Switch back to spare parts and parent them to the rig one by one, the automatic weights function wants a single mesh, with a mesh maden of multiple parts sometimes it works, more often not.

Consider also that manual weighting is often the best choice (weight painting and/or weight assigning in the vertex properties panel).


These are called "Relationship Lines" Normally, they show relationships between an object and its parent, and an object and it constraints. they can be turned off under options (N) display >  relationship lines


exported retargeted animation is only 24 keyframes long (scene is set to 34 keyframes and animation is 34 keyframes long)

I'm not sure exactly what's causing this to work, but if i bake a new animation with the skeleton (output properties and such set to desired frame length, it will create a new animation. If i go into the NLA editor, push down the action as an NLA strip,

then head over to the action clip section in the N menu, select my newly baked clip,

go to the outliner and select all other animations labelled "action", except for your baked clip,

it will work. I must be creating some sort of workaround here, but at least it does work.


Combine your existing Roughness map with your new Dirt/Scuffs map using a Math node with Type = "Maximum". Use the output of the Math node for your Principled shader's roughness socket.


Animation Nodes - How do I read the Particle Count with the Object Attribute Output node?

The full python line to read that setting is:

bpy.data.objects['Plane'].particle_systems['ParticleSystem'].settings.count

According to the Animation Nodes documentation the attribute field of the Object Attribute Output node is relative to the object which would mean you would use:

particle_systems['ParticleSystem'].settings.count

or alternatively:

modifiers['ParticleSystem'].particle_system.settings.count

Whether this actually works is dependant on how the developer wrote the Animation Nodes addon.


Use the API method rather than an operator.

Making the assumption that if all selected objects are being keyframed, you are using an operator to set keyframes.

Much easier to use keyframe_insert(data_path, index=-1, frame=bpy.context.scene.frame)

Index default is -1 for all components (eg x, y and z of a location) or 0, 1, 2, 3, (location.x ==> location[0])

The method returns True if the keyframe has been successfully added.

An example of adding all location keyframe to the active object. Set the location, then insert the keyframe(s).

import bpy
ob = bpy.context.object
ob.location = (1, 2, 4)
# add this as keyframe at frame 10
ob.keyframe_insert("location", frame=10)

Take z up to 19 at frame 100

ob.location.z = 19
ob.keyframe_insert('location', index=2, frame=100)


Render on GPU from command line on Ubuntu server

Whether to or to not use the GPU is a setting saved in the .blend file that you render. Under the "Render" tab in the "Properties" Panel, you can set which compute device the file will render with (CPU or GPU). Note: if you aren't editing on a computer with a valid GPU, then that setting will not appear as an option. If you save the .blend file with that setting, then the command line will render with whatever compute device you specified. (blender -b file.blend [[-args]]) Unfortunately, this cannot be set directly through the command line.

Blender Command Line Arguments List.


If I understand you're meaning correctly, you want to add vertices only on a specific edge, and not to add an entire loop.

To do that, select the edge, then subdivide using the button on the Tools Panel, or the shortcut W --> Subdivide. You can then edit the number of subdivisions through the Last Operator Panel (bottom of the Tools Panel), or the F6 menu.


How to use transparency with environment texture?

I'm not quite sure I understand, but I think you are saying that you want mask out parts of an environment texture (video) in your 360 deg video.

Setup

In a 3D scene, select the camera, go to the Object Data tab in the Properties panel (should show camera data). Under Lens, select Panoramic from the 3 options, go to the nearby drop down menu, and select Equirectangular. With the mouse in the 3D Viewport, key N to open the right side bar. Make sure Rotation: X: is set to 90, Rotation: Y: to 0, and Rotation: Z: to 0. Load in your 360 deg video by going to the Properties panel's World Data tab. Switch to Cycles Render Engine if you haven't already. Click Use Nodes, then the square button with the circle in it to the right of the color information slot, , and select Environment Texture. Press Open and locate your video. Select Open Image when you have found it.

Figure out how many frames are in your video and type that into the Frames: box that should appear below the path to your video. One way to do this is to go to the Video Editing Screen Layout, key Shift + A, select Movie, and select your video (a strip should appear with arrows on either end pointing inward). If you right click on each of these arrows, numbers should appear (the largest being the rightmost). Remember these numbers. The formula for frames in your is Rightnumber - Leftnumber + 1. Important: Delete the strip before you return to the Default Screen Layout.

Masking

In the 3D Viewport, change to Viewport Shading > Rendered. Drag different shapes around to blot out the spots you don't want in your final video. You can keyframe these shapes if objects in your video that need masking move.

Compositing

In the Properties panel, go to the Render tab > Film > Transparent. Make sure it's checked. Go to the Render Layers tab > Passes > Environment. Make sure it's checked.

Switch to the Compositing Screen Layout (at the top where it normally says 'Default'). Use the following node setup:

Use the color input in the Alpha Over node to set the color of the masked out area. All of this produced an example result of this for me:

Limitations

Everything masked out has to be the same color. If you want that color to be transparent, click on the color input and drag the Alpha: value to 0. You could add an alternate image as a background I guess, but it would be strange having to design one image to background everything masked out in the background. Should you show the inclination to do so, this would be the node setup:

And it would produce something like this:

Hope this helps and best of luck!


How to make a procedural hair strand texture?

To do this I would use a mapping node and a noise texture:

Which creates:

The key here is that the mapping node is stretching the noise texture along the x axis by having the 'x' value of the scale to be very small. The closer to 0 it gets the more stretched out it is.

You can then increase the scale value on the noise to increase the number of 'bands' in the noise.

I then used the 'Fac' value of the noise instead of the 'Color' as the output for the shader to display.

Note: I used 'Generated' coordinates but this should work with other coordinates, like UVs. The axis you need to stretch with the mapping node may change depending on the orientation of those coordinates.


How to get the distance from one vertex to other vertex along the normal polygon?

Use a dot product between the normal and the distance vector for the distance along normal.

import bpy
import numpy as np
from mathutils import Vector

# Use active object and active face in its mesh
ob = bpy.context.object
mesh = ob.data
normal = mesh.polygons[mesh.polygons.active].normal

# v1 is the origin point and v2 is moved to v1 along the active face normal
v1 = mesh.vertices[30]
v2 = mesh.vertices[31]

dvec = v1.co-v2.co
dnormal = np.dot(dvec, normal)

v2.co += Vector(dnormal*normal)


It basically means your bake has been cleared, but will remain visible until you change a parameter of the simulation and then change the frame and it will clear away the cached bake data.

For example, if you have baked a cloth simulation, and you free the bake, you've set it up to be cleared.  Once you change a parameter like the cloth stiffness, and then change the frame, all the baked data is then cleared from the cache.  However, if you've chosen to bake to disk, the bake information is still stored on the hard drive and can be relinked.


Can I specify which version of Blender to run when rendering from a command line prompt (Linux)?

Blender doesn't need to be installed, so even if you have one version installed on your system, you can have other versions that sit in your filesystem and can be run without further operations. Apart from convenient launcher icons and multi-user availability, there is no advantage in "installing" Blender.

To get Blender 2.81a: on the compute machine:

# go to your home directory (or a convenient other place)
cd ~

# make a directory to store blender distributions, and enter it
mkdir blender-versions
cd blender-versions

# get the latest version of blender and extract the archive
wget https://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.81/blender-2.81a-linux-glibc217-x86_64.tar.bz2
tar -xvjf blender-2.81a-linux-glibc217-x86_64.tar.bz2

Now, from any directory, instead of just blender you can run:

~/blender-versions/blender-2.81a-linux-glibc217-x86_64/blender -b <YOURFILE> <OPTIONS>

If that seems too long, you can create an alias. Assuming your Linux machine uses bash, edit the file ~/.bashrc and add the line:

alias blender281='~/blender-versions/blender-2.81a-linux-glibc217-x86_64/blender'

After you restart your terminal, you'll be able to just use

blender281 -b <YOURFILE> <OPTIONS>

to run Blender 2.81a.

You can repeat the same operations with other distributions. Find a list of download links here: https://download.blender.org/release/


According to the docs it doesn't look like this is possible (at least as of  Blender version 2.79).

At the very bottom of that page:

Important things to remember

only armature animation on mesh, single skin controller

I read that to mean it isn't possible to export shape key animations to .dae from Blender at this time.


Instead of using the Math node for adding, you should use the Math node with Multiply. So for example then the areas where your Musgrave texture is 0 will remove the influence of the Noise texture there.

If you use colorful noise you could have a color mix node with that noise and white (or whatever color you want when the musgrave is 0) rbg color as inputs, and the mix factor would be controlled by the musgrave texture value


Your mesh have too many unrelated bone influences.  Your best bet at this point:

Get into weight painting mode
Select all the bones
Hit W >> Assign Automatic from Bones.
Viewport menu >> Weights >> Normalize All.

If you do make any adjustments, make sure the brush is set to 'Add' and make the power 1.0.  The lion's share of weight-painting can be done this way.

Slightly unrelated: the model has way too much geometry for the detail that it has, and you can likely half, even quarter the amount of faces you have without losing any meaningful features.  This will ease up on your filesize, and viewport performance.  You should also give your bones meaningful names (Femur.R, not Bone.004).


I made a textobject in Blender, but with svg curves this could also work. The bevel is the outer form of your geometry. Than I added a curvecircle and defined it right as bavel object (yellow) and got the result at the right sight. You should set the vektor handles (v in curve edit mode) of the circle to free to get sharp angles. Also you should use only one core as a contour. (Red in the exmaple)


Metadata / notes / comments in .blend files?

Its quite common just to distribute a text block with some plain text information.

Some options you have for storing more structured meta-data in a Blend file.

Text-Block

You might want to use JSON/XML/MIME encoding to dump your data to this in your own format which you can read back.
Text blocks can be hidden (indeed any data-blocks), by starting the name with a . - Unix .convention).

Example:

import bpy
import json
metadata = dict(author="Me", date="Today", rating=100)

# hidden text block
text = bpy.data.texts.new(".metadata")
text.write(json.dumps(metadata))

# print it back out
print(text.as_string())

ID Properties

attach a dictionary like object to any data-block.
only support primitive data types str,int,float,dict,array - but can be nested.

