Blender 2.80 Multiple Quick Selections in Outliner

I thought I update my post so the latest selection feature is in here as well.

Now blender allows the windows type of selection by clicking on the first item to be selected in the outline and scrolling to the last item of the selection sequence and holding Shift down and Left Click on the last item. All the object will be selected between the first and last selected items this way.

Original answer below which was the only valid way of selecting multiple items at the time of original posting but it is still a valid selection process as well:
The fastest way I found is pressing B on the keyboard for Box Select and select and drag a box, with the left mouse button, around the required items. You can add more to the selection by scrolling, if you have more to add that is not visible on the screen, and pressing B and selecting more items again.
It still can take a while if you have a 100 or so items to select but currently the fastest, unless someone knows another better way.
This may change, as 2.80 is still in beta, but currently that is how you can select consecutive objects faster in the Outliner.


How do I make a model resemble one with low poly count?

It would seem you want to create low-poly art. The best way to do this is to actually model these objects to achieve this look and quality and then texture them.

No amount of modifiers or tricks will get the same unique look. Also using modifiers can make animating, texturing or rigging very difficult and also destroy your mesh topology something that is key in lowpoly style characters/objects.

The Decimate modifier might be of some help though, it can reduce mesh geometry but it is not very flexible and generally unpredictable in how it does this when used on complex objects.

Also as bummzack points out below, alot of the detail say you see on low-poly models is mostly from the texture(s).


Use the Minimum Radius property under Branch Radius category to control the branch tip diameter while crating a new sapling tree.

You can also tick the option Close Tip as mentioned by Akados in the comments.

If you already created one then enter edit mode and select all branch tips and adjust their size with the Bezier Curve Radius property from the Properties Shelf Alt + S. You may want to turn on Proportional Editing

To easily select all tips you may use the Select Grouped operator with Shift + G and try to select by Radius.


Changing Roughness value in python script has no effect

Aha!
So in case anyone else comes across this
to debug this I checked the property path by right clicking in blender on the property and selected "copy data path" which gave me this value:
nodes["Principled BSDF"].inputs[7].default_value

So I updated my script accordingly:
for m in bpy.data.materials:
m.node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"].inputs[7].default_value = 1


The final rig is created when you press Generate Rig (in Armature tab). Changing the options has no obvious effect until you generate the rig. Also I am not sure which version of blender you're using but it seems like you're using the legacy super spine. There is a newer one that separates head/spine/tail in different rig types.


Sorry, it was a driver script on the rotation values, figured it out.
EDIT: and the value must not be keyframed to remove the driver.


How to find the Python equivalent operation for tools, settings & menu?

Edit Source

If you wanted to find out the python code for some of the user interface and panels you could right-click on parts of the UI (such as buttons or properties within the panel you wanted to know about) and choose 'Edit Source'.

For example, if I wanted to know about the render panel:

I could right-click on the 'Render' button and choose 'Edit Source':

A notification will then appear in the Info header at the top of the screen (in a default layout) informing you that a text file had been created for viewing in the text editor:

You can check this file and view the python code that makes up the panel:

In this example you can see information which might be useful such as: The panel class name which can be used to append new UI elements into existing parts of the UI (RENDER_PT_render), the operator names and categories (render.render for example) and general UI code for creating rows (row = layout.row(align=True)).

Autocomplete

Sometimes, if you are searching for the python equivalent of a property, it might be useful to use the autocomplete feature (CTRL+Space) of the 'Python Console' to explore the api.

Autocomplete will show you all the possible options branching off the current one. For example, using autocomplete on bpy.data.objects['Cube'] would result in showing me all the available python properties for that object:

Online API documentation

You can also browse the online 'Python API Reference' (that link always redirects to the latest version) which can be found via the help menu:

This documentation includes several pages serving as an introduction to the API as well as a full reference to all the python commands and properties available to use in blender. While this doesn't provide the python command to an exact tool/panel instantly, a simple generic search of "panel" using the search box would provide results relating to existing panels in blender and examples of how to create a new one.

