The mesh doesn't have to be fully covered with a material, but it does have to have material slots(at least two) if you want to be able to change individual parts.

import bpy

obj = bpy.data.objects['Cube']
mat = bpy.data.materials['Red']
mat_slots = obj.material_slots
polys = obj.data.polygons

#add a material slot using a material
obj.data.materials.append(mat)

#remove material from material slot
mat_slots[0].material = None

#add the material slot that will be used for individual face
obj.data.materials.append(mat)

#apply material to one face
polys[0].material_index = 1


Once mirror mesh is made - how to remove its data from the original mesh

After using shape keys, your mirror modifier can't be applied, unfortunately. There's a way to recover from this situation, maybe, I'll try to describe it with a simple "cube" example.

Here is a simple half-cube with X mirror modifier, and a shape key setup.

The shape keys affect only the "real" part of the mesh, and the mirror cannot be applied. So, I'll

remove the mirror modifier
duplicate the half-cube (SHIFTD)
scale it over X with -1 factor (mirrors over X the duplicate half-cube) using SX-1
note that each half-cube retains its shape keys, mirrored

Finally, I:

join the two half-cubes (CTRLJ)
they became a single object (you could remove duplicate vertices at X = 0)
fix, in edit mode the normals, recalculating  them outside (CTRLN)

And now you have a single object, symmetric over X, with shape keys acting as if they were mirrored...

Of course, if you wish your model to behave differently on the left and right side (which was the primary reason to apply the mirror modifier), you could not need the shape keys of one side to be "duplicated mirrored" on the other side... in this case, before joining the two half-cubes, remove the shape keys from the duplicated half-cube...

I hope that this can be easily applied to your half-model too!


I don't know the method you're using, here is one that seems to work and that is close to the one explained here by CGMatter as linked by @NascentSpace:

Create the 3D object you want to bake, put an Orthographic camera over it, give your object the following node setup: Texture Coordinate (Generated Output) > Separate XYZ > ColorRamp (if you need to tweak the highest and lowest) > Emission > Material Output:

In the Render panel, choose a good Sampling resolution. In the Output panel choose OpenEXR as File Format, otherwise you'll have artifacts. Keep the other settings as they are and render the image.

Create a plane, subdivide it, give it a new material with an Image Texture (in Non-Color mode) that you plug into the Height of a Displacement node that you plug into the Material Output Displacement socket. Load the OpenEXR image in the Image Texture node. In the Material panel > Settings > Surface > Displacement, choose Displacement Only. It should work:


Using CMU Graphics Lab Motion Capture Database

I suggest using bvh files from this library
CMU-BVH

On youtube, check out Benjycook Blender MoCap Addon Tutorial, which uses the same library.
BenjyCook


Freestyle lines behind transparent plane blender 3d

You can do this using the compositor.
Go to Render Properties > Film and check the box Transparent.
Then go to Render Properties and check the box Freestyle. (but don't have any linesets in Freestyle Line Set under View Layer Properties)
Put the plane with an image using alpha in a collection.
Put the object that will have freestyle lines in another collection.
Disable the freestyle-object-collection by unchecking the box next to it in the Outliner. (keep the collection with the image checked/enabled)

Make a second viewlayer by clicking the Add View Layer icon. (usually in the top right of the screen).
In this viewlayer check the box next to the freestyle-object-collection, but uncheck the box next to the plane-with-image-collection.
Also in this viewlayer we do want a freestyle lineset: View Layer Properties > Freestyle Line Set, and click the plus icon to add one.
In the Compositor window, create two Render Layers nodes. Set one to the first viewlayer (with the plane-with-image-collection enabled), and the other to the second viewlayer (with the freestyle-object-collection enabled and with the freestyle lineset), and plug them in an Alpha Over node. Plug the Alpha Over node in a Viewer node.
Render and then select the Viewer node in the Image Editor.


How to calculate the angles between axis and bounding box normals?

The orientation of an object is obj.rotation_euler or obj.rotation_quaternion (and whichever one does not match the object's rotation_mode can be invalid or inaccurate).

The orientation can also be recovered from obj.matrix_world.decompose()[1], but that's a little bit of overkill.

For a slightly deeper dive down the rabbit hole, check out Relationship between global vertex coordinates and mesh object's matrix attributes .


Yes, you can use any set of 3D values (e.g. procedural texture) you want (note that this means you can't use image textures. This is because you need the texture to be defined in 3D, and of course a image texture is 2D.
See the wiki for a list of cycles textures with descriptions.

The density is controlled by the value (brightness) of the texture.
Consider this node setup:

Where the texture is white (1), the density will be 1. Where it is black (0), the density will be 0.

Because a density of 1 is still very faint, I have added a multiply node to scale the white portions of the texture to 20 instead of 1:

As an example for non-procedural texture information, this setup will make the density based on the global X location of the object (with some math nodes to avoid volumes with negative density):


Blender equivalent of 'graph materials on selected objects'?

Dragging image in scene is equivalent of Add > Image > Reference, creates help Empty object. It's a relatively new feature since 2.80 and there is no native way to convert it to mesh object.

You need to enable addon Import Images as Planes and then you will have Image > Images as Planes operator in Add menu, witch create plane with proportions of image and do the shader node setup including transparency.


Text getting progressively smaller in the distance

To edit the text this way you would need to convert it to a mesh.

In Object Mode press Alt-C this brings up the convert popup, select Mesh from Curve/Meta/Surf/Text.

Having the text object converted change to Edit Mode and extrude it manually E and scale S as you want.


Populating an EnumProperty using a Function

You can use UILayout.prop_search to assign a group to a string.

import bpy

bpy.types.Object.test = bpy.props.StringProperty(name="Group")

def draw(self, context):
    self.layout.prop_search(context.object, "test", bpy.data, "groups")

bpy.types.OBJECT_PT_relations.append(draw)

If you use an EnumProperty blender stores the unique id / number, not the string. So you need a separate StringProperty to keep track of the group, in case the user deletes a group and your enumeration of the groups assigns a different index to the selected group.

def get_items():
    #closure - keep a reference to the list
    items = None
    def func(self, context):
        items = [(group.name, group.name, "") for group in bpy.data.groups]
        return items
    return func

bpy.types.Object.enum_prop = bpy.props.EnumProperty(items=get_items())

def draw_menu_enum(self, context):
    self.layout.prop_menu_enum(context.object, "enum_prop", "Group")

bpy.types.OBJECT_PT_relations.append(draw_menu_enum)


There is a certification program for Blender Trainers. You can become a certified instructor BFCT if you ingress in that certification program.

Maintaing a certifications cost an additional 50€ a year, the same as a Freelance subscription to Blender Network


How do I apply a skeleton rig to multiple objects?

It's a valid question.

If you mean your model is made of multiple meshes, select all of the meshes, then lastly, select the bone, and press ctrl+p and choose your favorite option. Maybe with automatic weights.

You can have any number of meshes paired to a bone, but you must select the bone last, before pairing. I actually prefer this method when working with meshes that should not be distorted by bone movement, like a mechanical robot. Each piece that should only twist and move, not bend, I parent to an individual bone separately. It works to parent them one by one as well.

Tip: You can also select all of the meshes and press ctrl+j to join them, if that is the desired result. You may want to apply modifiers before joining though.

If you mean that you have multiple different models that can all use the same bones and animations, then pair the first object, then the second, then the third, all in the same way.

First, pair one of the objects you would like paired. Most likely this will be using ctrl+p and choose your favorite option. Maybe with automatic weights.
Now select the second object, then the bone. Repeat the process of pairing by pressing ctrl+p and choose your favorite option.

Now if you select the skeleton and go to pose mode, you will find that both meshes will move along with the bone.

Tip: To make things simpler, you may wish to move your skeleton to one layer, and each model to another layer. That way you can pose the skeleton on one layer, and view the results on each layer with the different models.


Is it possible to generate roughness and normal texture maps from procedural textures inside blender?

It is possible to create pbr maps such as roughness, normal etc. To this, you must first know how to bake textures. In the bake section, instead of combined, select the desired map and bake it.


Cannot select mesh after putting my armature in pose mode

Make sure you untick "Lock object modes" in the Edit tab at the top panel.
Trouble is, it doesn't always help. For some reason currently I have the same problem with the OP, Lock object modes is off, but I still can't select my character when in pose mode.


Automatically Scale and Export All Files in Directory?

Using only Python and Blender
For clarity and security, I don't overwrite the original files.
This script will check for the scene files (which contain the object). Then, for each file separately, it will append all objects, scale them and save itself as the scaled file version. After that export the .fbx and finally on completion save itself as the original conversion script file.
With the script saved in the file convert.blend. My folder structure looks like this at the start.

Opening the file convert.blend and pressing Run Script the scaled scene files and fbx files will be created.
import bpy, os
import bmesh
import math
import mathutils

def clear_objects():
    for obj in bpy.data.objects:
        bpy.context.scene.objects.unlink(obj)
        obj.user_clear()
        bpy.data.objects.remove(obj)
    for me in bpy.data.meshes:
        me.user_clear()
        bpy.data.meshes.remove(me)

def save_scaled_objects(dir_source, dir_target, dir_fbx, scale = 1):
    dir_root = bpy.path.abspath("//")
    path_origin = bpy.data.filepath

    dir_source = os.path.join(dir_root, dir_source)
    dir_target = os.path.join(dir_root, dir_target)
    dir_fbx = os.path.join(dir_root, dir_fbx)

    files = os.listdir(dir_source)

    scn = bpy.context.scene

    for f in files:
        input_filepath = os.path.join(dir_source, f)
        output_filepath = os.path.join(dir_target, f)
        output_fbx = os.path.join(dir_fbx, os.path.splitext(f)[0] + ".fbx")

        print("DIR",output_fbx)
        # append object data block
        with bpy.data.libraries.load(input_filepath, link=False) as (data_from, data_to):
            data_to.objects = data_from.objects
        #link all objects to current scene
        for obj in data_to.objects:
            if obj is not None:
                scn.objects.link(obj)
                #scale the objects data
                scale = 0.1
                for v in obj.data.vertices:
                    v.co *= scale
        print(output_filepath)
        # saves the file
        bpy.ops.wm.save_mainfile(filepath=output_filepath)
        #export to fbx
        bpy.ops.export_scene.fbx(filepath = output_fbx)

        clear_objects()
    # on completion of all saves, restore the original path of this file
    bpy.ops.wm.save_mainfile(filepath=path_origin)

dir_source = "scn_files"
dir_target = "scn_files_scaled"
dir_fbx = "fbx_export"
save_scaled_objects(dir_source, dir_target, dir_fbx, scale = 0.1)

Linking and Appending
Remove Objects
Base Path, Path Joining, Splitext


You can enable auto keyframing on the timeline by pressing the red button:

more info on the manual


Since i don't want to add another comment:

You can list all available operators via Info Menu -> Help -> Operator Cheat Sheet and look at the Text Block generated in the Text Editor

The operators are listed by category in this section (at the bottom of the page) of the API documentation.

