Okay, I tried to see if it was possible to model the pattern and got this result. I took a plane in top down mode and modelled it on top of the referance picture, and via array modifier and mirror came up with this result. I dont know if it is useable, as the computer I am currently using have some troubles, and crashes during hair simulation. Try it out and let me know if you can get some good results. You can add two seperate hair modifiers as it is 2 different meshes. So it should be possible. I am uncertain if the resolution of the mesh is high enough, or if the scene become too system heavy. Also there might be an issue with the hair modifier clutching the same amount of hair on the small faces as on the large faces.

The file is spread on 3 layers, so you can see some of the progress, and also contain the meshes before the modifiers are applied.


Best way to load image from list python script

Try this to batch load a list of images in a folder:

import bpy
from os.path import join, isfile
from os import listdir

imageObjects = []
imagePath = '/users/you/yourImagePath'
imgFiles  = [
    join( imagePath, fn )                    # Create full paths to images
    for fn in listdir( imagePath )           # For each item in the image folder
    if isfile( join( imagePath, fn ) )       # If the item is indeed a file
    and fn.lower().endswith(('.png','.jpg')) # Which ends with an image suffix (can add more types here if needed)
]

# Load entire list of images
for imgFile in imgFiles:
    # Add to image object list to use later
    imageObjects.append( bpy.data.images.load( imgFile ) )

# Load a specific index from the list (5th in the list in this example)
imgObj = bpy.data.images.load( imgFiles[4] )


Background Images - I'm unable to remove, reposition, scale or change

Its look like you are trying to add 2 images, 1 for the front view and 1 for the side view.

As per looking your screenshot and highlighted below #1 and #2. 1 is telling us that you are on the front view and #2 is telling that you are trying to adjust the side view of the picture.

If you want to adjust size and stuff for the Front image, please use the settings under the front view as marked #3 below. or if you want to adjust the size of the side view you may use the side view, hit Numpad 3.


Are you certain it is locked to the Z axis, and not the normal axis?
Both the normal and the Z axis have a blue color, so it is easy to mix them up.
You can see to which axis the extrusion is locked in the status bar while extruding.

You can change the axis the extrusion is locked to by pressing the key corresponding to the respective axis, so either one of X, Y or Z.
Pressing one of these keys twice switches between global and local axis, pressing a third time removes all axis constraints during extrusion.

If the selected face normals are not parallel or perpendicular to the global XYZ axii, you will not be able to align to the global XYZ-axis using middle mouse button, as that references the face's normals.

It's also important to know that the default hotkey for extrude(E) will not 'just' extrude as it actually is 'Extrude and Move on Normals'.
This means that, by default, it will always try to extrude along the normal axis of the selected face.

If you want to change this behavior, you can change this in the settings. This will change the E hotkey to extrude without aligning to any axis, requiring you to set the axis yourself each time you extrude.

Blender 2.79 and older:
File > User Preferences > Input: Make sure the search bar is set to 'name' and search for 'extrude'.
Under 'Mesh', there is the option 'Extrude and Move on Normals'. Expand that setting and change view3d.edit_mesh_extrude_move_normal to mesh.extrude_region_move. Click 'Save user settings' at the bottom of the window.
You can reset this value by clicking 'Restore' to the right of 'Mesh' in this same window if required.

Blender 2.80:
Edit > Preferences > Keymap:
Make sure the search bar is set to 'name' and search for 'Extrude'. Expand the option and change view3d.edit_mesh_extrude_move_normal to mesh.extrude_region_move.
You can reset this value by clicking 'Restore' to the right of 'Mesh' in this same window if required.


Can you perfectly line up one object with an array modifier with another object that has an array modifier?

You need to use constant offset inside the array in both of them


Make some visual overlay
Could not help but see the link between this and Bug in addon to Change header color dynamically  The addon there was to remind user they are in automatic keyframe mode.
Remember at the time thinking would make an interesting addon if given a generic way to link a property toggle with toggling a setting.  However have not returned until now
Similarly an edit to change the behaviour to instead change the bg color of the 3d view if in xray mode.
Consider this a "proof of concept" test script, a more subtle indicator could be used.
paste into text editor click run script.
import blf
import bpy

bl_info = {
    "name": "New Object",
    "author": "Your Name Here",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "View3D > Add > Mesh > New Object",
    "description": "Adds a new Mesh Object",
    "warning": "",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "category": "Add Mesh",
}

highlight_color = (0.4, 0, 0)

class DrawingClass:
    def __init__(self, prop):
        from bpy import context
        self.prop = prop
        self.col = context.preferences.themes[0].view_3d.space.gradients.high_gradient[:]
        self.handle = bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add(
            self.draw_text_callback, (), 'WINDOW', 'POST_PIXEL')

    def draw_text_callback(self):
        from bpy import context
        font_id = 0  # XXX, need to find out how best to get this.
        if not hasattr(context, "scene"):
            return None
        shading = context.space_data.shading
        if shading.show_xray:
            context.preferences.themes[0].view_3d.space.gradients.high_gradient = highlight_color
            # draw some text
            blf.position(font_id, 18, 50, 0)
            blf.size(font_id, 50, 72)
            blf.draw(font_id, f"{self.prop}")

        else:
            context.preferences.themes[0].view_3d.space.gradients.high_gradient = self.col

    def remove_handle(self):
        from bpy import context
        context.preferences.themes[0].view_3d.space.gradients.high_gradient = self.col
        bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_remove(self.handle, 'WINDOW')

dc = None

def register():
    global dc
    dc = DrawingClass("XRay Mode")

def unregister():
    global dc
    if dc:
        dc.remove_handle()
        dc = None

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Leads to more questions.
An issue could be since a draw handler is defined for type,  could be an issue with syncing  when more than 1 view 3d is being drawn on the screen. Also setting the theme bg color  of the viewport is blend file wide.

A quick test confirmed my fears. Notice the text is correct but the theme bg color is not.
What is interesting is having what is like two themes active at once


Blender 2.8 - Can't select hair in point select mode in particle edit

I was able to look at this some more and it's only an issue in the blend file I was working with. The point select mode works as expected in brand new files.

I originally created the file in 2.79, perhaps that's part of the cause?

I can append everything from the old file into a new file and everything works, so I am going to go with that as my solution. But I'll keep the old files around and maybe file a bug report.


How do I Extrude Faces Along Normals, and also shrink in two other directions?

If you think about this one the other way round..

The I Inset operator has a 'Depth' setting, which you can adjust in its F9 panel.
If you need further adjustments, perpendicular to normals, for unconnected faces, you could set Pivot to 'Individual Origins', Transform Orientation to 'Normal', and scale in the per-face XY... SShiftZ.


Viewport is showing faces that should be hidden behind other faces

You probably have blend mode (in material settings) turned to alpha blend. It is used in Eevee for transparency, alpha blend mode tells blender that it will use alpha channel from texture to calculate transparency.

However even without texture with alpha you will see this overlaying faces effect when this setting is chosen.


Check if selected loop is a disconnected loop using python

This will do the trick in your case:

import bpy, bmesh

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh( bpy.context.object.data )

selectedVerts = set( [ v.index for v in bm.verts if v.select ] )

bpy.ops.mesh.select_all( action = 'DESELECT' )
bpy.ops.mesh.select_non_manifold()

nonManifoldVerts = set( [ v.index for v in bm.verts if v.select ] )

commonVerts = selectedVerts.intersection( nonManifoldVerts )

bpy.ops.mesh.select_all( action = 'DESELECT' )
for i in selectedVerts: bm.verts[i].select = True
bm.select_flush( True )

msg = "Not connected" if commonVerts else "Connected"
print( msg )

EDITED:

This will now work with any loop that is completely manifold (i.e doesn't have any non-manifold edge/vert)


Don't worry, it's still there.

Context menu is available through Right Click.
Operations are (hidden) under the Edit tab
(the name can be changed in Preferences > Addons > LoopTools)


If you go in the Properties panel > Object > Transform panel, whether you've selected the object or the whole armature in Object mode, you'll keyframe the object or the whole armature, not the bones.
If you want to keyframe the bones you need to select the armature, switch to Pose mode, move the bones, let your cursor in the 3D View, and press i to save.
Don't forget to remove all the animations you've created for the whole armature and object.


I export to the fbx and load it into the clip studio modeler, the mesh breaks

this is boolean error.
you have to triangulate face or tris to quads.
sometimes tris to quads not affect.
you search and affect it.
so it's ok


In the object data tab of the saber, set duplication to "None."


You are in Solid view mode change that to Material type.

Or just switch the Workspace to Shading to get a preview of your shaders in one click and all associated tools for editing material properties.


Sheep-It! is a render farm service that is 100% free and works by using other people's computers to render your projects. It's a great service, and I would definitely recommend it. The only limitation with Sheep-It! is the 500mb project max size. If you don't want to or can't use Sheep-It!, I would recommend using this method:

Using  a cloud storage client

This works with any cloud storage solution that can be installed locally, such as Dropbox or OneDrive. For this example I'm using Google Drive.

First, sign up for a Google account, if you don't already have one.

Then, install Google Drive on both of your computers.
The Google Drive program essentially creates a physical location on your PC that stores everything on your Google Drive, and syncs it. For example, if you installed in on a PC with hard drive D:, and a laptop with hard drive F:. If you had google drive on both computers.. D:\Google Drive and F:\Google Drive would sync with each other.

Once you have google drive installed on both Computers, make sure you're signed in to it. Once that's done, simply create a folder on your Google Drive where all your frames in your animation will render.

Then, once you're ready to render, copy the project files over to your other PC.

Final step is to set your animation to render .PNGs, and set the render output directory to the folder you created earlier on your Google Drive.
Disable Overwrite and enable Placeholders.

Then render animation, and when each frame is rendered, both computers will pick up on it and skip that frame, to begin working on the next one.


Why does my mesh give wierd results when I apply a subdivision surface modifier?

