You can delete a concrete animation data keyframes in a Dope Sheet Editor.
In this example I have two bones which have separate rotation animation.

Arm rotates 60 degrees and forearm rotates 30 degrees.

If you want to delete a forearm rotation for example you go to the Dope Sheet Editor, select the dots (which represent the keyframes) that belong to forearm bone and delete them (hover the curor over timeline in Dope Sheet editor window and press X).

Now when you play the animation only the rotation of an arm bone remains.


How do you select a vertex group? (2.8 outliner error: Not yet implemented)

Vertex groups can be selected and modified from the "Object Data Properties" tab when you've selected an object.


Anvil tutorial. Subdivisions Surfice modifier creates a face where it should be a hole

The marked edge (see green arrow) causes the problem, since it has influence on the subsurface modifier:

If you delete it, it will solve your problem.


How do I triangulate a quad along the alternate diagonal direction?

You can choose Fixed or Fixed alternate in the redo panel after triangulating:

If you prefer an all keyboard shortcut method, you can press CtrlE, R after triangulating to rotate the edge.

However if you are only triangulating a single quad, you can also select the verts you want to create the edge between and press J:


The Combined pass is useless in Cycles as far as I know, it doesn't change anything if it is enabled or not. In Blender Internal you can exclude from this pass other passes (like Shadow pass etc.) which might be useful, but not in Cycles.

If you are just after the normal, zdepth or mist passes, consider using some very fast rendering material on all objects (like material with no shader at all, just naked output node), because these passes depend only on the geometry and camera. Use the overwrite material option for Render Layers.

If you are using objects with displacement or normal textures, you will have to render these material for the normal pass to account for this. You can simplify these materials for bare minimum (a Glossy shader set to Sharp renders fast) and delete scene lighting to speed up the rendering. You can also limit the scene bounces or glossy/diffuse bounces, depending what shader you used.

If you are only after zdepth, you can also use just one render sample, the output is not nice anyway: Is Z-Render Pass accuracy dependent on sample count? Are others like object id? (Cycles) It's better to obtain this pass in a different way than directly.

If you need to customize how Blender saves and handles these passes, the place to do this is in Compositor. Enable it and connect the pass you want directly to the output node (and you can pretend the Combined pass does not exist). You can also use the File Output node to add how many file outputs you need to save all the different passes separately if not using OpenEXR Multilayer.


Getting R, G, and B of Active Color in Custom Color Palette?

According to docs PaletteColor class has color attribute, which is

float array of 3 items in [0, 1], default (0.0, 0.0, 0.0)

And active is just another PaletteColor.
Assuming these values are RGB, it would be
print([value for value in pal.colors.active.color])


How to make on color not overlap other while texture painting?

In this particular case you can set the blend mode to multiply. Since input_color * 1 = input_color and input color * 0 = 0, painting on white (1) will result in the exact color you are painting with, while painting on black (0) will result in black.

But I'd recommend painting from the bottom up, using layers and transparency to minimize destructive editing.


I'm assuming that this is not a math.se question,  but a blender.se question, therefore [frame challenge] I'd suggest to use the builtin types and methods.

If you want to know why your math doesn't work, Blender.SE might not be the right place.

I will add some more tips to restructure your code, but take them with grain of salt, as I am no software dev.

I would also discourage the excessive scoping of types from imports at the start of functions. I can see at a glance that np.sin is a numpy function, but have a hard time otherwise.
The x, y, z tuple in the sphere_golden_spiral function was barely readable.

  PEP: Limit all lines to a maximum of 79 characters

Separate the lookat function from a "position" functions. Right now the lookat function produces a matrix containing the position. This is not very intuitive.
Use enumerate if you want both index and object. (Not range(len(...)).)
If you want to multiply your numpy array times 10, don't multiply the individual elements, multiply them all at once.
Replace look_at with the built-in to_track_quat.
Use the built-in Vector, Quaternion and Matrix types.

A modified script.

import bpy
import numpy as np
import mathutils

def sphere_golden_spiral(num_pts=1000):
    indices = np.arange(0, num_pts, dtype=float) + 0.5

    phi = np.arccos(1 - 2*indices/num_pts)
    theta = np.pi * (1 + 5**0.5) * indices

    x = np.cos(theta) * np.sin(phi)
    y = np.sin(theta) * np.sin(phi)
    z = np.cos(phi)
    points = np.stack((x,y,z),axis=-1)
    return points

def cams_sphere(num_pts):
    points = sphere_golden_spiral(num_pts) * 10

    for i, point in enumerate(points):
        bpy.ops.object.camera_add()
        cam = bpy.context.object
        cam.name='Traj_sphere_%i'%i

        cam.location = mathutils.Vector(point)
        cam.rotation_mode = 'QUATERNION'
        cam.rotation_quaternion = cam.location.to_track_quat('Z', 'Y')

cams_sphere(100)

Obviously, you can use the longer (possibly more stable) version with a matrix multiplication.

        bpy.ops.object.camera_add()
        cam = bpy.context.object
        cam.name='Traj_sphere_%i'%i

        location = mathutils.Vector(point)
        rotation = location.to_track_quat('Z', 'Y')

        mat_loc = mathutils.Matrix.Translation(location)
        mat_rot = rotation.to_matrix().to_4x4()

        cam.matrix_world = mat_loc * mat_rot


Is there anyway to rip off 3D models from games like this? (Black Desert Online)

yes but also no, specificly from black desert im not shure. But for example if you have a source engine game you need a rooting tool and a object converter just to open the mesh and since different engines use different formats (Moustly) you need to find the right ones to import models from source game in blender i need thiese 3 programs 1st to export modell as .obj file 2nd to convert textures and 3rd to find the modells


As noted in the link on @DuarteFarrajotaRamos' comment.

Rotobezier is part of blender now: It is no longer an addon and it does not have that name any more.

The functionality is part of how masks work.

To make dynamic masking, all that is needed is to create a mask and create keyframes for the control points. Also the control points for masks can be controlled using tracking points in the Movie Clip Editor.


python : creating 4D simplex by connecting all vertices with ever possible triangular face

Bmesh Script

Result of running on 9 vert circle, without faces

Test script to run in edit mode.

removes all edges (and henceforth faces) of mesh
adds an edge from each vert to every other vert
if make_faces is True will add a face for each set of 3 vertices

import bpy
import bmesh
from itertools import combinations as combos

make_faces = False

context = bpy.context
ob = context.edit_object
me = ob.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
# remove edges and faces
for e in bm.edges:
    bm.edges.remove(e)

edges = [bm.edges.new(c) for c in combos(bm.verts, 2)]

if make_faces:
    [bm.faces.new(c) for c in combos(bm.verts, 3)]
# str(bm) for total verts edges faces
print(bm)
bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)


Spit data from draw method to a draw call back.

When playing around with draw callbacks noticed that can modify objects, whereas you cannot from a panel draw method.
Here is an example Is automatic "Reload from disk" confirmation in Text Editor possible?
A panel can be registered as default closed. In this case only the poll and draw header method will be called.  When it is expanded we see the content of the draw method. Explained here.
For convenience the drawing class is added to the driver namespace. As explained in How do you remove a draw handler after it's been added?  See also answer to operator error when open a new file re setting up a  on the window manager.
Test script: defines a draw callback class and a panel (default closed). The drawing class has a list being fed from the poll and draw methods of the panel. The list is kept to 5 members. If the panel is being drawn it sees this and sets the active object to 'TEXTURED' else to 'WIRE'.
import bpy
import blf

class DrawingClass:
    def __init__(self, context, prop):
        self.status = [prop]
        self.prop = prop
        self.handle = bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add(
                   self.draw_text_callback,(context,),
                   'WINDOW', 'POST_PIXEL')

    def draw_text_callback(self, context):
        font_id = 0  # XXX, need to find out how best to get this.

        # draw some text
        blf.position(font_id, 15, 50, 0)
        blf.size(font_id, 20, 72)
        blf.draw(font_id, "%s %s" % (context.scene.name, ",".join(self.status)))
        ob = context.object
        if ob:
            ob.display_type = 'TEXTURED' if "Open" in self.status else 'WIRE'

    def remove_handle(self):
        bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_remove(self.handle, 'WINDOW')

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_options = {'DEFAULT_CLOSED'}

    def __init__(self):
        print("init")

    @classmethod
    def poll(self, context):
        print("poll")

        dc = dns.get("dc")
        if dc:
            while len(dc.status) > 4:
                dc.status.pop()
            dc.status.insert(0, "Closed")

        return True

    def draw(self, context):
        print("draw")
        layout = self.layout
        dc = dns.get("dc")
        if dc:
            dc.status.insert(0, "Open")
        layout.label(text="Open")

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    context = bpy.context
    dns = bpy.app.driver_namespace
    dc = dns.get("dc")
    if not dc:
        dns["dc"] = DrawingClass(context, "Closed")

Have used similar for a panel "heat" addon, where a counter is added to the panel class for every draw call. After a while "cold" panels, are closed, moved or unregistered.


There should be a slight difference in dimensions on the Z axis which causes boolean to give an unexpected result. Try to scale the cube.001 very little on Z, it will work then:


How to align vertices with other vertices

The best way is to select the vertices that you want to be aligned. Then press s to scale, press z to constrain to the z-axis. Then type zero and press enter. Then all of the vertices will be "flat" or aligned along the z-axis.


Audaspace Game Property in Python script doesn't work as expected

Your mistake is in logic.device.play(sound.lowpass(own["Amount"])) you are missing the frequency value and the amount go from 0.0 to 1.0 (step=0.1)

From the Blender aud API:

  lowpass(frequency, Q=0.5)

  Creates a second order lowpass filter based on the transfer function H(s) = 1 / (s^2 + s/Q + 1)

  Parameters:

  frequency (float) – The cut off trequency of the lowpass.

  Q (float) – Q factor of the lowpass.

  Returns: The created Factory object.

  Return type: Factory

Test this (i haven`t test it):

import bge
from bge import logic
import aud

cont = logic.getCurrentController()
own = cont.owner

logic.device = aud.device()
soundpath = logic.expandPath('//Sounds/Engine.wav')
sound = aud.Factory.file(soundpath)
fequency = 100.0 #Hz i assume
amnt = own["Amount"] * 0.1
sound = sound.lowpass(frequency,amnt)
handle = logic.device.play(sound)
handle.volume = 1


Why is my object in blender bigger by approximately a factor 10 than in my CAD program?

