What is the best way to overcome layers limitation in Blender?

"The best" is certainly opinion based and bound to personal preference, there are definitely different approaches, workarounds and valid alternatives.

Working daily in archviz in Blender however I end up exclusively using Groups for organizational purposes instead. Haven't really touched Blender's Bit Layers for scene management in quite some time, except for when render layer compositing is required.

I permanently changed my outliner to Groups mode in my startup.blend and use it as an always-open "layer manager" of sorts.

That way you can assign custom names to the "layers", have an unlimited number of them, and do the usual toggle visibility, selectability and renderability from the list.

Only difference between this and actual CAD-like layers is that since they are groups they don't store an actual state per-se, so adding an object to an invisible or unselectable group, for example, will not immediately make said object take on the group invisibility or unselectability state. You will have to manually toggle it again for this to update all new objects freshly added to said group.

For organizational purposes, if you also wish to use group instances along with groups as layers, then things might get messier with a long list of groups. Using some sort of naming scheme to keep groups organized, sortable and manageable is one possible workaround.

I generally prefix all my "layer groups" with the 'Layer' prefix in their name, and then prepend different prefixes for other group types meant as reusable instances, depending on their content.
Something like 'Component' for project specific reusable building parts; or 'Assets Furniture', and 'Assets Decoration' for generic movable objects; 'Assets Vegetation' or 'Assets Trees' for the greens, etc.

You can still have objects belong to several layers at the same time, and if you import DXFs with Blender's standard DXF importer, half the work would already be done automatically, since the importer already matches DXF layers to Blender groups by default anyway.


apply a wood texture to a circle to make a shield

Of course as it's supposed to be in real 3D you can't use a Normal or Bump node, but you can do it with the Displace modifier. And I guess you'll have to apply the modifiers for a 3D printing  ;)


Not sure how to make the topology uniform

The Remesh modifier is your best option to do this quickly. Turn the Octree Depth up until you have enough resolution.


What are some useful ways to optimize my work flow while using blender?

"Look great" is a term that means nothing (or means completely different things for everybody). "Beautiful scenes" How do we quantify that?

I happen to love Georges Seurat's drawings and Paul Signac's paintings. They are just a bunch of dots and unsharp images for others... Does Hyperrealism look great? Is this beautiful? I don't really care...

If you want to talk about noise and rendering time and concrete issues, then let's talk about them.

Noise is part of rendering with cycles, the more samples the less noise you will have, that simple.

The more samples the more computing time you need.

Every scene is different, depending on the complexity of your shaders you might need more or less samples to create an image with an amount of noise you can live with.

100 samples might be enough for certain things, some scenes need several thousands.

There is no magic button to render with low samples, fast and with no noise. Why would anyone not use it if it existed?

The closest thing to that is the new denoise option on 2.79, but even that comes at a price: it adds a bit more vRAM usage to the normal rendering, and still needs a decent amount of samples to work correctly.

Is your GPU not up to the task?

You have some choices: Get a better GPU, render in CPU or be patient.

Low Cost-Quality-Rendering Time... you can choose any two you want.

3D rendering is a fine balance of expectations vs the reality of your computing power. Cheat as much as you can, simplify, optimize, decimate, bake, do whatever it takes to get closer to what you want within the limitations of your hardware and the time you have on this earth to render something you like.


I believe that you must Apply the modifier. To do this, Click the Apply button. When I downloaded the file, I did not see any disturbances in rendered view. If you are still having them, consider going to File > External Data and check Automatically Pack Into .blend before uploading. This will allow me to view the file with the textures. I will update my answer as needed.


How can I temporarily disable an animation?

In all 3 windows

Graph editor Window
Dope Sheet Window
NLA Edit Window

... it is possible to toggle the mute button of the channel transformation.  Contribution can be active or inactive.

Thus if the timeline were on frame 88 and the sphere was animated to rotate and the Blender User decided to disable the contribution of the channe .... then the sphere would no longer rotate dynamically and it would be frozen at the rotation of frame 88.  Later the contribution can be turned on again.  Blender uses the word mute so I am partially conforming to that jargon.

Image above. [Contribution/No Contribution] or Mute button has the shape of a speaker.  Speaker has no sound marks. Contribution inactive.

Image above. Speaker has sound marks.  Contribution active.


Can't achieve 1cm unit scale, it's always larger

Three things to do for precise snapping:

Use Orthographic View, View > Perspective/Orthographic, Numpad 5
Use Top/Side/Front view, View > Viewpoint, Shortuct: ~
Zoom in (grid scale changes)


Why is my object rendering correctly in blender render and not in cycles?

Cycles render and blender render use different types of materials, to "transform" a blender material to a cycles material there is the button "use nodes" in the materials tab:

By the way, this may result in a model with no texture so you will probably have to apply the texture in cycles.


Modify object's geometry after animation has been applied

One trick you can use is to parent it to an Empty object. Any transformation to an object will affect any other object parented to it, compounding their own transformation without needing to change any single keyframe. And an Empty is the simplest to setup as the parent, for such purpose.


Avoid ngons

Subdivision surface give "predictable" results when you are using quads.

Your car's side face is a ngon, so is not a quad, but instead 4+ faces poligon which is triangulated by the modifier and then smoothed by creating a vertex in the middle of each existing edge.

Depending on what you are exactly looking for, you should make some changes on your model's topology.


Yes, you can do it in a few steps:

(updated as per PG math's advice)

Add a sphere Shift-A>Mesh>Sphere
Enter edit mode Tab
Set the shading to smooth
Grab one end, including the middle loop (use Numpad 3 to go into side view and Z to be able to select vertices on the other side. Then hit B for box select to get everything except the middle loop.)
extrude it up using E.

Result:

Bonus:

How to add the ridge:

Use Alt-RMB to select the desired loop, you'll have to do this twice, once for each side.
Deselect the vertices at the ends of the pill
Use Ctrl-B to bevel the edges, make it a very very small bevel
in the F6 menu, set the number of cuts to 3.
Select the middle cut and scale it out a bit, use Alt-S
Add loop cuts to the edges loops around the edge to help keep the smooth shading correct.


This is happening because the margin of the the cubes are too big , you need to shorten it by going to sensitivity > check collision margin and enter numbers like 0.01


How to improve topology around an E-pole?

I think I finally got it right by simplifying the mesh a bit. First, I dissolved 3 edges-loops parts on the left side which were not contributing anything to the geometry. Then, I added 3 new vertical edges to the bottom face-loop with the knife tool. By doing so, the E-pole moved a bit higher on the left and is now no longer pinching (see pic below).


Move cursor to center of some selected geometry/faces

In Edit Mode

Select the faces.

Press ShiftS and select cursor to selected, that will put the cursor at the center of the selected faces.

Switch to Object mode (Tab)

Select Object>Transform>Origin to 3D cursor (or CtrlShiftAltC).

For 2.8 there is no keyboard shortcut. Use the menu Object > Set Origin.


How do I set influence radius to a specific size?

As with most operations in blender, the redo panel (F9 in 2.8+ keymap, or  F6 for 2.7 keymap) provides the ability to adjust the operator immediately after it is run. Keep in mind, if you use another operator (scale, translate, etc before adjusting prop edit), then the ability to adjust is gone.
See the gif below:


how do i export multiple .fbx, with one material, and one texture map?

I think the simple way is to have all your model in one .blend, which share their unique material, and export one by one with selected only checked.

Then in Unity, you just have to set this in all your models setup :

Unity will know that material allready exist, so it will be instanciate.

Unless you work in team, so you want one .blend by models : obviously you have all to use the same naming convention for the material, and with the same option in unity import above, it will probably works.


how do I bake an animated sky box using cycles?

In newer builds of blender, there is a third option in the camera tab for Panoramic. In cycles there is an option for Equirectangular mapping. The output render can then be used as any other sky dome would be used.

Here are the settings:


Problem moving selected UV islands with Python

I've change my code, and use one "meta-code" - inside my code, I've opened an "Text Editor" area, and include another python file. At least, this is my code:

text = bpy.data.texts.load("translate.py")

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'IMAGE_EDITOR':
        area.type = 'TEXT_EDITOR'
        area.spaces[0].text = text

        ctx = bpy.context.copy()
        ctx['edit_text'] = text
        ctx['area'] = area
        ctx['region'] = area.regions[-1]

        bpy.ops.text.run_script(ctx)
        break

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'TEXT_EDITOR':
        area.type = 'VIEW_3D'

And, my translate.py code:

import bpy

area = bpy.context.area.type
bpy.context.area.type = 'IMAGE_EDITOR'
bpy.ops.transform.translate(value=(-0.449219, 0.425781, 0), constraint_axis=(False, False, False), constraint_orientation='GLOBAL', mirror=False, proportional='DISABLED', proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1)
bpy.context.area.type = area

Thanks everybody :)


GPU Python module: why drawed pixels are shifted in the result image?

I was lucky enough to be drived to the solution by dr.sybren, hypersomniac and mano_wii!!

The solution is to setup the projection matrix appropriately to translate wanted coordinates in pixels (in my case 1920x1080) to normalized coordinated between -1 and 1.

So before running the batch, we need to reduce the scale by half the dimensions and translate the projection by -1 in x and y:

projection_matrix = Matrix.Diagonal( (2.0 / dim_x, 2.0 / dim_y, 1.0) )
projection_matrix = Matrix.Translation( (-1.0, -1.0, 0.0) ) @ projection_matrix.to_4x4()
gpu.matrix.load_projection_matrix(projection_matrix)

The complete code part is:

def render_offscreen( dim_x, dim_y, vertices, indices, color = (0, 0.5, 0.5, 1.0) ):

    offscreen = gpu.types.GPUOffScreen( dim_x, dim_y )

    with offscreen.bind():

        with gpu.matrix.push_pop():
            projection_matrix = Matrix.Diagonal( (2.0 / dim_x, 2.0 / dim_y, 1.0) )
            projection_matrix = Matrix.Translation( (-1.0, -1.0, 0.0) ) @ projection_matrix.to_4x4()

            gpu.matrix.load_projection_matrix(projection_matrix)

            shader = gpu.shader.from_builtin('2D_UNIFORM_COLOR')
            batch = batch_for_shader(shader, 'TRIS', {"pos": vertices}, indices=indices)

            shader.bind()
            shader.uniform_float("color", color)
            batch.draw(shader)

            buffer = bgl.Buffer(bgl.GL_BYTE, dim_x * dim_y * 4)
            bgl.glReadBuffer(bgl.GL_BACK)

            bgl.glReadPixels(0, 0, dim_x, dim_y, bgl.GL_RGBA, bgl.GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, buffer)

    offscreen.free()

    return buffer


Parenting an object to a bone displaces it

I didn't understand the way the hierarchy works and transforms etc... now I do. I had to "apply" the transformation of the objects.