Example:

import bpy
metadata = dict(author="Me", date="Today", rating=100)
# attach to current Scene
scene = bpy.context.scene
scene["metadata"] = metadata

# print it back out
print(scene["metadata"].to_dict())

Neither of these options are especially easy to extract from the Blend file without loading the file in Blender first, however it is possible.

See: https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/BAM/browse/master/bam/blend/blendfile.py


How to animate the Displacement of the Displace modifier

It's actually pretty easy; Just create an Empty (While in Object Mode, press Shift + A>Empty>Plain Axis), map the displacement to the Empty's Coordinates, by selecting "Object" for the Texture Coordinates and then select the Empty for the "Object" field.

If you then animate the Empty, the Texture will move as well, thus modifying the Displacement.


Answer found:

You can set the local Z-axis rotation for the empty object like this:

empty_obj.rotation_euler.rotate_axis("Z", radians(angle))


Get Location of Particle Keys with real unit size

With a function like this one:

def get_unitscale(scene):
    unit_settings = scene.unit_settings

    if unit_settings.system in {"METRIC", "IMPERIAL"}:
        # The units used in modelling are for display only.
        # Behind the scenes everything is in meters.
        return unit_settings.scale_length
    else:
        # No unit system in use
        return 1

By multiplying with the scale value, you get coordinates in meters:

scale = get_unitscale(bpy.context.scene)
co = ps.particles[0].hair_keys[5].co
# Assuming the unit system is set to meters
co_in_meters = co * scale

By the way, there is also the co_hair() method for getting hair coordinates:
https://docs.blender.org/api/2.79/bpy.types.ParticleSystem.html?highlight=co_hair#bpy.types.ParticleSystem.co_hair

And if you want to retrieve coordinates of the hair with final render settings, you will have to call set_resolution() first:
https://docs.blender.org/api/2.79/bpy.types.ParticleSystem.html?highlight=co_hair#bpy.types.ParticleSystem.set_resolution


How to render out in VSE only a region of the frame?

It depends on the blender version that you use. The transform tools are heavily changed in version 2.92 (currently in beta). The changes are described at https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/2.92/More_Features and more in depth at https://developer.blender.org/rBe1665c3d31.
Before version 2.92 the use of the crop tool was problematic. Now, it works as expected and you can crop in pixel values from top,bottom, left and right.


You change the pivot point in edit mode by clicking on the pivot point icon in the information header (OK, in the 3D viewport it's actually a footer) and selecting the option you want. In this case, in object mode you can use set origin (SHFT-CTRL-ALT-C to set the origin where you want it, then set the 3D cursor to the origin using the snap tool (SHFT-S) selecting "cursor to active, because in object mode if vertices in the object are selected, the object is active, and the cursor snaps to the origin. The 3D cursor does not move when you go back to edit mode, so you can use the 3D cursor as the pivot point.

In the illustration you included with your question, I assume the blue dot is the origin point, so the 3D cursor is already where it will be, and all you need do is as suggested in the comment: change the pivot point to the 3D cursor in the "pivot point for rotation scaling" in the 3D viewport header..


How to control rotation explicitly such that it only rotates parallel to a plane

There are many ways to do it.
One of them: enable the "Copy attributes" addon in the preferences menu.
Set the 3D cursor in the spot you want as pivot point.
Create an empty in the 3d cursor loc.
Select the empty, shift select the cylinder, press Ctrl C "Copy Rot".
Set the arrow child of the empty.
Animate the empty (in my example on its Z local axis).


Possible to use object speed/acceleration as driver variable?

import bpy
import math

thecube = bpy.context.scene.objects['Cube']
def updateFramePlease():
    #get the values from these properties on this frame
    oxVal = bpy.context.scene.objects['Cube']['o_x']
    oyVal = bpy.context.scene.objects['Cube']['o_y']
    ozVal = bpy.context.scene.objects['Cube']['o_z']
    #get the current frame number
    cframe = bpy.context.scene.frame_current
    if cframe > 1:
        #if the cube has had a chance to change position get the delta of those positions
        deltaX = abs(thecube.location.x - oxVal)
        deltaY = abs(thecube.location.y - oyVal)
        deltaZ = abs(thecube.location.z - ozVal)
        #calculate the 3D linear distance travelled
        h1 = math.sqrt( (deltaX*deltaX) + (deltaY*deltaY) )
        h2 = math.sqrt( (h1*h1) + (deltaZ*deltaZ))
        #update the custom x,y,z fields before moving to the next frame
        bpy.context.scene.objects['Cube']['o_x'] = thecube.location.x
        bpy.context.scene.objects['Cube']['o_y'] = thecube.location.y
        bpy.context.scene.objects['Cube']['o_z'] = thecube.location.z
        bpy.context.scene.update()
        #answer the delta field request to have a value from this driver – Answer is the 3D linear distance
        return h2
    else:
        #if the cube has not had an opportunity to move
        return 0.0

# Add variable defined in this script into the drivers namespace.
bpy.app.driver_namespace["updateFramePlease"] = updateFramePlease

Here is everything in play:

Notice the bottom right hand corner, see the purple field, and the three below it?
These are the property objects of the Cube. The purple indicates that there is a driver driving the value. To actually add the driver, you Right click on the value part of the field and select add driver. Then in the graph editor, make sure your graph type is Drivers, then select the property to drive at the top left of the screen. Then enter the function name as the expression and hit Enter. Over on the text editor, check register, and Run Script. Now increment the frame 1 step at a time, and pay attention to those properties on the lower right.

Here's the Blend File for reference:

And here is a link that basically seems to describe exactly what you are asking for in terms of the F-Curves:

F-Curves as Drivers


Principled Metalic shader in 2.79RC2 is not influenced by the Specular value. Bug or feature?

This is the correct behaviour.

In the principled shader the specular value is used to derive the index of refrection (IOR) used for reflection on the material. However, for metals, the reflectivity/IOR is instead determined from the surface colour, so the specular value here should be ignored.
Th paper it is based on can be found here. In particular section 5.2 describes the parameters, noting that for the metallic model, the specular is derived from the base colour:

  The metallic model has no diffuse component and also has a tinted
  incident specular, equal to the base color

While not exactly the same as the principled bsdf, the unreal engine's PBR shader is also based on the same paper by disney, and uses similar parameters, their description is worth a read.


How to get an empty tracked by a camera to move smoothly between keyframes

I am suggesting you

Backup and Archive your work
remove the cyclic dependency which means removing the limit distance constraints.  This information is provided in the console window.

Alternative 01

place the empty on newly created path.  Thus the camera is on path1 and the empty is on path2.
remove the limit distance constraints, repeated for emphasis
Please know that that changing a path changes its distance and thus keyframes on a path start moving.  If you can possibly  lay out the whole path for the empty at once or nearly so please try and be aware of the situation.  You have many follow path constraints with ebbing flowing [influence] as scary as this seems.  Sometimes the separation allows less work.

Alternative 02

This may or may not be an advanced technique alternative to the path constraint.  There is a [copy location] constraint with [influence] which may allow a object to reside a certain point at a certain keyframe with certainty once the time and effort of setting up the arrangement of objects and keyframes is made.


solidify modifier adding non uniform thickness to the mesh

You must have scaled your object in Object mode rather than Edit mode. If you do it in Object mode, Blender still considers the original size of the object when you'll assign it a Solidify modifier.

So you need to select your object and ctrl A > Apply Scale, so that now the scale you've made is applied to the mesh itself and not only to the object.

Also, enable the Even Thickness of the modifier, it could prevent some other distorsions.

And at last, your object mesh must be a little bit messy because you have strange artifacts, try to make a clean topology.


Lego Water with Dupliverts doesn't work!

It looks like the remesh modifier is generating the block grid based on the bounding box of your fluid simulation mesh. Since the shape of the fluid mesh is spreading out over time, the bounds of your mesh changes which generates an inconsistent grid over the animation.

A workaround for this problem can be to set up the fluid mesh so that it has a constant bounding box size. One way to do this is to add two thin cubes to the sides of your fluid and use a boolean modifier to union them to the fluid mesh:

Make sure the cubes are large enough to enclose the volume of your fluid and also thin enough so that they are not remeshed by the remesh modifier.

Now you can set up the remesh modifier next in the stack. Since the bounds of the mesh is now constant, the generated grid is a consistent size over the entire animation:

I have attached an example .blend file (Blender 2.80) with this setup:


So what you're doing here is using your hammer object (called Cube) as Mirror Object. The problem is that the origin of Cube is not place at the center of its geometry, so the mirrored mesh will be a bit shifted. To fix that, in Edit mode select the top and bottom vertices of Cube and press ShiftS > Cursor to Selected, then back into Object mode, right click > Set Origin > Origin to 3D Cursor. Now the ornment will stick to the surface.


When declaring a panel, what does the 'bl_context' value need to be?

In you specific case, the bl_context you are looking for is sculpt_mode. There are many others including:

objectmode
mesh_edit
curve_edit
surface_edit
text_edit
armature_edit
mball_edit
lattice_edit
pose_mode
imagepaint
weightpaint
vertexpaint
particlemode


Find lower left vertex of a quad with python

I think, this is doing the job:

The principle is the following:

Get objects faces that are quads
For each face, get its normal in world coordinates
Define a left axis from a (0, 0, -1) vector and this normal (cross product)
Get the face's vertices and calculate their center
Compare each "v minus center" in world coordinates to the left axis
From this, take the lower (along z) vertex

Here is the commented code

import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

def SelectLowerLeft( obj, polygon ):
    worldMat = obj.matrix_world
    normalInWorld = worldMat * polygon.normal
    polygonVertices = [obj.data.vertices[vI] for vI in polygon.vertices]

    if abs(normalInWorld[2]) == 1.0: #If normal is along Z, all are lower left... a choice
        for v in polygonVertices: v.select = True
    else:
        #Left axis is defined from down (Z=-1) cross the normal
        leftAxis = Vector( (0, 0, -1) ).cross( normalInWorld )
        #Create pairs of vertex and in world coordinates, sorted by z in world
        verticesAndWorldCo = sorted( [(v, worldMat * v.co) for v in polygonVertices], key=lambda vAndco: vAndco[1][2] )
        #Center of the polygon
        centerInWorld = sum( [co for v, co in verticesAndWorldCo], Vector() ) / len(verticesAndWorldCo)
        #Take the first going left
        for toSelect in [v for v, co in verticesAndWorldCo if (co - centerInWorld).dot( leftAxis ) > 0]:
            toSelect.select = True
            return
print( '-------------' )

obj = bpy.context.object

data = obj.data

prevMode = obj.mode

#Deselect all
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')

#To be able to select via 'select' property
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

#All object's polygons that are quads
for polygon in [p for p in data.polygons if len(p.vertices) == 4]:
    SelectLowerLeft( obj, polygon )

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode=prevMode)


Animation flipping (the wrong way) when rotating

Your issue comes from the quaternion rotation of the hip bones flipping in the W value, as you guessed. The fix here is to negate the W value on frame 40 so that the hip doesn't have to do a full rotation. Setting the Rotation keyframe to [-1, 0, 0, 0] on frame 40 fixes the problem because the W value on frame 20 is -0.961.