If you drag down the Info Area you can see a history of recently used (registered) operators

You can hover over buttons with python tooltips enabled.

The context data is listed in this section (available members depend on the area/mode)

The different spaces used by the corresponding editors/areas are listed in this section (subclasses - top of the page)

See also Screen Elements


You can add geometry after rigging without any need to delete your previous job.
If you used the automatic weights option, probably you will have to manual weight the new vertices: as Mentalist said, assign to the fingertip bone a weight of 1.0, but also check if there is some weight assigned to any other bone: if so you get deformations and you should remove these assignements.
In edit mode, if you select a vertex you can read wich are all his weight assignements in the object properties panel (Hotkey N).


Can I name an output file from an output node?

The Base Path field is only used to specify a folder.
To modify the name, use the node's File Subpath in the Sidebar.

And this is the result:


How to export a scene with Shape Keys Animation?

How to export the scene correctly and what format should I choose to be able to open this scene in any 3D editor, like Maya or Houdini?

What you need is the .abc Alembic file format which is a production standard. Blender does not support it as of 2.76b but it is planned for some future release.

There are also other formats (.FBX, .PC2, .DAE, .OBJ sequence) how to transfer animations but they are pipeline/software specific - will not be as general as Alembic. But they should be tried first anyway.

We will care only about the final vertex animation - which is general for armature deforms, cloth, soft-body simulations, rigid-bodies etc. The vertex count needs to be constant - it won't work on particles. We will use .MDD NewTek's Point Cache with a static .OBJ to export the animation out of Blender into Houdini.

In UserPreferences under Addon in section Import/Export make sure .mdd and .obj are enabled. Go to first frame of your animation and export your object as .obj and export the animation range you want as a .mdd vertex animation. Blender has Z as up, Houdini has Y up, also keep vertex order pls:

If you don't have Houdini then download it for free (Apprentice licence). There is also an Indie licence for $200.

Inside Houdini Import your .OBJ with File > Import > Geometry. Almost everything is done there inside a Node window. Double-click your object node to enter it (you will see a mesh node inside) and hit Tab to invoke a new node menu. Select Import > MDD and connect it below your mesh node. Select the new node and import the .mdd file into it:

The yellow black crosshatch around the node should disappear. Click the blue eye icon of that mdd node to view it's results and play the animation.

To export this animation into Alembic we will use another node to render the animation into a file. Jump back to object level with AltLeft Arrow and add a ROP node (Tab > Managers > ROP Manager). Enter the node (double-click on it) and add a Alembic node (Tab > Scene > Alembic). Select the node, set it's parametres (file path, change from single-frame to frame-range) and render the animation into a file.

Getting animations into Maya can be also done as exporting a .PC2 PointCloud and converting inside Maya to .MC Maya Cache file format. You do this with a MEL script:

cacheFile -pc2 1 -pcf "C:/input.pc2" -f "mayaCache2" -dir "C:/" -format "OneFile";

Just change the file paths.

Then you import the .MC file inside Maya.


How can Edge Loops stay aligned when using the Subsurf Modifier?

Set the edge Crease weight (Shift+E or Properties shelf Transform panel Mean Crease):

  Weighted edge creases for subdivision surfaces allows you to change the way Subsurf subdivides the geometry to give the edges a smooth or sharp appearance.

  The crease weight of selected edges can be changed using Transform Properties (N) and change the Median Transform slider. A higher value makes the edge “stronger” and more resistant to subsurf. Another way to remember it is that the weight refers to the edge’s sharpness. Edges with a higher weight will be deformed less by subsurf. Recall that the subsurfed shape is a product of all intersecting edges, so to make the edges of an area sharper, you have to increase the weight of all the surrounding edges.


How to use mathutils.geometry.tessellate_polygon()?

The tessellate_polygon() function expects a list of lists (or tuples) for its only argument veclist_list. This allows for polygons with holes. You can commonly leave out additional sequences of Vectors, and just pass it one set of Vectors that form a polyine: tessellate_polygon((points,)).

Here's a script that takes the first polygon of the selected mesh object and uses its vertices as points for the tessellation function (actually, it's a triangulation function). A new mesh is created from the results, leading to a copy of the initial face at a first glance. But if you look closer, you will notice that it consists of multiple triangles (if the input was a quad or ngon), and they aren't connected. To show this better, I added an "explode" feature (move all verts of a triangle based on the distance between the triangle center and the center of the mesh):

import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector
from mathutils.geometry import tessellate_polygon

scene = bpy.context.scene
me = bpy.context.object.data
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(me)

points = [v.co for v in bm.faces[0].verts]

tess = tessellate_polygon((points,))

bm_tess = bmesh.new()

faces = []
for tri in tess:
    verts = []
    for p in tri:
        verts.append(bm_tess.verts.new(points[p]))
    faces.append(bm_tess.faces.new(verts))

# Explode
for face in faces:
    center = face.calc_center_median()
    for vert in face.verts:
        vert.co += center

me_tess = bpy.data.meshes.new("Tris")
bm_tess.to_mesh(me_tess)

ob = bpy.data.objects.new("Tris", me_tess)
scene.objects.link(ob)
scene.update()


How to make the top part of a render less saturated/more pale?

You can do in compositing nodes.

Here is an example:

Node Hue Saturation Value can make your image more/less saturated, but you need to add a mask to specify on that part of image the effect will be affects. You can draw a mask, draw an image or like in my case, use a box mask node and blur it.

If you familiar with masks, you can draw a mask with feather, and use it, it gives more control of areas witch must be saturated:


You cannot add modifiers to linked objects in Blender.

Although there is a solution to your problem.

First Step

Select the object and press CTRL+G to add it to a Group.

You can give the group a name by pressing the F6 key and enter a new name.

Save the file and then open a new file to go on with step 2.

Second Step

Link the group into the new file.

Linking the group is similar to linking an object, but you go inside the Group folder and select the group name instead.

Third Step

Select the group instance that was added from previous step and press the space key. Then type Make Proxy and select the name of the object that you want to be mirrored.

Fourth Step

Now select the object whose name ends in _proxy and add a mirror modifier.

Summary

Your mesh is still linked and any updates you make in the original file will get updated in the current file where you linked.


Your script is fine, i just tested and it work as expected. The problem maybe is that you are looking in the python interactive console, but you need to look in the system console.

python interactive console after run script:

System console after run script:

If you are in GNU/Linux os look in the terminal or run blender from a terminal.

In Windows got to:  Window>Toggle System console:

mat_rot = eul.to_matrix() #Convert rotations to matrix

mat = mat_rot.to_4x4() #Lets turn this into a grid!

print(mat)
print(mat[0])
print(mat[0][0])


Cycles hard edges in retroreflective material within a face

This kind of symptom strikes me indicative of a normals problem. If blender believes that different parts of a flat surface are facing different ways (and therefor reflecting different amounts of light), check the normals.

Try disconnecting normal sockets on the shaders. If that gets rid of the artifacts, try previewing what you're passing into the normal inputs to see what exactly is wrong.


Why is there nothing in the Materials tab?

Just scroll up. I know its weird I don't know why it does that.


How can I improve the realism of my pencil texture lines in freestyle?

According to the wiki article Textured Strokes the Use Tips option is available when Along Strokes mapping is used:

  Along Strokes Means that the texture will be drawn along the stroke length, making it possible to mimick pencil or brush marks.

However by default it won't really make any much difference:

The option depends on spacing between strokes mapped to the geometry:

  Along Stroke mapping depends by the LineStyle spacing parameter that can be found in the linestyle settings. It sets how much the texture will be stretched along the stroke length. Higher spacing means less tiling.

It can be found in the same place where strokes are set up to use texture, Render Layers tab > Freestyle Linestyle rollout > Texture panel:

With that texture rendered strokes become more smeared:

Spacing was set to 5

The effect however is still a bit off as its thickness is not varying and the stamp still is present.

From here on settings from the teapot file were used as reference as well

To correct that don't use thickness of 20; in fact less than 10 will be enough. For convincing and effective results better to let it draw with thin line and repeat it 2 or more times; that will simulate effect of graphite or a pencil strokes more nicely.
This is the result wil Stroke effect decreaed to 6:

Now some repeating pencil strokes would add a bit of "realism" to the image. With Repeat set to 3 it will be already more or less good. But to add even more to that in the Geometry panel add Spatial Noise modifier.

What the modifier does is it varies strokes created by the Repeat option. Amplitude option will increase or decrease how far away the repeated lines are from original; Scale adjusts the scale of repeated detail (if it was at 15 you'd get step-like corners around the line).

Smeared chalk like effect can be created with Along Stroke modifier added to the Thickness panel. According to the manual it applies gradient along each stroke while substituting original values of the line. To make lines more fat and smeared Use Tips option can also be unchecked (in this case):

The partially transparent effect from the teapot scene is created with adding Along Stroke modifier in the Alpha panel, but for some reason in Cycles it isn't visible (teapot scene is in Internal). Even setting Thickness to 0 doesn't really change anything, which is quite unexpected. It looks like in Cycles the freestyle won't calculate and hence use alpha of the charcoal texture. If making that in Internal effect shows up immediately:

It's hard to say if this means for you that Freestyle went ahead since that time but anyway the resulting effect of the freestyle strokes can be changed quite drastically by editing options and adding modifiers.

