Video Sequence not fully loading in video editor

I faced the same issue just now. You should use ffmpeg to re-encode the video, specifying a bitrate and forcing frames to be duplicated. This worked for me:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -crf 0 -c:a copy -r 30 -vsync cfr output.mp4

This will generate a huge file because it's not compressing the video at all; if space is an issue, you can play with the -cfr parameter, bringing it to 20 or so (higher numbers mean more compression).


UV mapping results in stretched texture on simple mesh

The reason is that your generated checker texture does not use the UV-Map.
Go to the Shading workspace, add a UV-Map node and connect it to the Vector input of your Checker Texture.


How to change texture interpolation of many images all at once?

You would have to find all image texture nodes and set their interpolation type to 'Closest':
import bpy

# Run through all materials of the current blend file
for mat in bpy.data.materials:
    # If the material has a node tree
    if mat.node_tree:
        # Run through all nodes
        for node in mat.node_tree.nodes:
            # If the node type is texture
            if node.type == 'TEX_IMAGE':
                # Set the interpolation -> Linear, Closest, Cubic, Smart
                node.interpolation = 'Closest'

See: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.ShaderNodeTexImage.html#bpy.types.ShaderNodeTexImage.interpolation


From your question, I think you have one large plane pointing straight down as your light. If that is the case there in lies your problem.

Move your light off axis. If you want your shadow to be in the same place as the shaded preview, then move it along the -X axis and towards the camera. Next rotate the light towards your ground object. Now, if the light is a a low enough angle, each hump will cast a shadow. (your text will also, but that is a different issue)


You say .. 'mesh between the edges of two different objects'...

Since 2.8, it's possible to put 2 objects into Edit Mode simultaneously, which is very useful for snapping, common deformation, etc. But they are still 2 objects - their meshes are separate.

Your problem is not that you're trying to connect partial loops:

.. but that you're trying to merge meshes which belong to separate objects.

CtrlJ join the objects, or ShiftD duplicate parts of their meshes, P temporarily separate them off into their own objects, and join those, to make the bridge within one mesh.


How do I remove test code that sticks to the Info Panel?

Reload Scripts.

Go to the python console and type in:

bpy.ops.script.reload()

Or press F3 to bring up the Search Menu and type Reload Scripts:

You will have to run any non registered script again to have a single menu.  I have this operator prepended to my py console and text editor areas.

Or temporarily tack it to top of script while developing.

It had the default keymap  F8 in 2.7x and prior.


"VERTEX" parent type in python not working

For me, your script does not break at the parent_type setting line, but one line later. The parent_vertices array does not expect an object to be given, but an integer: it is the index number of the vertex that needs to be passed on. This slightly modified version of your script works for me in both 2.76 and 2.78:

import bpy

meshobj=bpy.context.object

empt = bpy.data.objects.new("Empty", None)
empt.parent = meshobj
empt.parent_type = 'VERTEX'

# only pass on the index, not the vertex object
empt.parent_vertices[0] = 1

# add the object to the scene so we see what's happening
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(empt)


FloatProperty seen as a tuple when adding hard_min or hard_max

If you have a look at the FloatProperty documentation you will notice there is NO hard_min/hard_max parameters.  Suggest using min and max instead.

As an example we'll add some undefined grombo parameter to a FloatProperty

    threshold = bpy.props.FloatProperty(
        name = "Threshold",
        description = "Threshold",
        soft_min = 0.00001,
        soft_max = 0.1,
        grombo = 99,
        #hard_min = 0.0001,
        #hard_max = 10,
        step = 0.01,
        precision = 5,
        default = 0.001
    )

    def execute(self, context):

        print(self.threshold)
        t2 = self.threshold * self.threshold
        print(t2)
        return {'FINISHED'}

and run the operator in the py console

>>> bpy.ops.object.my_operator()
(<built-in function FloatProperty>, {'soft_max': 0.1, 'precision': 5, 'step': 0.01, 'default': 0.001, 'grombo': 99, 'description': 'Threshold', 'soft_min': 1e-05, 'name': 'Threshold', 'attr': 'threshold'})
Error: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/batfinger/3DModels/Tests/movebones.blend/Text.001", line 25, in execute
TypeError: can't multiply sequence by non-int of type 'tuple'

ie, if there is an undefined parameter, then the value returned is a (function, {parameters}) tuple, hence the rather cryptic error.


The answer is: it's not a rotation.  If you visualize the circular rails around which the vertices would travel in a rotation, you can see that.

If you wanted a transform to do the job, on parallel rails, it would be a shear. (ShiftCtrlAltS). But that's expressed in terms of offset, which would be half the length of the vertical edge to get 45 degrees, and would be awkward.

So the best idea here is probably a cut. Hit K and left-click on your starting vertex. It should highlight green. Hit C to snap the cut to 45 degrees, (and Z if you need to cut through more than one layer of faces), and move the mouse over to the opposite edge, until you see the highlight again. Left-click to 'plant' the other end of the cut, and the Space bar to confirm it.


What Value is Filmic Using to calculate Maximum Scene sRGB Intensities?

If your question is which scene referred value would become the display referred (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) triplet after the Filmic View Transform has done its job,  the answer (currently) is:

(2 to the power of 6.5) * 0.18

which in numbers is

16.291740238....

The 0.18 is the scene referred value that Filmic deliberately has chosen as the 'middle grey' reference value. The 2 to the power of 6.5 part basically comes from the maximum value being defined as 6.5 stops over middle grey. A table of sample values is provided in the readme of Troy Sobotka's filmic-blender GitHub repository.

The value is taken from the resulting pixel values after the rendering stage. In photographic terms, that would be the amount of energy that lands on the film stock or digital sensor. So in essence, camera rays received.

Be aware that these values are deliberate choices by Troy Sobotka, and are bound to change with future iterations of Filmic. Also it's worth noting that any scene referred value above the given 16.291740238 will also give display referred (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) in sRGB color space.

User remco together with Troy himself pointed out to me:

  That 0.18 (or 18%) is the gray value that is (or was) considered to
  correspond to the gray that the human eye sees as halfway between
  black and white, and used on e.g. exposition targets (Kodak grey
  card). Thus, it's not a completely arbitrary choice.

It is important for me to point out that with deliberate i was never attempting to say arbitrary. Designing a View Transform like filmic-blender is both a matter of color science and craftsmanship. Thus there is some level of freedom for the one designing it to define the boundaries. The high clip value which the initial question was asking for is such a choice. It could technically be at a different energy level, but in a rendering context the choice made has proven to serve a high number of use cases well. The scene referred 0.18 middle grey value however is a convention which I missed in the initial answer, so thanks for the comments.


How to fix problems withe textures of imported model?

In render properties change render engine from eevee to cycles.
Create new material, assign this material to pink place and copy nodes from other texture, then change properties for current nodes.


When I import and edit a .fbx file and export with Blender, the file size gets bigger than it was

different softwares export things slightly differently. You can't expect the same exact file sizes from both Unity and Blender. File sizes will always be slightly different. :)


Enable a complete IK Chain from the top pivot bone to the last moving bone, then, in the Inverse Kinematics bones tab, lock all rotations on the little "Cylinders" bones, and lock all rotations except the axis you need on the big "Cubes" bones (in my example, Z axis, enable axis visualization if needed).


Is there another way to make a coloured topography?

You could try something like this:

This will render in the viewport using the blender internal rendering engine, with GLSL shading (under the "shading" section of the tools menu ("N") of the 3D viewport), if you set the viewport to Textured render (ALT+z).

The "Orco" geometry input works such that the highest point on the mesh (including stray/hidden vertices) along the local z axis is red, and the lowest point is blue. It will not update in edit mode; tabbing in and out will change it.

If you want the gradient along the y or x axes instead, just change the output of the "seperate RGB" node (working here as a separate vector XYZ node) to G or R respectively.

You may need to modify your model such that the local z axis is aligned with the same direction you want your gradient.

Hope that helps!


Parts of mesh missing after exporting to OBJ

So I was able to fix it myself, the problem were those huge Ngons created by the Bevel.
This works fine in Blender but seems to be a problem in Outfit Studio/Nifskope.

Now I created faces with 4 vertices like this and it works fine:


Trying to find the threshold setting for the Fill brush in 2.8

"Fill Threshold" is now in the "Advanced" menu :


Here's how you do it,

Create a Sphere
Select the Center Edge loop
Press Ctrl +  B to bevel the edge

Go to Face -> Extrude along normals

Extrude the faces inside to create the desired effect

Result:


Play animation frame by frame then pausing Python

As suggested by @batFINGER, frame_change handler was used as shown below:

def my_handler(scene):
    retVal = myFunc()
    myFunc2(retVal)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(my_handler)


The mesh is very messy so you can't really expect any tool to do a good job here. You can try Limited Dissolve (X-menu) and adjust the Angle and see if that works.
Otherwise it might be faster to remodel it.


Why aren't my clothes assigned weights? Why can't I assign loose geometry to a bone?

i am in the same hussle, even if you have a bone and a vertex group you hit assign and nothing happends. So frustating, a solution to me is isolate the mesh to an OBJECT (i dont want to do this but...) and select armature, then bone, then object and then parent to bone.
I KNOW that it should work as you explain but i dont know IT dosent, and it is from various version. It is a bug?


You can paint in Texture Paint mode and toggle symmetry in the Symmetry panel for X, Y and Z axis.

If you want to just mirror the texture, you can delete one half of the model and use a mirror modifier, unwrap the mesh to align with your intended texture and then apply the mirror modifier to get the mesh UVs to align on both sides.

edit: To use the mirror modifier to align both sides to a single side of paint image, I first delete and add a mirror modifier. I unwrap and arrange my UVs to get the most pixels in the image bounds. I set a new image with a grid to check the density and see if it is even, also still looking for stretching. I apply the mirror and set up a new image at the resolution I want to paint from the Slots tab in the texture toolbar. The painting then is all mirrored across the x axis here.


How do you make holes in a cylinder sharp using subdivision surface modifier?