You're in the right track, but the implementation is wrong.

Your screenshot shows that you're combining pairs of plates together, and mix the result with an alpha over node, and that's not correct.
What you have to do here is add ALL the plates together.

So, let's say you have your renderlayers A, B, C and D.

What you need to do is add A+B, then add the result to C. The result of A+B+C has to be added finally to D.

The same goes for the alphas.

Instead of that yo are doing A+B, then C+D, and alpha over the result of one on the top of the other, which is wrong.

Start over, remove ALL the alpha over nodes, only use adds.
The only node that is not an addition you should use is only one set-alpha node, to assign the added alphas to the added RGB.


Blender FBX import issue - normals/shading

Your FBX file more than likely uses custom normals.

Up to a one week ago, this was not supported at all by Blender, so custom normals were lost during import and you would get that ugly shading.

This has been fixed (added!) now in Blender master, please try it with an official build from the buildbot.


Skyboxes are used on cubes tracking your camera's position. Then, with a little compositing, you render your scene and superimpose it over the skybox image. That's how you make it a world texture.

Attached is a way I work with skyboxes. I make the cube really small, barely larger than the camera. If I'm working on the scene in Render view, I hide the skybox by unchecking its eye in the Outliner panel. If I want to see the scene in context with the skybox, I scale up the skybox to surround most of the scene.

The thing is: it doesn't matter what size the skybox is, because if you check out the compositor, the scene and the skybox are rendered separately, and scale doesn't change the camera's perspective of the skybox.

To fly around the scene, select the skybox and scale it encompass the  4 objects in this scene. Then select the camera and go into camera view. Select Render view, and hit shift-F. You're now in fly mode. Use your mouse to turn and your WASD keys to move (shift to accelerate). The box moves with the camera, but doesn't rotate with the camera (check out the constraints).


blender 2.90.1 export gltf on ubuntu 20.10 crashes

I had similar problem.  Removing settings helps me.
rm ~/.config/blender/2.90
At first, you can rename it or move it to other folder and test running Blender.


EXTRUDE - is this the best way to simulate separate wooden planks on vertical face

I found using an ARRAY solved my problem.
I created an array with a count of 2 on the Z axis with an offset large enough so that I could see the 2 separate objects one above the other.
I then selected the bottom object and added a material
Then I unwrapped the object and used the UV editor to ensure all faces were horizontal.
Next I set the UVs Offset U to 0.1 to ensure the 'pattern' from my material texture image was slightly different on the object above.
Lastly I moved the two objects in the array back together.


Firstly, follow LuckyCOINNNN's suggestion (although I wouldn't recommend using the split edge modifier, as it will separate all your edge verts), or go to the data tab of the object and enable Auto Smooth with a value of 0 (if you are doing this method you must select all faces and set to shade smooth first), or you can select all faces/verts/edges and set to Shade Flat.

Secondly if you're using FBX to export to UE4, in the Geometry section of the exporter set Smooth to Edge (I think Face also works).


Create a light material which is seen as a focus in Cycles

To achieve that kind of look in Cycles, you need to use Volumetrics. The light can be normal spotlight. To make scene have volumetrics, you have two options:

Make a cube (or any other shape) that encloses the scene. Add a new material to this object. In Material tab, for Surface select Disconnect and for Volume select Volume Scatter, and adjust the density to suit your scene (usually needs to be much less than the default 1, try between 0.3 and 0.01)
In World tab, for Volume, select Volume Scatter with same settings than above. You don't have to disconnect the world surface.

To get the result in pic you linked, you only need to do one of the two.


How do you delete specific objects without deleting everything?

In Object mode you can create several objects, and to delete one or several of them, just select and press X.

If you select one object and enter in Edit mode, you can create several distinct meshes within this object, "distinct" meaning not linked between them by any edges.

Example: in Object mode, create a cube. Then select it, enter in Edit mode, and press shift A to create another cube within the object. The object now consists on 2 cubes.

As explained by Ashutosh, as long as these meshes are distinct you can select one or several of them, hovering your mouse over their vertices, edges or faces and pressing L. Or click one of its vertices, edges or faces and clicking ctrl L.

Now you can delete what you've selected or make it a separate object pressing P (Separate) > Selection. If you select all the meshes of an object and press P (Separate) > By Loose Parts it will create as many objects as you have distinct meshes.


Compositing Transparency / Layer Masking Problem

What you are experiencing is the result of antialiasing, more explicitly two overlapping masks with antialiasing, so the transparency of the upper mask is reveals some of the antialiasing of the underlaying mask.

You could get rid of anitaliasing it by switching off the AA samples using branched path tracing. That will give you perfect edges for the mask but it will affect the overall quality by having an aliased image that will look blocky...

A simpler and higher quality solution is not using a layer mask on the render layer for the grass.

Keep the layer mask on the layer for the bushes only.


Select whole object parts after it has already seams?

Select Linked has options in the Last Operator panel (once it was executed).

Often by default Seams option is checked which means selected linked geometry will be limited with the seams added to the mesh:

This is useful for selecting only one UV island within the current mesh without picking seams manually.
To disable that uncheck Seams and all the linked geometry of the mesh will be selected.


Blender supports linked duplicates where new linked object has all data linked to the original object. More info in Blender Manual.


Issue animating a 3D text within a scene

Your animation is there, it's working for me, the only thing that i'm not sure if it's something that you did, is the Time Remapping (output Properties > Time Remapping) this is showing a new remapping of 200, so the keyframe is in Frame 130 + the time remapping = Frame 230


Where are the theme options for the spacebar search menu?

That would be Inner Selected and the color options can be found under Menu Back.

NB: Changing some of these values will affect similar popup dialogs.


delete all your constraints and your cells

select your original cube again, subdivide it 4 times then and hit F3 and restart cell fracture

use these settings (margin is important -> set to 0.01) and hit OK

before doing anything else hit M to move all created cells to a new collection - name it cells

on frame 25 keyframe "animated" for your sphere

on frame 26 uncheck animated and keyframe it

select one cell of your new collection

under physics properties hit rigid body

scroll all the way down and check "deactivated" and "start deactivated"

right click on your cells collection and choose "select objects"

then tap on object -> rigid body -> copy from active

start animation and it works

i made a quick video tutorial for you...but (!) this takes hours to upload, because my internet upload speed is slow as shit...so maybe in a couple of hours you can see it.
https://youtu.be/gizvc8fXhPY


Why are there thick edges in Voronoi 3D/4D?

With a 3D or 4D texture you are mapping a cross-section of a pattern that occurs throughout 3D space to the surface of your object.

So sometimes you're cutting through an area that is centered above or below your cross-sectional plane and it creates a different gradient.


Is there a way to have Cycles skip rendering alpha?

There is nothing specifically designed into Blender to tell it to ignore the transparent areas currently.

That being said, there are some things we can do to help speed up the render somewhat.

Transparent Background - Choose transparent in the Film section of the Render properties panel. This will render faster than a coloured background (whether full black or not)

Tile Size- Choose a smaller tile size than your current (this tip is mostly for CPU rendering as GPU rendering generally uses larger tiles). This will help the render times when the buckets are processing the edge of the foreground element.

Targeted Sampling - Use the Branched Path Tracing option in the Sampling section of the Render Properties panel. If you reduce the AA sample some what and raise the bounce samples (Diffuse, Glossy, etc.), you will reduce time spent on rendering the sky/transparent background.

Cropped Render - this option is a little more extreme, but if you    have an object that doesn't move much on screen, you can crop the    render to only include the portions of the screen it's in. You'd then    composite it together with the rest of the full frame renders.


What's happening with vector displacement 2.79b?

Try connect it directly. For example, connect Image Texture color output to Displacement input of Material Output node.


I am guessing you have a bad UI layout in file.

(They changed the export layout in 2.81. Did you open up the 2.81 beta, save the file, and return to 2.80?)

Try to close blender, Re-open it with default scene, go to File->Open, deselect "Load UI" and open your blender file. Export settings should be back now.

If that does not work, (Or you are also missing the Open Blender File settings), go to File->Defaults->Load Factory Settings, then File->Defaults->Save Factory Settings.

Restart blender and try to deselect "Load UI" again.


Can't select faces properly on blender 2.80

I didn´t understand what was going on and i could not solve my problem.

So i made a clean install of Blender 2.80 (cc600de6695a) and the problem is now solved.

Thanks


As far as I know screenshots do not know transparency.

As a workaround you can use a chroma-key technique to determine the background. This means you use a background color that is not used somewhere else in the picture and use it as transparency. This way you can easily remove that portions in your image editor.


How to turn off gamma correction with Python in Blender 2.69

Wrong approach.

Simply render or load an image and tag it as Non-color Data in the UV Image editors properties panel. Being a good imager, you are already using the EXR format exclusively, as it is a linearized, high precision encoding format for both colour and data.

The Non-color Data tag keeps the buffer entirely out of the colour transform pipeline.

  I'm definitely open to using another path to producing normals, but I need to use only Python scripting. Non-color Data sounds promising. Would I be able to render something using nodes, and then save that render (from an output node, not from the RenderLayer) as Non-color Data? Please let me know if I'm not being clear!

The colour transform tag on an image buffer is only metadata, and as such, if you save that buffer as an EXR, there is nothing more that you need to do. Simply load the EXR, then use Python to set the buffer's tag to Non-Color Data and you are done. Those values will not be put through any view transform.

