Extruding Vertices Is Moving the Original Vertices

'On cage' option is on for the subdivision modifier.

Set it off.

This option shows vertex positions as if they were already modified by the modifier.


When I apply a texture to my mesh some parts aren't well rendered

It appears that you unwrapped your cube initially, and then procceeded to model some more but never unwrapped the modified object. Now your UVmap is that of the original cube, and that does not match the current state of the object, so your texture looks a bit of a mess.
Example:
Default Cube:

Slightly Modified, not unwrapped again:

Simply reset your UVmap, U >reset R then unwrap again. U follow active quads (with the last selected quad face active) is usually my go to, but use whichever method that gives the result you require for your needs.
For instance, this is my modified cube with a new UVmap:


I just found that problem and I solved it. In the 2.8 version it's not broken, just go to the object properties> object display and select the nurbs path and change the display texture to bounds.

You will now see that it's visible even without edit mode.


Why does mesh behave like mirrored in Edit mode without Mirror modifier?

That could be this "X mirror":

You find that in Edit mode, on the Toolshelf (press T to toggle visibility), under the Options tab.


Textures don't show in 3d view after loading them into node via python. Blender 2.66

Ok got it finally.
You need set active Image Texture node:

mat = bpy.data.materials['<Your material name>']
mat.node_tree.nodes.active = mat.node_tree.nodes.new('TEX_IMAGE')


To activate the indices at blender 2.79, you type in the python console the following command

bpy.app.debug = True

Switch to the 3D view and press N to access the Mesh display where the indices icon is activated

Finally, you would have the indices appear on the mesh

For who is interested in for more details: these indices would be used to located where the constraint are added to the volumetric mesh in physical simulation like SOFA physics engine simulator

This how it looks like, this would facilitate adding a constraint for a volumetric mesh in a physical simulation like SOFA framework.

this how it looks like in the XML code:

<FixedConstraint template="Vec3d" name="Fixed Dofs" indices="12 15 28 31" drawSize="0" />


What is the difference between Unwrap and Smart uv project?

"Unwrap" is when Blender will determine where each and every face should be located on your UV Image Editor, For example, If I were to unwrap an entire cube or sphere, it would look something like this:
As you can see, all of the faces of this sphere are stacked upon one another, fitting the entire frame of each face with the texture. But all of this can be solved if you Mark Seams on your object.

Smart UV Unwrap is when if you were to chose this option, you would be given 4 options to change and edit the way blender is going to analyze your mesh unwrapping;Angle Limit, Island Margin, Area weight, and Correct Aspect. You can tweak these options to see what you would prefer most and what you like best.
Ex.
In my opinion, I would go for the "Unwrap" because if you "Mark Seams" you can control the way blender unwraps your mesh in a much easier way instead of having to work with all those options in "Smart UV Unwrap."


As you have joined the two objects, they are now one object. In order to edit/select the geometry of an object, you must be in edit mode.

You can press ↹ Tab to toggle edit mode, or set the mode via the selector in 3D view > header:

Once in edit mode, L works as expected:

Note that you can also select geometry connected the selected geometry with ⎈ CtrlL:


How to align bottom of picture to ground when loading it?

Current import Images as Planes addon doesn't have this feature ... so before some pythonist comes to help ... Blender is bundled with Align Tools addon. If you import all Images as Planes you can use addon to adjust them at once ...
Search for Align Operator
(or go to side panel (N) > Item > Align Tools > Advanced)

choose Object / X, Z / Min / Min it aligns all objects to left-bottom corner

then switch to Pivot / Active / Min to place Origin (Pivot point) also to left-bottom corner

Or use any other option ... to move all object to a World Origin (X0/Y0/Z0) press Alt+G


Bezier Curve as Constraint for Bones? (Rolling garage door)

You can do something similar without using bones:

Subdivide a plane so that it corresponds to the door parts (same size as the door), for instance, this:

Add a curve modifier to this plane. The plane will keep its flat parts following the curve.
Parent the door to the plane.
Add a "surface deform" modifier to the door targeting to the plane (and bind it). The door will stay conformed to the flat parts of the plane.

Animate the plane along its curve axis.


Select the vertex and the end of one, then press ShiftG> Amount of adjacent faces:

Then delete. (Delete> Vertices)


While still in development Armory looks to be a promising solution. It has multiple export options including HTML5.

It is open source and maintains a GitHub repository here.

Here is an example of an HTML5 game.

EDIT

The best way to get Armory is through Armory's Patreon page.
Building from GitHub is a difficult if not impossible task at the moment.


It propably depends on the geometry you're working with, but you might have a chance in abusing the fact that normal maps are indeed just encoded direction vectors, which are assigned to the R, G and B color slots. If you try a node setup like this (so feeding the normal output into an emission shader and previewing that) on your texture...

... you'll see the famous mostly blue normals texture:

Add two more nodes afterwards to split up the three channels into its components. One is a SeparateRGB node, the other one an invert node. You'll need the invert just on the B channel, not on the other two:

The result of that separation will be this:

Whereas the original texture which I was feeding into the whole chain was simply this:

The background is, in the R channel or a normal map, the perturbation amount of the normal in U direction is stored, whereas in the G channel the V perturbation is recorded. B is - I believe - a factor of how unperturbed the normal is. That's why you need to invert it, as you're interested in the bumpy areas only.

With your provided texture, the setup produces this:


Adding edge loops based on selected edges

You might not like this answer, because I am using face selection instead of Edge Selection, but I do believe that the end result is what you are after, so I'm adding this to your realm of possibilities into achieving your desired end result.

In face select mode, I achieved this by holding Alt and right clicking the bottom edge of the face loop, then for successive loop selections adding the Shift key to add more loops.

Next I used the I key to do a face inset, and then I just moved my mouse in and out until I had the desired result, however, you can enter a numeric value instead for the amount of inset.


There can be gaps but they're not inevitable.

The Angle should be 360° so the edges line up.
The Screw value should be exactly the same value as the object's dimension in the relevant axis.
The highest and the lowest vert should have the same distance from the screw axis.
After applying the modifier, using Remove Doubles with the relevant verts selected and a large enough threshold should kill any small gaps. Without that, a Subsurf Modifier might produce a gap.


How can I achieve a domed or "hangar" type cross-section shape?

Shift+A Select Add a Mesh then select Add a Circle from the drop down menu. You can change the number of vertices in the tool bar on the left.

Press Tab to go into Edit Mode. Select the number of vertices desired to delete bye selecting them and then pressing X and then vertices from the drop down menu.

Select the bottom two vertices and press F to connect them.

Select all of the vertices and press E and then press the letter of the axis you want to extrude them along. For example press E and then Y to extrude along the Y axis.


Mirror modifier changes behaviour of scaling 2.8

If you use median point or individual origins as pivot point as you can see on the first picture the transformation's origin won't be at the center of your selected mesh because it doesn't include the mirrored verts only the real ones. So you have to use the 3D cursor as the transformation's origin at the right place as you can see on the last picture.


Why is the object not running in the given path

The main reason it's not working is because you've offset the centers of the the curve and the object.
Here I've selected each and pressed Alt + G to move them back to the origin.  I then select the object and add Follow Path constraint and select the curve as the Target.  I then use the timeline to step through the animation.

After you know it works the way you want, you can scale, rotate, and move the curve any way you want.  But the object needs to be at the origin before adding the constraint.
Anything different will create an offset to the path and, unless you know what you're doing, can cause unpredictable results.  It's probably just better to set it to the origin and manipulate the curve so you can visualize the transformation.


How can i make a color transparent in node editor

You can use the object index mask and the alpha over node to make the object transparent in the node editor.

Set object index:

Add the object index render pass:

Node setup:


I might be wrong but I don't think you can blend the logo with a Normal map only.
You want to paint the logo on the threads of the fabric/cover and mask out the holes. For this, you need a Height or Displacement texture that has the info where the holes are.
For the example, I used the Displacement and the Roughness textures of this fabric. Got the logo, inverted the colors, then painted it with the Stencil mode of the brush on a new texture. For the Math node which is used to mask the logo, I've inverted the colors (logo=white=1, background=black=0). Of course, you can just use an Invert node before the Math node.
Once the Image Texture nodes are set up, you can mix the logo with the Mix RBG node and mask the logo with a Math node (mode: Multiply). The Color Ramp controls the opacity of the "paint"/logo. The Displacement texture (black & white) is used for the mixed color because plain white still looks too strong. You can use another Color Ramp to colorize the logo.
Shader setup to mix logo and fabric
The Normal texture is omitted from the example since there is already the Displacement texture and the images are big. The Bump node does the job.
The box with the material and a LED light
Update: After I had a closer look at the material, it looks more like hard plastic with holes in it than a fabric. In this case, you can get away with just an image that has dots on it.
The logo has now an extra UV map. So you don't need an extra texture and no need to paint it.
The image with dots can be used for the Roughness and Specular slots. Mask the holes with Color Ramps and you can create little black holes. (With the Alpha slot they even can become transparent).


Cannot get rid of smoothing. But why? (not: "But how?")

"Sharp Edges" only works in correlation with the option "Auto Smooth" enabled.
Auto Smooth uses the angle of edges standing on each other to determine if they should be shaded flat or smooth. The input "angle" is the starting point, so if the angle > 50° the faces will be shaded smooth

You could see the option "mark sharp" as an overwrite for the auto-smooth shading. "mark smooth" is essentially just a reset to default, or in this case the shading determined by the auto-smooth. Thats why only mark sharp has a visual edge highlight in the viewport.


if you only need the font size of the measurements to be bigger, you could use the included addon Measurelt which gives you a degree of customization on the font side.


Enter edit mode
Hit Ctrl-R to make a loop cut across the mesh.
Repeat in other direction
Select face and extrude it upwards(E-Z)


Mirrored geometry does not receive the same material?

Suggestion

Apply the mirror, separate the eyes, transform origin to geometry, uv map, and apply a circular texture.

I do not think attempting to apply the same texture space of [Object] to both eyes in an easy or flexible idea.  If the eyes rotate you may find trouble.  I do not know your animation style.