What is the shortcut to close up / zoom to face / vertex / edge while modelling?

View selected is Numpad . (the full-stop/period/decimal point on the numpad)

It is also available from 3D view > View > Align View > View Selected.


have you tried to merge vertices or to recalculate the normals?

First go to edit mode and select all vertices by pressing A.

To merge vertices, press Mesh -> Clean Up -> Merge by Distance.

This merges Vertices whose distance is below an adjustable treshold. If two Vertices are stacked on each other, smooth shading still works, but it interpolates the normals between these two points and so it looks like a hard edge.

To recalculate the Normals, press Mesh -> Normals -> Recalculate Outside or use the shortcut Shift-N.

This fixes the problem, that two faces might face in opposite directions an so blender is not able to interpolate between them.


This is centainly not normal.

I would suggest:

Move the object to where you want it
Go into Edit Mode
Select everything
Press shift+ s
Click Cursor to Selected
Get out of Edit mode
Apply Location
Go into Edit Mode again
Select everything again
Press shift+ s
Press Selection to Cursor

Make sure to not move the cursor after Step 5

OR:

Shift+ s
Cursor to Center
Shift+ Crtl+ Alt+ c
Origin to 3D Cursor


If you have baked your texture, you can view it in the image editor.

In the image editor select the baked map.
Click the button next to the baked image to save it anywhere you like.

I'm not sure this was the answer you were looking for, hope it helps.


The "flickering overlap" (known as z-fighting) isn't really avoidable. Due to things like floating point rounding errors, there is no such thing as exactly flush in computer graphics. If two polygons are coplanar enough, you start getting calculations that sometimes round off with polygon A being on top, and some round off with polygon B on top. Hence, z-fighting. In most cases, you are much better off having either a small gap or subtly intersecting the two objects, depending on your needs.

That said, you can use face snapping to get one object "flush" with another object: Snap object on top of surface of other object

But again, due to precision limitations, "flush" is ill-defined and hovering or intersecting the two surfaces is often preferable so one is strictly defined as being on top of the other.


It most propably became another object, try exiting from the edit mode and selecting those lines


How to do a neon light effect inside an object or be seen that way with blender 2.8?

You can use another texture to mix color with your emission texture map:

See the Checker texture "Add" to the emission socket, make it light up as the checker go white. That node is Color→MixRGB in node editor.
Photoshop is another approach if you only want a quick prototype and keep thing simple.


Stretch To with Copy Location bone constraints not working properly

You need to do two things here, uncheck connected on each bones' parenting as it messes with the copy locations, and then set the bone tips to the same position as the empties in edit mode before resetting the stretch to length.

Uncheck this checkbox on each bone:

I would suggest making the stretch to target the next bone rather than the empty, as that will make it easier to set the rest positions/lengths with reset.

Fixed blend:


Adding text with default font is outline without face

How to turn Text to solid Face

Look for the "Fill" option under the Text Property Tab. Check if it is set to "Both" or "none"


Select your character, open the Shader Editor window, click on the New button, add a Texture > Image Texture node, plug it into the Base Color socket of the Principled BSDF, and in this Image Texture node, load your PNG:


My Scene bpy.types.Panel appears on all tabs

It looks like I forgot to set up the bl_context member of my panel. Sadly, the documentation is not very clear about the possible values (it would be great it if someone could list them and link it in a comment).

For the scene tab, the panel code would be:

class MK8PanelSceneCourse(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Mario Kart 8 Course"
    bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_mk8course"
    bl_space_type = "PROPERTIES"
    bl_region_type = "WINDOW"
    bl_context = "scene"


How do I create diagonal checher like shape

m.arditos way Is legit, but You can also do it like this:


How can I add a nose to this head without messing its shape?

Your mesh is so "Low Poly" that every nev vertex will interact with the subsurf algorithm, modifying the overall shape; but you need some extra vertices for the nose; so the solution is: RETOPOlogizing.
Create a new object (I.E. a plane), set all the little buttons circled in red and start moving and extruding vertices: every time you move a vertex it will snap onto the surface underneath. So you will be able to put how many vertices you want, exactly where you want, without modifying your shape. Useful also for good deformation topology, if intended to be animated.


It's there, but it's hidden because the properties editor is not wide enough.

You need to either

Scroll the header over a bit by clicking and dragging on the tabs with  MMB.

or

Expand the Properties editor by clicking and dragging on the boundary between the properties editor and the 3D view.

Example:


How to join vertices of 2 separate parts of one object

Select the faces of the areas you want to connect then hit Ctrl+E and select Bridge Edge Loops from the menu.


With upgrade to 2.78a menu bar for 3d View window is at the top

right click on the menu bar and select Header>Flip to bottom.


I have tried two implementations, and I wasn't too satisfied. I should say that the second implementation is definitely the better of the two since I need to simply cull faces that block the camera (think camera outside facing a wall of a room).

The most accurate seems to be in NDC space. For every face, project each vertex, transform to NDC space, then construct a normal from the 2D triangle for that ace. If the z component of the normal is negative, cull face.

The important bit here is that we do not clip in either clip or NDC space. Clipping is necessary when vertices are behind the camera (in homogeneous coordinates, w ≤ 0). The result is the vertex being "mirrored" in front of the camera, resulting in normals flipping! So we take a shortcut, forget clipping altogether, and simply move the vertices as close to w as possible (1.0e-05).

projection_matrix = camera_obj.calc_matrix_camera(scene.render.resolution_x,
                                                  scene.render.resolution_y,
                                                  scene.render.pixel_aspect_x,
                                                  scene.render.pixel_aspect_y)
project_matrix = projection_matrix * (camera_obj.matrix_world.inverted() * (object_obj.matrix_world))
delete_faces = []
mesh = object_obj.data
new_bmesh = bmesh.new()
new_bmesh.from_mesh(mesh)
for face in new_bmesh.faces:
    face_ndc = []
    for vert in face.verts:
        # Project point
        pvert_4d = project_matrix * vert.co.to_4d()
        # Perspective divide; transform to viewport space (NDC).

        # We need to consider the case where where w < 0.
        # For each 4D vertex, if w < 0, the vertex will be
        # flipped when performing the perspective divide,
        # resulting in the normal being flipped.

        # We could do go through and implement clipping using
        # the Liang-Barsky line clipping algorithm, but we only
        # care about backface culling. Clamping w to 0.0 (close
        # to) does result in distorting the triangle, but the
        # normal will remain the same as the normal's magnitude
        # is proportional to the area of the triangle, but
        # independent of the direction of the normal.
        w = 1.0e-05 if (pvert_4d.w < 0.0) else pvert_4d.w
        ndc_vert = pvert_4d / w
        face_ndc.append(ndc_vert)
    # Calculate the normal
    z = calc_normal(face_ndc)
    if z < 0.0:
        delete_faces.append(face)
bmesh.ops.delete(new_bmesh, geom = delete_faces, context = 5)
new_bmesh.to_mesh(mesh)
mesh.update()


Unwrap your mesh before deforming it will result in a good mapping.

Then when deforming the mesh, the texture will follow.


Why am I getting different shading on different faces when I merge the vertices?

It may be that you have inverted normals. In order to 'repair' the object, follow those steps:

Enter Edit Mode by pressing Tab.
Select every vertex in the model. You can press 1, then a (maybe even times).
Press Shift+N to recalculate normals outside, or Shift+Ctrl+N to recalculate inside.
Exit from Edit Mode by pressing Tab.

Those steps should help, but if you have messed up something other than normals, it may not help. You can also enable "Face orientation" in overlays menu in 3d Viewport to see blue/red faces indicating normals.


Baked normal map is partly distorted/flipped

I tried your file. The "Ray distance" is too high. With 0.01m it worked fine for me.


The answer to your question asd71, is "sort of". You can place your 2D images directly on an object through the process of assigning image textures to materials, and assigning the materials to objects. And in one special case, one can assign an image to an object, specifically a plane object, and have the picture appear, something as a photograph of a painting.

However, it is not presently possible to assign an image like a star or a Coke® to a Blender object primitive and have the object be modified to the shape of the star or Coke® bottle. You must first create the mesh for the desired object, and then you can apply materials and textures to it.


How to spin in circle instances of metaballs?

My approach is to use metaballs as dupliverts

This subprogram (bluish) creates user defined amount of pointclouds.
To loop animation I used a couple of identical vector Wiggle nodes, but one with subtracted evaluation to make a smooth transition back to initial position.
Another subprogram (green) is mixing every point between pointclouds from both Wiggle nodes.

This part of a tree controls central point rotation (same trick with looping of two Wiggle nodes was used previously) and location (for location I used Empty).
First node from left named as Animation Duration controls animation length before looping.
Distribute Matrices node produces locations for pointclouds. Right now it replicates along the circle, but could be any mesh if needed.
Two Animate nodes are mixing start/end positions and use sinusoidal interpolation to give smoother looping.

Parent Metaball to freshly created pointcloud mesh - Target and enable duplivert instancing in mesh's object properties. To hide original metaball use shader mask:


Colorful Hypnotic Swirl in Animation Nodes

The Distribute Matrix node have a built-in spiral type:


GPU rendering causes glass to become extreamly reflective

If you have this issue and you are using an AMD graphics card, you can either use CPU rendering or try and fake a glass texture.