It should be noted that when viewing Non-Color Data in the viewport, it might seem that the view is identical to when it is set to linear. The difference is that linear is defined as a colour transform and will get passed through various transforms, where, as stated above, Non-Color Data always will pass through untransformed.


How To Create A Circular Camera "Safe Frame"

There are a couple of ways to do what you want.

Use an image.

Create an image that has the shape you want to use as "safety".

Then in the 3d vieport enable background images, select the image you created, set it to be used for camera view only. You can then choose to use it as background or foreground and adjust the opacity.

Use a "child of" constraint.

Select the circle object, add a "child of" constraint. Select the camera to be used  as target. The circle will move to where the camera is located and will be rotated to match the camera rotation.

Manually postition the object so that is visible within the camera and scale it to your needs.

Since the object is parented to the camera, moving the camera will move the object as well.


Making sure the faces are flat (for paper model)

Thanks to comments from users @lemon and @m.ardito I can answer this myself now.

The distorted face fixing can be done in two steps:

Identify the distorted faces by activating the "mesh analysis" in the properties menu (N key), select type: distortion.
Flatten the distorted faces by selecting them (Edit mode, face select mode) and then going to Mesh menu > Clean up > Make planar faces.


The dashed cube is drawn because you've enabled the texture space option. This can happen accidentally by a shortcut.


Automatic weights deforming my character

Select your mesh
Delete the armature modifier it has and delete it's parent and delete all vertex groups
Select your armature
Switch to Pose mode
Select all bones
Press Space Bar and write

Apply Pose as Rest Pose
Select mesh then armature then Ctrl+P and choose with automatic weighting


How can I animate the Restrict Visibility property of an object?

Restrict Rendering

The feature you need to animate is the Restrict Render icon: , not the Restrict Visibility icon: . Restrict Visibility only effects whether the object can be seen in the 3D Viewport -- it does not effect rendering at all.

How To Render & View Your Animation

Before you render your animation, first you should specify where you want the rendered animation to be saved and also the file name. To do this:

Go to: Outliner window -> Render tab -> Output section -> specify the directory and file name
Select your rendered file output format. Here, I'm selecting the video format MPEG. However, it's considered very bad practice to render straight to a video file -- I'm doing it here only for the sake of brevity.

Next, scroll down to the Encoding section and select an appropriate encoding format. Here, I'm selecting the MPEG4 format

Now go up and click on the Render Animation button:

Now on your computer, go to the place where you saved your file and view it with a video file player:

If you want to play your rendered animation directly in Blender, you can use:
Info -> Render -> Play Rendered Animation (CTRLF11)

NOTE: The "Play" buttons shown under the Render Result window will NOT play your rendered animation -- they are only for previewing your animation before rendering it:

You can read more about the different features of the Outliner window here and more about the Rendering Process here in the Blender Manual.


How would I create a circular brick platform?

You can use array modifiers.
1st create a nice brick.

Then add an array modifier with a relative offset of 1 on X axis. Change the count to see the effect (I used 5), but it won't be used later.

Add another array modifier with a relative offset of 1 in Y axis. The count will be used and can be adjusted as you like.

Add a curve circle. It has to be a curve, not a mesh.

Select your brick and add a curve modifier, set the "object" as your curve circle.

You can see the shape changing to semi-circular.
Now in the 1st array modifier, change the fit type to "fit curve"

This will adjust the number of bricks to fit the curve's length. Scale smoothly your brick to adjust.


Scale and change certain measurements of 3D image that was imported as .svg file

Frustrated at the way you ask your question ... I created a question back to you.

You will need to describe your application. As in how you intend to use this. I am starting to think that you are a marine bio-scientist who wants to keep a record of all the whales you come across visually? So you need to manipulate the image according to the sizes of the fish? Will the eventual image be just a flat image? Or will your eventual result you need be like Exhibit B. Which is a 3d model of the actual whale? In your previous posting you said you may want to know the surface area of the creature? All very confusing.

First and foremost please let us know your real intended application.

Secondly, Look at the image below. And tell us.

A. You want to import an image accurately into blender?
B. You want to create a 3d model of the whale?
C. You want to do both?
D. We don't understand and misinterpreted your question?

Some Ligo reference, a 3d artist may misunderstand what you really need to do ...
Realistic 3d image - A flat 2D image orthographic or perspective rendered/output from a 3d software.
2D image into a 3D image - Essentially placing a 2D image on a 3D polygonal plane. Like Exhibit A.
Image Proper Measurement - Image Aspect ratio, so that the image doesn't look out of portion or stretched.


to scale along the Y axis without moving the lower part :

select all points
position the cursor at (0, 0)
scale along Y axis  ( S then Y )


Setting active object through python issues

I have seen this issue when using a panel in the properties window to alter the active object. It would be related to the context.

The easy fix is to place your panel in the 3dview. This is just a matter of changing the panel's bl_space_type to VIEW_3D and bl_region_type to UI

It is possible that you can override the context to get it working, this answer explains that and links to more information.


How do i manipulate a cylinder i have inserted

All hail Warp Tool

Keep the 3D cursor in the middle of the sphere and place a cylinder half inside the sphere. Scale both sides of the cylinder separately so they have the right diameter.

Then give the cylinder as many edge loops as you'd like with CTRLR. Keep in mind that it will get stretched quite a bit in a moment.

Now use the warp tool (Mesh>>Transform>>Warp or spacebar). The warp tool bends all selected verts around the 3D cursor. Use the redo panel to the left to set the angle to about 60 degrees, maybe 70.

The warp tool uses the 3D cursor as it's pivot point so make sure it's still in the sphere's center. It also uses the orientation of your window to define the axis. So it's important to normally use one of the main views, ideally without perspective. In this case I use Right Ortho.

I recommend doing that on top of the sphere, finish the entire assembly (exhaust nozzle) and then rotate it from the front to 37 degrees or whatever is closest to the original.

After that you can either use a mirror modifier or mirror around the cursor by scaling -1 using the right axis.

Keep your objects along the axes as long as possible to make your work easier. Then place them after they're done.

Tip: Work with single meshes. Easier to select or manipulate, you can make safety copies and hide them with H. You can join them later with CTRLJ


Extruding, other side does not have face

If you extrude a face connected to other faces, the extrusion will leave a hole.

But if you extrude a disconnected face, you will have a solid shape. If you press Y to disconnect the shape before extruding it, you will make it solid and have that bottom face.

EDIT:
But, beware, if you do this, you will get weird geometry. Things might not be connected the way you want. I feel a little dirty, doing it. :)


You are in the game engine. To render use blender render or cycles.


Is my computer the reason for a strange render screen?

It looks like you have 2 planes overlapping each other. Take a look at the outliner panel and check if there are duplicate plane objects in your scene.

If you can't see the duplicate plane in the 3D viewport, but it shows up in render - It's very likely that you have either hidden (the eye icon in the outliner) or disabled (the monitor icon) it in your viewport. Click on the filter button and enable the toggles if you can't find them.


Is there a way to convert 2.7x files to 2.4x?

While a lot of new data may not translate well into 2.49 as ideasman42 explains, there is an option if you only want to transfer mesh objects.

When you use 'File->Save As' there is a 'Use Legacy Mesh Format' option that will ensure no n-gon data is saved. This allows 2.49 to open a simple mesh with face data intact.


Is it possible to composite a scene without rendering from the command line?

Yes, there is a better way to do this. If your composting process doesn't require a render, it should be in its own file. You would do whatever rendering you need, save those out to OpenEXR (or some other format) and use an Image Node to read in your image, or sequence of images and run those through your compositing process.

The way that you "skip" rendering is by deleting all "Render Layer" input nodes and all 3D cameras. This causes problems if you need cameras in your scene, which is why your composting should be in another Blender project.

Alternately, you could put the compositing in another scene in the same Blender file, if that's how you're organizing things.


this is happening because you have different lighting setup in rendered view to the lookdev mode in lookdev mode lighting is done through hdri

if you just download the same hdri or just go to the blender's directory for that hdri then you can have same look


Looks like you set a Clipping Region by mistake. Hit Alt+B to cancel it.


So it was a simple fix, just had to connect the denoise node to glare and then the glare to composite and now the image have a full denoise applied to it and also the glare effect that I wanted.


How do I prevent Blender from randomly duplicating items?

Modifiers are in wrong order. Move Smoke modifier down in the stack so Particle system would be first. At least i think this is what you are trying to achieve.

Oh and it ain't random duplicating. You have "Smoke adaptive Domain" checked on Domain Smoke properties and because modifiers were in wrong order, it looked like there is duplicated domain as it should normally stay inside the original domain.

EDIT: Well that particle system seemed bit complicated for me to fast figure out how to make that more "firebending" style you wanted. But here is idea for you how to do it easier without using particle system. Added another domain, sphere and wind. might be more better way to do this, but this is what i would use


Making video strip end at its last frame after speed modifier is applied?

My understanding is that you'll have to select the video strip and then either change the "Length" parameter to half its original value, or, as you said, adjust the strip length manually by dragging its right end to where the video stops. Once you do this, the "speed control" effect strip will also automatically match the length of the video strip.


writing a batch code to enable video card to support blender

I have almost the exact same setup. i7 920, HD 4870 1GB GDDR5, and 12GB of DDR3. I say with a fair amount of certainty that it's not possible to render off of this GPU. According to Blenders documentation GPU computing for AMD/ATI is only supported on the GCN architecture. In the video when he enables GPU compute, his GPU is listed as Pitcairn.

Pitcairn is a 28nm GCN1 chip from 2012, where as the HD 4870 is a 55nm chip from 2008. Not that fab size matters, but it just goes to show how old each series is. In case you were wondering, the HD 4870 is on the TeraScale1 microarchitecture. GCN only started with the 7000 series. Essentially all discrete desktop AMD/ATI GPU's 77xx and up will work. Anything lower, like the 4870 just won't. Don't believe me? Try searching for results on Blenchmark. For those wondering about desktop Nvidia cards it's a bit more convoluted, but here's a list.