If going with only one round of the stroke (and hence only one stroke drawn on the objects) you will need to alter it as much as possible in order to get varying style. You can use several line styles as already mentioned by @TK or you can go with more modifiers for one line style.
I will use modifiers for Thickness panel mostly but possibilities are nearly endless as many of them have also additional modes of stroke overlaying which changes end result quite noticeable.

Note:

there aren't any modifiers on the line style for this one; none of the results used from the several rounds above.
in all the results here Face Smoothness in the Render Layers tab > Freestyle rollout is used for using smooth shading of the mesh.
It also means that shading of the meshes should be set to smooth as well.
in all the results here Alpha Fac in the Line Style Output node in the line style setup is set to 0.5. This allows Cycles to overlay alpha of the texture and use it along with the base color. For some reason it also fixes usage of the modifiers in the Alpha panel. None of these is needed in Blender Internal.

Using stroke thickness (Freestyle Line Style > Thickness) at 3 and Spacing at 1 the result is thin drawing:

To increase the variation add Along Stroke modifier to the thickness of the stroke. It will apply new values for thickness based on the progression type and blending mode choosed; from the manual:

  The Along Stroke modifier alters the base thickness with a new one from either a linear progression or a custom curve, mapped along each stroke’s length. In other words, it applies the selected progression along each stroke.

To mimic caligraphic changing of the line thickness which depends on the stroke angle add Caligraphy modifier. Its  Orientation property will simullate orientaition of the virtual pen drawing on the paper - the more it's aligned with the vertical axis the more horizontal strokes will be fat and vertical - thin. Default values of 60 are quite good as well.

Also it's possible to add some noise to the stroke in general; Noise modifier will be the last in the Thickness panel.

To simulate transparency of the strokes modifiers in the Alpha panel are added. In this example Along Stroke modifier is used.

Note also that most of the modifiers can be set to another blending modes thus altering their final result which allows even more different things to try.


I had the same issue and it was because i was in the local view (Numpad /), didn't realize it before i figured out there were no layer selection.

hope this helps someone to not be stupid like me.


Render result looks different than render view

Your egg's subdivision surface modifier has different settings for viewport and render. Usually, the viewport setting is lower for fast visualisation and higher for best quality renderings. It looks like your settings were inverted.


Square room, walls to bend to create round celling angles

Depending a bit on your other requirements, perhaps the simplest way would be to reduce the corners to a cube. and then CtrlShiftB bevel the vertices at the corners.

If you want to leave yourself some flexibility, you could do this with a Bevel Modifier, set to 'Only Vertices' and 'Weight' adjusting the Vertex Bevel Weight of the corners you want rounded, and the profile, segments, etc., whenever you like...


Alt + Z

You can find or change this in your preferences by navigating to Edit > Preferences > Keymap > Search

Before setting a new keybind, make sure it isn't in use by another function!


How can i update the uv map after modifying the object?

ALT + RMB to select Original mesh

ALT + SHIFT + RMB to select New mesh

TAB to enter Edit mode

A to select all

Open UV Editor menu

Press + button to add new image, you may want to increase default resolution or leave as is, then click OK

In Render Tab find Bake menu and click Bake


Bake with Direct and Indirect but without shadows ? (later exported to Davinci Resolve)

The following is what i wanted to do.

While "in" the Cycles engine (option does not appear in Eevee), under:

Objects Properties -> Visibility -> Ray Visibility you can un-tick 'Shadow'


Sorry guys, I figured out the answer but wanted to post this to help others. You need to bake the noise as well before you can see the result.


The problem here is that UV unwrapping simply assigns U (X) and V (Y) coordinates to the mesh, the W (Z) coordinate remains at 0 across the entire mesh.  Generated coordinates are based on the 3-dimensional bounding box of the mesh.

However, you can recreate the U and V generated coordinates in a UV map.

Just go into top view (Numpad 7) and hit U > Project From View (Bounds).

This will result in the same U an V coordinates as generated mapping.

For more on texture coordinates see my explanation of texture coordinates here.


Program slider to control camera aperture with python

A single property
Think of a property layout akin to python's getattr If we want the value of foo.bar.foo it's getattr(foo.bar, "foo") never getattr(foo, "bar.foo")
Avoid using  foo.bar["Foo"]
IMO get out of the habit of using, in this example
camera = bpy.data.objects['Camera']

which will fail (throw a KeyError) if there is no object named camera, which could simply mean its been renamed, or is camera in a different language etc.  It could be the camera linked to another scene, or no scene at all... in which case sliding it would appear to do nought.
Use Scene Camera
Suggest in the case of camera, the active camera is assigned to the scene, scene.camera.  As long as this is set can use instead. This is the goto camera  when pressing Numpad 0 for camera view.
Object Data Properties
With a camera active or pinned, the object of interest in the object data properties tab (camera icon) in the properties panel is its data. In the usual case of it being the context object.
>>> C.object
bpy.data.objects['Camera']

>>> C.object.data
bpy.data.cameras['Camera']

>>> C.object.data.dof.aperture_fstop
44.41624069213867

>>> C.scene.camera
bpy.data.objects['Camera']

Putting it all together
Have added some changes to code below.  Without having the operators mentioned in question have replaced with splash screen proxies. Am assuming that the operators use the context object to set the focus object.
Once again use of the scene camera in those operators would make more sense than relying on the camera named "Camera" being the active camera.
A poll method is added to ensure the scene has an active camera. A poll method on your other custom operators could test for active object.  If there is no active object and hence they don't poll, the buttons will appear disabled.
A simple way to have layout in rows is to use one column layout.
Test code.
import bpy

class VIEW3D_PT_dof(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_idname = "VIEW3D_PT_dof"
    bl_label = "Quick Focus"
    bl_category = "DOF"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'

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

    def draw_header(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.label(icon='CAMERA_DATA')

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

        cam = context.scene.camera
        col = layout.column()
        #col.label(text= "Focus", icon='CAMERA_DATA')
        col.operator("wm.splash")
        col.operator("wm.splash")
        col.prop(cam.data.dof, "aperture_fstop", slider=True)

classes = (
        VIEW3D_PT_dof,
        )

def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


UV's not updated in Textured view when in GLSL material mode

Blender behaves in a way designed to help make UV Editing/Texturing easy. Which can be a bit confusing at first.

When using Blender Render and the 3DView's draw mode is set to Solid and Textured Solid shading is enabled both Multitexture and GLSL behave as follows -

When you are in edit mode, you can select one of an objects UV Maps, then select an image in the UV Image Editor to associate with that UV Map. While still in edit mode selecting another UV Map will also switch the image displayed in the UV Image Editor to show the image associated with it, which will also be the UV Map and image used for display in the 3DView.

In object mode selecting a UV Map will still switch the UV Map and image used in the 3DView but not the image shown in the UV Image Editor.

When unwrapping objects this is helpful but it does override the texture setup for the material. So for the texture shown may not be the same as what gets rendered.

When the 3DView shading is set to Texture, multitexture continues to behave this way but GLSL will use the image set to be used in the texture. If multiple image textures are defined then the image used in the texture lowest in the texture list will be used and if the UV Map to use is also defined in the same texture then it will be used instead of the selected UV Map in the UV Map list.

For a material with one texture and UV Map then GLSL will look closer to the rendered result, but using multiple textures will still vary from the rendered result.

When using Cycles it can seem a bit trickier. With Texure shading it uses the UV Map selected but uses an image from the active Image Texture node (the selected -or last selected- image node in the node editor) from the objects material.

When using Material shading it gets an approximation of the images used in the material, that is image nodes connected to the output with other nodes mixed in also altering the appearance but they don't give the same result as when rendered. Any uvmapping adjustments being fed into the image nodes also effect the result seen in the 3dView.


How can mesh have different material than particles?

For some reason, I can't open your belnd file but not to worry, I'll show you anyway.

Create two materials (Ground and Grass for example), then go into edit mode and assign your ground material to your ground plane.

Next go into particle settings and scroll into render settings and apply the grass material. this will apply the other material to your particles. In this order it should work fine.

See image below:

Hope that helps!


You need to set the appropriate setting in the "Output Properties":

Set File Format to FFmpeg Video
Container to MPEG-4
And Video Codec to H.264 (others also work, but use this one if you don't know the difference.

Another tip is to turn of "File Extensions", and manually type in ".mp4" at the end of your file. This way Blender wont auto name it as "MyeVideo0001.mp4
After the settings are correct and you want to save it as a video, you need to render out the video. And video should be rendered out to the location specified in you output settings.

You can read more about the settings over here:

Output Panel
Encoding Panel


Not extrapolation, but interpolation. Meaning: the kind of transition between two keyframes. Set the interpolation to Linear. @susu


How do I name a mesh using Python, when I don't know its present name?

I think it's pretty simple. Let's take an object called cubes which is one mesh consisting of several disjoint cubes that you want to separate.
# with some selection, running: separate()
cubes -> cubes.001

# with some selection, running: separate()
cubes.001 -> cubes.002

if you then deleted cubes.001 and ran separate() on cubes.002 blender will automatically find the earliest unused object name
# with some selection, running: separate()
cubes.002 -> cubes.001

I think this is how it works, at least there's a logic to it. (Tested by seeing what happens in the outliner if I do this manually for a few iterations.
The reason this isn't a very convenient process is because you are calling a function which is used by the user interface, and doesn't need to return the names of the new objects.

A simple snippet using Python's Set class to find out which scene objects are new in the scene after such an operation is:
# before
A = set(bpy.data.objects[:])

# after operation
B = set(bpy.data.objects[:])

# whats the difference between sets
new_objects = A ^ B
print([o.name for o in new_objects])


Make a black background transparent in the compositor

First Possibility

You might use the Color / Mix / Add node, or use the Color / Mix / Mix and with Fac of your billboards luminosity, which can be obtained with the Converter / Separate HSVA node.

Second Possibility

Insert a Converter / Math / Bigger Than node between the Separate HSVA and the Mix nodes abowe. This will only make totally black pixels transparent.