Blender's default unit system is None, so it uses its own "Blender Units" (BU). But if you switch it to Metric in the Scene tab (Properties Editor), you'll notice that nothing changed. And 1 BU will now be 1m.

With Metric enabled, there will be a property available called scene Scale. You can set it to 0.1 to correct the scaling problem (granted, it's really 1:10). But I worry not all exporters will respect it.

So it might be better so Select All objects (A) and scale everything down (S, type 0.1, Enter). Make sure the scaling center is the scene origin (0,0,0), e.g. reset the 3D Cursor (N-sidebar, right-click on one of the 3 value fields and click Reset All to Default Values, or press ShiftC) and use it as Pivot Point (press .).


There is a way to do this. go to > file> recover> recover>last session.

this should work to recover your last saved file.


How do i play a video through an object on blender 2.8? does doing this work the same way as of in the stable version of
  blender 2.79?

Yes. Import >Images as Planes.

You can also drag and drop as an active empty to bench it.

  And another thing is that the video i am wanting to add to a plain is
  2 minutes and 44 seconds long is there a duration limit on putting a
  video on an object?

To my knowledge, no. However, it seems to play slower with large files. my best experience has been when using Eevee. 3 minutes should play fine.

Blender's 2.8 latest build supports this feature.
https://builder.blender.org/download/

Plays butter smooth on my PC.

Import images as planes is an add-on

To enable it, go to Edit -> Preferences -> Add-ons.


how can I control undewater sunbeams in Blender Cycles?

Sorry I forgot you used Cycles.
If you used Eevee, would this be of any help?

In my opinion, rendering Cycles volumetrics can be very time consuming. In some situations, it might make sense to composite Eevee volumetrics on top of Cycles renders.


So as I understand you want your object green to red from left to right, and blue to yellow from front to back. Using the sperate XYZ node you can achieve this:


Find an object's mesh in bpy.data.meshes

if you have a reference to object, then you have a reference to its Mesh too.

obj = context.scene.active_object

# all three of the following lines will refer to the same Mesh.
mesh = obj.data
mesh = bpy.data.meshes[obj.data.name]
mesh = bpy.data.meshes[mesh.name]


One approach:

Make sure the cursor is centered SHIFT + “C”
Add a Plane
TAB into Edit Mode
Subdivide the Plane press “W” > Subdivide

Delete one half

Add a Mirror Modifier and check the box next to “Clipping”

Select all of the vertices and press “S” + “Y” (in top view) to scale on the y axis only.

Select the edge and extrude up by pressing “E” + “Z” and Left Mouse Click to accept

Press “G” + “X” and grab the edge inward (I exaggerated this)

Place the cursor near the edge and press ALT + “R” to create a radius. You can adjust the radius in the operator panel “Before” you do anything else.

Press “E” + “X” and extrude to the center

Add a Solidify Modifier and adjust the thickness to taste


Remove doubles distorts mesh aspect in object mode (still good in edit mode)

This should be correct. By default Blender displays wireframes based on the angle of the faces connected by a given edge. In order to have blender show all edges you have to check "Draw all Edges".


How to create an orthosis for a .stl hand?

The workflow in this case would go like this:

In edit mode, select appropriate faces.
Shift+D to duplicate faces.
P>Selected to separate selected faces, then Tab to enter object mode.
Select new object, created from the thumb faces and add Shirnkwrap modifier.Use eyedropper to set hand as a Target for the modifier.
From there you can give the new object shape of orthosis and add Solidify modifier to give some thickness to the model.Somewhat like this:


How to hide an object in the viewport but still be selectable?

Found the answer here:

https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/ltdbbc/

This appears to replace the 'transparency' option in previous versions of blender.


Create Cross Sections and 2D planes in Blender

depending on how sophisticated you want to go, there is a few solutions to this. If you manage to create a closed volume from your boat model (the hull I guess is the part needed), you can do it using the Boolean modifier.

Create the volume first. If your canoe is only a shell, you can use the solidify modifier to generate some thickness. if the volume is closed, you're good to go.

Create a cube and scale it so in one axis it is really flat. This will be the thickness of your section:

Add a boolean modifier, set it to 'Intersect', and choose the boat hull as the object to cut with (in the former screenshot my object is the 'Dragon'). If you now hide the boat hull, you should see the first section.

Now you only need to duplicate this object across your boat with constant offsets. Press Shift+D, X (if you want to go along the X-Axis) and then type in the amount (like 0.1) Enter. You should now have a second section in place. If that worked, hit Shift+R, which repeats your last operator (duplicate and move), and do this 10 more times to have 12 sections in the end.

These objects can be now individually selected (that's why I did not use an array modifier) and put on layers if you like. If you select one of the elements, you can see the dimensions of the bounding box (I made it visible in the screenshot) in the Transform tab:

This you can use to resize the section images later on to correct size in Photoshop or Gimp (unfortunately no way to do this out of the box afaik). Getting the images is a matter of setting up Blenders viewport and do some openGL renders. Setup a new World, make it white, and set Blenders viewport to show the world and only render:

Using the 'render OpenGL Image' button marked in the screenshot above gives you an image in the resolution set up in the render settings, so you can go for really high res templates if you need to.

For scaling the images to correct size you'll need to consult the image editors manual.


You just have to add a plane (Add > Mesh > Plane), unwrap it (u > unwrap) and apply the material to it in the material tab of the properties window.

(Unwrapping may not be required depending on the material setup, but can't hurt either.)


It's hard to say from the information posted in your question since you don't have any screenshots or files attached, but I'm going to guess that the shape keys are behaving as they should, and you just aren't fully aware of how shape keys work. It's very common among people starting with shape keys to assume that the key will take into account how you transformed the mesh when you edited it. However, that isn't how they work.

Shape keys simply translate each vertex in a straight line from the original position to the modified position. This can result in undesired deformation if you are trying to make a shape key do something it shouldn't be used for. The purpose of shape keys is (most often) to correct deformation or add small details to the deformation of an object. I've seen many people use shape keys to animate eyelids, and I don't think it's the best way.

I would suggest using an armature to animate the eyelids, as you will be able to make the eyelid follow the curve of the eye properly. This does take a bit more time to setup, and is more complex, but the result is worth it as the eyelids will deform much better, as well as knowing how to rig an eyelid is a great skill to have. There are a number of tutorials on this that can help you get started, such as this one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCGekumdLLU.


Armature not working when trying to rotate using the mouse?

That's because you enabled Manipulate center points in the header. Click that icon to toggle it off, or press Alt, (comma).


Color change shows up in viewport but not when rendered

Ok, so..... this was very quick I swear I've been searching for an answer for a very long time but like...

I switched the transparency and the SSS in the mix shader and it seemed to have worked...

I'm pretty sure it was because the SSS was being done in a principled shader so the color on that was overriding the color on the transparency...


Automatic division of a Bezier curve with a given ratios

Curve Tools addon provides a multi subdivide tool that may help.
Under user preferences make sure Add Curve: Curve Tools addon is enabled.
In the Edit tab of the 3D View side bar there in the Curve Edit panel there is a Multisubdivide button.
It takes as parameters the percentage of curve segment length you want to place cuts at separated by spaces. For your example at $1:3:1$ you'd have five parts with $0.2$ factor so you need two cuts at 0.2 0.8.
Beware this will measure length along the segment curvature, not in a straight line along an orthogonal axis.


huh that is weird. I just reset the curves in color management tab with "reset" button. it worked even I set the same veriables. I guess we can use color management in rendered image. idk


Extrude the polygon to create some depth for the sign.
Inset the polygon to create the width of your frame.
Extrude the polygon inwards to create the inside faces of the frame.
Assign materials in the Properties panel.


Is there a way to select the lines between two verts?

In edit mode:

Select first vertex.
Press Ctrl+Shift and select last vertex.


How to get glare on a specific emission reflection

You basically need to have some way to get only the reflection so that you can perform some effect on it (e.g., glare or blurring the reflection and adding it to the image). You could use color keying if you can't see anything else that is red, you could map an object to the screen of the red dot that was on a different layer only used for compositing, and you can also provide access to the glossy reflections in the compositor. Actually, all three techniques can be used to do this in a more universal manner, but depending on your situation, you will have to make the best choice.

Here is an example I just made:

Enable glossy direct in render layers

My compositor node setup (could be much improved...I just blur the bright parts of the reflection)

Result

Blend file:


Script to Insert Keyframe for Fluid "effector_settings.use_effector" property

I solved it by using:
obj.modifiers['Fluid'].effector_settings.keyframe_insert(data_path="use_effector",frame=5)


animation-nodes interfering with cycles rendering?

No, this is not a AN problem. You render from sequencer. You have some strips in VSE, so blender not renders scene, but gets images from VSE.

In render settings you can unclick Post Processing -> Sequencer to prevent Blender from rendering from VSE.

Also you can just ungroup this little guy:

Blender thinks that it can be an image.


Copy weights from other bone and invert them, how?

Ok, it was a pretty basic stuff after all.

In the following scenario: with vertex groups named after the bones, select the vertex bone of the upper arm, in my case "arm1.L", paint the weights. Now duplicate the vertex group. Rename the duplicated vertex group after the shoulder bone, in my case "shoulder.L". Now, in the left panel, below Weight Tools, there is a button that says "Invert".

If the "shoulder.L" group already exists, like in my case, the only way is to delete it first as I could not find a way to transfer the weights between groups other than duplicating a group.


You have to right click the base; the IK/FK panel will be on the right side.

0 = IK on

1 = FK on


Maybe something like this. It's just a Noise Texture mixed with a Voronai Texture to make the bumpy surface, with another (scaled up) Noise Texture passed through a ColorRamp to provide the value for both the BaseColor and Metallic to make the "shiny white bits".


You can multiply the image used as environment with a blackbody to get the Color Temperature. you want. If the image is too blue try a value that is less than 6500° K
E.g 6500°K:

4800°K

3200°K


How to add some blur inside a glass sphere and keep the outside sharp & reflective?