NVIDIA TITAN X, GTX 1080, GTX 1070, GTX 1060, GTX 1050, GTX TITAN X, GTX TITAN Z, GTX TITAN Black, GTX TITAN, GTX 980 Ti, GTX 980, GTX 970, GTX 960, GTX 950, GTX 780 Ti, GTX 780, GTX 770, GTX 760, GTX 750 Ti, GTX 750, GTX 690, GTX 680, GTX 670, GTX 660 Ti, GTX 660, GTX 650 Ti BOOST, GTX 650 Ti, GTX 650, GTX 560 Ti, GTX 550 Ti, GTX 460, GTS 450, GTX 590, GTX 580, GTX 570, GTX 480, GTX 470, GTX 465, GT 740, GT 730, GT 730 DDR3,128bit, GT 720, GT 705, GT 640 (GDDR5), GT 640 (GDDR3), GT 630, GT 620, GT 610, GT 520, GT 440, GT 430.

*The GT 545, GTX 645, GTX 745, and GT 710 all appear to work despite not being listed on Nvidia's site. You can also find my source plus supported mobile GPU's in the link below.

http://blenchmark.com/gpu-benchmarks
https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus

Note: Going back to the original question, just for some context, the Radeon HD 4000 series was competing against the GeForce 200 series which also doesn't support GPU rendering. It was two years before the release of the GeForce 400 series, the first to support GPU rendering. The card is just to old.


How are you meant to use the middle mouse button?

I use my index finger and switch between the left and middle buttons. You won't need to use both buttons at the same time. If you want you can use three fingers on the mouse, but it's not necessary.


The problem is (as guessed by ideasman42) that Blender exports .obj-files always (at least I tested it on windows and Linux) with Linux line endings (that means there are only LF and no CR characters).

If you use a better editor than the standard Notepad you can often see the file correct even on Windows (for example with Notepad++). There should be no problems using this file as it is, because I think most Programs can work with both line ending types. If it doesn't work it's easy to convert the line endings (as well with something like Notepad++).


Check and see if you have more than one armature modifier. Sometimes an extra one gets created accidently and when it does, it often leads to double transformations or other weirdness.


How can I use weight painting correctly in Blender?

The reason why you have this issue is that you have Auto Normalize enabled:

Either try to understand how to work with it (because it's honestly useful), either disable it.


Is there a Blender alternative to Chroma Key rendering in OpenGL?

To clarify, this is offered as an alternative to Chroma Keying and as far as I'm aware, will work only when rendering in OpenGL.

"Inviso" is a term I've adopted to describe an effect of invisibility (in the 3D viewport and cameras) when an object's transparency is set to just above 0. (typically .008 or even less)

When rendered using OpenGL, the object is not only invisible, but so is anything (or portion thereof) that happens to get behind it.

The effect can be extremely handy in many cases that would otherwise require Chroma Keying and it's accompanying node setup, plus whatever extra rendering is needed to apply the resultant keyed alpha layer.

Chroma key in effect, makes an alpha layered 'hole' in a video clip.

Inviso can do this also but it doesn't have to - it's selective!

i.e. Objects behind the mask can be selectively rendered invisible so that some disappear and others won't, including a backdrop (textured) plane.

Even better - the effect is achieved 'live' within Blender's 3D window.  Rendering using -= OpenGL =-, outputs your scene and the masking effect all to video in the one go!

I've not tried this but see little reason why animated shapekeys can't also be used on 'Invisos' to change the shape of a mask 'live' during an animation sequence, perhaps to match a changing viepoint or to 'hug mask' an object, such as this tree trunk below.

The above was achieved on a still image by adding vertices to the mask where needed and deforming it's shape to match the tree trunk's.  The smaller cube itself is in fact, still sitting in front of the photo, the Inviso mask in front of that again to 'cut' the tree trunk's shape out of the cube.

The post/answer this was used in is here -

Realistic rendering of mesh together with image?  (Scroll down a fair way)

Note - Surfaces so shape-keyed would preferrably not want to be buckled to avoid shading artifacts.  On a flat plane, that wouldn't be difficult to enforce.

Two more examples where this method of masking was used (Scrolled text and opening a scrolled parchment) -

how do i achieve this simple text animation?

...the gap between the bottom of the screen and the black box with the text is masked using the same method.

Below - is what is seen when rendering in OpenGL where the Inviso plane (ordinary 2D plane) is not set to total transparency and consequently still taken as 'solid' by either Blender's code or the hardware.

Selective Inviso effect -

The plane's transparency has been set to 0.008 (or close to it) and it's transparency specular set to 0, it's ordinary shading specular also at 0.

The cube is affected whereas Suzanne(?) our monkey and the ground plane are not. (See further below as to how this is achieved)

Tick or untick it's transparency box in it's properties panel (orange cube icon at right) under the "Display" tab .

When this is done, often by default the plane will then render any object (or part thereof) that's behind it, invisible.

Note -

If animating the Inviso mask, leave that until all objects involved in the masking effect are setup and are being rendered as desired.

If you do Inviso an object after the mask is animated, you'll need to unlink the mask and object's animation data after parenting! (in the layout panel at top right)

-=======-

The criteria for making a mask work reliably can depend on how the mask's  "Properties (cube icon)-->Display-->Transparency" box is ticked. (at right)

Tick/untick this box to make it work properly.

Don't confuse the box with it's Transparency tab found under it's "Material" settings.

When viewing or rendering, make sure to -= DESELECT =- everything first! (press A)

-=================-

To Be or Not to Be -(Selective invisibility) -

If an object isn't by default, disappearing when behind the mask, simply "Parent" it to the mask. (CTL-P)  Then unparent it again. (ALT_P)

--

EDIT:  22nd April 2017-

To immunize an object from the effect altogether, you have two choices -

The first is simply reverse parent.  i.e. parent the mask to the object that's disappearing, then unparent again.  Goto the "Outliner' strips and remove any strip that doesn't directly belong there.

-= Make sure to read the beginning of the EDIT (below) '15/3/2017' =-

The second and more difficult method is -

Join it to the mask, then part it again.

A word of caution here.  Join the object to the mask. (select the object first, the mask last before pressing CTL-J)

When separating again, select the mask, press "Z" for wireframe.

Goto Edit mode, select vertice mode, box select all vertices in the object, (not the Inviso plane)

Press P to "Part by Selection".

The object should be seen normally again when you press A.
You may have to tick/untick that Transparency box in the "Display" tab.

Once separated, it's a good idea to reset the mask & object's origin back to their respective geometry.

-======-

Edit: 15/3/2017

A trap for young players with Inviso's are the properties strips in the Outliner.  (top right)

Any mask or objects that have been parented/unparented, joined or separated, may inherit each other's outliner strips.

This is not a problem when only one mask is being used.  It can become a nuisance however when two or more masks are employed. Objects that were rendered invisible can become visible again to the other mask(s)

The solution is two-fold -

Never create the second mask independantly.  Instead, duplicate the original mask and use the duplicate.

The other factor is to purge both the masks and associated objects' "Outliner" entries of anything foreign. (strips that don't belong)  Right click on each and select "Unlink".  It's a good idea to make a save of the project before embarking on this.

The only kink that may remain might be the mask's "Transparency" box needing a tick, or perhaps to be unticked.  This is under it's little cube icon at right-->Display-->Transparency.

With both methods -

A reminder to deselect -= EVERYTHING =- before viewing !

I've recently used 5 masks in a project with multiple overlaps, all without problems.

-============-

Video Output -

Rendered video formats inclined towards colour banding, such as mp4, gif anim etc, can reveal a mask very very faintly.

This might be the result of a specular setting not being at zero, or a particular lighting angle.  Both are easily fixed as a rule.
Adjusting the mask's Diffuse Intensity & colour slider is another way of eliminating a difficult 'ghost'.

A reminder - Render in OpenGL. (Top left of 3D window under - "Render")

If with some future version of Blender, this effect ceases to be available, simply revert to the last version where it was.
(in my case that's 2.77a)
Make Inviso clips on that exclusively.

I for one hope the effect will stay there.  It can save significant time and effort.


Change image by Image Sequence in Shader Editor every nth frame

So I think I found a solution by keyframing the offset property.

0 at frame 1, 10 at frame 100 and it seems to be moving slowly enough.

Kind of a hack though.


In Blender 2.8x you have the option to switch between workspaces for particular tasks. Blender already includes one for creating materials and it is called Shading. The workspaces are listed as tabs in the top bar.

The benefit of using/creating workspaces is that you don't have to change the layout, create areas or switch editor types for a particular step of your workflow. Instead you can simply switch to a different workspace that is already prepared for the task.
You can of course still change the editor type like in Blender 2.79 and earlier. The editor for materials is the Shader Editor.


Using freestyle and normal textures in one scene

You can set freestyle visibility per-collection. Add your landscape in another collection and set it to EXCLUSIVE in the bottom of the line set properties :


How to make variable transparency hole in a plane with a math function using nodes?

Use the Texture Coordinate node instead of Geometry. The Texture Coordinate provides 'Generated' output that varies from 0 to 1 in each dimension over the whole mesh or Object output that gives zero at the centre of the object.

For a "hole" in the centre of your plane you could use the Object Texture Coordinates and determine the distance from the origin using "distance = sqrt(x^2+y^2+z^2) like this :

Use the result to feed into the Mix factor as in your existing example. To make it variable you can add a Multiply node set to "Clamp" and/or other nodes (add, subtract, Max,Min, etc. - depending on the effect you require) just before the Mix node and adjust this to change the properties of the "hole".


When change view into rendered, the object turning grey.

In one of the previous videos he had assigned an HDR image as a light source.

In the world panel click the button right of the dark grey colored box

Then choose environment texture

Then load Your HDR image:

You can find these HDR images for free at HDRIhaven
An HDR image is basically a spheric image with awesome light information


You may model it using poke and bevel tools.

Select the faces you want to put the pattern on and hide the rest of the mesh with Shift+H. Press Alt+P to poke faces. Select vertical edges (select one of them, go to Select-->Select Similar-->Face Angles), then dissolve them (except for top and bottom ones) with X-->Dissolve Edges. Do the same with horizontal ones. You now have the pattern base.

Select all the faces, press Ctrl+B and drag the mouse to achieve the desired patern's thickness. Inverse the selection with Ctrl+I. Extrude and scale faces inwards (E,I,Shift+Z).

Unhide everything (Alt+H), select the pattern except for very top and bottom edges. Go to edge selection and press Shift+E to crease it.

Finally, you may bake created pattern to the low-poly version of your ice cone (bake normals) and apply it as a normal texture.


