You can actually achieve this using an inline driver by entering the following directly into the property field (eg, the Z-location) :
#[1.054,0.752,0.557,0.297,0.155,-0.00725,-0.064,-0.079,-0.12,-0.101][int(max(0,min(9,frame)))]

Here the '#' is a shortcut to define a driver, [....] is your list of values - and the rest picks up the current 'frame', limits it to fit in the range of the list (0 through 9 in this case) and converts to an 'integer' to use as an index.
Once pasted into the property it should turn purple (to indicate a driver is present) and changing the current frame should automatically pick out the relevant value from the list.
This obviously gets more cumbersome the more values you have in you list but works fine for relatively short lists. For longer lists it would be better to register a driver function instead of defining inline (see https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/66257/29586 for an example of that).
The key is then to simply reformat your data from Excel into a python list.

The above method will only work with a relatively small list of values - due to the limitation of how much you can actually fit into a single property. For a larger list you can use a text block to define a driver function as follows :
import bpy

mylist = 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def drv_getvalue(frame):

    if (frame>=0) and (frame<=999):
        return mylist[frame]
    else:
        return 0;

if 'drv_getvalue' in bpy.app.driver_namespace:
    del bpy.app.driver_namespace['drv_getvalue']
bpy.app.driver_namespace['drv_getvalue'] = drv_getvalue

Name the text block something like 'drv_getvalue.py' and execute it. You can then set a driver to use the new 'drv_getvalue' function by pasting the following into a property field :
#drv_getvalue(int(frame))

This will now call the function and lookup the relevant value from your list on change of frame.


I created new project and it works now, seems to be just Blender's glitch.


Bump/normal/displacement maps with 3d photo

Looks like there's a program called Photosculpt that does what you want. Here's a link to their site. And here's a Youtube video of their software in action. There's a free trial and several price points, the cheapest of which is 139 Euros for an individual license.

Basically, you give it two photos of the same thing from slightly different angles and it spits out actual geometry as well as a normal map.


Extending animation out-of-range by looping, repeat, or cycle

This is possible by using Keyframe Extrapolation, Shift+E in the Graph Editor. This shortcut is also available in the Timeline and Dope Sheet, and you can Ctrl+Tab to quickly access the Graph Editor from any of those panels.

Further, you can change Keyframe Interpolation with T

Finally, you can fine-tune these Modifiers in the Graph Editor under the N menu to restrict their frame range, among other adjustments.


Hole pattern in model when moving in sculpt mode

2.8b still has a lot of draw issues, it probably won't affect your mesh. You can report bugs here https://developer.blender.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/1/


Is there a way to collect all the files a blend file is using?

You could Pack all the files being used into the blend file and then Unpack all the files into a new location.

Packing saves any external files that are in use into the blend file itself (but this doesn't remove the originals from the hard drive). Unpacking will save the currently packed files out into directory of the current blend file (a few other options are available), thus 'collecting' all the files.

File> External Data> Pack All Into .blend.
Save the file.
File> External Data> Unpack All Into Files> Write files to current directory.
Save the file.

So, you can essentially 'collect' all the files in use into one location, but you can't actually get the original files to move (using this method).


How can an image be posterized in the compositor?

If you are replicating the setup on my BA thread http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?244118-Cool-nodes-I-didn-t-know-about

then the round value should be 0.1 not 1.0


use python to randomly inset each face, bmesh?

You can't loop through bm.faces, because you are creating more faces in the loop, which are also iterated over. Instead make a copy of the faces

faces_copy = [f for f in bm.faces]

Now, your code would give us the following result.

Notable problems
- Insets, even at 0 depth.
- Your example image shows and inset with 0 depth and then a random extrusion.

Let's implement that. Luckily, after a inset_region operation, the face index stays the same so we can simply extrude it by insetting another time and moving the face's vertices along the face normal.

bmesh.ops.inset_region(bm, faces = [face], thickness=0.4, depth=0)
bmesh.ops.inset_region(bm, faces = [face], thickness=0, depth=0)
bmesh.ops.translate(bm, verts = face.verts, vec = face.normal)

Now lets add the randomness:

import random
#[...]

bmesh.ops.inset_region(bm, faces = [face], thickness=random.uniform(0.1, 0.9), depth=0)
bmesh.ops.inset_region(bm, faces = [face], thickness=0, depth=0)
bmesh.ops.translate(bm, verts = face.verts, vec = face.normal * random.uniform(0.1, 4))

Iterations

We need to catch the newly "extruded" faces. Luckily inset_region returns geometry. We can create a new face list like this:

geom = bmesh.ops.inset_region(bm, faces = [face], thickness=0, depth=0)
new_faces = geom['faces'] # list of bmesh faces

Create an empty list for the new faces. After the insetting and extrusion, we'll add the active face and the extruded side faces.

new_faces.extend(geom['faces'])
new_faces.append(face)

Complete code (with two iterations):

import bpy
import bmesh
import random
from mathutils import Vector

obj = bpy.context.active_object

bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(obj.data,face_normals=True)

# faces, which could be extruded
faces_copy = [f for f in bm.faces]
new_faces = []
# number of iterations goes here
for i in range(0, 2):
    for face in faces_copy:
        do_inset = random.randint(0,1)
        if do_inset:
            bmesh.ops.inset_region(bm, faces = [face], thickness=random.uniform(0.1, 0.9), depth=0)
            geom = bmesh.ops.inset_region(bm, faces = [face], thickness=0, depth=0)
            bmesh.ops.translate(bm, verts = face.verts, vec = face.normal * random.uniform(0.1, 4))
            new_faces.extend(geom['faces'])
            new_faces.append(face)
    faces_copy = new_faces
    new_faces = []

bm.to_mesh(obj.data)
bm.free()
obj.data.update()

The concept is pretty cool, but it already show, that we need to implement a method to take the faces size into account before using bmesh.ops.translate.


What is this anomaly when I'm trying to sculpt and how do I fix it?

Problem Breakdown

As Duarte already assumed, your mesh has uneven density. This is a problem for all sculpting methods, since the algorithms get confused about which edges to subdivide.

However, there is a possibility to fix this by using Dynamic Topology and relative detail.

You also want to use a "sharp brush" Texture in form of a simple white png with a black outline (image below).

Fixing the Topology and smoothing the Surface

In Sculpt mode, activate Dyntopo, switch from "Constant Detail" to "Relative Detail", change the Detail Value to 4.0 and activate "Smooth Shading".
While you are here, also deactivate all settings in the Symetry/Lock section below (image below).

Then, select the "Clay Strips" Brush, lower its strenght to 0.1 and lock it to "Area Plane".
Under "Texture", add a new texture, load the "sharp brush" texture from above and activate "rake" and "random" (image below).

The setup is now complete and you can start fixing the topology. Sculpt only with a small portion on the handle and the pommel.
When switching to Edit Mode, your topology should look more or less like this:

Back in Sculpt Mode, switch from "Relative Detail" to "Constant Detail", change the Resolution by using the "Sample" button to sample it from the newly sculpted portion of the mesh.
Next, hit "Detail Flood Fill" and then "Optimize" (image below).

Switch back from "Constant Detail" to "Relative Detail", change the Detail to 8.00, then select the "Smooth Brush" and select the "sharp brush" texture from above.

Turn on Matcap and select preferably a glossy one to highlight distortions.
Turn on "Rake" and "Random", then start smoothing the whole mesh. Be careful around the sharp edges, turn down the brush strenght to 0.2, if necessary.
Work your way around the mesh until everything looks smooth (image below).

Your mesh shold now be fixed and you can start to add the details. You might want to play with the Detail settings under Dynamic Topology to get the detail level you want to see in your result.


What does the fading selection color mean?

There are actually two vertices in the exact same position there, which can be seen as you noted by the differences in edge shading.

I would box select where the manipulator (the blue, green, red arrows) are and either hit alt-m to merge  or hit W > Remove doubles.


How can Particle Objects copy emitter's color texture?

Use UV From Instancer to offset a large UV gradient. So a scale shows not just one point from the texture but a small area around.


Get Location of an empty with shrinkwarp constraint

You can get the location from the world matrix:

empty.matrix_world.translation


White Noise in Blender Z Pass with alpha value in Mix Shader

Switch to Branched Path Tracing

Switch the sampling method to Branched Path Tracing and set Min Transparent Bounces to 32 or higher to eliminate the noise.