"Blur" is the right word for describing the effect, but the word for the cause of it is "roughness". Roughness simulates a surface that has microscopic bumps on it. Because of these bumps, light refracts with a little bit of randomness, causing a blur.

All you have to do is increase the roughness to about 0.1, in your case:

Roughness will also blur out the reflections. You said that you want the reflections to be sharp. But look carefully at the reference image. The reflections are slightly blurry, too!

Anyway, here is my result of a sphere with the principled shader and a bit of roughness:

Note that if you would actually need a sharp reflection, you would have to mix a rough refraction with a smooth glossy shader, controlling the proportion by the Fresnel node. (Or you could use the clearcoat feature in the principled shader). This would not be realistic, though, because usually the roughness for the reflection and refraction is the same – unless there are multiple layers in the material, which does not seem to be the case for a simple glass sphere.


I'm not sure what is your problem, it looks good, you should just add some bevels to round the angles and some edge loops to avoid the ngons:


How to fix warped orthographic views in 2.8

Do you mean this? Ortho in each editor?

press Num 5 (switch persp/ortho) in each view
for Camera view you have to select Camera and go into Properties editor > Camera Data > Lens and switch to Orthographic type

Alternatively you can disable Auto switch (persp/ortho) under User Preferences > Navigation that keeps set view type.

Edit
To make Perspective view less deformed change Focal lenght in *3D view editor Properties (N)> View to something like 200.


Blender is able to do anything that you can do in python including renaming external files. I don't completely get what you are trying to do in detail, but you can rename textures in blender with

import bpy
bpy.data.textures['29318291083'].name = '29318291083_Normal'

In python you can rename a file with

import os
os.rename('a.txt', 'b.kml')

If your textures are stored similar to .obj and its .mtl (I didn't bother checking tbh) you can just use python to open the file, search for the right lines and rename them. As renaming files and editing text are very common methods, Stackoverflow provides you with lots of help.


It turns out the problem was simply Fresnel's strange behavior on backfaces. Since Fresnel is dependent on facing, back faces become very reflective. If you invert the fresnel on backfaces, then everything works fine. See here for how to do that: backfaces give strange results with fresnel node in cycles.


Transparent object shaddows in volume material [Blender Internal]

After a lot of experimentation, my gut feeling says this might be a "bug" or shortcoming of BlenderInternal...

This being said, I'd like to share a workaround (sometimes you're in the unfortunate situation that you just can not switch to the Cycles engine, but have to pull matters trough with BlenderInternal):

the problems arise when other objects with transparent material do intersect with the volumetric material.
thus a partial workaround is to forego such intersections.

In the example shown, we can use the boolean modifier to cut away precisely the intersecting parts. Plus in addition we must take care to avoid fringe artifacts

add a boolean modifier to the cube with the volumetric material. Choose the ground plane as the other object, and switch to set difference operation. For this to work, in the case of the plane (which has no volume), we also need so switch to the "carve" solver (default ist "bmesh").
next we need to apply the modifier. The cube is now cut such as not to overlap below the ground plane anymore. To avoid problems with ray intersection solving, we should move up the cube by 1 blender unit.
Then add again a boolean modifier to the cube with the volumetric material; just this time we'll cut out the space taken by the small light cube. Use again the set difference operation.
next again apply the modifire. Then select the small light cube (which is still there, now sitting within the hole of the volumetric cube). Again to avoid problems with inferior/exterior tests, we should scale the light cube down by a tiny amount, so it is always clear it does not intersect with the volumetric material.

And voila, now it renders as expected:

In practice, it can be quite tedious and maybe impossible to adapt this workaround for the case of a smoke simulation. So bottom line, this is a problem and if anyone knows a better solution.....


How do I copy a property from an active object to selected objects?

It appears there are few other options for copying properties.

Built-In Features

Choose the objects to which a property has to be copied (destination)
Then choose the object from which to copy the property (source)
In the Properties panel,  RMB on the property and select Copy To Selected.
You can also Press and Hold ALT key and then change the property on active object so that the selected objects also get updated.

In the screenshot, the show_name property on an Cube object is about to be copied to the Lamp and Camera objects.

Some properties can also be copied using the Object > Make Links menu available via Ctrl + L:

Add-On: System Property Chart

There is an add-on called System Property Chart, which is bundled with Blender but is not enabled by default. After enabling, you can use it like so:

The Property Chart panel is located in the properties panel of the 3D View Editor.
By default, some properties already exist for viewing and editing. You can save presets by clicking the + icon.
If you want more properties you can find the property in the interface and the right click on it and choose Copy Data Path and then paste it in the text area below the presets menu.
The first row displayed is the active object and the rest the selected objects.
By clicking the clipboard icon next to the column text, properties from active object is copied to selected objects.

Note: This panel displays properties of selected objects only. If there is no selection in the viewport, the spreadsheet is not displayed.


Using a volumetric spot light, it is possible to hide totally the elements that the light doesn't reach?

You can change your spot with a 0 bounce (direct light only). The light won't bounce outside you volume anymore.

This will affect the lighting of your main object (no indirect light), so you can move the 2 others to another layer and add a "no bounce" Spotlight (duplicated or parented if animation is needed) and composite render layers. Your main object (with a spot with more than 0 max bounce) will have a nice direct and indirect lighting and the others won't be affected by bounces.

This setting was added in blender 2.73 official release (release notes)


Apply the explode modifier for usage in the game engine

This is not possible to do using the explode modifier through the particle system. However, you can use a rigid body simulation to simulate the debris, and animate each piece. Those animations can then by played in the game engine.


Why is the shader editor stuck on 1 material?

The push pin button is enabled on the Shader Editor View.  This locks the view.
[       ]
Please disable the the push pin to allow the view to synchronize with the current object selected. ⛸


Cycles multiple material and multiple importance sample light

The problem was that there were zero diffuse reflection bounces. This value can be set in the Light Paths settings.


Render layer selection when rendering via python

maybe this helps?

creating more than 20 render layers and connect them to different scenes

I would have posted it as a comment but..

My impression is that you are mixing layers and render layers  which are different things.

For each scene you can only have one render layer, correct me if I'm wrong


Blender 2.91 Linear Animation acting like a Bezier

The problem is that you're using Quaternion (WXYZ) Rotation, which is the default setting for bones in Pose Mode. Set the Rotation method to XYZ Euler and animate the Y Rotation from 0° to 360°.
You should also set the last keyframe with 360° on frame 101 instead of 100 if you want a looped animation from frames 1-100, because 0° = 360° and the animation would look as if it pauses for one frame.


The size of the icons is hardcoded in the c files to 16 pixels. You cannot resize it.

What you can do is to change is the DPI settings in the User Preferences in the System tab to have the whole UI in a dpi size that fits your needs. It's the first entry up left.


Your object is behaving that way because it has some custom "delta transforms":

and scaling along an axis in object mode behaves like this:

If you scale it in edit mode it seems correct, though.

After resetting delta location/rotation to zero, and resetting location (ALTkbd>G):

it scales as expected:


Nvidia discontinued the development of the CUDA Toolkit for macOS. The last version that was release for it was 10.2. Consequentially, Blender 2.9x does not include support for CUDA rendering on macOS. This change is documented in the release notes and the manual.

NVIDIA GPU rendering on macOS is no longer supported. Apple dropped support for CUDA drivers in macOS 10.14, and no recent Apple hardware uses NVIDIA graphics cards.

GPU rendering is only supported on Windows and Linux; macOS is currently not supported.

Since Apple has also deprecated their OpenCL compiler it is currently not possible to use GPU rendering with Cycles in Blender 2.9x, until it is ported to Apple's Metal API.
Since Blender 2.83 is an LTS release, I would suggest you continue to use this version.


As you must have already figured out, it is better to avoid shaky, unstable video.

It is possible to use 2d tracking to stabilize the video first, and apply the shakiness later using the 2d stabilization node in the compositor, but in reality it makes no difference, because you still have to track the video to stabilize, and the tracker will still have a really hard time tracking elements that are blurry, or shaky. If you are going to do motion tracking, might as well do it only once. Additionally all errors induced by the stabilization will only make solving the motion harder.

You can use one of the presets for motion tracking for blurry footage or fast motion.

If the movement is too much from frame to frame enlarge the search area, so that blender can find the tracked feature in the next frame:

And yes enlarging the search area requires more resources and will slow down the process.

(if the search boundbox is not visible enable it on the marker display section)

But don't expect miracles. If the original video is blurry, distorted, shaky or has artifacts caused by rolling shutter, etc, tracking will require a lot of extra work. You will need to adjust the trackers manually, when the autotracking process fails. It will probably take less time to do the shot again and keep it sharp (use a fast shutter speed), you can always make it shakier or add motion bulr in postproduction.

Read:

Some Data Failed to Reconstruct, Motion Tracking

and

How can I get better results when doing camera motion tracking?

But for the sake or argument, let's pretend for a second that you did stabilize the video successfully. Then you would face two new problems:

1- The edges of the video will either be cropped, or you would have repeated pixels there where there is no information to fill the frame. To fix that you would need to render the stabilized footage on a much larger canvas and who knows how that would work to determine the field of view (combination of lens and sensor size).

2- The original motion blur of the video will not have disappeared at all from the frames, it will be even more obvious, again making tracking inaccurate.


How to make part of rigged mesh stationary?

As you can read in edit mode, your base vertices do have some weight relatively to many bones, so of course they are moving.

If you want them to stay still, select all of them and remove weight from all vertex groups.

Another more usual way is to create a "tentacle base" bone and weight them to it.

Remember that even a very little weight, if it's not "counterbalanced" by a bigger weight, will have a great influence to the vertex, so you can't trust the blue color in weight paint mode only.


Compositor. How to join two composite nodes?

You could chain the two nodes together. So the defocus node goes into the glare node, which goes into composite. Delete one of the render layers nodes.


Because you are trying to move your object in Edit mode. If you want to move your WHOLE object (along with its origin point), move it in Object mode. Press TAB to quickly switch between Object mode and Edit mode.