Using Empty Object Coords for shading (Multiply Vector by Matrix)

The solution was to multiply the Vector by the empty object's Matrix. I built this group with some help and a lot of trial and error. The values are driven by the Matrix World of the Empty from the Data API. I'm not sure I have the component nodes of the matrix laid out properly or not, but this is working.


How to properly use the Child of constraint with bones

Hit the Set inverse button in the constraint settings

Set Inverse
By default, when you parent your owner to your target, the target becomes the origin of the owner’s space. This means that the location, rotation and scale of the owner are offset by the same properties of the target. In other words, the owner is transformed when you parent it to your target. This might not be desired! So, if you want to restore your owner to its before-parenting state, click on the Set Inverse button.

https://www.blender.org/manual/rigging/constraints/relationship/child_of.html


Cancelled extrusion of a face, now its a different color?

You now have two faces occupying the same space. If you haven't done anything else you can step backwards by pressing Alt + "Z". Otherwise, in Edit Mode select one of the faces and delete it by pressing "X" and choosing "Only Faces" from the drop down.


It is possible to import (append/link) a Line Style from another file.

Appending or linking line style is the same as with all other datablocks.

Press Shift+F1 to append. Press Ctrl+Alt+O to link.
In the file browser, which opens up, navigate to the blend file, which contains the line style. Clicking on the blend file will open up the file datablock structure, the types are sorted into folders. Open the FreestyleLineStyle folder and choose your desired style datablocks.
The appended/linked line styles can now be chosen from the dropdown menu.


The reason that you have different color - is shading. Shading model adds shadows and specular to the model, so color changes.

If you set material shading to shadless, and viewport shading display mode to Material, you will get exact same color as you set to diffuse.


Compositing fog destroys PNG alpha in Images as Planes when using Cycles

The problem is Z Channel in Cycles - it does not take into account material transparency:

I recommend not using the Z channel pass but to render nice custom Z pass like this:

Assign this material to scene objects (this material has value based of ray length - distance to camera):

You will get nice anti-aliased Z-depth render that you can use for the mist.  For alpha-transparent planes mix in Transparent shader like in the image and render them on separate render layer so there's nothing behind them (then composite them back in).

To create group node group them with Ctrl+G. Go inside and outside group node with Tab.


How can I use photoshop files as brushes?

So according to your comment you can import a psd, you can also convert your file to .jpg or .png, then open the N  panel, create a new texture, and in the Properties panel > Texture, load the image. Don't forget to enable Dyntopo if you mesh is low-poly. Also, choose the Mapping mode you want:


Export model with multiple textures to Unreal Engine 4

You replaced the brick texture with a lightmap. Try to skip that step and see what happens. Alternatively, you could texture the same thing in blender using material slots.


Not sure if i understood the request correctly, but that's the result (don't know if I'm allowed to post gifs):

And that's the nodes:


How do I apply a texture to an object in Cycles with nodes?

You are in the Compositing node view right now which is for post-processing.  You need to switch to Material nodes to edit your object's material.  To switch to material nodes click on the material icon at the bottom of the node editor.

Now you can add your texture with an Image Texture node and plug it into whatever shader[s] you are using.


how to parent my sun to environment hdri?

One solution (and probably needlessly complicated) is driving the Sun rotation from the HDRI

Add nodes to your HDRI Mapping node like in the second image
Go Value node > RMB > Copy As New Driver and paste as Sun's Z rotation
The Value node rotates both HDRI + Sun (for animating)
The Add node rotates only HDRI


To be honest, there are a lot of problems in your file. I'll try to point out some:

Uncleand faces:

Missing the two important loops here:

Obviously, the main problem is caused by the improper vertex group setting:

While the correct settings should be:


Face area is an overlay.
In the 3D view header, while a mesh is in Edit Mode, open the overlays popover and tick Face Area towards the bottom.


2.8 Duplicates along curve but with animation

One way, if you need a large number of identical items to follow each other along a curve:

Prepare supports for the final, visible objects that will make up your conveyor. These could be an Array of simple planes, given a Curve modifier. The supports will deform as they go round the curve, but it doesn't matter.....

In the Object tab, Duplication panel of the support array, set Duplication to 'Faces'
CtrlP parent your conveyor-plate object to your support array. It will be duplicated on every face, and follow the curve without distortion:

The plates can be animated by moving the support array along the dimension of the Curve modifier's deformation, and cycling.


How can I have the bones of my armature find the most direct path when reseting their rotation?

In this scenario I would try some workarounds, like having your backflip rotate from - 360 to 0, or create a copy of the idle in which the hip bones have a 360 rot vaue. But maybe a real Pro has a better answer!


Cuda 8.0, Fedora 25, gcc stddef.h nullptr, GTX1060

I found the root problem, it was an incompatibility with C++ 11. So passing in a different standard along with compiling the CUDA kernel manually did the trick. Here is the command I ran (I got it from an output linked above):

/usr/local/cuda/bin/nvcc \
-arch=sm_61 -Xcompiler -std=c++98 --cubin \
"/usr/share/blender/2.78/scripts/addons/cycles/kernel/kernels/cuda/kernel.cu" \
-o "/home/user/.config/blender/2.78/cache/cycles_kernel_sm61_D8F831DA74C0363DC018432CF25F3AD8.cubin" \
-m64 --ptxas-options="-v" --use_fast_math -DNVCC -D__KERNEL_CUDA_VERSION__=80 \
-I"/usr/share/blender/2.78/scripts/addons/cycles/kernel"

Which did give me this warning:

cc1: warning: command line option ‘-std=c++98’ is valid for C++/ObjC++ but not for C

However, this doesn't seem to affect Blender's ability to use my video card. I saw a near 50% improvement in render times on the file I have been working on.

For reference, I found these pages that helped me finally hunt down a solution:

Nvidia forum post, CUDA using wrong GCC

Arch Linux bug report

Cplusplus.com forum post


You can restart blender and then maybe it'll work fine.
If it still not working go and try this...
menu>mesh>bisect I know only these two methods.
Hope it'll help you.


Using UV Mapping on an Equirectangular Projection

Two bake solutions.

Bake from the original object

A solution can be baking the model from this answer on to a copy of the mesh.

To do that:

From the original mesh, enter edit mode and unwrap it (the way you want, smart UV project will do).
In object mode duplicate the object, so that both original and copy will have a UV map which will be needed to bake even if the UV map of the original mesh is not directly used.

The UV map I have created is the following:

Create a new material for the copied mesh.
Add a unconnected image texture in it, call it for instance 'bake' and save it to disk.

Like so:

Now the bake setting:

Use Cycles and if possible GPU
Set the bake mode to diffuse (we want the color)
Influence color only (for the same reason)
Selected (original mesh) to active (target mesh)
Ray distance to some little amount to avoid overlapping effects between the two meshes

Now make sure the two objects are at the exact same position.

Select the original mesh, shift select the target, and use the bake button above.

Here are the resulting meshes:

(I cannot share the blend file as too large for this site).

Bake from the environment texture

Another possibility is to bake from the environment texture.

As we know that the original texture is an equirectangular projection, we can set it as environment texture.

Here too the object is previously unwrapped the way you want.

The bake setting is simple (the object will have to be at the world center):

Now we have to setup the environment texture. As for your previous question the tricky part is to find the good mapping in this context (180 degrees and inverted axis):

Once done, select your object and hit the "bake" button.

The result is similar:


Move object closer to another object using python?

The near sensor has an attribute "Property". The sensor will filter the sensed objects by to have a property of the same name.

So you are able to sense friends by giving them a property called "friend" and let the near sensor filter for "friend" too.

Do the same thing just with "enemy" to sense enemies.

To get the appropriate operation after detecting the near event you can use either the steering actuator (Flee, Seek, Path following), or you activate an TrackTo + Move forwards/backward. I'm sure there are more options.

Detecting a collision can be done via collision sensor. An object can end itself via Edit Actuator in End Object mode.


How to twist a mesh for cloth-like effect?

I was able to emulate a ribbon (/twisted cloth-like effect) through these steps:

Create a plane, rotate it on the X axis by 90 degrees. (Front Ortho View)
Add a multitude of loop cuts to the plane from left to right (10-20) (Edit Mode)
Choose the top edge, then selected Snap Cursor to Active. (Spacebar, search for it.)
"O" key enables Proportional Editing, with the falloff type "Linear".
Rotate the mesh from active, using the mouse scroll wheel to change the intensity, alongside whichever axis you desire. (Z axis in this instance)

Answer courtesy of: How can I create twisted geometry? (@Paul Gonet)

(Feel free to edit this to include images if necessary.)


Problem: material has stretched on side of shape

Only select all the faces on that side of the cube.
Press ShiftNumPad 7 to align the view to the faces (if you have not rotated the cube simply switching to one of the main views will work.).
Press U > Project from View (Bounds)


I`m having trouble with window reflection showing a world background. How do i remove it?

You could turn of the glossy (reflective) rays and the camera (directly visible) rays for the world in the cycles settings panel.


Your camera clipping plane is cutting through your geometry. Under Camera settings > Lens > Clipping, set the Start value to a smaller value.


How to Import a transparent .SVG file to blender, and convert it to a 3D object?

I've made two things in Illustrator and it was imported correctly:

Select your shape and, in the Pathfinder window, click the Unite tool.
Scale it very big (like 1000%)

then save and, in Blender, Import > SVG.

To make it a mesh: Select the object and alt C > Mesh From Curve

You can simplify the mesh a lot in Edit mode with X > Limited Dissolve, and W > Remove Doubles

It will display black even if you apply a white material but you can change it in the Properties > Material > Settings > Viewport Colors


Cycles: pixel problems, not on first frame ... How to solve?

As @thibsert implied, it seems to be the video-codec which creates the problems. If you change it to e.g. H.264 the problem is solved.


Some areas of the mesh are dark (Shadow artefacts)

This is called shadow terminator artifact and happens with some render engines on low poly meshes. It is a limitation that Cycles has, devs know about it.

Bug T37814: Artifacts in Cycles render for lowpoly models

The solution is to increase the polygon count.

The black on the silhouette is another kind of artifacts you might encounter called rejection sampling - also does go away with polycount.

You can change also the shading method. Your whole surface is set to smooth - it is interpolating the surface normals making shadows where there probably shouldn't be. You may want to turn on Auto-smooth or set some sharp edges:

How to smooth shade an object while retaining hard edges?


