Ok this is a tutorial on how to create a portal using scenes, render layers, object id and compositing. Please try to achieve it while reading the tutorial.

First you want to have the first world and the portal.

Note that i set the plane pass index to 1, this is crucial.

Then you need the second world, I did a terrain with a sunlamp.
Create them in the second scene and link your camera here afterward (ctrl+L->link to scene).

After this you need to set up the render layers, for use with compositing.
Go to render layer panel, unfold the pass menu and select object index

For the scene 2, you don't need to set the object index because the plane you will be using for splicing the two world is only present in the first scene.

Everything is setup, open the node editor and select the compositing nodes.

Here you start with a render layer that is set on render layer one, scene one (we are just using one scene in our case) and a composite output.

Just add another render layer, set in on scene 2, add an alpha over node and connect your two layers color output on that node, the factor is the plane, so connect the indexOB that we activated earlier for the first layer to an IDMask node then to the factor of the alpha over. Easier to just look at the picture here:

Now you can just render.

Being an after effect, there is no such thing as compatibility issues regarding wether you are using cycles, eevie, or blender internal.


Make Blender usable on high resolution screen

To make the UI elements even larger you can choose Double under the Virtual Pixel mode
this option is in User_Preferences->system


How to accurately shade an object while texture painting

Perhaps you just need to turn on the Shadow and Cavity in Viewport Shading tab as below:


Fluid in simulation disappears when from moving container

The main problem is that scale has not been applied. The domain and the obstacles should have an euler scale of 1,1,1. Just select everything and press Ctrl+A and choose scale. Otherwise the fluid will misinterpret where the obstacles are and just act weird.

Another thing is that the domain is ridiculously large, so even with a high resolution you're basically getting crap, which means that the fluid will act strangely.


Which VR headset works smoothly with Blender?

Actually, SteamVR (which also means Valve Index) is now OpenXR compatible.
All you need to do is to select the current Beta of SteamVR (in Steam ..)
Works flawlessly with Blender - no other setup required.


Decimate modifier is reducing faces, even though the set angle is smaller than the Angle Limit set

A test case:
From left to right: 90° then 30°.

If we go above 30° in the modifier the 30° angle is decimated:

Now we have a 105° angle:

which means the angle variation is 75° (180 - 105°) following the edge (or face) variation.
So if the modifier angle goes above 75°:

... the edge collapse again.
That means the modifier is "cumulative": it will decimate all parts where the angle variation is below the given angle in the modifier.


By default simulations cache only form frame 1 to 250, you can change that in the scene >Rigid Body World > Cache


My Character from Mixamo has no shading in Blender

Under Material Properties>Viewport Display>Colour - then click the colour and slide the Alpha to 1


Installing glTF-Blender-IO latest Version in Blender 2.8

I'll start off by saying, Blender 2.80 Beta and the GitHub glTF-Blender-IO repository are going to be kept in sync at least through the end of 2.80's release and likely far beyond.  So if something new goes in the GitHub master branch, usually you can wait a couple of days and see it show up in a daily build of Blender.  There's a version number near the top of __init__.py that has been getting more regular updates, with the intention of making it more apparent when GitHub changes have made their way into the Blender repo.

What I'm saying is, if there's no rush on your part, you can just wait for the changes to come through on the Blender side, and not worry about downloading from GitHub.

But, if you want to try something before it gets over to Blender (such as a branch that's under development, or a fix you need right away, etc.), then yes, download the GitHub repository and install the addons/io_scene_gltf2 folder from there.

The trickiest thing about the install will be that Blender can't tell the difference between the shipped addon vs the one you downloaded.  You need to get rid of the copy that came pre-installed with Blender, before you can try a new branch or version of the same addon.  In your Blender install folder, look for this subfolder:

{Blender_Install_Folder}/2.80/scripts/addons/io_scene_gltf2/

This one needs to be deleted or moved completely out of the Blender install tree, before you can replace it with a new one.  The addons/io_scene_gltf2 folder from GitHub can be used as a drop-in replacement here, if you like, or you can use one of the external script folder methods you mentioned above.

Quit and re-start Blender to make these changes apply.  Note that you will not have to go re-enable the addon, even if it's in a different install folder.  Apparently, Blender keeps a list of enabled addons by name, not by install location, so your new version of this addon will already be enabled when you launch Blender.


Best way to move scale pivot with mirror modifier

To do this:

Switch to edit mode

Switch to edge selection

Select required edge

Shift+S --> cursor to selected

Result:


How can I create a 2-D texture of green clouds on a black background?

In your shader editor, I would suggest something along the lines of this:

That's a Noise Texture, generally Perlin, taken to an adjustable power with an adjustable factor added to it, used to mix RGB between jet black and glowing green. Then, it's attached to the color of an emission shader, with an adjustable strength (I went with 4.6), and finally tied to the surface output. You can play with the power and the addition to bias your clouds toward green or black, and change the contrast.
This would work equally well as a world shader, if you're going for a background instead. You could also use the noise output to mix the emission with a transparency shader (Mix Shader) to have a clear background, if you needed to. Have fun!


uv smart projecting multiple objects via python loop issue

You need to set the object as the active object. You can add bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].objects.active = obj at the beginning of your loop.


How to make different objects follow and bend with different curves with AN?

I shall describe a method to deform an object along a spline. You can extend that to multiple splines/objects using a simple loop.

First, we choose one of the local axis of the target mesh to be the axis along the spline tangent, let that be x in this demonstration. We then get the vertices locations in the local space of the mesh, and normalize the chosen local axis such that it ranges between zero and one, this can be done by remapping it based on the local bounding box, however, for simplicity, we are going to use the value of the x dimensions.

Then, the normalized x locations are used as the parameters of the spline evaluation process, the tangent and normal are normalized and the cotangent is computed using the cross product. Then, a linear combination of the tangent, normal, and cotangent is computed using the x, y, and z locations of the vertices as the coefficients respectively. Then the evaluated locations are added.

Finally, a new mesh is constructed from those vertices and output.


I solved the problem. The problem stemmed from me having ticked the dynamic property in rigid body settings for each object. Unticking dynamic worked.


How can I prevent my text object from flickering?

The problem seems to be because of your camera's clipping options.

You have these starting from 1mm and continuing to 10km, while limits closer to the actual visible range of your scene would be more sensible.

I'm cutting some corners about the actual math involved, but basically the way these settings work, is that the range you have set is divided into different distance steps to the camera, within possible computing precision, when determining what things are in front or behind other things. There is limited precision in this rendering code for this distance information, so bigger range for the camera clipping means bigger steps in comparing distances, so objects with only a small distance between them might end up in the same distance step and go in the wrong order.

Having smaller clipping range makes also these steps smaller, so the rendering code is able to differentiate between smaller distances as well. Note that there's a lot more of this precision near the "near" plane than near the "far" plane, so increasing the "Start" value might have even more impact than reducing the "End" value, even if the amount you change it is far less.

A range from 1m to 300m or so would be ok for your scene.


How to build a cylinder from 2 vertices?

This is a bit complex but here goes.
in edit mode:
Select one vertex
snap the 3Dcursor to vertex with (Shift s - snap to selected)
exit edit mode
create a circle of the desired diameter and fill with triangle fan. (Shift a) The middle vertex of the triangle fan is needed later for snapping.
select the other vertex (in edit mode in the object with the vertex)
again snap the 3Dcursor to vertex
create an empty (Shift a)
select the circle
add an object constraint: track to
and select the empty as the target
The circle should now be perpendicular to the line between the two vertices.
now select the circle and enter edit mode of the circle
enable snap to vertex
and finally extrude the circle towards the second vertex.
if needed you can join the objects to create a single mesh.
I home that helps,
Cheers


Keeping track of splines in curve -> splines.get(), but what is the key?

curve.splines is a list so you can test how long it is -

if len(obj.data.splines) > 0:
    print('There is a spline in this curve')

You can treat the points the same -

if len(obj.data.splines[i].bezier_points) > 0:
    print('We have a point in this spline')

Depending on what you are doing you could also use a for loop -

for s in obj.data.splines:
    print('This only prints if there is at least one spline')


It's the escape key, should work, and should leave the bake intact up to where it was pressed.
Works on 2.81a in Windows for me.


Q: Is there a way to limit the amount of VRAM blender uses?

A: NO

Example: if your scene need 2GB of VRAM, Blender need 2GB VRAM for render this scene. No other way. Imagine, you want to pour 2l water into 1.5l bottle.

Also there are no direct evidence the problem is amount of VRAM.
I don't thing VNC need VRAM for running. This doesn't make sense:-)


Grease Pencil Keyframes not visible in timeline

I have the exact problem, I have keyframes and there is animation, but the keyframes aren't visible anywhere, not even in graph editor even though the object is selected.
To fix the bug go to Object Mode and create a new grease pencil stroke. When going back to the original drawing keyframes show again.


How to make Filmic view transform to not affect the background image?

Preamble
Just to understand why we are mixing apples and oranges and what the problem is.
In blender, images are rendered in scene referred values, meaning the data is linear and the values unbound (in an infinite scale). Such information needs to be processed through color transforms (set in the color management section) to be viewable in a display (a monitor, projector or print). Displays use a very limited scale of values (black is at 0 and white is 1) and require a transfer function (sometimes called "gamma curve"). In other words the color transforms, filmic is one of them, convert scene referred data to display referred.
The math for Compositing images works best with linear information, in an unbound scale, in other words: scene referred images are better suited for compositing.
Video images are usually recorded in a display referred format. In a limited scale and with a baked in transfer function.
It is hard to mix scene referred images with display referred images. It is a lot easier to mix them if they are in a common scale.
Unfortunately, Blender's compositor is quite limited, in the sense that has no tools to deal with images trough different paths for color processing.
A couple of options
There are couple of ways to approach the problem.