Texture export to dae setting or procedural issues

I don't know if you resolved this in the end.   I am having the same problem with the png texture files.  After trying lots of different things, I looked inside the dae file from the zenka site and noticed that it was not made using blender but with 3D Studio Max - so no wonder the instructions didn't work.

I also found this post http://rowanpeter.com/amidoinitrite/a-simple-cube-blender-2-62-and-aurasma-studio/  His dae file is made using blender but again the png texture files do not seem to be recognised by aurasma (or don't anymore, he has provided video evidence that it worked at some point.)

Sorry this isn't really an answer, but I thought knowing that the zenka file was not made with blender might help you.

If you did find a solution I would be grateful if you could share it with me.  I'll let you know if I have any luck myself!


Object are showing black in material view

You may have a flipped normals. If you swap into edit mode and select one of its faces then ctrl-F to get your drop down and select "flip normal" may help.


Any way of not displaying white mesh border lines in 3D viewport when texture painting?

Turn off overlays by pressing this button, either in the top or bottom right of the 3D Viewport


Render issue - Model doesn't appear to be on any layers and won't render

Apparently, it was a simple mistake - I entered Local view, by mistake; to exit it, I just had to press Numpad /.


object deforms strangely when using the subsurf modifier

If you are just starting with blender here is lesson number one: Avoid using n-gons (faces with more than 4 vertices).

Ngons do not subdivide well.

Try to keep your topology using quads (4 vertices per face)


Animation Nodes: How to create a stagger-to effect for pre-existing objects (no instancing)?

I found the answer here:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/109017/23161

As Omar Ahmad pointed out in the comment, the objects need to have AN initial transforms set.


Towel hairs taking up too much gpu memory

You could do something like what is shown here http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/how-to-render-a-complex-scene-without-crashing/

You could change the random seen on the particle system on a second layer and disable emitter visibility for one layer.


All right, I have been working all day figuring this thing out with over-complicated shenanigans, but the answer was quite simple:

As you can see first I had to separate the globe from the actual stage light cause then the whole gray part started to shine as well.

Next I tried to fix up the original nodes, but it got real messy real fast so I decided to make two frames:

Original
Edited

The Edited one is shown on top. Also you used ID Masks without defining which object you gave the ID to in the "Object" menu.

This produced the final result below. If you want you can modify the streaks to your wish.

NOTE: I know it isn't exactly realistic, but that is the closest I can get.

BTW the rendered result is 50% of the actual resolution cause it would take me hours to render the whole image. Also great work on detail.


Pure white background + filmic + antialiasing: is it possible?

If you are using filmic blender, "White" is at a value of 16.19 aproximately, there is no need to push it past that number, as it might lead you to other problems, like the one you are experiencing.


This can be achieved using the Vector Transform node to transform the Normal from World coordinates into Camera coordinates to match the Blender Internal Normal result.

Use the following material :

The key part is the Vector Transform node - this is set to transform the Normal from from World to Camera space. The remaining nodes perform some necessary conversion since BI appears to map camera space in opposite directions to Cycles - so the X and Y both need to be multiplied by -1 (Z is unaffected).

In order to apply the normals to the whole scene (to create a Normal 'pass') you can use the Render Layer Material Override setting to create a whole layer that renders all materials as this and include that pass in the compositor in place of the Normal.

As a comparison, this produces the following result :

Blender Internal :

Cycles :


How do I precisely specify the parameters to the Bend tool?

This tool isn't as well documented as other tools, and indeed does not call a box to adjust the last operation.
The blender manual is like "yeah, it kinda works like this, just mess with it".
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.80/modeling/meshes/editing/transform/bend.html
I recommend building the initial mesh with the Spin tool, to gain some control over the parameters.  It basically does a segmented extrude over an arc.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/tools/spin.html


Cycle 2.8 Cuda error at cuCtxCreate: Illegal Address

so this seems like its a known bug that has already been reported
https://developer.blender.org/T59238


Found a solution here:
Possible to add a plane using vertices via Python?
just add this line:
bpy.ops.object.convert(target='CURVE', keep_original= False)
return myobject


Cant remove emissionobject from orthographic view camera

I was using numpad 5 instead of making the camera othrographic - my mistake, thanks for the quick response!


Soft Body Animation to Keyframe Animation

I managed to do it, you need the add-on "Animation: Corrective Shape Keys" though. You can just enable it in your blender preferences.

What you do is you bake your animation, and then at the frame where you want to keep the shape of the softbody and animate it by hand you go into the shapekeys menu and click "create duplicate for editing".

This will create a duplicate of your object that looks exactly like if the SB modifier had been applied, however maybe with different transforms, but that doesnt matter. Select the new duplicate, then select the original (so it's the active object), and again go into the shapekeys menu. This time press "join as shapes". Your object now has a shapekey of that "applied" shape. Set it to 1, and then at the point where your softbody assumes that shape, keyframe the render-/viewport-display of the modifier to disabled. Because this shape is also active as a shapekey you will not notice that the softbody has been deactivated, but you can now transform it like a normal object again, if however with a weird origin point.

If I misunderstood your question and you want to know how to have your keyframes influence the actual SB simulation, you can do this:

Again, get to the point where you want to use your keyframes on the object. Do the "create duplicate for editing" thing again, give it the same transforms as the original. Set its origin to geometry. Link the softbody modifier (ctrl+L) from the original so you don't have to retype all the values, and enable goal. Keyframe the min and max goal values to be 1 at the first frame so it really takes on that default shape, and then min back to 0 at the next frame. Because you have goal active it should now take the transform keyframes into account, and just need to hide the original at that frame. Basically one object does the first half of the animation, the second one the other. You can use goal from the beginning but then you'd have to animate gravity by yourself and pay attention to other stuff. There might be other ways but honestly dealing with SB is often a pain the butt.

You could also try forces, but I never used them myself so I can give no information about that.


Can Blender be used to send to a factory to create silicone products (mass production)?

AFAIK, CAD software and blender are not that different, especially for 3D printing. The main difference would be operation, and maybe some tools to make sure the object could be made with a mold. Just do some checks:

Make sure the geometry is watertight, commonly referred to as being manifold. You don’t want any holes!
Double check that all the normals are pointing the right way.
Make sure the mesh is high poly enough that the resulting product won’t look polygonal like a low-res video game object.

If you have already printed a few things with this model and they are totally fine, I’d say you’re good to go. :-)


I think there are too many problem in your topology to be able to answer with few words, for example I see that there is a transversal edge, so I drag up a vertex that is supposed to correct the problem, now I see that you actually had several vertices overlaying, so you need to remove doubles, also you have many ngons, etc...

For example, if you use the knife tool you can create quads and correct the topology:


I'd like to add an edge loop around not connected faces

Use the knife tool (K to enable, Z to cut through, C to cut perpendicularly or 45°, E to keep activated):


Parenting mesh with armature deformation problem

I think this answer needs to be advises about parenting (even if I am not specialist on that, so please provide another answer or comment if I say wrong).

All that will be indicated below is not mandatory but it will at least simplify your life.

Here is the model from the first upload :

We can notice 4 things that are to avoid (except for particular cases):

1 - The armature is out of the mesh: that will lead to distortions

2 and 3 - Rotation and scale may lead to unpredictable results: so apply them using CtrlA and choose 'rotation and scale'

Y - The model is left/right aligned on the Y axis: Blender is much more easy and provides functions if the model (and armature) is left/right along the X axis

Concerning the second upload, things are better (rotation and scale are ok, the armature is more inside the mesh, but still along Y). If we 'X-ray' to see the armature inside the mesh:

The armature is visibly not symmetrical (close to but not exactly)
The bones are misplaced. Here the point is to imagine where the real bones should be in a real human being

For instance, shoulders are too short, nearly all arm articulations are not at the good place (shoulder, elbow, wrist), femoral neck is in the belly.

Going between object and edit mode, we can see that the mesh shifts (frame 0). Which is annoying because there is no clear 'rest pose'. The rest pose is a reference pose which has no transformation (the skeleton in rest pose is the same in edit mode and in pose mode).

Now about the animation :

Here are the rotations at frame 1 for the upper leg

The value are a bit strange (-99, 20, -16)... and if we reproduce just that from the rest pose :

So somewhere, a parent bone of the upper leg needs to be in a compensating/distorted position. And that surely why your mesh looks as in your question.

Some advices:

Use X-ray to see where are the bones
Look at the bone names (check 'names' in the armature object display properties). Particularly, names 'need' to indicate left/right for symmetrical bones (Blender will recognize them when names are suffixed or prefixed by Left Right):

Use the symmetry along X axis (and the names above). That allow to place (in edit mode) a given bone and then just ask to Blender to place its symmetrical :

Look at the bone position from several axis (eg. front, right, top) to verify the bones placement
Place the bones heads/tails at the good position regarding the mesh shape and the mesh geometry. The mesh geometry will lead is bending is ok or not, depending on the edge loops it forms:

Here an example showing the mesh with wire and the approximate position for the shoulder articulation

Hope that helps.


Mesh reverts back to the state before the script was run

Man that's a doozy

I have no idea, thought it could be a select flush hassle, as another way to get it to "work as expected" is to toggle into another select mode and back.

Couldn't get any wranglation of code to do it though, even toggling edit mode with code as commented... strange one

I have put together this as not an answer but as a means to express an alternative poke n select code. edges is the boundary of the selection, either is a selected boundary edge (one link face) or only has one of two linked faces selected.

The bmesh poke operator returns the faces created. Any faces that don't include an edge in edges are selected.

Result of using method below

def main(context):
    ob = context.edit_object
    me = ob.data
    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
    faces = [f for f in bm.faces if f.select]
    edges = set(e for e in bm.edges if e.select
            and (e.is_boundary or not all(f.select for f in e.link_faces)))
    ret = bmesh.ops.poke(bm, faces=faces)
    for f in ret['faces']:
        f.select = not bool(set(f.edges).intersection(edges))
    bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)


How to reset when creating new video editing file?

When you start blender or create a new file, blender opens your startup.blend.

You can setup blender anyway you want and save the startup file and get the same contents each time you create a new file. You have managed to save your startup.blend after you added the ever present video track.

To set things up the way you want -

Start blender
Remove the VSE track (and any other items)
Go back to the screen layout you want to start with.
Use - File->Defaults->Save Startup File


How can I parent objects from different scenes?