As said in the comments your biggest issue is the topology. Here are a couple of things you could try straight off the bat:

Install the Meshlint addon and make sure all of your faces are quads
Remove doubles (W > Remove Doubles)
Recalculate normals (Tool shelf > Shading/UVs > Normals: Recalculate)

Also mentioned in the comments was that you have some disconnected faces. You can see two of them here:

Because of their position, I think whats happened is that you have two large single faces (n-gons) that's filled in a large portion of the top and bottom of the mesh, as well as all the little ones, so what you can do is in wireframe mode just try selecting all around the top portion of the model, see if you can find those stray faces.

Once you have sorted those things out, you can try a couple of things to make the edges a little bit cleaner with the sub surf on. I would recommend two edge loops around the middle section of the mesh, drag each one close but on on the top and bottom sections (I know I haven't worded this very well, I hope you can understand it), this will make the edges nice and crisp. Alternatively you could use mean creases, just select the edge loop at the very top and bottom and use the shortcut Shift+E and adjust the slider.

Hope you understand all this! You should also checkout some of Jonothan Williamson's tutorials, he is very big on keeping good topology, something like this should do a lot of good for you!


Blender 2.8 "Shadeless" material setup not shadeless

The material is shadeless. However the rendered output isn't 1:1 the RGB value of the emission shader due to color management. If you were to change the View Transform in the Color Management panel to Raw you'd have perfectly white pixels. This is however not recommended for renders where the result should resemble anything like a (virtual) photograph. See the explanation of Troy Sobotka on color management in Blender.


You cannot see simultaneously two weight influences. I don't know how that can be possible to see on the same mesh as they may overlap.

Though, even if that does not answer the question, you can use the "multi paint" option in the drawing toolshelf.

As indicated in the tool tip, that allows to paint over the selected bones and maintaining their relative influence.

So the paint will affect these bones so that they stay relatively the same between them but change relatively to the other (non selected) bones.

But doing that you cannot compare them, as, as you can see the color shown here is homogeneous.

What you can do, though is opening two views, one with your model, one with UV image editor and proceed to an opengl rendering:


How do I make a grunge texture appear only on specific parts of a model?

To control where a bump map affects a object, all you have to do is is multiply the mask by the bump map. Let me explain.

See a bump map is 1-0, white to black. White is up, black is down and 0.5 is no change.
So when you have a bump map, like this scratches image its values are affecting the perceived height of the surface, if you make more of that image 0.5 (gray) then there will be no change in the bumps.

This is where the mask comes in to play, it too is just a 0-1, black and white image (or procedural texture) in this case. So multiplying the two makes all the places where the mask is black, black; and where the mask is white the bump map stays unchanged.
This goes back to basic math 0*x = 0 and 1*x = x.
Last thing needed is to add 0.5 to everything, so the black (0) is neutral in the bump map.

Here are the cycles nodes. The two nodes outlined in red are the two math nodes used to multiply the mask and the bump map and then add 0.5 to neutralize it. The image texture is just the bump map, and the Voronoi Texture and color ramp define the black and white parts which act as a mask.

(old answer below, is about mixing shaders)

This is pretty easy to do in cycles. The procedural texture acts as a mask, that mask controls the Mix Factor between your base material, and the scratches.

In this picture I have my scratches image in a diffuse node plugged in the top Shader socket of the Mix node, and my base color in the bottom socket.
The procedural texture is the mix factor, after running through the ColorRamp node it get plugged in to the Fac socket of the mix node.

Instead of the normal value slider on the mix node here I am using the Voronoi Texture to define the black and white parts which act as a mask.


On the Canvas there should be Dynamic Paint Advanced options. This includes 'Dry' and 'Dissolve' settings. The 'Dry' allows your 'wetmap' to dry over time whereas the 'Dissolve' setting allows your paint to revert back to its initial colour over a series of framee - in my experience you should only enable one of these two options as the 'Dry' seems to disable 'Dissolve'.

Enable 'Dissolve' and set the number of frames to the number of frames you want the paint to remain - if you want it to instantly revert then set it to '1' and uncheck 'Slow'.

This should produce something like the following :

Note also that the dynamic paint treats timeline frame 1 as a special case where the paint is automatically reset and rendered. If you are on a different frame the dynamic paint will not automatically update in the viewport.


Rigify not generating a full rig skeleton

Rigify uses a python script to generate the controller rig. Changes to the base metarig can mess up this script, preventing parts of the armature being generated.

While it looks like you started with the metarig, your rig doesn't have a spine or shoulder bones. The original metarig has hips-spine-chest-shoulder-upper_arm you have hips-chest-upper_arm. These missing bones will be the reason the script is failing.

Create a new metarig and adjust the existing bone positions to where you want them, leaving each existing bone in place.


To add a material to your library, first you have to save your file with the material you want to add to the library.

Next, click add material in the menu as pictured below, and it will be added to the library and available for future use.

The other alternative is to add a new material to the appropriate .blend file in the addon folder. Remember to save it, or it will be lost of course.

There should be a .blend for each material library the add-on provides as shown below.


BGE: Add object actuator spawning bullet on wrong angle

The problem is the rotation of the laser. go to the laser, rotate it 90* on the z axis, then Ctrl+A>apply rotation. this should solve the problem.


What does the "blend" value do on a spotlight in cycles?

TLDR Reduce the size of the lamp (something around 0.01 BU).

The blend value still does what it always did in the blender internal render, make the edges of the spotlight softer.

The reason you can't see much difference when you change the blend value is because of the lamp's size. (Independent from the blend value if you change the lamp's size the light and the shadows will get softer, or sharper.)

Simply set the lamp's size to something very small (around 0.01 BU). Not the angle of the beam, but the size of the lamp (top "Size" field). Now you can adjust the blend value. There isn't that better.

In the picture below both lights have the blend set to 0, but the size is different 1 BU for the pink light, and 0.01 BU for the green light.

For additional reading the cycles documentation for the spotlight is rather short, we have to go to the BI side of the docs to get more info on the blend setting.


Sadly the Record Animation does not record logic bricks. It only records the actions for physics. Example: a tower falling down and all the pieces scattering across the ground.


How to make an object appear and disappear repeatedly in a certain area?

You could use a particle system, defining the boundary by the shape of the emitter.

To  make 1 particle appear and disappear in random places, set the lifetime of the particle to be the desired frame length of its appearance, and set the total number of particles to divide the total duration of emission by that amount.

Switch off physics, velocities, etc, set the Emit From to 'Volume', and make a sphere to be the target 'Object' of the render settings.

Sample settings:

Sample Result:

You could animate the object color, for example, to have each electron fade in and out, or produce other effects.


Best way would be to select your mesh then armature using Shift+RightClick then hit Ctrl+P then choose parent with automatic weighting. This will save you time painting everything manually.


Python commands listed in the info area do not exist

One reason context.space_data in the console isn't working is because of, well, the context. space_data is of the type Space(see here). When you're adjusting the grid scale, the space_data for the screen area 'VIEW_3D'. When you're typing in the console, the screen area is 'CONSOLE', so the 3D view properties aren't available because the context is wrong. Not to mention, getting the space_data that way is read-only.

One way to change the grid scale is this:

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
        area.spaces.active.grid_scale = 0.01

Resources: Space, Area

It's also helpful to look at the tooltips when hovering over the button/property, as they provide information as well.


Add another edge loop in the crossbar piece (the top of the glasses) and move that edge loop near the vertices you are trying to join. So you'll something like this

|           |         |
*-----------*---------*
           *-*
           | |

Becomes this:

|          | |         |
*----------*-*---------*
           *-*
           | |

For more on adding loop cuts, click here

Then merge the vertices using Alt+M.

Which becomes this:

|          | |         |
*----------*-*---------*
           | |

For more on merging : click here


Adding MDD mesh cache to imported OBJ produces visual artifacts

SOLVED: I solved this by selecting "keep vert order" in the Blender OBJ importer. The options appear in the lower left corner of the screen.


How do you use Blender to make Pokemon attacks like hyper beam and solar beam?

Never tried to create any effect like that, but it is possible that particles are not the most effective way to simulate those beams.

Have you tried looking into create "Plasma Wave" effects like these using geometry instead? Like Abstract Waves or Plasma Waves or any other

Perhaps actually modeling it with geometry might be easier. Adding some effects over it, like added particles, volumetric materials, or even in post production, like glow and blur may improve the final aspect.


Answer is pretty simple - you can’t.

Pies remain menus, not toolboxes, so they use the same UI conventions as menus (where only widget for booleans toggles are those small checkboxes).


Select Meshes from Scene Collection without relying on name

By vert count
If they are still single vert meshes could also look for a single vert count.
import bpy
context = bpy.context

single_vert_obs = [o for o
        in context.scene.objects
        if o.type == 'MESH'
        and len(o.data.vertices) == 1]


Can I save selected elements of a Blender scene?

What may help you most is creating a "library.blend" file. Get rid of the default cube and lamp, and organize per layer characters, abstracts, etc. Then append from that file only, this is the only method I'm aware of, and much more efficient than keeping track of which model is in which .blend.


Modeling a sword handle - Problem smoothing it out

You can use to sphere operation to make your selection in to sphere.

Once you start the operator, drag your mouse left and right to change the intensity.


How do I get the current directory without an open file?

print(bpy.utils.resource_path('LOCAL'))   #Gives the default file locaton
print(bpy.utils.resource_path('USER'))    #Gives the blender installation location

You can use this as reference to go to other directories.


Blender Proportional Edit.
You may search with this term.


How can I get the Clone tool in texture painting?

Consider using a source texture to paint on the mesh.

Edit 12/22/2015.

Your question now shows more of your progress.

Historical Note.  At first I thought you were getting no texture paint results at all.  Thus I encouraged you to use an image source and the simpler brush first as step 1 for major results.  I estimated  the clone brush could wait a learning period. From you edits above your are ready to use the clone brush.

TexDraw brush step 1.  Clone brush step 2.  Then you decide and refine in step 3 and beyond.  Those are my suggestions.

Nooks and crannies that might not be visible in your reference photographs are suited to clone paint as your video shows.  Some people also have top of head photos.  Neck photos.

The interface of texture painting has changed since your video.  I was not really emphasizing this change in the very capable and complex texture painting.