Secondary Information , Not a suggestion

Here is deprecated texture mapping without uv with typical sticky style ... it is biased to the vector indicated

If you choose to have bad frozen eyes with a slippery texture this is a bad deprecated node image.

Both images above rely on the spherical shape and have no uv map required.


Here, try this setup:

The "mask factor" you are looking for, I achieved by rotating (and slightly moving) a Gradient Texture, and controlling it's cutoffs with a ColorRamp. I then used it as a mix factor for the "bread colors" and adjusted the ColorRamp until it looked right. (This works very well to control the darkness levels).

I then mixed a Noise Texture and a Musgrave Texture to give a scattered displacement pattern, and I used it's inverse as a roughness factor.

I thought the bread colors looked too plain, so I combined yet another Musgrave Texture with a couple of Noise Textures and multiplied them with the bread colors to transfer the darks only.

Lastly, I added the whites from a clamped, detailed musgrave texture to get the "flour coating" on the crust of the bread.

I'll also upload the .blend in case you want to play with it. I even threw in a couple of extra procedural textures (The pan and the table) that can be used as examples.

File is here -
Happy shading!


Yep, you are assigning all new random colours to the first object.

def get_random_color():
    ''' generate rgb using a list comprehension '''
    r, g, b = [random.random() for i in range(3)]
    return r, g, b, 1

then in the loop, once you create the object you get a reference to it.
somethng like:

obj = bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()
obj.color = get_random_color()

This way you will call a function to get random rgba on every new object


Where can I download older versions of Blender?

Accordoing to the blender.org fortunately "Your old files are safe, every Blender release is available for download. Forever." Just go to the download site and look for previous versions at the bottom of the page.

2.79:
https://www.blender.org/download/previous-versions/

2.80:
https://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.80/

Every build:
https://download.blender.org/release/


How can I use vector displacement like this streamer?

you have to enable the displacement in the material setting


Layers section is not in the render settings panel?

I assume that you are mixing two different tabs of the Properties editor into one.
The Performance section is in Render tab of the Properties editor (camera icon), see image below:

The Layers and Passes sections (which are needed for compositing) are in the Render Layers tab (small pictures icon, second from left), see image:

Check out this BlendFile. Note that there are two render Layers (A and B).

Both have scene layers 1, 2 and 10 enabled in Scene layer selection.

In Render Selection, "RenderLayer-A" has layers 1 and 10 enabled, and
"RenderLayerB" has layers 2 and 10 enabled.


How to Merge objects so that when you seperate them by loose parts

When you used Ctrl + J, you joined the objects together so that the separate meshes were now part of the same object. In order for them to be part of the same mesh they need to be part of the same object AND connected from at least one vertex on your window mesh to your building mesh.

You can do this with the F key while two or more vertices are selected.

If you hover over a mesh in your scene and hit L it will highlight all the vertices on that mesh, this also works with Ctrl + L when you have a vertex selected.

You'll know your windows are a part of the building if you have everything deselected and hit L while your mouse is over your building and the selection includes the windows.


The way to animate Shape Keys in Blend4Web is to use Logic Nodes. It has been implied that in the future the Blend4Web team may add even more ways to animate them. (An alternative approach is to do vertex baking on models that have Shape Key animation on them.) I will give an overview of the steps for animating Shape Keys with Blend4Web's Logic Nodes.

Things you've done correctly already:

Set the render engine to Blend4Web
Create shape keys
In the Object Context, enable "Export Shape Keys" for that object.

Things you still need to do:

In the Scene Context enable the Logic Editor. Click the [+] button to add a new one.
Open the Node Editor and set the node tree type to Blend4Web logic nodes.
Select your new logic node tree from the drop-down list.
Create the kind of logic node tree necessary for the kind of animation you want to make.

Enabling the Logic Editor and creating a new node tree:

Setting the node tree type and selecting your logic node tree in the Node Editor:

Creating your node tree

Here is a very basic example of how you can make your object switch Shape Keys when clicked:

For examples of how to make your Shape Keys animate gradually over time, as well as how to animate back and forth, see this thread on the Blend4Web Forums.

Also, you can reference the Blend4Web Manual for more info on Logic Nodes.

Good luck!


Can I implement the lattice deformation to an animation?

Unity doesn't support lattice deformation, but it does support bone deformation which can be used in many cases.

For example (left side is lattice, right side is bone):

You can get it to look even better if your especially careful with the weight painting.


If those UVs are exactly the same, you can align UVs to some common vertex and then rotate one UV with enabled vertex snapping and snap the rotation to some vertex of the other UV.

Enable snapping Shift+Tab
Set Snap UV Element to Vertex Ctrl+Shift+Tab
Set Selection Mode to Island Ctrl+Tab
Grab one island G and align it to corresponding vertex of the other UV island
Change Selection Mode to Vertex, select the common vertex and hit Shift+S to set Cursor to Selected, so you can use this vertex as a pivot point in next step
Change Pivot to 2D Cursor .
This is quite unpredictable but hopefully it will work - rotate the UV R and hover your cursor over vertices on the second UV until the rotation snap to it.

If your UVs are not exactly the same, you can then select all vertices and press W > Remove Doubles to merge vertices close to each other.


I don't use the eraser on my tablet(mine doesn't come with one) but Texture Paint mode has a mix mode in the brush controls called 'Erase Alpha', and that generally does what you expect in that it seems to erase the paint - BUT if you also then switch to 'Add Alpha', you can then recover what you thought was erased.

I don't know about setting up an operator to swap to the Erase Alpha mix mode and back to the last used brush mix mode, but that might be possible, and then you woudl have to map it to the eraser input. I use an add-on called EZ Paint that enables me to toggle erase/add alpha with a short cut key, but that isn't what you are looking for.


Fluid bake crashing at high resolution divisions

Just an idea, I had the same issue with smoke simulations. In Blender 2.90 and above the OpenVDB volume format comes with Advanced Settings. Here you can choose Compression Volumes "None", "Blosc" and "Zip". The default value is "Blosc".
After switching to "Zip", the baking works without any problems. "None" works, too. Only "Blosc" makes all my machines crash, no matter if laptop or my two PCs.
You can try this, but I have to admit that someone else here had similar issues like you with fluid simulations and it didn't help. But as you describe it, your fluid simulation behaves exactly like my smoke simulation.


Why isn't Spin tool or mesh that has been rotated accurate when zooming in

You've just encountered one of the nightmares of doing maths on computers, and it's not a blender bug.
Blender uses floating point numbers internally, and they have finite precision.  This means that when you do complicated calculations like calculating movement through an angle, you only get an approximation of the final answer.
For the majority of uses, the approximations are close enough to the right answer that people don't notice, but you've found one of the rare cases where it does.
If you want to merge the two vertices, select the one that is in the right position, then select the other by holding shift when you left click on it.  Type M to get the merge menu and select "At First":
select the first vertex with left mouse:

select the second vertex with left mouse while holding shift:

notice that the first vertex is orange.  That means it's the 'active' vertex.
Now type M to bring up the merge menu

and select "At First"


CUDA // Building Blender Vs pre-Built binaries?

Building Blender with CUDA support currently requires the CUDA Toolkit 10.1. If you want to create your own build with CUDA support, you will have to install the required dependencies. If you have all the dependencies installed, correct build configurations and create a release build (make release), then it should have the same features as the official release.


Convert physics to animation keyframe (Actions) in Blender

Here are the steps you need to follow:

Let's say you created a simulation of physics on softbody
Select your object and export the file as MDD (This will export the keyframe as data to .MDD file)
Keep the object selected, Import the .MDD file you've exported.
Now if you see the Dope sheet there should be some keyframes on it. But you cannot see anything on Action Editor.
Remove the softbody modifier on your Object. (Hit Space, you should be able to see your simulation without the modifier)
Here is the key part, Now you have to convert the body to Rigid body to bake the keyframe to Animation(Action). Apply the rigid body modifier to the Object.
Make the Rigid body type as Active and animated (Checkbox). (Now Hit space, you should be able to see the simulation without the object falling down, Even though you applied Rigid Body modifier)
Now, go to Object -> Bake to Keyframe, I will take some time according to your mesh and simulation. But after finishing you should be able to see the keyframes on Action Editor.
As the last step simply import the .blend file to unity.


How can I see my nvidia quadro 6000 in 2.80, 2.81 CUDA?

The requirements for GPU rendering are higher than the minimum requirements for running Blender.

  Supported Graphics Cards

  These requirements are for basic Blender operation, rendering using the GPU requires slightly different requirements.

The manual states that CUDA compute capability 3.0 or higher is required for GPU rendering. Graphics cards that do not meet that requirement will not be listed in the preferences.

  NVIDIA CUDA

  NVIDIA CUDA is supported for GPU rendering with NVIDIA graphics cards. Blender supports graphics cards with compute capability 3.0 and higher. To make sure your GPU is supported, see the list of NVIDIA graphics cards with the compute capabilities and supported graphics cards.

  NVIDIA CUDA GPU rendering is supported on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Since the Quadro 6000 has compute capability 2.0 it's not supported for GPU rendering.


Recently added a custom icons module to an addon... thought it might be an interesting answer to this q.  Code is basically the text editor custom icon template.

Icons stored in an icons folder inside the addon's folder.

import bpy

from os import path
icon_dir = path.join(path.dirname(__file__), "icons")
preview_collections = {}

def register():
    # Note that preview collections returned by bpy.utils.previews
    # are regular py objects - you can use them to store custom data.
    import bpy.utils.previews
    pcoll = bpy.utils.previews.new()

    # path to the folder where the icon is
    # the path is calculated relative to this py file inside the addon folder
    # load a preview thumbnail of a file and store in the previews collection
    icons = {"midi" : "midi.png",
            }
    for key, f in icons.items():
        pcoll.load(key, path.join(icon_dir, f), 'IMAGE')

    preview_collections["main"] = pcoll

def unregister():
    for pcoll in preview_collections.values():
        bpy.utils.previews.remove(pcoll)
    preview_collections.clear()

Registered: icons.register() is called from my addons register method (in __init__.py ), after imp(ort)ing icons module.