Hotkey Preferences

If you wanted to find out the python name of a menu that appears when you press a hotkey, you can search for that hotkey in the preferences. For example, if I wanted to know the python name of the menu that appears when I press Ctrl+H in edit mode (the hook menu), I can search using the shortcut (when search type is 'key binding') in File> User Preferences> Input:

This provides several results, one of which is a 'Call Menu' item in the 'Mesh' category which reveals the name of the menu being called:

Here we can see the menu being called with that shortcut is VIEW3D_MT_hook, which you can then call in your own scripts.


I want to make a nasty wriggling worms procedural shader

You can start with a Musgrave texture.
Set it to Ridged Multifractal and you'll get some nice creepy worms :)


Can an HDR movie from a 360 camera light a scene?

After a lot of experimentation, the answer is Yes, but the results aren't great, for a few reasons. I'm going to use HDR footage from the Insta360 ONE X for reference, not because it's particularly great at HDR movies, but it's pretty popular, and the results from other cameras in this price range (and higher) will be about the same.

1. Low dynamic range

360 HDR movies shot on action cams do yield High Dynamic Range movies, but we're talking about a pretty low end of 'High' here. Users of the popular HDRI resource HDRI Haven will be used to HDRIs with 15, sometimes 26 EV (Exposure Values) of dynamic range. This produces very accurate lighting results, delivering excellent shadow quality and color. The ONE X will get you 3 EV... 4 EV tops... delivering soft shadows and saturated lighting.

2. Low Resolution

This scene features an outdoor Insta360 ONE X frame from an HDR movie. (A disclaimer first: The yellow rectangle features some settings that I wouldn't recommend or consider good practice, but it does eke out better contrast in the scene to get more pronounced shadows.)

Even so, you can see that the background plate is pretty blurry. this is due to camera movement and because the equirectangular image is just 2880 x 1440 pixels - the native dimensions from the camera. And we're only seeing about a third of those pixels in the background - the other two-thirds are out-of-shot, wrapping around the rest of the 'World'.

3. Soft Shadows

The green circles point out the difference between the sharp, full-sun shadows in the footage, compared to the soft, indistinct shadows in the scene. There's also an excessive amount of blue coloration from the sky on the white plane. (Ignore the slight pink coloration under the ball; that's ambient light from my hand, holding the camera).

4. Shake

Ideally, each frame of an HDR movie has multiple bracketed shots from a single point in time and space. If the camera's moving, this isn't possible. In the shot above, I was walking under an arch. The blue circle indicates blurred building lines due to camera movement and shake. This shake also impacts dynamic range, due to a difference in camera position between when it took its low bracketed shot to its high bracketed shot of that frame. If the shots don't overlap exactly, lighting becomes indistinct and colors aren't computed accurately.

Summary

Live HDR footage can give you, quite literally, quick and dirty background plates. You can mitigate problems by using a stationary camera and low-contrast, cloudy days. If you need a motion background plate (driving scenes when people are in cars, for instance), the low-res background could be blurred, with in-scene constraints used to blur in the right directions, depending on camera angle.


Options:

get a faster computer
use sheepit (https://www.sheepit-renderfarm.com/index.php)
mess with the render settings so that you don't have to use as many samples


It works just fine, you just have to move your force emitter "in front of" (behind) your object. Make it so the arrow points at the cloth. See below:


Set snap to 'Vertex' (target) and 'Active' (..,element, source)
Switch on 'Automatically merge vertices'
In vertex mode, select the two vertices at the ends of one of the inner edges, corner last.
E extrude the edge implied by the two vertices, snapping the corner vertex to the one at the other end of its edge.

It depends, really, this way isn't necessarily faster than yours, but I nearly always have my snap set this way anyway.. and if fiddling, often use the auto-weld. Perhaps the only point is, you don't need to be in Edge mode to extrude the edge.


Shift+Select a edges of a mesh after applying array modifier

If you hadn't enabled the Merge option in the Array Modifier, although they are in a single object, each duplicate of the mesh created by the array will be separate. To be able to select the entire line of edges, they need to be a single mesh. To join them, select all with A > press M to merge > click on By Distance. This will merge all the duplicate vertices together, giving you one single, continuous mesh. You can also specify a distance threshold.