Apologies for lack of clarity.

Here is an image below.

The sphere is using a texture in this first image.  This will be the target of your painting work.  Under the Tools pane on left you see the human figure texture as the source of Stencil painting with a regular [TexDraw] brush.  The Image editor windows show some results on the target texture.  In the 3D View / Texture paint window.  You see the large transparent brush stencil next to some finished painting work on the sphere placed in the distance. The arrangment is for discussion purposes.

A alternate image explanation.

Note the brush is a TexDraw brush.  Brush mapping is Stencil.  Do not use Clone Brush yet.  First feel comfortable with the TexDraw.   Clone Brush is a second step.

You may look at the history of this document to see the previous version.


Why is snap bone to cursor not working in pose mode?

[Clamp To] Constraint  wins over manual placement such as [Snap To].

An active [clamp to] constraint of influence 1, with a disconnected bone, will dominate any manual position for final placment.  This is useful, designed, and meets the expectation of the Blender user who is informed.  Snap to is manual placement.  Standard specification and behavior.
Verify your bone is NOT connected to parent in bone edit mode.  Then the bone should follow the curve.

You may change your curve to be pass through any location including the cursor location.  Suit to your needs.
Be aware the constraints can be turned off and on with the eye option, and their influence can be set from 0 to 1 on the constraint panel.  Both of these options can use animation keyframes. So if you reduce the influence to zero with keyframes the bone will be off the curve for those keyframes.  Thus you can have a bone follow the curve or be off the curve as suits your animation.

If a constraint is used to control placement it dominates over manual placement.  That is the designed behavior.


How to get a Pixar look on render and tutorials on setting up a scene?

As per the comments, there is an army of people behind any particular animation of the size and scope of a Pixar animation.

While you suggest that you aren't going for photorealism, it is extremely important to understand and embrace that every concept, from the rendering shaders on up to the output transforms you see on your screen are in fact rooted in photorealistic theory and physics.

So where to start for something like "I want to learn about Pixar?" Seems like a question that no one might have an answer to, or if they do, it might be long reams of answers that don't help someone down the path of education.

Shockingly, there is in fact a wonderful resource on the entire pipeline, from math to colour to composition, all the way up, specifically about Pixar.

While going through the following course won't make you a machine that can crank out Pixar animations overnight, it is a terrific introductory set of studies and knowledge that just about everyone can learn something from.

Enjoy Pixar in a Box.


Yes, it does.

Extruding in 3D modeling means something like:

  to shift a selection in space while creating all the geometry
  that is needed to keep all the non-selected parts in place

You can have more detailed information about how tha algorithm works in the official manual page.

Let's consider a UV sphere:

Notice how in the example above the non selected faces keep their positions (and so their edges and vertices). Is something different from grabbing, as involves the creation of new geometry.

By extruding, for example, along the normal axis, you may see from the pictures above how the operation does the same thing. In both cases (positive and negative normal axis extrusion) the surrounding vertices of the initial selection geometry keep their position.

One way to achieve the result you want is to extrude inward and than dissolve the starting geometry.

After inward extrusion, assign the selected faces to a vertex group, than extend the selection with Ctrl++. Than that go to Vertex groups and remove previuosly assinged vertex group from the selection.

Press X to open the "Delete" menue and choose "Dissolve edges".


You are in local view, which isolates the selected object, so you have no lights illuminating the object.  You can change this by pressing  /  on the numpad or by pressing the space bar and entering "Local View".


Is there a reason why my object won't render?

Blender does render your scene properly, however it appears that Eevee is the currently selected render engine. This is indicated by lack of noise when moving the camera and the missing pause button when the Rendered mode is active.

Eevee was specifically build for (near) real-time rendering. It uses a technique known as rasterization, which is also commonly used by game engines. Cycles, on the other hand, is a path tracer. The noise from the Rendered mode with Cycles comes from the fact that light paths are being traced from the light source into the camera. At first there are only a few samples available per pixel, which causes a grainy look. Only over time, when more samples have been calculated, it converges to the actual final image.

A good comparison of Cycles and Eevee can be found in the CGCookie article Cycles vs. Eevee - 15 Limitations of Real Time Rendering in Blender 2.8.


Is there a way to disable composite effects on already rendered frames?

Unless you saved the images before post processing, there is no way: once an image has been processed, flattened and saved into an output format, you can't de-construct it and revert it to a previous stage.

  You will need to render again.

But before you do that please read on.

As a piece of advise: you can use a file output node to save each frame as is being rendered before post processing.

Also never render an animation as video. Render an image sequence and encode later.

If you care for quality use OpenEXR as the render format. That way you can keep your information, and passes undistorted and linear.

There is a reason why Post-production exists. If you have saved all of your frames before any effects, then you can brig those rendered frames into the compositor and experiment different looks and effects in a non-destructive manner, without having to re-render the original rendered layers every single time.

Rad: Is there a way to export each rendered layer as its own image?
 and How can I render all render passes to files in Cycles?


There is no discrete "Maximum" node, Maximum is the name of one of the many operations in the Math node. The displayed title is adjusted according to the chosen operations
According to the manual the Math node contains the following operations:

Functions

Add | The sum of the two values.
Subtract | The difference between the two values.
Multiply | The product of the two values.
Divide | The division of the first value by the second value.
Multiply Add | The sum of the product of the two values with Addend.
Power | The Base raised to the power of Exponent.
Logarithm | The log of the value with a Base as its base.
Square Root | The square root of the value.
Inverse Square Root | One divided by the square root of the value.
Absolute | The input value is read with without regard to its sign. This turns negative values into positive values.
Exponent | Raises Euler’s number to the power of the value.

Comparison

Minimum | Outputs the smallest of the input values.
Maximum | Outputs the largest of two input values.
Less Than | Outputs 1.0 if the first value is smaller than the second value. Otherwise the output is 0.0.
Greater Than | Outputs 1.0 if the first value is larger than the second value. Otherwise the output is 0.0.
Sign | Extracts the sign of the input value. All positive numbers will output 1.0. All negative numbers will output -1.0. And 0.0 will output 0.0.
Compare | Outputs 1.0 if the difference between the two input values is less than or equal to Epsilon.
Smooth Minimum | Smooth Minimum.
Smooth Maximum | Smooth Maximum.

Rounding

Round | Round the input value to the nearest integer.
Floor | Rounds the input value down to the nearest integer.
Ceil | Rounds the input value up to the nearest integer.
Truncate | Outputs the integer part of the value.
Fraction | Fraction.
Modulo | Outputs the remainder once the first value is divided by the second value.
Wrap | Outputs a value between Min and Max based on the absolute difference between the input value and the nearest integer multiple of Max less than the value.
Snap | Round the input value to down to the nearest integer multiple of Increment.
Ping-pong | The output value is moved between 0.0 and the Scale based on the input value.

Trigonometric

Sine | The Sine of the input value.
Cosine | The Cosine of the input value.
Tangent | The Tangent of the input value.
Arcsine | The Arcsine of the input value.
Arccosine | The Arccosine of the input value.
Arctangent | The Arctangent of the input value.
Arctan2 | Outputs the Inverse Tangent of the first value divided by the second value measured in radians.
Hyperbolic Sine | The Hyperbolic Sine of the input value.
Hyperbolic Cosine | The Hyperbolic Cosine of the input value.
Hyperbolic Tangent | The Hyperbolic Tangent of the input value.

Conversion

To Radians | Converts the input from degrees to radians.
To Degrees | Converts the input from radians to degrees.

Add a new Converter > Math node then set its operation to Maximum.


Constrain the movement of rigid bodies to two axes

Use a copy location constraint on the ball to some other objects x, y coordinate.

Ball locked to bounce on plane origin (0, 0, 0)


Here are the color of meshes in viewport and their meaning


In order to use the subdivide tool, you must first be in Edit Mode.

Select the edges you want to subdivide, or hit "a" to select all
Go to "edge" tab in top left next to what mode you are in
Hit "subdivide"

For more reading, here is the Blender Subdivision Documentation
Hope this helps, good luck!


how can I make the material on the surface different color than the sprinkles on this cube?

To change the color, you must use the Material Properties tab:

To answer your edit, if you want the cube to have a different color than the sprinkles, you have to use different materials for the Cube and Particle Instance objects, respectively.
CUBE MATERIAL

PARTICLE MATERIAL (On sphere and cone)

EDIT - Here is a file with the Cube, as requested:


Select all vertices, right click and then select merge, merge by distance, which should do just as you want.

Hope this helped!


There is several ways to get this effect ... but in your example are mixed two light effects. One is vertical lights from stars and second light scattering fromcentral light source. So here are some tips.
SunBeam (postpro)

enable Compositor
use SunBeam node with high Y value to get effect of light comming from top
it depence on image, but sometimes you will need to do a pass for stars if there is some another bright source of light (or for masking reason foreground-background)

Glare (postpro)
similar way is to use Glare node > Streaks > 2

Volumetric
For light scattering

add Cube with Principled Volume shader

For vertical light rays comming from top you can use Volumetric material, but without connection with stars on sky.

use 2D Noise texture node for vertical rays
add Areal light on top


wm.context_toggle for Toggle On / Off X-RAY Armature ( Context attribute )

Set your custom keyboard shortcut like this:

Key points

When setting toggle shortcuts use wm.context_toggle
When it pertains to the active object use active_object. followed by the last part of your context attribute name, which in this case is show_x_ray
If you add this to the list under the Object Mode section the shortcut will only trigger X-ray display while you are in Object Mode, which frees up your keyboard shortcut to be used for something else in Edit Mode, etc. If you add it under 3D View (Global) the keyboard shortcut will trigger it in all 3D View modes.


Any way to customize the color of the text input cursor?

I do not think that is possible. I checked the general 'User Interface' theme section, the 'Text Editor' cursor colour and I even went so far as to check any items which are blue in the other theme settings just in case they might affect it. Unfortunately none of them did. I also checked other areas of the user preferences as there are a few theme-like settings in other sections but to no avail. While the majority of Blender's interface is customisable, there are a few things which aren't and I think this is one of them.


I found the solution.