I ran into a problem very much like this when I went to create fireworks. At the time, I assumed the same thing as you, "One must use BR for halo particles." I did not run into the camera problem because I used the Track To Object constraint for the cameras so that they would follow the firework's progress. I set the alpha to none and used the alpha over node in the compositor to combine the two scenes.

The assumption that one must use BR for halo particles, however, is not true.

Using the point density node as shown in this tutorial will allow you to use Cycles to render halo particles.

Alternately, to answer the question you asked...

Scenes

I used the default Blender startup file for my example, as it has a camera, light source, and object. The first thing I did is duplicate the scene by pressing New Scene -> Full Copy.

Animation

Go back to the original scene and insert a key frame at frame one, move the camera, and then insert one at a later frame. The camera should now move when you play the animation. Next, go to the Animation Screen Layout. Make sure the scene selected is not the one with the moving camera. Select the non-moving camera. Go to the Dope Sheet panel and change the type from Dope Sheet to Action Editor (the same way you would change from Object to Edit mode in the 3D View). Where it says + New along the bottom options, click on the dropdown menu to the left side, the same way you would select an old material rather than creating a new material. Somewhere in there should be something resembling CameraAction, or Camera.001Action (the name of the moving camera followed by Action). Click on this. The movement of the two cameras should now be linked.


Changing a dimension always immediately resets to 0

Dimensions work as a scale multiplier. As your mesh has a Y dimension of 0, you can multiply it by any number, the result will always be 0.
To get thickness you need to enter edit mode, select all and press E to extrude the faces.
Once the object has Y dimension different than 0 you will be able to vary it in the N panel.
Be aware that you have the snap option activated.


edit: I spotted you're using 2.69, which is quite old... I'm on 2.78 so it could be a problem with 2.69 perhaps.

I tried your file, and I get this, which is pretty ok, imho, if I got what you exposed in the question:

otherwise maybe you could show what exactly is not working for you?


I'm not sure what you basic mesh looks like, so it's hard to tell what you're supposed to do, I guess you can create edges between the existing vertices but I recomposed your shape with several successive extrusions along the  letter profile. To make an angle round I've selected an edge and use the bevel tool (ctrlB). When you have finished with the flat mesh, select all and extrude up (E). Is it what you want?

Edit: And oh yes, as Duarte explains, if you have the same amount of vertices on the internal and external edges, you can simply select them and press W > Bridge Edge Loops. If they don't have the same amount, create enough vertices to make the count equal. You can play with the bridge parameters on the bottom of the Tools panel, on the left of the 3D View.


Can I snap to face during transformation in animation?

Maybe "Parent" Helps.

First select the eyes, then the head with your Shift down to make a multi-select, hit Ctrl+P (Parent) and select "Object (Keep Transform)", then the head will be the parent of the eyes, the eyes will be the children of the head. The eyes will follow the head's transformation.

But I'd recommend you to apply rotation & scales before you do it. Check if the scale properties of the objects are set to "1.0" by poping up properties with hotkey "N". If not "1.0", then press Ctrl+A and hit "Rotation & Scales" to apply the both to the objects. That's because the rotation & scale you've made haven't been consequently applied to the object before you confirm your application.

For more info, check this out: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/3dview/object/properties/relations/parents.html


I had the same issue, you need to go Edit->Preferences->System and then add the check to Global Undo


When you convert hair particles you get vertices connected by edges. Most programs will only draw faces so you won't see the hair outside of blender unless you create some geometry that can be drawn.

Convert the hair particles to mesh.

Convert the hair particle mesh to a curve. ⎇ AltC-> Curve from Mesh/Text

Add a bevel to the curve - effectively turn each strand into a tube. For the fill option, front and back will give a quarter tube, half a half tube and full will fully enclose it. The depth setting determines how big the tube is while the resolution will subdivide the tube to give a more rounded result, a resolution of zero will give a four sided tube with fill set to full. You can use the extrude value to give them an oval shape. Note that extra resolution increases the geometry to export but would provide little variation to the visual result of the small hair mesh.

Convert to mesh. ⎇ AltC->Mesh from Curve.

Export.


Just scale the whole scene down so that it is going to fit in the camera distance.
Blender is acting very strange when there are so big scaled scenes

On the right side, you can also see the limits of the camera (the line)


I seem to have figured it out myself.

In object mode i applied rotation & scale with Ctrl+A.

afterwards it worked fine, sorry for troubeling you guys


Yes, click the eye icon in the physics panel or the modifiers panel to disable the simulation in the viewport:

Clicking the camera icon disables the simulation in the render.


For 2.72 you have to enable the pie menus in the user preferences. CtrlAltU or File -> User preferences then the Addons tab. Search for pie, enable the addon called User Interface: Pie Menus Offical.

After the pie menu addon is enabled the keyboard shortcuts such as Tab or Z will open a pie menu. Documentation about the pie menus on the blender wiki.


Is it possible to make hair particles avoid each other?

as you need hairs, using emitter type is not a good idea. try to use 2 different particle systems : 1 for the grass, another for the flowers. Use a vertex group at least for one of them to control where your particles will pop.

you can also use translucency in your materials (petals and grass) to make it less visible.

Or edit the flower particle system (less flowers than grass), uncheck the keep root option to be allowed to move the entire hair.

move the hairs with comb brush and place them where you need, or cut where you don't want them, add where you want some


How to create an empty per object in selection?

Update for 2.8 +
import bpy

for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:  # Loop over all selected objects
    empty = bpy.data.objects.new(obj.name + "_Empty", None)  # Create new empty object
    obj.users_collection[0].objects.link(empty)  # Link empty to the current object's collection
    empty.empty_display_type = 'PLAIN_AXES'
    empty.parent = obj

If you want the empties to be the parents :
import bpy

for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:  # Loop over all selected objects
    empty = bpy.data.objects.new(obj.name + "_Empty", None)  # Create new empty object
    obj.users_collection[0].objects.link(empty)  # Link empty to the current object's collection
    empty.empty_display_type = 'PLAIN_AXES'
    empty.location = obj.location
    obj.parent = empty
    obj.location = (0, 0, 0)


Smooth the jittering colors of smoke simulation

I believe your simulation was made with "Adaptive Domain", so the boundaries of your smoke object change with time, therefore the texture space used by the Noise texture (which is implicitly the Generated one) changes with it, at discrete steps.
To solve the problem, you must not rely on the shape of your domain for your Texture generation, but rather rely on something you control directly and you can make as smooth as needed.
To do so, you have to override the implicit Texture Coordinate assignment by using one of the options from a "Texture Coordinate" input node.
In your case, I believe that the "Object" socket is the most useful, using an Empty as your "Object" (linked in the Texture Coordinate node).

You can scale/move/rotate the Empty to set the spatial resolution of the noise, and if you want you can animate these variables to make the colors move, as smooth as you like.
One possible "animation" for the Empty (easier if of the "Arrow" type) is to make it roughly follow two points in your smoke cloud (like, the advancing front and the back), with the head and the tail of the arrow.
Original setup (no Texture Coordinate node)
It jitters a bit at the beginning, while the Adaptive Domain size is adjusting

Result (with Texture Coordinate node)
Here, the mesh arrow displays the size/orientation of my Empty (I was lazy and I didn't move the tail).
No jittering because the color animation follows the Empty, which is smooth because I designed it to be smooth!


What does the "View as render" option in the background image settings do?

It does nothing for the background image in the 3D view. However View as render is a setting for the entire image datablock.
What View as render does do in the compositer and image viewer is toggle on or off the Color Management settings in the properties window.

With View as render off   click for full size

With View as render on    click for full size


I had this issue too. Seems to be a 2.83 bug. I would recommend downloading the 2.9 Beta. My strokes are now much smoother without any subdivision and my scenes run far better (much lower load on the GPU). Of course this version isn't "stable" so use at your own risk.


equirectangular rendering for Blender Internal?

First create a sphere and in edit mode select the triangular fans on the poles of the sphere and inset to very small size using I button and delete the triangular fans leaving very small holes on the poles.

Then unwrap the sphere using follow active quads, position and scale the UVs to fit the UV/Image editor window.
Once the sphere is unwrapped add a new texture with video resolution you want (1920x1080)

Then add a material to the sphere, enable Shadeless, Mirror and set Reflectivity to 1

Then scale the sphere to small size and position it where the camera should be and add Subsurf modifier with at least 2 subdivisions to reduce texture distortion.

Once all the steps are finished you can use  the python script to bake the textures for each frame in a sequence.


The Add Menu or the Shift-a Menu Is Stuck at Meshes

You are in Edit Mode. In this mode you are modifying the underlying geometry of your object. You can only add or remove geometry, other object types are unsupported. Change to Object Mode with TAB  or in the drop down menu there :


Normalized z-depth shader (based on the cycles camera data node)

If it's ok to put in some values manually, you can use a Cycles shader like this. You have to know the distance of your scene from the camera and the scene size along camera z. In this example the object starts 3 units away from the camera and has a size along camera z of 2 units.

Input the values into the two red value nodes.


How do I change active grease pencil palette color via python?

You can change the color of a specific color in a specific palette using this:

bpy.data.grease_pencil["GPencil"].palettes["GP_Palette"].colors["Color"].color = (1, 0, 0)


Creating vertical thin coloured strips on sphere

-Loop select horizontal line

-Select similar (shift + G) > direction

-Delete edges

-Add modifier > Skin

-Select all edges > Ctrl + A to resize the thickness of skin

(optional)

-add subdivision modifier to smooth things out


Exporting rigged game characters to a game engine

Bones used in rigging are not normally visible in any end product, be it a game or animation or whatever.
Most (all?) renders and game engines will not render them in the final product, although you may see them in the editor for the game engine (e.g. unity editor while making the game, but not the actual game itself).


How to check status of Meta Strip toggle with python?

import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
seq_editor = scene.sequence_editor

if len(seq_editor.meta_stack) > 0:
    meta_name = seq_editor.meta_stack[-1].name
    print(meta_name + ' is currently expanded')
else:
    print('All meta strips are collapsed')

See meta_stack for more information.


How can I edit keyframes for shader nodes easily?