Also, it is better to use Mist pass instead of Depth.

You need to map the value from 0-1 to 0-100, depending on your mist settings, to match the depth pass.

Thanks to skw Stefan Werner for the Branched Path Tracing hint. https://blenderartists.org/t/cycles-depth-and-mist-passes-for-a-transparent-material-give-a-lot-of-noise/1192751/5

Stay with Path Tracing

If you need to stay with Path Tracing, which seemingly ignores Min Transparent Bounces, you can create a new view layer with material override.

The material will be with Camera Data node and mixing by the object index N.

Change the object indexes of all the particle objects to N, easily with Copy to Selected.

It gives the same result as the mist pass.


Error: import Point3D of Geometry Module of sympy0.7.5 in Blender2.71

I found the solution:

get a fresh copy of sympy by git;
simply copy the subdirectory "sympy" into the corresponding site-packages directory of my blender:
  c:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.71\python\lib\site-packages\

Every is fine now.

ouyang


Booleans are slow, heavy, error prone and produce bad topology, they also only work on meshes, requiring conversion of curves to mesh which is a destructive process.

I would suggest instead a different approach. Keep you SVG import as a live bezier curve object, use its builtin extrusion and beveling capabilities to generate geometry.

Then use the coordinates file to create bezier curve circle objects with the desired radius at the correct positions. Join these created circles back into the original SVG object. Set it as 2D curve.

If everything has been correctly designed as coherent closed splines, Blender should be able to correctly close them and represent the circles as holes.


Turning high poly to low poly UV normal gone haywire

First, you need to set the shading of the model to smooth and set the shading mode to GLSL.

Then you need to create a material and add the normal map texture in the texture panel. Then in Image Sampling section enable Normal Map, in Influence disable Color and in Geometry enable Normal


The short answer is no.

While in edit mode you can hide individual vertices, which also remain hidden in sculpt mode. Dynamic topology respects these hidden vertices as it is working directly with the mesh you have partly hidden.

The multires modifier works differently as it creates new vertices that are stored within the modifier, it isn't changing the existing mesh, therefore the multires doesn't hide vertices generated around the original vertices you have hidden.

When sculpting you have several options to adjust visibility of your mesh.

AltB to make only a section of your model visible
H to hide sections of you mesh
ShiftH to unhide sections of your mesh
Use a Mask brush M to paint out parts that you don't want to sculpt on
Hide parts that have been masked out with mask brush Hide/Mask->Hide Masked

Using dynamic topology or multires modifier has no effect on these methods, they are always available.


Where do I put the Blender folder on linux?

Simply unpack it into Documents folder, and it works fine


Atmosphere (Rayleigh/Mie) Scattering in Cycles

I spent forever experimenting on getting a realistic volume atmosphere for a gas giant. My method will be explained step by step below.
** UPDATE **
While simplifying the node setup (easier to remember and faster renders), I discovered that the color ramp does nothing. Screenshots added.

1: To get a realistic density gradient and to have the edges of the atmosphere taper, you will need to connect the Object output to a Mapping node, and set that to point.
2: The scaling of that mapping node has to be the square root of the atmosphere sphere's size (in the sample scene, the sphere was 10 units, so the scaling was left at 1) or else the volume will go beyond the edges of the object. The result is a volume material that is smaller than the edges of the object.
3: Connect the mapping vector to the gradient texture node, and set that to spherical. Connect the Fac output to a multiply node.
4: The Multiply node needs to multiply the input by the square of the object's radius (which would be 10 in this example) x 10-100 (depending on how thick you want your atmosphere), and that the Multiply node in turn needs to be connected to both volume nodes.
6: Rayleigh scattering is easily emulated by using a combination of Scatter and Absorb nodes. Absorb has to have blue at 0.995, green at 0.088 and red at 0.024 (corresponding with the extinction coefficient of water; Neptune and Jupiter type planets have water and ammonia clouds and ices in them) and Scatter has to have Red at 0.224 Green at 454 and Blue at 0.950 (corresponding to the scattering probabilities of Lord Rayleigh). Absorb needs to go to the bottom input of the Mix Shader (before the one that controls density) and Scatter needs to go to the top one. The Mix Shader's Fac value should equal the albedo you want, which is 0.27 for Neptune and roughly the same for Earth. A rocky planet's atmosphere will not need the absorb node. Anisotropy for the scatter should be 0.250 to get the edge brightening that comes from peering through the atmosphere at a grazing angle.
7: For a rocky planet's atmosphere, it is helpful to simulate haze from dust. Add an addition scatter node and an extra mix shader. The different types of dust has different optical properties, so you will have to experiment. The new scatter node should plug into the top input of the mix shader and be no more than a few percent of the overall mix.


How to reduce how much area is affected when manipulating vertices?

You can't decrease this area, because it's just space between Edge Loops.

You can expand it by using Proportional Editing (control size by using mouse scroll).

You can decrease it by adding Edge Loops around chosen area.


What's wrong is that for the Image input on the Blur node, you are supposed to plug in the ID Mask, Not your render image.  You will have to add your image in with a Mix Node (set to Add).  Hope that helps!


Can you stop a sun lamp from lighting specific objects in a scene?

If your problem is unwanted light in certain areas of the scene.. or to reduce the overall lighting in an area and make a bit dark, Blender really has an awesome way to do that. So, let me explain with an example here:
Consider this scene where I want to reduce the effect of light in the area below the monkey face on the background code structure. Lets say I want to make it darker and remove some light. Here is the actual scene if u use just the overall sun.

Now, I have added a area light in the required area. Interestingly you can make the values of light in "Negative" numbers. Yeah!! That means you can start to remove the light in that area and below is the example of the same. You can adjust the value of it as required to create the required effect!

This way you can affect certain areas in scene to be not light up and if you want to wholly remove light effect on a singular object, you can try the other answer
as mentioned above. Hope this helps you in your scene.


I believe you'd run a script at each frame that updates the Z-axis limit.
That way it can only go forward, 'cuz the limit will keep inching along with it's current rotation.

Something along the lines of this, but I'm not a pro at event handlers.
I got that bit of info from: How to make python script check some value every frame


How do I make an object in my scene into an object I can instance using python?

You could select you own object and create a Group

Select your object(s)
Ctrl-G to create a group
After that you can create instances of this group by calling:

bpy.ops.object.group_instance_add(group='GroupName', view_align=False, location=(0,0,0))


How do I increase the number of circle vertices? (Blender 2.8)

In Edit Mode, select all the vertices (A), right click and choose "Subdivide" (W if you use right click for select), then open the boxed dialog at the bottom left of the Viewport (also "Edit > Adjust last operation") and increase Smoothness to 1.0. You can select the multiplier (number of subdivisions) too.

Alternatively, at the moment of creation of the circle (top of Viewport, Add > Mesh > Circle) you had the option of selecting the number of vertices: this is done again by opening the boxed dialog at the bottom left of the Viewport and changing the number of vertices. But it can't be done once you have done any other operation.


Nodes can be combined to a Node Group, the parameters you listed are part of a Group Input in the old (pre 2.67) style Group Interface.

Each important in and output of a group of nodes can be wired to the group in- and output nodes to make them accessible when the group is collapsed.

The new style looks like:

Single Node nonsense example

You can collapse the view of a node group using the up-arrow button from the menu header, and expand it by clicking the icon right to the nodes title.


The old bone is still there it is on another layer to see all armature layers go to Properties_Editor->Data->Skeleton and select a layer (or hold shift and select multiple) :

to move the bone to another layer you select the bone from the view(if visible) or from the Outliner ,then go to Properties_Editor->Bone->Relations->layers and select a layer :


Cannot form edge loop (No ngons or tris)

The reason your edge loops aren't continuing as you would like is because you've created n-poles towards the end of your crescent. You've done this in order to maintain all-quad topology, but all-quad topology is only useful as long as it lets you continue edge loops as you want to. The corner where the three highlighted lines intersect, as far as the topology is concerned, is exactly identical to the corner of a cube. Blender doesn't know which edge to continue the edge loop down, so it stops there.