I've looked at a lot of similar questions on here, and it seems the only answer is to fill in your holes, then do your subsurf modifier and apply it, and then cut out your holes afterwards.


Someone please explain why materials only apply when i click on use nodes

You're in Solid shading mode which doesn't support node-based materials.
Switch to Material Preview or Rendered preview and nodes will work properly.


AFAIK there is no one-klick method for this and every possible way to pull this off requires a decent amount of work. Let's break down what we actually can do with the limited information about your model/scene you provide.

Let's assume (by the look of the screenshots) that your model is a minecraft-like structure where the original blocks (before joining) only touch each other's faces and never intersect and they also don't have merged vertices. What we then can do with this, is separating the model into individual primitives quite easily.

Tab into edit mode, hit A to select everything, then P to start separating and select "by loose parts" in the menu.

Now, that we have separate blocks we could try combining the meshes step by step using the boolean modifier with the union operator.

The bad news is that the boolean modifier might not work as expected on many occasions (if you have mesh intersections or the meshes simply have no connecting faces...) and with "more than a thousand" partly hidden faces this method will be so much work that you easily could reconstruct your model from scratch as well.


What happens if the mass of a rigidbody doesn't match to it's volume X density?

It's not that the mass doesn't match  density * volume, it's that the density is defined by
mass / volume.
 Needless to say, the default mass of 1 gram makes most objects very much the opposite of "dense" ;)

To calculate physically accurate values for mass based on measured density of real-world materials, try using the Calculate Mass operator in 3D view > Tool Shelf (T) > Physics > Rigid Body Tools:


Is it possible to have coordinate system with 3D cursor as origin?

Xavier, you can position a selection at a set of coordinates in the edit menu by using the 3D cursor location on the Properties menu N.
You can then move a selected point to the cursor location using the Snap menu Shift+S and selecting "Selection to Cursor"
This positions the selection using the global coordinate system.

You can also enter the coordinates of the active vertex directly using that same menu.

Beneath the coordinates, you  specify weather the location is in local or global coordinates.
You could then combine that with the cursor location.


How to rig eyelid to follow non-spherical eyeball

Shapekeys and lattice would probably not give satisfying results, so you could use a system of bones and create a series of poses to open and close your eyes. Giving the curve of your eyes, 3 poses should be necessary and enough. You'll probably need to scale one or two bones so that it sticks to the eye and don't emerge out of the face. Also, you may need more bones if you want to be more precise (like 3 horizontal rows of 2 bones instead of 3x1).

The method: create 3 bones within your character armature and parent them to the head bone. Here there is one bone for each row of faces (I've simplified your mesh). Give them names like eyelid1_L, etc... Parent the mesh to the armature With Empty Groups, then assign each faces row to the vertex group it is supposed to be part of, i.e. the group with the name of the bone that is supposed to control it. Now when you'll move a bone, the corresponding part of the mesh will follow.


You have the center of your view locked to Bullet 001. If you click on the x beside the name field, the navigation is suddenly "normal".


How to stop smoke simulation from rising?


What is a best way to organize my own kitbash library?

There is an ongoing project for future Blender 2.8X called Asset Engine to improve the asset and library management features of Blender.

It will feature local file system based storage of assets with tagging and organization features, and previewing capabilities as stated in the Wiki.

It is unknown at this point when it will be ready and integrated into official releases, however it is unlikely to make it into the first official 2.80 release.

At the moment you can currently organize your assets as group instances or even individual  objects and generate datablock preview images for them. You can then browse the assets using Blender's built in file browser with thumbnail previewing capabilities-


You need more subdivisions on the arch. UVs determine the placement of textures on the geometry. If the image has to be somehow scaled or shifted then large faces with no subdivisions tend to create errors. As a general rule try to avoid ngons (faces with more than 4 vertices) and distrubute the geometry at regular intervals.


I played around a little bit and came up with the following setting for the plastic and the fluid, I think it comes close to the real anti-frost fluid/container and by changing the settings slightly you should get what you want. I would also make the walls thinner, in the corners you can see that there is still quite a lot of plastic


Automatic weights not working ( bone heat weighting failed on 1 or more bones)

Welcome to Blender Stack Exchange! You've come to the right place.

Blender's automatic weighting system has some known limitations. That's not to say it's bad, it just has a few things that you have to keep in mind. The main thing that it struggles with is overlapping/intersecting geometry. In your model, there are a lot of small intersecting components. This isn't bad, it will just take a few more steps.

Blender can easily separate one object into a few, parent those, then merge them back into one object. That is what I would suggest here.

I did some quick testing on your model, using L to select sections then P to separate them. I started with the main body sections (torso, head, hands, feet, etc.) and separated them into a new object. That parented just fine, so the issue isn't there. I kept going, removing a few meshes at a time, typically in the same area (ex. wrist, scarf, mouth) until I found a group that failed. It appears to be that the 3 upper band on each leg cause issues, as do the straps on his feet. It is possible that other areas cause issues, and my selection order avoided them.

I would suggest doing exactly what I did. Select a few parts at a time, separate them, parent them, then join them again once they've been separated. If the separated objects still fail, separate them further. In the case of the leg bands, separating the middle band worked fine. Just keep going until it works. It doesn't appear that any mesh sections themselves have any issues. If they do (as in you cannot separate them any further without breaking individual parts), scale up the rig and the part by the same factor, say 10, then try parenting again. The automatic weighting system also has issues with vertices that are close together. Once it works, scale it back down by the same amount (up by 10 would be down by .1 for example) and it should be fine.


Go into edit mode
Select the faces you want for one color , And click the + button in  the materials section

This will apply the color to all faces , Next click on another face , click the + button , and click "Assign" this will give the selected face the new material


If I understood right from the video here's what you're looking for.

Just select the edges by pressing B key to box select (in wireframe mode).

With Ctrl+B bevel the edges and with the mouse wheel scrolling make 1 loop at center.

Press Ctrl+- from the keyboard to deselect the edges so that only the center edge is selected.

With the edges selected press S to scale and press shift+Z (to unscale in the Z axis).


How to set grease pencil palette when creating new strokes with python?

A grease pencil object has a list of palettes, each palette has a list of colours. The name of each colour can be used in strokes.new() or be set after creation.

So you can use str = fr.strokes.new(colorname='red') or

str = fr.strokes.new()
str.colorname='red'

An example script that creates a palette and colours -

import bpy

scn = bpy.context.scene

if scn.grease_pencil:
    gp = scn.grease_pencil
else:
    gp = bpy.data.grease_pencil.new('mygp')
    scn.grease_pencil = gp

if gp.layers:
    gpl = gp.layers.active
else:
    gpl = gp.layers.new('gpl', set_active = True )

if gpl.frames:
    fr = gpl.active_frame
else:
    fr = gpl.frames.new(1)

if gp.palettes:
    gp_palette = gp.palettes.active
else:
    gp_palette = gp.palettes.new('mypalette')

if 'red' in gp_palette.colors:
    red_col = gp_palette.colors['red']
else:
    red_col = gp_palette.colors.new()
    red_col.name = 'red'
    red_col.color = (1.0,0.0,0.0)

if 'blue' in gp_palette.colors:
    blue_col = gp_palette.colors['blue']
else:
    blue_col = gp_palette.colors.new()
    blue_col.name = 'blue'
    blue_col.color = (0.0,0.0,1.0)

str = fr.strokes.new(colorname=red_col.name)
str.draw_mode = '3DSPACE'
str.line_width = 3
str.points.add(count=2)
str.points[0].co = (2.0,1.0,0.0)
str.points[1].co = (-2.0,1.0,0.0)

str = fr.strokes.new()
str.draw_mode = '3DSPACE'
str.colorname=blue_col.name
str.line_width = 3
str.points.add(count=2)
str.points[0].co = (2.0,2.0,0.0)
str.points[1].co = (-2.0,2.0,0.0)


Viewing background through alpha channel of foreground object

If you want the planes to be in 3D space, then you could try using a material like this on the plane with the green screen:

This mixes between a transparent shader and a emission shader based on the difference between the the second color input of the mix node and the pixels in the image. Pixels which are within a .07 tolerance of the green color in the mix node will be transparent, other pixels will be opaque.


My 3D object looks different when exporting it to Unity?

It sort of looks like you have a subsurf modifier on the object. Unity doesn't actually take the raw blender file when you import it as an asset. It actually exports the blender model as an fbx and then imports that into Unity. Exporters tend to apply modifiers before they export. What Unity is allowing you to do is sit back while it does all of the export/import work for you. It's also going to have some wonkiness when it comes to translating the materials so you should always use a UV texture even if you're just talking about a flat color on the object just so you have some predictability and control.


Rendering a semi transparent object on a transparent background

Your problem is that you are adding the shaders instead of mixing them. Therefore, the material is interpreted by Cycles as being 100% transparent, regardless of what else it is.

You can fix this by swapping out your Add Shader for a Mix Shader and plugging in your texture to the Fac value instead of the Strength of the Emission node.


"I adjusted the exposure but that didn't help"... maybe you mean: I didn't adjust the exposure "enough".
"My textures they turn white"
But what is white anyway?
In the case of digital images, "White" is not a color, it is just the limit of what the display can deal with, in other words it is when the data has reached the top of the scale (from $0$ or $100$%) in all three channels. If you want to have detail in the highlights, those highlights should be at a lower value than $100$%. Brighter values are ignored or "clipped", in other words, the display cannot show anything brighter than "white".
What should you do to get detailed highlights?
There are many approaches:
The first step is to evaluate the brightness or "exposure" of the scene. Use the "False Colour" setting in the color management section to view how hot the scene is. Very bright values will be displayed in red, and "blown out" or clipped values will be colored as white.