I've found that using glossy shader and transparent shader lookes pretty good:
It takes a little longer to render but i think it looks better than the glass shader.


Change whole blender scene into a cartoon look

Here is a simple toon shader mixed with a texture. Use multiply for the mix to transfer the darkness values only - keeps the base (un-shaded) texture intact. I multiplied it twice to magnify the effect.


What is this dot? Not fireflies question

It may be the origin of an object that has no more vertices in it, for example maybe you deleted all the vertices of an object in Edit mode, but didn't delete the object itself in Object mode, so the object itself still exists even if it has no more vertices, and its origin is still displayed. So select it and press X to delete.


Controlling object visibility with distance to other object's vertices

There is ways to do this in Python, but I will explain a way I found to do it using drivers.
You can control the visibility of an object in the viewport and in renders by right clicking on the Visibility section of the Object properties tab and adding a driver.

In the driver popup change it to Distance type.

In this case I have an empty driving the 1st input of the driver, and the object I wish to change the visibility of in the 2nd input.
You can edit the distance between the objects that will trigger the state change in the drivers editor window. Also, the expression in my example has "var-5" which adds m units to the switching distance. (try it and see)
You can use CTRL-L -> Animation Data to copy the drivers to other objects but you will need to update them to use themselves as one of the inputs.
The hard part... If you want every vertex of your cylinder to trigger every one of your hexagons, then you will need to hook an empty to every vertex, then create one of these drivers for every empty, then copy and edit every one of them to every hexagon and edit those! Sounds like a LOT of effort.
There is probably other ways to do this without Python, but this is the way I found.
As I said above, Python would be much better for this.


Node viewer window is missing when i go into 'shading'

You can change any window to any view.

Drag out a new window,
On the top left corner, Editor Type icon, choose Shader Editor.

P.S. I had the same problem before. lol


It might be easier to construct your track as a curve, and adjust the camber before converting it to a mesh.
Create 2 curves, one your track path, and another for the road surface. In the path, make sure there are control points at the apex of curves you wil need to camber.

In the path's Data tab, you can adjust assign the road surface as the path's Bevel Object, and the U resolution to give you reasonably smooth curvature (you might want to leave yourself room in the resolution for subdivision,later)

Under proportional editing, you can CtrlT adjust the tilt of the curve at the points you want cambered. You can even AltS adjust the width of the track in places, if you want to.

When you're done, you can convert to a mesh, do whatever else you need to, and maybe subdivide for smoothness. Here, the perimeter has been extruded down in Z, for embedding in a landscape, but that would all depend on how you're constructing your scene.
I did find a bug while trialling this answer.. my curve was cyclic, and I had proportional editing set to 'Connected'. The Proportional Edit did not cross over the first-and-last control point on the curve, treating one side as if it was not connected. A get-around would be to split the curve, and rejoin it in a place that doesn't matter so much.


Use composite nodes in blender video sequence editor

While you can't use composite nodes directly in VSE strips, you can setup the compositor with an image sequence or video file input without adding any elements from the 3d scene.

Then in the VSE you can add a scene strip which gets the composited render results, so you can mix in audio and use any VSE specific features. You can also setup multiple scenes with different composite nodes and join them all in the VSE.


Why is Bump causing blackout of material

You need to feed the bump data (in your case the Grain pattern fed through the Color Ramp to the Multiply) into the Height socket of the Bump node, not the Normal. In your current setup, the Multiply will be producing a scalar vaue rather than the vector that is required - resulting in effectively no surface normal. You should generally ensure you're connecting like for like when connecting sockets.


Low poly to high poly, or high poly to low poly?

I'ts going to very much depend upon the model. In some cases, adding geometry will be easier, in other cases, removing geometry will be easier. There's not really a "one size fits all" answer to the question. If you're asking about a specific model, edit your question, and provide links to images or blend files.


Is there a way to mirror faces without the normals being flipped?

Using the mirror modifier is a good way to mirror an object and it solves your problem.


I think you are talking about the camera view - Numpad 0  (if you have a camera)


How do I make this sphere follow this bezier curve

use the clamp to constraint.
look at my example gif


Welcome to the Blender SE forums :)

You have three materials mapped to same UV space, so before you bake you need to tell Blender to bake each of those materials to the same image. (3 materials all baked to the same image).

To do that ......

1: In the UV editor Create a new image to bake to. In the screenshots below I named this image 3 material bake. save this Image to your hard drive.

2: Select one of the three materials.

In the Node Editor add a new Image Texture.
In this new node load up the image that was create in the UV editor. Leave this new node unconnected but selected! (Very important to leave it selected).

Select the second material and repeat (Add new Image Texture and load up same image to bake to as was done for the first material and leave it selected).

Repeat for third material.

3: In the 3D editor, Object mode select the model.
   Hit that Bake button.

All three materials should now be baked correctly    to the image that was created in step 1.


I need a hint to model a modern heater radiator

Depending on the amount of detail you need, it is rather easy to model.
I made this in just a few minutes (took me longer to write this answer).

First break down the object, and think about each part.
There are nine fins (and it looks the same front and back), so use a plane Solidify, Array and Mirror modifiers to make those.

The bottom corner is beveled on all of them, so before applying the array modifier bevel the bottom vertex CtrlShiftB.

Add a plane as a separate object to use as the back.

Back in the original object, now with the mirror modifier applied, start editing the individual fins. Move the center three up. Extrude the bends for the inside ones, and extrude the outside frame.

Just add two cylinders, and bevel the remaining corners, and tweak the shape.

It really pretty easy. Use the modifiers! Solidify and Mirror are a must for this object.


You could begin this way:

Create a plane, rotate it 45° on the Z axis, cut 2 obliques:

Bevel, extrude up, delete the bottom, mirror, extrude the joints:

Give it an Array modifier on the X axis, enable its Merge option:

Give it a second Array so that it duplicates the row on the Y axis:

And then a third Array, on the Y axis again, that duplicates the first two rows:

Give it a Subdivision Surface modifier, play with the Array modifiers > Merge > Distance value so that the vertices stick to each others...


Most efficient way to apply textures to a model (Game Dev)

Those two workflows you describe are not alternatives to the same end.

Baking is generally used to achieve effects that are either too complex, too expensive or unnecessary to be calculated in real time.
However, downside is after baking they become static, that means they no longer vary or react to user input.

You can't really bake a 'Master Texture' of all that, if you do you will be losing information. If you bake the specularity, bump and reflections they will become static, as if painted onto the object and will no longer react to in-game light changes or different user view angle.

Baking is more often used in an earlier stage of game creation, when transforming a high resolution model into a low poly version ready for consumption that the game engine can deal with in real time.

In your case without further info, I'd say you should use all those textures directly in game, which seems like what they were created for in the first place.


Enter Edit Mode by pressing Tab with the object selected. Then, press 1 to enter vertex selection mode. Select any vertex, then press E to extrude. This will add another vertex that you can play with.

Since you'll probably want to connect that vertex back to the mesh somehow, you can fill in space between two vertices by first selecting them both (hold Shift while selecting to do that), then pressing F. This will add an edge between them.

If you want to fill in a face (in the case that you have a wireframe but no face), press 2 to enter Edge Select mode, select the surrounding edges of the shape, and press F.


Attaching edges with dissimilar vertex counts

This is what I'd recommend:

There are no triangles, and no 6 poles.  There are, however, 3 poles and 5 poles.
Notice another thing: your left attempt has degenerate quads, quads with 3 collinear vertices.  Triangulation can create zero-area faces which wreak havoc on the interpolation of smooth-shaded normals.  It's easily enough fixed, just wanted to make sure you were thinking of it.
There are a number of issues with vertex connections like this.  Undesirable poles cannot be completely eliminated.  There is no way to connect an odd number of verts to an even number of verts without making triangles.  For character animation, you frequently screw up your edge flow or topology chosen to hold volume at joints, and those are more important than your strict vertex count-- you're better off adding or deleting edge loops than you are trying to use joining techniques.
The way to work with the poles is to minimize their impact.  Place them on the most planar part of the mesh that you can-- even a thousand=pole is fine when all of its neighbor faces are coplanar!  You don't have to drop the whole 2:1 over a single edge loop; you can use multiple edge loops, dropping 2 or 4 verts each one, so that you can place your poles more carefully.


How to rotate a mask in blender (Vfx not sculpting)

The issue was that the origin point was set to individual point not median point.
Which can be switched here at the top


Rotating an edge around another without stretching edges

In the Pivot Point menu, select Active Element, then do the rotation (around the Y axis in this case, so R/Y)

The Active Element is the last selected element, it appears in white instead of yellow.


Texture mapping option disappear in Blender 2.72

For cycles you can fade out particles by using the particle age and lifetime to control the mix of transparency.

By dividing the age by the lifetime you get a value that goes from 1.0 to 0.0 over the lifetime of the particle, then connect that to a ColorRamp and you can clearly control what part of the lifetime the particle fades out.


How do I fill an area with faces lined up in a grid over a not flat surface?

Have you tried using only the "grid fill" tool?

Like this, select the hole edge ring:

then  use grid fill:

and you get

It should work when a grid can be inserted, if it does not, can you post your model (better on https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ as it's permanent)?

Edit: following your comment: I opened your file, and tried.

When I used "grid fill" on that selection, an error is shown, but is not "select two edge loops", it is "connecting edge loops overlap"

Anyway I deleted that "edge" that joins both sides of the "hole", and selecte the whole "hole" edge ring, and then using "grid fill" it shows the error you said: "select two edge loops".

I think (edit2: I was wrong, see below) the problem here is that "grid fill" expect correct topology (eg: only quads), while here you have a nice mesh, but technically the topology is very bad (I know, because I'm very good at bad topology :D).

In particular (at least) in the beak zone you mesh edge loops are "broken", there are n-gons, tris, and because of this probably the grid fill tool can't decide how your mesh is flowing around that hole, and how it should fill. Ngons are terrible for good mesh tobology. Even tris are, but they are easier to solve, afaik.