Option 1: Take the Triangle

In this case, you can just leave triangles there. They're not really going to screw up a subdivision surface modifier, and for the most part they will let you continue to add edge loops along the geometry as needed.

Option 2: Better Quad Geometry

If you really want to keep to quads though, you simply need to add some more geometry which puts your quads in the right places.

This arrangement preserves quads, but doesn't put those inconvenient poles along the edge loops you want to select:


Why a mesh deforms when I apply Curve modifier?

There are several problems:

The origins of the curve and the object need to be in the same place.
The cylinder is rotated slightly, try rotating it so that it is horizontal.
The curve is scaled and rotated. You can fix this by pressing CtrlA> Rotation & Scale with the curve selected.

Result:


Shader node link connector invisible blender 2.82

I had the exact same problem.
I updated the driver of my graphic card (AMD Radeon™ HD 8750M) and now is all good, i can see the node connector.
Hope it helps.


Why can I not achieve a smooth surface when subdividing?

I took a default sphere with 32 segments

Into edit mode and select a single vertex. When selected then bevel it ctrlshiftb

with the faces still selected right click and select loop tools. If you do not have them then they are in the add ons (google how to use add ons from preferences). Select circle

this will give you a nice circle shape to work from.

Add knife cuts as shown or alternatively select the two verticies you want to join and press j

Select the circle edges and ctrlshiftr to offset the edge loop you have selected. This will give you 2 new edge loops.

Select the inner faces and extrude inwards three times using the normal orientation

You will end up with this topology

Add a subdivision surface modifier x 2 and set the auto smooth to 60

You can put it into a circular array and tweak the depth/scale of the hole


There are a few ways to make the objects fade in the distance like the image you show.

The most realistic would be replicating what would happen in real life: Suspended particles (haze, smoke or dust) would float in the atmosphere limiting visibility of objects in the distance.

To do that in Cycles you can add volume scattering and volume absorption shaders to the world's volume.

Click on the image to enlarge
A different way to do something similar would be to use a mist pass.

The mist pass can be enabled on the scene section of the properties panel

It creates a black and white image that gets progressively whiter in the distance.

It has a start and depth settings, that can be set on the world section. Objects that are closer to the start distance will be fully black, and those past the maximum distance will be fully white.

The the range from start to end can be visualized as a line, by enabling Display>Mist on the camera settings.

The Mist pass has to be composited into the rendered image using the compositor. Usually you want to Add the mist pass on to the image pass. The Factor on the color mix node will determine how much of the mist pass will be added to the image.

A different way to use the mist pass would be to use it to control the color on the image:

Lastly a different approach would be to use a normalized Z pass.

The Z pass represents the distance from objects to the camera. The limits are controlled by the clip distances on the camera.

Note that the Z pass, being a representation of distance will likely exceed the limits of the 0-1 range of what can be displayed as an image (0 being black, 1 being white), so normalizing the Z pass will convert those values to something that can be visualized.

The main disadvantage of this approach is that the Z pass is not antialiased, so your image might look blocky or pixelated on curves or diagonal edges.

For Additional info on the difference between mist and Z pass read: Difference between a mist pass and a normalized z-buffer?


Usually you can enable this Stamp Output in a Properties View in the Render Panel (where you set your Render Dimensions as well) in its Metadata Panel:


Selecting the local left half

Which half? top, bottom, front, back, left or right... or other..

Here is a test script, run in edit mode, selects the local left half of edit object including those on centre plane.

A plane can be defined by a point in space plane_co, and its normal plane_no.

The mathutils.geometry.distance_point_to_plane(point, plane_co, plane_no) returns how far a point is from a plane along its normal. Will be negative if on other side to which normal is facing.

The plane coordinate is the centre of the bounding box, the normal is one of the 3 axes made from a corner.

For this example the x axis of bounding box is chosen, to give left - right selection. Choose y for front-back, and z for top-bottom.

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

context = bpy.context

def bbox(ob):
    return (Vector(b) for b in ob.bound_box)

def bbox_center(ob):
    return sum(bbox(ob), Vector()) / 8

def bbox_axes(ob):
    bb = list(bbox(ob))
    return tuple(bb[i] - bb[0] for i in (4, 3, 1))

ob = context.edit_object
o = bbox_center(ob)
x, y, z = bbox_axes(ob)

print(o, x, y, z)
# select left right

me = ob.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
for v in bm.verts:
    v.select = distance_point_to_plane(v.co, o, x) >= 0

bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)

Test run on Suze


Looking at the implementation of view3d.viewnumpad in view3d_edit.c, it's just switch-ing over FRONT, BACK, etc. enumerations and setting the view matrix accordingly. The only way I found is through deducing the orientation from view matrix in Python, in the following barebones example using either view_matrix:

import math

def get_view_orientation_from_matrix(view_matrix):
    r = lambda x: round(x, 2)
    view_rot = view_matrix.to_euler()

    orientation_dict = {(0.0, 0.0, 0.0) : 'TOP',
                        (r(math.pi), 0.0, 0.0) : 'BOTTOM',
                        (r(-math.pi/2), 0.0, 0.0) : 'FRONT',
                        (r(math.pi/2), 0.0, r(-math.pi)) : 'BACK',
                        (r(-math.pi/2), r(math.pi/2), 0.0) : 'LEFT',
                        (r(-math.pi/2), r(-math.pi/2), 0.0) : 'RIGHT'}

    return orientation_dict.get(tuple(map(r, view_rot)), 'UNDEFINED')

... or view_rotation as @WChargin suggested, seeing that it's normalized as stated in API docs:

def get_view_orientation_from_quaternion(view_quat):
    r = lambda x: round(x, 3)
    view_rot = view_quat.to_euler()

    orientation_dict = {(0.0, 0.0, 0.0) : 'TOP',
                        (r(math.pi), 0.0, 0.0) : 'BOTTOM',
                        (r(math.pi/2), 0.0, 0.0) : 'FRONT',
                        (r(math.pi/2), 0.0, r(math.pi)) : 'BACK',
                        (r(math.pi/2), 0.0, r(-math.pi/2)) : 'LEFT',
                        (r(math.pi/2), 0.0, r(math.pi/2)) : 'RIGHT'}

    return orientation_dict.get(tuple(map(r, view_rot)), 'UNDEFINED')

It currently ignores perspective/orthogonal and camera view, but that can be easily deduced from the region's other variables.


You should start with the face , add a plane rotated on you  left to right axis and then add a shrink-wrap modifier and also enable face snapping this will try their best in keeping your extrusions with the sculpted topology , keep the plane on the noseBridge and also add a mirror , then start extruding the side till the eyes and then take your extrusion around the eyes , like this you can cover the whole body properly , and try yr best keeping them quads.
You can go around in this fasion


Fluid simulation leaking through obstacle

I had a quick look at your scene. So here are a few hints, maybe this won't fix your issue but this will surely enhance your life working with this scene. (But the points 2. and 3. are part of the issues anyway, so they might solve it.)

450 as render resolution and 40 for the viewport is really low.

Those two aren't enough. 40 is way too low to show you something even close to what you're going to, crank it up, start from 128 and see from there. 450 is also a low value, but you'll see what you need.

Your domain's scales are insanely wrong and inverted.

Your fluid simulation (including resolution) are directly linked to the scales. You have to apply them with CtrlA menu in object mode (and as they are inverted, you will also need to invert the normals via CtrlN in edit mode)
While you're at it, also check any other object's scale the same way. Always avoid inversed scale or uneven scales, unless you really need them and know how to work with them. If you're in doubt, select everything and apply scale on everything.

Your watermill has no thickness on its sides.
The big circle shapes are made of a flat surface without any thickness. This cannot work properly as a physic simulation's obstacle. Add some thickness via extruding those circles.


How to make foam with bubbles (beer, bath)

You can try making a bunch of low-poly icospheres and throwing them into a giant glass using Rigid Body physics.

This way they collide with one another, and unlike particles do not overlap.

Join those into one object and use a Shrinkwrap Modifier to make an outer mesh conforming to the shape of all the joined bubbles. Apply the Shrinkwrap Modifier and join this outer mesh object to the bubble object. In Edit Mode set the normals of the bubbles to be facing inward, while leaving those of the outer part facing outward.