Third Solution

If your Billboard is rendered in Blender, you can set the background of the render to be transparent. In Blender Internal renderer set Properties Panel / Render / Shading / Alpha to Transparent. In Cycles renderer set the Properties Panel / Render / Film / Transparent checkbox to true.


Making a bone match another bone's rotation on a single local axis

Did you mean to link a file?

The simplest thing to do is try a copy rotation constraint in local space.  For what you're trying to do, this sounds like good enough.  Here's how to set it up:

You can see that the neck, even though it has no transformation, is following the Y axis rotation of the head, regardless of rotation of the torso.

If you rotate head, the neck will rotate with it; if you rotate torso, the neck will rotate with it as well.  That means that neck might rotate too much for your taste, but then, you really have to put more thought into how you want neck to behave.  You could always use transformation constraints or drivers to rescale any rotation to a certain desirable range.

I said this was the simplest thing to do.  Copying rotation in a single axis is dangerous, because Euler angles aren't really cleanly divisible into axes: by rotating a bone in its Z and X axes, you can create Y axis rotation, and there are places where one axis of rotation seems to turn into a different axis.  This can create unexpected behavior and poor interpolation.  Copying rotation from a single axis is really only safe when both bones involve only ever rotate on a single axis.

What's better is to think instead about where you want your neck to face, and to use a locked track constraint (locked in Y in this case) to face that point.  But that requires rethinking the problem slightly.


How to avoid desaturation when using glossy material

Compositor & Render Layers.  Enable Glossy direct.  Isolate/Transform gloss/specular with color ramp.  [Alpha Over] node to combine images.  The image below isolates some specular/gloss.

When you use the mix shader you have an option to specify the mix .. labelled [fac].  Change the setting to suit your taste.
Consider rendering the image once as diffuse and once with specular.  Use the compositor to threshold with color ramp and choose the best color. PR or NPR? Suit to your tastes. More work.
Use more elaborate nodes in the materials to change the effect of specular. More work.


I think everyone has his own way to rig, personally I would organize the armature this way: switch the direction of your hips bone and parent the thigh and the spine to it. Also, you will need to enable the Deform option of this bone. And, at last, you will have to switch to Weight Paint mode to make a lot of corrections, because it's currently not well weight painted: Keep your armature in Pose mode, then select your mesh and switch it to Weight Paint mode, then select each bone to see and correct its influence.


Can't use the Ctrl+2 shortcut to add a SubSurf Modifier

You have the Emulate Numpad preference enabled. This is fine, but it means you will need to reassign your shortcut for adding SubSurf Modifiers. In Preferences search for keyboard shortcuts starting with the name "sub" and you'll find what you need.

Edit: In the screen shot you just added to your post, while it appears to be set up fine, what isn't obvious is that Emulate Numpad is overriding those. You'll need to change the shortcuts or disable Emulate Numpad.

Edit 2: Here's a screen shot of my configuration. I'm using Emulate Numpad, and so I've set up my shortcuts in the format of Alt Cmd Numpad1 (for numpad keys 0~5).

You can also see that I have not done so for Sculpt Mode, so you can compare. As soon as Emulate Numpad is enabled, Blender registers the horizontal row of number keys as numpad keys, and this is the reason for what's happening.


To get the selection, remember the lines are displayed from 1, but counted from 0 in the text buffer.

>>> t = D.texts['Text.002']
>>> t.current_character
10

>>> t.current_line_index
12

>>> t.select_end_character
4

>>> t.select_end_line_index
16

To set the selection

>>> t.select_set(
select_set()
Text.select_set(line_start, char_start, line_end, char_end)
Set selection range by line and character index

>>> t.select_set(0, 0, 4, 22)

Text file buffer.

>>> for i, l in enumerate(t.lines):
...     i, l.body
...
(0, 'import bpy')
(1, 'import bmesh')
(2, 'context = bpy.context')
(3, '')
(4, 'context.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode = (False, False, True) # faces')
(5, 'ob = context.edit_object')
(6, 'me = ob.data')


Why the mesh get shrink with follow path

Your question was a bit misleading, you were using the follow path function, which is made for animation I suppose, when you were actually trying to duplicate your object along the curve without deformation.
Since 2.8, you can't use the Dupliframes method anymore, so here is another one:
Create a single vertex, give it an Array modifier with Constant Offset (not Relative Offset), give it a Curve modifier with the curve as Object:

Keep the single vertex object selected, go in the Properties panel > Object > Instancing and click on Vertices. Now select your pylon object and parent it to the vertex object, it should repeat like that (modify the pylon orientation if it's not good):

If you want the pylon to change its direction along the curve, choose a plane instead of a single vertex, and click on its Instancing > Faces insteand of Vertices.
Former answer:
You must have scaled your curve, because if you go into Edit mode you'll see in the N panel that its vertices have a Mean Radius of 0.239, you need to bring it back to 1. Now your object still rotates so make it rotate 90° on the X axis.


How can I properly make a hand take a pose?

Your model will deform better just by adding more resolution. For example you can have 2-3 loops on the joint intersection. After that there’s the option of using shape keys, which works well for hinge joints (one axis of deformation). For multiple axis you need more shape keys, check out my other answer on this topic.

edit:
As a note, you could also reduce some bones in the base hand. For simplicity sake, you can only have one for the 4 fingers and one for the thumb. However, in reality you have some mobility at the smaller finger and ring finger metacarpal bones. Also the thumb has only 2 phalanges and one metacarpal bone.


I can't tell you why this is, but if you go to the Object Data Properties tab, go to UV Maps, and remove the UV map (click the 'minus' button next to it), it will export. I don't know why.


How to know which layer is active in a certain 3d view

You should use the SpaceView3D.layers attribute.

layers_used is for the layers that have content (as shown by the dots)


An array modifier.

Test image the plane created from  front face of default cube. It still has the cube's origin. And is located at the origin.  An empty is placed at origin and rotated 90 degrees in Z.
The empty is then used as the array modifiers object offset. There is no translation or non uniform scale to the empty. The only offset is the rotation in z,
The first copy will be rotated 1 x 90 degrees in Z, the second 2 x 90 and so on.
To add more pillars in the scene, make a group or in 2.80 a collection instance.  Involves adding objects of pillar to a group (or collection) and adding a group instance from add object menu.

Plane added to collection named "Pillar", A pillar can now be added at any time with shift A add collection instance, and choose Pillar. Every pillar in scene is made from one single 4 vertex plane mesh.  Notice the option to offset an instance such that when placed its origin is at the base for example.
With Mirror Modifiers

Align the plane along the line x = y such that each end is (forgetting z) at (L, 0) and (0, L) in x and y. On a 45 degree angle from both x and y axis.
Mirroring in X creates a V, mirroring in Y a diamond.


How to select polygons facing camera instead of polygons located in the opposite side

While in Edit mode and (by default) along the bottom of the 3D view, between the Vertex/Edge/Face selection and the Magnet will be an icon that looks like two square polygon faces with four vertices on the corners with one face being in front of the other.

Hovering over this button will bring a tooltip that says "Limit selection to visible (clipped depthbuffer)". Toggling this button will change between the model being solid or transparent.  When the model appears solid, you will only select faces that are directly under the arrow, and not faces that might be behind it.

I wish I could post a screenshot but I'm unable to at the moment.


You can get this effect by using a cast modifier and instancing. Create a plane and use edge loops and cut once down the middle and a few times on the side. Then delete everything besides the middle edges to create a single line of vertices. Then in the object properties for it, set instancing to vertices and add a cast modifier. Then create the rectangles or whatever else you want to be moving up and down. Then set the relations for its object properties to be the line of verts you previously made. This should instance the rectangle to all the verts on the line.
Now create an empty, and in the cast modifier settings you added to the line, set the object to be the empty. Make sure to clamp it to the Z axis as well in the modifier settings. Mess with the scale and radius settings until you get the effect you want.


What is wrong with the settings or the mesh? It doesn't subdivide properly

Set the Crease of the solidify modifier;

Gives you;

And a lesser value;

Gives you;

To get a more smoothly rounded edge, remember to increase the subdivisions;


why boolean not working with other modifier

You have fill "Only Rim" enabled.  This fails to draw anything but the rim.  In other words you're trying to Boolean Difference a single plane.  Difference is calculated based on normals.
See: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/modifiers/generate/solidify.html


my model is much bigger than the 3d and 0-1 space

Remember, size in the computer is a relative, mathematical construct (it's not real) Size becomes an issue when you are stressing the the limits of the math engine. examples: If you build a model of a cup and you have the scale very large, relative to the programs space you'll have a crazy time detailing it, likewise an intricate model of a ship built "very small" will give you fits. You are translating the mathematical construct in the computer to a reasonable size for mapping pixel information to parts.

You should try to work in those "units" that make sense for the object: cup in inches, ship in meters. It's all about your modelling space. Then use reasonable UV mapping for the object. (don't try to use a single UV map for an entire ship model) So it's all about the scaling, bounds, mapping....

Then this link might get you going?
https://www.blender.org/manual/editors/uv_image/texturing/unwrapping.html

Hope this helps.
Kevin


How set actuator properties while the game is running?

The bpy module does not work in the game engine, use the bge functions instead.

For instance:

objectList = bge.logic.getCurrentScene().objects
bge.logic.getCurrentController().actuators['<name>'].target = objectList['XX']

More information can be found on the bge.logic and bge.types pages of the blender python api.


Object not showing correctly on camera or view but it renders

Maybe you have accidentally deactivated something in the Object Types Visibility settings in the left 3D Viewport, for example Mesh or Text or anything else which applies to your text object. In this case it won't be displayed in the viewport but renders normal.


Best way to unwrap half a sphere or a helmet?

Final:

Overview:

In this particular case I would go with Follow Active Quad unwrapping. You can 'cut off' the top of the helmet (there is another mesh there) so it's the easiest way I can think of.

Steps:

First of all Mark Seams around the top of the helmet and one through the back of the mesh.

Select all faces and Unwrap them.
Select one face, preferably near the Seam, it will keep texture more seamless.
Align this face in UV Image Editor by selecting edges and W > Align Auto.
Select all faces on your mesh (keep aligned face as active face).
Unwrap it by Follow Active Quads.
Hit Ctrl+P to Pack UV Islands.
Manually correct the top of helmet UV map.