An example:

Having and keeping a good topology is fundamental to have good "edge loops" to allow any loop tool to work predictably, and it is also fundamental for mesh animation deformation, btw, for the same reason: a good edge loop flow allows the animation system to know exactly how the mesh should deform. But that's another story.

See this a similar issue answered in the past by @cegaton,
Curved mesh topology

Sometimes, bad topology can be fixed, but often is a pain, but instead of rebuilding from scratch, another path is to learn retopology, ie, recontruct another "good topology" mesh based on a "bad topology" mesh.

Edit2 : no, I was wrong, the problem is that the hole should have the same number of vertices on left and right, of course (thanks to @Jerryno for correcting me).

These are the different sides (bottom edge is not subdivided as the top one).

I tried to subdivide it with CTRLR, like

getting

Now, selecting the full edge border again grid tool "completes". It could be necessary to edit span/offset settings, just after applying the grid fill tool, to get better results.

this is bad

this is better

this seems quite perfect


How to Set Shape or Direction of Particle Trail

In your particular case (with a spherical emitter) you might be able to get away with simply reversing the sign of the initial particle Velocity along the Normal. With a positive Normal velocity the particles will spread out from the surface. However, a negative Normal velocity will start the particles in a direction towards the centre of your mesh so they will naturally converge on each other. You will need to tweak the strength, particle life span and/or damping so that they don't cross over.

EDIT : To retain the 'engulfing' effect of the emitted particles, you can emit the particles from a separate (non-rendered) mesh that surrounds the original object. This will allow the particles to be emitted a distance away from the surface so that they surround it rather than emanating from within.

Note that the emitter mesh is set to not render.

To fill in the gap between the surface and where the trail particles are emitted you can add a second particle system - emitting short lived particles from the surface to the point at which the trail particles are emitted. This will make the object appear to "fizz" with particles and will mask the fact that the trail particles are actually emitted at a distance from the surface. Increase the number of particles to get the desired density.

This can produce the following result :

You could add Brownian motion or a turbulance field or other fields so as to make the particle path less linear.
Blend file attached.


How can I stop specs of light coming through my object?

Turn of caustics in the render settings.

here is a superb video that tells how to fix all types of problems like that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbj4d5XL0NA

watch min. 32 for your specific problem.


Can't attach material to imported SVG in python

Instead of:

        #two from my attempts, nothing works, material is correct
        bpy.data.objects[emb_name].materials = [mat]
        bpy.data.objects[emb_name].setMaterials([mat])
        #end of not-working code

Try:

        bpy.data.objects[emb_name].active_material = bpy.data.materials['Z']

If this still does not work, you may need to look at adding a material slot first.

        bpy.ops.object.material_slot_add()


Mesh collapses too much when DynTopo sculpting

I took a look at your file. It seems your brush density was too drastically different from your mesh density, and this was causing some extreme pinching and decimation.

Try using Constant Detail instead (which I find is almost always best anyway because you can maneuver around the 3D Viewport without your sculpting being affected), and then use the Eyedropper to click somewhere on your mesh to sample its density. Then your brush resolution will match your mesh density.

Result:

There are some other settings you can play with that may give you even better results. Here is a sample .blend you can check out and experiment with.

Finally, here is another answer worth looking at to further your understanding of the Dyntopo settings.


How to turn the Compare Math node result into a gradient?

So you need a gradient to follow the car?


How can I use imperial units when entering measurements?

This is now supported, as of this commit (it's in 2.70).

To use this:

Start the modal transform operator (grab, rotate, etc.)
Press = to enter advanced mode
Enter the value you want according to the units you have selected (e.g. for imperial: 4' 11')

When in advanced mode you can do everything you can do in a normal number button:

If you don't press = to enter advanced mode, it should behave mostly as it did before 2.70.

From the wiki:

  We have two "modes", simple and advanced ones, use '=' or 'pad*' to
  enable advanced mode, and 'ctrl-=' or 'ctrl-pad*' to switch back to
  simple mode.

  Simple mode works nearly like it did before, it only accepts simple
  numbers, and you can still use '-' to negate and '/' to inverse the
  value (as well as non-number input shortcuts like XYZ, RSG, etc.).
  Compared to Blender 2.69 behavior, you can now copy and paste
  expressions, and navigate in the number you typed, so you can for
  example fix a typo without having to type everything again.

  In advanced mode, we gain more power and flexibility, but lose a few
  "shortcuts" like '-' to negate, or '/' to inverse. It features:

  Units (cm, ", deg, etc.).
  Basic operations from python/BKE_unit (+, *, **, etc.), and math constants and functions (pi, sin, etc.).
  You can navigate in edited value (left/right key, ctrl to move by block) and insert/delete chars, e.g. to fix a typo without having to
  rewrite everything.
  You can copy/paste expression with usual ctrl-C/V.
  You can go to next/previous value with (ctrl-)TAB key.
  As before, hitting backspace after having deleted all leading chars will first reset the edited value to init state, and on second
  press, the whole number editing will be canceled, going back to usual
  transform with mouse.
  You can still use the - and / shortcuts, as well as various transform options (like XYZ, E and F for vertex/edge slide, etc.)
  while in modal numinput mode, you just have to use ctrl to activate
  them!


Okay this took me a bit to figure out. The problem was on the screen_roller object hidden in the viewport, not the Plane.002 object that's overlapping it.
You were right the material is fine! It's identical to the materials used on other objects, and even removing it doesn't change anything. The problem is the normals for the screen are facing the wrong way, so the light doesn't reflect off the surface toward the camera. I fixed this by clearing the custom split normals data:

This data was taking priority over anything calculated directly from the geometry. Though if you need the custom normals, you're free to adjust them manually.
[Edit] Oops didn't see you ask about the door! But it looks like it's having the same problem as the screen, just to a lesser extent. Clearing or tweaking the split normals should fix it as well.


Why can't I see my object when I switch to object mode?

Delete the Mask Modifier. The Mask Modifier essentially hides the mesh apart for the parts that can be set using a Vertex Group which is done in Weight Paint Mode. This is very helpful when working with a very complex mesh.


The mix shader only directly supports two inputs, as you've seen. But the easiest fix here is just to use two mix shaders:

Mix Shader 1 takes Diffuse and Glossy as input.
Mix Shader 2 takes Mix Shader 1 and another shader as input.

If you want to make the shaders evenly distributed, you could set Mix Shader 2's Fac value to 0.333 (assuming Mix Shader 1 is in the first slot) to give each shader one-third of the overall influence.


I think Blender is perfect for your project, you can do all the math with Python, and if you don't know the language it's very easy to learn, even if you don't have programming experience before because it doesn't have a complex syntaxis.

If you don't want to use code for it or it isn't as complicated then I think Blender is still the best choice because you can easily transform an object an exact number of degrees and come back to change that number as many times as you want, and the graph window for the animation curves has also great tools. Also, if you need some measurements that you can't get with vanilla Blender, I bet you can easily find an addon that does that.

Also, it's free and has extensive documentation.


How do I convert an stl to an mdd file so that I can use the mesh cache modifier?

To convert stl files to mdd files import the stl, then export it to mdd using the official addon "NewTek MDD format" (just enable it).

Then you can use the mesh cache modifier, hopefully.

Another way could be, as I guess all stl files have the same vertices and similar structure, import all stl files as separate objects then select all them, and "join them as shape key".

This will give the last selected object as "base" shape, and each other object as an animatable shape key...

I'm not sure about the general layout of your objects, and thus if this could work, since you described nothing about them, apart the file format and the intended usage...


It’s going to be hard to answer with so few info… STL exporter by default export all (geometry) object in active scene (only exporting selected ones is an option, disabled by default).

That said, here are some ideas to check:

Active is not selected, those two states are different and you may have an active but non-selected object (so you should also ensure you do Boundary.select = True in case you export only selected).
Your object must be linked in the active scene (context.scene.objects.link(Boundary)), otherwise you can select it or even (try to!) make it active, it won’t work.


From polycount wiki:

Most normal map baking tools allow you to use a distance-based raycast. A ray is sent outwards along each vertex normal, then at the distance you set a ray is cast back inwards. Where ever that ray intersects the high poly mesh, it will sample the normals from it.
Unfortunately with a distance-based raycast, split vertex normals will cause the bake to miss parts of the high-res mesh, causing errors and seams.

Some software allows you to use cage mesh option instead, which basically inflates a copy of the low-poly mesh, then raycasts inwards from each vertex. This ballooned-out mesh is the cage.

So the Cage mesh is a low-poly mesh defining how far will be the rays cast. Its good for fine control, but usually you can get away with just properly set Ray Distance in the Baking panel and having smooth shading.


How can I get blender to scale based on the barycentric coordinate

just to help you out in the future, it's called the 3D cursor.  Here's how to fix this, above the timeline to the right of the dropbox where you change between solid shading, wireframe etc. there is another dropbox.  click it and choose, median point.

I hope this helps.


Z-Axis or Metric Unit gives a worng size to any Object

Try popping out the properties panel (it is a panel in the 3d view on the right, usually summoned with the N keyboard shortcut).
Set this to the Item tab, and you can set dimensions there.

You may need or want to reset the scales to 1 in all axes.  If you like the shape of your object but still want to reset the scale you can Apply Scale (ctrl-A is default shortcut for apply menu).  As you can see from the screenshot the dimensions are different from the scale and from the location.
If you set the location first, and then the dimensions, the scale will be set appropriately for you.


Every face in a mesh model can be assigned a different material. By face I am referring to the polygons of the mesh, not the characters face.

The model would appear to have one material for the skin and another for eyebrows and eyelashes. This probably allows choosing different eyebrow textures to get a variety of characters.

I expect both materials are meant to use an image texture to define the colour on the model. Either the images are missing or are not set to be used by the material.


I think.. not sure.. but you need to connect the image node to a texture coordinate (UV) and also don't forget the Mapping node between them

also worth checking is that your normal image is set to color, change it to non-color data when using normal maps.

hope it helps.


A 3D printer doesn't really push out fluids... Fluid dynamics is the wrong way to approach it I would say.