Then with the bubble geometry made it's just a matter of getting the right material. I played with several setups and I'm still not satisfied. But I'll post the .blend and hopefully the community can make suggestions for improving the material.

[Edit: I can't seem to post the file to Blend Exchange. Is 28MB too large? Bubble troubles...]

Example:

I think this technique has potential.

If we want to animate bubbles through their complex stages of forming, foaming, growing, bursting, and flowing, that will require some very custom coding... hoping for a beer simulator in Blender one day! Until then, this method should work alright for stills. Cheers.

To see just how complex bubble simulation can be, and some of the recent progress made in this area of research, check out this video by Two Minute Papers.


I can't go back the Panel with the original options to create an object

Once the original object has been created, and has gone through some kind of transformation, there is no way to get the original creation parameters panel back


Ignore objects for navigation in viewport

You can make them unselectable.
In the outliner click on the funnel icon to open the filter controls. Enable the controls for selectability:
The arrow icon controls if an object is selectable.

Just for reference, the other icons are:
Selectability (mouse cursor icon)
This is useful for if you have placed something in the scene and do not want to accidentally select it when working on something else.
Eye hides object in the viewport
Camera prevents the object from rendering
Monitor: Hides the object in all viewports
Square with a circle: Holdout.
Twisted Arrow: Indirect light only
For more info on how to use the outliner read:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/outliner/index.html


Having an issue with mantaflow fluid simulation with flow object inside of another object

Your domain is too big with very low resolution (divisions) ... scale down Domain or increase Resolution.

Notes:

your mesh has double vertices, Merge > by Distance M
instead of creating inner effector object by dupli banana and scale down (that results in penetrated object from original banana at the end) ...

... use Solidify modifier (before Fluid modifier) on original banana and use this object as Effector directly, so you get perfectly fitted inner mesh and simpler scene to work with

instead of Sphere for Inflow you can use Circle (or separated one banana loop), like that fluid comes from one direction (enable Flat) ... it depende how final result should looks like ...

Instead of separate animation of Inflow object you can Parent Ctrl+P Inflow object to animated Banana object to let move them together

in this example I set start of fluid sim cache at frame 34


I'd say it depends on what you want.

For something like photo-manipulation (by that I mean color grading, adding effects like vignetting, etc.), the compositor can work very well (and non-destructively). After all, it's almost what the compositor was designed for. The only major difference is that the images were rendered with a camera, not Cycles or some other render engine.

However for creating images from scratch with 2D techniques like painting, blender is probably almost certainly not the best around. And using blender's image editor it won't be non-destructive (though for something like this I'm not sure if a non-destructive workflow makes a lot of sense?).

Painting is not my strong suit, but there have been some pretty amazing things done with blender's painting tools. Also note that blender's painting tools recently got a nice upgrade as part of the GSoC.

That said, if painting is what you are looking for, you might be better off with a program designed for painting, like Krita or MyPaint.


Can you not assign different materials to the different particle systems (Mat 1 and Mat 2) each with a Pass ID, and then assign an Object ID (Letter A, Letter B, etc) to each geometry mesh, and then do one render and separate everything in Compositing? You could then pipe each combination into a File Output node OR you could render to MultiLayer EXR frame files and handle the layer separations in After Effects.


Voxel Data texture in Blender (Especially for Cycles/EEVEE)

This is currently not available for the Cycles/EEVEE. However, one of the GSoC 2018 challenge aims to implement this. https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Geraldine/GSoC_2018/Proposal

I will update this post once it is available.


How to convert this logic to python code?

look at http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?294632-Convert-Logic-bricks-to-python-scripts-how and read "kastoria" post.

they said "As far as I know, there is no automatic way to convert the logic bricks into Python script. However, porting the logic bricks into Python should be very straight forward. Each Sensor goes into a Controller that is a simple "AND" or "OR" operation.

Step 1) Replace all the and/or Controllers with Python controllers that simply do the same AND/OR operation.
Step 1.5) Test everything to ensure nothing has been broken.

Step 2) Remove all the Keyboard/Joystick/Mouse button sensors and access them directly in your Python though
Step 2.5) Test everything to ensure that nothing has been broken.
bge.logic.keyboard, bge.logic.joysticks, bge.logic.mouse, etc.

Step 3) Remove the Actuators that are easy to do. Things like 'Property' and movement actuators are pretty straight forward to replace with Python code
Step 3.5) Test everything again to ensure nothing has broken.

Step 4) Move the more difficult Actuators to Python. Things like 'Action' actuators that play animations require a bit of work to replace with Python code.
Step 4.5) That's right, test again." but to be honest i dont know if this will work for you or not since im new to blender still.


You can use volume shaders to achieve a shadow that varies with the thickness.

I used the light path 'is shadow ray' to 'disable' the shadows of the glass shader, and to set to 0 the density of the volume inside the glass, although this is actually not necessary.

The thickest part of the model is 1 BU (1 meter).

Bear in mind that this is not realistic.


In my opinion it makes no sense to generate CG elements to be color keyed out when you can generate the perfect matte directly as an Alpha Channel.

In real life chroma key is used because there is no way to generate transparency and occlusion information directly using a camera. No need to replicate such laborious and imprecise workflow when generating CGI.

You can use to use a Holdout shader.

  The Holdout shader node is used to create a “hole” in the image with zero alpha transparency, which is useful for compositing

Enable Film>Transparent and Save the image in a format that supports an alpha channel (like OpenEXR) and composite in other software with no further processing other than distorting the image to match the perspective of the screen. If you save in a format that does not support alpha then you can save the black and white alpha information as a separate file and use that to key the image.

If you absolutely must use green, because you love doing things the hard way, or with extra work, then you can use a shader that is only visible to the camera but transparent for the rest of the scene. It will not create any reflection or unwanted green spill in any of the surrounding surfaces. Using a Light Path node and using the Is Camera Ray to control the mix of shaders will allow you to do what you want.

The downside of both of these approaches is that the image on the screen will not affect the rest of the scene in any way, making the integration less realistic. A monitor is an emissive surface that would both illuminate and be reflected on other objects. The most realistic way to do this would be to integrate the image as part of the material used on the screen directly.


Sure. Select your Background Image (Empty), go to Properties > Object Data > Image, set the Source property to Image Sequence or Movie and select your clip using the File Browser:

Manual: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/empties.html


Exporting Images/Movies to Final Cut Pro X to apply LUTs

If you are trying to master for HDR displays, you'll need to start ideally from a scene referred encoding such as an EXR. This likely is a bit of a mess in FCPX if I had to wager, as most applications are mostly designed for display referred work.

LUTs are tricky things. That is, any LUT is designed for a very specific input and a very specific output. Trying to modify imagery with LUTs designed for other contexts is a bit of a messy ball of nightmare.

It is hard to offer any further help as the question lacks important details and context.


Restricting movement of vertices in blender

Most likely you have accidentally activated the proportional editing, which has a range of influence adjustable with the mouse wheel.


No, blender doesn't have the ability to do this.

For Bezier splines you could probably calculate this yourself, but once you have F-Curve modifiers and use 2.71's new easing options, this becomes very complicated.

So the best you can do is check values to either side of the keyframe with some offset (called nabla)


How to create this colorful metal material?