Now in any other file, i can import the preview dictionary, then use in a draw method

    def draw_header(self, context):
        from sound_drivers.icons import preview_collections
        pcoll = preview_collections["main"]
        icon = pcoll["midi"]
        self.layout.label("", icon_value=icon.icon_id)

Note sound_drivers is the name of addon, change to suit.


Rigid body activates, before it interacts with another object

yes learn how here:
1-3 // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEo_9AopfoQ

2-3 // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY7iJmqsJf8

3-3 // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0VJmmPPvwA

Enjoy!


You might also try the atexit module

import time
import atexit

filepath = r"C:\Users\pink_vertex\Documents\Blender\log.txt"

@atexit.register
def on_exit():
    with open(filepath, "a") as output:
        output.write(time.strftime("Exit on %d.%m at %H:%M:%S\n"))


Blender with Niftools addon, how can I export an fbx file with a texture linked to it?

This is likely because the texture is not set as a material for the object, but is still showing up in Texture Paint mode because it is in the tool’s active slot. Was the NIFtools addon originally designed for 2.79?
Anyway, you need to actually set up the texture as a material in Object or Edit mode. More on the subject can be found here: Blender Manual: Materials, Index


I don't know if you'd find it easier, but I often use split vector values for this and (greater/less than) math node:

As you can see, this way you can easily control position on the object. Creating a line from this is simply a matter of offsetting the value in both directions and adding the results:

You can easily make it more compact, but I'll leave it as simple as possible to experiment with.

EDIT: Well ok then, I'd use gradient texture indeed and then just apply different formulas for color interpolation or/and scale the texture coordinates.
If you think about Gradient texture (Linear), it's actually a simple interpolation between black and white (0 to 1). Using right mathematical formula should give you any interpolation you want.
So I'd approach this first by scaling the mapping vector from Object output (multiplying by value higher than 1 would squash the values inside, while using values between 0 and 1 would extend the interpolation beyond the object). So, if you think about that, you could say that with default values you have a soft line of the width of your object:

The 'greater than' node explains it enough, I hope:

So to control the interpolation - the first thing that comes to my mind would be use power math node:

Then simply scale the mapping vector:

Simply multiplying vector values inside that group:

If you'd like to shift the lines, you just add a value to each axis, just like I did multiplying there.
If you experiment with different math formulas and Gradient texture interpolations (Quadratic, Ease) i think you will find the best way to control the line smoothness this way:

EDIT2: To debug transition you can literally draw it like a function: use Displacement Input for your Material Output (in this example I used simple box scaled in Z to 0.01, with adaptive subdivision). This is how values for Quadratic interpolation look like originally:

...and powered by 2:


Select/Remove vertices joining only two edges

Use Select Similar  menu in vertex selection mode to select vertices which share only 2 edges (in 2.79 it is Shift+G). Switch to vertex selection mode, select one vertex falling into mentioned category and with it selected run Select Similar > Amount of connecting edges.

  Amount of Connecting Edges
  Selects all vertices that have the same number of edges connected to them.

Select Similar in manual

Vertices which share only 2 edges will be selected and you can dissolve them with X * > Dissolve Vertices*.


You can obtain this effect by parenting several point lights to the camera and don't foget do disable shadows.

You can set up a camera in one view and point it to the standart cube, also add one by one three lights. Then swithing between default solid shading and GLSL shading move the lights in that way so the shading of the cube model in GLSL model started to look like the default OpenGL light in solid mode. Only your eyes and feelings can help you to obtain waht you need. The right colors of the light you can copy from blender preferences in System tab.


How do i duplicate previous key frame to another frame using python

I've found it practical to keyframe_insert it:

keyframe_insert(frame=k5,data_path=fcurve.data_path)


UV face vectors not showing up on uv/image editor textures

found the answer online apparently in cycles uv local view needs to be turned off


Set rotation values without applying them

Here's a script which does this, comments inline.

import bpy
import math

#target rotation:
target_rotation = [90, 90, 90]
#object to operate on (active object):
ob = bpy.context.active_object

#this assumes you are starting at 0 rotaton, so you pobably want to apply rotation before doing anything:
bpy.ops.object.transform_apply(location=False, rotation=True, scale=False) #apply rotation
#get inverse of rotation we want:
t_rot = (math.radians(target_rotation[0]*-1),
         math.radians(target_rotation[1]*-1),
         math.radians(target_rotation[2]*-1))
#we need to apply the rotations in reverse order, so unsure that we are in zyx:
ob.rotation_mode = 'ZYX'
ob.rotation_euler = (t_rot) #set rotation to inverse
bpy.ops.object.transform_apply(location=False, rotation=True, scale=False) #apply rotation

t_rot = (math.radians(target_rotation[0]),
         math.radians(target_rotation[1]),
         math.radians(target_rotation[2]))
ob.rotation_mode = 'XYZ' #set rotation mode back (was zyx, so we want xyz)
ob.rotation_euler = (t_rot) #set rotation

Pardon my probably poor python ;)


Making solidify modifier inside shape conform to the outside shape

I'm lacking the information I'd need for more than an guess, and it should be taken to account that I have less experience using the solidify modifier than certain others. That said, the first things I'd check are that:

you've applied scale and rotation to the object, before applying the solidify modifier;

you have the origin of the bottle object located in the center of the bottle object; and

you've chosen the proper pivot point before applying the modifier.


How to export UVs per-vertex in script (as OBJ format does)?

If you are aiming to use UV coordinates with OpenGL, at some step, you'll have to use instructions like this one:

   glBegin(GL_QUADS);
   glTexCoord2f(0.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(-2.0, -1.0, 0.0);
   glTexCoord2f(0.0, 1.0); glVertex3f(-2.0, 1.0, 0.0);
   glTexCoord2f(1.0, 1.0); glVertex3f(0.0, 1.0, 0.0);
   glTexCoord2f(1.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(0.0, -1.0, 0.0);

   glTexCoord2f(0.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(1.0, -1.0, 0.0);
   glTexCoord2f(0.0, 1.0); glVertex3f(1.0, 1.0, 0.0);
   glTexCoord2f(1.0, 1.0); glVertex3f(2.41421, 1.0, -1.41421);
   glTexCoord2f(1.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(2.41421, -1.0, -1.41421);
   glEnd();

Which means that:

UV coordinates are given per vertex...
... but given per vertex only in the scope of a drawn face

So we have, in fact a per face information.

In your export program, you may:

Loop over the vertices to store their coordinates
Loop over the faces to store the vertices they use (e.g. making fan polygons)
Loop over the UV maps, and for each:
Loop over the polygons (at obj.data level)
Loop over each polygon's loop_indices and take the corresponding data (uv coordinates) in the current UV map.

This can be something like this (code template):

import bpy

obj = bpy.context.object #An object (selected one)

#Write 3D coordinates
for v in obj.data.vertices:
    #Write v.co in your file
    pass

#Write polygons (faces)
for p in obj.data.polygons:
    #Write a line per polygon indicating the vertices it uses
    for i in p.vertices:
        #Write i in your file
        #See explanation 1 below
    pass

#Write each uv map
for uvMap in obj.data.uv_layers:
    #Process this uvMap
    for p in obj.data.polygons:
        #Use the polygon loop indices
        for li in p.loop_indices:
            #Write the uv coordinates for each vertex in the uv map
            uvMap.data[li].uv
            #See explanation 2 below

Explanation 1 (see comments in code):

The indices stored here refer to the previously written 3D coordinates in the same order they've been written

Explanation 2 (see comments in code):

The uv coordinates stored here correspond to the polygons vertices indices in the same order they are written previously in the polygons part


Is it possible to paint only on selected vertices in vertex paint?

Face selection masking is available in the 3D header when in 'Vertex Paint' mode:

Because this works on faces you will only be able to paint vertices that make up a face, individual vertices or edges won't be filled.

Select the vertices you want to paint on in edit mode.
Change to 'Vertex Paint' mode.
Enable 'Face selection masking' in the 3D header. There will now be a dotted line around the selected faces.
Press Shift+K to fill the selection with the desired colours.


Ubuntu Blender Installation, Python sys.path broken

We can't support unofficial builds, as there are too many of them with too many unknowns. If you really want to use this PPA, ask the person who created it for help. If you just want to use Blender on Ubuntu, download the Linux version from the Blender download page.


I have no clue. However, you can make a sphere in a new blender project and subdivide the surface untill the app starts to lag. Then, you can apply the modifier and read the face count in the top toolbar. That should give you an approximation.


You have mesh artifacts and double vertices from modeling in your geometry.

There are two possibilities to solve this.

Tab into Edit Mode, hit W and select "Remove Doubles". You need to unwrap your model after that again.
In your UV/Image Editor window, hit A to select everything, turn on "Keep UV and edit mode mesh selection in sync" (see image below), switch to Face Select mode, then select all the faces you want to get rid of. Move your mouse to the 3D View and hit X and select "Faces" to remove them.

Make sure to check and recalculate the face normals after that.


Welcome to Blender!  Be warned, cutting holes or indents into curved surfaces is a surprisingly difficult problem in hard-surface modelling.  You can take a look at a YouTube search for "blender cutting holes in curved surfaces" to get a sense of how complicated it can become.
You can move your vertices onto a perfect sphere using the Mesh -> Transform -> To Sphere tool.  However, applied directly using the usual "median as the pivot point", it would tend to deform the whole mesh toward your indentation (because there are more vertices there).  To apply it without modifying the rest of your mesh (much), and assuming the UV sphere's origin is still at the center of the sphere (should be, if you haven't moved it since adding the UV sphere mesh), you might want to try the following steps:

Move the 3D cursor to the UV sphere origin, if it's not already there.  To do this, in Object Mode, with the sphere selected, use ShiftS -> Cursor to Active.
Change the pivot point to the 3D cursor.  To do this, use "period", and select 3D Cursor.
Apply the "To Sphere" transform to all the vertices.  To do this, switch to Edit Mode, make sure you're in vertex selection mode with 1, use A to select the whole mesh, and use ShiftAltS for "To Sphere", and drag the mouse right until the "To Sphere" amount in the top left of the window hits 1.000, then left-click.
Change the pivot point back to median:  To do this, "period", then select Median Point.