Best case scenario: Video in Raw or Log.
If the video is shot with a real camera, one that can record the raw info or using log encoding. The advantage of such formats is that they can record a lot more information and dynamic range in a way that is the images can be converted to scene referred linear values quite easy. Then all you need store them as EXR (this can be done in DaVinci resolve or other software).
Then use the EXRs in blender (or any other compositing app like Nuke, Fusion, Natron) and composite CG renders and Video images happily ever after.
Alternatively you might choose to keep the images in a log encoded format and de-log (linearize) in blender or whatever other compositing software you use.

Video not in Log or Raw.
Most video shot with consumer cameras (DSLRs or phone cameras) is recorded in a display referred format.
It is very hard to accurately convert such images to scene referred values. The difficulty lies in the way the cameras convert the values from the sensor in a non-linear way. There is no easy way to undo or reverse such conversion and restore the values of the light that was registered by the sensor. The curves used to fit the light values into the display referred container are not reversible.
The only possible way to mix those images with the cg in the realm of display referred imagery... So render in blender with filmic with no background and composite later. If you do this in blender remember to set the color management back to sRGB (also called "standard" or "default") so that both images are decoded and encoded using similar values.


Issue with rendering a simple low poly scene. Render is warped and deformed

You have a Subdivision Surface Modifier attached to your room, with the number of subdivisions set to 0 for the preview, but 2 for the render. If you want the render to be the same as the preview, turn down the number of subdivisions for the render. However, if 0 subdivisions is what you like the look of, you might not need the modifier at all, or if you still need the "floor" subdivided, consider using "Simple", as opposed to "Catmull-Clark".


I think you can. But you can better make the animated rig a dynamic body with capsule bounds in collision bounds. try to ajust the hight so the feet will touch the ground. to do this, just move the origin of the rig. Now just use programming with velocity motion to make it walk and try to change the animation according to the speed you want it to walk. Cause with physics like that, I think it wil lag a lot because it will try to sufficate with the underground. And in that case you should use triangle mesh bounds witch ask a lot more from your pc / mac / linux thing.


How does Color Mix (Difference) node work?

In Cycles a color is just a set of 3 numbers representing the red, blue, and green content of the color.  To perform a mathematical operation on a color Cycles splits the color up into its RGB channels, performs the operation on each channel individually, and then combines them back into a Color datatype again.

The Mix RGB node, when set to difference, returns the absolute value of the first color minus the second color.  Mathematically: Color = |Color1 - Color2|.

The Fac value controls how much this influences the output.  So if Fac is 0 the output is always Color1, if Fac is 1 the output is always the exact result of the mix operation chosen (in your case, Difference).  It basically just mixes Color1 back into the result of the operation.  Mathematically: Color = |Color1 - Color2| * Fac + Color1 * (1-Fac).


Is there a reason why handler functions are added differently from custom driver functions?

Handlers are callback handlers that work on application level. Drivers work on data level. What does this mean?

app.handlers also work without having any data to work with. For drivers you will always need to add the driver to existing data in blender. For example an attribute on your object.

The app.driver_namespace contains some value modification functions you can use within your drivers. By itself it doesn't do a thing. It needs to be triggered by the animation system.

def mul2(value): return value*2
bpy.app.driver_namespace['my_function'] = mul2

Now you can use this function inside a driver python expression

#my_function(var)


How can i move a set of meshes to a new layer?

You hold Shift in order to multi-select many objects. After you selected all your objects, you can move them to a new layer by pressing M to select the layer you want them to be in.

Or use  M folowed by the layer number,  for example: M3 will move the selected objects to layer 3


What would be some approaches to get low noise images from cycles with given render time for indoor scenes?

Reduce max bounces to 4(you don't need more), Use filter glossy to maximum. Use like 50-75 samples. Try to avoid using roughness(it makes a lot of noise). Make object Mix shader and put shader in bottom, than set the factor. There are a lot more suggestions which should help.
Here
are some more things to use.


What is the script of Glossy BSDF roughness value?


Middle mouse button does not move the user perspective

Check your keymap preferences. Click the edit drop down from the top of the window, click preferences at the very bottom, and navigate to where I am in the attached picture. Is rotate mapped to your middle mouse button?


I don't know how I locked "view offset", but how do I unlock it?

Check the "view" panel in the properties shelf of the 3D viewport. This error message can be caused if the user attempts to move the 3D viewport when there is an entry in the "Lock to Object" text box.


Is there something similar to curves' tilt for skin modifier?

From the very nature of the Skin modifier, this is not possible. Vertices do not have any rotational data, only location data. Because of this, it would be impossible to "tilt" the Skin modifier result, as it uses vertices to interpolate the resulting mesh.

Most of the examples I have seen the modeller is using curves. By using extrusion and bevel you can make great flat laces, and round ones are even easier. They also are completely editable at all times.

I would strongly recommend using curves for this.

There is one example here that you can see. There is also a solution for one of the issues you might run into.


How to apply transformations to empties?

I found a solution:

You have to modify the empty's location, scale and rotation properties with the information contained in the Transformation Matrix. If you used vectors to build the Transformation Matrix, just apply them:

# For location add the vectors
empty.location = empty.location + traslationVect

# For scale assign the vector
empty.scale = scaleVector

If you have the transformation matrix you'll have to build the vectors based on the matrix's elements

PS: I didn't dive into rotations.


Get the camera-object direction as a vector by subtracting the cameras location from the objects location: direction
Convert this vector to a look at quaternion with the vectors to_track_quat('Z', 'Y') function. This function returns a quaternion rot which points its Z in the direction of the direction vector and its Y in the direction of the global Y.
Convert rot to a 4x4 matrix.
Convert the cameras location into a Translation Matrix and store it in loc.
Compose the new camera matrix by matrix-multiplying the loc matrix and the rot matrix and assign it to the camera matrix_world.

import bpy
import mathutils

cam = bpy.context.scene.camera
object = bpy.context.active_object

direction = cam.location - object.location

rot = direction.to_track_quat('Z', 'Y').to_matrix().to_4x4()
loc = mathutils.Matrix.Translation(cam.location)

cam.matrix_world =  loc @ rot


Hair dynamics does not affect all grass stands, some are frozen

I fixed the problem by deleting the emitter and particle system and re-creating it. When I made my emitter more complex (not a flat plane) and added more hairs it all worked fine.


Make sure you have keyframed all bones.

Armature Pose Mode 3D View Window On Frame 123 (From your pic)

Select all

A

Insert Keyframes

I

Rotation.  Scale.  From the popup menu.

Render on the same frame 123

Please show the timeline with the keyframes present in your original question.


How do I write a function that changes current frame to 150 if current frame is 250

Scene.frame_set(...)

All handlers take a single argument, scene. In some handlers, load for example, the scene argument has value None in which case is often referred to as "dummy"

import bpy

def skip_playback(scene):
    if scene.frame_current >= 250:
        scene.frame_set(150)

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

The scene in the handler is the scene being "handled"..  Using a data reference like bpy.data.scenes["Scene"] is a slippery slope, when there is no scene named  "Scene" or there is another scene's handler will set its frame.

Similar functionality could be achieved by setting the scene frame start and end, or preview start and end.

On your error, it is a basic syntax error in that you have not defined scene in the change_frame method.

I would recommend, when you are new (or not) to python,  when you get an error you don't understand make a search for "Python NameError"  (based on the error type NameError in this case)


Why is the ring at such an angle when animated?

To not to have any issues with Rigid Body Simulation remember to always apply Scale and Rotation for your objects - Ctrl+A and also keep in mind that really small objects will behave strangely.

In your case, after applying Scale and Rotation you will need to change ring Mass to something like 1.

Secondly, to increase Rigid Body Simulation time you will need to go to Scene tab and under Rigid Body Cache set the End value to match your Timeline value.


Switching from Mac to PC - Questions regarding GPU-rendering

(1) Should I render with the CPU or GPU?

If you have a powerful GPU with enough memory to handle the scene, it is preferable to use the GPU or a combination of CPU and GPU. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is a high-end GPU, at the time of writing, which will significantly improve render performance compared to CPU only.

(2) Are there any downsides with rendering with the GPU?

When using a GPU that doesn't have enough memory to fit the scene one of two things can happen. For AMD graphics cards (OpenCL) Blender wouldn't be able to render the scene. When using Nvidia graphics cards (CUDA or Optix) Blender can swap data between GPU and RAM as needed, but this requires more time. Whether or not this is faster than just rendering on the CPU will depend on the particular hardware used.
Certain optimizations aren't supported on the GPUs, for instance equiangular sampling for lights. CPUs may have an advantage for those scenes and it makes sense not to combine CPU + GPU rendering in this case because there may be visible differences between tiles rendered on the CPU and GPU.

(3) Which one of CUDA, OptiX, and OpenCL should I choose for GPU-rendering?

The available choices depend on the Blender version, manufacturer of the graphics card(s) and whether it meets the minimum requirements for GPU rendering.
Blender 2.83
CUDA: Nvidia graphics cards with compute capability of 3.0 or higher.
OptiX: Nvidia RTX graphics cards only.
OpenCL: AMD graphics cards with the GCN second generation micro-architecture or later.

Blender 2.90
CUDA: Nvidia graphics cards with compute capability of 3.0 or higher (requirement for Blender 2.83).
OptiX: All Nvidia GPUs with a compute capability of 5.0 or higher. This requirement is lower than in Blender 2.83 (see release notes of Blender 2.90).
OpenCL: AMD graphics cards with the GCN second generation micro-architecture or later (requirement for Blender 2.83).

Note that you can only select one of the options and thus cannot use both Nvidia and AMD GPUs for rendering.
Since you're using a Nvidia RTX graphics card you can either select CUDA or OptiX. OptiX leverages the special RTX hardware ray tracing functionality of the GPU which can increase the performance, however it does not have feature parity with CUDA. The following features are missing for OptiX according to Blender's manual:

Baking
Branched Path Tracing
Ambient Occlusion and Bevel shader nodes
Combined CPU + GPU rendering

(4) What size should the tiles be when rendering with the GPU?