Or use the vectorscope on the Image Editor to see up to what point the highlights are being "clipped" (usually you can see a horizontal line at the top of the scale)

If you are lighting the scene with a HDR image, use the "strength" slider on the world/surface to bring the values to a point where the texture is not "blown out", or it falls within the limits of what is displayable.
Same scene but with lower strength on the environment texture:

Vectorscope and False Colour show that the highlights are not clipped anymore

The trade-off is that, in order to get detail on the highlights, the rest of the scene will go dark too. That is quite normal: it is hard to light a scene with a very large dynamic range, like the one you are showing, without additional lighting or re-interpreting the brightness values, or some other trickery.
In real life, a photographer would need to add powerful light sources inside the room to be able to capture detail in the highlights on the clouds, and the detail of direct sunlight in the room, plus the detail on shadows that are darker by several magnitudes. You could add some light sources to enhance or recreate the illusion of "realism". Those sources can be placed to recreate how the light coming from the window would bounce on a room.
Next image shows the same scene, with an area light placed where the direct sunlight illuminates the floor. Note that the area light illuminates only in one direction, and is set to be invisible to the camera using "is camera ray" on a Light path node:

A different solution would be to use the same HDR image to light the scene, and use nodes to make the camera see the same image at a different intensity in the background. As explained here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/113945/92768.
Or you can use the ASC-CDL node to change how the values of the scene are interpreted for the final image. As detailed in these links: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/69615/92768 and https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/57927/92768
Here's the same scene again, with the original values that caused clipping, but interpreted through the Color Balance/ASC-CDL node. Using Power and Slope the high values were brought down to levels below clipping, and the contrast of the scene was modified to brighten the darker areas.

Additionally, blender has tools to interpret the values of the rendered image using one of the different "looks" on the color management section. Try a "low contrast" or "very low contrast" setting.
The last solution I will propose, is to generate two or more different images, one for the interior of the room with the proper light values, and one for the exterior that is seen through the window and one for the very bright sunlight on the floor, and composite them together later.
The bottom line here is that the artistic intent, or subjective way to understand an image, might not match the values of the sene itself, those of the HDR images, or they might not fit within the limits of what can be displayed on the screen. So you will have to resort to interpretations, adjustments and tricks to reach your goal. There is no magic button to make things look "realistic": it is a highly subjective concept.


I also used hammer and blender. And had the same problems first. when you click n to oben the sidebar there is a tab where you can change the size.


Camera doesnt capture viewport in Blender 2.8

From trying to replicate the described problem, I found this potential pitfall (which has been confusing new users for years). The camera actually does move to the new viewpoint, but only shows grey.
If that is the problem you're having... it's because each Camera has its own Clipping Distance limits.

Once you've moved it far enough out, make sure the Camera's Clip End is increased enough so it encloses the distance back to the origin.


Why my textures have a dark color in game engine?

It sounds to me like you are struggling to get the image you see in the viewport to align with how your game performs in realtime. This is usually the fault of Multi-Texture shading, which is the default in-game render mode for BGE. If you want the game to look the same in and out of game, change the shading mode to GLSL.
Here is what my scene looks like when I see it in the Blender 3D view, or viewport.

Once I hit P though, it looks terrible!

The good thing is, this is an easy fix. Just click multitexture, and select GLSL in the dropdown menu. The tool bar that has this option can be opened and closed in the 3D view by pressing N.

Ah! Much better. As you can see, it matches the way i thought it should look from the 3D view perfectly!


How to completely remove an Animation Node tree from a blender file?

Open the node tree in the node editor.
While hovering over the node editor press space bar.
Search for Remove Animation Node Tree.
Execute the operation.

This should remove the tree completely.

I know it is a bit weird that you can't just delete the tree like others, the reason for it is a bit more technical. I don't want to go into details now.

The next version of AN will have a button in the footer/header of the node tree to remove the tree.


Animate location and scale relative to starting point

After some digging, I think the best approach is to animate deltaLoc and deltaScale instead of Loc and Scale. That's a bit of a pain because you can't just position the object in the viewport and keyframe it. You have to use the Delta Transform section of the Properties panel (under Object properties).

First keyframe the starting value at the beginning of the animation action (by pressing 'I' while hovering over the Delta Transform values in the Properties panel). The starting value will usually be 0 for DeltaLoc and DeltaRot or 1.0 for DeltaScale.
Then move and/or scale the object by changing these delta values in the Properties panel.
Once they object is in the correct ending position, add another keyframe for DeltaLoc and/or DeltaRot (again by pressing 'I' while hovering over the values).

Of course, you can add further keyframes for DeltaLoc and DeltaRot if you want a more complex animation.

Now when you append the object into a new scene you can position and scale it as appropriate and the animation will run relative to the object's new starting position and scale.

The advantage of this approach over using a parented empty is that you don't have to deal with an extra object.


HALF of the image is flipped on a curved plane?

Press 5 on Numpad and Press Ctrl+1 (User ortho and turn to back ortho) The Image will spread.

In Edit Mode Press U and select Project from view

Drag and make a new window as UV Image Editor

Scale UV on X and Y axis untill it match the mesh.


Trying to create visualization of EM waves

You can recreate the first image fairly well using the math function mesh (Add --> Mesh --> Math Function --> Z Math Function).

This is what we're aiming for here:

First, you need to enable the AddMesh:Extra Objects add-on (press CtrlAltU to access the system preferences)

Type in the wave function you want to display in the input box (I used Z = sin(x) + sin(y) for this example).

Then, delete the edges along one axis (I deleted the ones along X):

Select and add each edge loop using AltShiftRight Mouse Button.
After you've got 'em all, delete edges and faces only (X --> Only Edges and Faces).

From here you can take it to many different places, but here's a suggested workflow:

Convert the mesh to a curve, then add a fill.

Add a taper object (bezier curve with an arch shape along the Y axis), and set it as a taper object for the wave curve.

Add a subsurf modifier to get smoother curves.

In Cycles, set an emission material to the wave object and choose a proper color.

If you want to add particles for added effect, create another copy of the original wave mesh, then add a particle system to it.

Add a simple mesh circle (Add --> Mesh --> Circle).

Set Fill type: Triangle Fan

and Vertices: 6

Then rotate 90 degrees on X so that the circle faces the Y axis.

Apply rotation (CtrlA --> Rotation).

Apply the same material you created for the wave to this circle.

Use the following particle settings:

Emission:
Number: 50000
Jittering Amount: 2

Velocity:
Random: 2
Rot: 1

Physics:
Size: 0.025
Random Size: 1
Mass: 0

Render:
Emitter: False (uncheck)
Render type: Object
Dupli Object: The hexagonal circle you created earlier.
In the Scene tab on the Properties Window, turn Gravity off.

Run the animation (AltA) for a bit until you have a nice distribution of particles around your mesh.

That's about it!

You can enhance this further by adding depth of field or motion blur, but I'll let you find tutorials or other answers to find out how to do this.


How do you use the Curves modifier to make a smile or different shape?

First I would select your piece of jarn and press Alt + R to reset the rotation. I would do the alignment with the curve with translation (with G) and the axis-buttons on the settings of the Curve modifier alone. Then i would only manipulate the curve, not the jarn.
Apart from basic translation an rotation of the vertices of the curve, i would also Subdivide to create extra vertices for more control.
Lastly, and most importantly, it is useful to know you can rotate a curve vertex in Edit Mode around the length of the curve (in other words: adjust the tilt of the vertex) by pressing Ctrl + T.
twisted and untwisted:

Hope that helps.


Go to View- Properties - then under the OpenGPL Preview- change solid to texture


Nascent Space's comment:

If you didn't add enough geometry to sculpt, it won't do anything unless you click on the corners of it. Make sure to either turn on dyntopo at the top right of the sculpting viewport or add a subdivision surface in the modifiers tab, or just subdivide the cube in edit mode.


How can inner parts of a mesh be selected?

Select using Limit Selection to Visible and Hide

One possible way to achieve this goal is to enable Limit Selection to Visible, select the outer surface, Invert Selection, then Hide it. This method could be particularly useful if your model has lots of cavities you want to hide.

For example, this mesh has an inner cavity with a pink ball in it:

To hide the model's outer shell, do this:

Select the object, then enter Edit mode with TAB
Enable Limit Selection to Visible in the 3D Viewport Header so that only faces visible to the camera can be selected:

Toggle into Quad View with CTRLALTQ

Switch to using the Circle Select tool (C), then increase the size of the selection circle by scrolling up with the scroll wheel (MMB) until you can select most of your model with 1 click
Now using the four windows of the Quad View, select all the outside faces, being careful not to select anything in the cavities:

Continue selecting until all outer faces are selected.
Note:

Since there is no "Back View", you will have to rotate in the User defined window to select those
Once you have used the Circle Select tool to select in one window, you must stop using the tool while in that window before you can begin to use it in another window. To stop using it, click the LMB (Left Mouse Button) in the window you began using it in

Rotate the mesh in the User defined window (upper right window) to see if you've successfully selected all the outer mesh. Keep selecting until it's all selected.
Note:

Sometimes you have to zoom in and look closely in order for the Circle Selection tool to actually select the geometry
If you accidentally select something you don't want selected, you can deselect it with the MMB (Middel Mouse Button/Scroll Wheel) while still using the Circle Selection tool

Once all the outer mesh is selected, Hide the selected faces by pressing H

If you find you have accidentally hidden parts of the mesh you do not want to hide, then Unhide with ALTH, edit your selection, then Hide again. Repeat as necessary:

Once you've made sure all your cavities are properly selected, Unhide the outer mesh, then Invert Selection with CTRLI, then Hide

Now all the cavities are hidden.


Array + Curve modifiers should make it work:

In Edit mode make sure that the curve direction is good, if not press W > Switch Direction.
Put the origin of the curve at its beginning point.
Put the arrow object at the same point.
Give your arrow an Array modifier with as many Count as you want and choose the Offset (distance between the arrows).
Give your arrow a Curve modifier, choose the Curve as Object, and choose the right Deformation Axis.
Move the arrow along the X or Y axis, depending on the orientation of the curve on the scene.


How can I get the "Render" and "Dimensions" panel

Switch from game engine to one of the render engines, blender internal or cycles.