Why are trees appearing on objects with glossy materials?

Zero roughness will give you a mirror basically and the trees you are seeing are probably from HDRI image that's being used in the material preview view or if you have one loaded in your world settings. May I ask why you took a picture of your monitor instead of just screen capping and posting that I find this so odd?


Need to lock an axis of the soft body animation

Add an object constraint, limit location to the body and limit the distances.(you might want to start at a negative z).


Creasing has more to do with how subdivision surfaces interpret the edges, once a subdivision surface modifier is applied, see gif for demonstration.

If creasing isn't what you're after and you're trying to create a smoothing split by marking edges as sharp, you're going to want to do the following:

Select your object, and access 'Object Data' in the properties panel, and enable 'Auto Smooth'.

Increase the Auto Smooth angle to 180 (or any preferred value).
In edit mode, highlight the edges you want to mark as sharp and press CTRL+E (for edge actions), and choose 'Mark Sharp'.


You can add a custom shortcut directly on most commands, using the assign Shortcut option.
In this case select the collection, press on the context menu (F3) look for the command and right click. A new menu will allow you to assign a shortcut directly.


As Lemon mentioned in the comments,

You dont seem to have a color space.

Its weird it even let you have a blank one.
Maybe try choosing the drop down, if that doesnt work try restarting Blender.

Just choose sRGB if you dont have Filmic.


I'm going to say it is because it is a bad idea to copy the data path for the driver's expression.  (but only the last half is true, it's not the reason for the menu being non-functional).

You probably want to go through the UI for an element whose property you want to use in the driver (like maybe object location) and copy its data path and paste it into the property path of the driver.

I vaguely recall there are some places in the UI which actually do have a data path, but whose "copy data path" operation is not functional.  This is usually because it's a little too tricky for blender to keep track of it and you'll need the help of an experienced human to figure it out.

Nothing is more frustrating to a new blender python programmer than the "..." that appears in the mouseover readout of a field.


No, As far as I know, nobody has done this before.

Even if this was done it wouldn't be cross platform (since Photoshop plugins are compiled AFAIK).


In the properties panel, press 'n' to bring that up and go to "view" and you can see the lens view in mm, the default is 35mm, so you can set it to that.


It is normal and logical that Blender use all available cores and CPU time for render. You have two options for change it.

You can set low priority in system task manager (how to do it depend on system you are using, this is about system, not about Blender)
You can set number of used cores for render.

EDIT: actually point one does not change percentage of usage, only set low priority, so your CPU will work on 100%, but will preferentially prioritize other running programs ans services


Convert the text to a regular Curve object(Alt+C). Add another curve, and make the text that curve's bevel object. Select "Fill Caps" option for solid text. Add Edges Split modifier for sharp edges. You can control (and even animate) extrusion with Bevel Factor Start/End.


Is there a way to not limit vertex painting to visible geometry?

This may not be a direct answer, but you could try the following:

Enter Edit Mode, turn off the limit (marked in red), and use the brush to select vertices you want to paint:

Then enter Vertex paint Mode, and turn on the face selection mask:

It doesn't matter where you click with your brush, because the paint is limited to the selected faces

Results are (at the front)

and (at the back)


Enabling Z-transparency and setting the alpha of the material to '0' was correct but you also have to tell Blender that the texture should affect the alpha channel:


How can I replace an applied material with a different one?

With "Material" selected, click the little "globe" next to where it says "material" in white (above "preview"). This is the slot selector. Pick material.001 from here


The UV scale will depend on the scale of the selected Image Texture node in the Shader Editor, but its appearence will be stretched in the UV Editor, depending on the selected image here. If you select the same image in Shader Editor and UV Editor, the UV will appear at the right scale.
If you select 1:1 in the Shader Editor, and select 1:1 in the UV Editor, you'll see the correct scale, then if you select 3:1 in the UV Editor, it will be scaled 3 times on the X axis.
If you choose 3:1 in the Shader Editor and choose 1:1 in the UV Editor, it will look scaled 1/3 of its X scale, if you switch to 2:1 in the UV Editor, it will be 2/3 of it X scale, it will only look good if you switch to 3:1 in the UV Editor.
It works as expected, but it surprises a bit at the beginning.


You seem to have the Glossy and Diffuse shaders connected the opposite way around compared to the tutorial screenshot. This means (with mix factor or 0.09) your material is far more glossy than diffuse. Either increase the Mix factor closer to 1.0 or swap the Mix input nodes around. The mix works by mixing between the inputs with 0.0 being completely the first input, 1.0 being completely the second input, and inbetween values mixing gradually between the two.


F-curve modifier animation - whole values only

In order to have the f-curve follow precice values (eg, to follow exactly to the frame number) you can use f-curve modifiers to generate the values mathematically.

To achieve this, you first need to add a keyframe to your property to create the f-curve and then view the properties in the Graph Editor (N).

In the Modifiers section, click Add Modifier and select Generator.

The Generator allows you to define an equation to assign a value for the f-curve (y) for each frame (x) as a polynomial equation. For a 'straight line' relationship you need a '1st order' polynomial - so set Poly Order to '1'.

For the value to always equal the frame number you need to define it as y = 0 + 1x (ie, `y=x') - so set the first parameter to '0.0' and the second to '1.0'.

By ensuring the parameters are integers the result will be an integer for any integer frame number.

You can use this same technique to generate values for more complicated scenarios - for example, to set only for a particular range of frames (enable 'Restrict Frame Range') or to jump multiple values per frame (eg, y = 0 + 5x would increment the value by '5' for each frame) or to use a higher-level polynomial for non-linear relationships.


Sinister particles rendering experience, Ubuntu 20.10

I have some ideas of what it could be. First off, What is the scale of your object? 4-meter hair seems long for an unscaled Suzanne. I'd try lowering that value first.


Weird error preventing me from export after I move vertex/face/edge

The answer is that your mesh is lacking UV coordinates. Unwrap your mesh (in edit mode, select all vertices A and unwrap U - Unwrap

Then try your export again.


Global Variable/Node across multiple materials?

This can be done with node groups.

I think you were trying to edit the attributes of the node group instance itself. Instead, try editing/animating the attributes of the nodes inside the group:

Just add a value node (or any input nodes you want, e.g. RGB for color) and press ⎈ CtrlG to make it into a group.

Changes the values of the nodes inside the group will take effect everywhere the group is used, even across different materials. So in this case changing the value node will change the brightness of the diffuse material and the AO material.


Can I save rendered images as PNG with a sRGB color profile?

There is a sizable degree of erroneous information listed here; some lacking clarity, while other bits could be classified as entirely misinformation or misleading.

  Where can I set the color space of images?

Complex question that requires a deeper understanding of colour management and in particular, how OpenColorIO is designed, but the short answer is from the UV Image Viewer's Properties panel.

  Does this mean the image are saved in sRGB by default but no color
  profile is attached to the image ?

If you do nothing to the default configuration, yes.

  So best to assign sRGB to the image
  when opened in Photoshop?

Yes.

  How is Blender saving the images ... with to without color profile?

Yes.

  And is that sRGB?

Complex question, but simple answer is “Yes.”


Offset all keyframes to reposition animation

Why can't you just use the Graph editor to re-position the keyframes?

Select the keyframes you want to offset, grab, and move in the X direction:

You can also type in the exact number of frames you want to offset the keyframes by... positive or negative amounts.


How to subtract smaller face from a bigger face in edit mode?

If you have a solid face and you want to poke a hole on it and conform it to another existing shape (target), you can inset (I in edit mode) the face to be poked, delete (x) the resulting face and then snap the remaining vertices to the target face one by one.
The problem you present, though, requires a different strategy. Instead of selecting all vertices and hitting F to make faces out of them, select vertices by smaller groups that make sense and are more or less free of concavities. First the ones which inset into the desired empty space (the ones that make the wheels' fork end). Select just them and hit F. Then to for small sections of the wheel until you cover what you want covered.
Pay attention so you don't select vertices that shouldn't be adjacent to the new face you're about to create. Blender lends itself to easily create bad topology if the users direct it to do so.
Later, you can fuse the faces together as you wish by dissolving shared edges between them (X).


Cycles GPU Texture-duplicate memory Question

They are not the same. If I understand you correctly they are imported as different pngs and in that case they have to be loaded to gpu memory to be used. Why don't you reload one copy in node editor for all materials using this texture?

I set up a test scene with 3 cubes. Different materials for each but in the first screenshot the same texture used in the image texture node for each material. In the second screenshot there are copies of the same texture loaded and gpu memory load goes up...

Same texture in 3 different materials.

Different Textures (Copies) in each material.

Here is a screenshot of my node setup. Only one of the three different textures is in us. The other two are marked with no user by a 0 in front.


With blender 2.82 a new fluid simulation engine was introduced called Mantaflow. So that is the reason your old simulations are not working, you can try using a older blender version.


How can I make text appear on the screen in the game engine when the character enters a certain area?

There are plenty of ways to achieve this.

Your scene idea could be implemented as follows:

Cube:

Collision sensor (filter for a property the character has)
AND controller
Scene Actuator Add Overlay -> your scene with text

Remarks:

ensure the camera of the overlay scene is showing something
ensure your character can be detected (static objects are not detected!). In doubt enable Game/Show physics Visualization.


How to make the ocean modifier to deform an object, but don't move it?

It is deforming it, but the result is probably not matching the scale of your object. Try to reduce the Size parameter and maybe also the Scale parameter of the Ocean modifier.


scaling issue, particles don`t scale down why?

Ok, you cannot scale particles you need to scale the particle instance.
In your case most likely you need to scale the cylinder


How to change separator character between name and number?

I don't think there is an option to change this behavior natively. However, you can simply rename your objects in bulk.

I personally like to use name panel addon. In this case, you could use batch name option, and replace . with _.

Before renaming:

Outliner after:


Yes, this is pretty straightforward with AN.

I created an object called "Vane01" which is the individual curved slice of the iris.  This is the individual object in the upper right of the gif.