A slightly bigger tile size seems to be the general recommendation, e.g. $256 \times 256$ px. However, which particular tile size is ideal for your hardware should be evaluated instead of relying on measurements found on the internet that use a different hardware, since they may not be representative. You can determine good settings by picking a demo scene and measuring the required render time for different tile sizes. There's also an add-on called Auto Tile Size, which is included in Blender by default, that can help you select a consistent tile size across the render.


Basically you do this steps:

⇧ Shift + A -> Mesh ->  plane
7 -> Top Orthographic View
↹ Tab -> Edit Mode
⇧ Shift + ↹ Tab -> Turn snapping on
Select the bottom vertices and RMB  -> subdivide
Select the bottom left vertex
Press G -> Y -> Move down with mouse
Repeat step 6-7 for bottom right vertex

Here is a link to a video tutorial: https://youtu.be/3I-udSlXakM


How to get back to normal animation timeline after using NLA Editor

adding a keyframe, you've started creating an action.

 To get back to "normality" :
open dopesheet

In dopesheet, go to action editor

here you can edit or remove your action

If you're editing an action (hello) animating the same bone(s) as the other one (walk cycle), the action above is the only one that will do something. The action below is "muted" (at least the part that uses the same bone).


Blender Rendering includes smoke in image render but not in animation render

Ok guys i figured it out... and im an idiot.

Turns out the smoke rendering only begins at frame 2.
I never let it go past 1 :/


There is currently no native way to do it. prop_search is a generally bad idea for linking objects since it stores only the name of the object, once you change it in the outliner the reference will get lost. I am using a custom made property for that purpose which stores a pointer to the object and it has a custom made eye dropper as well. https://github.com/WowDevTools/Blender-WMO-import-export-scripts
You can find it in this addon in idproperty folder. Let me know if you have any questions on how to use it. Besides, I heard they are adding proper object pointers into 2.79, so once it is out, you may consider replacing those custom properties with the official ones.


One shape key, multiple bones driving it

You can have one driver only, but in that driver you can set two (or more) variables, one driven by the left bone and one driven by the right bone. The scripted expression could be something like "var1 + var2".


You can use shade smooth to get a similar effect in cycles:
Select the polygon-face, and do Face -> shade smooth


You could try to simulate this with a particle system and force fields.


Object persisting in scene after endObject is called

It emerges that the issue was that bge.logic.NextFrame() did not produce the next frame independently, but it required a manual incrementing of the simulation time. I have gotten rid of my problem by adding the following lines:

simulationTime += dT
bge.logic.setClockTime(simulationTime)

Hope this helps somebody.


pipe which has non-uniform cross-section

You can certainly extrude a cross section along a curve and rotate that cross section, change its size and change the end cap.

Try using a curve modifier with an array modifier and change the start/end caps:

You can also experiment with bevel curves and tapers:

In the old days we used to be able to transition between cross sections by using dupliframes to create multiple copies of a mesh along a curve at frame intervals (e.g. one every 10 frames) and then loft them together. Something like this: old Blenderartists thread but I'm not sure how you do that now. Maybe using the animation nodes add on. It's a starting point at least.

Hopefully somebody will have a better answer for you, but in the meantime this gives you something to work with.


How to fix the pulling corners on a smooth surface?

The main problem is that the handle is extruded from the middle of a face instead of from a proper "edge looped" one. Your model ends up with non quads just above the handle and subdiv modifier does not like that.... At this point you might be better off starting again from a cylinder with enough subdivisions for one face to match the size of the handle. Check out the difference in topology between the two models below. The left one started from a 10-face cylinder, the right one from a 20-face cylinder:


Scientific visualization - How to replicate instances around a sphere?

Globally dupli works on the convention that normals (vertex normals) correspond to the Y axis of the dupli.

To orient the protein:

First apply rotation and scale CtrlA so that we start with something we can work with
Then rotate it to the Y axis
And apply rotation again

Edit:

If you want to do that (I had a look at some images on google):

Enter edit mode in the protein object
Select all vertices
Rotate and grab them so that the wanted inner part meets the origin of the object (still oriented along Y) as the dupli start at each vertex of its parent from this origin

The expected setting for the sphere, concerning instancing is the following:

Corrected blend file:

Complement:

To do it from a particle system, you can use this setting for the particle system created for the sphere:

The orientation to Y is the same but can be perturbed if you activate physics, so it is disabled here.

Key parameters:

Set to 'emitter'
Start and end frames set to one (if not particles will appear during animation)
Emit from vertices
Physics 'none'
Render as object
Scale: tune as you need
Use the protein as instance object
Don't use the orientation as you want to emit along normals


This seems to be a good check:
track = bpy.data.movieclips['some_clip'].tracking.tracks['some_track']
len(track.markers) <= 3

As I understand it, each track has one marker per tracked frame and for some reason, some tracks with no segment can still have up to 3 markers.
There might be a better solution but so far I haven't had an issue with that.


Blender 2.91 Cycles: Why is the render result different from the viewport rendered view?

It seems like some of your rock visibilities are disabled in the Outliner. Click on the funnel icon and click on the camera icon to display the Disable in Renders option:


Thank you for recommending checking the materials. The normal map was causing a glitch when I packed it into the blend. When I unpacked it and relinked it, it worked. The viewport glitch was due to the viewport clipping distance being turned too high, I lowered the range and it fixed it.


Oh, I found an answer

Just go to User Preferences and in "Input" change "Jump Height"


The light behaviour is working as it should. Your mesh isn't...

You have been playing with the normals of your object, and they are all wrong. They should be perpendicular to each face, but instead they are tangents to the faces.
This was probably something you did in python since there's no interface to do it in the UI.

For a quick fix:

Properties Editor> Object Data> Geometry Data> Clear Custom Split Normals Data

I advise you to review your python code to avoid future situations like this one.


That's about right for something with that many samples =)

You have square samples enabled so it isn't 100, but 9,216 (96 x 96) samples. You should be playing with other things to get the render times down:

Clamping...you are already clamping indirect some, but also try clamping direct a bit.
Try the other performance/sample settings such as filter glossy
Disable all caustics if you don't mind the impact in your image
Reduce the number of bounces for things like glossy and diffuse (especially glossy)

Here are two good articles filled with more tips:

http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/4-easy-ways-to-speed-up-cycles/

http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/7-ways-get-rid-fireflies/


Depends on what you mean with "realtime blender online games".

Blender

Blender is a model editor and not sufficient to act as a game frame work.

BGE

The BGE is a full fledged game engine and can be used to create "realtime games".

There is no build-in network support. You can communicate over a network via Python. This means you have to implement it by yourself (strong Python and network skills required).

Other Game Engines

You can use Blender to create assets to serve a game running on other game engines. It is up to this other engines to provide network support.


Yes.

Press 3D view > HEader > Select > Faces by Sides:

Then set the type to greater than and the number of vertices to 4 in the redo panel (F6 or at the bottom of the tool shelf):

Edit Blender 2.8

This option is now in Select > Select All by Trait > Faces by Sides


HDRI light the mesh in viewport render (shift + z) but not in final render

The problem was that use Environement wasn't checked in the layer section of render layer.
Instead Environement was checked on the passes section, which is useless if Use environement is uncked.

The Environement passe is not responsible of the light on the mesh, it just show the environement (in my case the HDRI I use to light the scene.
Here is an environement passe:


Blender Python erase whole Directory content

As well as the addons folder installed with blender you can have addons within blender's preferences folder. How to find the user config folder on each system is explained here.

Within the config folder for the current blender version, you can create a scripts/addons folder (which is where blender places scripts when you use the install from file button). Inside this addons folder, create and edit your addon. Your addon will show up in the addon list in preferences where you can enable/disable it after each change.

When you are happy with your edits, copy the addon to your backup folder. As the addon is edited in place you reduce the chance of erasing the wrong file and you can also remove/re-install blender without deleting your file.


Unable to deselect newly added object with Python (Change red selection to orange) - Blender 2.8

The Orange you mention is Active state of object,
as other posts described, it is separated from selected object.
The Red ones is selected object. Newly created object in script will be "selected" but not active by default.

If you want to set it as active object:
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = some_obj - 2.80 API
For further information: Set active object with python - Blender Stack Exchange


I don't think it is possible to change the path of the startup.blend file, however there are ways you can work around it. As with all things, there is the regular way and then the blender way.

First, the blender way, basically the startup file is not cast in stone. The idea is that you can open any .blend file and save it to startup using Ctrl + U.  So when you next open blender you get a fresh copy of that file.

This might seem like a strange way to do it, but you may spend weeks modelling, then texturing and you may have different needs from your startup file for a given week or month.  So as you mentioned, keep some templates somewhere and just use the hotkey to clone this to your startup.

If you want to do this so you can backup your startup file, you can create a shortcut to your startup.blend and preferences.blend files in a more accessible directory.  On windows you'll find it in your AppData folder (it's hidden by default), this is beyond the scope of this site, but you should be able to locate it with some googling.


Select only the keyframes you want to copy with B in the Dope Sheet and copy/paste them between frames:


You have to rebake the full simulation. There is some tricks if you are really in a bad situation and really can't rebake fully, such as freezing the mesh as last frame and starting baking from there. But keep in mind there is no way for your simulation to know what was going on prior to the frame your start the baking, so your sim will start with 0 force applied.


Material that uses Texture Coordinates won't "stick" to meshes in a physics simulation

Duarte Farrajota Ramos really deserves credit for this, but the solution is as follows:

In the UV Editing workspace, select mesh in Object mode.
Switch to Edit mode and select all vertices in the mesh (A).
Press U to unwrap mesh. (If it has already been incorrectly unwrapped, delete the existing UVMap from the Object Data Properties, one of the tabs in the Properties Editor on the right).
Choose an unwrapping method from the menu. In this case, Cube Projection worked best.
Change Texture Coordinate node output from Object to UV.


How do I make one object glide to the same position as another object with logic bricks?