I would personally try to simulate it more using a particle system replicating small spheroids or cubes, where the particles have 0 motion and randomness out of the nozzle, and become children of the bed plate object to move along with the bed plate in your motion system.

I've designed the chassis of my printer with Blender and am looking at doing something similar for video demo purposes, will post an update if you still need help with that when I get over the hurdles I'm facing.


What can the Cycles Geometry node 'Parametric' Socket be used for?

This output represents the "barycentric coordinates" in the rendered triangle. They can be used to  interpolate any data defined at the triangle's vertices.

In practice, however, as The Cycles Input Encyclopedia  explains:

  It’s another one you probably won’t use very often, unless you’re trying to make an unusual wireframe effect, although we now have a specific node for that.

EDIT Here's an idea how you could use it: you can find the "center of mass" of the triangle - it is where all three coordinates have the same value. In practice you would need to work with an error threshold, and find a small triangle in the rendered triangle.

Another idea: Some software, such as Modo, have "Barycentric UV projection", you could probably emulate that, and use textures created in them.


Push vertices outside of other object/setting ceiling to location of vertices

Can use a "schrinkwrap modifier".

Using the following settings:

Projection, on the plane surface, along Z axis, for the Suzanne parts that become negative relative to it.


If you want it to have acceleration and inertia, make sure to use this method:

Add a property to your player called speed(or something that will be easy to understand for what it is used.
Set it to Integer, leave it's value 0.
Add property sensor and keyboard sensor to your object. Add that key in keyboard sensor, which will make your character move. Make it true level triggering and set frequency to your own wish- the bigger frequency, the slower character will accelerate. Connect to and controller.
Select interval in property sensor. Select your 'speed' property in it. Make it's interval from 0 up to 10 or bigger number. Enable true level triggering and set frequency identical to the one used in keyboard sensor.
Connect also property sensor to and controller.
Add property actuator. Select your 'speed' property it. Make it Add. In bottom input type 1 or +1.
Now repeat this again, but make sure tu use different interval(if previous was from 1 up to 10, thn now it is from 11 up to 20 etc.) You can play around with the add property and frequency.
Now do the same, but invert. Repeat the same proccess, but make sure you use invert in keyboard sensor and the last interval's biggest number is bigger than in positive keyboard use(if previously your biggest numbers were 21 - 30 and add property always was +1, than use 31 in last property, but anyway, if you add more in that property, make sure to make also that number much bigger than previous(positive keyboard press).
Add property sensors with intervals(as ymuch as you wish). Use different intervals in each. Connect them to and controllers and to motion actuators. Make each motion actuator move a bit faster than previous.

Now you should have working acceleration and inertia. Sorry for long text:D If you need, ask me for .blend example here!;)

EDIT
Here is .blend:
DOWNLOAD


What is the differences between Object AXES and Edit Mode AXES

In object mode you can read the orientation of the whole Armature object (which is the orientation of its origin, and can also be in a location in which there is no bone), in edit mode you can read every single orientation of every single bone of the armature.

The orientation of every bone is displayed at the tip of the bone, but I think is more intuitive to think at it located at the root of the bone, where the rotations will happen.


Can I render each layer with transparent background?

Answer to 1st question:

**Rendering an image with transparency in **BLENDER INTERNAL****

First you have to tell blender not to render the background, or sky: Under "Render/Shading", switch alpha from "sky" to "transparent". Now only the objects in the scene will be rendered.
You must render to a file format that supports transparency, such as "PNG". Under "Render/Output", switch the file format to "PNG".
Make sure the image channel setting is "RGBA", not "BW" or "RGB". The A in RGBA stands for alpha, where the transparency information is stored in the PNG file.


how to move lips in human imported from make human

You need to rig the model for mouth movement.  One way to do this is to use PitchiPoy version of rigify, which adds facial animation.  There is a tutorial from PitchiPoy, but I haven't tried it.


How to distort effects with equirectangular projection

Lens flare depends on the orientation of the lens you are looking through in relation to the light source so it cannot be rendered into a panoramic image that is then viewed as if the orientation of the camera would be changing.

It would have to be an effect generated while viewing the image. So the answer seems to be:

No. There is no way to compensate for this at the stage where you are making the panoramic image.

It should be done at the stage where the image is viewed.


Objects rendering well in Shading but not in Layout

Lookdev (first image in the question) uses an environment lightning. This is not the case for rendered (second image) are you are supposed to choose the environment lightning yourself.

See the button with circles on them, on top right of the 3D view:

If you want to have the same lightning in 'rendered' viewport shading, you can use the same texture that can be found in your installation path: \Blender Foundation\Blender\2.80\datafiles\studiolights\world.

And set the world surface like this, where forest.exr is from the folder above:

Though, the texture will be visible in the background and this is not the case in look dev shading mode.

If you don't want it, there is two (at least?) possibilities:

Either set the film to "transparent":

and the background will be transparent...

Or enhance the world node setting, using another color of your choice when the light ray goes directly to the camera:


In Outliner change to "Current Scene" in dropdown, r/click on
"metarig" and click "Delete heirarchy". You have two identical rigs
and meshes, although metarig only shows origins suggesting you
deleted in edit mode. Irrespective, it messes with your active rig.
Select your mesh and apply rotation and scale (ctrl-a).
In pose mode select shin.l and delete the Limit Rotation constraint. In the IK panel set the Pole Angle to 0.
In pose mode select shin.r and set the pole angle to 0.
Ditto forearm.l, set pole angle to 90
Ditto forearm.r, set pole angle to -90

edit: formatting


Why isn't the vertex moving the face of the object?

You almost got it right.
Just use J instead to connect the vertices.

1. Connecting vertices across a face
Vertex > Connect vertex path
Shortcut: J

2. Connecting free floating vertices
Vertex > New edge/Face from vertices
Shortcut: F


Attempting to remove extra “edges” from truncated icosahedron lead to excessively global consequences

Edge Selection
The connected faces to edges of interest lie in the same plane. The edge angle is the angle between the normals of the two.
Can select all edges of interest by selecting one edge in edge selection mode, then in menu Select > Select Similar > Face Angle

then X Dissolve edges.
This is same behaviour as limited dissolve delimiting by Normal
Limited Dissolve.

Select all, and hit X choose limited dissolve. The use normal to delimit, ie the angular difference between the two faces (or less).


Blender includes an edge and line based NPR engine called Freestyle. The settings allow you to use edge and outline detection or specifically mark which edges to use for line work.


Problems with smoke simulation visualisation

I figured out that, as soon an particle system is involved in the scene and you need to render the smoke / fire, you have to start an animation from frame one to get the smoke displayed.


Network render one still image not an animation

The short answer, yes you could divide the image (tiles) and distribute then to each computer over a network. The fact is, there is no script/function to do that and the overhead for each connection will be something to consider, since will need to send the whole scene anyway to allow the render engine show all reflection, color bleeding, etc...
Another approach, that I am testing right now, is to render a image with a smaller number of samples with different seed for each computer and then, re-assembly them back. This methodology is already covered by others (Kent Trammell, this is the arquive file on cgcokkie or even here @StackExchange.

We can think about this as: For two images generated with different seeds,  let's get pixel[10,10] for instance. On first image the RGB value is (0.34, 0.78, 0.2) and on second image the same pixel[10,10] is (0.32, 0.80, 0.22). None of this values are right or wrong, but we can assume that the best value (or median) will be (0.33, 0.79, 0.21), that is probably more close to right answer for that pixel.

Using this approach, is it possible to write a simple script to load images from a folder, and them find the median value for each pixel and generate a final image.


It depends of what type of physics you want.

For example, cloth simulation. In cache settings you can set start value negative:

You can noted, that this value limited by 1, but this not right. Click in center of value "Start" and enter negative value from keyboard. It's not a bug, many values in blender can be redefined in this way, for example 200% render resolution.

In other types of physics there is another option "offset". Like in water simulation. Offset shift all frames in time back and forward.

And of course, Allow Negative Frames in this case is useless.


Limitation of a Rolling Shutter effect for propeller

This may be a bit far-fetched, but maybe it helps anyway.
You could perhaps do it with trickery. There is an awesome video by Matt Parker, where he explains how to fake this effect using real footage: https://youtu.be/nP1elMR5qjc
Crucially, this can apply the effect to much slower footage.
Maybe you can use it for your endered footage as well, if you render it out on a slow timescale (quasi oversampled).
He even provides code for the video processing in  the video description, so it would be easy to try?


What's the fastest / least destructive and most scalable way to create a step pyramid?

There is a builtin addon for that, no need to reinvent the wheel.
Under the User Preferences > Addons make sure Add Mesh : Extra Objects is active.

Then in the 3D View simply press Shift + A > Mesh > Extras > Step Pyramid

You can then adjust the builtin parameters as desired.

Only downside is that the addon seems to generate pyramids radially, hence a four sided pyramid seems by default rotated 45° about the Z axis in relation to world coordinates, it also is kind of destructive, in the sense that it can't easily be changed or its parameters adjusted after creation.

As mentioned by @batFINGER the Reduce Step By value needs to be twice the value of the Height parameter to obtain "square steps", where the riser matches the tread depth. Andrew Morton then clarified this is due to the reduction value being applied in relation to total base diameter, taking into account steps on both sides, rather than an absolute tread depth, thus apparently halved.


Get object data for previous frame in driver?

In a scene with an animated plane (along x-axis), and a Cube with a driver added to z-rotation the following python snippet produces the same value as the default var in the driver. Where the evaluate function takes the frame as parameter.

import bpy

for fcurve in bpy.data.objects['Cube'].animation_data.drivers:
    print(fcurve.evaluate(54))


How can I make an invisible and so I can select through it

Restrict viewport selection
Go to the outliner and press the cursor symbol. The object can't be selected in the 3d viewport anymore, only in the outliner.

Restrict visibility
In the object properties area under Display, coose Wire as the Maximum Draw Type.

OR
Make the object invisible by pressing the eye icon. This is the same operation as selecting in the 3d view and pressing H to hide it.