Is there a way to procedurally scatter objects on the ground of my scene?

Placing Objects Randomly on the Ground with a Hair Particle System

Using a Hair Particle system is a very easy way to have objects scattered randomly on your ground plane. This can be very useful for creating litter in cities, rocks & sticks in woods, trees in forests, weeds in abandoned lots, etc:

Step #1: Create your Objects

Add to your scene one of each type of object you want to have scattered on the ground. In this example, I'm using 3 objects:

Each object's Origin Point is the point where the object will touch the ground plane. So, make sure to place the Origin Point accordingly. In this example, we'll move the Origin Point of each object to the mesh's bottom-most point:
Select an object > Edit mode (TAB) > select all (A) > move the object up until it's Origin is at the base of the object:

Now make all your objects a Group by selecting them all and pressing CTRLG
Then name your group something like "Object Group" in the Tools panel (T)

Now rotate all the objects 90 degrees on the Y axis. This is very important because in hair particle systems, particles use the global +X axis as "up" for orienting the particle (or object, as in the case here):
Object Mode > select object > R > Y > 90

You can now move them off to the side or to a different layer -- just don't rotate them.

Step #2: Make Your Particle System

Add a Hair particle system to your ground plane:
Select ground plane > Object Properties window > Particle System tab > click New > set Type to Hair

For the particle system, make the following settings:

Enable Advanced

In the Render section, select Group, and set Dupli Group to your object group, and enable Rotation

Enable the Rotation section, set Initial Orientation to Normal, and the (Rotation) Random to 1

In the Physics section, adjust the Size of your objects, and if you want some of the objects to be random sizes then adjust Random Size

Adjust the Number of objects in the Emission section

The result is a scattering of your objects over the ground:


Avoid selecting an object in the outliner using a callback

Using msgbus
Similarly to https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/163258/15543 which uses the message bus to capture when an object is made active
How to get an event when an object is selected?
By way of example the test is if the object trying to be made active has a name that starts with "Cube"  The user could break this test by renaming, so choose something more rigorous, perhaps a collection of pointers to objects kept on the scene, or as mentioned a custom property, and hide the custom properties panel.
Also FWIW as mentioned prior am not a great advocate for an "exporter" that modifies the blend.
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector, Matrix

handle = object()

# Triggers when an object is made active
subscribe_to = bpy.types.LayerObjects, "active" #

def notify_test(context):
    ob = context.object
    #print(context.area) # always None
    if (ob and ob.name.startswith("Cube")):
        print("No select object:", ob.name)
        ob.select_set(False)
        context.view_layer.objects.active = ob.parent
        if ob.parent:
            ob.parent.select_set(True)

bpy.msgbus.subscribe_rna(
    key=subscribe_to,
    owner=handle,
    args=(bpy.context,),
    notify=notify_test,
)

bpy.msgbus.publish_rna(key=subscribe_to)


Scaling multiple faces along their y axis

Set your Transformation Orientation to 'Normal', your Pivot to 'Individual Origins', and then perform a scale in the Normal space using either SXX or SYY.. you'll be able to see the direction of the constraint .. I can't tell which it will be from this illustration. (Or if you want to make the extrusions shallower, that would be a translation..GZZ)


Check "Only Rim" within the solidify modifier. Make sure you also have "Flip normals" checked within the modifier as well.


How Can You Adjust Bone Roll Value Without Twisting and Deforming the Mesh?

You can unparent the mesh, roll the bone (in edit mode) then reparent the mesh, and it should work.


The area light is NOT parallel.

The floor is lit by the indirect light. Also the reflection.

Use emission material instead of area light if you like the result in the picture.


Cycles: object is invisible if Shader Add uses 2 Transparent Shaders

You need to be very careful when using the Add shader as it is not physically accurate and can produce some unexpected results - as you have discovered here. This is actually “expected” behaviour when you understand how the Add and Mix shaders actually operate.

A shader effectively defines how light hitting a surface contributes to the light leaving that surface - some will be absorbed, some will be reflected, some will pass through. This occurs for each of the Red, Green, Blue channels and, also, in the case of ‘transparency’, for Alpha.

The Mix shader takes any teo such shaders and ‘mixes’ them together proportionately. For example 50% of one and 50% of the other, or 30% or one and 70% of the other, etc., but, importantly, always adding up to 100% (an unconnected input socket effectively counts as pure black).

When you use the Add shader the same ‘safeguard’ of only ever having 100% of a shader contributing to a surface no longer applies. This means that you can have more than 100% of any element present in the resultant surface.

In the case of transparent shaders, one could contribute, say, 50% Tranparent and 50% Diffuse at 30% grey - in ‘RGBA’ terms, this would be (0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.5) - ie, transparent grey. Mixing between this shader and another would produce consistent results... but, Adding this shader to a sinilar shader would add the corresponding contributions... so this could result in (if the second is also 30% grey to demonstrate) RGBA values of (0.6, 0.6, 0.6, 1.0) - ie, it has now become 100% transparent!! (But only because the shader is infront of a 100% alpha background - ie, the transparent environment).

Using other values can actually result in values that are greater than 100% and this can produce even stranger results when combined with other shaders.

The upshot of all this is that you should be very careful of using the Add shader unless you have a very good reason - for example, adding an emissive glow or combining Scatter and Absorption shaders. Normally just use a Mix shader.

See also Why adding transparent shaders don't result in transparency?


Nevermind, fixed it! I checked the bones again after I checked another thread and fixed the bones' rotatopn to 0 (it was set to values like 90, and 177.23 or so) and it realigned the feet. I must have rotated them while building the armature by accident.

(how do I mark this as Answered...?)


First of all, Cube and Cube.001 are hidden during rendering.
Second, the material of both Cube and Cube.001 is undefined which leads to black during rendering. Delete the Material and assign a new one, for example a diffuse shader for testing.

Changing the settings like described, I get the following result:

(OK, I also changed the position of the lamp a little bit, but nothing else)

If you want to see a "real" preview you have to activate this button:


This is easier/smarter to do with a procedural texture for the dirt, but I got it to work.

I used Texture Coordinates>Normal>Separate RGB and plugged the Blue into a color ramp to get all the upward faces.
I mixed that using Mix RGB>Multiply with a Gradient Texture, rotated 90 degrees on the y axis.
Together, these make a top to bottom gradient mask that ignores only the very top upward faces.

Little more complicated that I wanted, but maybe useful for texture layering.


Gray plastic bottle material (w/ label) needs to be more transparent and clear

Actually I just discovered that by adding the gray alpha button from the Image Texture to the Mix Shader's gray Fac button was the perfect solution!


Increase depth percept of upside-down cup

Assuming your model geometry is good (I can't really tell from the screenshot), it becomes mainly a lighting, material and environment problem.

Lighting:
If you are going for a photo-realistic look, use Cycles for rendering. It will handle lights and shadows in a more intuitive way.

Material:
Is it suppose to be a styrofoam cup? A porcelain cup? Glass? Set up the material for the cup accordingly. Styrofoam would be almost all diffuse, with a Sub-Surface Scatter component. Porcelain would be diffused white, with an added layer of highly glossy top coat. Glass would be, well, the Glass material node.

Environment:
If the cup material is reflective at all, you will need to set up the environment so that there is something to reflect off. After all, a mirror ball in a perfectly grey world will only look grey.  Multiple Plane Emitters is a good starting point, they can mimic lights shining through a windows.


Any add-ons there for change blender interface into regional language?

The language option is in Preferences.
Edit > Preferences > Interface > Translation


https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/system/blender_id.html
System: Blender ID authentication addon.
Search for ID in search and you will find it.
This is a doc loop that is unclear - a ticket should be put in place to mention that the addon referenced is an addon and not a website.
tickets can probably be put in to https://github.com/dfelinto/blender-cloud-addon


How to copy data from one armature to another POSE MODE

This should work: go in pose mode (arm. A), edit the pose then select all bones, and use ctrl-c to "copy pose", then select the other armature (arm. B), go in pose mode, select all bones and press ctrl-v (paste pose). Edit mode af arm B remains the same as before.

I tried on simple armatures, but I suspect it needs two armatures with the same bones and structure...

if you need to make arm A like its pose, start from pose mode, and then select all bones and press ctrl-A > apply pose as rest pose: it will stay the same in edit mode...


V-Ray and Cycles use similar methods to light a scene (path tracing, global illumination). The differences is in their implementation and ease of use.

In cycles we define materials using "nodes". V-ray seems to take a more traditional approach in just having a giant material with lots of settings. Example would be to do a normal looking material in cycles, you have to mix diffuse with "glossy" shader. In Vray, glossiness is just a parameter for the material.

This allows cycles to have unique optimization strategies for rending, but it costs in its ease of use in my opinion.

Also cycles seems to be built for use on the GPU. It looks like V-ray has slightly more restrictions as to what is supported on the GPU compared to cycles (currently the only thing not supported on cycles GPU to my knowledge is subsurface scattering, which is on its way).

In the grand scheme of things, I think you could get 2 renders looking similar using both cycles and V-ray. V-ray has the advantage of money behind it, and I believe is more polished at the moment.


Which is the better Topology? Left or Right? - [With Image Reference]

It entirely depends on what you're making. Edge-flow is a well-studied science all its own, so there are some good articles out there about how to make those decisions, like this one.

That being said, you ask if it's good practice to keep all the polys the same size. That also entirely depends on what you're doing. It can make certain things easier, like UV mapping (especially if you have to unwrap manually), and animated meshes will deform better (more predictably) if all the polys are the same size, but the renderer shouldn't care.

The most important thing you need to do here is merge the center line into one line. Other than that, we need more info about what problems you're facing and what you're trying to accomplish.


Error when trying to mirror vertex group, to get symmetrical weight paint

Okay, there are 3 things you'll have to change for this to work.

First, make sure your armature and model have their rotation, location and scale cleared. press Alt+G, Alt+S, and Alt+R, then position them so they are aligned again.