Download the blend:

lighting and colormanagement, scene scale

before you start creating your shader, make sure to use filmic log encoding in the scenes colormanagement tab. This will switch your colormanagement from sRGB to filmic and will enable additional dynamic range, a natural desaturation of the highlights and a more human like gamma response. It also gives you more opportunities during post-production
roughly recreate the lighting conditions of your reference image. I used two area lamps, two diffuse white planes as room placeholders and a pitch-black scene background/ scene environment. Metal looks best with a very minimalistic lighting setup, an outdoor HDRI creates very unsteady, noisy reflections in comparison
recreate the objects of the reference image, that feature unique topological similarities of the objects you want to apply the shader to. Do not use the monkey head for example, it is an organic shape and doesn't feature the sharp beveled edges and geometrical shapes of the metal parts.
to find the right brightness of my lights, I usually use a diffuse white shader (RGB 0.8) for the ground and increase the strength of the lights right to the point where it almost clips to white. I also added a slight variation between the two area lamps blackbody temperatures.
make sure to get the scale right, for this objects I switched to metric measurements in the scenes settings and assumend them to be about 6-8cm long. Apply the scale of the objects before shading

start setting up the base shader

I used a single principled shader. Since it was implementent in blender, I rarely use a mix of multiple shaders (like you did) anymore, I find it the safest way to create a material, that is physically plausible and has the right energy conservation
set up a orangy/ yellowish basecolor and a basic roughness. Set the metallic value to 1 and specular to zero. All these inputs will be fed with noise (controlled by color ramps) to bring the necessary variation to the color, roughness, metallic and normal inputs of the shader

This is roughly the order, in witch I created the different parts of the shader:

Principled BRDF as base shader, connected to Surface Material Output
set up a color ramp with the basecolors of your metal (the nodes where I add the green tint based on the camera angle (layer weight fed into hue value of HSV node) were all added later on when I refined the material. So are the base color variations, that darken the material on sharp edges and darken the diffuse component of the shader)
create a noise texture and plug in a mapping mapping node and texture coordinates. This mapping node will be your centralized scaling knob and will feed all vector inputs of the noise textures. I split the main noise texture up into R G and B to use these channels independently
create noise textures to control the blend between metallic and diffuse components. The reference image shows some diffuse spots, where the metal is very rough and might partially be covered in dust. For this purpose I used two different noise patterns, one large scale and one small scale noise, that are tonemapped with the help of two color ramps and multiplied ontop of each other. Then I use the resulting noise pattern as a factor to blend between almost pure white (0.99) and light grey (0.9) in a mix node. This is fed into the metallic input, so our surface is 1% - 10% diffuse and 99% - 90% metallic depending on where you look at the surface. It also gets added to the color ramp that controls the surface roughness, to make sure the diffuse parts are more rough than the metallic parts.
the surface details are again a combination of different noise types. Here I used three differently scaled noise textures with very high contrast tonemapping (color ramps again) to create the dents, scratches and microscratches. The mixed noise patterns are connected to the height input of a bump node, you can control its effect on the surface with the strength value. This value is dependent on the scale of your object. When you apply this shader to an object that is too big or small, you'll need to adjust the scale in the main mapping node, as well as the strength of this bump node.

set up a turntable animation
When making complex shaders, it helps to change the directions of the light or the orientation of the object without leaving the node editor. I usually parent the lights to one empty, that rotates 360° around the z-axis. I do the same thing with the objects. Now you can spin your lights and objects toggeling alta and altshifta to rotate objects and lights.
My turntable as an example:

Have a look at the blend to see what is going on in detail and feel free to ask when something isn't clear. This answer has gotten longer than I anticipated, I hope it is understandable.


Blender's version of Sketchup's line tool?

Blender isn't really the right tool for doing precision 3D design, but it can be done.

You will have to do some arithmetic, but one approach would be

start with a view perpendicular to the face you want the edge on.  In your example, it looks like that would be top orthographic, so hit NUMPAD-7
select the knife tool (Shortcut KKEY)
place the cursor on the either of the edges you want to connect and click LMB
type the C key
place the cursor on the other edge and click LMB
type ENTER

This will create the edge you want, but not place it where you want it.

type g
do not move your mouse
Go to transform panel of the properties panel and enter a value.  (if the properties panel is not visible, type N to unhide it) the transform panel looks like

To figure out the value, here is an example, based on your image.
* You appear to be adding the edge to a top face.  This means that you want to set the median y value entry.
* take the y value of point q and subtract 20cm from it.
* enter the result.

You end up with a precisely place edge.


One rough way could be using two empties for every "connection" shape, each hooked at one of the shape ends. Ten set a "copy location" constraint for each empty to its "column", it works like this:

Edit:
as you noted, the shape of the mesh (cylinder above but also cube has same issue) is stretched by its movement.

I found another way that seems to work without this issue: using a a curve to make the connection and a bezier circle to give it a "solid" shape:

It is made much like above but you create a hook to a new empty selecting one of the curve (2 control points, shape straightened before, and set to handle type "vector") end, then using again CTRLH to make the hook menu appear, then selecting "new empty object".

As above, the empties have "copy location" constraints to each cube, but this time the "connection bar" is not stretched anymore, whatever the columns movement...

Of course it works also with scaling (here using a convenient transform pivot mode: cursor)

note: if you prefer a "squared" connector, just model the bezier circle to a square shape (or whatever), the connector profile is immediately updated

edit2:
since you are missing some step, I tried a complete workflow (I hope it's not too long for this site):

start with the two "columns"

then in top view, place the cursor between them, and add a bezier

you will get this

edit the bezier

select both control points and scale them to zero over Y axis with SY0

(this will make the bezier a straight line)

then in object mode rotate 90° over Z with RZ90

note: here I also edited the bezier to have identical and symmetrical handles (it could be not necessary...), and then made both control points as "vector": select both, press V then choose "vector". This is needed.

now in front view you see

or (object mode):

now you need to add a hook to a new empty where each control point is, so select one of them, and press CTRLH and choose "hook to new empty object"

you'll get this

repeat for the other control point: now you have two empties hooked bt each bezier's control point

select one empty, and add a "copy location" constraint

with one cube as target

as you see instantly the empty copies the right cube position (object origin), and the bezier's control point follows (hooked to the empty)

now do the same for the other empty

as you see this is already working... but the connector is "invisible", because it's just a curve...

you need to bevel this curve with another "curve", so add a "bezier circle" in top view

you get this

if you set this object as bevel object of the "connector" bezier

the "connector" become solid, a visible cylinder shape

since it's quite big, scale the original bezier circle to your taste

and now is prettier

should you wish a different bevel profile (eg: a square) you always need a curve object, so you could transform the bezier circle into a bezier square: in edit mode, press V and select "vector"

you'll get this

and as you see the connector is now squared!

Here is the test file:

Have fun!


Curve modifier on an already curved model?

As soon as your curve is not flat, it will deform the shape! The curve will deform the shape as much as the curve is itself deformed compared to a flat curve.

So, "do I have to model the mesh in a straight line", I would say yes.

Note that you need to put the origin of the curve at its beginning and make sure that its normals go in the good direction.

Does it answer your question?


What's Wrong with Quaternion Rotation in the Game Engine?

From Hawkenfox:

"This issue seems to be an unsupported feature at the moment. Can someone mark this question as answered?"

(Okay - I am posting this answer, pasted from your comment, for the purpose of marking this as an answer and closing the question. Please mark as answered.)

Brita wrote: "@gandalf3 I took a quick look, BGE indeed only supports the default euler rotations. The animation curves in BGE are Moguri's area, he is already assigned to that last bug.. so" – brita_ Oct 2 '14 at 8:00 – hawkenfox Dec 26 '15 at 3:10

BTW, was this resolved?


There is  way to do this without python, using particles.

Create a particle system and pick volume and random as the distribution settings:

Also set the physics to none to conserve processing power.

You'll want to set the Number to 10000, but I don't think the computer I'm currently on will like that :P.
Create a one-vertex object. The easiest way to do this is by adding a plane and deleting three vertices. After you delete the extra verts, switch back to object mode (Tab) and press ShiftCtrlAltC> Origin to geometry to snap the origin to the single vertex.
Pick your single vertex object as the particle system object in Particles > Render:

With the object with the particle system selected, press Convert on the particle modifier in the  modifiers tab:

Join the resulting vertices to your object with CtrlJ (everything should already be selected correctly). Remember to remove the particle system, as pressing Convert does not delete it.

Result:


How to make Modifier panel visible in Toolshelve

The panel displaying the modifiers includes methods with names matching every modifier type that are used to display the properties of the matching modifier, getattr() is used to find the matching method based on the type of modifier in the objects modifier list.