Are they two separate chunks of mesh? It looks like they are from the images.

If so select only one vertex from the outer shell, press Ctrl+L to Select All Linked and it should select all the outer part.

Alternatively in Edit Mode select all faces, press P > Loose parts and it should break your object apart by all separate chunks.

If they are not separate chunks then I'm afraid you don't really have a chioce other than manually selecting everything.

Under Edit Mode you can enable the option Limit selection to Visible in the 3DView header button, and use regular selection methods to select only the visible parts of the mesh. With some luck the 'inner' parts are occluded and wont be selected.


How to manipulate the value of y in the actuator motion via python?

import bge
cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
cont.actuators["Motion"].dLoc = (0, 0.1, 0)
cont.activate(cont.actuators["Motion"])

There are 3 important things you are missing.

A link to the python API which tells you what all the field names are https://docs.blender.org/api/2.79/bge.types.KX_ObjectActuator.html?highlight=actuator#bge.types.KX_ObjectActuator.dLoc
Setting the entire Vector instead of just 1 channel
Activate the actuator afterwards (you can also deactivate it by replacing "activate" with "deactivate")


So I managed to resolve this quite a while ago but never got around to posting my solution, anyway; here it is now.

To achieve a node fit with 60 colours in the palette I used two ColorRamp nodes as one can only have a maximum of 31 colours. The first ColorRamp ends at the position of 0.310 (I'll explain why in a bit), and the 31st colour is black (which isn't the 31st colour of my palette, but I'll also explain later why that is the case). The second ColorRamp starts with black and continues until the position of 0.320, at this position the 31st colour of my palette is placed. These ColorRamps are then mixed together with a MixRGB node set to screen, thus why there are black parts to the colour ramp. The screening of the two ColorRamps allows me to seamlessly continue the positions of the colours, emulating a ColorRamp being able to contain more than 31 colours essentially. E.g. ColorRamp one ends at position 0.310 and ColorRamp two starts at 0.320.

Then I added 5 maths nodes so that I could move along the rows and columns of the palette. These images should make what I am attempting to explain much easier to follow:

The values being fed into the first two math nodes can be changed by the user in increments of 0.100, this is crucial in understanding why the flow of nodes works. I'll provide one example and this should solidify your understanding of how and why the math nodes do what they do.

(The top input [Up/down]) has a domain of 0.100 - 0.500, and the bottom input [left/right] from 0 - 1.100 (which makes sense based on the colour palette above)

For this example, the up/down value will be set at 0.500 and the left/right value at 0.200.

Math Nodes Breakdown

Put simply for the first input 0.500 * 0.100 = 0.05. Since each colour on the ramp is spaced out by 0.010, the fifth colour down will be selected; or in other terms position, 0.040 on the colour ramp. Reason being, that the colour ramp starts at 0, so counting 0 and moving 5 spaces gives 4.

e.g. (0,1,2,3,4) or (0.00, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04)

This result is then added to 0.200 * 0.500 = 0.100 (This is the left/right movement), so 0.05 + 0.100 = 0.150. Meaning that on the ColorRamp, it will select the 15th colour, which in this case will be positioned at 0.140 (0.2, 0.5).

Things get slightly more complicated when going from one ColorRamp to another, but I will quickly break this down.

For this example let the up/down value = 0.200 and the left/right value = 0.600, as this is the first colour of the second ColorRamp. Once again, 0.200 * 0.100 = 0.020 (operation of the first multiply node). This value is added to 0.010, so 0.020 + 0.010 = 0.030. This addition of 0.010 is very important and only applies to the second ColorRamp. Keeping in mind that the first colour value starts at position 0 and the first colour of the second ColorRamp starts at position 0.320, an extra 0.010 needs to be accounted for to counteract the ramp starting at 0. After that calculation, it needs to be added to 0.600 * 0.500 = 0.300, so 0.030 + 0.300 = 0.330 (0.6, 0.2). Therefore, the 32nd colour along the ColorRamp will be selected, which in this case is the first colour (of my colour palette) that exists on the second ColorRamp.

And there you have it, using the basic math node setup you can now create any arrangement of colours that you desire.