That should place the points firmly on the sphere.  It may slightly increase or decrease the radius of the rest of the UV sphere, but it shouldn't deform it.
However, this probably won't fix your rendering problem as well as you're hoping.  There will still be pinching and minor imperfections even with all vertexes lying precisely on the sphere.  To get rid of these or at least minimize their effects, you'll need to learn about good mesh topology and the roles of quadrilaterals versus triangles and n-gons (faces with more than 4 sides) as well as "poles" (vertexes with more or less than 4 associated edges).
But, for a quick and dirty project with a couple of minor rendering blemishes, "To Sphere" might be good enough.  Good luck!


.dae and fbx export both don't export animation?

I recommend using FBX. Try these settings, note the last section for animation is for the simplest application if your using frame ranges and not NLA tracks. Make sure you timeline 'end' includes all your keys an your not using an alternate start/end.


Improve render time for Grass/ Forest? (Eevee)

That what you refer to with

copy the information of this to every other tree

is called "instancing". If you use a particle system or arrays to distribute your trees and grass, you are already making implicit use of instancing.
If you however use manually placed copies for your trees, you might want to use the option "duplicate linked" (Shortcut: Alt+D), to keep the scene more efficient to store and to render.
Also, generated trees tend to have a LOT of polygons, most of which do not really contribute to the perceived detail (especially if the trees are in the background!).
So it may pay off to use the "decimate" modifier quite drastically on background trees.


How to list vertices coordinates from selected edge

This will display the  coordinates of the selected vertices of the selected object  ( you have the local and the world coordinates as @poor have noted )

import bpy

obj = bpy.context.object
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'OBJECT')
#all selected vertices indecies
verts_ind = [i.index for i in obj.data.vertices if i.select]
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')

for i in verts_ind :
    local_co = obj.data.vertices[i].co
    world_co = obj.matrix_world * local_co
    print(world_co)


Material won't project on spherical mesh? recreating Earth

I figured it out...
Was ridiculously simple..
Projection needed to be flat not spherical and use UV instead of generated.
I don't know why the need to switch to flat as it's entirely counter intuitive because every tutorial I've come across says to use spherical for sphere shapes.
I also had an unrelated issue with the UV map in the wrong rotation position.
I fixed that and re-imported and changed project to flat.
Then everything worked! lol weird.


How can I move many vertices with few dots?

This is standard subdivision surface modeling. The very general idea is that you create a base mesh that is comprised of very simple geometry, and then add a subdivision surface modifier to increase the amount of detail or mesh density.
In your screenshot, the "few selected dots" is the low poly base mesh. The part that has "so many vertices and faces" is the output from adding the subdivision modifier.

To edit the mesh, you just manipulate the low polygon base mesh, and the high resolution version will conform to your edits.
Here is a fantastic tutorial that covers the basics of subdivision modeling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmIIIcCUm8E


These textures don't come with Blender, so you won't ever find them in your Blender installation.

The textures are linked to in the video's description (click "Show More" underneath the video):

MetalBare0154.jpg

Smoke0379.jpg


To avoid distorted textures and have better control you can use a UV map.
Then you can rotate different parts depending on your needs.

Create a UV map for your mesh
Connect it using the Texture Coordinate node
Manipulate it either directly or using the Mapping Node.

Unwrap your Mesh. You can also move individual parts of your UV map.

Connect your UV map and use Mapping node to manipulate it


How Can I Instance an Animated Cycles Gradient Material?

Try the setVertexColor Node.

It seems not so intuitive at first, but it's the per object iterator way to assign the color to instanced geometry. You need to set the value to 'Col' and then back in the Material Node editor use the Attribute node and put 'Col' (for Name field) or what-have-you there too.

Hope I understood your problem. Seems I ended up here so maybe others will find that useful.

I was actually looking for a color ramp node in animation nodes, but I suppose you could take a different single value in this way and pass it through a ramp too.


The Skin modifier is exactly what you need here - although by itself it will only produce a 'cuboid' skin as shown :

Here I've simply created an 'edge' (by merging all vertices of a Cube to a single vertex (using Alt-M) and selecting to merge 'At Center') and then extruding E to form a new vertex and a joining edge - all in Edit mode (Tab)). Then in Edit mode I selected each vertex in turn and used Ctrl-H to 'Hook to New Object'. This creates an Empty at each end of the mesh. I then added the Skin modifier.

Moving the empties moves the respective end of the 'edge' along with the surrounding skin. Note that the sequence of the modifiers in the modifier stack (the list of modifiers) show to the right of the above image) is important - the Hook modifiers must be above the Skin modifier as they must take place before the skin is added. Moving them to after the Skin will result in the vertices being moved while leaving the skin behind.

To turn this into a "cylinder" (with rounded ends) you can further add a Subsurf modifier.

For smooth shading you can enable the 'Smooth Shading' option in the Skin modifier.

Again, the order is important and should be Hook, Hook, Skin, Subsurf. Move the empties and the skin will follow.

This is working as expected for me. If your experience is different to this then please update your question and I can try and answer further.


Metaballs are different colors in sculpt mode

I had the same issue, try turning on (Dyntopo) it worked for me.
.


Is it possible to generate a mesh from a armature

Well that armature had some funny bone directions on that legs (the bones must look pointy from the abdomen like the left ones)

The tool you are searching is a Modifier called "Skin". Like modifier, can't be used over an armature. Create a cube and modify their vertex or generate new and see how it works. You can also create one armature from your vertex with the option on the modifier (activated in object mode)

More info on:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Modifiers/Generate/Skin


How to get all keyframes for selected strip in python?

Import the bpy module to access Blender's data.
import bpy

Context Method
If you just created the keyframes and are simply scripting in the text editor, you can look up the objects by context. You need to be certain that the strip has two keyframes and is selected (active) in the sequencer.
Get the active scene by context.
scene = bpy.context.scene

Get the active sequencer strip by context.
strip = scene.sequence_editor.active_strip

Lookup the fcurve connected to the data_path of the active strip with it's name and property. (Look at batFINGER's answer on how to construct the data_path more elegantly with strip.path_from_id("blend_alpha").)
data_path = 'sequence_editor.sequences_all["' + strip.name + '"].blend_alpha'
fcrv = scene.animation_data.action.fcurves.find(data_path)

Assign some values to the keyframe_points stored in the fcurve.
for i, y in [[0, 0.0], [1, 1.0]]:
    fcrv.keyframe_points[i].co.y = y
    fcrv.keyframe_points[i].handle_left.y = y
    fcrv.keyframe_points[i].handle_right.y = y

Force the sequencer to refresh.
bpy.ops.sequencer.refresh_all()

Data Method
If are trying to use this functionality from an addon or are unsure wether an active strip is selected or even if keyframes are present at all, you have to validate the data.
View code snippet from github.
Encapsulate the functionality in a method, which can be aborted, if a precondition is missing. The required parameters are:

the scene's name

the sequencer strip's name

the values which are used to overwrite the existing keyframes values
def modify_strip_keyframes(scene_name, strip_name, keyframe_values = [1.0, 0.0]):

Get the scene by name, but return if it doesn't exist.
    scene = bpy.data.scenes.get(scene_name)
    if scene == None:
        print("Scene not found.")
        return

Verify that there is animation_data and a sequence_editor. If there are no keyframes or no strips, these items will be None. (Calling properties of None will crash the script.)
    if (scene.animation_data == None or scene.sequence_editor == None):
        print("No strips with keyframes.")
        return

Get the strip by name and get the fcurve associated with it's blend_alpha (the opacity) property.
    strip = scene.sequence_editor.sequences.get(strip_name)
    if strip == None:
        print("Strip not found.")
        return

    data_path = 'sequence_editor.sequences_all["' + strip_name + '"].blend_alpha'
    fcrv = scene.animation_data.action.fcurves.find(data_path)

    if fcrv == None:
        print("No opacity keyframes found.")
        return

Verify that there are as many keyframe_points on the fcurve, as values have been supplied. Then loop over the points and assign the new values to the keyframe_point coordinates co.
    if len(fcrv.keyframe_points) != len(keyframe_values):
        print("The strip has " + str(len(fcrv.keyframe_points)) +
            " keys, but " + str(len(keyframe_values)) + " values were supplied.")
        return

    for i in range(len(fcrv.keyframe_points)):
        key = fcrv.keyframe_points[i]
        key.co.y = keyframe_values[i]
        key.handle_left.y = keyframe_values[i]
        key.handle_right.y = keyframe_values[i]
        key.handle_left.x = key.co.x
        key.handle_right.x = key.co.x

To execute the function, call it and refresh the sequencer to visualize the change.
modify_strip_keyframes("Scene", "cat", keyframe_values = [1, 0.5])
bpy.ops.sequencer.refresh_all()


How to switch render source (VSE or Camera)?

If there's anything in the sequencer, blender will render from there by default. If you don't want to render from the sequencer even if there are strips, disable Sequencer in Render settings > Post Processing:


Your meshes are on different Layer. Select it or add it (the Layer)
by Shift+MouseClick and you will be able to select them.
If you don't see them - as they are just simple lines; press Z to go to Wireframe Mode.
For Python solution go here: Get the list of objects on a layer in python


ok.. (posting this in case it helps someone else)
I think I figured it out..  change renderer back to cycles..
adjust render settings.. (and save) .. then choose network render again ..
Cant say for sure as my file is still rendering but going by the time each frame is taking its looking promising..


How to change the pivot point position of a text object?

Put the 3D Cursor where you want the object center to be and use Shift + Ctrl + Alt + C > Origin to 3D Cursor, or Origin to Geometry if you want to center the origin.


At the bottom of your 3D view:

Just change it to "textured" or "material".

That should be it if I understood your questions correctly.


Particles in fluid-simulation are falling through Object

Make sure the bottom is thick enough, or increase the resolution of the domain. You might also want to enable "fractional obstacles" because I see that some of the fluid is sticking to the surface of the fountain.


Uneven shading in render but not preview (Cycles)

I've had this problem couple of times. I can't find in Blender manual anything about differences between preview and render but as far as I saw it preview isn't accurate like the final render.

In your case clearly geometry causes this shading (as in mine cases). For me only solution was to clean it up.

First of all try to remove doubles but if you want to make it 100% right you will need to retopologize this model.


