like other software you mentioned (Max).

You can set the colors to individual face-loop vertices with python like this:

for ipoly in range(len(ob.data.polygons)):
    for ivertex in ob.data.polygons[ipoly].loop_indices:
        ob.data.vertex_colors["col"].data[ivertex].color = (R,G,B)

Here is a script that when run in Text editor will add panel to properties (N) so you can assign vertex colors to vertices in edit-mode:

The viewing of vertex colors is still best in vertex paint mode, having this in panel would clutter it.

Code:

import bpy
import bmesh

class VertexColEditPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Vertex Colors"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"

    @classmethod
    def poll(self, context):
        ob = context.active_object
        try:
            return ob and ob.type == 'MESH' and ob.mode == 'EDIT'
        except (AttributeError, KeyError, TypeError):
            return False

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(context.active_object.data)
        if bm.select_mode != {'VERT'}:
            layout.label("Vertex select only", icon = 'INFO')
            return
        selected = [vert.index for vert in bm.verts if vert.select]
        if not selected:
            layout.label("Nothing selected", icon = 'INFO')
        else:
            layout.template_list("MESH_UL_uvmaps_vcols", "vcols", context.active_object.data, "vertex_colors", context.active_object.data.vertex_colors, "active_index", rows=1)
            row = layout.row(align=True)
            row.prop(context.scene, 'color_picker', text="")
            row.operator("vertex_col.apply")

class ApplyVertCol(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "vertex_col.apply"
    bl_label = "Assign"
    bl_description = "Assign color to selected vertices for selected vertex color layer"

    def execute(self, context):
        me = context.active_object.data
        bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
        selected = [vert.index for vert in bm.verts if vert.select]
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT', toggle=True)
        for face in me.polygons:
            for vert_idx, loop_idx in zip(face.vertices, face.loop_indices):
                if vert_idx in selected:
                    me.vertex_colors[me.vertex_colors.active_index].data[loop_idx].color = context.scene.color_picker
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT', toggle=True)
        return{'FINISHED'}

bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)
bpy.types.Scene.color_picker = bpy.props.FloatVectorProperty(subtype='COLOR_GAMMA', default=(1,1,1), min=0.0, max=1.0, description="Color Picker")


It looks like:

Light Size will influence the softness of the light edges and of the objects shadows.

Light Blend will influence the softness of the light edges only.


Joining a hexagon mesh with a circle mesh with faces: is there an easier way than what I'm currently doing?

Sometimes it might be less fiddly to create the circle from a subdivided hexagon, by I insetting the hexagon, and then using either the shipped add-on Loop Tools > Circle operation, or ShiftAltS 'To Sphere'. You could always snap-scale the inner circle to connect it to another existing one, if that's the intention.

.. and you could do it to multiple hexagons at once


When I move a body part the mirrored body part moves too

it will happen , because mirror objects should move just like the real life


Waveform not showing while checking audio scrubbing

Turning on the waveform display is a separate setting in the 'View' menu:

If you have a long MP3, you may have to wait for the previews to generate (after turning 'Waveforms On'):


This method uses only built in functionality and does keep your UV coordinates in place.

First move the two inner edges so you will get a distinct intersections. Then select one of the intersecting faces and use the "Intersect (Knife)" tool (in the face menu). This will create an edge at the intersection between the two faces. It will also create some extra vertices that you need to dissolve.

Remove the overhanging triangle faces and delete them. Move the inner edges back to their position. Select the corner vertices and Remove Doubles.


Texture paint stencil painting color of image

If you use a black and transparent brush texture, on the object on which you paint you’ll get black from the texture black areas, and you’ll get no color from the texture transparent areas, whatever color you pick on the palette.

If you use a black and white brush texture, on your object you’ll get black from the texture black areas, and from the texture white areas you’ll get the exact same color you picked on the palette.

So in both cases you can’t get any other color than black from the texture black areas. Actually in the video he doesn’t get any other color than black from the texture black areas, he picks red in the palette and gets red from the texture white areas.

The Texture Brush will project what's on your texture on your object, if you choose something else than white on your palette it will just mix the color you chose with the color of the texture.

The Texture Mask brush (below the Texture Brush) will act like a mask, the blacker your texture color is the less the color you picked will be painted on the object.


How can i clean irregular few group of vertices in sculpting?