I think you have a filtering option unselected. If you have "Only Selected" enabled, then only the selected objects keyframes will appear.

You can then filter down within the object by toggling the visibility (eyes) as per below:

Finally after box selecting the keyframes, just press G and move them all. You can also restrict to the X&Y planes as per normal, e.g. G + Y.


How to set origin points of multiple objects to a corner of their bounding boxes with Python?

First member of bounding box coordinates

The local coordinates of the 8 corners of the bounding box can be found via

bbox = [Vector(b) for b in o.bound_box]

ordered such that the bottom left hand corner is the zeroth element.

Python console code on default cube

>>> bbox = [Vector(b) for b in C.object.bound_box]
>>> for i, v in enumerate(bbox):
...     i, v
...
(0, Vector((-1.0, -1.0, -1.0)))
(1, Vector((-1.0, -1.0, 1.0)))
(2, Vector((-1.0, 1.0, 1.0)))
(3, Vector((-1.0, 1.0, -1.0)))
(4, Vector((1.0, -1.0, -1.0)))
(5, Vector((1.0, -1.0, 1.0)))
(6, Vector((1.0, 1.0, 1.0)))
(7, Vector((1.0, 1.0, -1.0)))

Test script run on selected objects in edit mode (v2.8)  Subtract the LHC from all local coordinates. Globally move the object to reflect the change in origin.  Note on re-reading your question, might want to use index 3

Edit.  Made this a lot more robust. Since any or all of the selected mesh objects may share the same mesh, only want to set the origin of the mesh once, and globally shift each object using the adjusted mesh. For this a collections.defaultdict is used with the mesh as a key, and a list of objects using that mesh the values.

import bpy
from mathutils import Vector, Matrix
from collections import defaultdict
context = bpy.context

meshobs = defaultdict(list)
for o in context.selected_objects:
    if o.type == 'MESH':
        meshobs[o.data].append(o)

for me, obs in meshobs.items():
    o = obs[0]
    bbox = [Vector(b) for b in o.bound_box]
    lhc = bbox[0]
    T = Matrix.Translation(-lhc)
    me.transform(T)
    for o in obs:
        o.matrix_world.translation = o.matrix_world @ lhc

Related

Setting mesh's origin in python (2.8)

Set origin to bottom center of multiple objects


I can't select faces with left mouse button

This is characteristic to blender. With the left mouse button you change the position for the 3d cursor and with the right mouse button you can select objects.

In edit mode you can use the W shortcut, which give you a list of modelling actions. You can also use the left bar or the options in the menubar below.

Take a look at this tutorial about navigating in Blender:
http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/learning-keyboard-mouse-navigation.php


The concept of disabling in Blender is known as Muting. The shortcut is m.

You can also right-click on a node (unlike Nuke) to pop up Node Context Menu.


What is the difference between using an attribute node and texture Coordinate for a UV map?

There isn't really a difference. The attribute node has a few advantages though:

It allows the use of more than one UV map. The texture Coordinate node uses only the UV map with the camera icon selected.
It Contains the name, which can be useful for organizational purposes.

Note:

Their is also a UV map node coming into cycles, which will eliminate the need for both of theses methods.


Instead of manually marking seams, use smart UV unwrap. Smart UV unwrap breaks the mesh into islands based on angle threshold. Since the lego leg has very nice geometry, the default angle limit of 66 degrees works well.

In UV editor, press  U > "Smart UV Project".


Common parent.

Give the curve and the hooks a common parent. Move the curve, and hence hooks relative to parent,  by moving the parent.


Here's how you do it:

Select all the objects you want to change
For the active object (last one selected), change the Pass Index to the Index ID you want.
Right click on the Pass Index field and select "Copy to Selected" from the menu

All the objects should now be updated to the same index ID.


How can I change the color of a material using Python script?

This is related: Control Cycles material nodes and material properties in Python

This is how you add an keyframe:

import bpy
# get the material
mat = bpy.data.materials['Material_Name']
# get the nodes
nodes = mat.node_tree.nodes
# get some specific node:
# returns None if the node does not exist
emission = nodes.get("Emission")
# set strength to 0.8
emission.inputs[1].default_value = 0.8
# add keyframe to strength at frame 1
emission.inputs[1].keyframe_insert("default_value", frame=1)
# set strength to 0
emission.inputs[1].default_value = 0
# add keyframe to strength at frame 21
emission.inputs[1].keyframe_insert("default_value", frame=21)

Now the intensity will animate from 0.8 to 0 in 20 frames


I seem to have fixed the problem. It was a simple need for a Normal Map Node:

I kind of feel silly now, but you live and learn.


When duplicate groups the copy is in the same group

The reason that this is happening is that when you duplicate an object all of its properties are duplicated as well, not just the geometry. Group membership is one of those just like materials and modifiers. There isn't a way to copy only a limited portion of an objects properties so it's all or nothing. The shortcut provided by Dan will work to remove the object from the group. Remember that you can add and remove multiple object from groups with Alt+G to add to a group and Ctrl+Alt+G to remove from group. The name of the group can be changed in the outliner.

Update: In response to Kim Holder's statement about 'Alt+G'. That is correct and what I should have put was 'Ctrl+G' to add to a group. When you do that the Operator window in the Tools panel will give you the option of naming the group or you can change the name in the outliner.


Python 2.8 - updating code sample from v. 2.63 (image rendering and saving)

The line to set the viewport shading needs to change from

area.spaces[0].viewport_shade = 'RENDERED'

to

area.spaces[0].shading.type = 'RENDERED'

since Blender 2.8's API has replaced viewport_shade. Here you can find the documentation of the Area, AreaSpaces, SpaceView3D (if the space is of type 'VIEW_3D') and View3DShading.

Although I'm wondering why you'd want to set the viewport shading if you intend to actually render the scene. In case this really is what you want I'd suggest getting the active space, which will be the one currently displayed.

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
        space = area.spaces.active
        space.shading.type = 'RENDERED'


Missing toolbar and cannot resize areas?

To split or join areas, you can either drag on the shaded corner with  LMB, or you can  RMB on the edge between areas and select Split or Join.

Once you have done that, move the mouse over the area you want to replace and you will see an arrow appear which indicates which area will replace which.

To confirm, either release  LMB (if you were dragging from the corner widget), or click with  LMB if you use the  RMB method.

To resize areas, drag the edge of the area with  LMB:

To change an area's type, click the drop down on the far left of the header and select an editor type:

So, to fix your layout:

Change the top 3D view to an info area and resize it so that only the header is visible.
Change the timeline to a 3D view

For more information, see the wiki.


How to extrude all edges 1cm from center point?

With the loop selected, press AltS to scale it
along the normals.
Press S again to activate Even Thickness, so you define the actual width of the border instead of the corner edges' length.
Enter -.01 to get a border of 1cm width.

The edges don't provide normals to scale along, so the adjacent faces' normals are used, which are pointing inwards. This is why you have to enter a negative distance.


Because as it crosses a triangle, Blender doesn't know where it is supposed to continue, that's one of the reasons you should use quads as much as possible, with quads there would be no ambiguity.

But if you want to keep your topology as it is and quickly create your edge loop you can use the knife tool.


Adding new object merges it with existing one

If you added a new mesh whilst in edit mode then the new mesh will become part of the object you're editing.  If you don't want this to be the case then you should add new meshes whilst in Object mode.

If you've already added a mesh in Edit mode and you actually wanted those two meshes to be separate objects then you can do that with the Separate functionality.  Press P whilst in edit mode, and you should get a menu that allows you to separate the meshes.  Select "Loose parts" and you should now have two objects instead of one.

This is documented in https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/editing/misc.html


How objects move in rendered image when camera position changes

Actually, this is a mathematical question and belongs to math.se.

Moving the camera "down" would be the same as moving the object(s) up. I'll move the object up for illustrative purposes.

For the calculation, you need the focal length and the sensor height of the camera. They are marked lime in the image. You can get that information from the camera. I've set the sensor measurement to vertical. If it is set to horizontal, you would have to calculate the vertical sensor height from the horizontal sensor height and the dimensions.

verticalSensor = horizontalSensor / horizontalDimension * verticalDimension

Next you need the distance from the camera to the object. It is important that the distance vector is an extension of (0, 0, 1) from the camera. The vertical movement is labeled as Object Shift. This vector must be an extension of (0, 1, 0) in camera space for your case. (If the first position of the object is not on the vertically centered horizontal axis of the cameras view space, you have to adjust the calculations.)

With the rule of proportion, we can get the relation between these four values.

sensorSpaceMovement / focalLength = objectShift / objectDistance
sensorSpaceMovement = objectShift / objectDistance * focalLength

To get the sensorSpaceMovement (the shift on the sensor) in relation to it's size, we divide by half the sensor's height. (Note, that the lime arrow is half the image's height in the illustration.)

sensorSpaceMovementRelative = objectShift / objectDistance * focalLength / sensorHeight

The objects shift is now relativ to the sensor size and will have a value in [0.0, 1.0] if it doesn't leave the field of view.

To get this value in pixels, multiply it with the number of vertical pixel rows: dimensionY. This is the height of your rendered image.

pixelShift = objectShift / objectDistance * focalLength / sensorHeight * dimensionY

If the relation is rotated in 2D or 3D space, you'll have to use a little more math. The object shift has to be measured relative to the camera's XY plane and the objects distance parallel to the cameras (0, 0, 1) view vector.


How to control image transparency like photoshop

you can add another "mixshader", connect the output of the current "mixshader" to the new.

Afterwards you can connect the "transparent shader" to the top of the new "mixshader".

The factor can be a "color ramp" that is dependent on Z of the object (in fact you can use whatever factor here to control another transparency).

Check the printscreen of the proposed node setup:


Tissue+Solidify

I would personally model a piece of the maze and spread it on a surface with Tissue add-on. Just pick the component first and then the generator and click "tessellate". From the add-on wiki:

  Tessellate tool allows you to copy a selected object (Component) on the faces of the active object (Generator), adapting its bounding box to the shape of quad-faces.

Try to keep the faces of the generator (was made by slicing a torus) as square as possible to avoid distortion. You can improve the component (was made with Hilbert node from Sverchok) to make it more tileable than mine.