On Windows you need to be an Administrator (or run a program as administrator) in order to modify C:\Program Files. Your problem can be solved by logging in as a user who is an administrator and manually copy the files to the C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.81\datafiles\studio\studiolights\matcap directory.


Is there a way to keep hair childeren and edit the mesh?

You could use a second mesh for the hair. This hair only object would sit just under the main object with the hair coming up through it.

This would allow you to alter the main object in any way you want without affecting the hair emitter.


The shape is very organic. Sculpting will let you explore the shape the fastest. You can quickly establish creases and surface curvatures and change them without much effort to your liking.

Once you are happy with the form, retopologize it into your final mesh. You have 3 options:

low poly mesh with baked normal/displacement map
low poly with subsurface modifier with creasing
low poly with subsurface modifier with control loops

If you would be experienced sub-d modeler, I believe you could model the shapes on the fly. But sculpting is easy and fast and it will help you, because the surface will be well defined and you will know better where the edge-loops go and how the topology needs to be.


How do I make sure everything in my scene is in proportion to my character?

This is a very common problem in (architectural) modeling.
I'll answer it as objectively as I can.

To get a good sense of real world scale:

Universal tips

Learn the size of everyday objects.
Get up and manually measure your windows, doors, ceiling height, etc.
You'll find that nothing is arbitrary, everything has a purpose.
Model by blueprints
Nothing beats physical experience, but blueprints and floor plans help to save time considerably, when modeling extra large/tiny objects.
Get a reference source.
Architects are one step ahead of you there.  Neufert's Architects' Data is a reference book for spatial requirements in architecture. From optimal height of door handles, to minimal size of toilet bowls /s.

Blender tips

Model in real world scale.
Set Blender to a unit system that you use in everyday life.
Properties panel > Scene > Units

Use orthographic view - this will allow for a more precise modeling
Shortcut: Numpad 5


Adjust "texture density" during UV mapping?

There are two ways:

1) classic; in edit mode select all vertices UV mapped, then open an UV image editor, select the wood texture, select all the UV grid and press S to scale it at the desired size.

2) If you don't want to modify the UV mapping, in the node material editor add an input UV node, plug it into a mapping node, and plug the latter in the vector input of the image texture node, then adjust the scale values.


"Holdout"-alike Effect Strip for Frames in the VSE?

Why not just place all of your strips into a meta strip (or VSE sub scene) then trim a hole in that strip. Your editing will stay in place but the animation will skip it upon rendering. To undo the trim simply un-meta the strip.


According to the blender 2.69 python API reference, uv_textures is a bpy_prop_collection of MeshTexturePolyLayer and it is read only. It would appear to be accessed in Python as a dictionary of key/value pairs (try bpy.context.active_object.data.uv_textures.items() in Blender's Python console). This would be why the array re-ordering techniques fail to work.

I'm not sure that this is the best way but it appears to work. Test to see if it fixes the export order.

import bpy

mesh = bpy.context.active_object.data

mesh.uv_textures.active_index = 0
tmpuvmap = mesh.uv_textures.active
tmpuvmap_name = tmpuvmap.name

newuvmap = mesh.uv_textures.new()
mesh.uv_textures.remove(tmpuvmap)
newuvmap.name = tmpuvmap_name

By setting active_index = 0, the call to new() duplicates the first UVMap, putting a duplicate of it at the end before deleting the first item.

This appears to give the same result as manually selecting the first item, clicking + to create a new UVMap then deleting the first item within blender.


I have better than optimal hardware but Blender keeps crashing

Try to run blender from your system's console, so that when it crashed we can see there what happened eventually.

On windows, open you file explorer and navigate to Blender's installation folder (by default C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender).
From there, click on the folder path at the top of the explorer, type in "cmd" and hit ⏎ Enter. It's an easy way to open the console in a specific folder.

Once here, just type "blender" in the console and hit ⏎ Entrer. It will start Blender as usual, except the console will not close if Blender crashes and will register what happens.

Now, do whatever causes the crash, then look at the console. If you're lucky, the last few lines will tell you very clearly what's the problem and you will be able to solve it yourself in a few clicks and post here what it was.
If you're less lucky, you will have to show us the console's output and we'll see what we can do.