Have an steering actuator pathfinding to object "Target".
enable self-terminated at the actuator

When selecting a field

Place the "Target" at the selected field.
activate the steering actuator

The object will navigate to the object "target" until it reached it's position. Make sure the objects can intersect (target should be ghost or an empty).


So I figured out what was causing the issue for me :D The number in the new name I was renaming the metaballs to. When I renamed them to Slime instead of Slime1 works fine. Just leaving it here in case anyone else has this problem. :) But any additional knowledge on this topic is welcome.


The location of an object is determined by the location of it's Origin.
Most likely all your object origins are at 0,0,0, and not in the centers of your objects.
To move the origins to your objects, select everything (A) and press CtrlShiftAltC> Origin to geometry.

I don't think there is any native way to display units on the grid.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "systematically", but you could try snapping.


Control speed on track path with locked track

Ok so this was quite simple, to create keyframes in the track path parent, as the error stated, I had to remove the F modifier.

Creating the constraint kept breaking everything for me, no idea how to fix that, but I got this working now... Happy times!


Check whether shortcut key exists/don't allow shortcut key to mutliple actions

Header > Edit > Preferences > Keymap ....

... search as shown, with a string representation of your shortcut.

You will be shown a list of context-dependent uses of the key combination.


Helpful tutorials for Modeling, sculpting, and shading

I'm not a pro but any means but for me i find youtube really uselfull. i'm sure you are familiar, but the likes of Blender Guru & CGgeek. Longer video's help me learn from their workflow!


Using the z-depth buffer when drawing from bgl draw callbacks?

Ok I have found one way of doing this.

bgl.glEnable(bgl.GL_DEPTH_TEST)
bgl.glDepthRange (0.0, 0.9);

# Draw "Something" here

bgl.glDepthRange (0.1, 1.0)

# Anything drawn now will be below "Something" drawn above

# restore opengl defaults

bgl.glLineWidth(1)
bgl.glDisable(bgl.GL_DEPTH_TEST)
bgl.glDisable(bgl.GL_BLEND)


Here is a simple and basic way I would go about it.
Made you this short video.
-Subdivide a Plane, Shape with "Proportional editing", Add wireframe mod and Subdivision surface -
enter link description here


Can snapped vertices be automatically merged?

AutoMerge Editing might be what you are looking for.  It can be toggled on and off by clicking the entry.

EDIT: I've added the image posted as a comment by username: gandalf3 since he pointed out that there is also toggle button in the header bar which makes this feature easier to access.


How do you make an image emission without washing out the image?

You might want to learn how the view transform impacts the dynamic range of capture.

Using color management and custom LUTs you can work using a much higher dynamic range. Using simple shaders you can do things like this, where no other lights are used on the scene, just the image on the TV screen.:

See:

Make the flame of a candle more yellow

Render with a wider dynamic range in cycles to produce photorealistic looking images


How to access the OTHER half of texture? (after applying mirror modifeir to a textured half)

Apply the mirror modifier. If you dont apply it before unwrapping, both sites will be overlapped (usefull if you want symetrical textures).

Hope it helps.


vertex slide and snap not working together

GG doesn't snap, perhaps because if you use it on multiple vertices, they all move in different directions.. (I think it still could be implemented, but that's another story)

G along a defined axis does snap, so you just have to create a defined axis from the edge you're sliding down, by creating a Custom Orientation from it. In 2.79, that's CtrlAltSpace. In 2.8 there's no default keymap.. it's the '+' in the Transform Orientation dropdown in the header. Ensure 'Use after Creation' is checked. So it's:

Create a Custom Orientation from 2 vertices, or the edge you're sliding down
GYY move the selection parallel to that line, snapping the source (usually snap: 'Active', with a vertex made active) to a target vertex.

But this will only snap to a plane thrown perpendicular to the axis, around the source vertex. Sometimes that's not what you want. So more generally, instead, set a Pivot-Pointon the plane you want the entire selection to flatten to, whose normal is the edge you've made into a Custom Orientation, and SYY0 the lot.

You can make a Custom Orientation from 3 (or more) vertices, defining a plane. Blender generally  calls the direction down an edge or a curve 'Y', and the direction normal to a plane 'Z'. So to flatten to a defined plane:

Create a Custom Orientation from 3 vertices, or a face
Set a Pivot-Point you want your selection to flatten to, parallel to the defined plane
Hit SZZ0


How to create a thick border around lines?

You can achieve this using the Skin modifier as described in How to 'skin' an edge.

Start with a subdivided cube :

Add the Skin modifier. In Edit mode, select all the edges and adjust the Mean Radius for each edge to affect the distance (use the Ctrl+A sortcut (while in Edit mode) or adjust in the properties side-panel) :

Add a Subdivision Surface modifier to smooth the surface :

Use the Skin modifier Smooth Shading checkbox to affect shading of the resultant mesh.

Note that you don't need to delete the faces since the Skin modifier only uses the edges of the original mesh.


What you are seeing aren't actually shadows. The dark area is caused due to an issue wit the normals of your mesh. The normals are the direction in which a face/edge/vertex is pointing, essentially which side is the outside and which side is the inside. The rest of your mesh is fine because blender can easily tell which section of the mesh is the inside and which is the outside. The reason for the dark area is because blender can't tell which section is facing out, since the front face is an exterior face, as well as the faces that are lying horizontal.

How you have the faces connected on the edge of where you have them highlighted isn't a good way to do it, since it can cause a lot of problems, one of them being the weird shading. You have a couple of options to fix it.

As Mr Zak pointed out above, you could just delete them since they likely won't be visible in a render.
Detach the outer edge of the selected area from the faces its connected to. TO do this, you will need to be in either vertex or edge select mode, and select the outer edge of what you currently have selected (not the middle ones where the mirror line is though). Then press V to rip the two edge loop apart.

I would think that the first option would be the way to go if you can get away with it.


What is the correct HDR mapping with blender internal (native) render?

The problem was not in the maping.

Equirectangular is the correct mapping method.

Problem was in World

In properties>World Paper Sky was checked and i had to un check this

Note: I also unchecked Blend Sky as it was giving a dull sublte lighting.


OK I got there. Make the objects that you want to see through Glass then set blend mode to additive.....adjust roughness and shadows to taste......


how to fix the creases after solidify and why it occurs?

This is z-fighting. It happens because of binary rounding errors when you have very thin/ overlapping geometry compared to your viewport or camera clipping range. Do not solidify your geometry before using a Shrinkwrap modifier, if you need an edge, use it after Shrinkwrap. Also you do not need all the geometry that is not visible, so you can have rim only:

You have sides of the surface in vertex groups so I just selected the inner group and deleted it to fix the issue in the screenshot. You could have the Shrinkwrap modifier before solidify there if you needed it.


Is it possible to work on two or more files at the same time (or open multiple Blender instances?)

On systems other than OSX (Windows, Linux, BSD.. etc), you can open as many instance of Blender as you like. (and load whatever file you want)

On OS X, by default, only 1 instance of an app can be run. You can work around this limitation by invoking Blender from the command line. open -n /Applications/blender.app


Importing multiple movie clips inside one directory via script

Glob all movie files in a folder

Below is a script to glob all movie files in a given folder, and add them to the VSE as movie strips using Sequencer.new_movie an offset of 12 is added to start frame of each. Edit to suit.

Note the use of bpy.path.extensions_movie Blender's list of movie types it can open.  For my blender

>>> bpy.path.extensions_movie
frozenset({'.mpg2', '.mov', '.avi', '.vob', '.flc', '.mpeg', '.movie',
 '.avs', '.xvid', '.webm', '.mv', '.ogg', '.r3d', '.dv', '.mp4',
 '.flv', '.m2ts', '.mts', '.wmv', '.mpg', '.divx', '.ogv', '.mxf',
 '.mkv', '.m2t', '.m4v', '.ts', '.m2v'})

The script.

import bpy
import os, glob

# glob all movie files from
vid_dir = "/home/batfinger/Videos"
exts = bpy.path.extensions_movie
files = [f for ext in exts for f in glob.glob(os.path.join(vid_dir, "*%s" % ext))]
files.sort()

# get sequence editor
scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.sequence_editor_create()
seq = scene.sequence_editor.sequences

# add movie strips
for i, fp in enumerate(files):
    frame_start = i * 12 # some offset
    name = os.path.basename(fp)
    ms = seq.new_movie(
            name=name,
            filepath=fp,
            channel=i,
            frame_start=frame_start
            )
    # print some details
    print("%s ch: %d fs: %3.1f len: %d" %
            (name, i, frame_start, ms.frame_final_duration)
            )

StackOverflow

Script in question had simple python errors, in that you were trying to print an undefined variable. How to view python error messages?

For python questions like finding all files in a folder, or sorting lists strongly recommend searching on StackOverflow via google.  Eg this search

site:stackoverflow.com python list all files in folder


How to find evenly spaced coordinates/point cloud of an object?

A solution is to set particles on the object and to use GRID instead of (default) random in the settings
(Note that also works on Volume, if the case, to fill with points)

Use No for physics to get fixed particles.

To further get the coordinates of those particles use:

gridVectors = [p.location for p in bpy.data.objects['Cube'].particle_systems[0].particles]

that if u need to further use coords in script

Also note that the grid acts a bit weird sometimes, more like the remesh tools, so the particles may or may not be on the faces, but rather at a distance, not quite controllable.

In the pic, I added particles to these meshes with settings as shown.


Export a single frame as a new Blender model

If it's only one mesh, no matter how much poly count it has, the procedure will be quite easy.

Make a backup file of your ship.
In "on work" file, duplicate the ship.
Set timeline on 1 keyframe and delete all keyframes for original ship (this way you will get the ship in 1 frame position)
Set timeline on 76 keyframe and delete all keyframes for second ship (this way you will get second ship in 76 frame position).
You probably would want to have this ships on different layers for better performance. From this point you can proceed with whatever you want to achieve with this project.


Does CPU matter when rendering with GPU?