Obviously, it will be made visible again, when ⎇ AltH is pressed to unhide other objects. And since it is unselectable, we can't even hide it again. An option would be to set a key by pressing I while hovering over the disabled eye icon, or setting a driver by right clicking on the eye icon and selecting Add Driver > Manually (Create later).

the keyed property turns yellow, the driven property turns lilac
Unhiding everything with ⎇ AltH will still unhide the object, but it will disappear again on frameupdate (/ framechange).
Store it in another layer
Select the object and press M, then choose another layer, which you don't use. A drawback of this method is, that we have to enable the layer again, before rendering the scene. Objects in disabled layers don't get included in the render.


How to Get only Shadows from a Collection in 2.8 EEVEE?

As far as I know Collection won't behave like Render Layers in Cycles but you can use material as below to hide your mesh and show only shadows in EEVEE.


How do I get a popup UV Image Editor and force it to show the Active Paint Slot?

Blender does not support creating a new window officially. However, there is an obscure workaround: You can open up a new user preferences window and change its type to IMAGE_EDITOR, read: How to open an image editor window and display an image file in it?

In order to display the active paint slot in that window, just get the active image slot reference and then assign it to SpaceImageEditor.image. Following code is a simple operator, you can either install it like an Add-on or paste and run it in blenders text editor per session.

Blender 2.8x

bl_info = {
    "name": "Display active Slot",
    "description": "",
    "author": "brockmann",
    "version": (0, 0, 1),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "Texture Paint > Tools Panel > Slots",
    "category": "Paint"
}

import bpy

class DisplayActivePaintSlot(bpy.types.Operator):
    '''Display selected paint slot in new window'''
    bl_label = "Display Active Slot"
    bl_idname = "paint.display_active_slot"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER'}

    @classmethod
    def poll(self, context):
        return context.object.active_material.texture_paint_images

    def execute(self, context):
        if context.object.active_material.texture_paint_images:
            # Get the Image
            mat = bpy.context.object.active_material
            image = mat.texture_paint_images[mat.paint_active_slot]
            # Call user prefs window
            bpy.ops.screen.userpref_show('INVOKE_DEFAULT')
            # Change area type
            area = context.window_manager.windows[-1].screen.areas[0]
            area.type = 'IMAGE_EDITOR'
            # Assign the Image
            context.area.spaces.active.image = image
        else:
            self.report({'INFO'}, "No active Slot")
        return {'FINISHED'}

def draw_display_slot_operator(self, context):
    if context.object.active_material.texture_paint_images:
        layout = self.layout
        row = layout.row(align=True)
        row.operator(DisplayActivePaintSlot.bl_idname, icon='ZOOM_ALL')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(DisplayActivePaintSlot)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_PT_slots_projectpaint.prepend(draw_display_slot_operator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(DisplayActivePaintSlot)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_PT_slots_projectpaint.remove(draw_display_slot_operator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    #bpy.ops.paint.display_active_slot()

Blender 2.7x

bl_info = {
    "name": "Display active Slot",
    "description": "",
    "author": "brockmann",
    "version": (0, 0, 1),
    "blender": (2, 70, 0),
    "location": "Texture Paint > Tools Panel > Slots",
    "category": "Paint"
}

import bpy

class DisplayActivePaintSlot(bpy.types.Operator):
    '''Display selected paint slot in new window'''
    bl_label = "Display active Slot"
    bl_idname = "paint.display_active_slot"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER'}

    @classmethod
    def poll(self, context):
        return context.object.active_material.texture_paint_images

    def execute(self, context):
        if context.object.active_material.texture_paint_images:
            # Get the Image
            mat = bpy.context.object.active_material
            image = mat.texture_paint_images[mat.paint_active_slot]
            # Call user prefs window
            bpy.ops.screen.userpref_show('INVOKE_DEFAULT')
            # Change area type
            area = context.window_manager.windows[-1].screen.areas[0]
            area.type = 'IMAGE_EDITOR'
            # Assign the Image
            context.area.spaces.active.image = image
        else:
            self.report({'INFO'}, "No active Slot")
        return {'FINISHED'}

def draw_display_slot_operator(self, context):
    if context.object.active_material.texture_paint_images:
        layout = self.layout
        row = layout.row(align=True)
        row.operator(DisplayActivePaintSlot.bl_idname, icon='IMAGE_COL')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(DisplayActivePaintSlot)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_PT_slots_projectpaint.prepend(draw_display_slot_operator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(DisplayActivePaintSlot)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_PT_slots_projectpaint.remove(draw_display_slot_operator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    #bpy.ops.paint.display_active_slot()


In the game engine is it posible to track to an object when only on the same layer?

You have a little misunderstanding of trackTo, layers and dynamically added objects.
Layers
Layers are only used when rendering (e.g. it influences the lighting of objects).
There are no layers regarding logic!
The logic knows about

active objects (residing in enabled Blender layers) and
inactive objects (residing in hidden Blender layers).

TrackTo
The trackTo Actuator will track whatever object you tell it to track. The object has to exist within the scene.
The TrackToActuator can track inactive objects (objects at hidden Blender layers .. see above). I guess this is that you do not loose your actuator configuration when toggling through the layers while working with Blender.
Remark: The TrackToActuator can even track the owning object. That makes not much sense but is possible.
Within the BGE the target object will be determined when loading the scene. For example: if the Object parameter contains "Cube" the BGE will look for an object with the name "Cube".

If there is none, the actuator will not refer to an object (and not track at all).
If there is just one object, the actuator will referred to it.
If there is more than one object with that name, there is no guaranty which one will be referred to.

AddObject
AddOject (regardless if using Python or the actuator) adds new objects with the same name after the scene was loaded. This also means the trackTo actuator is already configured. You can add as many objects as you like, the trackTo actuator will not care (It will care when you remove the object it tracks).
Solution
When you dynamically add an object and you want to track it, you need to dynamically set a specific target object at the trackTo actuator (via Python).
You need to know

the trackTo Actuator
the object to track

The important question is
WHEN to track WHAT object.
Unfortunately your question does not include the When nor the What. At least it is not unique enough. Therefore I can't give specific advice.
I hope it helps a bit to understand the BGE's logic
Update #1

Thanks. So would a better way to ask be, "how do i make one object
track to another object only when it spanws?

Yes, it is better. Answers:

when adding a target object
the latest added target object

Here we need to find out how to implement the answers into the code:
When is a target object added?
Only the adding object (adder) knows about that.
Suggestion: let the adder send a notification message. Any object listening to that message will know when a new object was added.
What is the latest object added?
A message is not sufficient, as it can only carry strings, but we need a game object. We could send unique criteria as string and perform a search. But I suggest we do it different.
Solution A
We assume the tracker knows the adder. The tracker asks the adder what object was added that it can use it for tracking. [This is not the best design as the tracker gets knowledge about the internal structure of the adder. You are also restricted to a single adder. But it is a simple design and shows you how you can proceed.]
import bge

adder = bge.logic.getCurrentScene().objects["Adder"]
addActuator = adder.actuators["add"]
target = addActuator.objectLastCreated

controller = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
trackToActuator = controller.actuators["track"]
trackToActuator.object = target
controller.activate(trackToActuator)

Run this code (as Python controller in script mode) when the tracker receives the message from adder.

Requirements:

the adder is named "Adder"
the adder's add object actuator is called "add"
the tracker's track to actuator is called "track"

When you want other names, then change the code snippet accordingly.
Solution B
We assume there is always just one added object. So we do a search by name over all active objects (which automatically skips the inactive original).
import bge

controller = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
messageSensor = controller.sensors[0]
if messageSensor.positive:
    targetName = messageSensor.bodies[0]
    targets = [o for o in bge.logic.getCurrentScene().objects
                if o.name == targetName]
    target = targets[-1] # last object in list

    controller = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
    trackToActuator = controller.actuators["track"]
    trackToActuator.object = target
    controller.activate(trackToActuator)

As a gimmick I let track the last found object. In my version of the BGE, this was the last added object (of that name). Do not rely on it. This can change anytime making the assumption incorrect.
The logic changed a bit.

Requirements:

the message contains a body with the name of the added object
the tracker's track to actuator is called "track"

Several adders (with different added objects) are possible.
I hope it helps


I want to see tool descriptions when I hover my mouse over them

To get tool descriptions, go to Preferences > Interface and enable Tooltips


"Limit selection to visible" not working

Oh that was a tricky one...

it's just because you have collapsed the actual horizontal bottom bar of your 3D window, and the one we see is actually from another 3D window that you also have collapsed

so grip the bottom of your 3D windows and pull it up, them display its real bottom menu bar with the small "+" on the bottom right

and now you can activate the Limit Selection to Visible button


Conform selected edges or vertices to the objects surface

As the object you want edge loop to stick to is circular (cylinder) then the edge loop should become circular. This can be easily done either via default command Shift+Alt+S, then setting the factor to 1 or via LoopTools addon, Circle option. See also How do I make vertices equidistant from a given center?

Note to avoid making faces too distorted, in this case outer edge loop shown on screenshot is better to be moved towards cylinder a bit or add one more edge loop in between existing ones.


Navigate to Outliner
Change type to Blender File
Right click on the .blend you want to reload
Hit Reload

Then you can reload the lastly reloaded file by pressing Space and writing down Reload Library


I have listed down the steps and attached the implemented blender file here.

Move the red circular object to layer 2
Give a material index to red object. I have given it a value of 1. We do this to have a mask for this object, which will be helpful during compositing.

3.Setup render layers as follows. Notice denoising is checked in render layer with shadow. Also 'material index' pass is checked for red object layer, which we will use in compositing.

In the compositor, set up the nodes as shown below.Basically, the material Id mask cuts out just the red object from the second render layer. We then add this to the other render layer with shadow.

Done! Checkout the attached blend file, where I implemented the above steps.


I was using Empty >> Image and stumbled upon this problem but I solved it in a moment. When you add an empty, (here I added the logo just for visibility) go to Data and you should see the Offset. Set both the values of X and Y to -0.5 and it should be in the center. You can then go ahead rotating as if it were a Plane. Hope this helps!