If it's a bug, then it's not something we can handle on this website.

Also, Blender 2.81 just got released, make sure you updated.


You could try to convert the .obj file in a different format.

To load images as textures I used that plugin:
https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Add_Mesh/Planes_from_Images


Here what i've made for my problem.
As pointed out, it uses bmesh and BMLoop structures to do it.

# Return edges around param vertex in counter-clockwise order
def connectedEdgesFromVertex_CCW(vertex):

    vertex.link_edges.index_update()
    first_edge = vertex.link_edges[0]

    edges_CCW_order = []

    edge = first_edge
    while edge not in edges_CCW_order:
        edges_CCW_order.append(edge)
        edge = rightEdgeForEdgeRegardToVertex(edge, vertex)

    return edges_CCW_order

# Return the right edge of param edge regard to param vertex
def rightEdgeForEdgeRegardToVertex(edge, vertex):
    right_loop = None

    for loop in edge.link_loops:
        if loop.vert == vertex:
            right_loop = loop
            break
    return loop.link_loop_prev.edge


The camera end property does not extend to the end of the domain. The far plane clips the domain cube.

Increase the camera's clipping end property to fix this problem.


How to tile/repeat gradient texture based on object polygons faces, in shader editor?

One way to make that is by creating a special UV unwraping which will basically take every face of your model and unwrap them all on top of each other and taking the entire UV space.

If you have other UV maps already, make sure to first create a new UV map in your object so you don't lose your previous UV maps:

Then select the new UV Map, go to edit mode, select everything with A then press U → Reset. This will result to something like this in your UV Editor:

Once you've got that, you will need to call that specific UV map in your shader. Go to the shader editor, hit ⇧ ShiftA → Input → UV Map. Specify the UV Map you want in that node, then do whatever you want with that:


Blender getting very slow in handling large data?

The answer to the question you asked is that 54000 individual objects is significantly different from 54000 polygons, so it's not surprising that Blender is having trouble with that many individual objects. There are some ways to improve viewport performance like turning on VBOs in the user preferences, but I don't think any of them will be terribly helpful at this point.

If all the planes were joined into one object, it'd probably perform much better, but it doesn't seem like that would be very helpful, for what you're doing.

The answer to the question you didn't ask ;-) is that this is a really expensive way to render a point cloud in Blender. There are two tools that will probably be very useful to you. One will get point clouds into Blender, and the other will skin point clouds in Blender. And this will probably be much more workable than your current solution ;-)

Hope that helps!


After find missing files, my floor wont cast any shadow

if just loaded your file, changed to rendered view.
result:

So there is nothing wrong with it. Maybe you checked another file?
Solution: Just download your uploaded file again and it will work! ;)


how to add outline and reflection to water mesh?

If you want an outline at the edges of meshes you could try the layer weight node. Grab Mix Shader Node and plug the the main shader you're using into the first shader input. Then concont whatever shader effect you want the outline to be and plug it into the second shader input. Finally grab the layer weight node and plug it into the 'Fac' input (still in the mix shader node). By adjusting the blend parameter on the layer weight node you should be able to manipulate how much of an outline you're seeing. Note: This may not be as successful on a flat plane, but have you tried adding a small wave modifier to your stream mesh? This way you'll get a more dynamic stream and will also be creating the information for the layer weight mesh to show up. Suggestion: If you make the outline white it may even give you more of those white streaks that looks like frothing water.
As for the reflection, using the principal shader for the first input (into the mix shader) and turning up the metallic parameter might help. Adjusting the roughness after that will affect how sharp the reflection is. To give you the best chance of reflection make sure you're using a nice HDR or in this case (for a non realistic environment) a purpose built lighting set up. Play around with different lights in the scene depending on where the camera viewpoint will be.
Hope this hels.


Is there a way to snap color ramp stops to equal distances?

Set the Outliner display mode to Datablocks. Locations and colors for color ramps are in Materials → Material → node Tree → ShaderNodeTree → Nodes → ColorRamp → ColorRamp → ColorRamp → Elements → ColorRampElement

This gives you access to position and color values. Key frameable as well.