It turned out that I did not read PyroEvils instructions before installing the add-on.
I did have Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable installed.
But in order to for the Molecular add-on 1.03 to run you need Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable.
I got ITServicedesk to install the 2015-version and now the Molecular add-on runs as it should.

I made sure to make a donation to Jean-Francois.


Why is volume losing color when hidden behind glass and how do I make it keep its color?

The Volume max bounces were set to zero in your project. Once you increase them it should give you the intended look.


How to adjust view clipping distance when using object as camera?

It turns out this is actually a feature, of sorts.

When a lamp is set as a camera, the viewport is only rendered within the lamp's shadow buffer clipping extents; that is shadow_buffer_clip_startand shadow_buffer_clip_end.

Unfortunately, these properties are not presented in the GUI for every render engine, or even for every lamp type.

In 2.7x, they are only present in the game engine, on a spot or sun lamp:

In 2.8, using Eevee, only shadow_buffer_clip_start is displayed for point, spot and area lamps. To get shadow_buffer_clip_end, the lamp type must be sun.

As far as I am aware, these properties are not exposed to the GUI at all under BI or Cycles.

While this behavior does seem to be at least intentional, it probably could use some improvement. For instance, perhaps the view extents ought only to be clipped for engines and lamp types where the shadow buffer clipping is applicable. With that in mind, I've submitted a bug report here.


The shrink/fatten tool is exactly what you need! Select the middle loop of each of the barrel's sides (the one you want to make slightly smaller) and press Alt S. This will shrink the edge loop equally in all directions, giving you the shape you're after.


Your objects have not been unwrapped, plus you didn't select the good image in the Image Texture node of your material.


Got it!
A simple subtract node works well, you can even change the factor to change the opacity of the windows...

Sorry, this was a kinda useless question...


Storing the data in collection property:

import bpy

# specify the data structure - each item will be group of properties:
class Box2DJoint(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    # name = bpy.props.StringProperty()
    body_a = bpy.props.StringProperty()    # reference object name
    body_b = bpy.props.StringProperty()    # reference object name
    anchor_a = bpy.props.FloatVectorProperty()
    anchor_b = bpy.props.FloatVectorProperty()

# store them under scene:
bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)
bpy.types.Scene.box_2d_joints = bpy.props.CollectionProperty(type=Box2DJoint)

# populate like so:
new_joint = bpy.context.scene.box_2d_joints.add()
new_joint.name = "silly_box_joint"
new_joint.body_a = 'Some_object_name'
# ...etc.

# remove with index:
id = bpy.context.scene.box_2d_joints.find("silly_box_joint")
bpy.context.scene.box_2d_joints.remove(id)

The advantage of the data storage like this is you can also display it in UI lists which is nice: Populate a list with custom property dictionary data

If the user renames objects in blender or deletes them, the references must be adjusted: Execute a python function whenever the user interacts with the program. This offers the most flexibility, the code can catch almost anything. The handicap is that the frame change handler runs all the time.

Other approach would be to give objects some random hash which is stored with object name and searched for when the object is not found. Here is how to set it up for objects:

import bpy
import string
import random

def random_id(length = 12):
    return "".join([random.choice(string.ascii_uppercase) for i in range(length)])

bpy.types.Object.hash = bpy.props.StringProperty()
bpy.context.object.hash = random_id()

To check if object name exists:

if bpy.data.objects.get("FooBar") is not None:
    # do something with bpy.data.objects['FooBar']
else:
    # deal with it
    # look through all objects for hash and if found update name reference
    # if hash not found object is deleted or a ninja

Use bgl module to display such custom objects in view-port: Draw points on screen with bgl? (python)

The drawing code runs inside modal operator and has access to bpy.context, you can draw points, lines, triangles etc. in 3d float coords (init with 'POST_VIEW' tag) or in 2d pixel coords (init with 'POST_PIXEL'). BGL Wrapper Reference. The BLF module can be used to draw text. There are python templates in text editor for this.

Keeping this simple is good because drawing with python is not very fast. Too many draw-calls and Blender view-port fps will suffer.


Why does Grease Pencil color and stroke move separately when animated?

I do not know whether there is a fast workaround, but I am quite certain that you have to manually input the keyframes for the Fill layer, as you did with the Stroke layer.

So just go to the frame you want the color to 'change position' and recolour accordingly.


I figured out my issue but I will leave this up in case someone else has my problem.

To solve this keep the player as rigid body type and change the armature attached to a sensor physics type. Remember to add collision bounds to the armature and ensure that detect actors is checked on the armature and that the static object you wish to collide with is set as an actor (don't worry the armature will not collide with the model its attached to.)

Thank you to anyone who tried to help me and I hope that I saved someone some time fixing their game.


How to properly import matterial in to scene? - python

Just assign data_from.materials to data_to.materials:
import bpy

# Path to the blend
filepath = "//material-library.blend"

mats_current = [m.name for m in bpy.data.materials]

with bpy.data.libraries.load(filepath, link=False) as (data_from, data_to):
    data_to.materials = [mat for mat in data_from.materials if mat not in mats_current]

I recommend use the python console to verify the actual material count:
>>> len(bpy.data.materials)
67
>>> bpy.data.materials['
                        000_Interference Group']
                        1_layer_on_dielectric']
                        2_layers_on_dielectric']
                        3_layers_on_dielectric']
                        AR_glass']
                        Iron_heated_2']
                        Material']
                        STAINEDALUPROC']
                        aluminum_nk']
                        basic_interference_glass']
                        ...

API link: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.BlendDataLibraries.html


The step sizes for properties are programmed in and not easily user adjustable.

While clicking the arrows will always step in the same amount there are a couple of keys that can help if you drag the value instead of clicking each arrow. Holding shift while dragging will step in smaller sizes, Alt smaller again (generally half of shift steps) and together even slower.

These adjustments are dynamic, so you can start dragging the value to get close, then hold shift to slow it down to get the final value.


material issue - how to make blurry/emissive material?

To truly get transparent edges you would need to move to volumetrics and vary the density or emission based on the proximity to the surface. This can be achieved using the OSL shader described here and produces the following result :

You can vary the 'depth' by adjusting the Multiply node - or replace that and the Color Ramp with your own calculation.

Note that this method will be way less efficient for rendering since it's using volumetrics - and this is further compounded by using OSL which is not GPU compatible (so you'll have to render with CPU).

Using volumetric scatter/absorption as you would for smoke can produce the following :

Adjusting the Multiply and Power nodes affects the sharpness of the objects. You could also add a noise texture to vary the depth of the fade to make the edges appear more 'fluffy'.


You didn't extrude, you probably pressed g and moved it along the z axis.

Your mesh should look like this:


Animation not working in Unreal Engine 4

Hey I had a similar issue, this thread helped me fix it: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/736756/blender-animation-import-problem-empty-animations.html

If link dies the solution was,

  Turns out all I had to do was rename my character in blender from 'armature' to anything else.


This issue is caused due to the UV edges touching both the black background and the green paint
It also helps when you use a mipmap as the resolution decreases.

To fix this you need to draw a bit over the UV border. This creates something like a padding.

Another way would be to match the background and the colored areas as close as possible.

Additionally a clean UV unwrap would also help a lot as it reduces the ammount of these edge areas.


you have "proportion editing on", this means you'll edit all the vertex inside the "area" controlled by the "proportional size".

disable it clicking on this icon:


Solid color for each face in cycles when using image textures?

Here is one way to do this :

duplicate the final mesh (modifiers applied )
UV unwrap the new object using this method :

select all face
hit Ctrl+E and select Edges Split
resize all faces to Zero with Individual origins as a pivot
U and select Project from View Bounds

copy this map to the original object, using CtrlL>Transfer UV map

After that all points on the same face will have the same UV coordinates meaning they will have the same color in render.
You can adjust the UVmap for more precise output.

For the workflow of setting up a good mesh  :

Add the Image as a background in the view
Add a plane (or simply import the same image as plane to skip setting up materials)
Delete the face (in Edit mode Select All and X and select Only Faces)
Start doing a loose tracing of the image by adding vertices in Edit mode (Ctrl+LMB, don't worry about crossing edges!)

Delete all edges (Select All and X and select Only Edges&Faces)
For this step you need the Delaunay/voronoi Addon it will create a triangulated mesh from the points

The rest is described in the first part above

And here is a sweet penguin render :


How to link two different physics objects together?

All you need to make the cloth more stiff in one area and leave the rest of the cloth less stiff, is to create a vertex group, and assign desired scale of each vertex in this group (0.0 .. 1.0). It's better to do it with weight painting mode. Then you just set this group as stiffness scale factor map. See pictures below.

Anywhere you see those vertex group selector, you can do it on per-vertex basis.


Transparent object create opaque alpha channel. How do you get transparent objects over a transparent background?

Not presented as an answer so much as extension of comments above: You can add a fresnel and holdout to your material to generate other alpha-node output characteristics...


I have been having the same problem, and already spend some nights of the last week on this. The best solution i found was to export and import the cloth simulation as described in this link. After that i put the fabric a little bit higher so that it doesn't collide anymore.
It is the best thing i come up with, but i hope someone comes with a better solution.
How can I bake the cloth simulation into keyframed vertices or shape keyed vertices?


If you are new to blender, then start with healthier habits before they turn into vices...

One common error new users make is subdividing too early and creating unnecessary dense topology.

Not only does it make editing way more complicated than what it should be, but will push your computer to its limits very quickly, then you will run out of resources for rigging, animating, doing simulations, particles, volumetrics and, finally, for rendering. Keep it real... Computing power is limited, use it wisely.

Start with simple shapes and work with the absolute minimum number of vertices that give you the shape you are after.

Read: common pitfalls of beginning modellers

Given that you've already put yourself on a bind... use (and apply) the decimate modifier, reduce unnecessary geometry with dissolve edges and faces, and try to keep the number of vertices in check.

For elements that are repeated, model only one and use instances, arrays, dupliverts, duplifaces and dupliframes, those require less resources (read: What techniques have been used to repeat geometry or other detail to the infinite horizon?)