Second, make sure your naming conventions in the skeleton are consistent. The bones on the left should have the naming convention with a ".L" suffix, like for example "forearm.L". On the right side, bones must have the EXACT SAME name except with the ".R" suffix, otherwise mirroring weights will not work.
The easiest way to accomplish this is to create the left side of the armature only, name all the bones, and then mirror the left hand bones to the right side by centering the 3D cursor (Shift+C), scaling with the 3D cursor as the pivot point (.), then duplicating the left hand bones, right clicking so as not to translate them, then scaling them by a factor of -1 on the x-axis (S, X, -1, Enter). Then using Space Bar, search for the "flip names" command to change these bones from the .L suffix to the .R suffix.

Third, the mirror modifier will do all your weight-mirroring work for you since your mesh is already perfectly symmetrical. just delete all the vertices left of the origin. The mesh will even be poseable without applying the mirror modifier, and when the mirror modifier is applied, the weights will be mirrored.
Just remember to place the mirror modifier above the armature modifier.

I hope this is helpful!


Why am I not getting equal squares when I unwrap?

It appears that you had "Pinned" parts of the UV's. I removed the pinned UVs in the UV Editor ALT+P to Un-Pin. And in object mode as a matter of habit applied scale and rotation CTRL+A. Then back in the UV Editor keeping the seam you created unwrapped Press U and select "Unwrap" from the drop down menu.


Trying to flip pose along x-axis does nothing

Maybe your problem is the following one:
Paste Pose Flipped will paste the pose you've copied to the opposite side.
But let say you copy the left upper arm bone pose only, to paste flip it to the right upper arm bone. The problem is that the right upper arm is part of the right lower arm IK chain, so, whatever pose you’ll try to give it, it will obey to the lower arm IK's target. That's probably why you think sometimes paste flip doesn’t work.
If you select the left IK controller (called HandIK.L) and paste flip it, it will move the whole right arm, this time the copy paste flip is visible because you did it on a bone that controls and not obeys.
If you select all the bones and copy paste flip them, it will paste flip all the bones poses, so it will paste flip left IK controllers to the right side, and right IK controllers to the left side, and all other bones as well, it will completely invert the pose.


You need to put your functionality of the operator in the execute function. Otherwise the issue described in this answer will occur.

def execute(self, context):
    bpy.ops.mesh.loop_multi_select(ring=False)
    bpy.ops.transform.edge_crease(value=1)

    return {'FINISHED'}


Why is my color map gradient (by node xyz value) working for x and y but not z?

I think that you have just to remap your values, it should work that way. So on the Z axis displacement is not maybe enough to be visualized properly. I would suggest you to try something like this (if you want to keep the actual colors) or to just move the sliders of your color ramp indices towards the center (narrow their distance).


Rotating camera view in Grease Pencil Draw Mode in Blender 2.8

As others have already pointed out that Shift + Numpad 4 and Shift + Numpad 6 rotate the view by increments. This is ok and already works on the default set up.
For me, the better solution was to go to Edit > Preferences Keymap under Grease Pencil > Grease Pencil(global) press Add New. From here set your preferred key binding (I chose Middle Mouse Button ) then click the little "expand" arrow, add any modifiers (I chose Shift + Alt) and type `view3d.view_roll" into the command box.
And that's it, this allows arbitrary rotation while holding Shift + Alt + Middle Mouse Button . To reset press Shift + Numpad 1.


Option 1

In my opinion you'll bet better control using a displacement modifier instead of using the displacement on the material nodes.

The controls for the voronoi texture are much more detailed for textures.

Add a plane, subdivide it a lot (I did 100 subdivisions on this example)
then add a displace modifier and use a voronoi texture to control the displacement. Play with the feature weights, scale, intensity,brightness and contrast as well as with the strength of the displacement for the modifier.

For more nuanced textures you can use different displacement maps with different settings. Note that the quality of the displacement is related with the amount of vertices on your mesh. For a nice looking paper you might need a lot of vertices. In this case I added a subsurf modifier before the displacement to further subdivide the mesh.

Option 2

If what you are after is to create a bump map (with no real geometry displacement just plug in a voronoi texture to the displacement socket of the material output.

Note that this will give you just the illusion of relief.

Note also how very little control you have on the voronoi texture.

You can combine more than one texture to create the larger and smaller folds.

Otpion 3

To create real displacement you need to enable the experimental features on the render settings.

Then set the displacement control on the material settings to true displacement.

Then the textures connected to the displacement socket will affect the geometry of the object.

For a detailed and more random looking displacement combine several textures.

Note that you will not see the displacement in wireframe, solid or texture shading, only on material or rendered shading. Also render shading will not update when making changes, only material shading will update in real time.


It appears you have set the origin to Bounding Box Center.
  Set it to Median Point, and this should work.


Draw type stuck on wireframe and no model when rendered

It's very hard to understand how your models managed to end up like this but the reason they appear like that and don't render is because they have no faces. Blender won't render lone edges or vertices. Tab into Edit mode and select 4 vertices on any of the objects and press F to create a face.

I would recommend recreating the scene instead of trying to fill in the missing faces.


No Preview in the Preview Sequencer View (just white on black)

I already had a graphics cards driver problem with Blender. The developers helped me out to find out whether the problem is one with the driver.

You should use the opengl32.dll from http://download.blender.org/ftp/sergey/softwaregl/ and place it next to blender.exe as described by sergey to find out if the problem is your driver. Beware, that Blender might be very slow while using this wrapper dll as everything is done on CPU only without using your graphics card.

But in your case it should be enough to simply install a current Driver

either from AMD/ATI
or better directly from Lenovo, selecting Display and Video Graphics as your Component on this site and then choosing your OS, this will lead you to the drivers download page directly where your Graphics card is listed as well.


Python script fail, look in the console for now

You will need to open the system console, which is found by going to the Window menu at the top and choosing Toggle System Console. Do note that closing the console via the X button at the top right will close Blender as well, so if you want to close the console use the Toggle System Console menu option again.

EDIT: I just tried the code you have and it works fine. I think your issue is how you are trying to execute the code. To execute this code in the BGE you will need to have an object that has a sensor (such as an always sensor with true level triggering enabled) connected to a python controller with your script selected.

Then play your game and you will see your line. Simply running the script via the text editor will cause it to fail.


Mesh arms twisted when connected to armature

Your arms IKs have their pole targets set to your legs pole targets.
You forgot to set the pole angle to 180° on your right arm as you did on the left side.
Your Hand.R bone is rotated in pose mode. Go in pose mode and hit ⎇ AltR to reset its rotation.

For your IK chain to fold the right way, there are two things you can do:

Already fold the chain the way it's meant to fold in edit mode (just a little), so the IK solver knows in which direction to work;

If it's not enough, select the bone with the IK constraint in Pose mode, head over to the Bone tab, Inverse Kinematics panel, and lock the local axes you don't want that IK chain to fold on. Here for your left arm it's the Z axis you want to fold on, so lock the others. That's also where you can indicate minimum/maximum angles so your character don't look like he brokes his bones all the time.


Snapping two objects by edge in Object Mode

Select one cube, then enable the snap during transform option (click on the magnet icon), change the snap element to Vertex and snap target to Closest. Move the cube (G) along X,Y and Z axis until it snaps to the proper place.


Is it possible to link a modifier for only one Render Layer?

here is a code that keeps a specific group of objects related to another object modifiers this is how it works :

add the selected objects to a group named 'linked objects'
rename the active object  'source object'
whenever the function is called it copies the modifiers parameters from the 'source object' to the rest objects in the group and if the modifier is not present it creates a new one
the function is appended to the scene_update_pre() handler to be called automatically

Note :
 - before you run the script make sure to select your objects and the active object is going to be the source object thus it will be renamed ( you can make a dummy object as the source to keep the names)
 - you can add/remove other objects later to/from the group because the update is related to the group not specific objects

import bpy

bpy.context.active_object.name = 'source_object'
linked_objects = bpy.data.groups.new('Linked_objects')
selected_objects = [obj for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects
                            if obj.type == bpy.context.active_object.type]
for obj in selected_objects:
      linked_objects.objects.link(obj)

def link_modifiers(context):

    linked_objects = bpy.data.groups['Linked_objects'].objects
    source_object = bpy.context.scene.objects['source_object']

    for obj in linked_objects:
        for mSrc in source_object.modifiers:
            mDst = obj.modifiers.get(mSrc.name, None)
            if not mDst:
                mDst = obj.modifiers.new(mSrc.name, mSrc.type)

            # collect names of writeable properties
            properties = [p.identifier for p in mSrc.bl_rna.properties
                          if not p.is_readonly]

            # copy those properties
            for prop in properties:
                setattr(mDst, prop, getattr(mSrc, prop))

bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_pre.append(link_modifiers)

the code for copying the modifiers is from this answer by Adhi so thanks Adhi

the code needs more tweaking especially the handler choice I'm new to this so any advice would be appreciated

Animation Render test with two modifiers with drivers applied only to the source object "the orange cube":
render result


it might be because of the texture.
one quick solution is to make a uv on the object and make it a little bigger then the texture and after that set the Displace modifier to use you uv in texture coordinate options.


How can I animate the transparency of a image texture ontop of another image texture

You can multiply the "top" texture's Alpha by a value between 0 and 1 before feeding it into the Mix node's Fac. Use a Math node (Add > Converter > Math) to multiply. 0 will let the "bottom" texture through; 1 lets through the "top".


How do I freeze a frame of a Mantaflow Smoke sim?

I've managed to do it 'work around' style, but my god it's an UGLY way to do it!
Basically I copied all the different cache files for the last frame (75 in my case), created another set of cache folders, then pasted 400 copies of the same file and 'bulk renamed' them (fantastic free Windows app!!!) so Iended up with 400 copies of each 'frame 75' file numbered sequentially from 0001-0400.
So that's 400 copies of config_0075 renamed to; config_0001 - config_0400 files in the 'config' folder.
4800 density_0001 to density_0400, densityIn_0001-densityIn_0400 etc.etc. in the 'data' folder.
and 1200 files similarly in the 'noise' folder.
And it works!!! But it's a huge ball ache to do (and 30Gb of disk for a relatively simple sim), so if anyone knows a more elegant way to do it, I really am all-ears!