No.  GPU rendering is just that.  CPU will have little to no effect - pretty sure.
I am a little hesitant if system memory plays a role if you run out of graphics card memory, that could be an issue, but I'm not sure about that.


Can not delete actions in action editor even with Shift + x

When you delete an action, it still exists in Orphan Data:

Although ther's no O next the action name, it will be removed after saving and reopening the file.

If you want to delete all Orphan Data immediatly, just click the "Purge All" button.

NOTE
If you want any orphan date to have a Fake User and prevent them to be deleted, click on the x:


2D Line Strokes Turn Thin; Don't Know how to Change Them Back

In the grease pencils properties, you have two properties that affect the stroke thickness.

These are applied to the selected layer, to have each stroke shown a different size at the same time, means each stroke is on a different layer.


The problem here might be because you're converting a hair type particle into a normal mesh which creates a mesh with no faces (only vertices and edges), therefore no color or texture that you try to apply will be displayed. Instead why don't you try to model a grass strand and then use the hair particle system to randomly distribute it over the plane.


I don't quite know how to interpret the image, but here is a possibility:

Switch into edge or vertex selection mode. Press ⎈ CtrlR to add a loop cut through the face ring in question, making sure to slide the new loop all the way down to the loop below it.

Press S and then ⇧ ShiftZ to scale the new edge loop while locking the Z axis to get something like this:


I had the exact same issue until I realized I shouldn't use the Annotation tool but a real grease pencil layer.

Add > grease pencil > Blank

You then switch from Object Mode to Draw Mode and switch the Stroke placement from Origin to Surface


How to make this texture use displacement modifier?

If you want circles, i'd suggest to use the Voronoi Texture in combination with a Color Ramp.

To get the offset from the border you will need to use the mapping node with 0.5 offset in x and y. You can play around with the scale of the voronoi texture, but there are only certain value ranges where you get the circle shapes. Important that "Randomness" is set to 0!

Also regarding the highly subdivided geometry, you can use the "Experimental" Cycles setup, where you can use adaptive subdivision.

The picture above should be self explanatory, but important to note is that you will have to use the "Experimental" Cycles Engine setup to gain access to the adaptive subdivision as shown below:

Here you need to adjust the dicing scale to get a smoother result.
In the "Surface" panel option in the material, as shown below, you can set the "Displacement Only" or "Displacement and Bump".

You can always fall back to using Bump only which does not need the "Experimental" Setting and should be a lot less strain on the system. But that would depend on how close/detailed you want to go.


Explosions and fireflies / dots in Blender 2.8 (already followed all tutorial without results)

The only way to do this without denoising is increasing the number of samples up to about 2500. It takes a long time to render, but your image stays crisp.


How to make sure the final bone in an IK chain doesn't rotate?

There are two ways that you can do this.  You can either select the bone and add in rotation constraints or you can do it a really easy way.  Simply select the bone you want not to rotate while in pose mode.  Then press N to bring up the additional menu on the right side of the view port.  The top tab that says transform is what you want to look at.  Where is says rotation, select all of the locks and this will prevent that bone from ever rotating.    Hope this helped!


Crease indicators

Pink colored edges in Blender is used to show edges that have a crease greater than the default value (which is -1). As written in the manual's page, crease is:

  ...used to define the sharpness of edges in subdivision surface meshes.

You can set the crease of the selected edges by pressing the Shift+E shortcut and enter a numeric value. Here's a few examples of possible values:

-1 - edge doesn't have any sharpness (no purple color)
+0 - edge have an average sharpness (dark purple color)
+1 - edge is sharp (bright purple color)

You can also control the visibility setting of this overlay (an many other such as seams or sharp edges...) in the Mesh Display panel of the Properties bar.


How can I copy an animation onto an other object?

Assuming it's just a key framed object and not a rigged object, your question was answered sufficiently here I think but I'll copy over Richard Marklew's answer just in case the link dies some time in the future but the hotkeys are still the same by then: "Select the cube with no animation, shift select the cube with the animation then Ctrl+L / Animation data (or Object / Make Links menu) to link the animation. Alternative you can use the Dopesheet set to Action Editor to apply any action to your object any action. You can then press the number to the right of the action to make it a single user so the animations are then no longer linked (or U in object mode)"

I will add also that you can accomplish a dynamically updating version of this with constraint modifiers.


In the View Layer Properties just enable in the Light Settings In
EEVEE: Light > Volume > check Light.
Cycles: Light > Volume > check Indirect.
Now when you click Render you will have a combined Pass and a Light Pass/Indirect Light Pass. It looks black and white because the volumetric light is isolated.
That Means you now have to disable all lights except the light used for the godray effect.
Then you can use the rendered Light Pass (with the isolated Direct Light from the godray) to mix it in the Compositor with the rendered scene (without any Volumetrics and all lights enabled excepts for the Godray Light).


Blender Pivot Point and Zoom Location Stuck Exclusively on Cursor Location

Press "N" to bring up a toolbox menu. Go to the "View" tab and click on the View Lock option. Then, you can lock the camera to the 3D Cursor, view or to an object.

As far as going professional, there are great tutorials you can learn from. A lot of people start off with making a donut from BlenderGuru's tutorial on Youtube here From there, you can continue poking around various free tutorials or start looking into paid ones. I've found the Hard Surface Modelling series by CGMasters here to be a great boost off point after the donut. I've also heard that some Universities are teaching Blender now in their courses, but I don't have any suggestions or insight to their value (from my experience right now as an engineering undergrad, a lot of the tuition goes straight down the drain).

If you're serious about going professional, I would start by building an online profile/portfolio. Get a good following and I'm sure at some point you'll find the right contacts.


Fragments when rendering Volumetric Lighting in Eevee

I solved the riddle, fortunately :-) From some reason, in the compositing section, a Glare option with Ghosts settings got activated. It probably got set up automatically when I was  fiddling with Eevee rendering settings? Anyway, I manually unconnected the node and that solved the problem :-)


I discovered an answer to this:
Preferences/System/Memory & Limits/Texture Time Out
I had this set as default to 120 (seconds I am presuming). It is possible to set it to 0 so that they are kept in memory.
What would be nice is if it were possible to load or unload textures manually. Often, we are working on lighting and textures for a while and then sometimes modelling and animation.


How to get static particles centered on vertices?

Under the Properties Window > Particle Settings tab make sure your Particle Physics are off by changing from Newtonian to None, if you don't need them.

If are planning on animating them, or require physics try turning down the Initial Velocity parameter.

Also make sure you Particle Modifier is right after the base mesh, not after any other constructive modifiers.


Are you looking for something like that?


How to add edge loops to a circle (triangle fan)

To add edge loops on a triangle fan, select all the faces of your circle, hit I button, adjust the distance of the loop with the mouse and repeat the operation with Shift+R until you have the number of loop cuts you want.


Under the "Proxy/Timecode" for the problematic video, change Storage from "Per Strip" to "Project", then rebuild proxy and timecode. Worked for me.

Edit: it stopped working again. i have the same problem


How can i modify an already rigged model?

There's nothing wrong in the idea of modifying a character which is already rigged, as long as you know what you are doing:

The character you've downloaded has 134 bones, some deforming, some used as machinary, some constrained and/or related to other bones, some used with drivers, to perform deformations using a lot of shape-keys, expecially in the face (as usual).

Maybe you should start from a simplier character, for practicing, until you reach a good comprehension of what is going on.

Anyway, all deforming bones are related to vertexes, so you can freely edit their materials and textures, without affecting the rig.

Viceversa, if you extrude a vertex from another, it will copy the properties of the previous active one: if the new vertex stays in a similar position, very often there are no problems. A lot of problems generally can come out when shapeKeys are involved (all the face, in your case), in which case the new vertexes can seem to move in weird ways: any vertex modification in this zone probably will need a lot of adjustements in every Shape-Key in which it is involved.

Selecting the rig and entering edit mode you can add new bones, and parent them to the rest of the rig; you will have to create a new vertex group in the character's mesh, with the same name as the new bone, and assign a weight to the vertexes you want to move, for having it deforming the mesh.

Consider also that you can parent more than one mesh to the same rig, even if this solution  is not the best, often.

Search for Nathan Vegdahl tutorials serie about advanced rigging, he's the best!


Not a bug, no black magic needed to get rid of the object.

What you have is an object that cannot be selected. The selectable switch has been disabled.

Enable that, select the object and delete it!

Those icons on the outliner are toggle switches:

Eye to make the object visible in the viewport.

Arrow for selectability

Camera to enable the object for rendering.

Make yourself a favor and read the manual page for the outliner here: https://www.blender.org/manual/editors/outliner.html


The real reason is Bone targets positions can be stored in pose library. Also the scene is cleaner if everything is under armature.

But if you want to export the armature and another rig setup suits that better its ok. You can use anything you want for IK target.


Blender rendering: output to unexpected frame numbers

Are you sure that you don't have "alternate start/end range" enabled?

Disable it and see if it fixes the issue


How to copy paste positions of multiple vertexes (UV Mapping)

Blender shouldn't delete UV maps when joining materials.  There are a few caveats:

1) If there are more UV maps than Blender allows between the two objects, UV maps will be dropped.  I believe Blender will preserve first all UV maps of the active selection.

2) If a mesh loses its faces, it loses its UV, as Blender stores UV separate from vertices (not the only way to do it, btw), so there's no such thing as a string of edges with any UV.

When you join two objects, any UV maps with the same name will be merged.  So if you want one UV map to join with a particular other UV map, just make sure they have the same name.

Finally, there are a few tools that you can use to copy UV maps.  Assuming identical topology, ctrl-l Copy UV works.  The data transfer modifier also permits the copying of UV via Face Corner Data.  Data transfer modifier can be vertex group limited, and behaves perfectly on seamless, identical meshes, although in my experience it doesn't do a great job with seams/islands (maybe I just don't know all the tricks yet.)


Blender 2.8. Render to video file with audio from Video Editing section

Render operator is located in top row of app Render > Render Animation (Ctrl+F12).

Check if under Output Properties > Post Processing > Sequencer is enabled.