While inheriting the modifiers panel directly causes issues, you can create a local instance of the panel and make use of the methods it contains.

import bpy
from bl_ui.properties_data_modifier import DATA_PT_modifiers

class myModifiersPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Object Modifiers"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_mymodifiers"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'TOOLS'
    bl_category = "Modifiers"

    def draw(self, context):
        mp = DATA_PT_modifiers(context)
        layout = self.layout
        ob = context.object
        row = layout.row()

        if not ob.modifiers:
            row.label('No modifiers')
        else:
            for md in ob.modifiers:
                box = layout.template_modifier(md)
                if box:
                    getattr(mp, md.type)(box, ob, md)

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

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


Object that is not in preview is in render

I think the problem is that while visibility is off for workspace, it's not off for renders. There are a lot of objects in the scene that are rendering. Go to the Outliner window, and up in the upper right hand corner you'll see what looks like a funnel. Click on that, and up pops different visibility and selection toggles. You'll see the "render" setting (a little camera) is lit up for all those cubes and planes you have left in the scene.
Blender isn't like photoshop, where if you turn off the visibility of a layer, it's not active. So make sure you click those cameras to turn off what you don't want to see in the render, and see if that works.
Good luck!


Why 38000M peak when trying to render image

It takes up that memory and crashes because 158 M faces is huge. That’s about it.
Try using decimate or some thing to reduce the number of faces, or even use different scenes so it’s broken up in pieces, and then video sequence them together.


Eevee Normal pass: remap negative values

The image below gives a node set up that you could use in the compositor. It splits up the normal into its rgba values, takes the absolute value of each component (using the Math node with the "Absolute" setting), and then recombines them.


After exiting blender, texture I was painting shows up black

In Blender, when you texture paint in Blender, it doesn't save the images when you save your file or close Blender (unless you have Blender pack, or save, all images into the .blend file).

It keeps the slot (that's what you observed) because the texture is being pointed to by your materials, but if you don't save it externally, you've lost your textures.


Sadly you cannot isolate the effects of a lamp on an object in Cycles as you can using Blender Internal Renderer layers.

So I tried building an intense isolated lamp & enclosure. From this I include a volume box for the emitted light to excite. The enclosure cam be hidden from the camera by simply turning off its Object Properties > Cycles Settings > Ray Visibility > Camera.

The material for the volume uses a scatter with a density of 0.03
While the Spot lamp in the box with a slit has a high emit/strength value of 50,000. You can have a wide spread or a narrow beam by altering the Spot angle.

To reduce render time you could build the volume box to exactly match the beam spread of the laser.


Transparent object with png texture renders grey

I found the problem. My PNG was not completely transparent where it should be ♂


Try scaling it on the Z axis to 0 in edit mode to get rid of all the bumps if thats what you are asking.


Scale the vertices by -1.0 on, in this case, the Z axis. This should flip them as you wish.


The Screw Modifier with the Curve modifier is a good way to go
Here is an image example


You can create an Operator and make it part of the Preferences layout for your custom add-on:

class MyAddonPreferences(bpy.types.AddonPreferences):

    bl_idname = __name__

    display_flag: bpy.props.BoolProperty(
            name="Display Flag",
            default = True)

    def draw(self, context):
          ...
          layout.row().operator("my_addon.reset_preferences")

Best practice is using property_unset(property):

class MYADDON_OT_resetPreferences(bpy.types.Operator):
    """ Reset Add-on Preferences """
    bl_idname = "my_addon.reset_preferences"
    bl_label = "Reset Properties and Settings"
    bl_options = {"INTERNAL"}

    def execute(self, context):
        prefs = context.preferences.addons[__name__].preferences
        prefs.property_unset("display_flag")
        ...
        return {'FINISHED'}

In order to reset the properties of a certain add-on it's basically the same, you just need to find a way getting the name of each property.

Example on how to reset the settings of Loop Tools by reading its annotations using the Console:

>>> prefs = C.preferences.addons['mesh_looptools'].preferences
>>> props = prefs.__annotations__.keys()
>>> for p in props:
...     prefs.property_unset(p)


A MixRGB / Lighten mode with the factor at 1 seems to work:


Set the Rotation (in Quaternion WXZY which is calculated by two vectors) of a bone using API 2.7.9

Apply the rotation

Apply the  rotational difference between to vectors to the pose bone, rather than setting the pose bones rotation with it.

The rot diff has an axis and angle.  Applying the rotation rotates the pose bone, which in this case is angle 54.7 degrees about  axis (-1, 1, 0).

Think of it like the rotation from 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock on a clockface, is 90 degrees about the axis of the hands. Applying to hand at 12 o'clock moves to 3 o'clock. Applying again from 3 to 6 o'clock and so on.

import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

up = Vector((0, 0, 1))
dest = Vector((1, 1, 1))

R = up.rotation_difference(dest).to_matrix().to_4x4()

pb = bpy.context.active_pose_bone
pb.matrix = R * pb.matrix
pb.matrix = R @ pb.matrix #  2.8

To set the bone absolutely from the vector, can use Vector.track_to_quat(to, up)  For bones track to the 'Y' axis, along the bone.  I have arbitrarily chosen 'Z" as up.

>>> v = Vector((1, 1, 1))
>>> q = v.to_track_quat('Y', 'Z')
>>> C.active_pose_bone.rotation_quaternion = q
>>> x = C.active_pose_bone.tail.x
>>> x * x
0.33333332136784577


Restoring default toolbar layout in Blender 2.81

From the file dialog

When you are in the Open File dialog, click the Settings icon in the top right.

Then deselect Load UI

Setting default behaviour

You can also change the default behaviour by changing your preferences.

Go to Edit → Preferences → Save & Load and uncheck Load UI

Be warned that this might be equally frustrating if your startup file does not contain all the views you would expect.


How to export mesh object to FBX from command line?

The file you want to open needs to be towards the beginning of the command:

blender.exe D:\Program Files\monkey.blend --background --python D:\Program Files\fbx-export.py


Selected mesh will not move in Object mode

I just find a way to fix it, changing to Edit mode, do anything with object (as move points of object) then come back Object mode. Everything will be fixed.


How to create icicles hanging off an object?

You could use a Particle System of type Hair.

Make a plane and apply a particle system to it.

Also make an icicle as a separate object, or make several and make a group out of them.
Remember to set the origin of each icicle to where it should start growing on the plain, and also CtrlA apply rotation&scale.

In the particle system properties, go to Render. If you made just one icicle, choose the Object tab and your icicle as Dupli Object. If you made several, go to Group tab and choose your group.

Then play with settings in particle system to get correct rotations, placements and scale. Randomness can be applied to all.

Here's a quick result with only one icicle object (open image in new tab to see full size):

Edit:

If you want to fine-tune location of icicles, set Particles/Face = 1 and edit the faces on the plane to exactly where each icicle should originate. Remember to set matching count to amount of faces.


How can I twist part of my mesh into a Möbius strip shape?

Rather easy to make.

Select an edge loop that is running across the width of the circle ridge, with AltRMB , then press V to rip it, RMB  or Esc to cancel the transform. (You now have eight vertices in the same spot where the original four use to be.) Don't change your selection
Turn on Connected Proportional Editing AltO, or in the 3D view header use the Proportional Editing button.
Press RY 180 now before confirming the rotation use the mouse wheel to change the falloff of the proportional editing. You do not what too many other faces to turn, but you need a few.
I found it looked better when I moved the edges in the turn up a little bit. It Keeps the twist more balanced.

AA (to select everything) then W > Remove Doubles because you still have two sets of edges in that original spot.

If you've gotten this far, the modeling should be done, but it will look really bad.

A Subsurf modifier is all that is needed to fix it, but first set the Mean Crease to one on all the edge loops along the curve. (The object in the image in your question already has this, so you can skip this step.) You can quickly select them all in edge select mode with AltRMB  and holding shift for each one after the first. Then in the properties panel (N) under the Transform section you will find the Mean Crease value.

The whole process is in the gif below.


It looks like you may have a duplicate mesh that doesn't have materials rendering. Turn off it's visibility in the render or delete it.


Select Dynotopo field and check it as true

All objects have the use_dynamic_topology_sculpting property, which allows you to check whether or not dynamic topology is activated. Therefore your script could look like this:

import bpy

active_object = bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active

if active_object.mode == "SCULPT" and not active_object.use_dynamic_topology_sculpting:
    bpy.ops.sculpt.dynamic_topology_toggle()


Simply add a mapping node between the texture coordinates and the image texture in your nodes. Then check the Min and the Max check boxes on the Mapping node.
Those two check boxes will limit the repeating of the image. Use Min to control the side to the left of the image, and Max for the right. With both checked neither side will repeat.