Then I'll add a solidify modifier to the geometry only after the spreading to be sure that the walls are perpendicular to the surface.

Finish with positioning the camera slightly upon the walls.


You have to unwrap your wall: In the 3D view, in Edit mode, select your whole mesh and press U, and choose for example Smart UV Project or Cube Projection option, then in the Node Editor plug the UV output of your Texture Coordinate node into your Image Texture node, then in UV/Image Editor, rotate or scale the parts of mesh you want so that the bricks appear correctly in your 3D view.


Not direct answer, but maybe helpful if you choose the way of the viewport.
The viewport is mainly faster because the GPU pushes the image directly to the screen instead of copying it back to the cpu for colomanagement and other calculations. So using the viewport, maybe directly pipelining it to whatever other output you seek might be one of the fastest solutions possible.

More detail below, basically a question and answer to and from a blender developer:
https://youtu.be/YqOs-VwehuM?t=1175

Rough transcript:

Question: "...but along those lines I've noticed that when I try to render out the EEVEE viewport, it's
significantly slower, even if I'm just rendering out as if in the OpenGL viewport in 2.79 when I'm just
trying to render out hte viewport settings equivalently I get significantly slower render times and if
I'm trying to render out a significant portion of a significant frame count I can preview it at 60 fps,
but when I render it out it's something like 5 fps ..."

Answer: "...basically when you do it in the viewport it's rendered by the GPU and it's displayed directly on
the GPU so that's fast and if you are doing a play back blast (?) in the viewport it only calculates a single
sample. So when you render to an image a lot other stuff will happen. It renders 64 samples, but that's
not the main case that happens. What happens next is that the GPU in image is copied back to the CPU
and on modern GPUs that's a really slow process, you can only do it 20 times per second. That's the main burden
of that. Why do we copy it back to the CPU? That's for the color-management that's for the sequencer, that's for the
compositor."


It looks like a noisy volume to mesh transformation might work for you.
Perhaps a modified "Swiss Cheese" geo_node setup (below) would work with a noisy displacement shader added. Best of luck :)

On second thought...
Here is a material nodes only answer:

It will take a pretty dense mesh:

But, It renders pretty quickly.


Save all images using names of materials

The following script should resave your images the way you want. Copy and paste this into blenders text editor and click Run Script.

If the same image is used by multiple materials, it will save a copy of the image for each material but only one will be used for all materials.

import bpy
import os

editor = bpy.context.screen.areas[1]
old_type = editor.type
editor.type = 'IMAGE_EDITOR'
override = bpy.context.copy()
override['area'] = editor

def rename_image(img, mat_name, img_count):
    editor.spaces.active.image = img
    fp = bpy.path.abspath(img.filepath)
    pardir = os.path.dirname(fp)
    sufx = fp.split('.')[-1]
    if img_count > 1:
        img_name = mat_name + '_' + str(img_count)
    else:
        img_name = mat_name
    img.name = img_name
    new_path = os.path.join(pardir, img_name + '.' + sufx)
    bpy.ops.image.save_as(override, filepath=new_path)

for mat in bpy.data.materials:
    mat_imgs = 0
    if mat.use_nodes:
        nt = mat.node_tree.nodes
        for n in nt:
            if n.type == 'TEX_IMAGE':
                mat_imgs += 1
                rename_image(n.image, mat.name, mat_imgs)
    else:
        for s in mat.texture_slots:
            if s is not None and s.texture.type == 'IMAGE':
                mat_imgs += 1
                rename_image(s.texture.image, mat.name, mat_imgs)

editor.type = old_type


In Object mode :

Press N to show the properties panel
Select your object
You can set the dimension from the panel

Note :

These are the dimensions of the bounding box and not the height, width and depth of the cube
You can't set the diameter height as you did when creating the object


Yes and no...
Yes if you have simple blend files, I saw that 2.8 opens them pretty easily. If you re-save them using 2.8, then, yeah you cannot open them in 2.79. Blender will crash.

No, if you have Armatures blend files (I've been using a simple biped rig from the internet, much like 3DS Max has) then you will have issues.
Also, I saw that collections tend to disappear from one save to another... (but maybe is because the Armature rig is coming from a 2.7x version...)


Press Alt+E then select Extrude along normals.


Applying images(textures) to singular faces on top of UV Map?

You don't provide enough details, maybe you could keep one unique UVmap and mix your pictures with a MixRGB node (as explained further), but it might simplify your work if you create 2 different UVmaps:

Now create 1 picture for each UVmap, for the second one keep a transparent background (when you create your picture, set RGB and Alpha values to 0). You can also export the UVmap and work the pictures in an image editor like Photoshop or Krita:

In the Node (Shader) Editor create 2 Input > UV Map nodes and select the 2 different UVmaps you've created, plug them into a Color > MixRGB node (by default choose the Mix mode), plug the 2nd Image Texture's Alpha output into the MixRGB factor. Then MixRGB > Diffuse > Material Output. If you only need one UVmap, skip the creation of the 2 UV Map nodes.

Now your background and your pictures mix on the surface of your object:


Creating a copy of a bpy_prop_collection instance?

Save as a library

Possibly the simplest way to do this is to save the required objects to a library

import bpy
scene = bpy.context.scene
dump = [scene]
dump.extend(o for o in scene.objects)

bpy.data.libraries.write(
        "/tmp/scene_dump.blend",
        set(dump),
        fake_user=True,
        compress=True)

then link or append back as req'd (py console code)

>>> with D.libraries.load("/tmp/scene_dump.blend") as (src, dest):
...     src.scenes
...     src.objects
...
['Scene']
['Suzanne', 'Speaker', 'Camera.001']

Have a look at rna_*** modules

In the 2.XX/scripts/modules/ folder you will find some modules prefixed with "rna_".  Check them out for an exhaustive guide on how to navigate blenders rna.

An example of using rna_xml.py to dump the context scene into a file.

import bpy
from rna_xml import rna2xml

scene = bpy.context.scene

scene_dump = "/tmp/scenedump.xml"

with open(scene_dump, "wt") as f:
    rna2xml(fw=f.writelines,
    root_rna=scene,
    root_node="Scene")

A small snippet of the 100+ megabyte file produced

  <objects>
    <Object name="Cube"
            users="1"
            use_fake_user="FALSE"
            tag="FALSE"
            is_library_indirect="FALSE"
            library="NONE"
            override_static="NONE"
            data="Mesh::Cube"
            type="MESH"
            mode="OBJECT"
            layers_local_view="FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE"
            bound_box="-1 -1 -1 -1 -1 1 -1 1 1 -1 1 -1 1 -1 -1 1 -1 1 1 1 1 1 1 -1"
            parent="NONE"
            parent_type="OBJECT"


What am I doing wrong? Rendering takes forever

FBX doesn't export simulations unless you are exporting every vert position in every frame and that is absolutely not optimal. I assume you are trying to export this to a game engine because FBX is 3d model format. If you are using a game engine you have two options:
Do the vfx in the game engine instead. Blender's vfx system cannot transfer into game engines.
Render out your animation and use the video in your game engine: and in the properties panel<Scene<Film<Render click the check box next to Transparent background. I think the QT video codec supports transparent video. This method is not optimal.


Exporting as obj.All at once (noob question)

Google search yielded this
Export multiple objects to .obj

As expected it involves scripting, so not sure if it will work for you, but I don't think there's any way to do it natively through the GUI


This is normal.  Some people create their source object/group lying down so that it's upright when Blender uses it, so you could simply rotate your source object.

However, you can fix it in the Particle System settings.
Select the particle system tab and find the Rotation section.
There is a setting "Initial Orientation", which is probably set to "None" or "Velocity/Hair".
Try changing this to "Global Z".  (depending on the orientation of your original object, you might need to use a different one).


There is no simple solution to this.

Animating the group itself is not a problem, you can use the AnimAll addon or just stack multiple vertex groups with the Vertex Group Mix modifier where you can animate the influence of participating groups on the final one.

The problem is that when you need to change the pinned vertices, you need the simulation to continue where it ended the frame before. But the simulation will not pin the vertices where they currently are, but where they were before the simulation started. Those newly pinned vertices would just jump from frame to frame to their un-simulated location.

To solve this in Blender, you need to create multiple simulations that closely start where the previous ends (and they need to start-end with similar motion also). Then you need to create one extra mesh so you can interpolate between all those simulations and smooth merge them into shapekey animation:

How to bake softbody animation into keyframes?

You will have to modify the script to sample from multiple meshes and to smoothly transition between them, but most of the code is there.

When sampling the simulations you take locations from first simulation and when you approach the second you smoothly switch to it's vertex coordinates.

The results can be very good and convincing. It is common practice in many simulation applications when the simulation is not precise enough like you want and you need to hand sculpt some key poses of the cloth into the simulation.

If you want to avoid the scripting, you can also use multiple Mesh Deform modifiers to those simulations and then blend between them with influence. But when your simulation changes, you can simply re-run the script while otherwise you need to rearrange, re-bind and re-animate those modifiers.


How to bake high to low poly normals for multiple objects on one normal map?

It's actually very simple. no need for weird ways.
Simply uncheck "clear" (in 2.7) or "clear image" (in2.8) in your bake settings, then bake each object at a time, assuming they don't share UV space.