If it is not the case attach simplified blend only with a short sample of movie, so we can check. But if you are able to render with different codec I'm not able to help since issue lies somewere in your PC condition.


Can't get particles via molecular addon (v1.0.2) to behave naturally (e.g. dirt or sand)

According to the addon description, the 2 features it provides are self-collision of particles and spring-based interaction. (Disclaimer: i haven't used the addon yet nor looked at the code)

Collision may be suitable for some types of granular material, but i think that for true sand-like behavior you would need a tremendous amount of particles and a number of friction effects would simple not be captured by this approach. Already with the moderate amount of particles in your example the solver becomes somewhat unstable (this is simply a limitation of the method as far as i can tell, not a bug).

Spring-based interaction otoh leads to soft-body type motion and probably cannot produce sand material effects either. Connecting particles this way creates elastic forces that don't allow particles to flow past each other.

I would suggest to try and model the sand surface with keyframe animation instead, possibly with displacement and shape keys you could get enough control.

Non-Blender remarks:

In current research and other simulation packages material point methods (MPMs) have been developed in recent years, which allow a much wider range of material simulations, which don't fit well into the soft-body or pure fluid simulation categories. Unfortunately to my knowledge none of these have found their way into Blender at this point, but it might be possible to use external software in the meantime.

For reference: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~rbridson/docs/zhu-siggraph05-sandfluid.pdf

The sample principle methods have been applied to snow and foam like materials:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0kyDKu8K-k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_DdAXV3IDw


What's the difference between Extrude Individual and Extrude Individual Faces?

The function shifts with which ever mode you are in Vertex/ Edge or Face - and yes a lot of the times it does seem like they do the same thing...

You can use ALTE to get to the extra functions.

p .s. the last move in the GIF was ALTS just for fun.


Can the Operator Panel in 2.8+ be moved?

I have since realized that since I rely on shortcuts and don't use any of the buttons on the T panel, I can just collapse it (T) and save my Startup File that way.
Then the Operator panel slides over to the left corner and has a nice place where it can stay collapsed until I need to tweak params. Then I can click it to expand it and do that. It all works out.
Reference:

(Pretty obvious, actually. But as I've just jumped from 2.79 to 2.9 I'm still getting adjusted to the new UI.)
I'm still welcoming answers with regard to customizing the placement of the T Panel and Operator Panel in 2.8+, in case anyone else has something to add. Maybe a customization tip or trick that isn't so obvious?


You need to remove these vertices. They are creating n-gons. You should strive towards quad based topology (4 sides).


You can turn Sequencer render on and off, as well as the compositor, by toggling these properties in the Scene Render Properties panel.

You can choose to render in frame sequence or a video codec here. All you do is feed a different source to the render engine.


you can use the path constraint to do exactly this.

Select all the objects you want to follow the curve, and the curve last.
Press ctrl +   P  to bring up the parent menu. (see pic 1 )
Select path constraint. Follow path is the old way of doing this, but the path constraint is easy to change settings.
In the constraint panel, change the XYZ axis to match your objects rotation. (see pic 2)
You may need to clear the location and rotation of the blades ,depending on the location and any other parents the object has.

ALT  + G  (clear location)
ALT  + R  (clear rotation)
and/or ALT + O (clear origin)

You can then use the offset on each item to change the position around the curve.
To change the speed, in the curve options you can change the frames (see pic 3), or the evaluation time in the curve editor.


Deaktivate Rigid Body Object after a certaine timeframe

bpy.data.objects['Cube'].rigid_body.type = 'ACTIVE'

This is how you do it. If someone can explain further why I'd be happy to read it :)


The Info Window shows Python statements for user actions.  You can find the command invoked for Bool Tool there.
For example
bpy.ops.object.booltool_auto_difference()
was found after a Bool Tool Difference operation.
You may copy and  paste from the Info Window.


bone heat weighting: failed to find solution for one or more bones error message

Your trouble shooting is pretty good already. Other useful steps for the future are:

Append the armature datablock and the mesh datablock into a new file. Then create new armature and mesh object and select (link) the appended datablocks. Try it with these clean objects again.
Remove all vertices groups. (There was a group left called "group".)
Remove the UV data.
Remove the constraints on the armature.

None of these get us any further in your case.I also tried to reproduce the problem in a controled environment and failed.
Since it works with the decimate modifier applied, we know it must be a topology error.
As batFINGER suggested you can find non manifold geometry with Select Non Manifold operation (Ctrl+AltShift+M). This will select the the non manifold geometry.
There is non manifold geometry in the tip of the tail.
Most of it doesn't cause any errors though except two vertices.
As you can see in the image, there are to vertices which are connected to overlapping faces. Delete the vertices and Parent > Armature Deform with automatic weights will work.
(Click to enlarge.)


Blender boolean modifier difference make distorsion

The problem is that you apply the Subdivision-surface Modifier AFTER the boolean modifier. This means the hole you try to model using the boolean gets subdivided and "distorted".

The order of modifiers matters!


Add an empty between both objects

Add a simple deform modifier to each object

Set origin to the empty
The axis to Z
At deform you can chose the twisting angle


What is this weird ugly dark join using mirror modifier, smooth shading, and possibly subsurface modifier?

I should have watched further in the video I was following - there's an errant face in the join left over from extrusions which I needed to remove.

It looks like perhaps "Auto Smooth" selectively applies smooth shading to edges based on the angle between the faces they delineate, and, as the issue wouldn't show up with flat shading, the flat shading applying to the edges at the join was hiding the issue.  (I could be very wrong).


I am going to redirect you to a similar question that I answered which I think will fix your problem, let me know if not. Similar question


How do I set object origin normal to a face?

Because you've applied the rotation to your model, the easiest possible way to do this is rotating it manually.

Turn on the snapping tool by using the magnet icon in the bottom toolbar and set the snap element to Increment.

Enter top view by pressing Numpad 7, then enter Orthographic Mode by pressing Numpad 5. Use the keys G,Z to rotate along the Z axis and hold Shift until the flat faces facing the x axis are exact straight lines.

While still in object mode, use Ctrl+A and click Rotation to reset the rotation to 0,0,0.

With Pictures:


You can map color temperature like you can map any other shader value with nodes, no need to involve drivers unless required.

Just use either direct texture coordinates as input for a Color Mix node, or use World Coordinates from a Geometry node instead.

Separate the desired direction, use math nodes to adjust length of progression, then feed it into a Color Mix with each temperature plugged to a Color socket.

Alternatively for more complex progression patterns you may use a gradient texture.


How do I set the origin to the center of a mesh?

Because your mesh is fatter at the bottom than it is at the top, the center of of mass by volume and by surface are toward the fatter end of your mesh.

Your best bet is to position your 3D cursor where you want your origin to be, and then set the origin to the 3D cursor.

In Edit Mode, select one vertex on each end of your mesh. In your case this is easy because you have conveniently centered vertices.
Hit SHIFT + S and choose 'Cursor to Selected'
In Object Mode, set the Origin to 3D Cursor.


I'm going to take a guess and say that your video is somehow corrupt, or you are dealing with issues with a delivery codec, meaning a highly compressed video files that use long GOP compression. Let me guess: h264, mp4, mts, AVC or AVCHD... or if we are talking about something recorded from a computer game... could be that you have one of those horrible videos that uses variable frame rate...

In any case there are a couple of solutions.

If your system has plenty of RAM, increase the cache size on the system preferences>System>Sequencer/Clip Editor>Memory Cache Limit.

Other thing to do is to transcode your video to an image sequence and use that to track instead.


PyNodes: get active node tree from context in Blender 2.72

To get the parent of any node:

node.parent

To get the node, you can get it from the context active_node, if you can access the Nodes context, or, from the global context, get the scene and then the node from the correct node tree.

The function get_from_context you mention is a part of the NodeTree class. You would have to show your code for me to know what is the problem.


It looks to me that it still needs to be implemented as is literally missing from the options even if you want to modify the existing one.

But for now you could do a quick addon, install it and use it as a shortcut.

if you use this script then the operator name is object.shading_workspace

don't know if there is a simpler way.

bl_info = {
    "name": "Shading Workspace",
    "author": "Your Name Here",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "",
    "description": "Shading Workspace",
    "warning": "",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "category": "",
}

import bpy

def main(context):
   for ob in context.scene.objects:
       print(ob)

class SimpleOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Tooltip"""
    bl_idname = "object.shading_workspace"
    bl_label = "Shading Workspace"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.active_object is not None

    def execute(self, context):
        main(context)

        # this is the line you need
        bpy.context.window.workspace = bpy.data.workspaces["Shading"]

        return {'FINISHED'}

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.object.shading_workspace()


If I understood you correctly:

you may hit the P and select the Selection

It will detach the selection from your main object and create a new independent object.

After that you may select the edges and hit F

Something like this:

If its not your required result, please try to update the question with more details


Input 3D line segments from real scientific data

If I understood what you where trying to do well, the best way to create the segments is to use curve object output. With the Spline from points node, you can connect all you file data into the two vectors for the object, and animate them by using the method shown in the question can object parameters be set from data file.

(In the image I let the vector inputs free)

Then you can create a loop or a group to repeat the process and create plenty of splines (segments)


Create additional Edges when subdividing

I couldn't really find an existing solution that satisfied my requirements, so I wrote a script that does exactly what is descripted in this post.
You can get it here.
Since this is my first time I am working with Python, I would be thankful for some feedback, especially regarding the installing process as an add-on, because that just doesn't work, yet.


Change start frame of a background movie clip?

Movie Clip is a special data type in Blender. To change its properties you would have to go the Movie Clip Editor, open up the clip there, open the properties panel (N), go to footage settings and add an offset there in order to change the start frame.

However, if you only want to have a background video, I would advise you not to use the Movie Clip type. Instead, click on 'Image', and open up your video. There you can also adjust the offset in order to change the video's startframe.


Blender Keymap presets - how do they work exactly?