Cheers!
Mark


Your transparent material is actually transparent and only has the red tint as per usual with colored transparent shaders. The problem is, that we can see the backfacing white object behind it.

To hide the backfacing object behind the inner geometry, use the ray depth information as mentioned by gandalf3 in the comments.


Export textures as a flat image with multiple materials

Yes there is.

You will need to uv unwrap your model first.
Apply mulitiple material as you would previously.
Set your materials to shadeless or set the bake to only diffuse bake.
Bake the information out using your UV unwrap data into a single texture image.


Where did the modifiers tab go when you click n in graph editor?

You must select the actual channel name in the Graph Editor before the tabs inside the Properties Shelf will be revealed. Same goes for the Driver Editor. This threw me off for some time as well.


How can I adjust background color of blendfile previews?

Go to [File] > [User preferences...]

Click the tab [Themes]

Select [3D view] on the list on the left

Scroll down to section [Theme background color] > [Gradient High/Off]

Click the color to choose a new one.


You can set selection to be with the left mouse button :

got to File➝User Preferences➝Input
in Select with click Left

also you can search and reassign all what is related to the right mouse button


How to do a transformation / deformation

If you have 2 version of the same geometry created with sculpting for example, you can morph between them with a mesh Shape Key

Select the object you want to morph into, shift-select the base shape object (so it's last selected and active), add a Basis shape key (if not present) and finally choose Join as Shapes from menu:

This will create a linear morph animation if you animate the Shape key Value:

Easiest and fastest solution, not the best quality though.

To add more realism you can mix it with armature deform. For raising the deflated balloon a finger rig is suitable:

add Armature > Single bone, extrude the bone in edit mode, position the bones and make sure they are oriented so they rotate in their x-axis
bind the mesh to the armature
you can either make an animation of rotating the bones or create an extra control bone with disabled deforms, that will drive the others through a Transform constraint - the scale controls the rotation:

this works like so:

Now the Blend shape needs to be just the inflation and not any of the raising that the armature already does. Because Blend shapes are evaluated before the armature modifier you have to do the inflating with vector displace or do the following:

create a duplicate of the armature
animate/adjust the armature to the raised state
apply this state as the new armature's rest position: Pose > Apply > Apply Pose as Rest Pose
transfer the bone weights from the deflated mesh to the inflated one using Data Transfer modifier in topology mode (momentarily disable any modifiers on both meshes, generate layers and apply the modifier)
add armature deform modifier to the inflated mesh and animate it down (change the constraints to move it back down):

now create the Blend shape of just the inflation:

Optionally you can add a driver for the Blend shape Value and drive it with the Control bone's scale:

You can even add some math to the driver so the Blend shape is not linear and inflates the balloon more to the end of the rig movement. This depends on the application.

For more complicated armature deforms I can link here this:

Animating a punctured torus


Why Am I Getting This Stretching On My Texture?

It appears that the UV maps for the sides of your object (the top is fine) are not properly aligned with the texture and/or not properly scaled. I would need to see your UV map overplayed on the texture to give any more help, though.


Apparently you can just use Limited Dissolve for this (removing them, not selecting them).


You can parent them to an empty and rotate the empty.

As an alternative, as noted by @MrZak, is using a different pivot point for transformations.

In this example the pivot point is set to the 3D cursor:

While this might seem like the simpler solution, in the long run, it's not. The advantage of the empty, is that it's location is stored and easy to access. When you have it selected and are moving it around, it works just like it would if you moved the center point. The only difference, is that it's a separate object and displays that way.

The pivot settings are things that will be changed every once in a while, so while they're good for one transformation, they aren't good for a center point, because the 3D cursor will most likely be moved at some point in the modeling process. You'll have to switch to another pivot option also. Especially median point which is usually the easiest to work with.


What is the best way for me to change multiple paths or values on an object with multiple variables for each one?

Use a Collection Property

Set up the properties.

The number of paths is made a scene property.  When it is updated it adds or removes a node to each scene objects paths collection.

Put all the relevant path node info in a property group.

Add a collection of that type to the object type.

Easiest explained by way of example, run the script below,

import bpy

from bpy.types import PropertyGroup
from bpy.props import (FloatProperty,
                      CollectionProperty,
                      IntProperty,
                      BoolProperty,
                      )

class PathNode(PropertyGroup):
    minvar: FloatProperty()
    maxvar: FloatProperty()
    randomize: BoolProperty()

def adjust_paths(ob, paths):
    while len(ob.paths) > paths:
        ob.paths.remove(len(ob.paths) - 1)
    while len(ob.paths) < paths:
        ob.paths.add()

def update_paths(self, context):
    for o in self.objects:
        adjust_paths(o, self.paths)

classes = (PathNode,)

def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)
    bpy.types.Scene.paths = IntProperty(
            min=0,
            soft_max=10,
            update=update_paths)
    bpy.types.Object.paths = CollectionProperty(type=PathNode)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

A draw method, to add to layout code.

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scene = context.scene
        obj = context.object
        layout.prop(scene, "paths")
        for node in obj.paths:
            row = layout.row()
            row.prop(node, "minvar")
            row.prop(node, "maxvar")
            row.prop(node, "randomize")

Note with scene.paths will need some type of "refresh" operator if a new object is added.  A simple test is search for any object whose paths length doesn't match scene.paths

Alternatively the paths int could be associated on a per object basis so as each object can have a variable length collection.

This would involve changing update paths, since self is now an object, not the scene

def update_paths(self, context):
    adjust_paths(self, self.num_paths)

and instead of the scene property for path length, an object property instead.

    bpy.types.Object.num_paths = IntProperty(
            min=0,
            soft_max=10,
            update=update_paths)

and in draw method, the object property rather than the scene.

    layout.prop(obj, "num_paths")

Because of the update method, code below will make sure all objects in scene have 10 paths

for o in scene.objects:
    o.num_paths = 10

Documentation for CollectionProperty (CRUD methods)

Collections can also be laid out with bpy.types.UIList akin to materials and vertex groups.

Create an interface which is similar to the material list box


When baking, you can imagine it (I'm not sure this is how the process actually works but seeing it that way seems to make sense) as if rays where cast from everywhere on your low poly mesh where a pixel from your texture is applied. This ray travels a certain distance (determined by the "distance" field in the "bake" tab) and everytime it meets another polygon, it analyses it and stores the desired values in the pixel it comes from. However, if it meets more than one polygon, it tries to store both values at once in a pixel that can only store on value which results in the artifact that you are seeing. Reducing the distance field should solve at least part of that problem. If your problem persists, you may want to consider using a cage but I'm not familiar with this feature, you'll have to find a tutorial on that yourself.
P.S.: A normal map is a normal map. Wether you made it in Cycles or Blender internal makes very little difference so if it seems to work for you in one better than the other, feel free to bake in that renderer and then use it in the other.
(Here again I'm no expert so if someone wants to correct me, you're welcome to do so)
Hope this helped


How to remove rotation of non planar faces?

In Edit mode, Select all vertexes, Then press S, Y,  0  This combination scales vertexes to zero on Y axis, and will make faces completely flat in x-z plane


Retopology is required for performance:

if you need to deform the mesh (armature, etc.)
if you need to do simulation with the mesh
if you need to do real-time rendering of the mesh
if you need to paint very hipoly object (this point is not true for other software than Blender, for example Zbrush can paint high-resolution meshes easily)

Since Cycles has a shadow terminator limitation with rendering low-poly objects you need to render a high-enough-poly anyway (subsurf with displacement or normalmap). So depending on the object if you do not need the performance gain from the bullet points above it might be better to render just the highpoly and save time with the retopo work. With decimated hipoly you can get the same vertex count as with retopo+subsurf (so same render time) and you save a displacement or normal map texture space in VRAM/RAM (and some pre-render computation). The color can be either in vertex colors or the decimated hipoly can be unwrapped to use a texture similar as the retopo mesh would. However unwrapping high-poly meshes is slow in Blender (actually everything is slow in Blender with hipoly).

Every object is different, but the general approach would be this:

Try decimating the object enough so the poly-count is the lowest but you don't loose detail in render.
Next try painting into the vertex colors (you can have multiple of vertex color "textures" for specularity, roughness, color, etc.)
If the painting is too slow and you are unable to use other app than Blender for painting the mesh, try unwrapping the decimated mesh (you can use automated unwrap without making seams). If that is also unusable or painting into texture is also slow, you will have to put in the work of retopology to optimize the mesh to increase performance.


We need dynamic particle emission to do real foam spray. The foam mask in the Ocean Sim modifier was created to be ready once Blender caught up with that feature.

Once Lukas's Particle Nodes project is finished, it should allow for us to do that. http://phonybone.planetblender.org

The foam mask would be the source of the dynamic particle generation. The nice thing about the ocean mesh generated is that there are speed vectors associated with the waves, which I believe should also be able to be sampled and applied to the dynamic particles' starting velocities. Fingers crossed!


I was able to avoid this by saving my file as a startup file then reloading the startup .blend to clean up all the data blocks.


How to make a thick, smooth metal coil using plane extruded along spiral?

I was able to create a spiral as you see here by using the spiral addon.

Note that I used 80 steps.  This is where you get a smooth spiral without using edge split or the subdivision surface modifier.

The bevel profile object was a nurbs circle that I subdivided and changed into a square.  Then I stretched out the square to give me the rectangular shape I wanted.  I can give you more details about how I used subdivide on the nurbs circle to make it into the rectangle if you want.


Is there an easy way to create some variance in my procedural texture among objects using the same material?

You can use the Random output of the Object Info node to translate the Texture Coordinates as shown :

Without translation (note how they all have the same pattern) :

With object randomized translation along the Z axis :

Adjust the Multiply node to vary the distribution of the randomness over the texture space (larger values will select more distant sections of the texture space).