Nevermind, I resolved it by myself:
These irregularity are simply bad topology, or rather accumulated vertices that are stacked after an excessive rearrangement of an initial unique mesh. The result is the tangling of groups of vertices that create hollows, ridges and high density of vertices that are hard to handle, and they stay on the bottom.
The use of tools like flatten, smooth, inflate and draw are useless, and also the simplify tool is not helpful.
SOLUTION:
Finally, the direct solution is:

Use in edit mode the tool bisect and trim the piece that has irregularity;
Delete this;
Use a new mesh to sculpt;
End.


Can I import an image file so it can be used in grease pencil?

HOW TO ADD BACKGROUND OR REFERENCE IMAGES IN BLENDER 2D GREASE PENCIL THIS EVEN APPLIES TO GENERAL MODE

When you start in 2D animation Mode. Your option will be set to "DRAW" mode instead of
"object mode" you need to Switch from Draw mode to object Mode.

When you switch to object mode you will notice new button options and one of them is "Add"
you can use that or just Shift A.

1 -shift+A to add background image or reference Image.

2 - Shift + A to add Grease Pencil then select blank or stroke or the monkey if you don't know what they each mean, google it. if you just want to draw select blank.

3 - now change mode from object mode to "DRAW MODE"
    enjoy.


I don't believe that it's possible to actually lock vertices. I can think of a workaround though.

Select the vertices you want locked in vertex select mode, and press H. This will hides them, so you won't be able to move them around.

When you're done, and you want to bring them back (unlock them) just press AltH


Rotate a sphere diagonally (both around x and y axis)

This is because you seem to want to rotate around a custom axis, rather than two axes at once.

One way to do this:

Align one of the object's local axes to the axis you wish to rotate around. If you don't want to rotate your actual mesh, see Set rotation values without applying them.

In this screenshot I've rotate a sphere so that it's local Z is aligned around the axis I wish to roll it along:

Add an empty and animate it spinning around the axis you aligned (so in this case I've animated it rotating 360° around the Z)
Add a copy rotation constraint to the sphere and select the empty as the target (note that you can press E while hovering over the object selection drop down to select an object in the 3D view). Then disable the axes you don't want to be copied and set the rotation to be "pasted" in the sphere's local space:

Animate the location of the sphere and you are good to go. Note that the sphere has no rotation keyframes, the rotation is done on the empty and copied with the constraint.

To explain what is happening when you rotate around two axes at once, hopefully this gif can make it clearer:

It's hard to explain :P

The gray Suzanne represents your sphere. Note that it rotates 360° around the Z and 360&deg around the X. Rotating around these axes will not make it rotate around a imaginary diagonal like you seem to expecting.


How to apply list of rotations to multiple bones using animation nodes

While it is not encouraged, you can technically use list comprehensions as follows. A list comprehension takes the form:

[element.attribute for element in elements]

element.attribute has to be an actual object, thus writing an assignment operator instead like bone.rotation_quaternion = quat won't work, because assignment operators won't return anything. However, if you used the setattr() function, it will execute and return None. In conclusion, you can write the expression as follows:

[setattr(bone, "rotation_quaternion", quaternion) for bone, quaternion in zip(object.pose.bones, quaternions)]

If you want to assign the quaternion only to the bones at the indices defined by an integer list, you would use an expression as follows:

[setattr(object.pose.bones[i], "rotation_quaternion", quaternions[i]) for i in indices]

Instead of looping over the bones and quaternions themselves, you loop over the indices and get the bones and quaternions at the current index.

If you quaternion list is masked based on the indices, then you should loop over the quaternions directly as follows:

[setattr(object.pose.bones[i], "rotation_quaternion", quaternion) for i, quaternion in zip(indices, quaternions)]


How to conform a mesh ontop of another mesh?

I seem to have arrived at a solution thanks to the comments by @Mobin.

Place circle mesh where you want it with Snapping -> Face

Circle mesh -> Edit mode -> Select face -> I to inset and create internal geometry. A few loop cuts to improve its ability to bend.

You need to get rid of the vertices in the middle, or the geometry does strange things when applying the shrinkwrap.

Then you give the circle a shrinkwrap modifier. Modifiers -> Shrinkwrap
Set the body as the target, change the offset to the smallest amount that doesn't clip through.