Then I created a set of nodes which duplicates Vane01 around a circle, and rotates those duplicates in parallel to make the iris.

I started with a bezier circle, then used the AN "evaluate spline" node to select 16 points evenly spaced along that curve.

Using the Object Instancer, I made 16 copies of Vane01, then located them at each of the points provided by Evaluate Spline.

Evaluate Spline also provides the tangent angle at the selected point, which allows you to angle the Vane copies around the curve.

Then, by adding the rotation angle of the original object, I rotate each of the Vane copies.  This allows all of the iris elements to rotate smoothly in parallel, providing the Iris effect.  It is important that Vane1 (and thus every copy) has its origin at the pivot location of the base, so it can rotate there instead of the center of mass.

By editing Vane01, different shapes can be tried out.  Also, the node layout has an integer input variable which allows you to vary the number of vanes in the iris.

Here's the blend file for the simple iris model.  I made this in Blender 2.79, using Animation Nodes 2.0.4.

Complex version

As practice for myself, I also made a more complex version, which dynamically adds guides for the vanes.  I wanted to see what shape of frame would be required to make the Iris work correctly.

I've also attached that .blend as well if you're interested.

Here's the blend file for the complex iris model.  HTH.


How can I creat this workspace in UV editor?

I'm not totally sure what you are asking, but, my best guess is that your the image shown is just one texture and the UV maps are just moved to cover one section of the texture. You can grab, resize, etc. within UV edit mode by just grabbing the points.


Keep track of the objects previous position. Algorithm:

on each logic tick:
     speed_vector = current_position - previous_position
     speed = speed_vector.length()
     previous_position = current_position


Keep bone rotated in-between two other bones?

While the method you mentioned works, it can get messy especially if you want more influences on one bone. Here is a method which is simple and easy to read.

An advantage is, that the hierarchy and bone orientation doesn't matter since it uses World Space constraints.

Duplicate the between bone and rename it with suffixes of the other bones.

Add Copy Rotation constraints from both duplicated joints onto the between joint.
Set the influence of the second copy rotation constraint to 0.5. The between bone is now equally influenced by the other two.
Parent the between_end bone to the end bone.Parent the between_start bone to the start bone.The between bone is now influenced by the original bone. But we're still using World Space constraints but don't have to worry about the orientations.

The rig holds various poses. Parenting can be changed freely as long as nothing is parented to the between bone (cyclic dependency).

The rig will break, if the angle of the original bones is more than 180°.

I recommend using World Space constraints with duplicates, because you are free to change the orientation later on. With local space constraints the bones have to be oriented the same, which is not always given.


How to make effect of burning objects from Particles?

I dont think there is an easy solution in the direction your heading.
And probaply no easy solutions exists.
But know that Blender understands Python, and with that it should be possible.
If you know the locations of the object replace them, or better use shape keys on them to shrink them. Then be able to move a texture over the object so it turns black from top to bottom. Doing this with python might not be easy, though all actions you do are logged inside
Maybe animation nodes could allow something like this (but i'm not sure).
Generating trees with leaves is one of the goals though.


How can I create a shiny metallic plastic-looking material?

Just use a white glossy shader with a bit of roughness, and an HDRI image for the lightning.

Blender file: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31926


How to control how transparent a Diffuse BSDF is when using EEVEE's Blend Mode?

You can keep the alpha blend setting on the red material. You just need to add a mix shader and a transparent shader set to pure white :

The factor of the mix shader drives how much the red blends with the blue.


AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute

You can't add properties to bge.logic.

To get this to work in the game engine, add a game property to the object and adjust your script to get the controller to access the property.

import bge

cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()

input = []
for i in range(2):
    input.append([])
    for ii in range(cont['DnpolymeraseNum']):
        if i == 1:
            input[i].append([0,0,0,0,0,0])
        if i == 0:
            input[i].append([0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0])`


Blender Cycles is rendering out as blank white

My mistake! I had hidden layers that were still turned on in render. So eye hidden and camera still on. Both need to be off, rookie mistake!


How to copy an action strip from one object to another?

Assuming, both armatures have same bone names (etc)
just did a quick test, NLA editor won't let you copy action strips from one object to another via dragging / moving (G key) .

Option 1 (shift + A) in NLA editor will let you pick action as well

Option 2 (as shown in image)
Right now, best way to do is to use 'Action Editor' in Dope Sheet Area. Just use the action there on armature and then use it in NLA


Images as planes are not appearing in final render but in viewport are visible

When you drag an image into the viewport, or use Add > Image > Reference, or Add > Image > Background, those images will have no real geometry (they are just an empty with an image associated to it), and as such they are not renderable. They are just reference.
Use Add > Image > Images as Planes (or File > Import > Images as planes) to have an object that has 4 vertices and a face with the image used as a texture on the material.


Using a decorator in an Operator class. Notice the repeating code is defined once in the decorator and any* function which you want to wrap that code around can be decorated with the @mouse_change

import bpy
import time

# declare the decorator
def mouse_change(func):
    def add_mouse_change(*args):
        bpy.context.window.cursor_set("WAIT")
        func(*args)
        bpy.context.window.cursor_set("DEFAULT")
    return add_mouse_change

class SimpleCBOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "node.some_callback_identifier"
    bl_label = "Short Name"

    fn_name = bpy.props.StringProperty(default='')

    @mouse_change
    def dispatch(self, context, type_op):

        if type_op == 'some_named_function':
            time.sleep( 5 )
            print(type_op)

        elif type_op == 'some_named_other_function':
            time.sleep( 5 )
            print(type_op)

    def execute(self, context):
        self.dispatch(context, self.fn_name)
        return {'FINISHED'}

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.node.some_callback_identifier(fn_name='some_named_function')

*The way I wrote the decorator function won't let you decorate the execute function.

you would have less code, and arguably more understandable code, by dropping the decorator entirely and going with a dispatch-callback pattern..

class SimpleCBOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "node.some_callback_identifier"
    bl_label = "Short Name"

    fn_name = bpy.props.StringProperty(default='')

    def dispatch(self, context, type_op):
        cursor_set = bpy.context.window.cursor_set
        cursor_set("WAIT")

        if type_op == 'some_named_function':
            pass

        elif type_op == 'some_named_other_function':
            pass

        cursor_set("DEFAULT")

    def execute(self, context):
        self.dispatch(context, self.fn_name)
        return {'FINISHED'}

The drawback of using a single operator 'callback' with an internal dispatch, is that the tooltip wouldn't be unique per fn_name. These are at least a few options to look into.


How to mix Vertex Colours with character's Diffuse Texture? (Blender Internal)

If you have any questions on the steps let me know


Produce a transforming cone of equal edge length?

Really unsure this is what is wanted in the question, but:

There is no Python nor animation nodes here. This is simply an animation.

The torus is done from a base little cylinder with an array and a simple deform to curve it:

Then animate an empty with a circle curve surrounding the torus:

And make this last empty parent of the torus.

Et voila:

All that is due to the simple deform which considers the object origin as base. As the parenting changes this origin location, it gives the result.

The curve is here to ensure that the result will be like 'around a sphere'.


Why are the textures on imported objects not displaying correctly in my scene?

Object 1 doesn't have an UV map, object 2 have.
When I Unwrap object one, like Cube projection or if you go to top view and Unwrap from View, it works for me.


You can do that in GLSL Textured Viewport Shading

First open material tab, enable Transparency and set Alpha to 0

Then open Texture tab, select the texture you are painting on and in Influence section enable Alpha


How would I make a cloudy backdrop in cycles?

Depending on what you want, your best option may be to just make a procedural sky.  Here is a great tutorial for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr6wTyfAO04  Making the clouds procedural will save you a ton on render times.  Although, if you are trying to fly through the clouds, they would need to be more volumetric and realistic.  Here is a great tutorial by BlenderGuru just for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ_OcBh7F5I

To make a simple cloud all you really need to do is connect a Volume Scatter node to your materials volume input.

You can raise the density for a more stormy look.


What is the algorithm behind Blender's Proportional Edit?

It calculates the distance between the element you are changing. If it is within the radius the user selects it will use a falloff that the user has selected.

Basically the values of the matrix of the transformation that the user is done is influences by the distance of the other elements. As you can see here.

Possible falloffs

Note: distance = 1 - (the actual distance/radius the user selected)

Constant: 1

Random: random between (0..1)

Linear: distance

Sharp: distance^2

Root: sqrt(distance)

Sphere: sqrt(distance*2 - distance^2)

Smooth: 3*(distance^2) - 2*(distance^3)


How to fix bright pixels around light sources?

Those are called fireflies, and there are several easy ways to get rid of them. Fireflies are often present in low-light renders. The following are the three easiest.

Clamping

This is probably easiest and best way to combat fireflies. Turn the Properties panel > Render tab > Sampling drop down > Clamp Indirect: value to 3.

Filter Glossy

Turn the Properties panel > Render tab > Light Paths drop down > Filter Glossy: value to 0.5. This blurs all reflective/refractive elements just a bit.

Samples

Sometimes you just need more samples.

All ideas and images from here.


If a model or its animation is too complex (usually too many vertices, subdivisions or moving parts), the computer struggles to show you the changes in real time. Although its 24fps, your computer is only able to process a fraction of those frames in that second. So instead of showing 24 frames in one second, it takes more time, say 5 seconds, to show you the same 24 frames.And this makes it look slow.In your case left is more complex mesh+animation than the right. You can see this from the fps number in your viewport (marked in red boxes).

Inorder to reduce the burden on the computer and show you a much better representation of your animation, you can do the following.

1) Disable the subdivisions for viewport. This reduces the burden on the computer as it doesn't have to show you all the extra smoothing geometry in viewport. You can do this  by disabling the eye icon in modifiers.

2) In the timeline, change the sync mode to 'frame dropping'. When you do this, instead of computing 24 frames each second, the computer might skip frames if it needs to but shows you a smoother animation.

This is just to help you see the animation better or realtime in viewport. While rendering, you still get the 24 frames.


Make a hole in the ground of a video which is camera-tracked?

Firstly, you need to create the shape of the inside of the hole and make sure the object is on the foreground layer.

After that, you need to crop the generated Ground object to remove an area which matches the opening of the hole.