Softer and rounder meshes can be accomplished with smooth shading, multires, smooth and subsurf modifiers. And speaking of subsurf modifiers, avoid using large values. Hardly ever you should need more than a value of 3. Read: Blender render crash when using subsurf modifiers..

If your quest for detail is part of an obsessive compulsive need to detail things, then create a dense mesh, a normal map and use that map to fake the detail on lower poly meshes.

3d is always a fine balance between artistic goals and the realities of the available computing power.

Sorry if I rain on your parade, but you won't be able to create the prequel to the sequel to the reboot of your favorite sci-fi blockbuster movie in 8K on your personal computer... But that doesn't mean that you can't do amazing work in blender and learn and have lots of fun in the meantime! If you maximize and use your resources in a smart way and keep your expectations on a realistic level, your experience will be more enjoyable.

Three pieces of unrequested advice:

1- Optimize.

2- Don't complicate what shouldn't be complex (optimize)

3- Use detail only in the places where there is no alternative way to cheat (optimize)


Blender Crashes Requesting more GPU Memory

You're using a very old graphics card compared to the generations of GPUs being made nowadays. Blender recently increased their system requirements due to all the new features being added. So yeah, its preferable if you get a 4GB or better GPU.

https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/

Edit: A GPU capable of running Blender 2.8 is fairly cheap. You can easily get a Nvidia GTX 1050Ti for somewhere around $140, and it'll be suitable for another 1-2 years before needing a slightly better model to compete with Blender's updates.


Set your Transform orientation to Local

Press S and X, Y or Z

And then 2, Enter


In 2.8 how can I return the 3D cursor settings back into the Item tab?

bl_info = {
    "name": "Additional 3d Cursor Panel",
    "author": "Martynas Žiemys",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "n panel, Item tab",
    "description": "Adds 3d Cursor properties to Item tab",
    "warning": "",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "category": "UI",
}

import bpy

from bpy.types import Panel

class VIEW3D_PT_view3d_additional_cursor(Panel):
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_category = "Item"
    bl_label = "3D Cursor"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        cursor = context.scene.cursor

        layout.column().prop(cursor, "location", text="Location")
        rotation_mode = cursor.rotation_mode
        if rotation_mode == 'QUATERNION':
            layout.column().prop(cursor, "rotation_quaternion", text="Rotation")
        elif rotation_mode == 'AXIS_ANGLE':
            layout.column().prop(cursor, "rotation_axis_angle", text="Rotation")
        else:
            layout.column().prop(cursor, "rotation_euler", text="Rotation")
        layout.prop(cursor, "rotation_mode", text="")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(VIEW3D_PT_view3d_additional_cursor)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(VIEW3D_PT_view3d_additional_cursor)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

If you copy and paste that into the Text editor and then save it to a file with a .py extension, you can then install this as an add-on, that adds the functionality:


Imitate Copy Transform Constraint in BGE

as I understood this script may help you.

from bge import logic

cnt = logic.getCurrentController()
scn = logic.getSceneList()[0] # the background scene or low-poly scene
cam1 = cnt.owner # the high-poly scene camera
cam2 = scn.objects['Low_poly_camera'] # the low-poly scene camera

def c2tc1(): # we set the cam2 pos/rot to the cam1
    cam2.worldPosition = cam1.worldPosition
    cam2.worldOrientation = cam1.worldOrientation

c2tc1()

How it works:

this code should run always with high-poly scene camera that moves, you don't need to move the low-poly scene camera it will follow the high camera always.

Make sure that:

True level triggering  pulse mode is active so the code should run on each frame.


Go to the Options tab of the Tool Shelf and check the Show Diffuse Color checkbox.


Snapping also works in edit mode. Select the face, then use  Shift +  S and choose cursor to selected. Works for faces, edges and vertices.


How to make the windows material transparent so that I can see an image through it?

When using transparency in EEVEE, make sure to set the material's Blend Mode to something other than Opaque. Alpha-Blend or Alpha Hashed should work fine. For some objects, you may also find things look better if you also enable Backface Culling:


Mesh Cleanup - Self Intersection and Dual Face Removal

Your mesh is pretty simple, I would recommend to repair it manually.

Here’s how I’d do it.
The repaired Blendfile is attached at the end.

1) Set units to milimetres and snapping to Increments.
Enable absolute grid snap. This will make it waaay easier to achieve accurate results.
It’s very useful for precise modeling (like for 3D printing)

2) Remove half of your mesh. Because it’s symmetrical, we’ll work only on one half, and generate the other one automatically.
- Also remove all the overlapping end faces
- The middle part was kinda messed up, so I repaired it manually. It was easy, try it for yourself.

I’ve put the repaired mesh into the blender file for you. Use it to follow the next steps.
You’re welcome :).

3) Add two loopcuts. Don’t worry about an exact position, you can adjust it later.

4) Select faces you don’t need and delete them. Press Delete->Faces

5) Select the four vertices on top and Press F to fill.
Do the same thing for the bottom four vetices.

6) Select the front loop by clicking Alt+LMB on a vertex and Press F to fill.
Do the same for the back loop.

7) You’re almost done.
Now you have a perfect half of your handle.

Now select the mesh and Click RMB->Set Origin to 3Dcursor. This is gonna be important in the next step.

7.1) Correct normals
Click Overlay->Face orientation to show the normals.
Red faces should be inside, blue on the outside.

Select all faces with Select->All and go to Mesh->Normals->Recalculate Outside. Blender will then recalculate them correctly.

You can see some inverted normals in your original mesh.

8) Add a mirror modifier.
Set the correct axis (Y in this example).

9) You can select the loop (use X-ray mode), and move it up or down as you like.
The other half of your mesh will adjust itself.

10) Done.
You’ve got a clean mesh without any non-planar or overlapping faces.

Repaired Blender file
- Includes the end result
- Includes the Step 01 mesh.

Aaaaaah.
God damn, that took longer than I expected.

Additional tips:
- Apply all modifiers before exporting file for 3D printer
- Check BlenderGuru for basic Blender tutorials
- You’re doing great, happy Blendering


Does Blender have the equivalent of Photoshop Smart Guides?

"Snap" is what you're looking for, but the way to use it isn't really intuitive if you come from Photoshop. Please let me detail the procedure step by step.

Starting with the default config :

Set the "Snap element" to Vertex
Start to extrude with E. If needed, specify an axis (X in your case)
Keep Ctrl pressed, and move your mouse cursor to either A or B. When the face snaps, press left mouse button to validate.


Overriding Node Wrangler Keyboard Shortcuts

What I ended up doing was going into the Windows settings and changing the "Special key to move and resize windows" to Super (the windows button) instead of Alt.


Export animation as a video for editing later

For editing purposes, it's fairly common to use a sequence of images files, not a video file. Most editing software support them (DaVinci Resolve definitively do), and you don't have to struggle with codecs, bitrate or whatever.
In your output settings, just select a picture file format. Png is great if you have a transparent background. Lossless Jpeg is great if you've got a solid background.
There are other benefits with files sequences ; ie., you can pause the render between two frames and relaunch it later ; or render it with multiple computers (ie. a renderfarm).


What's the difference among object, active_object, and selected_objects?

I am fairly sure the first is true, but the second isn't.

The list of selected_objects is expanded as new objects are added, new selections are added to the end of the list, while manually selecting the last addition will be the active object, so active_object is rarely the first in the selected_objects list.

There are some conditions that may catch you out.

When deselecting all objects, the last active object remains active even though it may no longer be selected.
When setting items as selected with python the active object does not automatically change.
Select all does not alter the active object.
Deleting the active object leaves you with no active object.


Replace material and texture with python in BGE

UPBGE has a Replace Material API, but regular BGE does not. However, you can replace the material with a custom GLSL shader.

Changing textures is not doable, but you can replace the images used in a material. A simple python function that does this is:

def show_picture(obj, path, mat_id=0, tex_id=0):
    '''Loads a picture into a texture'''
    prop_name = 'SHOW_PICTURE{}:{}'.format(mat_id, tex_id)
    if prop_name not in obj:
        tex = bge.texture.Texture(obj, mat_id, tex_id)
        obj[prop_name] = tex
    else:
        tex = obj[prop_name]
    raw = bge.texture.ImageFFmpeg(path)
    if raw.status == 0:
        # Error in loading image
        bge.log.error("Unable to load image at {}".format(path))
        raise ValueError("Unable to load image at {}".format(path))

    tex.source = raw
    tex.refresh(True)

Where tex_id is the texture slot of the image.


Blender Remesh Error in Sculpt mode. How do I decrease the polygons correctly and save the project?

I just wanted to add that I encountered the same choppy model result from remeshing and that closing up all holes in the model solved the problem.
This was the result using Remesh when I had forgotten to close the neck hole:

After closing up the neck hole the Remesh worked fine:

Happy Blending!


If you want to use both fly and walk mode without toggling settings in your preferences constantly, it's still accessible in 3D view > Header > View > Navigation > Fly mode:

Since that's kind of a pain to get to if you use it a lot, you can:

Use the search menu (Space > fly)
Create a custom shortcut by right clicking on the option in the menu and selecting Add Shortcut.

This way you can have both fly and walk mode within easy access.


Which animation features don't support sub-frames?

While I would like to make a comprehensive list (in one go), this involves quite some research.

Please add in the comments if I miss something.

Subframe Supported

FCurves (and anything they animate)
Drivers (including the frame variable passed into PyDrivers)
Shape Keys (Mesh/Lattice/Curve)
Shape Keys (Mask)
Curve/Path constraint
Rigid-body physics
Particles

Subframe Unsupported

Movie/Image sequence
Fluid-simulation
Smoke-simulation
Hair-simulation
Cloth-simulation
Video SequencerNote that while its possible to access sub-frames via the Speed-Effect.Exporting subframes from the sequencer it's self is not supported.

Note:

In some cases if subframe support isn't working where it should be- this should be reported as a bug.


White Lines on baked textures in Blender

The white lines you see is the result of the downsampled MipMap versions of the textures that Unity creates for you. These are used to reduce aliasing when viewing detailed textures from distance. You should give the UV-islands more margins.