How to adjust object geometry to enable bevel of two edges leading to a pointed corner of a triangle?

Many modifiers and other tools in Blender are designed with quads in mind. This is why creating n-gon free and triangle free topology has become a serious domain of craftsmanship on its own. Some people hate that about 3D modelling, some love it. It reminds me of figuring mathematical problems or solving puzzles. There are many guides on creating the best topology, here's an example: Topology Guides
Looking at your mesh, it requires cleanup:

But also it requires dealing with the triangle, as your problem still happens after the cleanup:

Originally I thought you mean something else, as the stretching above is to be expected when the topology has triangles or n-gons.
Considering, how simple the shape is, it's best to just start over instead of fixing it. What I learned to do, is to to think of triangles as unnatural, as very often a triangle will produce a perfectly sharp corner, which just doesn't happen in the real world. Therefore I try to replace triangles with quads having one very short edge. In your particular case, you could start with an octagon:

Decreasing every second of its edges to almost 0, Then selecting a pair of corners on the opposite sides, pressing J to join them (creating an edge and also dividing the face this edge goes through into 2 faces). Then the same for the other pair of vertices, then creating a perpendicular loop cut with CTRL + R, then two more loop cuts, this time parallel, then selecting 2 vertices and moving them up, and finally selecting two inner vertices and scaling them so they move underneath the other two. This is still not perfect technique, but I tried to make the technique easier at the cost of worse result.
The result should be a "triangle" that actually is a quad upon closer inspection:

You can now bevel the edge without problems:

If you now create triangles by moving those vertices together:  , the bevel will still work - but only until you decide to remove doubles (merge vertices by distance) - then creating new bevels will malfunction again.


Here's a before and after picture to illustrate what I mean. On the left is what happened when I tried rotating the left shoulder using the original vertex groups. On the right is what happened after I reassigned the vertices in the the following groups: abdomen, chest, left shoulder, left upper arm, left lower arm. Double check that you are not only assigning the vertices that you want in each group, but also removing the ones you don't want.


I noticed that the loom - tastic text wasn't rendering. this was due to the fact that the wrong layer was selected in the test scene:

Change the selected box to the one the green arrow is pointing at, and your problem will be fixed


How can I improve the topology of this model?

Adding new verticies correctly with the knife tool will sharpen the edges where required.

Convex corners

See attached (white): X and dissolve the edge but not the vertex (uncheck this option in dissolve edges property box when it appears).

Concave corners

See attached (red): Cut in the yellow and remove the blue to provide supporting eges.

Knife cut the new verts/edge which will remain as quads not ngons

You will see that the corner is sharp and the sub-d has smoothed the object.

For the central hole I would set it up as;

For the part you have circled I would work like this:

Everyone does stuff differently this is just my solution

Here it is under 2 subdivisions


Transparency/Masking : See through an Outer Sphere and see Inner Sphere in true colours

You might be able to accomplish the effect you want using Compositing and Render Layers.

https://www.blender.org/manual/render/post_process/layers.html

Put the red sphere on one layer and the blue sphere on another layer.  Make sure the red layer is transparent ( Can Blender render pngs with the background transparent? )

Some of the compositor nodes you would need have screenshots in Using scenes and render layers to composite an object isolated on white background with shadow .

  use an alpha over node in the compositor to put the red ball OVER the
  blue one. Both will keep their solid appearance.
  - Gez

When it comes time for the spheres to swap orders, you can have a second alpha-over node that puts the blue ball over the red ball.  Then route those two alpha-over nodes into a Mix (under the Add > Color menu) node and animate its Fac to switch from 0 to 1.  This animation can be keyframed, or if you want to get super-fancy you can rig a driver that uses python to compare the radius of the two spheres.

Unfortunately the layers property of an object can not be keyframed.  I do not think there is a way to keyframe the visibility of an object within a single layer.  It is possible to animate the hide_render property (the camera icon on the outliner) that affects its visibility on all layers.  This enables an alternative where you just have 3 layers and one of them is an identical blue sphere that is unrenderable until the keyframe where it has shrunk enough that you want it to appear (you could also get fancy and use drivers).  This technique does not require you to keyframe compositor nodes and slightly simplifies the node tree.  It also works better if you have multiple nested spheres in the scene.

Having two distinct blue sphere objects can illustrate some properties of blenders datablock sharing system.  If you animate the sphere and then create a duplicate for the other layer they will share the same action datablock and will animate the same.  If you duplicate the sphere before you give it any keyframes (so at that time the original has no action), the two spheres will not share the action datablock (although you can later link it in using the Action Editor mode of the Dope Sheet window).


How do I change Blender's dimensions to display in inches?

Yes, m stands for meters. You can change the units in the Scene Properties tab.


How can i remove verts in specific Group in VertexGroups via python?

Find verts in group, then remove.

Methods to find vertices in vertex groups.

Finding vertices in a Vertex Group using Blender's Python API

Once you have the verts in a group can remove them from their vertex group with

obj.vertex_groups["Group"].remove(index)

where index is the vertex index.


Adjust color balance/brightness/contrast on scanned mesh

The file used in this question is of Stanford PLY format, vertex colors, no textures.

When the mesh is selected, changes in brightness etc. that applies to the whole mesh is found under:

"Vertex Paint" - "Paint" - "brightness/contrast"-"Hue Saturation level", "Levels" "and "Invert"

The screenshot below demonstrates the solution using the "brightness/contrast" parameters


Environment variables specific to Blender? Do they exist?

Environment Variables:
  $BLENDER_USER_CONFIG      Directory for user configuration files.
  $BLENDER_USER_SCRIPTS     Directory for user scripts.
  $BLENDER_SYSTEM_SCRIPTS   Directory for system wide scripts.
  $BLENDER_USER_DATAFILES   Directory for user data files (icons, translations, ..).
  $BLENDER_SYSTEM_DATAFILES Directory for system wide data files.
  $BLENDER_SYSTEM_PYTHON    Directory for system python libraries.
  $TMP or $TMPDIR           Store temporary files here.
  $SDL_AUDIODRIVER          LibSDL audio driver - alsa, esd, dma.
  $PYTHONHOME               Path to the python directory, eg. /usr/lib/python.

But the best way is to modify your prefs (File->path) as said above.


I cannot create an array on a text object, only along Y

An object which has no thickness can be duplicated by an array modifier using relative offset but the duplicated objects are at the same place as the original, as relative offset's values are relative to the object's dimensions.

It appears as if nothing was happening.

If you want to see these duplicates in this case, use 'constant offset' instead:


Why are my bones rotating the wrong way?

Try this:

create the first lower bone, then extrude 3 times, rotate the 4th bone 90 degrees, then ( in edit mode) slightly move the junction point between the second and the third bone in the Y axis, toward the direction you want the chain to bend.
Another way is to check the bone's roll: in the armature tab - display - set to view axes, then trim the bone's roll until the rotation you want is on their x axis with positive values.

You can also add limit rotation costraints to the bones for having them moving only in one direction.


Why is only the hair based particle system appearing in two levels of particles?

Image Above

Right Side Render.

Left Side Yellow Particles Emitter in Layer 1.  Group in Layer 2.  Brown Cube Reeds. Golden Seeds. Green Leaves.  Reeds, Seeds, Leaves are part of the emitter.  The [join] mesh command used.

Nail Shaped Hair is the second Particles system of the reed emitter in Layer 2.  The Hair appears as strands in the 3D View Window.

Image Above

Second Emitter complex in layer 2.

Primary

You have already successfully rendered the emitter and the hair particle system.  I have done the same in a new file.  I have not succeeded to render the non hair non emitter.

You could have a finished model with only the group particles hair system present.  The seeds and leaves can be part of the emitter.

For the seed and leaves you can convert them to non particles and be part of the emitter. The particles system can be used to generate the model. Then press the button [convert] in the the modifier panel for the particle system.  The hair particles remain. The emitter is now a complex  of reed, leaves, seed.  Your artistic needs would determine if that is suitable.

You do NOT need to convert hair.  The [convert] of the hair seems to produce edges only which will need to use something like a solidify modifier

Secondary

I used a particle instance modifier ... different from a particle system ... and I could duplicate hair but not object particles.

Tertiary

I will seek a few more alternatives.

Older

Verify your Object Cycles Setting, Cycles Ray Visibility: Camera checkbox is [enabled] for the missing particles.

Verify your particle systems camera render option is TRUE

Under the object Duplication Panel for the missing particles make sure the either None or Frames are selected.  Do not use Verts Faces Groups.

Verify all particles system generate particles for the frame above.

Verify that all materials are created for the render engine.  Cycles Render is compatible with Cycles materials.  Blender Render is compatible with Blender Materials.

Verify that the Render visibility is on for the missing materials.  The camera icon in the outliner panel.

Verify that you have no  transparency in your material.


Make sure the Track To constraint is below the Follow Path, this way if you enabled Follow curve in the Follow Path constraint, the Track To will override it, and you will be able to animate its influence:


You Have to scroll up lol, you can see that you Have the scrollbar down.


With the default key bindings, F12 will render a frame, and F11 will toggle the render view on and off.  The rendered result is shown in the "UV Image Editor" panel.  In that view, select from the menus Image -> Save As Image to save the one frame.

If you have more than just one or two frames, this will quickly get tedious.  Go into Scene settings, set up an output folder, and you can render a stack of separate frame images in one go.


How to change angle between two faces of an object?

In Edit mode, on the bottom horizontal menu bar, select the Vertex as Snap Element mode (next to the Snap tool button), but no need to enable the Snap tool, select the vertices you want to move, press X to move them only along the X axis, keep pressing ctrl to temporarily enable the Snap option, drag your mouse to one of the vertices of the other edge, the vertices you've selected will move on the X axis and snap to the same position of the X axis than the other vertices.


How do I check to see if my object unwrapped properly after export?

I would suggest making sure you have the up and forward re-assigned in the export screen, For Example in FBX export at the lower left hand side:

I would suggest creating an 'Operator Preset' once you have the right export result.
Please don't take this screen shot as the exact settings you need. You would for example have 'Selected Objects' probably ticked for what you are trying to do.