I'm not sure I fully understand your question Arvin, but I believe there are two approaches for you:

Edit the entire blender default keymaps to your liking, and export the entire keymap and save it as a file via Edit >> Preferences >> Keymap >> Export

OR

If you intend to be able to quickly toggle on and off different modular sets of keymaps, then as @susu suggested, you may want to set up python scripts for each module of keymap modifications, which you can then toggle on or off individually from the Addons pane

Here is an example of a script with two custom keymaps, being used as an addon to modify a custom operator, which is then available for keymap editing via the Edit >> Preferences >> Keymap pane


It seems the output is there. It is black. It comes from your sequencer where there is a PNG file.. You need to disable sequencer or delete the strip with the PNG file.

It does not seem you have any lights in the scene as well.


Animation not included in rendered video

Press this button here:

and then turn render on for your fluid...and it works like a charm! ;)


Rendering into video with Blender in Python, frames to video

Within your scene loop you can alter the render settings within scene.render

Some variables of interest may be -

render.image_settings.file_format default available image_format options are BMP IRIS PNG JPEG TARGA TARGA_RAW OPEN_EXR_MULTILAYER OPEN_EXR AVI_JPEG AVI_RAW - depending on the build settings others may be available, like CINEON DPX TIFF or FFMPEG

If you have the FFMPEG option then you can adjust it through variables in scene.render.ffmpeg such as scene.render.ffmpeg.codec with options like H264 or MPEG4. Other ffmpeg variables include video_bitrate maxrate minrate packetsize

To change the framerate set scene.render.fps

To specify where the file is saved you set scene.render.filepath

One point to consider is that bpy.ops.render.render will render using the settings saved with the file, so you can setup these options and save before starting your python script.

It is also common to render animations to individual files for each frame and then join them into a video file once rendering has completed. One way to do this is with ffmpeg as described here another is to import the image sequence into blender's video sequence editor and 'render' to a video file, this is very quick once all the images have been rendered. The blender wiki can get you started.

Blender is a large beast and the python dataset to access it all is just as large. You can find a large amount of information in the blender API documentaion but you may find blender and it's built-in python console just as helpful. You can right click on almost any interface item and select Edit Source - this will open the python file used to display that item in a text block (available in a text editor window) with the cursor on the relevant line.

Within the blender python console you can enter bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].render.ffmpeg. and click the Autocomplete button to see a list of variables and functions available as the next item.

Also don't forget that if it has been turned off you can turn on python tooltips in the user settings, which displays some python paths (sometimes truncated) in the tooltips for most things, that can at least point you in the direction to look for more information.


How to decrease the poly count in blender?

You can use a Decimate modifier, setting it in “unsubdivide” mode and slightly increase the iterations (1 is normally fine).
This will drastically reduce the poly count of your mesh, but at the same time it won’t be noticeable! As the quality of the model remains almost intact (that is, if you don’t exaggerate with the iterations, of course)!


shortcut for running the simulation in Blender 2.8 instead of Alt+A?

The shortcut is SPACEBAR to play the animation, if you're using the default Blender 2.8 or Industry Compatible keymap. In case you have mapped Tools or Search to SPACEBAR, then it's SHIFT+SPACEBAR.

You can check what is mapped to your spacebar in the preferences (Edit > Preferences > Keymap).


What does the "normal" socket of displacement node do?

My best guess is that it doesn't do anything now but later you'll be able to displace geometry with a Normal Maps rather than a Bump Map. Which means it will at least save us the hassle of converting a normal map to a bump map, but hopefully this means that we'll get better looking displacement since normal map carries shading information as well as height.


Go to Viewport shading > Click the arrow > Disable Backface Culling

But if you are also exporting to game engine:
Select object > Go to edit mode > select everything (Press "A") > Go to Mesh (left top part of the viewport)> Normals > Recalculate outside

EDIT: Game Engines have the backface culling "locked on" thats why you need to rotate normals as shown above


weird glass effect artifacts - Principled BSDF, Transmission 1

Nice cup! But it has 2 issues:

duplicated vertices
flipped normals

When you turn on Face Orientation in the overlays, you will see your cup is mostly red (flipped normals) and there is some flickering/pixel fight going on (duplicates).
To fix it select the cup, switch to edit mode, select all vertices with key A, then press M to open the merge context menu. There, select by distance to get rid of the duplicated vertices.
Then press SHIFT + N to recalculate the normals (outside).


Why does the material show 'unexpected' transparency effects?

For this particular problem it seams like your shader, and image's alpha are not the problem, but rather z-fighting. When there are doubled up faces with transparency  the z-fighting will not have the characteristic black look, but rather strange transparency artifacts (much like your render).

To fix the doubled faces, check your particle settings to see if there any duplicated leaves. If there are more particles then places to emit them, then they will get doubled up.

Here is a cube with 8 vertices, the particle system number for both is set to 32. The only difference in the two is for cube on the right I gave the particles some randomness.


Variable representing object's rotation minus another object's rotation not working?

Only use the formatting strings "%.0f" % degrees(mimic_rotation.x)to format output to print statements, file etc, not to set values.  The formatting converts the value to a string.  Feel somewhat responsible as this was taken from my answer to your question  https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/41328/15543.

Use round or floor if you want just the integer part here, although I'm not really sure what you are trying to achieve.  Are you trying to restrict values to whole degree amounts?  As pointed out previously blender uses radians as its default unit.  http://bgepython.tutorialsforblender3d.com/GameObject/applyRotation

rotation_fix_x = own.rotation.x - mimic.rotation.x
if own.rotation.x > own.rotation.y:
   own.applyRotation((rotation_fix_x, 0, 0), True)

The above would work ok because it is dealing in float types, but wouldn't set to a whole degree amount.
Here is some console code from bpy looking at the rotation_euler.x of an object

# rotation.x in radians
>> C.object.rotation_euler.x
1.1093189716339111
# rotation as degrees.
>>> x = degrees(C.object.rotation_euler.x)
>>> x
63.5592952084158
# rounded to a whole number
>>> y = round(x,0)
>>> y
64.0
# how much to add to C.rotation_euler.x to make it whole number in degs.
>>> fix = radians(x - y)
>>> fix
-0.007691749642459737

To step in degrees use radians(1) when applying your rotation from the kb.


How convert particle system to mesh blender 2.8

I have same problem with official 2.8 now It worked just once and now when I convert it all particles jump back to plane. I solve it just simply exported particles  as obj and all is fine


geometry nodes finger pillow push alike effect

So, this is quite easy but you might want to be patient with this one as we have cloth sims and they are hectic. Sorry but geometry nodes won't work. So to make the pillow as you want. Add a plane, scale it down to the size of the pillow, go to edit mode, and subdivide it 10 times. Now, slightly extrude up the upper part, but very slightly. Then, go to select on top, select sharp edges, and on the top right enable merge, the option near the XYZ and butterfly thingy. Then press S to scale, press Z, and then press 0 to smash the thing.
Now, it has become one edge. Now, for the part which will torture your computer, er... I mean fun stuff. Go to the physics panel and click on cloth. There, enable pressure and set the pressure to 5. Then, if the cushion is landing on anything, enable collisions on the object it will land on. If you run the sim, you will see the cushion is low res. SO add a subdivision modifier and set it above the cloth modifier. Not doing so will change your life for the worse. There, set the viewport amount to 2.
Now in physics properties, go to physical properties and set it to 0.01. You can decrease it more if you want it to be fluffier or increase it to be less fluffy, your choice. Now, to remove that huge gap, go to object collisions in the cloth settings of the cushion and set it to 0.001. Then go to soft body and cloth and set Thickness Outer to 0.001. Then go to the quality of the collisions and set it to 10 for a higher quality collision. If you want to slow down the speed of the falling, you can always increase the pressure. Now, set the cloth simulation quality to 10 if you see some issues. Then, first, apply the subsurface and then the cloth modifier. Do it in this order or you will have a bad time. Now, again add a subsurface modifier after applying the previous 2. Then, right-click on the pillow and shade smooth to give it a beautiful look.
BTW here's the video link if you want:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O0AFgZtAJs
As for the finger effect, like the pressing thingy, you can always use force fields for that.


Why does my Ambient Occlusion bake and Exported UV Layout have color from my materials?

In BI the diffuse color is used to color AO output.

One way to avoid this is to enable Normalized in the bake settings:


Limit the selection to the visible object (in object mode)

You're talking about this button in edit mode?

No, I don't think there's an object mode equivalent. I don't see how it would be very useful, however, what's the problem?


How to make the pop-up box in the bottom left of the 3D viewport appear immediately when activating a Transform tool?

You cannot. The box is called the Operator Adjustment panel, aka the tweak-that-operation panel.
The fact that you want to do this makes me think you need to know that the tools themselves can be accessed without the gizmos, and will act on all selected faces generally.
Edit: gizmos are pretty much anything that shows in the 3D view that is not an object, particularly as a control.


I know this is waaaay too late, but anyone finding the same problem may find:

Could be flipped normals.
I think here is actually a case of that spot not having the material on it. There are ways of adding multiple materials to meshes (some faces have different textures than others). Fix this by going into edit mode, select blank faces and add a material.


Tried adding an HDR in blender but seems that something is wrong..need help?

It seems like you are in Orthographic view. In order to have the HDR appears properly you need to be in Perspective view (Numpad-5) as said above. Maybe if you give more details one could help more. Also, have you tried F12 ? Is it the same result ?


The easiest way to do this is with an empty (empties can be thought of as an object that only stores loc, rot, and scale).

In the modifier, just switch the type to object, and then specify an empty in the drop-down box.

Here is an example blend:


The output settings determine where your video file (or image sequence) should be saved to:

2.7$x$$x$

For 2.8 look here:

If you are rendering a single image (By pressing render or F12) The image does not get saved automatically, you need to save it manually.

in 2.7$x$$x$ use Ctrl+F3 to save the image, or go to the UV/Image editor and Select Save Image

in 2.8$x$$x$ Use the image editor and select Save as (or press Shift+S)


Messed up intestine animation with lattice modifier

When using lattices, it's quite important to keep the outside undeformed where necessary. Ideally two rows of verts, not one. If you don't, the deformation will extend to infinity and beyond.