White and Chrome ball in material preview mode

Be sure to have the HDRI Preview checkbox checked in the Viewport Overlays menu.


Material appearing as bright white or white on some objects while using Eevee Render in 2.8

Alright I realized the issue is that I only UV unwrapped some of the objects. I thought I could save time by only unwrapping the larger objects. I hope this behaves more similarly to the Cycles render in the future.


Fluid Inflow Fails To Fill Simple Tank Depending On Position In Tank

I had posted this question on blenderartists.org a week or so before posting it here.  I just received a particularly good answer from the fluid sim coders themselves.  You can read their response in the link below.

In summary, this is a known limitation of the fluid simulator.  They discuss the low-level details and propose possible modifications to the simulator code.  In the meantime, fluid inflow objects generally should not be submerged, and (I gather) should also not be at an elevation lower than the final fluid level of something they are intending to fill (even if they are outside the vessel to be filled). Of course, this all depends on the level of accuracy of the simulation you are after.

Here's the link.

https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?410338-Fluid-Inflow-Fails-To-Fill-Simple-Tank-Depending-On-Position-In-Tank


Is it possible to create a procedural spiral around a tube?

I've googled one BlenderArtists solution, that also works reasonably well for a tube.
All credits to PyBlend

You can use an Empty to control it.
Otherwise it uses object's origin point.


How can I use pencil style strokes in frestyle?

Line Style Texture

That effect is achieved by overlaying a texture to the freestyle stroke.
Since 2.71 version of Blender, there is an option that let you easily control this aspect of the rendering whitout relying on composting. You can find further information in the Blender 2.71: Freestyle NPR Rendering release notes page.

Basically you should go to the Render Layer tab and enable the Use Texture option in the Freestyle Line Style

Then go to the Texture tab and edit the relative Linestyle Texture.

A better example is provided in the notes themselves: you can dowload it here. In this case you'll see an example of usage of a charcoal texture that led to results very similar to the ones you mentioned:


Texture baking is grabbing some textures from the wrong areas

I am not very experienced with texture baking, but it sounds like your problem is due to the pieces intersecting each other when the rays are traced.

If I understand correctly, baking a texture basically creates virtual cameras a certain distance away from the mesh and renders from them, onto the object. This is only because you are trying to bake detail from one mesh to another. If the meshes are the same poly count there should be no reason to do this, so that might be an easy way to fix your problem.

However, in your case, Blender is using the face normals to determine the direction of the rays. This could be inaccurate and it can be more precise if you create a cage mesh so that it can draw a ray from the cage mesh through the vertex of the master mesh, until it hits the low poly mesh to determine where detail should be draw.

It is also possible that the UVs overlapped or were messed up when you joined objects.

Sorry that this isn't a direct answer, but I hope I gave you some ideas.


2D Animated Face, Is posible to drive the x-uv offset on Blender

Well I solved it in a weird manner, what I did was place another bone so uv warp target, pointer and controller, and I used a driver to drive the location of the x axis of the pointer bone with the Y rotation of controller bone.


What is the sense of utilising Local Camera

Local camera is set per viewport, not view layer.
Camera view (Num 0) uses the Scene camera by default.
Using Local camera, you can work with more cameras at once.


How to add a delay (offset by time) to an objects transform properties that are being driven by another object

You can use Action. Here transforms from cube are transferred to sphere with a delay using Delay Action node.


So, after some time with the research i found the answers. It is for beginners like me, so pros please correct my mistakes if i have some. (From noob to noobs :D - for better understaning the fundamentals)

I am trying to made 2D puppet in blender, so mainly I created plane or grid and textures. Its not for a complex 3d puppet and materials.

A) Vertices + mesh
- Vertices have index and [0,0,0] is the pivot point. Default in the middle of object.

There are awesome addon for vizualize numbers of vertices for better control:

https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/3D_interaction/Index_Visualiser

code to find coordinations of vertices:

import bpy
obj=bpy.context.active_object
x=obj.data.vertices[0].co[0] #X
y=obj.data.vertices[0].co[1] #Y
z=obj.data.vertices[0].co[2] #Z
print("X:"+repr(x) +" Y:"+repr(y) +" Z:"+repr(z))

If we want to use infromation from vertexes for image and pixels, we need recalculate ratio position of the vertices. (0-1 from dimensions * scale)

For separate dimension from scale I must applied scale. In that case dimensions are setting as you choose but scale is reset to default 1.

Next stage is to move axis of coordination system for vertexes to the left-down corner, because imaxe X,Y coords is the same.

import bpy
obj=bpy.context.active_object
dimension = obj.dimensions
for i in range(len(obj.data.vertices)):
    a = []
    axis = [-(dimension[0]/2),-(dimension[1]/2),0]
    a.append(obj.data.vertices[i].co[0] * obj.scale[0] - axis[0])     # X
    a.append(obj.data.vertices[i].co[1] * obj.scale[1] - axis[1])     # Y
    a.append(obj.data.vertices[i].co[2] * obj.scale[2] - axis[2])     # Z
    print(a)

Calculate the ratio is very easy now (everything is for the plane object):

    ratio_verts = []
    ratio_verts.append(a[0]/(dimension[0]))
    ratio_verts.append(a[1]/(dimension[1]))
    ratio_verts.append(0.0)

Challenge of this small research was to understang how is a PNG works it is the format which carry RGBA infromation. So at the begining I discovered that for 3x3 size of picture python give me 36 numbers. I was very confusing about that, because I though that every pixel have its own index and then under index are the information about RGBA.

import bpy
image = "Test.png"
print(bpy.data.images[image].pixels)

It was mistake, PNG RGBA infromation is saved like numbers in line. [1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0...] And how it works? Like this! [1R,1G,1B,1A,2R,2G,2B,2A,3R,3G,3B,3A...] 4 numbers next other for 1 pixel information. Yes, I know, I was dumb that I dont know it, but I never trying working with the pixels trough python.

So there are really nice maths about converting coordinates to this system :)

From coordination of pixel like X:3px Y:3px to number of the pixel in line.
like:

I created an function:

def sourxy(x,y,image_name,start):
    imgX = bpy.data.images[image_name].size[0]
    PXindex = (y*imgX)-(imgX-x)
    return PXindex-1+start

when X and Y os coordination for searhed pixel.
image_name > its name of my mum :D No, of course name of the image.
And start is number if the start index (0 or 1 often) for next maths.

For some reasons maybe you would like to use recalc for X and Y:

x = PXindex + imgX - (y*imgX)
y = PXindex/imgX)+((imgX-x)/imgX

Perfect, I though, i am almost done. Byt computer says : nooooooo !

I finded problem between recalc coordinaion of the vertexes and the pixels. Vertexes have coords like [0,0], [0,1], [0,2] and its not only 9 vertices it can be like 100*100 vertices for more dense planes.

So if i rounded ratio to integers. I had coords of pixels on image without any color. Its every border down and left vertex.

Solution was simple function:

def imground(n):
    if n==0.0:
        return 1
    else: return math.ceil(n)

From vertex coords to imagme coords by vertex ratio between position and dimensions is like:

imageX=imground(bpy.data.images[image].size[0]*ratio_verts[0])
imageY=imground(bpy.data.images[image].size[1]*ratio_verts[1])

That give me right coords without zero.

From that stage its pretty simply, we need alpha exact pixel. But every pixel have 4 numbers so it need to be miltiplied by 4. And then we know that 4th number is the Alpha we found.

VertexAlpha =bpy.data.images[image].pixels[sourxy(imageX,imageY,image,0)*4+3]

So every vertex which have alpha more than 0 assign to first vertex group:

if VertexAlpha > 0:
        vrx_grp.append(i)
obj.vertex_groups[0].add(vrx_grp,1.0,"REPLACE")
vrx_grp=[]

# get all the verts that belong to a certain vertex group index:
vg_idx = 0
vs = [ v for v in obj.data.vertices if vg_idx in [ vg.group for vg in v.groups ] ]
print("vertex_group inside: " + repr(vs))

last part of code is from: Python - Finding Vertices in a Vertex Group

And Last part of question was UV vertex. For me and the puppet project its not usable, because every vertex in uv can hold multiple coordinations. It is because Many parts of unwrapping. And trough the vertex can be created line of the seam.


Normal map texture does not render on all faces

(((While preparing this question by reproducing my problem in a clean Blender file, to my surprise the problem did not exist. By slowly rebuilding my original scene, I found where the problem comes from, hence I am posting this self-answer.)))

The problem re-appeared as soon as I changed the lighting to "Sun" and turned on "Environment Lighting" to lit the parts not directly lit by the sun. As a consequence, the faces that were not directly lit by the sun did not render their normal maps applied to them.

Therefore, it seems that "Environment Lighting" does not cast rays. Then, if rays do not hit the face, there are no rays to be reflected in different directions depending on the precise location that the rays are incident (which is what the normal map does), and therefore the "normal map will not render".

Now, to have lighting on faces not lit directly by the sun, "Environment Lighting" may be replaced by adding a "Hemi" lamp. This lamp behaves the same as "Environment Lighting" (i.e., light on all directions), but apparently does cast rays, allowing the normal map to be rendered correctly:

Still unsolved questions:

What happened when the sun was changed to "No Shadow" in the OP?
Why does Environmental Lighting work the way it does? Is there a particular reason for which that would be the desired behaviour?


You can do one of two things:

You can select the 'Move' tool in the toolbar (T) or press Shift+Space> G:

If you would like the gizmo to appear regardless of the tool you have selected, click the 'Viewport Gizmos' button in the 3D View header, enable gizmos for active object by enabling the 'Active Object' option and then enable the 'Move', 'Rotate' or 'Scale' options:

Note: Both these options require the object to be selected for the gizmo to appear. If no gizmos are appearing, make sure gizmos are enabled by clicking the 'Show Gizmos' button:


Will running Blender on RAM Drives increase Blender's "Speed"?

Reserving memory for a file system was a good idea 20 years ago.

Modern operating systems use all the available memory that is left by the running processes for caching.