If you want a fixed joint, you need a bone head in that position. Once you have setted the two joint bones, you can achieve the desired behaviour with constraints: IK, track to, stretch to, depending on the desired movements.

In my example a simple 2 bones IK chain targets toward the IK target bone, which will be extruded from the "fixed head" bone and setted as not deforming (uncheck its "deform" option).


Get current editor toolbar tab via Python?

This isn't currently exposed to the API (but we can expose it if it's useful).


Is there a way to individually modify n objects with the same origin object in game engine?

The problem is that each of these objects still has the same mesh, so modifying the mesh of one object appears to modify all the meshes. Two possible solutions are: make separate meshes for each object, difficult to do in the game engine; make all the objects in blender, then load them in the game engine.
I'd suggest finding a new way to do whatever it is you're trying to do.  If this hasn't changed your mind, these two threads give some hints at what I think you're trying to do.
moving and creating objects in the game engine
creating a new mesh in the game engine


It's absolutely common and default to weight paint over a  posed character. If I understand your question, try using this buttons while editing the mesh, which enable the armature action during edit mode of the mesh.


CynicatPro to the rescue! You can actually download and import real world terrain data into Blender. This video shows you how. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_615645983&feature=iv&src_vid=A-OfeO7H0Mk&v=cZxyN7esQkY


best is to pick up a real project. or find a tutorial that guides you to model, texture and render a real project. And here some more ideas:

http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/how-i-learned-blender-and-5-tips-for-you/

http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/5-ways-to-make-money-with-blender/

so if your next question on Blender Stackexchange is about a specific problem then you have started ;)


This appears to be an issue with the resolution of your render. Try going to the Output Properties tab under the "Dimensions" section and increase the resolution of your render. Also ensure that the resolution % is set to 100 to achieve the maximum quality.
When moving around in the viewport, resolution is mainly limited by your monitor or computer screen, but when you render a scene, the resolution of the camera is now the limiting factor to how sharp your rendered image will appear. Increasing it should help produce a higher quality image and reduce how much you are able to see the jagged edges.


Standard keyframe animation after soft body/cloth simulation

Add Vertex group to your cloth object and assign all of the vertices to that group
Add some Empty object to the scene
Add hook modifier to the cloth object with the group in Vertex Group slot and Empty as Object.

Now you can transform the cloth simulation with that Empty.


How to start and end an animation assigned keyframes

Use the "preview range". You can call it via P:

It will set a temporary play range, which you can toggle with this little clock icon near the start/end frames:


Use Different UV Maps

It is possible. The list of UV maps is attached to Mesh data, each objects sharing that same data can't have a different set of UV maps. But each object's material can be attached to itself instead of its data, and its texture can use any available UV map.

First, create all UV maps to be used in the same object data (max. 8).

Then create different materials for each objects, set the material's link property to Object.

Then create a new image texture for each materials, referring to the same texture file but using different UV map. Its limitation is the amount of UV maps can be created for a single object data, 8 at maximum.

Use Different Textures

Otherwise, why not create different texture files using the same UV map? I mean, I imagine you wouldn't vary seam placement, just shifting the whole UV coordinates around. Wouldn't that be too much work and inflexible (e.g. modifying every single map when the mesh object is edited)?

Using one UV map as a template is easier, IMHO. And you're free to create as many texture variations as you need.


So the problem wasn't in the "Merge by distance", but rather because after I imported the model all edges were marked as sharp and I cleared them. If I don't clear them everything works fine. So to anyone having the same problem leave the edges marked as sharp.


You can separate mesh in editmode with P. You get some options to choose, I think they are self-explanatory:

To select specific loose part select any of its vertices and hit Ctrl+L.

You can also add multiple materials to object and each apply to specific faces:

Make selection and in edit-mode hit Assign. The first material slot will be the default one.


How does Grease Pencil handle object depth in the viewport?

Figured it out.
In Grease Pencil Object Properties, there is a Stroke Depth Order dropdown.


A rectangular-parallelepiped of light in a volume shader

Thanks to Chebhou's setups (see question for links) I found something that fits my question. here is the node setup:

But I wanted to know how to make the light inside from all sides...
here is the node setup

The important things to note are the placement of the object's origin (all rotations applied) and the value node controling the space between volume scatter and light, normalized. 0.2 means 20% up/down (Z), 20% left/right (Y) and 20% front/back (X). The last multiply node just adds strength to the light.


Object not rendering correctly from a distance

You probably have faces that are very close together (or on top of each other).
Check your mesh for mistakes (e.g. select all in edit mode, then press W -> remove doubles).

Another thing to check is the scale of your model. If it is excessively large or small, this can cause numerical precision problems.
In such a case, scale your model, then apply the scale with Ctrl+A -> Scale.

If the problem still persists, try to adjust the start and end clipping in the camera settings. The end clipping should be just behind the object (e.g. if the object is 10 Blender units away, you could set the end clipping value to 15 or so).
Note that this tip only applies to OpenGL and Blender Internal renders, not Cycles or other engines that don't use a Z-Buffer to calculate occlusion.


Spin Tool Cursor Not Showing/Snapping to 3D cursor

You are accidentally animating your scene (e.g. pressed space) and some tools do not show during the animation. Your image shows the Anim Player at the bottom of the screen, which means you are animating.


How to make mesh lights brighter without washing out in the render?

You can do this by using the Is Camera Ray output of a Light Path node to dim the emission strength (or even use a different shader) for the camera.  The Is Camera Ray will output a 1 if the ray is coming from the camera (see here for an explanation of ray tracing) and a 0 otherwise.

You can plug this into the mix factor of a Mix Shader or Mix RGB node and plug what you want the camera to see in the bottom socket.

Here is an example, the left uses just the emission shader on the lamp, the right uses the above node trick.


I figured it out with the following node setup.

The grunge texture is applied via the object option in the texture Coordinates node.


How to remove unwanted textures to save memory

Do not worry about all the images in your blend file. If they are not used in the render they will not effect the memory. Simply change the images out for the smaller ones and try to render again (make sure your nodes are not using the large image anywhere).

To remove the images from the blend file Shift LMB on the X in the image datablock. (Image from the UV Editor header)

How do I completely remove an image from my .blend file?

If you still are out of memory, then you are going to have to look at you geometry. Do you have any hidden geometry? Subdivision surface jacking up the poly count? Many of the same objects not sharing a datablock.


Face set colors not showing in sculpt mode despite trying multiple things (2.91.0)

Dynotopo mode prevents editing face sets. If face sets exist, they will be removed when  the mesh is sculpted while dynotopo is enabled.


animating width of “distribute matrices” with float input is possible?

I found "Animate Float" and could get preferable result.


How do I stack triangles into a bigger triangle with array modifier?

I don't think there is a way to do this with modifiers alone, apart form applying them and edit the result manually.
You can Apply your modifiers (from the top down), then go into Edit mode and select and delete the parts you don't want.
Alternatively you could download, install and activate the Array Tools add-on. It allows for a variation for each new row (like -1 triangle). The add-on however does not work with modifiers and every triangle would be a separate object.
Example of the add-on:


you use Global transformation orientation at the moment. only to do is to shift transformation orientation to Normal and the gizmo will re-orientate perpendicular to selected plane.


How to display VSE image-strip filename as overlay?

concept based on How can I make dynamic text in an animation?
i came along with this script:

# based on https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/8087/16634

import bpy

#debug helper
print("all vse strips:", end="\n  ")
print(*bpy.context.scene.sequence_editor.sequences, sep="\n  ")

# output VSE Text strip:
text_overlay = bpy.context.scene.sequence_editor.sequences["Text"]

def get_combined_speed_factor(strip):
    # this does not handle all possible configuration options!
    # only
    # - Stretch to input strip length
    # - Speed factor
    # - Multiply Speed
    # are handled.
    combined_speed_factor = 1.0
    if strip.use_default_fade:
        # update / overwrite not used speed_factor value.
        orig = strip.input_1
        strip.speed_factor = orig.frame_duration / orig.frame_final_duration
    # calculate
    combined_speed_factor = strip.speed_factor
    combined_speed_factor *= strip.multiply_speed
    return combined_speed_factor

def get_speed_factor_for_strip(scene, strip):
    strips_all = scene.sequence_editor.sequences
    strips_speed = (i for i in strips_all if i.type == 'SPEED')
    effects_for_strip = (i for i in strips_speed if i.input_1 == strip)
    combined_speed_factor = 1.0
    # this should calculate the overall speed for this input strip
    for effect_strip in effects_for_strip:
        combined_speed_factor *= get_combined_speed_factor(effect_strip)
    return combined_speed_factor

def find_current_img_filename(scene):
    frame_current = scene.frame_current
    file_name = None
    strips_all_sorted = list(sorted(scene.sequence_editor.sequences,
        key=lambda x: x.frame_final_start))
    strips_image = (i for i in strips_all_sorted if i.type == 'IMAGE')
    strips_speed = (i for i in strips_all_sorted if i.type == 'SPEED')
    for strip in strips_image:
        strip_speed_factor = get_speed_factor_for_strip(scene, strip)
        if strip.frame_final_start <= frame_current < strip.frame_final_end:
            strip_frame = (
                (frame_current - strip.frame_final_start)
                * strip_speed_factor
            ) + strip.frame_final_start
            file_name = strip.strip_elem_from_frame(strip_frame).filename
    return file_name

def recalculate_text(scene):
    filename = find_current_img_filename(scene)
    #print("filename", filename)
    text_new = "-"
    if (filename):
        text_new = filename.replace(".png", "")
    text_overlay.text = text_new

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.clear()
bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(recalculate_text)
bpy.app.handlers.render_pre.clear()
bpy.app.handlers.render_pre.append(recalculate_text)

now this also works with Speed-Control Effects applied:

if you experiment with the script use bpy.app.handlers.***.clear() to remove the old handler functions. (be careful - if you have other scripts or addons that use this callback they also get removed..)