Here is the result (not realistic, just to show that it works):

This is the way I did it. I guess this might not be the best way to do it, but it works.

I am not familiar with Blender terminology. If someone is willing to post a more detailed or better answer, I would be glad to accept it.


Here I have couple objects with different scale, that share the same object data. It seems that objects are different, but whey are the same, and bevel operation proceeds on the objects same way, in object scale coordinates.

But what if I want to do an operation at world scale?
In the case, I shall apply the scale Ctrl+A -> Scale, so that it will not affect the coordinates.


The Simple way ... the Origin

The placement of the particle uses the origin of the particle.  In edit mode move the mesh vertices away from the origin.  You can easily experiment which axis works best for your situation.

X or Y or Z

The origin of the mesh need not lie anywhere near the center of mass of the mesh.

For example a sphere particle may have its origin twice the distance of the diameter ... or in the geometric center.   A tree form particle probably would have its origin at the base of the trunk ... not in the geometric center.


What would be the best way of continuing the wall around the corner?

Use a loop cut (CtrlR) on  the floor, and slide it to set the width of the wall. (While sliding, hitting E will make the new loop parallel to one side of the cut faces, and hitting F will flip which side.) Then extrude upwards.


How do I have the vertices selected below extend to the edge at the far right side?

If your problem of creating several faces is as simple as shown in this picture, my suggestion would be to do this:

select all the vertices you want to form several quadratic faces.
hit F and create an n-gon
hit CTRL T to triangulate the faces, this results in your n-gon being converted to triangular faces.
hit ALT J to convert tris to quads. This tool is then trying to convert the triangles you've previously created into the quadratic faces you've probably wanted.

(If you end up with something messy from the convert tris to quads function, try to tweak the settings in the toolbar. )


The OpenGL render should give you what you need. Find it either in the Info editor > Render > OpenGL Render image or in the 3D viewport header.  Read more about using it - OpenGL render.


Yes it's limited to 8. Explanations on devtalk.blender.org.

Note that using multiple UV maps isn't quite recommended, it's memory heavy, not every software supports more than 8 UVs (some don't even go up to 8), there are usually tons of ways to do without extra UV sets,...


Blender 2.8 Principled BSDF : Getting emissive? material when trying to assign hex color as base color

The RGBA values have to be normalized to a $\left[0,1\right]$ range. The shaders will produce strange results when input values exceed the intended range, such as the glow effect you're seeing.


Troubles when using Pause in the game from "New Game"

Solved the problem by adding Remove scene - Main scene every time before setting new Main scene when clicking New Game.
It can be seen on the screenshot that Main scenes double!
Yay for me


I think @atomicbezierslinger might be correct, but I think Blender can be great for architectural renderings, but not necessarily designing. There are plugins that add Architectural Desktop-like features, but Blender is more like Maya than AutoCAD.

Two good resources to see what's capable in architectural rendering in Blender are: Blendswap and Blender Artists (for example: this recent rendering posted by the artist)


Volume Scatter Causing More and More Fireflies with More Samples

Try increasing and decreasing the size of your spot light, to see its effect.

Consider adding a large plane with emissive light settings and a "go between" opaque plane with a hole in it to substitute for a spot light.

Also consider setting your rendering "clamp indirect" to 0.1 or 0.2 to clean up the fireflies.


Object alignment between Viewport and Render are different

My guess: the misalignment is caused by perspective and different viewing angles. You look at your objects in the Viewport and in Render Camera from different sides, so what looks like "alignment" in the Viewport may actually be a perspective illusion. The best way to check it is to upload your .blend file for examination.


There are two common ways for modeling rounded corners. One, using a bevel modifier. Two, using a subdivision surface modifier. Both have advantages.

Bevel Modifier:

The bevel modifier's main problem is the sharp edge it gives on each side of the bevel as seen in the image below. It can look very 3Dish when using highly reflective shaders. But the advantage is that it keeps a relatively low polygon count in comparison to subdivision surfaces and keeps a better curvature by maintaining a perfectly circular curve.

To reduce distortion in the reflections, one can add edge loops to correct the normals so that they face directly outwards. See image below.

Subdivision Surface Modifier:

The advantage to the Subdivision Surface (sub-surf) modifier is the smooth transition of faces that the catmull-clark algorithm creates. But, to get noon-distorted results, you must have a high subdivision level, Causing polygon counts to double or quadruple.

In the end, neither are perfect. But the sub-surf modifier will give better results. At the cost of your render speed.

An example of the subdivision method:

An example of the bevel method with added edge loops to improve normals:


Create and move bones using BoneList (BoneCollection) python

Ok. This was easy!
import bpy

namelist = [

("Bone"),
("Bone.001"),
("Bone.002"),
("Bone.003")

]

for name123 in namelist:

    RIG = bpy.data.objects['Armature']

    RIG.data.edit_bones.new(('RemRoll_') + name123)
    RIG.data.edit_bones[('RemRoll_') + name123].head = RIG.data.edit_bones.get(name123).head
    RIG.data.edit_bones[('RemRoll_') + name123].tail = RIG.data.edit_bones.get(name123).tail
    RIG.data.edit_bones[('RemRoll_') + name123].roll = RIG.data.edit_bones.get(name123).roll


Where does a rotation go when I Apply it to a mesh?

The transformation is applied directly to the world space locations of the vertices/edges/faces, then removed from the object transform. As a result, it is lost, as it is no longer distinguishable from any other change to the base mesh data. Such as edit mode changes, other applied transforms, applied modifiers, or the original script/primitive/tool that spawned geo there in the first place.


Blender Freestyle - some edges are partially missing even after marking for Freestyle edges

The issue seems to stem from the scale of the object. While you've set the unit scale down, it's still large in Blender units. I suggest setting the unit scale back to one and scale the object to the size in millimeter that you were intending. This results in correct freestyle edges.


You have to check "Merge" And also "First and Last" in the array modifier. You can tweak the merge distance if there is still a gap. Your relative distance should be 1.00 on the array axis for it to work out of the box.

Alternatively, with Blender 2.82 and onward, you can use the weld modifier and set the distance threshold accordingly. This modifier merges vertices which are closer than the threshold.


Console flashes on launching, then closes (ms-windows)

More than likely the problem is that your startup.blend and or userpref.blend file was corrupted. To fix this, just navigate to the user settings directory and delete them.

On Windows, the directory is located at
C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.xx\config. See this post for more information on how to locate this directory on your os. This can work for both portable copies and installations.

OR

When uninstalling the program, tick Remove all files (second option) to make it delete the directory and then reinstall.

The next time you start Blender, it should start normally and if you tweak the interface and or change the user preferences and save them, it will write out new copies of these files with your new settings.


'Animation Nodes' Compared with 'Animation Nodes + Extra Nodes'

In Animation nodes + Extra nodes (AN+EN) - as the name says - there are additional nodes in there. Basically, the AN+EN is AN-fork, and it has extra nodes as well as extended version of some nodes e.g., Simulation Nodes, Falloff Tracer, Particles Output, Modified Vector Noise node, Texture Input, etc. Many of the extra/extended nodes have been merged in AN e.g., Grease Pencil, UV Map, Vertex Color, Custom Attributes, Mesh Points Scatter, etc. However, there are some nodes which may not be possible add in AN.


Simple methods to smooth out weight paints?

Starting from this situation,

You can use the smooth tool :

Go in weight paint mode
Activate vertex selection (the little icon on the bottom of the screen indicated by a cube with one vertex in yellow)
Select your vertices A
Then in the weight paint tools panels click on 'smooth'
One done, go to the operator options and select 'all groups'
Then tune the amount of smooth you want (or click on the smooth button several times)

You need to go to vertices selection mode because the smooth operates only on a selection (unavailable if there is no selection).

By the way, few other things :

3.6k is not so much at all in general for skinning. But yes, that can be a lot for this particular model
Automatic weights generally does a very good job and I am surprised it does not work here ? Maybe because of your bone structure as the root bone is not placed at the root of the hair ?

What I obtain with 'automatic weights' :

Alternative smoothing using blur brush :


When I use the smoothing brush, the colors don't show up in my renders

My guess is that you have a Duplicate sticking out of your donut coating. You have disabled the visibility in view port (Eye icon) but not disabled in Renders (Camera Icon)
If you dont have the camera icon next to your object in the Outliner Panel, Click the Filter at the top right to enable more selection modes.


No, not as far as I know of.

Blender can load older files into newer Blender version, taking care of updating settings.

It's possible to write a script that changes the settings of a .blend file of course, but this would most likely be a workaround for problems in Blender's own conversion, so if there is really a bug there, it should be reported.

In other cases changes cant be easily converted since the settings are not 1:1 equivalent, so in those cases you probably have to accept some manual tweaking to get comparable settings.


Normal map texture not working with cylindrical objects in Evee Blender 2.8

Can't say anything without the .blend but, the problem most likely lies because you've used the same UV map for different objects and the normal map is not being adjusted to the different UV scales


How to do Trammel Of Archimedes Animation?

Animate both "shuttles" moving on different axis by keyframing their X and and Y positions in sync. Start at say $X=-1$ at frame $0$ then $X=1$ at frame $30$, and back at $X=-1$ at frame $60$, repeat for Y axis for the other shuttle.

In the Curve Editor move their animation curve keyframes so that they are offset by "half a cycle". That is if one apexes every $x$ frames, the other one should apex at frames $x+1.5x$.

Add a Cycles modifier to both curves so they repeat indefinitely.

Create a "bar" object, move it so that it's origin it is exactly coinciding with one the shuttles, then parent the bar to that shuttle with Ctrl + P.

Add a Track to Constraint pointing to the other shuttle, adjusting the axis settings as necessary.

As mentioned by Robin Betts, for a mathematically perfect animation the f-curve should be a perfect sine wave. Use a Built-in Function f-curve modifier instead of manually keyframing the shuttels and using the Cycles modifier.

Set it to a Sine function, so the shuttles have mathematically correct motion relative to each other. With the previously described technique you will notice a wobble between the second bar hole and the corresponding shuttle caused by the manually keyframed animation.