Animation is exported, but does not appear along with the mesh of the object

If you're still after an answer, I have found a few different soloutions to various Blender>Unreal problems that when I combine, seem to work. Could be one of these:

Don't have fullstops in your bone names
Rename your Armature to anything else
Don't call your root bone 'Spine' (You've not done this. Could jut need to be carful eitheir way.)

Not sure if any of these help this particular issue, as mine is usually just everything importing microscopic.


Problem with my model when I change the shading from flat to smooth

In a case like this you want the best of both worlds. To achieve this you can use the Auto Smooth option in the Mesh Context.

I'm on mobile right now, so I can't take screen shots of Blender, but I've found some example images on the web.

Notice how the model on the right has both flat and smooth shading?

Here's where to find that feature:

This last one is actually from another Blender Stack Exchange answer. It would probably help you to take a look at it.

The Angle slider determines at what angle the meshes shading will switch from flat to smooth. Play with this.


how to paint on sculpts without retopo for idealization?

If you don't want to do any texturing, you can use vertex paint. It's like painting on the surface of your 3D model. It's not the most advisable method of coloring, texturing usually is, but if you don't want to have to deal with retopo and just want an idea of what your colors are going to be, vertex painting is an great tool. I'm not that great at teaching, but I do have a video that might help:

Vertex Paint Workflow in Blender 2.8

Hope I somewhat answered your question :)


Is there a way to rotate view by 180 or 90 degrees with 1 command?

Method 1
You can go into the reverse of an orthographic view (i.e. the view is rotated by 180 degrees) by adding Ctrl to the numpad number. For example Numpad 1 goes into front view but Ctrl+Numpad 1 goes into back view. This works for Numpad 1, Numpad 3 and Numpad 7.
So you can either press Numpad 1 to go into front view and then press Ctrl+Numpad 1 to reverse that view or you can press Ctrl+Numpad 1 to go directly into that view.
Method 2
It is currently taking you 12 presses to rotate the view using the number pad keys because the 'Rotation Angle' is set to 15 (degrees). Luckily, there is a user preference option to set this to a custom angle (the maximum value it can be set to is 90 degrees).
In 2.8 you can go to Edit> Preferences> Navigation> Orbit & Pan and change the 'Rotation Angle' from there:


Make linked or appended objects part of another blend file no strings attached. (Blender 2.82)

I finally found the answer somewhere on the internet, just press CTRL + A -> Make Instances Real and boom! I can finally sleep.


Why doesn't the boolean modifier work for me?

That's because of the limitation of approach of how inner/outer surface are calculated in Boolean modifier. Current Boolean uses Carve library. Carve will perform boolean operation only if the intersection of two meshes is a closed loop of edges.

As shown in your image, the object is not a closed manifold one, which confuses the edge classifier. This is listed in Boolean modifier limitation.

To solve this, I suggest adding a Solidify modifier on top of Boolean modifier, with a very small Thickness Value (such as 0.00001). After applying both modifiers, you can press W > Remove Doubles to clean the mesh, and select all faces, then press Ctrl N to correct normals. (This sounds like a trick, but it works in this case, since there's nothing you can do with the current Boolean approach, which got its own advantages as well as limitations)

Example file

By the way, in the coming 2.70, Boolean modifier supports ngons, which means you can generate much better and cleaner results (as shown in above image). You may want to give it a try.


Image with transparency used as texture shows white line on the edges

In the Textures tab scroll down to Image Mapping and change Extension to Clip.


Green faces in sculpt mode but I don't think I did anything

I did a bit of searching and think I've found an answer.
Wacky, weird colors when entering sculpt mode (blender v2.83)
Basically, clock on the dropdown menu near the viewport mode selection, and deselect 'Face sets' This should do the job.
Hope this helps.


You could make the moon move relative to the camera.

Select the camera and ⇧ ShiftS snap the cursor to it. Then add an empty at that position. ⇧ ShiftA

Select the moon. ⇧ Shift select the the empty and parent the moon to the empty ⎈ CtrlP.

Select the empty. Add a Copy Location Constraint. Choose the camera as the target.
Fake lighting by the moon with a sun lamp. The sun lamp type sends parallel rays, which simulate an object which is infinitely far away.
You may encounter that the moon is casting a shadow (from the sun light) or emitting light (if you're using the cycles render engine). To prevent that in cycles, you modify the moons visibility settings and disable all options except camera.

If you are using EEVEE, simply move the sun light between all object and the moon, which has to have the furthest distance to the camera.

Due to the relative offset, the moon is always at the same position.


Why I can't cut there with the knife tool, I want to make a quad out of this n-gons

You can Cut Trough by pressing Z while knifing

  Allow the Cut tool to cut through to obscured faces, instead of only the visible ones.

or using Knife selection Shift-K (by default)

  Activates the knife with another set of options so only selected faces are cut and Cut through is on by default.

Knife Tool


Group is linked to an invisible point i can't delete

You have 2-3 empty objects, objects which do not contain any vertices.

Out of those HotyDog_CH contains a shoe object which contains a HyperNURBS object which contains Cube1 which in turn contains the actual mesh data of your character:

Now first of all, maintain a clean workspace, delete the emptys, and generally check the outliner tab and check that there are no unwanted objects, also naming your objects will make your life easier.

Second is that you have some unapplied scales which will give you lots of headaches, so before deleting those empty containers or parenting to the armature apply your scale with ctrl+A.

After that you should be able to properly parent your mesh to your armature and begin skinning. Be sure to first select your mesh, then your armature and then press ctrl+P.

Off topic:

• check your hand rigging, as it has some faulty and missing connections.

• you have unmerged vertice data, this will cause shading artifacts, enter edit mode and remove doubles  W  -> Remove Doubles.


How do I set up a 3rd person character with multiple animations in the Game Engine?

Just use only one armature for your character.

Create your two different actions on the same armature. Make sure that no bone is used in different actions at the same time. (In your case: action one -> exclusively the upper body part, action two -> only bones of the lower half)

Last thing you have to do, is to select different Action-Layers for your actions in each action-actuator.


Is it possible to obtain dense correspondence field?

This answer may have missed the point, but maybe it will help clarify the question:
If you subtract the Object space coordinate of the shading point in the space of object A from the Object space coordinate of the shading point in the space of object B, then the colors on the surface-points of B will represent the World space 3D translation required to take them to the corresponding points on A.

This is OK for rigid objects.. if they're deforming, you could bake the space into an image texture, and look up in UV space instead.


Blender UI simplification, template_header_3D, mesh selection mode

Here is the solution:

if obj and obj.mode == 'EDIT':
    row = layout.row(align=True)
    row.prop(toolsettings, "mesh_select_mode", icon='VERTEXSEL', text='', index=0, toggle=True)
    row.prop(toolsettings, "mesh_select_mode", icon='EDGESEL', text='', index=1, toggle=True)
    row.prop(toolsettings, "mesh_select_mode", icon='FACESEL', text='', index=2, toggle=True)

Using the index parameter it is possible to select elements of the bool vector.


You could create a new, empty project, go to Sculpt, then try to DragDrop import your broken .blend file. Then Choose "append". Or Choose File->Append... Then navigate to "object" Folder ("Mesh" didn't work for me). Choose your Mesh.

https://imgur.com/yq0lEMP


Python - Writing a custom image / texture importer

Thanks to @CraigDJones's comment on the Planes addon, and lots of digging around, I've narrowed down how to custom-import images.

First, as with any extension importing anything, it's necessary to write an Operator class for handling the file windows. As I am extremely new, this is something I'm still in the process of figuring out. However, operators do seem to be pretty general, as they do a large number of things. For starters, Here's Blender's Operators - bpy.ops reference.

For importing images, I discovered it's possible to instantiate a new image via the bpy.data.images.new(name,width,height) method. Then from there, pixels can be easily accessed and changed via the image_object.pixels[] array, which indexes the pixels data from left to right, then bottom to top as clamp (0.0 to 1.0) values. Each pixel has four values in this array: R, G, B, and A. Here's a simple example:

image_object = bpy.data.images.new("New image",1024,1024)
image_object.pixels[0:3] = (0.5,0.5,0.5) # R,G,B - changes bottom left pixel

# makes entire image half-transparent red
for i in range(0,len(image_object.pixels), 4):
    image_object.pixels[i:i+4] = (1,0,0,0.5)

EDIT:
A note of caution: So after a little effort, I was able to write a script for importing the image type I'm working with. For those doing the same, though, pixel operations on the image pixel data itself, e.g. image_object.pixels[...] = ..., are very slow. My script took about 20mins to import an image because it was directly copying each pixel to the image_object's pixel data. But after I made it copy to a separate buffer, and then dump everything over, e.g. image_object.pixels[0:] = another_buffer it went lightning fast.