There are a range of other tools and programs to re-open the file.
You could try importing directly into Unreal Engine or Unity. Perhaps even GODOT, (Godot tutorial here)

There is also 3D model review software like:
Autodesk FBX Review

I hope this helps.


Is it possible to animate a single mesh as if it were multiple objects?

I don't think it's possible to add more than one armature to a single object (haven't tested it, though).
What you can do is create all three bones inside a single armature and then parent the mesh to the armature with automatic weights. I think it'll weight properly, but if it doesn't just manually edit the weights so all the vertices in each box are only affected by its respective bone.
I don't know if that helps for your specific needs.


How can I make hair that looks like it's flowing in water?

First, you need to check Hair Dynamics in the particle system settings.

You can reduce gravity in the Scene settings. If you set it to a positive number, the hairs will be attracted to the top, as if they were floating.

To add a more interesting movement, you can use one (or more) force field (Shift+A / Force Field). A Turbulence should give good results ; increase its Strength, Random and Flow values. Wind and Vortex can also be used to simulate water flow.

To make the setup step easier, you can specify a relative short animation range (like 1-100), and run the simulation (Alt+A). While the simulation is running, you can tweak the values of the force fields and see the result in live.


Weird triangles on flat surface - extruded svg

I realized I had a "Solidify" modifier applied. Took that off and it fixed it.


Painting on image doesn't show instantly on the object

That is by design: Solid render mode will not display textures.
Textures will only be visible in Material Preview or Render Preview mode


Is there a way to have default mesh objects come with premarked UV unwrapping seams?

Is this what you're looking for?

This creates a UV layout for an object on creation and is a feature in 2.77. You can download RC2 from the institute now.


You can

  Join

them and them and then merge the closest vertices with

  Remove Doubles

But you two meshes have to have a common "merging line" (An edge with the same vertex amount and close distance to each other)


Final result:

Add a Plane, scale it as you need, go to Edit Mode, subdivide it couple of times - W > Subdivide and select vertices as shown below.

Go to Top Ortho view and move selected vertices along choosen axis.

Go back to Front view select top edge and in Object Data tab, under Vertex Groups add new Group (+ sign), and Assign selected vertices.

Go to Object mode and add Cloth physics to the plane in Physics tab. Check Pinning and select Group. Select preset Silk and enable Self Collision (Quality > 2, Distance > 0.6) under Cloth Collision group.

Create stripe to tie the curtains and make it wider than curtains. I've used simple torus in this example. Go to Physics tab and set it to Collision. Set Outer and Inner values to the lowest (0.001).

Animate scale of the tie. I've putted two keyframes, first frame and 50. Scale by pressing S > Shift+Z.

That's it. You can add Subsurf to the plane to make it more smoother and add Crease around whole plane with it. Also you will need to modify the tie using proportional editing and make it more stick to the curtains.

You can apply Cloth modifier and reuse them as you want.

Blend file:


Workflow: iterative rigid body array/curve tweaking, is there a better way?

I quote from the Answer to the other Question (see comments above) of which mine is (sort of) a duplicate.

You need to change the Source and the Shape of the rigid body collisions.
In the physics tab of the properties panel, change the Source from "Deform" to "Final".
Only "Final" takes the modifiers in to consideration, hence your trouble.
The other setting you need to change is the rigid body collision Shape, set it to "Mesh".

This solves my problem:  as soon as I select Final, the replicated object becomes solid in RB world and I can still tweak the controlling curve to reshape and refine it, without any Ctrl-Z nonsense.


Skinning rigged model - Fine adjustments in Weight Painting for twisted skin

You can subtract weight in small amounts, but it will still affect a large area, because the weight is per-vertex.

To change how much you add/subtract/etc., change the Strength slider in the left (T) panel.

As for exactly how much weight you need, I can't help you there. (:

(With your particular model, it's so low-poly I might just tweak the weights manually, from the Vertex Weights section in the right (N) panel.)


Field Weights properties not working as expected

Thank you for posting your question very clearly.
1) Decreasing FORCES weights on the smoke sim panel refers to a GLOBAL VALUE. That means the simulation will STOP reacting to the WIND force if you set it to 0 like you´re using now.

2) If YOU DO want to use a wind force, set back WIND FORCE GLOBAL WEIGHT back to 1. Let´s concentrate on the wind force itself. Click on it and go to the properties>dynamics tab (the little bouncing ball).

There, you should manipulate the force of the wind. Please start with a wind force of 100 units. I cannot reference much of your pictures, since you´ve posted only 1 too many times. But I´ll assume your model is big enough to handle 100 unit power wind.

Press playback and your smoke should be moving TOO strong. Decrease by half (on force parameter type 100/2) you´ll get 50. Then you can see it on realtime.
There´s a lot to cover on the SMOKE DOMAIN (the box around your logo) which is the space where the smoke will get simulated.

The direction of the wind is represented by an arrow on the base, and the power factor by circles, that way you´ll have a visual queue of what you´re doing.

To directly playback the smoke simulation once you´re done using wind (or even testing) you´ll need to FIRST SAVE YOUR FILE on a FOLDER (this is important) and then go to smoke simulation DOMAIN (click the box that surrounds your logo) and on the CACHE tab, click FREE AL SIMULATIONS first, then click: BAKE ALL SIMULATIONS.
This will send your smoke simulation to the local folder you saved your project into (see why it was important to save into a folder?)

All right, you should now have a basic understanding of how to work global weight of forces, what forces do, it´s parameters, and basic functions on the smoke domain (the box where the smoke simulates itself).

Thank you for your consideration to vote me as answer.

BFCT_Schiller


How can I create a natural fading effect on planets in cycles?

Use Volume absorption and volume scattering as volume on a mesh that completely surrounds your scene.

Play around with a  texture for the density and you'll be able to make clouds and all kinds of fun stuff.


What is the fastest way to add vertices to a curve at a specific point?

You can script this functionality with python and install it as an addon.
I have created such a script. Many thanks to Andrew Yang, who updated it to work with Blender 2.8x
Curve Edit Tools
Github download link
To use the addon, press I in the edit mode of a curve. You'll be prompted into a modal operation where you can slide a new control point along the curve.

The original answer is below, it doesn't cover all the features of the current addon, even the point sampling will be replaced soon. The revision history shows the old addon for 2.7x.

The first step is to import some moduls.

bpy Interaction with Blenders data and operations
bgl Blenders OpenGl wrapper
blf Module for font drawing
numpy as np Matrix handling, used for mathematical vector operations
mathutils Use to create the mathutils.Vector

Create a Bezier class
A cubic bezier is a very simple mathematical construct.
It needs four points.
0:   first control point.
1:   first handle (right_handle)
2:   second handle (left_handle of second point)
3:   second control point

The Casteljau algorithm illustrates how points on the curve are found. The formula takes a t in [0; 1].

To split the curve at a specific t, we can use the method from this answer. Since we use numpy, we can use the points as points.
class CubicBezier(object):
    def __init__(self, points):
        self.points = np.array(points).astype(np.float32)

    def at(self, t):
        pt =  1 *        (1 - t)**3 * self.points[0]
        pt += 3 * t**1 * (1 - t)**2 * self.points[1]
        pt += 3 * t**2 * (1 - t)**1 * self.points[2]
        pt += 1 * t**3              * self.points[3]
        return pt

    def split(self, t):
        p1, p2, p3, p4 = self.points

        p12 = (p2-p1)*t+p1
        p23 = (p3-p2)*t+p2
        p34 = (p4-p3)*t+p3
        p123 = (p23-p12)*t+p12
        p234 = (p34-p23)*t+p23
        p1234 = (p234-p123)*t+p123

        return [p1,p12,p123,p1234,p234,p34,p4]

Next, we need to sample the point closest to the mouse position. Using this algorithm, pick discrete samples and convert them into the 2d region

Thats basically everything from the maths side, now just wrap it in a modal operator.
Here is an example of a modal operator drawing in the 3D View.


The code can be the following.

We principally need the view vector (axis from the camera) and the view point (cam/eye position) which are given by view3d_utils.region_2d_to_vector_3d and view3d_utils.region_2d_to_origin_3d.

Then we cast on the plane coordinates in two parts as the plane is two tris.

    # Get mouse position
    mouse_pos = event.mouse_region_x, event.mouse_region_y

    # Get object and region 3D
    object = context.object
    region = context.region
    region3D = context.space_data.region_3d

    # The target plane in order to have coordinates
    plane = bpy.data.objects.get('Plane')

    # All Transforms applied, so global space coordinates
    # (Plane is used just to get the points, in actual situation only
    # points will be available)
    p1 = plane.data.vertices[0].co
    p2 = plane.data.vertices[1].co
    p3 = plane.data.vertices[2].co
    p4 = plane.data.vertices[3].co

    # View vector (view axis) from the mouse pos
    view_vector = view3d_utils.region_2d_to_vector_3d(region, region3D, mouse_pos)
    # View point (eye position) in 3D
    view_point = view3d_utils.region_2d_to_origin_3d(region, region3D, mouse_pos)

    # Cast on plane defined by points above (2 counterclockwise tris)
    loc = geometry.intersect_ray_tri(p1, p2, p3, view_vector, view_point, True)
    if not loc:
        loc = geometry.intersect_ray_tri(p2, p4, p3, view_vector, view_point, True)

Note: have left the plane coordinates part as it was, but can also use the plane world matrix to translate coordinates to world.


Ambient occlusion, getting dark hard edges on texture

You checked "cage" for baking but from what I see you have not chosen a cage object. Untick the cage object, then change the extrusion to a higher value.


Where is the character in physics option of blender 2.7?

First, make sure the current render engine is set to Blender Game. If you then switch to the Physics tab you will find the option under Physics Type.


I tried the addon, here it seems to work.

If you set a seam on the "plane hair guide", like this
(note:I highlighted in red the "plane hair guide", in blue the "emitter")

then, in object mode, be sure to apply all transformations to the objects (location, rotation, scaling)

then you select those two in that order, and press this button

you should get something like this

which renders like this in blender render

I noticed though, that if you select the "emitter" (eg the head) first and after the "plane hair guide" (eg a custom shape) you get an error like "no seams were defined in plane", because it needs to be selected in the opposite way: first the "plane hair guide" (eg a custom shape), and then the  "emitter" (eg the head).