Blender camera with follow-path constraint does weird turns along curve

Path-following Camera -

Use a cube, either visible or invisible as the path object.
Add a line between two diagonally opposed corner vertices and subdivide that.
Set the cube's Origin point to that. (with SH-S)  (Shouldn't be necessary, but... )
Parent the camera to that vertice ONLY.  Select the cube, then the camera, go into Edit mode and select the center vertice.
Press CTL-P --> 'Single Vertice' .
That will stop the cube's tilts & rotation antics from affecting the camera.
The cam can also be turned and animated at will, or focus on some object or other using the 'Track-to' constraint.


If I understand correctly what you want (?), you can:

Create an new edge loop:

Select the faces:

Extrude up:


Made the leg IK bone, tried to attach the upper leg bone to the pelvis but after attaching it, the body rotates a little bit

In Pose mode, select your right lowerleg, go into Properties > Bone Constraints, and in your IK Constraint, change the Chain factor from 0 (influence the whole armature) to 2 (only influence 2 bones)


Not able to apply the most simple screw modifier possible

The axis of the screw modifier is set to Y in the first example, but it’s set to Z in the second example. Change this, and everything should be fine.


I want to close gaps in a model to make it printable

The problem seems to be that you have way too many vertices it would be expected that the plane makes many triangle faces and looks very buggy.
A way to approach this is by not using a plane at all. Try hiding everything that is not the underside of the long coat (bottom of the torso if you will). Then you can switch to bottom view by pressing Ctrl + Numpad 7 and box selecting (B) all the faces you see. Afterwards you can extrude these faces down and flatten them on the Z axis with S + Z + 0. This should create a flat surface that you can drag to a desired height.
P.S. If you don't have vertex groups and are finding hiding everything difficult, you can also circle select (C) the underside faces manually.


Where does End Clip Distance start on Orthographic view?

It's defined by the View pivot. The view orbits around a single point which is moved by a variety of actions (e.g. panning with ⇧ Shift MMB or zooming to an object with numpad .):


How to you scale, move or rotate outside blender window

By default, the cursor is supposed to automatically wrap around to the other side of the screen when it goes off the edge, allowing you to continue the operation as long as you wish.  I think this behavior is controlled by the setting:

Preferences -> Input -> Mouse -> Continuous Grab

Make sure that's checked.

As an alternative, once you reach the edge of the view window, you can press and hold down Shift (to switch to fine adjustments) and move your cursor back to the other side of the window.  Then, release Shift and continue your operation.  Note that Shift must be pressed while the cursor is still within the view window, or it may not register.


How to engrave an object that has a subsurface modifier?

I guess you have something like this:

If so, just add an Edge Split modifier at the bottom of the stack, so everything will look fine again:


How to access a class from blenders python console?

You can access classes for registered operators via bpy.types.

eg:

cls = bpy.types.OBJECT_OT_make_dupli_face

import inspect

inspect.getsourcefile(cls)
# 'release/scripts/startup/bl_operators/object.py'

inspect.getsource(cls)
# 'class MakeDupliFace(Operator):\n    """Convert objects ... <snip>


How to posterize a texture in cycles proceduraly?

I think six math nodes do the trick.

I separate the image texture into R, G and B
Then I use a math node to perform a modulo division. It divides the input by a value and keeps the rest. 100 modulo 30 = 10. Here, 0.845 modulo 0.1 is 0.045
Next step, I subtract the result from the original value with another set of math nodes: 0.845 - 0.045 = 0.800
I join the RGB values and feed them into the shader.
I added a value node that tells all 3 modulo nodes which value to use. 0.0 means the original image, 0.1 uses ten steps, 0.2 uses 5 steps.

Not totally happy with the result though. I bet there'll be a better answer soon. Below has a value of 0.2

I made two improvements afterwards. I packed it into a node group which means the value node isn't necessary anymore. The input of the group does it nicely.

Under the hood I divided the factor in half and added it to the RGB values to simulate rounding. That should result in a brighter image closer to the original.

Collapsed it turns into this:


You can use the free Autodesk Fbx Converter to batch convert multiple fbx files to various formats. It comes with a cli command which can be used to automate the conversion. I tried but couldn't find any FOSS alternatives to it.


How do use one channel from an image in a material?

You already have the image UV mapped to your mesh, good.
For the cycles render engine:
First you will want to make an entirely new material. (the settings from BI could mess things up a bit)
You want your new material's nodes to look something like this.

The first two nodes are how the texture gets in to your material.
The selected (Separate RGB) node is where it all happens, it takes the color form your image, and splits it into the three channels (the three outputs R G B). So since you only are interested in the blue channel, just plug that output in to your shader.

For the blender internal:
The process is much the same, you have to use the nodes. Here is what just the BI's material nodes look like. (This is assuming you already have the proper material and texture set up.)

Still just the Separate RGB node, and you are choosing what channel you want to use in the output.


When you are UV unwrapping, you're basically trying to flatten out a box. You can cut seams around all six faces, but that leaves separated parts. Try to find the edges where the geometry has to spread and mark those as seams, like this:

You can see I made seams down the 45 degree bevels, and just cut the bottom out separately.
After removing all the extra geometry it becomes much easier to achieve the UV layout you wanted:


X-Axis Mirror mirrors the bones, but they appear on the same side

A more complete indication (than the comments):

Blender's convention for armature is mirroring along -X / +X axis.

-X is the right part of the character (on screen on the left when looking in front view)
+X is the left part (same principle)

To avoid complexity, it is good to rig your character using the same orientation and scale for both the armature and your character. And much preferably no rotation and no scale.


You need a Specular map for best results, a Reflection Probe also. Substance Painter is a fast and easy way to create these maps for Unity.


set a specified vertex color to black via python

Look at the loop vert.
Using a method similar to Applying per-vertex colors to new Bmesh
import bpy
import bmesh
from random import uniform
context = bpy.context
mesh = context.object.data
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(mesh)

color_layer = bm.loops.layers.color.new("color")
red = (1, 0, 0, 1)
black = (0, 0, 0, 1)
for face in bm.faces:
    for loop in face.loops:
        print("Vert:", loop.vert.index)
        loop[color_layer] = black if len(loop.vert.link_edges) == 6 else red

bm.to_mesh(mesh)

Result of running on a pre-made mesh.


Smooth shading is seemingly creating incorrect normals

Sometimes this happens for no apparent reasons. I have gotten into the same issue several times when importing models from other 3d packages. The only way to quickly remove them if apply normals and smooth shading doesn't work, is to ....

Delete the faces only, around the affected vertice and the edges undeleted.
Hit X to delete and choose "face only".
Turn on F2 add-on in the user preferences.
Select adjacent edges and hit F, to fill it with a face between them.

You should now how a clean mesh with the correct normals.

  Note Only use this method if Ctrl + N and applying smooth shading on the model does not solve the problem

.


You can use your pictures as references, create a plane and subdivide it:

Extrude it up, extrude the fingers:

Rotate the front face or use the Shear tool, then continue to extrude and rotate:

Begin to work on the thumb:

Give it a Subdivision Surface modifier, change the topology appropriately:


You can use Inset Faces. It doesn't do it exactly like in your image. Instead it looks like this.

Select the faces you want to inset and press I and drag the mouse. It works with  multiple faces as well.

And if you do II when you have multiple faces selected, it will inset them individually.

Instead of dragging the mouse, you can type the inset distance immediately after I or II.

This doesn't pad the plane outwards, increasing its size, but rather insets within the current size. This can, of course, be remedied by scaling it up before insetting. Also, as you can see, the corners are handled differently.


Displacement Maps in cycles from Zbrush not rendering properly

Problem solved!

I talked to a friend and he said that since the displacement map deforms the mesh according to the face normals (never knew that), I needed a normal map to smoothen the faces altogether before applying the displacement.

Material node setup as follows:


Denoise Node is"Disabled" but is working

The denoise is not working because your blender build has no openImageDenoise.What removes the noise is the legacy denoiser in the renderlayer which is not based on machine learning.


Glass material not working properly... When I add a light source it makes these colored dots

Glass is prone to do that; those dots are technically called "fireflies". For your shader, I suggest adding volume effects, like volume absorption, to handle the inside of the glass, as typical shades only work with the surface without them (and actual glass is very volumetric). The rest of it is an artifact of ray casting, which you can typically get around by increasing the size of your light source, or lowering its intensity.

Another possibility, if none of that helps enough, is to go to your rendering settings and reduce the number of bounces. Good luck!


Sculpting window is not displaying "zbrush style" shader?

you have to switch to matcap :

After you have to:


Can we set any specific folder in file browser of blender?

To set folder in favourite just select the folder which you want to add on file browser favourite. Press mouse right click: then select add bookmark. The folder will be added to the favourites in file browser of blender.


Is there a way to move multiple rigged characters simultaneously?

Not without some custom script (custom modal operator etc.).

The workaround is to child_of the root bones with constraints to Empty and move the empty. Then Pose > Apply > Visual Transform to Pose and delete the constraints.

There is an addon that lets you setup child_ofs easily or to keyframe them even: Dynamic parent


For a Bevel-Object swept along  a curve-path, the rules are:

The Bevel Object will be projected down its own positive  Z axis.. its own positive Z is 'Front', as it travels down the path.
It doesn't matter where the path's object-origin is.
It doesn't matter where the the Bevel-Object is in the world. Its object-origin will lie on the path, when projected, (assuming no Offset in the path's Data > Extrude panel).
'Up', with respect to the path's normals, will be the Bevel-Object's own positive Y axis
'Right', looking down the path's direction, will be the Bevel-Object's own positive X axis.

This is quite hard to illustrate clearly. I suggest moving the profile-curve to somewhere it's convenient to work with, maybe the World origin, and switching on the display of the path's normals in its Edit Mode, in the Overlays dropdown.
First check that the path's normals are left-to right, at right-angles to your desired 'Up'. Setting its Twist Method to 'Minimum' in its Data > Shape panel should do that.
Then rotate the profile in Edit mode, so it's flat in XY, and its top is pointing down its own positive Y axis. In the profile's Object > Viewport Display panel, you can switch on 'Axis', as above, to reassure yourself of the alignment.