When you start a program the first time it takes longer than subsequent starts because the files and used libraries are still available in RAM. This is the best way because if a process requires more memory cache areas can be evicted. A RAM-disc whereas would  statically allocate the memory which might be needed by another process and couldn't be temporarily released.

tl;dr

No, It would harm the overall performance of your system.


Text along path does not work as expected

To move an object along a curve, you can use a Follow Path Constraint on the deformed object:

But first, you may need to make sure your follower object and curve have their origin aligned, otherwise there will be an offset between them and the deformations might not be as expected. Though this can be use for intended effects too.

As for the Follow Path constraint, you can either do this manually by selecting the follower object, add the Follow Path, set the target and hit Animate Path, or you can just select your follower object, then your curve and hit ⎈ CtrlP → Set Parent to Path Constraint

This will set the constraint for you, with the target and the animation.

The only thing you may need is to set the Forward and Up axes, which totally depends the context. If you don't know what to use, set your transform orientation to Local, select your follower object with the Move active tool enabled and see which axes you need:


Rendering is possible only with an active camera. To do it you select it and press CTRL + Numpad 0 or use the Menu as it is in the comment to make it active.


Modellng a chain link from a torus primitive?

It's not really a scaling operation. It's a translation of half of the torus.

But strictly speaking, to keep a perfectly even profile, you have to duplicate the central edge loops (in the illustration, by splitting the loops, moving one half of the torus, and re-bridging the loops)


How to seperate multiple object in Array modifier

you can do that after applying the modifier.

but the best solution so far is to just copy the object along an axis then repeat with shift + R


Cycles Render Equivalent of "X-Ray" Function

You can move liguid to second layer and create second render layer. After merge them in compositor.

In this case you can't use Material ID or Object ID, because liquid is in other object, or suzanne in cube in my case. But is good to know there is this possibility.
Workflow: use "Pass Index" (material or object) for create mask and after use this mask to separate object in compositor.


"." on numPad no longer centers view on selected

Make sure numlock is activated on your numeric keypad.

Numeric keypad have different flavors as well.
I have two numeric keypads attached.


How to render an image through the text editor?

Possible duplicate of: Rendering a cube as png file using Blender's Python API.
(I would put this in a comment if I had enough reputation.)

The above answer includes the following, with the assumption your camera is already set up (note that I have not tested the code):

  Set the render settings of the current scene, and render it. write_still is necessary if you want the result to be written to the filepath. There will be no visual feedback during the render process.

# render settings
scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.render.image_settings.file_format = 'PNG'
scene.render.filepath = "F:/image.png"
bpy.ops.render.render(write_still = 1)


How to delete bone driver fmodifiergenerator

Here is some commented console code using FCurveModifier.remove(...) I have a location.x driver on the context object's pose bone "Bone", which has an fcurve generator modifier.

>>> driver = C.object.animation_data.drivers[0]
# driver 0 is driving location.x of pose bone "Bone"
>>> driver.data_path
'pose.bones["Bone"].location'

>>> driver.array_index
0
# if len(driver.modifiers) or somesuch
>>> mod = driver.modifiers[0]
>>> mod
bpy.data.objects['Armature']...FModifierGenerator
# yep it's a GENERATOR
>>> mod.type
'GENERATOR'
# remove it.
>>> driver.modifiers.remove(mod)


Addons Not showing up in Toolbar (Blender 2.8 Alpha)

Blender 2.8 has yet to notify the add-on developers to make it compatible with 2.8. Currently, no or very few Add-ons work for this release. The release day for the beta version has been notified, check the website.

Link to the site : https://code.blender.org/2018/06/beyond-the-code-quest/


You need to be in Edit Mode. That way you can select the vertices to assign to. Otherwise Blender has to use the mesh as one whole surface when applying new materials.


Resolved:  I had a sphere that I was using to map different parts of the hdri on that I completely forgot about and was outside all my collections. I'm not sure why it also made the lightbulb dim at the same time... You would think that it would only make the hdri dim. I have never done that to myself before. here is a pic of the render now working.


Why is this bake wrong on one side of the X axis?

I guess you didn't select the good UV Map in the Data panel, i.e. the one that has been used in the Node Editor for your face material, as you can see on this screenshot:


Cycles Glass BSDF on a Diamond viewport problem

From my experience in Blender, a more complex diamond mesh gives the light more directions to scatter, which will increase the number of refraction effects you can detect on the surface.
In jeweler's terms, the cut of the diamond influences the clarity, sparkle, and brilliance.  Sometimes these are at odds with each other.

Also, increasing the number of Glossy and Total bounces under Light Paths will get rid of these dark areas.


You are showing two different menus, one in object mode the other in edit mode, the different names above the centre circle indicate they are using different code - the name comes from bl_label of the menu class.

While the order that items appear does seem odd at first, there is an order to the madness. The primary design is to have one operator at each position, starting from the left, then the right, bottom, top, then the top diagonals and the bottom diagonals.

Run the following script in the text editor and have a look at the items positions, then uncomment one of the lines between operators and see how it effects the layout of the menu, repeat for each commented line.

import bpy

class VIEW3D_PIE_template(bpy.types.Menu):
    bl_label = "Render"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        pie = layout.menu_pie()
        pie.operator("render.render", text='one')
        #pie = pie.column()
        pie.operator("render.render", text='two')
        pie.operator("render.render", text='three')
        #pie = layout.menu_pie()
        pie.operator("render.render", text='four')
        #pie = pie.row()
        pie.operator("render.render", text='five')
        pie.operator("render.render", text='six')
        #pie = layout.menu_pie()
        pie.operator("render.render", text='seven')
        pie.operator("render.render", text='eight')

if __name__ == "__main__":
    try:
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(VIEW3D_PIE_template)
    except:
        pass
    bpy.utils.register_class(VIEW3D_PIE_template)

    bpy.ops.wm.call_menu_pie(name="VIEW3D_PIE_template")


How to add edge loop parallel to an axis rather than relative to mesh

I don't know if I get it correctly.
Would the "edge loop", being parallel to X on the slanted part, not cut through the part? Basically you want a grid going perfectly vertical/horizontal to fill the inner part?
Maybe "knife" tool or model frame and add the grid as a second mesh part?


Is it right to use Blender for such kind of animation? Animated caption for video

It will work. There are probably customizable effects in video editing softwares that will do a similar thing.

Cons

Blender isn't specialized for this kind of task. It is more generic to solve tasks like it.
Blender has no in built function to do this. You will have to build it from scratch using geometry or bitmaps.

Pros

You will have ultimate control over everything
Blender is free
The community is great

In a video editing software you can maybe find a title effect that is (almost) like this. You can edit the text. You can change the colors. You can maybe change the timing. But you may not get exactly this.

So it comes down to what kind of person you are, and how long time you have.

If you are picky, have time and want to get everything right. Use blender.
If you are less picky or are in a hurry. Don't use blender.


UV Image Editor will always be faster with paint because it isn't held back by projection effects like culling, cavity mask, etc. Painting in the 3d view needs to be done with small brushes for faster paint daubs, as large brush radius can cause a memory choke while waiting to project and calculate all the pixels to be affected by the paint stroke.

Also, a key factor here is how large your texture is and how many undo steps exist in your preferences. Decrease the undo steps or eliminate them altogether for the session and see if the memory spikes stop. The size of the texture and the bit depth can cause some issues with painting using projection in the 3d view, but you will see that the UV Image Editor handles them much easier.

The key difference in these two options for paint is that the UV Image Editor is one texture at a time (display) but the 3d view can display all or one (GLSL/Material Draw mode vs. Multitexture) and you can use both to their advantage to get the best effects.


Applied armature doesn't "stick" to mesh while not applied does and I think I need to apply


Blender 2.8 Copy 50% bone rotation between different local axis

If the orientation of a bone is not correct you can change it in Edit mode with ctrlR (manual), or ShiftN (automatic). To display the axis go in the Properties panel > Object Data > Viewport Display > Axes.

Now if you want a bone to influence the rotation of another bone, in Pose mode, you can give the second bone a Copy Rotation constraint (in my case Space: Local Space - Local Space) and reduce the influence value to 50% if it needs to.

If you want the second bone to copy the rotation of the first one, but on a different axis, use a Copy Transformation constraint. For example here I want bone2's Y axis rotation to copy bone1's X axis rotation. I need to set all the values properly.


Control the rotation of an environment map

Select the mapping node in the compositor, then go to your animation scene, to your graph editor and you can change it to linear.


Removing the markers is quite simple:

What you need:

Scale accurate model of the mini-figures head
A million dollars and contacts at ILM :P

What you need to do

Align your model of the mini figure to the tracked head exactly even the slightest error can be catastrophic.
Project the image back onto the model head, using the UV project modifier. Be sure the create a UV map specifically for this purpose. It doesn't matter what it looks like since it will be overwritten. See image for settings.
Create a B&W matte on the model head, using texture paint, of where you wan't to remove the markers. Be sure to feather it. You may wan't to create a matte for each and every marker (see later steps), but it will be a pain.
Take your projected image, and move it up or down based on where available matching pixels are. You may need to do this on an individual marker bases. The example material only supports one direction.
Make the texture shadless (BTW, because of the complex mapping, I'd this in cycles, it will render pretty fast since it will only be an emission shader) be sure to make it transparent outside of the white areas of your matte.

Click for larger image

Render and composite over!
If it doesn't work, kiss your million bye bye and call up your buddies at ILM!

Final notes:

For best results you should update the texture on each frame, so that the paint over will animate with the reflections, which is why I recommended the UV project modifier.
If you have trouble, just ask which steps you need elaborated.
This will take some tweaking to make it look correct.


Batch exporting of multiple objects into separate STL files

I actually found 3 issues with the original script:

Your path creation line did not check to see if the path already existed
Your stl export line used an incorrect parameter ("use_selection=true")
Your path variable did not include the ending backslash so it was concatenating the stl folder name and object name

Here's my version of the working script:

import bpy
import os

# get the current path and make a new folder for the exported meshes
path = bpy.path.abspath('//stlexport/')

if not os.path.exists(path):
    os.makedirs(path)

for object in bpy.context.selected_objects:

    # deselect all meshes
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

    # select the object
    object.select = True

    # export object with its name as file name
    fPath = str((path + object.name + '.stl'))

    #bpy.context.active_object = object
    bpy.ops.export_mesh.stl(filepath=fPath)


How do I change between different images based on the rotation of the camera

You'll need to use a node setup that gives you the object / world space normals of the face, then get you the horizontal direction of the face using atan2(x,y) and use that as a mix factor between various images.