Otherwise, please describe how you set it up, or share the file on http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/, then paste the provided link editing your question: I'll take a look.


I want the Cloth to drape over the cup, but It creates gap between them

Decrease the "inner" and "outer" values from the Collision settings of the vase.

A good value should be around 1/100th of the vase width (that you can check by selecting the vase and hitting N while in the 3d viewport: look under "dimensions") or anyway at least 1/10th of what you have now. You'll need some trial and error anyway.

PS increase the cloth Steps to ~10 and the cloth collision Quality to at least 3 or you'll risk the cloth to go through the vase.


What is the ideal topology for a shoulder joint?

The key with shoulder topology is to represent the deltoid muscle well and to separate the arm mesh from the body. The exact topology will depend on your subject. Most of the time every model will have slightly different topology.

For example, a muscular male will need far more dense and defined topology than a slim female.

The general rule of thumb with topology is to follow the muscle flow. Here is a front, side,, back, and top view of a fairly typical shoulder topology layout.

Things to notice:

The vertical face loop roughly follows the inside and top edge of the deltoid, on both front and back.
The horizontal loop is placed roughly where the deltoid, bicep, and triceps meet.


Fcurve noise modifier: change settings with python

You shouldn't ever use bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_insert_menu(), it's solely meant for user interface interaction. Use Object.keyframe_insert() (not the operator!) instead.

There's also no reason to use bpy.ops.graph.fmodifier_add(), especially because the dependency on an area type. Use the low-level RNA methods instead:

import bpy

ob = bpy.context.object

ob.keyframe_insert("scale") # ensures animation_data and action are not None
action = ob.animation_data.action

for fcu in action.fcurves:
    if fcu.data_path == "scale":
        mod = fcu.modifiers.new("NOISE")
        mod.scale = 5


How Do You Re-render a previously rendered animation after using the Video Sequence Editor?

So I found the answer. It wasnt showing up because I was trying to use an imported video that wasnt connected in the compositor and I had left background transparent on under the film section of render. After trying to render a part of the video further down I saw objects in the render. To fix this you have to connect it to the render like shown at Video doesn't show up in render.

After it is connected the background video will show up in the render


Blender User Preferences: Images Draw Method: DrawPixels

I'm not sure if you've found an answer yet or not, but I think I can help you out.

The three options I'm aware of are DrawPixels, GLSL, and 2D Texture.

GLSL is the only one that takes full advantage of the graphics card; which for most of us makes it the best possible option. If you are using the GPU for any other portion of your rendering, then I strongly suggest this one as there's a palpable difference in speed.

For cases when GLSL isn't available or, for one reason or another, is disadvantageous, 2D Textures and DrawPixels both run on the CPU. The core difference is hidden in the name, if you're an OpenGL buff—glDrawPixels creates the texture in RAM and copies it to the frame buffer; whereas 2D Texture implies that the data is ultimately stored on-board the graphics card as an OpenGL texture, making it ready-to-go during rendering.

The documentation is pretty scarce (and unusually sparse-in-detail for the Blender team) as of my writing this, and I could be wrong, so someone please correct me if I am. But in summary, if you're trying to run everything through your GTX 1080, you want to go for GLSL. If your textures/image-size is too big for your graphics memory (which, in some instances, can still happen,) and you have plenty of time, then go for DrawPixel. Texture 2D is a happy medium.


As Duane stated the problem was with the wine part that were placed outside the bottle. The problem wasn't visible becouse i had disabled the modfier preview during editing. Not it works just fine! Thanks


You don't have to create new properties to mimic existing properties. You just need to find their data path. Make sure you have enabled all the developer extras in the preferences and hover over the field you want to copy.

Based on that you just have to add a property field to your layout, that redirects to this data path : object.data.use_auto_smooth
Using the simple panel template shipped with Blender :
import bpy

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "object"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        obj = context.object
        return obj and obj.data and hasattr(obj.data, "use_auto_smooth")

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.prop(context.object.data, "use_auto_smooth")

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

This creates a panel with a direct link to this property. No need for a third party property with convoluted callbacks.

Also, if you want to mimic exactly how it is laid out in the origin panel, in most cases you can right click and choose "Edit Source". This opens a Text datablock centered on the line which created the UI element you selected.
Example for the Normals Panel :


Unable to create surface with bsurface addon

Set Bezier spline type for your curves.

As the warning is saying, you need to work with "bezier" spline type. They are currently "poly" type (probably because you created the curves from mesh conversion, and by default poly is the choosen type).

Select all the curves and click the button you can find in the tool shelf under the Curve Tools section. A menu will pop up letting you choose the spline type for the selected curves.


Glass material isn't transparent when looked through another glass material?

This appears to be because of overlapping faces. That is, two faces being in the same position. I cannot guarantee this is the case, but two transmission materials overtop of eachother sounds fragile.
I recommend either scaling the liquid block down slightly, or doing the following to change the liquid setup:
Make the separate liquid object just the surface.
Change the underwater part of the glass to a liquid-colored material that has a refraction index so as to match light going from glass into water as opposed to leaving air. You could probably get away with subtracting the IOR of glass from that of water, then adding 1. For a more accurate result, I'd have to think about the math, here's the law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snell%27s_law If you aren't sure what to do, I might could look into it.
Hope this helps :D


Object moves but the location doesn't change

There's a ClampTo constraint on the object jumping there around and this constraint has its Influence option keyframed to become 0 at that frame:

Thus at that frame the constraint stops influence the object and it changes its position. You can edit keyframes' values or delete them to avoid jumping.

Also note that location of the object by X axis which is also keyframed has quite rough animation curve:

You might need to change the curve to make that moment correlate with the rest of the animation.


Import custom module not working (.pyd-file)

You need to have the exact same version of Python as used in Blender, and have it (and your module) built with the same compiler. After that, make sure that the module is on sys.path.


Combining an image seqence into a single image

You can't really do recursive operations (loops) in the compositor, but in this case there is a sort of hack you can do (a bit like this or this).

You can apply this to the animation as it's rendered, but I preferred to render everything to .exrs and composite afterwards.

Add an image sequence node (or renderlayer node) that gives the raw render output
Add an image sequence node pointing to the output directory where you'll render the combined sequence.
To do this you may have to create a few dummy files to convince blender that there is an image sequence there. Copying at least the first few frames of the render output to this directory will do, but be sure to delete them once the node is added.
On the image sequence node, set Frames to the length of your render and the Offset to -1. Be sure that the start frame is set correctly as well.
This will make the image sequence node read the previous frame.
Add a file output node or use a composite node and adjust the scene output settings. Set the output path to the directory the image sequence node is pointing to. You may want to render to .exr files so you can adjust the exposure later.

Then render the animation.

This will start by adding the first frame to nothing (as the 0th frame doesn't exist), then the second frame to the first, and the third to the combination of the first and second, and so on. The end result will be an animation like this:

The last frame is the result of all the frames added together:


Problems with subdivision modifier on cylinders

Try adding support loops like this instead. Dont use creases. you have to add support loops in the right way to make the creasing look good. Merge the verts shown by red dots.


Export .obj in 3ds Max and render in Blender Cycles

.obj files do not contain textures, but they do preserve UVs. In other words, you will not have to re-unwrap the whole thing, but you will need a copy of any textures when importing into blender.


Keep object in the middle of two other animated objects

This is easy to achieve with the Copy Location constraint.

Select the turret and add two Copy Location constraints - set the target Object of one of them to the first Empty and the other to the second Empty. Then simply slide the Infuence on the second constraint to 0.5 and the turret should move into the middle of the two empties.

The first constraint is simply to ensure that the start point is at the first empty (you could alternatively move it there manually and parent it to the first empty - then you would no longer need that first constraint). The second constraint moves it from its current location (the first Empty) towards the second Empty but the reduced influence means that it only actually moves half way there.


Spawn object after animation finishes in Python

Try this example that will spawn a random cube everytime the frame == 10, it will stop after 5 cubes:

import bpy

# this is for the random position, imports the random() function from random library
from random import random

# this holds how many cubes were created and what the cap is
spawned_cubes = 0
max_cubes = 5

def spawn_object(scene):
    """This function will be run everytime before frame changes because it is added in the callback list"""

    global spawned_cubes
    global max_cubes

    # read the current frame number
    # if it is 10 and number of spawned cubes is less than max_cubes place a cube
    # if the frame number is not 10 just end and do nothing
    if scene.frame_current == 10 and spawned_cubes < max_cubes:
        loc = (5-10*random(), 5-10*random(), 5-10*random())
        bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(enter_editmode=False, location=loc)
        spawned_cubes += 1
    return

# add spawn_object function if there isnt one in bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre callback list
# the function needs to be added there only once
# everything thats in that list will be executed before any frame change
if spawn_object not in bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre:
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(spawn_object)

This uses the app handlers callback list. In your spawn_object function you can test any property - for example the location of your cube_object, or some frame value etc.


Move segments of an sphere apart from each other

Select all of your objects in object mode and choose Object -> Transform -> Origin to Geometry.

Then the origins will move to the center of each piece.

Then in the bottom header, to the right of the Object Mode drop down, is a button with a double-headed arrow beneath three dots. Turning this one will "Move Object Origins only..." Then, when you scale it will only scale their POSITION, not their SIZE.

Don't forget to turn it back off.


Rendering messes up my image but its correct in viewport. please help

You have a copy of the donut and the icing in the collection named archive. It's hidden in the viewport only ("eye" icon) but not hidden for rendering. The ojbects are rendered overlapping. That's what you see on the final render.
Uncheck the checkmark of the archive collection in the Outliner and all objects in there are completely hidden in the viewport and rendering in Blender 2.9x.
(Blender 2.8x users must disable the rendering with a Restriction Toggle as shown here: Image Texture completely washed out in Render, but not in Viewport Shading)


thank you so much for the answers. Meanwhile I was able to come up with another solution,
but still thank you for the responses.

My solution was following.