You could similarly use the Random value to vary other aspects of each object's texture/properties.


I was pretty easily getting a solve error of 0.81, so there's nothing wrong with your footage:

So I bet you don't use your tracking properly. I just use a defined range of frames for the Solve as you can see in my screenshot which has lots of camera perspective shift. Then I used the "Detect Features" function to let Blender automatically track some points and I only erased those with erratic spikes in the Graph editor view. I added a few more markers manually to align the floor and origin as well as the axises. After I let Blender redefine Focal Length and K1 once I already got a pretty decently low Error. In the end it adjusted the Focal length to 32.6210899.

Just follow the great Track, Match, Blend! tutorial to understand the common way of how to achieve a good result.


This node setup allows procedural pole, tempered, desert on local Z axis based on cursor location (it should be at the center). So you can rotate, scale move in object mode without any problem.

The Object Texture Coordinates Outputs -1 to 1 coordinates for all local axis (origin=0, so the origin has to be at the center of the object). Then we separate XYZ vectors because we want the Z coordinates only. Using the Absolute node will give us a mirrored 1/0/1 along local Z.
So now we have coordinates on Z that are 0 in the middle and 1 at each pole.
The 1st mix node is controled by a 'Greater Than' Node 0.2 so the material will use 'Desert' input from 0 to 0.2 and 'Grass' if Z coordinate is greater than 0.2.
The 2nd mix node will use the 1st mix and mixes it with 'Ice' if Z coordinate is greater than 0.8.

To control where the limits are, just change the 'greater Than' values (0-1).
But this setup will work only if your mesh sphere has a size of 2 units (default, size of the object doesn't matter).

So we want to fix this using the Generated coordinates.
The generated coordinates will give a 0/1 on each local axis, no matter where is the origin or the size.

Now we modify the coordinates with a 'subtract' 0.5 so we have -0.5/0.5, 'multiply' 2 to make it -1/+1 as before. This time the spere can be resized in object or edit mode, nothing will change!


Yes and no.

One thing you can do is this:

Switch to edge select mode (⎈ Ctrl↹ Tab)
Select an edge ring (⎈ Ctrl⎇ Alt RMB)
Multi select edge loops (Fastest to access via the Space menu)
Subdivide

Example:

However this only lets you double the number of existing loops.

Without deleting loops/other manual tricks, I don't think there is currently a way of getting a precise number of evenly distributed loops, especially on more complex objects.

See Is there any way to edit parameters for an object after it is created?


Are 3d assets purchased from assets website, say turbosquid editable?

Yes they are,

Re TURBOSQUID

  Do I have the right to modify Stock Media Products?

  Yes. You may modify them to make your Creations. Please keep in mind
  that no matter how much you modify a Stock Media Product, it still may
  only be distributed as a Creation and is subject to the rules of the
  Royalty Free License.

please read the TURBO SQUID licensing terms to be sure you can use them for your intended purpose.


Afaik, I think you have to use script or some existing addons. The only addon I've ever seen that can do distribute is the Oscurart Tools, which has been bundled with the official Blender build, already.
The following steps show you how to use it:

File > User Preferences (or press CtrlAltU), then enable Oscurart Tools in the Addons list;
Back to the scene, select the objects you want to distribute;
Find Oscurart Tools panel down in the left-hand Tool Shelf, enable Object button, which will bring a new panel below called Object Tools;
Click Distribute button in it, and choose the axis (X Y and/or Z), then click OK.

NOTE: The order in which the objects are selected is quite important, which determines how you want to distribute them, as shown below.

Manual page for this addon see here. Btw, Oscurart Tools is much more powerful other than distribute.
Note: This addon has been removed from Blender via https://developer.blender.org/rBA731efb680132e3d5f846cae9b448a74a7b74a9b8


Tracking: Object Solver not following tracks (with file)

I think I got it working: http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=52943

The key for aligning the "Tracks" mesh from the 3D Markers To Mesh operator is to add the object solver, choose tracking object and tracking camera, and then hit "Set Inverse". After that it should be lined up fine.

I deleted everything before in order to start from scratch.

Not sure how you setup your camera solution, but I used Tripod solving, as there is nearly no movement at all, so tracking only rotation should be enough. And when you do Tripod, you don't need so many markers. A handful is usually enough.
When you do the Object Solve you have to turn off Tripod of course.

What made the file behave a bit weird for me was not having the footage, so I was a bit confused which resolution to use. Using 256x256 seems to work though. Seems that when you solve and no footage is present Blender screws up the solve, as it tries to apply a square aspect ratio to the original resolution or something like that.

In fact, if you are only after the object's motion, you do not need a camera track at all. Simply ignore the camera motion and add an additional "object" in the clip editor so you can solve the object motion.


How to ease grease pencil animations between different keyframes

So a youtube suggested video showed how there is an interpolate button in the Grease Pencil Left Panel. This allows blender to calculate frames between keyframes. Here is a link to the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jULE3Gohi9I


What's the best method to turn a character left/right without a slipping feet?

When you see that the walk cycle doesn’t work anymore I guess you have no other solution than put a new action above your walk cycle in the NLA.

First I would make the armature differently: Create a root bone on the bottom, make it the parent of controllers, pole targets and of the spine base (current root). This way you’re free to move your spine up and down during the walk.
Prepare a walk cycle with no slipping, there are several methods, I guess it’s too long to explain here.
Don’t give your root the Follow Path constraint, give it to your armature object. After that, select the curve, go in the Graph Editor, unfold Evaluation Time, in the N panel remove the Generator modifier.
To set the speed of the walk along the curve, play with the curve's Evaluation Time value in Object Data > Path Animation, and, in the NLA, play with the action clip's Scale (NLA N panel > Action Clip > Playback Settings).
Once you’re good with the speed, look at the moment where you need to fix the slipping, for example where the curve turn is too narrow, put the time vertical bar at this frame.
Create a copy of your walk cycle in the Dopesheet. In the NLA, select the strip with the walk cycle, press ShiftA > Select the new action, it creates a new strip in a new track.
Select the new strip, press Tab, go in the Dopesheet, edit the action so that the feet don’t slip. In the 3D View You can copy paste the pose from the previous walk cycle to have a logical transition between this walk cycle and the new action.


Here is how it should be :

layout.prop(scene.render, "fps", text="fps")
since the property is fps  and it is in scene.render


You want to use X-Mirror. It only works on the X-axis but doesn't require a mirror modifier. While transforming and other simple operation work well, more complex operations like deleting or disolving may not be mirrored correctly.

From this answer:

  Sounds like you [want] the X-mirror option.

  Open up the tool shelf T switch to the Option tab and
  [check] the X Mirror checkbox.


Blender 2.8 - What is 'Tweak' in Preferences > Keymap

Tweak is for when a mouse button needs to be pressed and held, followed by dragging the mouse. You can find this information in the docs of Blender 2.8.

A good example for this is SHIFT + Right Click. As long as you keep the right mouse button pressed, you can drag the 3D cursor around.

I couldn't find a particular purpose of having transform.vertex_random set to tweak, it doesn't seem to react to mouse drags. Perhaps that's a misconfiguration.


How Do You Apply Microdisplacements For Exporting

The displacement input in the materials is for rendering inside of blender only. In order to get the effect in a game engine, you need to create the geometry by using a displacement modifier on the mesh.


Dynamic Paint; invisible object is acting as brush anyhow

There are a few ways to do this, but both require new properties to be animated in sync with when you are animating the object's visibility.

The first way is to animate the visibility options on the Dynamic Paint modifier (on the brush object):

You can do this either by right-clicking on the icon and choosing 'Insert keyframe' or by pressing I when the cursor is over the icon. Note: You have to keyframe both the 'Show Viewport' (screen icon) and 'Show Render' (camera icon) settings to get this to work. Animate these values to be on when the object is visible and off when it isn't.

The second method is to animate the 'Alpha' value on the brush object to be '0' when you want it to have no effect and '1' when you do:

You may also have to animate the 'Wetness' value, depending on your setup.

Note that you should be able to copy your existing keyframes onto these properties by using the 'Dope Sheet' editor (but you must add at least one keyframe to these properties before they will appear in the Dope Sheet) by using the Key> Copy Keyframes and Key> Paste Keyframes menu options.


You could use the bmesh.ops.triangulate
See TextEditor > Templates > Python > Bmesh simple edit mode for some of the boilerplate.
For any mesh in object mode.
# This example assumes we have a mesh in object mode.

import bpy
import bmesh

def triangulate_object(obj):
    me = obj.data
    # Get a BMesh representation
    bm = bmesh.new()
    bm.from_mesh(me)

    bmesh.ops.triangulate(bm, faces=bm.faces[:])
    # V2.79 : bmesh.ops.triangulate(bm, faces=bm.faces[:], quad_method=0, ngon_method=0)

    # Finish up, write the bmesh back to the mesh
    bm.to_mesh(me)
    bm.free()

# Get the active object (could be any mesh object)
triangulate_object(bpy.context.active_object)

For any mesh in edit mode.
# This example assumes we have a mesh object in edit-mode

import bpy
import bmesh

def triangulate_edit_object(obj):
    me = obj.data
    # Get a BMesh representation
    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

    bmesh.ops.triangulate(bm, faces=bm.faces[:])
    # V2.79 : bmesh.ops.triangulate(bm, faces=bm.faces[:], quad_method=0, ngon_method=0)

    # Show the updates in the viewport
    # and recalculate n-gon tessellation.
    bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me, True)

# Get the edit mesh
triangulate_edit_object(bpy.context.edit_object)


Full spherical view inside Blender Game from Pre-Rendered images

You can render straight to a panorama/full dome image from Cycles by simply adjusting the camera type to Panoramic.

Then you can UV map the rendered image onto a sphere in the BGE and use a mouse-look controller to allow the player to look around it.


How can I create an Empty in Blender 3D 2.73?