How to make liquid's color intensity less, where the geometry is thinner?

Surface Color and Volume Absorption

I see you still have a rather strong surface color. In reality, liquids are not really colored by light loss on the surface, but ligh loss within the material. You should leave the color of the surface shader white and use the color for the absorption. The gradient may or may not be needed based on your initial intent with it. Experiment with the density of the absorption.

Refraction and Transparent

I am not sure why you mixed these two shaders. You should get a better result with simply a glass shader.

For Full Realism

You should note that only one surface should be between the glass and the tea and that should be a third material, with an IOR of IOR-tea / IOR-glass. This applies also for the ice cubes. This also means that the meshes will not be manifold, but this is how the render will be most realistic.

These are useful to read:

fluid in a glass
Liquid / glass interface IOR and normals in Cycles
http://adaptivesamples.com/2013/10/19/fluid-in-a-glass/

Alternative Solution

You can use the ray length to calculate the correct absorption, but this was useful only before cycles volume shaders was implemented:

http://blenderdiplom.com/en/tutorials/419-tutorial-absorption-in-cycles.html


It's hacky, and annoying if you want to use it for its intended purpose, but you can animate (or drive) the Pass Index of an object, and access it through an Object Info Input node.

Using a setup like this..

In this example, the Pass Index of each object is animated cyclically, with step-wise interpolation, from 0 to 4. This can yield an sequence like the one below..

..with all the objects sharing the same material, and their cyclic Pass Index animations offset in the dope sheet.

Following stav's suggestion of a rearrangement, here's a version in which the Pass Index is not animated, but used to set the phase: the number of frames a color cycle is offset for the object bearing it. (See comments)

The 'Frame No.' and 'Cycle Period' nodes are both Input > Value nodes, with the value in  'Frame No.' keyframed with a linear interpolation to match the frame number of the animation. The Color Ramp will be swept in the number of frames in the 'Period' node. In this case, the Pass indices of the groups of objects are 0,4 and 8, to get a trailing 1-on, 2-off effect.


How to attach a rigid body to a cloth simulator

This may not be the approach you're looking for.  I've posted it in case you can use it.  The Blend file is below...

The canopy and ropes are mesh and joined as one object.  The lower end of the ropes are all apexed as one and those vertices given a hook.
The box and cylinder are separate objects.  Both are given rigid body physics which is delayed until the box reaches the ground at frame 70.  (Animated at frame 1 and switched to "Dynamic" at frame 70)
A Nav(igation)-Empty (the large circle at the canopy) is the parent of all four - the hook, canopy, box, and cylinder.  The Nav-Empty is keyframed to descend and sway and all 4 objects are forced to follow.
At frame 70 when the box reaches the ground, it's physics are switched to "Dynamic".  So too is the cylinder's.
The physics engine takes over and they ignore their parentage and react with the ground which is also a rigid body, but "Passive" and set to "Mesh".
Both the box and cylinder's antics are then baked from frame 1 to when they settle down at frame 93.
(all boxes are ticked in the baking panel)
Once baked, make sure each object's physics are switched off and the redundant physics strips in the Dopesheet, deleted.
With the canopy, box, and cylinder under no constraints, (operating purely under keyframes), the parentage of the canopy's apex hook can then be changed to be a child of the box from frame 1.
When it's played again, nothing should change.  The canopy's ropes however will follow it's parent about on the ground, and being a hook, won't pull the canopy about with it.
All that's left is to rotate the canopy's Nav-Empty a little as the box shoots off to the left, then morph the canopy's deflating shape with shapekeys as it 'floats' to the ground.


Since I dont realy know how to make Mzidare answer in comment the real answer to my question, here is his reply:

«You can use Rigify, it has IK/FK snap button. If you want to use your own rig though, you would probably need to use a script for that. – Mzidare Sep 2 at 10:22»

Thanks!


Transform from ortho view to normal view

press "N" to enter the properties menu, go down to where it says View and increase the lens size, I remember hearing that can assist if your model looks distorted in the default camera.


Anti Aliasing Issue with Wireframe modifier

I don't think you have a chance to affect this "blocky" bloom. It's seems to be a price of eevee to be real-time. What can you see are bloom "samples" and there doesn't exist a way to increase this resolution (from what I know).
In general I would say it wasn't designed for such a strong effect. The same as for antialiasing - the issue is raising more clearly on lines with low angle where stepping is easier to see.

What I tried ... there isn't relationship with another parametr (like scene volumetric, sampling or what ever) that can increase stepping ... the only one panel that can affect the result is Bloom itself.
So try to tweak values there ... probably you can find some setup with better result.
And ... I don't think Motion blur can fix that ... in some situation it can reduce appearance thanks to blur direction, but make it worse in other situations.

Some kind of hack ... you can try Volume object with Mesh to Volume modifier + Bloom. The idea is to use volumetric where you can easily increase steps into very smooth result, and bloom use just as last soft touch to get glowing without high values.
Add Volume object and add Mesh to Volume modifier as source choose your tetrahedron. Decrease Exterior Band Width to 0.02 and switch to Voxel Size and decrease value to 0.01.
Volume object only ...

Material - Principled Volume shader with increased Emission Strength to 2

Volume object + original tetrahedron object + Bloom

Render Properties > Sampling - increase value to something like 256
... or all this is illusion and I was wrong :)


Animate location (or strength?) of alpha / opacity mask to suggest motion along arrows

I would start by adding something like this node set up where my Diffuse BSDF is your Diffuse shader after the Trade_Winds11 Image Texture and it all goes into the following Mix node.

In my example animating the Z Location in the Mapping node will cause that black line (hopefully alpha as it is running through a transparent shader) to move up or down. You can really play with the Mapping node to get the lines from the wave texture to move how you'd like.

I hope this helps.


In Blender, there are always two Settings for Viewport and Rendering. For Viewport visibility use  and for Rendering


You've ripped an edge, select all in Edit mode, AltM to merge by distance, then unwrap again.


Why render time in blender is increasing 10 times after rotating 3d model?

I've posted at Blender's bug tracker and it seemed for first look as a bug, but
Brecht Van Lommel (Rendering Software Engineer) explained:

  This is a typical issue with raytracers, many long thin faces along one direction are difficult to fit well in a BVH unless the faces are aligned to the X/Y/Z axis.
  Also, the workaround is to subdivide the object more so the faces are not so long.

After subdivision mesh along faces render time decreased much.

LINK to this discussion on Blender's tracker.


Where Is Micro Displacement Setting Both/True/Bump In Blender 2.8

I had a similar problem and found a solution that may help you.

Navigate to the Material Properties tab.
Within the Material Properties scroll down to a sub-setting titled Settings.
In settings change the displacement type from Bump to Displacement and Bump.

This seems to be the Blender 2.8 equivalent of the "True" setting.


I have done this by modeling the whole object as one, and then as a final step I set up planes where I wanted cuts.
The add-on BoolTool lets you do a Slice operation which will quickly cut along a plane.

This was the result in rendered view:

It takes some planning with all-quad geometry.  Since you're dividing along a plane, you're essentially adding one loop cut somewhere which should lead to quads on either side.  There is a BIG problem if you have any poles.  It looks terrible.  For this object it wasn't a problem, it's modeled for subdivision and the pole is hidden.  With some planning I think the body of a rocket would be possible.


Found the solution! The ball was a cube with a subdivision surface modifier, smooth shaded. The problem was that I did not hit "apply" in the modifier settings. Blender was showing me a nice smooth ball, but was animating it as though it was still a cube -- and held on to it's invisible cube geometry. Problem instantly vanishes by hitting "apply."

Thanks everybody!


Can I jump to the previous/next keyframe but ignore Grease Pencil keyframes?

By default blender 2.8 doesnt show greasepencil keyframes in the timeline viewer.

I found out in this post  that the keyframes a bit iffy on greasepencil in 2.8 but if you want to see them use the dopesheet instead of the timeline as the keyframe viewer. You can use up/down arrow keys to navigate between keyframes there.

You can do a dual split to have both dopesheets or a dopesheet/timeline to see both.

If your selected on a GreasePencil object... up/down will go through GP keyframes
If selected on a regular dopesheet object (e.g. mesh , curve etc...) up/down will go through normal frames.


Why are my drivers not updating instantly?

So I found out what it was. Odly enough, the driver bone has to be in a separate armature from the bone that you are driving. Annoyingly you can not use 'Whole Character' key framing properly anymore, but it works nonetheless.

Edit: Thanks to aliasguru, I found out to solve this you can:

1. Create a blender shortcut

2. Go to its properties

3. After the path in 'Target', paste in '--enable-new-depsgraph'

4. Click apply, and launch blender from there.

Done!

Edit by aliasguru: Why does this work?

The main question is: Why do 3D packages in general need something called 'Dependency Graph' at all (this is not Blender a specific thing, other apps like Maya, Alias, etc. have this as well!)? This can be re-phrased as 'how does a 3D app know what needs to be recalculated'? Each time you change something in your scene, some kind of update cycle needs to be triggered, forcing things to be updated.

Example: change the location of an object by setting the z-value. What sounds stupidly simple triggers a massive chain of possible updates: The object in question could:

have some dependency to a driver in the scene, forcing another property to update
have a constraint relationship to another object
be part of a group, and the instance needs to be updated too
could be a target for a modifier
could have a material node tree that reads the location
could be the parent of other objects
...

As you can see, there is a Ton (pun intended) of possible follow-up calculations that might need to happen. If Blender was forced to manually check EVERY possible effect, you'd propably need to go for a coffee on each screen refresh in a not even complex scene. Now, if there was a way to cleverly identify what needs to be updated, and what can be skipped, that would be awesome, right? Right? That awesomeness is called Dependency Graph.

The Depsgraph keeps track of the relations of properties in the scene to each other, and of their status. However, it does NOT run an update cycle on each property change! Instead, it runs in a scheduled or event-driven way, one could say 'from time to time'. Between these schedules, Blender does nothing else than tagging each property which needs updates, as well as tagging the depending propertiers as dirty as well. It does not change or recalculate values just yet. In Depsgraph terms, this is called mark as dirty.