Create your base node
Create an object which should move to the center of the base node
Create a line curve, for example Vector X+ (1,0,0), I used a small phython addon for that
Use a locked track constraint on the object and as source the line curve. Direction should be X
Assign the object as a child of the line
Now you select the line & object and create a duplicate, rotated by the Z axis. I used 3 objects so it was 120°
Delete the constraints of both objects, and create a new constraint copy location of the first created object. Use the local coordinate system on both values.
Assign all moveable objects as child nodes of the base node.

Now it should work as expected. You can lock the obejcts position and only X should be active in the main moveable object.

I added an arrow to limit the X axis movement and use this as a copy location source for the main moveable object.

Thank you again for the responses. Really appreciated!

Max


Your could add a sensor for the up w key(pulse mode(the first " button)) and then connect to a simple movement actuator that will move it in its forward local direction. Then you could use the mouse sensor and connect it to the mouse look actuator to steer the plane. You could also try to prevent it from falling by connecting your w key sensor to another simple motion that adds a force of 9.8 (m/s) on the z axis. This should cancel out the gravity. Don't forget to set the plane's physics to dynamic or rigididy.

While this is simple, it's terrible. The plane has no acceleration. It's either fully stopped or top speed. It will also fall if you let go of the w key.

If you want something better, Python scripting is the way to go. The movement will be able to be lerped (linear interpolation. In other words, get from one number to another gradually, like a gradient, in a certain amount of time, to simulate acceleration. You could also simulate "lift" by multiplying a "liftStrength" float variable with your current velocity (or speed), then apply that number to an applyForce on the z axis. This will make it to where when you're plane is moving fast enough, it will generate lift.

Still, even his isn't good enough as when you got upside down or sideways, it just gets weird. Still, you can make very realistic planes in Python, but it requires a LOT more code and knowledge.

Also, just to point this out, Python isn't hard. It's one of the easiest.

Here, click this link to get started in blender game engine Python scripting:

Blender Game Engine Python Tutorial Series: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6F4A5BAADFFADA2E

I cannot give you a definitive answer, because the question is a bit too broad, but this is just my two cents.


Where to find deb file for Blender 2.78c

I ran into the same problem last night. Fortunately, I found a copy of the original 2.78c package in my apt cache. Here is my solution:

purge any existing blender installation (via apt-get) sudo apt-get purge blender
add the ppa Thomas Schiex sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender;
sudo apt-get update; (Do not install blender from there directly. It would install 2.79 again, which we do not want here!)
download the 2.78c version of blender manually from here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4SAG_u19QW3RnhGYk5tU3kxekE (I would prefer a more official link to a working package here, but I found non.)
install the package via gdebi (assuming you downloaded to /home/$USER/Downloads): sudo gdebi /home/$USER/Downloads/blender_2.78c~1487946787-0thomas~xenial1_amd64.deb (dependencies are resolved from ppa Thomas Schiex)
Finished! Enjoy your 2.78c version of blender again.
to prevent from automatic updates, set the package to be unmodifiable: sudo apt-mark hold blender


How do I join animations to create a multi-take animation?

I'm Philipp from Rokoko. I gave this a try and the animations get imported correctly. Are you sure you are accessing them at the right place? Here is how to find them: https://i.imgur.com/rJnn7Bw.gif
Also using a bind pose is an interesting idea, I will look into that. But it's very likely not going to be part of this release version.


Problem exporting blender model to substance painter, Marmoset and sketchfab

It seems it was the mesh itself, there were some vertices that weren't connected, making the mesh act like that when exported to other software. So went back took a good look and connected some vertices and cleaned the mesh, that fixed the problem.


Besides weight, what determines how much a vertex group is affected by bones

Beside weight, it's weight relative to others bones. Check all your others vertex groups and remove all weight from wing vertices.


How would split up the tail for this cartoon whale in blender?

I think you should start with a cube or UV shpere which have quads and symmetry topology. Plan the topology before start, then you would know how much geometry to start with. Also, Using Mirror Modifier would be handy for modelling symmetry form.


What does the Roughness setting on a diffuse shader do?

Lambert discovered in 1760 "Lambert's cosine law", which says that the intensity of the diffusely reflecting light is proportional to the cosine of the angle between the direction of the incident light and the surface normal.

This, however, is inaccurate for several real-world objects with rough surfaces (for complicated reasons: masking, shadowing and interreflections). For example if the moon reflected the light in a Lambertian way, the moon's surface would be darker around the edges. Oren and Nayar created in 1993 the "Oren–Nayar reflectance model", which takes roughness into acount. The math is pretty complicated (you can check out the details at wikipedia...), but the important part is that there is a "roughness" parameter in the 0 - 1 range (which can be adjusted in the Blender node), and when the roughness is zero, then the Oren–Nayar reflectance becomes mathematically equivalent to the Lambertian reflectance.

It is completely normal that a diffuse sphere with roughness = 1 appears "shadeless" if it is illuminated with a light that is behind the camera - this is exactly what the moon looks like.

EDIT: The roughness of the "Diffuse BSDF" node is not the same as the roughness of the "Glossy BSDF" node, they should not have the same same value. (Physically bigger surface bumps/irregularities are needed for the diffuse roughness phenomenon than for the glossy roughness - while these bigger bumps are still smaller than the pixel size). Ideally you should have two different values/maps, but in practice most people either ignore the diffuse roughness, or use a multiplication factor. As this blog says:

  Diffuse roughness is now calculated as glossy roughness * 0.33 instead of using the glossy roughness directly. After actually reading some docs on Oren-Nayer shaders (how useful) I found that most real-world surfaces will not exhibit sigma values beyond 0.5, with most topping out around 0.3. This is something I probably should’ve remembered from my LuxBlend days… Anyway, I thought for awhile on the best way to handle diffuse roughness in Simple PBR. Using glossy roughness directly led to weird velvety-looks with roughness=1. I thought about disconnecting it, or locking it at a value, or exposing it as its own parameter. After awhile, I decided on using the glossy roughness * 0.33. It’s kind of arbitrary, but it gives a decent result in most cases without having to manually set it.

For an in-depth explanation see this video  (especially minutes 35-37): SIGGRAPH University - Introduction to "Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice"


How to apply transformations directly on mesh data?

You can do this with CtrlA> Apply, then checking the transforms you want to apply with F6 or in 3D View > Tool shelf (N) > Redo menu:


On the right to the preview window, you have set a proxy size to 50%. But if you don't build a proxy file, the preview can't show you a video.

So either set the Preview render to No proxy, full render, or with you video strip selected, scroll down the strip properties until you reach Proxy/Timecode and make your desired settings. Finally, to build the proxy files, have your strip selected and go to Strip -> Rebuild Proxy and Timecode indices and you're good to go.


Yes your solution would be to

Go to user preference > Interface > View Manipulation ...
Turn off "Rotate Around Selection"
Turn on "Auto Depth", "Cursor Depth", "Zoom to Mouse Position".

Now when you zoom take care to place your mouse at the object where you want to zoom or rotate around. It will now no longer slow down zoom when you hit a threshold. Instead it will always trys to determine the depth relative to your mouse position to any 3d surface you point the mouse cursor at.

Rotate around Selection is deceiving ... it gives you the notion that you would be rotating around a selected element. In reality the tool only rotate around the element when you zoom to selected first. Moreover when you select your next object it will use the formal element's scene depth. This is ok for single element selection, it however proves ineffective when you need to select multiple objects which just happens to be far apart.


Blender Game Engine Player Flies off When Parented

Physics objects disable physics when parented.

Basically they are excluded from the Physics Engine calculation as the Parent-Child relationship takes over the transformation processing (position and orientation calculation).

I have the feeling that Character physics is not a really a Physics type and does it's own "magic". It might be that it does not expect the object gets parented to something. This causes a feedback loop and let your object fly away.

Unfortunately I can't really help on this issue directly. maybe you can manually suspend Physics while parenting (see the edit object actuator Mode: Dynamic).


World background that is not reflected by Glossy objects

To make the world background not affect Glossy surfaces you can simply disable the 'Glossy' Ray Visibility for the background :

Here the background has been made invisible for Glossy rays (so there is no reflection in the Glossy cube) but the background is still visible to the camera and still used to illuminate Suzanne (who is also shown reflected in the surface of the cube).


Lagging sculpting with over 1 milion polygons on a High-End PC

I opened your file, and sculpting was definitely a little bit laggy, but nowhere near what you're describing (Having to wait 5 seconds before seeing the result of a sculpting change). However I managed to fix the problem by doing the following:

Hide the "Teeth", "Bones", and "Eyes" collections.
Important: Deactivate the Armature modifier from displaying in the viewport.

After I did this performance increased drastically for me.
Hope this helps!


How do i change the active keying set by Python?

The anim.keying_set_active_set operator invokes a menu that lists the available keying sets. It does have a type property to bypass the menu, which allows you to specify the type value when calling it directly, but it doesn't seem to work when placing the operator in a panel or when setting keyboard shortcuts to use it - it looks like it is most likely due to the acceptable values being a dynamic list.

Changing the keying set is a simple task so it's easy to make a substitute yourself.

class SetKeyingSetOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Set the active keying set"""
    bl_idname = 'anim.set_keyingset'
    bl_label = 'Set the active keying set'

    type = bpy.props.StringProperty(default='LocRotScale')

    def execute(self, context):
        ks = context.scene.keying_sets_all
        ks.active = ks[self.type]
        return {'FINISHED'}

Then you can use this operator to add a button in your panel.

row.operator('anim.set_keyingset', text='LocRot').type = 'LocRot'

This can all be put into an addon which can also setup some keyboard shortcuts to go with it. You can get the addon here, and adjust it to your liking.

As most keys are in use now, I used the key modifier setting. This isn't very popular yet, but it makes a normal key behave like ⎈ Ctrl or ⇧ Shift - in this configuration you hold down K and press Y and it will set the keying set to Location. KU for Rotation and KI for LocRotScale


Eevee vs Cycles Blender 2.8 & Glossy BSDF [SOLVED - FIX IT]

In the Render properties at the right-hand side of the screenshot you can see the Screen Space Reflections section - enable that and you should see reflections.

Eevee works quite differently to Cycles and the more features are enabled the slower the render. Many of the options are disabled by default for efficiency and must be specifically enabled when needed.