Invalid drivers aren't shown and can't be deleted

Remove, since removed shape-key drivers.
From pic in question appears they are shape key drivers, which remain if a keyblock is removed, renamed (To reproduce, add a shapekey "Key 1", give it a driver, delete the shapekey. Then add a new key, and since its name is "Key 1" bingo it has a driver... )
Code to remove invalid path shape key drivers.
import bpy

for sk in bpy.data.shape_keys:
    if not sk.animation_data:
        continue
    bung_drivers = []
    # find bung drivers
    for d in sk.animation_data.drivers:
        try:
            sk.path_resolve(d.data_path)
        except ValueError:
            bung_drivers.append(d)
    # remove bung drivers
    while bung_drivers:
        sk.animation_data.drivers.remove(
                bung_drivers.pop()
                )

Generic, for all ID types
Loop over all ID types in the data of the blend and remove any driver whose path does not resolve.
import bpy
from bpy import data
from bpy.types import bpy_prop_collection

colls = [
    p for p in dir(data)
    if isinstance(getattr(data, p), bpy_prop_collection)
    ]

for p in colls:
    for ob in getattr(data, p, []):
        ad = getattr(ob, "animation_data", None)
        if not ad:
            continue
        bung_drivers = []
        # find bung drivers
        for d in ad.drivers:
            try:
                ob.path_resolve(d.data_path)
            except ValueError:
                bung_drivers.append(d)
        # remove bung drivers
        while bung_drivers:
            ad.drivers.remove(
                    bung_drivers.pop()
                    )


Is it possible to project an object onto another object's surface?

Use the shrinkwrap constraint.

Select the target object.

The original object's origin will move to the surface of the target object.


I took a look at it , and you did something strange with the material . I deleted the material first

then i added a new material with the + button

then i did the steps to add a texture :

-Image or movie
- Wrap mode : UV

I also turned on Ambient occlusion in the world properties

My guess is that it is a bug , Or you did something i did not see.

EDIT : also make sure you dont have extension changed unless you know what it does

keep it on repeat .


What is the difference between coloring a model with materials vs textures?

Texture
Textures give you the pattern. This can be an image or a computer generated pattern. It can have colors or it can be black/white. It just simple pattern without any additional information. It doesn't know how rough the surface is. It doesn't know if it's metallic or not. It doesn't know if it emits light or lets it pass through. Just plain picture. In node editor you can manipulate textures with converter nodes and they output different texture.

Material
Material is what you get when you combine all the properties that the surface has. Material can have textures in it. The pattern is still there but there are so much more. There is the pattern but also in the pattern there are bumps that reflect light. There are areas that are metal. There are areas that are see through and there are areas that are mirror like.

Before Principled BSDF shader you had to use multiple shaders to create your material. Now you can do quite well with just a single shader. You can think of Principled BSDF as a combination of multiple shaders. Basically you have textures and you feed them into shaders. In some cases your textures may just be black or white (0 or 1) if you want the whole material to be uniform. For example the whole material might be metallic and the metallic value would be 1 everywhere.
You then combine your shaders and feed them into material output. This is the material that you have.
If you don't use textures then your material has the same property everywhere. If you want to have different properties at different parts of your material then you have to use textures.


I found the general solution to "dynamically change any constraint" which subsumes "dynamically change pivot". It's simple: Change the "Influence".

Flowchart:

Create (stack) as many pivot constraints as required and target them
to the respective objects (or empties).
Set "Influence" of all the   pivots to "0" before creating any
key-frames.
For the first rotation about (suppose) the x-axis, key-frame the
x-rotation and set Influence to 1.
Scrub frames till a, rotate as required and key-frame x-rot.
Now to blend this with the second rotation, scrub a few (k)
frames back till a-k, key-frame the first Pivot's Influence (now
at 1) and also key-frame the second Pivot's Influence (at 0).
Scrub forward to a+k frame and switch the values of the  first
and second Pivots' Influence; key-frame both.
Scrub frames and setup the second rotation as before (Step 4.), and so on.

I endorse this method over other simpler Transformation methods since this is parametric and has few dependencies.


Weight painting seems to be ignored on my rig

Found 2 issues here :

First, you forgot to apply the mirror modifier.
Second, you can see that it is not the "foot" weight that influences the other side, but the "toe" weight (and this is a side-effect of the mirror modifier I guess) :

So make sure to apply the mirror modifier before parenting the armature, then try again. You'll be able to tweak the weight painting more efficiently.

And a side note, you'd better to pull up the Armature modifier before the Subsurf modifier (you'll get better performance while moving the rig, so the animation will be less painful;)


Best way to mark seams and unwrap this mesh?

Apply scale CtrlA to your model before unwrapping it with Smart UV Project to prevent the texture from stretching.


Walls are no obstacles. They should be not part of the walkable area (navigation mesh).