As you can see, the left lattice still deforms both cylinders.

The selected cylinder is almost but not completely untouched. Two rows are bullet proof though.

Hm, the end of that animation should yield interesting results.


What is the most efficient way and the industry standard to make and add textures to a UVmap?

The UV Map is not an image itself, it is the mathematical projection of the vertex in an X and Y plane. The image texture is just that, an image texture - but it is aligned to a specific UV mapping so that it can align to the vertices of your mesh. Paint in the 3d view, paint in an external editor, or as now possible paint in Substance Painter and get all your texture images there. Do it how you want to, the result is what is important.


The answer is simple. Just press F between two vertices.

And your tetrahedron problem can be solved as follows:

Start with a Plane.
Delete one vertex and join all vertices with F to make a triangle.
Subdivide the triangle.
Go to the outer vertices and scale them on the xy axis to 0.
In the last step you only have to move the selected vertices on the Z axis by one.

That's it.

(Of course, don't forget to swap normals.)


Prefetch frames works only at opening blend-file?

Changing the cache limit size or the cache type (use disk cache), Ctrl+R (or Alt+R) does not reinitialize the prefetch cache. The only work-around so far is saving the file and re-open it. At that moment the prefetch kicks in, the little orange stripe at the bottom keeps growing from the play head and (after a while) the preview runs smoothly again. This keeps on working until you change something in the timeline. Then the orange cache bar dims out and the performance drops to a much lower frame rate. Apparently, this is also the case in version 2.83 and 2.90.


How to activate the STL import/export addon from the commandline?

bpy.ops.export_mesh.stl() will be present without explicitly enabling the add-on. io_mesh_stl is enabled already by default, re-enabling it seems to be the problem here.

Exactly why you get that error is not something I'd spend much time on as a user, considering the fact that it can be avoided by not re-enabling the add-on.


Animation will not render in 2.83 or 2.9 despite set keyframes being set in viewport and pose mode

Turns out, disabling the wiggle bone add-on did the trick, it was all my fault.


Blender cycles rendering layer but keep to sum memory?

This look like bug and all what you can do is report as bug with most accurate info as you can.

I noticed that Blender have problem with VRAM freeing sometimes. Try save every render layer separately. I recommend use multilayered .exr for keep render passes. Now you can composite everything in new .blend file. Optionally you can use other compositor like Natron or Fuse.

Last time I always use this workflow for more complicated projects. This method give me possibility easily rerender only layers I need later and without rendering everything again.

I don't thing this is "stressfull way", ultimately this can save you a lot of time. Only you must link your images smartly and work will go fast :-)


No, samples have no effect.

A sample is a measurement done by shooting a ray into the scene. These rays scatter randomly inside the scene, so the more samples the more accurate information about the scene.

Normal map needs only 1 sample because there is no scattering. From every pixel of the normal map mapped on your lowpoly in the scene you need to send only 1 ray till it hits the highpoly, and store the surface direction into the normal map pixel. There is no additional random scattering after that, you get the exact finite value just there.


How to change the resolution on a X or Y axis witouth having a scaling issue?

The apparent inconsistency is due to the camera Sensor Size being set to 'Auto'.

When set as 'Auto', Blender will use the specified sensor Size as the size of the longest edge of the sensor - and in your example this will correspond to the largest of the X and Y resolution. This means that whichever dimension is the largest will dictate the effective size of the sensor and this (in conjunction with the Focal Length) determines the view from the camera - hence the change in behaviour when the X dimension crosses the threshold of the Y dimension in your example.

The solution is to change the Sensor settings to Horizontal or Vertical. This locks the 'Size' to correspond to that specific axis.


Copy Keyframes From One Channel to Another?

Yes.

Key A once or twice until everything is selected. Then  LMB select the X Location channel. You should see only it highlighted in white.

Key Ctrl + C to copy the red keyframes.  LMB select the Default Value (Strength) channel. Key Ctrl + V to paste.


UV Mapping basic cube results in rectangles instead of squares

Maybe changing the UV unwrap Method might help?


Bump maps and normal maps are essentially the same thing.
The primary difference is that normal maps have more information in them(because they use an rgb input) to give a more accurate bump effect.
The rgb information in the normal maps correspond to the x,y,z axis.

Bump maps use only a black to white map to understand the depth.

Both bumps and normals are essentially a way to cheat the shading to give the effect of depth...meaning no resolution is added to the geometry in anyway... to do that that we use displacement maps.
Displacement maps unlike the other two actually modify the geometry at render time.


Okay..  I just saw this in the forum....

"What happened is, I somehow put another object as my camera.

I solved it by going on Scene Settings (third tab on the Properties window), one of the first fields asks for the camera (and there I had a plane)."

So I went and checked to see what mine showed..  it was showing the cube.. I have NO idea how it got there, but I changed it to show the camera and now is working...

thanks...


Issues with intersecting faces and how to unwrap a maze created from svg file

The problem you are facing is, that the svg from maze generator is not well suited to be imported in blender. Here the problem is, that the maze is made out of lines and not of shapes. Basically you want to convert the outline of the lines into a shape. This means you have to "clean" it before you can use it.

I tried it with Inkscape (Download-page), which is free to use. But basically you can use any advanced vector-image-editor to do this, I guess.

Using Inkscape, these are the steps which lead me success:

go to Path>Object to Path (or press Shift+Ctrl+C). This will put every line into it's own object.
First select a line in the objects viewer and then press Ctrl+A to select everything else, since it does not seem to select all the lines if not one is selected in the first place. Then go to Path>Stroke to Path (or press Ctrl+Alt+C). This will convert the stroke, drawn by each line into a shape.

With everything selected go to Path>Union (or press Ctrl++). This will combine all created shapes into one.
Now you can save the svg and import it into blender
In Blender you can set the thickness of the walls by changing the "offset"-value in the curve-properties

Then select the curve and press Alt+C to convert it into a mesh
Go into Edit-Mode, select all, press delete and select "Dissolve faces". This will delete all the unneeded triangle-shaped faces.

To delete all unused point keep selected all, press delete and select "Limited Dissolve"

If you have some ugly connections between points, just select all, press Delete and select "Only Faces", then select everything again and press F to fill the faces again.

Now you can extrude your mesh and have a clean maze

I hope I could help!


It seems that EEVEE doesn't support true displacement in the nodes and we don't know when it will. However, it is not so difficult to find another solution.

To replace animating math and displacement nodes, I used several Displace modifiers with different textures and empty objects which have keyframes on their LocRotScale. This approach is explained in detail here. I'd like also to highlight that in my case the Direction value was very important – displacement looked ugly before I limited it to Z axis only.


This can be done using OpenGL render while in edit mode. Click the buttons in the header, or Info > Render > OpenGL Render:

Result:


You must add to those soft bodies the "collision" physics type too, like :

It's required for softbody physics found another softbody type like obstacles. That's will bring you a new panel called "Collision". Inside "Collision" panel there is controls for softbody types if you want tweak. Usually the default values works nice.

Like you already have the scene filled with your falling men, and you require add that physics to everyone,  there is an easy way to archive this :

You must switch on the addon "Copy Attributes menu" (it comes with the basic blender). This activate a really useful copy menu.
Select all your softbody man except the last one with your collision  and softbody physics. (you can try to use "A" key and quit rest objects from scene using "Shift" for quit/add objects from your selection)
Select that last one (usually this is for Blender like select "the parent")
Then press "Control + C" and select "Copy modifiers" from menu. That will copy the modifiers (in this case, physics type) from that last one to all another selected ones.


Blender 2.83.2 - Only half of the icing's sprinkles are added to the icing

I had the same problem- I got the sprinkles part down but when I add the random colors, it seems like only half get affected (especially if we're adding more than 2 colors). I was trying to figure out the problem by remaking my sprinkle and messing around with the nodes... but it turns out nothing is wrong with it, it only looks like half is getting affected because we're looking at in through materials preview. If you go to rendered view, the sprinkle colors should be distributed more evenly according to your ColorRamp.


Object animations are at object level (like location).
Shape keys animations are as its own data level. Add the line below:
import bpy

context = bpy.context

for ob in context.selected_objects:
    ob.animation_data_clear()
    ob.data.shape_keys.animation_data_clear() # <<<<


Is it possible to calculate the volume of a object as its collision bounds?

Since your object is sphere you can use the sphere collusion bound with the appropriate radius :

Here is the WIKI entry about collusion bonds with example files


How can I make an object a light source in blender 2.8 Cycles?

It is exactly the same process as it was in previous versions. You have to create a new material for your plane, enable Use Nodes for it in the Properties Editor, Material tab and connect an Emission shader to Material Output node in the node tree of the material in the Shader Editor. You might also want to disable light on the back side by mixing the Emission shader with nothing by the Geometry node's Backfacing output as factor:

If it is a simple plane that emits light that you are after it is more logical to use an Area Light. Area lights render faster than geometry lights.


applying texture to multiple faces to fit the image

As cegaton commented in your question the easiest way is to select all the faces, unwrap, and click on UV reset

but I'll try to explain it on how to do it and another useful thing when doing UV Mapping.

your uv map looks something like this:

The orange squares on the UV map represent the faces, as you can see here the faces don't cover the whole image and for that we will need to do UV Reset, just do U and click on "Reset"

Now that we reset the UV you can see that all the faces cover the entire image which is what we want, yay!

Now let's say that you only want a 3rd of the window, for that we need to do UV Map editing, just as objects in edit mode on the viewport we can select vertices, edges, and faces, for this we'll select the vertices we want to move and locate them on where we want

hope it helps


What would be a simple way to model a curved funnel?

You could make a bent line in the XY plane for example (1), a subdivision surface modifier and use a screw modifier (2) with

screw : 0
steps : as you like
angle : 360

(1)

(2)