How to stop a mesh from passing past the mirror point and merge with the part added by the mirror

If you apply the mirror modifier as seen in the picture below, it will clip the mesh and auto merge it

It's specifically about these 2 values.


How can I animate a vertex translation of a triangular mesh?

Scripting blenders animation system.
Back in the old days one of the common methods to animate a mesh was via a hook.
Similarly to How to transform a mesh with many objects? here is code to add and assign a hook empty to each vertex of the object named "Triangle" in the scene.
Setup script: add hooks
import bpy

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
tri = scene.objects.get("Triangle")
if tri:
    me = tri.data
    for v in me.vertices:
        name = f"Vert_{v.index}"
        bpy.ops.object.empty_add(
                location=tri.matrix_world @ v.co
                )
        mt = context.object
        mt.name = name
        hm = tri.modifiers.new(
                name=name,
                type='HOOK',
                )
        hm.object = mt
        hm.vertex_indices_set([v.index])

To move any vert simply animate the associated hook.
To animate.
Each hook is a proxy for its associated vert in global space.
Demo script, at each 50 frame interval keyframe the location of vertex 2's hook such that it is 25% further from vertex 2 moving along the direction of edge (v1, v2).
import bpy
context = bpy.context

ob = context.object # Hooked object

v1, v2, v3 = [m.object for m in ob.modifiers
        if m.type == 'HOOK' and m.object]
context.scene.frame_set(1)
for frame in range(1, 250, 58):
    v2.keyframe_insert("location", frame=frame)
    v2.location += 0.25 * (v2.location - v1.location)

removing the hooks and / or the hook modifiers returns the triangle back to its original geometry.


Can't find the keyboard shortcut in keymap preferences

Open the keymap in the preferences (Edit > Preferences > Keymap) and select Key-binding in the drop-down next to the search box. The shortcut can be found by searching for the W key-binding. The Shift + Spacebar shortcut for the toolbar popup is a separate one.

You're looking for Set Tool By Name. (*)

(*) Now that you know its name, you can also search for it directly. The approach above works for any shortcut though, in case you don't know the operator's label.


Problem with Rigging and IK-Bone when changing between rest and animated position

There are a few mistakes in your rig that are causing you the problems you are seeing.

First, the chain length on the leg IK bones is set to 0. You'll want to set it to 2. What the chain length does is determine how many bones the IK constraint will affect. 0 means that moving the foot bone around will affect every bone in the chain, which includes the hip bone, while setting it to 2 will make it affect only the shin and thigh bones. Your IK foot bone should only be affecting the leg, and not the hips. You'll need to change this for both IK constraints.

Second, you have the location on your foot bones locked. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but from looking at your file it appears this was done to 'fix' another issue, but after properly fixing everything it won't be necessary.

Which brings me to issue 3. This is the issue that's causing you most of the problems. Your foot bones which are used to control the legs via the IK constraint, are still parented to the legs. What's happening is you have a circular relationship going in here. Your foot bone is telling your leg bones where to be because of the IK constraint, while the leg bones define the position on the foot bones since they are connected. That is why any edit such as changing to rest pose and back or going into edit mode and back are causing issues. Locking the foot bones location seemed to be what you did to fix this issue, but as you found out it doesn't truly fix it.

To fix the IK issue, you'll want to (in edit mode) duplicate each foot bone, rename them to be Foot_IK.R/L or something like that, clear the parent on them with Alt-P, and use them as the Bone in the IK constraint. You can also then add a copy rotation constraint to the original foot bone and have it copy the rotation of the new IK bone so that the IK bone can control the whole foot. You will most likely have to set the space from world space to local space in both menus to ensure it works properly.

The reason for using a separate bone instead of clearing the parent on the foot bone is that using the foot bone as the control will also allow you to pull the foot bone away from the ankle, stretching the leg. Using a separate bone will just fully extend the leg and not stretch any of the leg.

I think you should only have to reposition the foot IK bones once you've made all of these changes, so you won't have to redo much.


How to export texture after editing nodes/uv

I think it would be easier to adjust UV map, then to change distorted texture, but you can do that, by baking Diffuse color to new texture, then exporting it as an image.Like this:

Below you will see, how it needs to be done in Blender Internal in your particular example.As the shirt is made out of 3 different models, I joined them for baking purpose, after that you won't need the duplicate, so you can delete it, cause If the game expects 3 meshes as a shirt input, then probably exporting 1 mesh will not work.


Copying detail from one side of an object to another?

This method only works for objects derived from uniform/regular shapes:

First select all vertices you want copied:

Then Shift+D to duplicate, P -> Separate by selection to separate new that part.

Go back into object mode, select the new part and rotate 90 degrees (if its a cube) to the face you want it on.

Duplicate rotate the new object to other positions you want it on.

Select the original object, go into edit mode and delete the faces that are now occupied by the new objects

Back in object mode, select everything and press Ctrl+J to join them back into one object.

Now press A to select all, W -> Remove Doubles to remove the duplicated vertices and join new faces back together with the original object

And you are done!


Different seeds on different render layers

You can make a full copy of the scene into another and select other seed in it. You are gonna need a new scene for every diferent seed. Them, in compositing you can select scenes and layers in the render nodes.


Blender beta 2.8: How can I insert a rim on this flat edge?

Select all vertices of the rim, then press E,S and move the mouse to scale inwward the new extruded faces; left click to confirm the scaling. Another method is to add a solidify modifier to the whole mesh.


Can this even be modeled? 3D modeling of flexible spheres in contact with one another

There is nothing to model really, you can use blenders primitive spheres, and position them procedurally by using the centre of the parent sphere as the pivot point of the first layer of children and constraining them to the radius of the parent. This way they will appear on the surface of the parent.

The way you can create the spheres is creating a emitter sphere which would be at the origin of your parent sphere with a radius of:
EmitterSpereRadius = ParentRad + childrenRad

Then create a particle system using the emitter sphere as the ... emitter, and creating the desired amount of particles which you will set to be emitted from the surface of the sphere rather than the volume. Turn off all forces acting upon the particles and they should stand still.

Now you can replace this particles with instance geometry (your children spheres) and you will have a parent sphere with it's children just about touching it's surface. (Note, that if you distributed your particles randomly, some children could be overlapping).

Then as John Burrill suggested apply softbody dynamics to all spheres, make them collidable with each other and their parent, and apply a strong force filed to the children from the parent which would allow them only to encompass the parent, squashing against him and themselves...

Repeat the same process for more layers.

This would get you some results.
In the case that i haven't totally misunderstood the question, please ignore. :)


How to animate particle size (Newtonian Physics)

If you go to the Physics>size tab under Newtonian, and either hover your mouse over the input box, and press  RMB>insert keyframe, or just press  I while hovering over the input box after setting the particles to the size you need for your scene. Do the same thing to set the scaling down at your later frame. In my example, it is 30 frames using a sphere as a dupli object.


An option to achieve this look would be to use a musgrave texture as the factor of two diffuse shaders. For this example, a quick search for 'grid image' gave me an image to use for slight displacement, and to keep things simple as the wireframe node will give triangles, and freestyle didn't look too good either.

This is the image used for the grid:

The node setup is as follows, note that the musgrave is connected to the object output of the texture coordinate node, and the mapping node to the UV output as the cube is uv unwrapped.

Play with the scale on the musgrave texture to get a look that you like, likewise with your grid texture in the mapping node.

This should give you a starting point, hope it helps. Finished result:


Is there a simple way to attach a skin texture to a humanod mesh?

Make a texture on the side bar >>> go into edit mode on the mesh >>> select it all >>> click on "mesh" on the toolbar near the bottom >>> click on UV UNWRAP it would automatically unwrap the mesh for you.

Smart UV project works, but just unwrapping it is the better option.