Turn on Collision for each of the softbody object so they interact with each other.


Cell Fracture, How can I use it properly?

Inspect and Repair your Model

Avoid Overlapping Faces. Avoid Intersecting Faces. All submeshes closed.
Both Meshes have the same number of vertices.

Yellow CubeFit mesh is free from defects.
Blue CubeNotFit has overlapping connected submeshes seen in edit mode. Intersecting Faces. This is a defect which can be corrected.

Cell Fractures in next layer.

CubeFit Succeeds.
CubeNotfit Fails to retain shape.

Three crude letter (O)s in 3D , first two same mesh, different colors.  Mesh on left has imperfections. Overlapping faces that are difficult to see by casual inspection. Middle Blue Mesh has imperfect overlapping faces, made easy to see by display feature.  Cell Fracture objects on right are the result of an imperfect Cell Fracture on the Middle object.  This flawed result  should not surprise us since we know the source mesh had flaws.  There is no guarantee you will see a flawed result.

Inspect and  correct your mesh to be more like the CubeFit mesh.

If your model is in one piece, archive your file. Break one model into many convenient, not difficult pieces, to see which sub mesh fails.
As stated in the first comment ...  Menu/Select by All Trait/Non Manifold .. Loose Geometry may reveal defects.


Is there a hotkey modifier for G that sets rather than moves the coordinate?

Unfortunately I think the closest you can get now (without some python custom operator stuff) is resetting to the origin (⎇ AltG) before moving the object. So:

⎇ AltG
GX X coordinate
GY Y coordinate
GZ Z coordinate


The problem was solved simply:
I went to the first frame, right-clicked on the offset, inserted a keyframe, then I went to the last keyframe, right-clicked on the offset and inserted a keyframe again.


How can I create spherical topology from a 2D image?

This can be done with a base shape, two array modifiers and two simple deform modifiers controlled by two empties:

Modelling from top view, create with a basic shape that is symmetric on both x & Y axes, so that it can be tiled.

(click on the image to enlarge)

Add an array modifier to repeat the base shape on the X axis.

(click on the image to enlarge)

Add a second array to repeat the shape twice as many times on the Y axis.

(click on the image to enlarge)

Now you need to find the center of the object. To do that apply both array modifiers.

Enter Edit Mode (Tab), select All (A) and press ShiftS and select Cursor to Selected. The 3d cursor will then snap top the center of the array.

(click on the image to enlarge)

Exit Edit Mode (tab) and press CtrlZ twice, so that you undo the cation of applying the modifiers (that will allow you to further refine your base mesh)

(click on the image to enlarge)

Add a new empty and rotate it 90 degrees on the X axis RX90.

Select your base object, add a Simple Deform Modifier, set it on Bend Mode, select the Empty as Origin and set the deform angle to 180

(click on the image to enlarge)

Add a second empty object and rotate it 90 degrees on X and 90 degrees on the Z axes: RX90, RZ90.

Select your base object again and add another *Simple Deform modifier, also set Bend, use as the 2nd empy as origin and make the deformation 360 degrees.

(click on the image to enlarge)

At this point you can further refine the basic shape to suit your needs and also decide if you want to apply the modifiers.

BUT THAT WAS NOT THE QUESTION

The question was how to do this with a 2D texture

Same thing but with a displacement modifier:

Create the tiled texture first:

Import it using **import images as as plane* so that a UV unwrapped plane is created with the dimensions of your texture:

Add some subdivisions in edit mode (W:

Add a displacement modifier.

Set the image to be used as displacement texture ( use the same image used for the plane):

In the displacement modifier set the direction to normal, texture coordinates to UV, select the UV and set the strength of the deformation.

Create your arrays:

And set the simple deform modifiers using the steps outlined earlier:

If your texture seems reversed, then just change the strength to a negative value.

FOR NON REPEATING TEXTURES

The procedure is the same, except that you don't need the array modifiers.

Import the relief image as plane.

Enter edit mode and subdivide it.

If the mesh with the image is wider on the X axis, rotate it 90 degrees in the Z axis, so that the mesh is taller on the Y axis when seen in top view.

Add a displacement modifier.

Add the empties and rotate them,and add simple deform modifiers using the empties as Origin.

Note:
This answer is blatantly based on Leon Cheung's answer here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/24053/1853


How do i get a specky looking metal through material nodes

To get a rough surface, you can use the Bump node.

Use a fine Noise Texture as a base (with UV or Object coords)
Add a Bump node and use Distance value to control the intensity
The Distance value is in meters. So I'd set it to around 0,0001.


Any examples of a nice hand rig? Specially fingers

What you are trying to achieve cannot be nicely made in blender yet. The problem is mesh intersecting. You need to simulate mesh self-collision to get the bulging result you want. This can be done with soft-bodies but would be unusable for animating.

The best you can do is to make ton of corrective shape keys for your mesh. If you are aiming for super-real you can also add some wrinkle displacement maps and drive them with bones.


You can get information about the view from RegionView3D which can be accessed via space_data.region_3d.

There are utility functions available in the bpy_extras.view3d_utils module.

You may get the view direction like this

r3d.view_rotation * Vector((0.0, 0.0, -1.0))

the up direction should be

r3d.view_rotation * Vector((0.0, 1.0, 0.0))

and the view location:

r3d.view_matrix.inverted().translation

Or another way

region = context.region
rv3d = context.region_data
view3d_utils.region_2d_to_origin_3d(region, rv3d, (region.width/2.0, region.height/2.0))

Despite its name, RegionView3D.view_location specifies the view target.


why wont the particles show up on this mesh?

I don't know if this makes a difference with your file since we don't have a stripped down version uploaded to look at, but one of your particle systems is set to not be visible. Is that on purpose?


I tested downloading a material there myself, and had similiar problems like you. Neither appending nor linking were possible. On opening the file itself, blender complains about File format is not supported. So I guess you just have to look for another material. Maybe this site is outdated.

Try this link: Resources for blender.


Is there a way to "hack" blender to work better in windows?

use decent video drivers that actually have good openGL performance. It's not Blender that's at fault, it's not Windows that's at fault, it's the 3rd party hardware drivers that control your hardware.


Expanded List of Themes - Super Light Theme

There are a few more "contrib" themes which aren't included with official releases, but are bundled with development versions/daily builds. You can also download them individually here. Currently "white sky" is the only really light theme I'm aware of there.

Beyond those, there are plenty floating around on blenderartists among others.

To install a theme, drop it in $BLEND_DIR/scripts/presets/interface_theme where $BLEND_DIR depends on your platform and how you installed Blender.


What is wrong with my cursor in the shading work space

You accidentally switched to Circle Select.

To select a different mode, click and hold the tool icon.
Or press W to toggle between different select modes.


Leg bones twisting backwards when moving leg up

When you move the foot up above a certain threshold then your pole target is below the line connecting the foot and hip joints. The knee joint will then orient down to the pole target as best as it can.

To fix this you have to move the pole target forwards and/or upwards so that it's above the line again.

About the pole target

The main part of the inverse kinematics constraint is to calculate the angles of upper and lower leg so that the leg points to the foot without there being any disconnected parts. Without a pole target there would be an infinite number of orientations that would achieve this. In this example this would leave the knee rotating around the axis from hip to foot – the red line drawn above.

The pole target works in a way that can be thought of as spanning a rubber band or spring between the pole target. The knee now rotates around the hip-foot-axis so that the distance between knee and pole target is minimized. In the screenshot above the pole target is very close to the axis, so a real rubber band probably wouldn't be very efficient. But nonetheless the distance between knee and pole target is lower here when the knee points backwards than it would be if the knee would be pointing forwards. If you pull the pole target around the axis – or, speaking for the side view, above the line and more far away – the knee will be pulled over to the other side of the axis as well.


How to mask one image and layer it over another?

Use the blurred ellipse mask as alpha with the set alpha node.

I guess you wanted the white to be none blurred, hence the following Invert node with Alpha checked.


How to simulate an Infrared light source model

Tristimulus models such as RGB are effectively a wide band visible spectral light emulation, making such experiments impossible.

Even spectral based renderers might have a hard time with spectral rendering when dealing with non-visible infra red or ultra violet, depending on how they have been designed.


Merge a rigified object with new armature for proxy linking

You can simply join the two armatures (select the rig, shift select the facerig, press Ctrl J) and then make the proxy in the new scene.


How to view subdivision lines in 3d perspective grid?

To get major/minor grids in perspective mode like the image in my original post, simply change the lines setting from the default 16 to something larger (like 100). Basically you are only seeing the minor lines in default view. By adding more lines you will see the major grid appear.

Thanks to everyone for your help.


How can I animate data using blender python?

You just need to change your keyframe statements:

ob1.keyframe_insert(data_path = "rotation_euler", index = -1)
ob2.keyframe_insert(data_path = "rotation_euler", index = -1)


How do you scroll left and right on a mac?

on MAcbook pro with touchpad: hold shift and pan with 2 fingers.

With mouse: hold shift while holding and moving the MMB. Here are the mouse settings I have:


How to map an Image on a plane manually?

Open your image in the UV/Image editor, Press N to open the side panel. In the image section you can see the image's dimensions in pixels.

Add a plane and scale it so that it has the same proportions of your image.

Int this example the image is 1728 x 2592 pixels, so I scaled the plane to

1.728 x 2.592

At this point press Ctrl+A to apply the scale. (for more on this read: Why is it important to apply transformation to an objects data?)

Then go to top view. Enter edit mode, press U to unwrap the UVs and select "Project From View (bounds)".

That will create a UV map that matches with the image used.

Then, just create a material that uses an image texture, and select the image you are using as a source, using UV as the mapping coordinates.

For Cycles:

For Blender Internal:

After doing all of this, you might want to save all of the trouble and just use the "add images as planes" addon, that does all of this for you atomatically, but at least you know what happens behind the scenes...


PNG transparency shadow issue for graphics on a coffee mug

Your node setup mixes two different materials, one solid, one transparent. What you want is a single material (ceramic) with a base color and your picture painted over it. Something like that :