When the scheduled update happens, it will only ever touch properties which have been marked as dirty, completely ignoring anything related. If an update by the scheduler triggers further updates, it will only mark the prop in question as dirty again (unless the coders decided to put hacks in the code, and there might be plenty) and update in the next cycle. And here is where the current problem of Blender starts, and Sergey came in.

When Blender received its first implementation of a Depsgraph, computer power was limited. I mean, really limited. So they had to make a compromise: They could not afford to trigger depsgraph updates on every nitty little property, they had to make the system less fine-granular. What they went for is a Depsgraph that does its work on an object level. What does this mean for your example case?

Your case

Your single armature contains bones, which trigger a Shapekey change as well as properties of other bones. So let's pull that handle like in your GIF. The rig scales the mesh up somehow first. I'm guessing there is a parent-child relationship somewhere, or an Armature modifier. Then the system detects that a shape key value has to be changed too. It marks the object containing the mesh as dirty. It checks if there are connections, and if they are found, marks them as dirty. Etc. Where's the catch?

So far, there were just things marked as dirty. Nothing has been recalculated just yet. The armature OBJECT has been marked as dirty, then the Mesh OBJECT containing the shape key. The mesh clearly is dependent on the Armature. But the armature might influence your mesh twice. First the parent/child (or Armature), secondly the shape key. It's not foreseeable any more which one should come into play first, scale or shape key. With the specific case you have (and I can only guess without having the rig in hand), The depsgraph needs to update the mesh object twice to calculate the final solution. Potentially first the result of scaling the bone on the mesh, and then - in a second cycle - the repositioning of vertices due to the shape key. On a Cancel event, only one update ever seems to run, leaving the Shape key in a dirty stage. It IS marked as dirty in the depsgraph, but it will only recalculate once the scheduler is run again. That's the case for instance if you change a frame, or if two armatures influence it (each one triggers one recalculation).

So why does the new depsgraph work?

Because the granularity has been reworked to a more fine level. In case of armatures, this means update scheduling per BONE, not per Armature as present. Note that this makes the depsgraph slower, but since Sergey is a goddamn genius, so far no one measured more than 20% slowdown.

See this link for further information: https://code.blender.org/2015/03/more-dependency-graph-tricks/ and this one: https://code.blender.org/2015/02/blender-dependency-graph-branch-for-users/

Final note: Blender 2.8 afaik will only have the new Depsgraph. The current one will be deprecated. Further info on 2.8 Depsgraph: https://code.blender.org/2016/12/dependency-graph-proposal/


How to rig a cartoon-style hose limb? (cartoon arm)

I think you could test at least 3 solutions, the classic rigging with bendy bones playing with Easing In and Out, the Stretch To constraint solution, will allow you to stretch the arm, and the Spline IK constraint solution, which is a bit more complicated but will deform more nicely.

1) CLASSIC RIGGING

Create a chain of bones: upper arm, lower arm, hand, etc. Flex the elbow a bit so that Blender will know how it will have to bend.
Create a controller bone at the wrist position, deparent it and unclick the Deform option in the Properties > Bone panel.
Parent the hand to this controller with ctrl P > Make Parent > Keep Offset.
Create a Pole Target bone from the elbow, deparent it and move it a bit backward, unclick the Deform option in the Properties > Bone panel.
In the Properties > Data > Display panel, choose B-Bone instead of Octahedral. Give your upper and lower arms several Segments (for example 6). You'll see later that the Easing options will allow you to bend the arm in a rounder way. Maybe you'll have to correct the rotation of some bones with ctrl R so that they all follow the same axis.
In Pose mode, give your lower arm bone an IK Constraint, choose the controller as the Target, choose the Pole Target, and choose 2 for Chain. You can also give it a Copy Rotation constraint with the hand as the target, so that when you rotate the hand, the lower arm will follow.
Parent your mesh to the armature.
Don't forget to put the Armature modifier of your mesh above the Subdivision Surface modifier otherwise your mesh could be weirdly deformed (maybe it's the problem in your screenshot). Also, click Preserve Volume in the Armature modifier.
Now you can control the arm with the controller.
Sometimes it will go crazy because the Pole Target is not enough to show how to rotate, in that case select your arm, go in Pose mode, then in Properties > Bone > Inverse Kinematics, limit the rotation on the axis you want.

2) STRETCH TO CONSTRAINT

If you want your arm to be more free and elastic you could also try the Stretch To constraint:

Create a chain of bones with shoulder / upper arm / elbow / lower arm / hand / hand controller.
In the Properties > Data > Display panel, choose B-Bone instead of Octahedral. Give your upper and lower arms several Segments (for example 6). You'll see later that the Easing options will allow you to bend the arm in a rounder way. Maybe you'll have to correct the rotation of some bones with ctrl R so that they all follow the same axis.
The hand controller needs to be deparented, the hand is parented to the controller, the elbow must be deparented, the shoulder is parented to the torso of course. For the controller, unclick the Deform option in the Properties > Bone panel.
In Pose mode, give the upper arm and lower arm a Stretch To constraint.
In the lower arm constraint, select the hand as the Target. In the Properties > Bone > Bendy Bones panel, click the Use Custom Handle References and choose In > elbow and Out > hand.
In the upper arm constraint, select the elbow as the Target. In the Properties > Bone > Bendy Bones panel, click the Use Custom Handle References and choose In > shoulder and Out > elbow.
To test the arm, move the hand controller and the elbow, there are independent.
Parent you mesh to your armature.
Don't forget to put the Armature modifier of your mesh above the Subdivision Surface modifier otherwise your mesh could be weirdly deformed (maybe it's the problem in your screenshot). Also, click Preserve Volume in the Armature modifier.

3) SPLINE IK CONSTRAINT

Third method is Spline IK, a bit more difficult to set but very flexible and will probably preserve the volume better:

Create an armature as long as the arm, subdivide it for example 7 times, with one bone for the hand, deparent this hand bone
Create a curve as long as the arm (until the wrist), subdivide it once (so it has now 3 vertices), align it to the bones of the armature. In Edit mode make sure its direction is good, if not press W > Switch Direction.
Switch the armature to Pose mode, give the 6th bone a Spline IK constraint with the curve as Target and a Chain Length of 6 if you have chosen 6 bones for the arm. Now your curve controls your bones.
Choose the B-Bone display type for your armature, and segment your arm bones, for example 3 times.
Create a second armature, with one bone for each curve vertex.
Switch this armature to Pose mode, select one bone, shift select the curve, go in Edit mode, select the corresponding vertex, press ctrlH > Hooked To Selected Object Bone. Do it for the 3 vertices. Now the 2nd armature controls the vertices position. It allows you to come back to a rest position whenever you want.
Parent the 7th bone (hand) of the first armature to the 3rd bone of the second armature with a Child Of constraint so that this 3rd bone control the hand position and rotation. In the constraint, press the Set Inverse button so that the bone stays at its place.
Now parent the mesh to the first armature With Automatic Weight. Put the Armature modifier above the Subsurf modifier, enable the Preserve Volume option.


I'm embarrassed to ask this about scaling faces

First make sure to start with a 1 base: scale the base cylinder to one in all dimensions.

If you've added a standard cylinder, it should be 2x2x2 meters.

So scale it 0.5 in object mode, then apply scale CtrlA to have the same in edit mode.

Once done enter edit mode, take the faces you need (maybe the bottom of the cylinder) and scale 12.9: S12.9

Now select the top part and scale 12.7: S12.7.

The proportions should be good. Now scale all 0.001 to have it in millimeters.

In the blend file above, top part is 12.7 and bottom part is 12.9.


Have you tried the Make Local operator?

Select your object(s) then  press L > Make Local > Selected Objects should keep object data linked to the original but allow changing modifiers locally.

From Blender 2.8+ forward these can be found under Object > Relations > Make local... from there pick either Selected Objects, Selected Objects and Data, Selected Objects, Data and Materials, or All.


Smoke simulation not compliant with Emitter scale

I had this same problem, I don't know if this will still help you...but if you click on the UV-sphere or your emitter there will be a setting in the physics tab called Flow Source. Click on the drop down arrow and it will open up these settings. You are going to want to play around with Surface Emission (BTW I am using blender 2.91). The smaller the value the closer the smoke will be, the larger the number the farther away the smoke will be. Hope this helps you or anyone else checking this forum.


After quite a bit of research I found out that:
The physics engine creates the springs (representing edges and if 'Stiff Quads' is set the diagonals of each quad) only once on starting a render animation.  The springs are stored in memory somewhere but there doesn't seem to be any way to modify them or reload them during a render animation.  So they can't be changed during a render.  However, if I render little bits (frames 1 to 2, then 2 to 3 etc), the springs are re-loaded at the start of each mini-animation.

But of course without any other intervention the springs are loaded from the un-animated mesh, so the physics is cancelled out at each step.  UNLESS, I discovered, the softbody cache, stored on disk, is copied before the end of a 'mini' animation (see bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post), and restored just after the start of the next 'mini' animation (see bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre).

And where changes are made to the mesh, they need to be made between 'mini' animations, and corresponding changes to the softbody cache need to be made.  It is critical that the same number of vertices are in the mesh and the cache and that they are in the same order.

With help from http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/15577/how-to-extract-convert-data-from-blender-cache-files-bphys-into-a-human-readabl I created a utility to read and unpack the disk cache, allow modifications then write the modified cache back to the same location.

Unfortunately this procedure means that each frame is rendered twice (e.g. frame 2 is rendered during the animation of frames 1-2 and during the animation of frames 2-3) but there seems no way around this.  It would be wonderful to be able to suppress rendering of the last frame in the range, but I haven't seen a way to do that.  Animating from frame 1 to 1 and then 2 to 2 etc would obviously only render each frame once, however there is no room for the physics engine to work.

If I was simply looking at animation in the 3D window (not rendering), I found that toggling the edit mode in the frame_change_post handler was sufficient to get the physics engine to re-load the springs.  Toggling edit mode during a render animation just generates an error, so the more complicated 'mini' animation approach needs to be used.

I am using Blender 2.79b on Windows 10.


How to use a Mesh from one project in another?

The Import is for other file formats, you're looking for Link Ctrl-Alt-O or Append Shift-F1 both are accessible from the file menu.

While Append creates an independent copy of your appended objects, Link just references them from the original file.

If you char consist of more than a single object, you should group Ctrl-G them, this makes it easier to Append or Link.