When using the build-in navigation generator walls and holes are excluded from the navigation mesh automatically. The navigation mesh will leave gaps that ensure the character will not touch the walls.

The path finding will take place on the navigation mesh only. Any other area will not be considered. Therefore any target to move to has to be placed above the navigation mesh. Otherwise it is not reachable.


Yes, in blender it is called Proportional Edit.

You just have to enable the tool by pressing O and then you can adjust its area of influence by using the mouse wheel (or by using PgUpPgDown) while you perform a tranformation, say, while you are translating a vertice.


Is there any way to make random areas of a mesh trasparent?

Create a texture (like clouds, voronoi or musgrave or even an image texture) and have that texture control the mixture between the base cloud shader and a transparent one. Additionally, you can use a color ramp to control the contrast on the texture.

A more computationally intensive approach to making clouds, would be to use a texture to control the density of a volume scatter shader connected to the volume socket of the material.


One thing you can do is texture painting. That allows you to add different colors to your model and apply all of that color to the material of the object. Here's a good tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcCQKuWPhXk


How to get the class type of a Blender Collection Property?

ID.items() is going to give you custom-properties, which is lower level and bypasses properties created by bpy.props, I suspect you want to iterate over attributes, instead of custom-properties.

You can do this instead:

scene = bpy.data.scenes[0]
for attr in dir(scene):
    value = getattr(scene, attr)
    if type(value) == bpy.types.CollectionProperty:
        print("something", attr, value)

The example above uses Python's dir and getattr functions, you can also use a Blender specific method of introspecting properties.

scene = bpy.data.scene[0]
for attr in scene.bl_rna.properties.keys():
    value = getattr(scene, attr)
    if type(value) == bpy.types.CollectionProperty:
        print("something", attr, value)

This limits the properties to Blender's data-api, and wont include functions for example.

Here is a working example based on the example in your question:

import bpy
from bpy.props import StringProperty, CollectionProperty

class MyCollectionProperty(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    name = StringProperty(default="")

bpy.utils.register_class(MyCollectionProperty)
bpy.types.Scene.my_collection_prop = CollectionProperty(
        type=MyCollectionProperty)

scene = bpy.data.scenes[0]
for attr in dir(scene):
    prop = getattr(scene, attr, None)
    if isinstance(prop, bpy.types.bpy_prop_collection):
        if bpy.types.Scene.bl_rna.properties[attr].fixed_type == MyCollectionProperty.bl_rna:
            print(prop, "found")

This used Blender specific data-api introspection (bl_rna).

Note: You may want to use isinstance.


To delete keyframes, select them, and press X.

Some keyframes may be locked (Icon of a lock on the side). I can't tell because the Nurbs or the Spiral are not expanded in the Dope Sheet Summary.


Unsupported CUDA version 5.0 detected, you need CUDA 6.5

As your /usr/local/ directory shows you have installed multiple versions of CUDA (/usr/bin/nvidia-uninstall would only uninstall the last one). When upgrading I had first to uninstall all CUDA files:

From pre-installation-actions

Use the following command to uninstall a Toolkit runfile installation:

$ sudo /usr/local/cuda-X.Y/bin/uninstall_cuda_X.Y.pl

Use the following command to uninstall a Driver runfile installation:

$ sudo /usr/bin/nvidia-uninstall

Use the following commands to uninstall a RPM/Deb installation:

$ sudo apt-get --purge remove <package_name>          # Ubuntu
$ sudo yum remove <package_name>                      # Fedora/Redhat/CentOS
$ sudo zypper remove <package_name>                   # OpenSUSE/SLES

Check for remaining packages:

$ dpkg -l

and remove them also. After a re-install of the most recent version should work.


How do I disable the body mask on the Rain model?

TLDR
With the armature selected, in the CloudRig panel, under Outfits, you can choose if you want to mask or display the legs and arms. This is shown in the walktrough video at 1:00.
How it is done
The object "GEO-rain_body" has a Mask modifier (the 3rd one in the modifier pile). It masks every vertex belonging to the "mask_modifier" vertex group.
The two modifiers above, "mask_arms" and "mask_legs", add those respective vertex groups to "mask_modifier" ; but only in Viewport, not in Render.
Then things become a little bit more complex, because their visibility in viewport is driven (that's why the icon appears purple) by the value of a custom propertie of the armature. So, you just need to modify that property in the CloudRig panel, with the armature selected (so you don't need to select the object, go to modifiers and manually unset them).


Hover the the Object Color property in the properties window and press I