For us to determine which texture we want to use, we need to know the direction in which a face is pointing. It just so happens that in computer graphics there is the concept of a normal vector, which is just what we need: a set of numbers that describe the direction in which a face is pointing.

To get said normal vector we use the Normal output of the Geometry node. There is a problem though, the normal output of the geometry node in the BGE gives you screen space normals. This means that the direction of the face is defined relative to the camera, and not relative to the world, which is what we actually need. Nowadays it is very simple to convert between spaces, we use the vector transform node.

Now we have a vector that tells us the direction of the face, but what even is a vector? Well, a vector is a set of three numbers, with each one representing a distance moved along each Cartesian axis. But that is not very intuitive when it comes to figure out the actual angle that a face is pointing in.

Luckily there is an function that takes two components of a vector and tells you that angle that they are rotated around the third axis; this function is called atan2() in computer science and arctangent-with-two-arguments in maths.

ATan2 is a somewhat complex function so I will not go in depth with it, here is the wikipedia page about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atan2

The cool thing about atan2 is that you can plug the x and y components of your world space normal vector into it and get the angle around the z axis in which that face is pointing. By the way, you will have to recreate and normalize (in this case, normalize means mapping the standard range of values that atan2 gives you, which is from -pi to pi to the range from -1 to 1) atan2 using nodes because it is not a function that Blender has by default; or just take the one I made from the .blend that included in this post.

After that all that is needed is some more simple math to show the right texture when it's needed. In my example file I use a spritesheet with various textures and shift the texture along when it's needed. You can also use multiple images, but keep in mind the (small yet significant) increase in memory usage and texture fetches when using multiple textures.

I actually have an example .blend of exactly that laying around, I started experimenting with it when I saw an Uncharted 4 tech demo video a while back.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1cD1S7QjpHCMUdCaGUxczBPaFE

If you want to see it working in the example file just hit P on your keyboard while hovering over the 3D View.

Some mild modifications should make this work in Cycles or BI, it is currently set up to work with the Blender Game Engine.

I hope this helps!


Pressing numpad . (the period/full stop next to 0) will bring the selected node/s into the centre of the view.

Pressing the Home key brings all nodes into view. That is it will centre all nodes within the view and also zoom in or out so that all nodes are visible.


You can select how textures should be exported in the "Export COLLADA" options usually on the left hand side of the file browser after you pressed File -> Export -> Collada. The Texture export options are deactivated by default.


Fluid flow object does not generate any fluid

Outflow will not produce any fluid so you should use Inflow or Fluid type object inside the domain , also you should bake the fluid simulation to see the results :


the .blend file will be nice to check the things out but when looking on the pictures I decided to try to answer You because I could NOT comment (newbie here).

At least You are using two different textures and probably also the materials for Your model so keep in mind that if U using more than one for one UV mesh U have to ASSIGN the desired material with the desired faces!

On the image below there could be seen top face assigned to the BLUE material and the rest to the RED material. So if U have some faces assigned to the material which works and not the crucial ones to the material with that "texas instruments" texture it could be a problem.

...if this is not that case then please try to provide us Your .blend file here so we all could check it and write You a solution buddy.

Sincerely, Jan


Replace Bones with existing bones from other models | 1 animation for 2 differnt models

Select the armature that doesn't have the animation, create a dope sheet window, turn it to an action editor, select your animation in the drop down menu.


In blender 2.80 you can edit several objects at a time.  When using shape keys, you will have to add a shape key to both objects, enter edit mode with both objects selected, and edit the shape key.  you can then assign the driver of your bone to both shape keys.

I hope this helps, please comment if you didn't understand something.


Are there some default grid pattern textures in blender?

There are three grid pattern textures, or checker patters in blender.

Two are accessible only from blender's Image Editor when making a new image.

Those are the UV Grid and Color Grid

The other pattern is built in to cycles as the Checker Texture.


How can I select something if the Gimbal is in the way?

Hide the transform manipulators (click the left icon):

You can also use CtrlSpacebar.


For a while there was a known issue in the original glTF exporter where it wouldn't export "packed" images (ones that exist only in Blender, not on disk, such as resulting from texture painting as you describe).  This is fixed in the newer glTF-Blender-IO project, that ships with Blender 2.80 Beta.


You can find the Collada presets in

[your install dir]\2.80\scripts\presets\operator\wm.collada_export

There are two files sl_plus_open_sim_rigged.py and sl_plus_open_sim_static.py


Area light rectangle can be seen in window reflection - cycles

This is inherent. Try using some other form of light source instead, such as emissive material or an array of point lights.


The bone heat is failing because of three reasons: there are lots of doubles, the mesh is not a single piece and there is overlapping geometry.

Each of theese facts cannot work with the automatic weights feature.

And automatic weighting is not what you want in this kind of characters, because it would distribute the weight between different bones also in parts of the clothes that should be rigid and metallic, deforming them.

So, the way to go is definitely hand weighting: first of all give an appropriate name to the bones, then in edit mode select a spare part, select its appropriate bone/vertex group and click assign.


Accessing the new rotation caused by "Track To" constraint

ObjectMatrixWorld.to_euler()

Proof using the console:

>>> C.active_object.matrix_world.to_euler()
Euler((1.5707963705062866, -0.0, 0.0), 'XYZ')
>>> import math
>>> math.degrees(1.5707963705062866)
90.00000250447813

Further reading: Incorrect matrix_world after transformation
API link: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/mathutils.html#mathutils.Matrix
Custom panel example: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/66941/31447


Here's a quick script to render out separate frame ranges of the animation. The script assumes you've set an output folder correctly as well as setting the video format settings as you want them.

import bpy
import os

frameList = [
    [1,50],
    [51,100],
    [101,150]
    ]

scn = bpy.context.scene

for fr in frameList:

    scn.frame_start = int(fr[0])
    scn.frame_end = int(fr[1])
    bpy.ops.render.render(animation=True)


To find all the objects currently using a material.

If you have one of the objects selected,  ShiftL (Select Linked) > Material will select all visible objects using the same material as the one in the active slot. ( you may have to unhide objects to select them).
If you can't easily track down the object, you can switch the Outliner to Data API view (highlighted)..

.. select the material you're interested in, right-click, and, again, Select Linked.

To unlink a material from all objects ..
(Setting users to 0, even if you haven't found them)

Shift-click the 'Unlink' button in the materials panel ..

..Although it will continue to appear in the dropdown, the material will not be saved in the .blend file. Next time you open the file, the material will be gone.


Is it possible to produce a model for this shadow-play character?

Create the model flat (so as a 2D model), then apply the Solidify Modifier to give it thickness. That'll make it easy to have a uniform thickness without having to extrude all surfaces manually.


I know nothing about braille but this should be as simple as grabbing a suitable font and extruding it. I tried braille normal from fontspace. Once in Blender, add a Text object, edit it as needed and then navigate to the .ttf font file under Font, the Regular input should be enough.

One you are satisfied, you can edit the Extrude slider for the depth or convert it to an object and play with it some more (booleans etc).


How to override Filmic color space in the Compositor nodes?

Using filmic blender requires you to use much brighter values on your lights, as it is designed to work with a much wider dynamic range. To understand how it works read the following link carefully: Render with a wider dynamic range in cycles to produce photorealistic looking images .

Also you need to explore the different look transforms in the color management section to set the contrast to your liking. Read: https://github.com/sobotka/filmic-blender.

You can use the false colour look to evaluate the values within the image.

Lastly, you should try using the ASC-CDL node to make adjustments. Read: What is the the ASC-CDL node?


exporting a collection to re import into blender?

You can append collections from an existing Blender project to another/new project by using File > Append. Select the .blend file that contains the collection that you want to append and open the Collection directory inside the file. Select the collections and click Append from Library.


Radius and strength sliders in pie menus

From the link as it may help others to see it directly - borrowed from Pitiwazou's post on Blenderartists.org:

def draw(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    pie = layout.menu_pie()

    ups = context.tool_settings.unified_paint_settings
    sculpt = context.tool_settings.sculpt

    col = pie.column(align=True)
    col.prop(ups, "size", text="Radius", slider=False)

    col = pie.column(align=True)
    col.operator("sculpt.sample_detail_size", text="", icon='EYEDROPPER')
    col.prop(sculpt, "constant_detail")


The way of doing it with simple (non-UV) texture mapping, is to tweak the mapping coordinate and scale.

For example:

Switching X and Y axis, and scaling X by -1 will rotate the texture 90 degrees clockwise.
Switching X and Y axis, and scaling Y by -1 will rotate the texture 90 degrees counter-clockwise.
Scaling X and Y by -1 will flip the image vertically.

But you see that it's quite limiting, less intuitive and flexible than UV-map based rotation, described in gandalf3's answer.


It looks like "Knife Project" should do exactly what you want to do (described in the manual)

Also, the manual doesn't mention that the projection originates from your point of view. I kept trying to use the tool while "looking" at the objects from the side, and nothing happened. Then this thread wisened me up.


Python and Blender. Why does any editing on my box create a new box?

So lets add line-by-line comments to your code:
# Import bpy tells Python you're using the Blender main library
import bpy

# create a brand new cube
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()

# make 'box' a reference to the active object
box = bpy.context.active_object

# set the box's z location to 4
box.location[2] = 4
# set the box's x location to 2
box.location[0] = 2

As you can perhaps see from the comments, every time you execute bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(), you're going to get a new cube. Removing that line means you will move whatever object is active. You could explicitly move the default cube with:
 box = bpy.data.objects['Cube']

Where 'Cube' is the name in the outliner.
You can also move the box using a vector like this:
 box.location = (2,0,4)