Shift+A > Empty > Plain Axis

Note that you must be in Object mode for this to work, in Edit mode you may only add mesh elements.


trying to create this texture with blender for 3d printing

You can use the Tissue add-on for this.

Create a quad mesh with the contours you want, then create a tile object that is a pit.

Select the tile object, then the contour object and press the Tessellate button. A new mesh will created with your perfect pits where each quad face was.

You'll want to keep the Scale value low, and enable the Merge option so each tile will be connected.

You can then smooth the shading and add a SubSurf modifier to get something very close to your reference photo.


You can use Rigify: add an human metarig, delete in edit mode all bones except arm, forearm, hand, fingers.

Then set all bones in the appropriate location.

Back in object mode click the create rig button, hide the metarig, in edit mode enable all bone layers and select and delete all bones relative to arm and forearm.

A couple of little bones are unselectable, so you'll have to toggle the selectability arrow in the outliner and toggle their selectability property.

You can also delete root bone, if unnecessary.


A subdivision approach would be to let Catmull-Clark do your bevelling

Start with a level of subdivision lower than the one you want to wind up with, and cheat if you can: choose the number of segments in your sphere to fit your chimney profile nicely. Retain a highly-subdivided copy of the sphere in the same place, as a future Shrinkwrap target. Hide it if you like.

Create a 6 or 8-sided circle to be the profile of the chimney, raise it above the sphere, position and orient the profile over the sphere

Knife-Project the circle down on to the sphere

X Delete the faces created by the projection, and ShiftD copy the edges on the perimeter of the hole: raise them in Z and scale to 0 in Z to flatten. Select all the vertices on the surface of the sphere, and create a vertex group from them. Assign a Shrinkwrap modifier to that group, with the intact subdivided copy of the sphere as target.

J or K Cut some edges in the sphere joining the 'loose' vertices of the hole to existing sphere vertices, creating convex polygons, not too skinny or irregular, but don't worry about making all quads.. we're going to let the first level of subdivision do that for us.

CtrlE > Bridge Edge Loops between the hole and the profile, and Catmull-Clark subdivide the whole model once with a Subdivision modifier under the shrinkwrap. We're almost done.  (You can use Loop Tools > Circle to make the profile regular.) If you apply this first level of subdivision, you're all quads. Selecting loops to slide them around becomes easier.

The rest is tweaking, smoothing, Because of the Shrinkwrap, you can move vertices around on the surface of the sphere quite a bit without disturbing its curvature. If you were really fussy, you could create a shrinkwrap target for the chimney, too. The sharpness of the bevel can be altered by sliding / adding / removing edge loops in its vicinity.


If you want to create an edge between a vertex and its mirrored image you need to apply the modifier. That said, if you want the 2 vertices to stick together (and merge into one unique when you'll apply the modifier), you need to activate the Clipping and the Merge options of the Mirror modifier.


When mesh objects are added together in edit mode to create one single 'object', how can the intersections between the mesh be removed?

I would approach this by using face-select mode, and selecting the visible faces of each constituent element of the model, and assigning the vertices comprising those visible faces to a separate vertex group for each element. If a face is partially visible from the exterior of the mesh, I would assign it to the group. When all of the visible faces of all of the elements have been assigned to vertex groups, hide all of the groups, using the H key. Select the remaining vertices, and delete them, and unhide the vertex groups using ALT-H. Then stitch the constituent elements together.


In blender 2.79

Convert the Extruded Curve into mesh using Alt C

Then select the Curve and the Converted Mesh and Switch to Edit Mode to project the Curve to it.

In Edit Mode, on the Tool Shelf, select Knife Project

The Curve will be projected onto the surface


Control factor mixing vectors (Animation nodes)

Simply set max and min vectors then mix it using random numbers,


How to insert a PNG as a plane in the scene, but make it so it's ALWAYS in front (and never clips into the other objects)?

Okay, I think I know something that will work (It seems so obvious now, but I'll leave the question up in case someone else has the same problem).

I'll put the PNG's in the scene and just deal with the clipping while I'm animating, then render them separately from the background, and composite them on top afterwards. I honestly kind of feel silly for not thinking of it sooner.


How do i access the methods for the Virtual Reality addon?

Ok, I found out what the problem is.  I looked at the code for the virtual reality addon, and it wants a context argument for bpy.ops.view3d.virtual_reality_display.poll() Now unfortunately, I don't know what it wants for that argument, so you'll have to figure that out.
Hope this helps!

UPDATE:
context MIGHT be bpy.context, but I can't test it so I'm not sure.


Blender 2.78 Manual for offline use - how - where?

There is a link for the online documents here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev . I'm not sure why it doesn't work, but there is a link to download a zip file, but the actually link tag isn't working in the wiki. For now, you can download directly, I guess: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/blender_manual.zip


This can be best solved with a Xor controller. You need two of them. one for W and S, and one for A and D.
Here is an example of a Xor gate.

Here is a .blend example.


Copy and pasting with CTRL + C and CTRL + V from one scene to another isn't working!

This phenomena could be caused by having to less RAM memory present on your computer,(since all data from one blender project needs to be  in RAM memory, before it can be   into the 2nd Blender again.

Here are a few solutions:
1 - Close down every other applications you do not use at that moment and then do the copy-and-paste operation again. See how that works.

2 - Copy and Paste object by object instead of everything at once

3 - Export all needed objects (to hard-disk) and then import them again from the 2nd blender application

4 - If all fails, re-create the object in the 2nd scene.


You can simply add this logic on to your object that will be added via the Edit Object actuator.

All you need is a Always sensor triggering a Motion actuator. Set the motion to be local, with the L button.


For this you need to do a little math. We need to find out how much the wheel spins withing 1 second.

Let's say you render at 30fps and one rotation equals 360°. First we have convert rotations per minute into rotations per second. Then we have to convert rotations per second into degrees per second.

1000rpm / 60s = 16.667rps

We multiply 360° by 16.667rps to get how many degrees it spins in a second.

16.667rps * 360° = 6000°ps

The wheel spins ~6000° per second. To find out how many degrees it spins in a frame, divide the spins per second (6000°) by the number of frames per second (30fps).

6000° / 30 = 500°

The wheel needs to spin 500° per frame to complete 1000rpm.

To do that, go to frame 1 and set a keyframe at 0° rotation. Then set a keyframe at 500° rotation on frame 2. To make it continue speaking, location the rotation fcurve in the graph editor, select it and press ⇧ ShiftE > Linear Extrapolation. (See this related answer.)

You can also use this online calculator.


How to combine Views of a Multi-View Camera in Composite

You might have the intention of the node confused. The View Switch node is intended to combine two stereo images in compositing, not to split them. In the current Compositing Pipeline (which isn't suited for 3D Compositing) you have to save the images or use renderlayers to make unique changes for the left and the right side.

However you can easily view images side by side and save them.

in the non stereoscopic view mode, you can view the images individually by selecting their channels in the image editor

this button toggles individual image display and stereo image display mode

to view a stereo image side-by-side directly from Blender, make Blender fullscreen AltF11 then choose window > set stereo 3D and choose your desired viewing mode; Blenders whole interface will be side by side

with the "display the image in stereo 3d" toggle button you can switch to individual image display, while in side by side view

in other modes (e.g. anaglyph, interlaced) we don't have to make Blender fullscreen

All these viewing settings don't affect how the two images are handled internally. Once you want to save your image, you have to enter the method (with which the two images are combined) again.

Press F3 in the image editor to open up the save dialog. Under Views Format choose stereo 3d, then select the stereo mode (e.g. side-by-side).
(If your working in side-by-side you have the additional option to squeeze the images horizontally, so that the original render dimension will be respected.)


Why some objects are not rendered in the final rendering?

I figured it out. I have to go to the OBJECT MODE -> W -> Clear

Objects can be set to 'Restrict Render' - effectively to exclude them from the render (the camera icon in the Outliner window). The W shortcut brings up a Specials menu with 'Restrict Render Unselected' and 'Clear All Restrict Render' options - the first option sets all objects except those currently selected to be hidden, while the second option sets everything back to render.


Setting keyframe on all vertices of a mesh

I'm not sure that's the best way to go about that issue, vertex animations are a lot of trouble, it's better to use a wave modifier to get that result.


My material nodes aren't applying to the whole object

Some things in your Node setup don't appear to be doing much (eg the bottom half Voronoi looks like it's cancelled out by the white ColorRamp and then just adds white to the top part?). But - never mind that, the problem is that you're using Generated Coordinates. As a result, the Mapping nodes are probably not doing what you expect.

Generated Coordinates treat one corner of the object's bounding box as (0,0,0) and the diagonally opposite corner as (1,1,1). You can see the effect of this if you momentarily set the Mapping Node to 'Normal' - you should see the Voronoi spanning out from one corner in a radial burst pattern.

To fix it how you want, you just need to UV unwrap the object, and use UV coordinates for the shader input instead. There are other fancier methods, such as blended box mapping, but the quickest/easiest way to get to the result you want is to go into edit mode on your object, select all faces, then hit U > Smart UV Project.

This should do a decent job keeping all faces scaled and aligned properly.
After doing this, change that Texture Coordinate node to feed 'UV' output into the Mapping node instead.

This will mess up the scaling values you have already set, but setting those back to 1,1,1 should give you a correct baseline from which to set proper texture stretching and expand the Y direction as desired.

If the Smart Project doesn't perfectly fix all the mapping areas, you may need to do some further reading on UV mapping/editing and fix some areas manually.


How does Blender implement flat shading non-planar polygons?

Blender's face normals are calculated as follows:

For quads, we use the cross product of 2 edge vectors which don't share a vertex.
For polygons, we use Newell's Method.

To draw with these normals, we store the tessellated triangles and simply copy the normals calculated from the original faces, into each of the tessellation triangles normals (which is sent as a buffer to the GPU).

See: gpu_buffers.c for details (though you will probably want to see how this API is used by other files to see how it works).


Black faces in edit mode and object mode

I think, you have faces with black material applied on this faces:

Check materials tab and remove black material.