/!\ watch out for the margin, make sure to set it low enough it doesn't overlap with an other UV island


Control Cycles material nodes and material properties in Python

Here is how to change material properties, you can see all of them here or see the python path when you hover over in the UI on some material attribute:
    import bpy

    # get the material
    mat = bpy.data.materials['Material_Name']
    # change its parameters - example viewport diffuse color:
    mat.diffuse_color = (1,0,0)

Here is how to manipulate material nodes and thus the material look itself:

Get the nodes:
  import bpy

  # get the material
  mat = bpy.data.materials['Material_Name']
  # get the nodes
  mat.use_nodes = True
  nodes = mat.node_tree.nodes

  # get some specific node:
  # returns None if the node does not exist
  diffuse = nodes.get("Diffuse BSDF")

Create driver:
  # insert driver to roughness
  driver = diffuse.inputs[1].driver_add("default_value")
  var = driver.driver.variables.new()
  var.name = "variable"
  var.targets[0].data_path = "PATH"
  var.targets[0].id = "Target_Object_Name"
  driver.driver.expression = "variable"

  # remove driver
  diffuse.inputs[1].driver_remove("default_value")

Keyframes:
  # insert key frame to roughness at frame 10
  diffuse.inputs[1].keyframe_insert("default_value", frame=10)

Create nodes, here are all the node types you can create (look for subclasses):
  # remove specific node
  nodes.remove(diffuse)

  # clear all nodes to start clean
  nodes.clear()

  # create emission node
  node_emission = nodes.new(type='ShaderNodeEmission')
  node_emission.inputs[0].default_value = (0,1,0,1)  # green RGBA
  node_emission.inputs[1].default_value = 5.0 # strength
  node_emission.location = 0,0

  # create output node
  node_output = nodes.new(type='ShaderNodeOutputMaterial')
  node_output.location = 400,0

Link nodes:
  # link nodes
  links = mat.node_tree.links
  link = links.new(node_emission.outputs[0], node_output.inputs[0])

  # get specific link
  from_s = node_emission.outputs[0]
  to_s = node_output.inputs[0]
  link = next((l for l in links if l.from_socket == from_s and l.to_socket == to_s), None)

  # remove links
  links.remove(link)

As before hower over node atributes in UI to see the python paths


Armature is not moving all vertex equally even though they have the same weight

Sometimes vertices are assigned to more than one bone by accident, and Blender gets confused. A bit tedious but go through vertex groups one by one and see what’s being selected. Can also check this with weight paint, but found Vertex groups more accurate.


Converting Particles to Mesh not working (Blender 2.8)

In Blender 2.79,

After converting the particles to mesh,

You need to Click on the Plane and go back to Particle Tab and remove the Particles on the Plane.

This can also be helpful in 2.8


Issues with the Boolean Modifier on Blender 2.83

It might just need to be applied, the changes you have done before using boolean. this sometimes makes it happy, some times not!! Command or control A Keys.


How to merge all scene geometry into a single mesh?

First make all duplis real, then convert all to mesh and join.

Object -> Apply -> Make Duplicates Real
Object -> Convert to -> Mesh (This applies mesh modifiers too)
Select the base object to join into (Shift+RMB)
Object -> Join

Shorthand: Ctrl+Shift+A -> Alt+C, M -> Shift+RMB -> Ctrl+J.

Note, You might want to first un-hide all objects, view all layers and make any linked data local too, thats if you want to apply to the entire scene and not just what you see.


One thing you can try is to scale selected vertices while locking normal Z axis.

To do so, enable Normal transform orientation with Alt+Space or from viewport header. Select vertices, enable Scale tool with S and press Shift+Z to lock movement along global Z axis, then Shift+Z once again to lock normal Z axis. After that move your mouse to change amount of effect.

It's also possible to move vertices as well while constraining normal Z axis making them roughly stay on the same surface.


constraining an empty to the intersection of two coplanar segments

I'm going to post what it is that I believe you are looking for.

If it is wrong, I can always come back and delete the answer.

What I did was add two empties:

The 'Base' located to the center of rotation of the rod which also has the driver on the y rotation.

AND

The 'Top' which is parented to the z-rotation arm.

THEN

solved the triangle with a simple trig function using the view plane of X/Z.

You just need to know the absolute difference between the 'basex' & 'topx' locations for the 'X-axis' for the horizontal leg of the triangle, then get the absolute distance for the 'basez' & 'topz' locations for the 'Z-axis' for the vertical leg, and use the 'atan' function to get the angle of this relationship.

So I ended up with these four variables in the driver:

basex, topx, basez, topz

and I used this as the expression:

atan( (abs(basex - topx)*1.0000000000)  /  (abs(basez - topz)*1.0000000000) )

The reason for using the '1.0000000000' value was to force the calculation to be multiplied at this many decimal places for rotational accuracy.

Here's the Blend File:

NOTE:

Select the rotational arm and rotate about 'Z' to see the effect.
Select the rod to see the driver in the graph editor
For some reason, the driver value can get stuck and not update the solution before the frame updates so maybe reducing the Multiply by 1.0000000000 to 1.0000 is good enough in this case as it should really decrease the effort of calculation. After doing this, and making the hole of the crank more fitting for the bent rod to twist and elongate elliptically, I was able to get a much better solve with the same logic.


Pressing "Play Animation" Not Doing Anything

Solution: It turns out the "Keymap" was actually the problem! I had disabled some parameters of the keymap, to give me a bit more space to assign keys myself. The specific parameter that was causing this issue was screen.animation_step > Timer > Timer 0. Restoring that to its original state, fixed the playback issue! Hope this helps for other people that have modified their keymaps!


Prioritizing modifiers between different objects

Not directly.

If a modifier (e.g. Am1) takes another object (B) as input, it will use the result of all modifiers applied to that object (i.e. it will depend on Bm1 and Bm2).

If you need a modifier on one object that only uses some of the modifiers on another (e.g B + Bm1) then you need to make a copy of that object with only the modifiers you need.

If you make the copy using Alt+D rather than Shift+D then both objects will share the same mesh, so any edits on one will update the other.


Since all outputs and original video opened in QT and Blender is "desaturated" in the same way, I would say that it is more like wrong interpretation of colours in VLC. There is also noticeable contrast in VLC that totally flatten black parts (hairs) = loose all the rest of details that wasn't destroyed by camera and compression already.

Original video and rendered VSE PNG inside Blender ...

... they perfectly match (top row on bottom row with blend type - Different). I used curves to bring contrast in extreme values to see result better. Completely black.

BTW also your screen of PNG's match perfectly.

But result differs when the same data (video and render is opened in VLC.

Rendering into QuickTime H.264, opened in QT, produce differences only due compression artefacts.


What do blue and black edges mean in edit mode?

Blue(Cyan, to be exact) means it's marked 'Sharp'.  If you are using the default blender theme that is.  This colour can be different in different Themes.

The reason they are blue are probably because the original mesh you extracted these faces from, had all its edges marked 'Sharp'.  3D Scanned objects are known to have interesting stuff tagged with their surface information.  And to blender, those stuffs tagged sometimes are identified as 'Sharp' or other markings.

Black lines, those aren't on your mesh, are probably glitches, or they belong to a very huge object in the background.  You can try to select them in the current edit mode showed in the picture.  If you can select them, they exist inside current editing-object.  Otherwise they belong to other objects in your scene.  Note that Lamp and other type of objects also use black lines to show themselves.

Those on your mesh, obviously are the wires that create faces and connects vertices.


should the size of polygons of a 3d model be the same?

You don't have to care about keeping the same size for all the quads, a topology doesn't need to be homogeneous, only bring edge loops when it's useful, delete all the ones that don't bring anything to the shape, you'll save calculation and your object will be easier to work.
For example look at this topology: You have small quads around the lips, they are bigger around the forehead, and even bigger around the shoulders, because it's exactly what's necessary for these parts, no more, no less.


Everything is just Orange. Shockwave missing beats

Since there is a lot going on I'm going to break it down into bullets.

The black A: Lights don't go across layers. Layer one with the A has no lights causing the A to be black.

Everything is orange because you only have one render layer and do the compositing to the whole scene. You need to make a non orange render layer and have it alpha over in the compositor. See the below images:

Settings for orange layer. Notice how only the second layer is selected.

Settings for non orange layer. Notice how only the first layer is selected. Also turn OFF sky.

I'm not sure why you have additional compositing to the viewer I ignored that. Coming out of your current final node use an alpha over to combine the render layers.

I don't do audio in Blender so I can't help you there.


How to make a complex selection of an image over a cylinder top/bottom face and extrude to make a coin

As said in comment above, this could be done with texture displacement, like this:

of course the provided texture is probably not trimmed enough but you get the idea.

Note: I used a default circle, then filled with about 500 vertices, then subsurfed 5 times... which brings you about 1000x vertices, otherwise your coin face will be much more rough than this... of course it's damn slow.

Another way could be to vectorize the b/w image to svg (eg: use inkscape), then import svg into blender and then extrude... then add a cylinder "body", refine, and try exporting to .stl and similar.

eg., it could end like this

Note:the vertices count could be somewhat smaller in this case, but as usual, the more detail, the best results. In this case you can't easily smooth using subsrf, though... you could need a lot of mesh adjustment to correct (very) bad topology.

You have to find the best settings, it also depends on 3d printer resolution, of course...


How do I make settings in 1 scene affect other scene?

You can send a message to objects in other scenes.

You then use a message sensor to receive the message.


Staying flexible in the level of detail?

While you're indecisive regarding the required resolution of your mesh you could use a sub division surface modifier

On cylinders you would need to add support loops to avoid distorsion of the mesh. You could can be add the support loops by selecting both edge-rings and bevel (Shift-B). Alternatively to the support loops you could try an Edge split modifier


Help with exporting a 3d model in ~.stl format and adding colour data

According to wikipedia there are two different schemes in use for including color data in an stl file.  Unfortunately, they differ significantly from each other, and there is no way to specify which is in use in a file.

So first, I would determine which format matlab exects.  This script says it can save in VisCam/SolidView format, so it would be reasonable to expect it to import this format as well, but you'd better check.  The problem here is that blender doesn't support the colored format, so you'll have to modify blender's export script...

Since all you're doing is exporting it to view with matlab, a different format that supports textures would probably be a better choice.  STL is meant for 3d prototyping, where color typically doesn't matter.

As for the other questions, I'm not sure.  Usually it's better to put each question in it's own post.


To display the flame, connect the Volume Info/ Flame socket to the Blackbody intensity socket of your Principled Volume shader

As regards having a sustained flame, without the moment when it "ramps up", I believe the easiest way is to just bake your simulation cache for many frames, then remove the first 66 frames from the animation (Render > Start > 67). It's impossible to skip the baking of the phase where the flames develop, because you can't easily create an already-burning starting condition.

You could in principle move the smoke cache 66 frames forward, but it's hacky (requires moving several files manually) and I wouldn't suggest it.


Import/Export Rhino's 3DM format to/from blender

I have successfully imported a 3dm file into Blender on manjaro linux using following plugin : https://github.com/jesterKing/import_3dm