OBJ files: How to subdivide materials for model?

There are two ways you can do this, with Materials, or with the Texture.
In Blender you can add materials and assign then where you select the mesh (Click Here to see a similar question)

Or you can also keep only one material and customize the image texture that comes with the .obj When you download the model check out a small image that contains 4 colors, that's the image texture for the model.

In case you have any questions about assigning texture in Blender check

This for Blender Internal

This for Cycles

 Image texture

Since the model already has a UV mapping, you only need a 2D Image Editor (Photoshop, GIMP, etc..) Then you can change the colors for your desired parts.

After saving that image, in Blender, on the UV Editor, click Image > Reload Image


1: Set Units

First you need to tell blender what type of units you're going to use. In the "Outliner" which is normally in the top-right corner of the application, Select the "Scene" Node by clicking on it.

In the Properties toolbar (usually right under the Outliner) click on the "Scene" button which should be the third one from the left. It has a light, a sphere and a cylinder on the button. In the "Units" section below you can choose from one of the predefined Units presets such as Centimeters, Feet, Inches, etc. Choose the appropriate one.

Make note of the "Unit Scale" input field. We'll come back to this later.

2: Measure your reference

To scale the image you'll need to know what the current length of a known point is. You can use the Ruler/Protractor tool by opening the Tools toolbar if not already open by hitting the 'T' key, going to the "Grease Pencil" tab and clicking on the "Ruler/Protractor" button. Click and drag between two points to get a measurement. Hold the CTRL key down as you drag to snap to vertices.

Another way is to turn on edge length. Hit the 'N' key to open up the "Properties" region toolbar if not already open. Hit TAB to go into edit mode then look through the Properties region towards the bottom for a section labeled "Mesh Display" There will be a check box under the "Edge Info:" section labeled Length. If you enable this, you will see the length of each edge when you're in Edit Mode.

Let's assume the reference edge is 3.1" after we set the units and we want it to be 10'.

3: Adjust the scene unit scale

Now we can set the "Unit Scale" I said we'd come back to. Select the Scene in the Outliner, Click on the "Scene" button in the Properties toolbar and look under the "Units" section for "Units Scale".

In example image cube is scaled to dimension 3.1'  To make blender report the size as 10' can adjust the scene unit scale by multiplying it by 10 / 3.1. (Since the scale was unit in image above,  didn't need to multiply)

If scene had non unit unit scale, say 3.3, and the dimension was 3.1' to adjust to 10' could have typed 3.3 * 10 / 3.1

Related answer


Can I insert Python code into the scale of an object, to get a random width?

Method: Animation Nodes
You can use Animation Nodes addon, add all the objects to a group, and use this simple node tree:

Method: Randomize Transforms
You can select the objects then use the operator: Object >> Transform >> Randomize Transform, or simply search for Randomize Transform:

Method: Python Script
Select the objects and run this simple script:

import bpy
import random

objects = bpy.context.selected_objects

for obj in objects:
    obj.scale.x = random.random() * 2

You mentioned that you are not experienced in python, Animation Node is like a visual scripting system that can be used to do anything, so I recommend you use it.


In your material the texture is used only for the displacement input, so the color is a dull grey with bump effects.

The viewport is telling you the mapping of the texture, not the end result, which is a more complex task.

I added a copy of the image texture to feed Diffuse color shader.

Don't forget to set all color image texture as "color data" and all displacement or Black and white images as "Non color data".


Navigation not working after upgrading to Blender 2.79 from 2.78

First, make sure that your numeric keypad is enabled (press the
Num Lock key).

Also check that you are using the default blender shortcuts: Open the System Preferences (CtrlAltU) and in the input section reset the preset to Blender

Alternatively you can set the keyboard configuration at the splash screen (where it reads "Interaction"
:

Or just use File>Load Factory Settings on the main menu.


If the settings were correct before the import, then it sounds like a bug.
Download & install the latest version of Blender, it may have been reported & fixed.
It could be the external app, see if others share the same problem with that software before reporting it to blender.


Select armature and enter pose mode;
Select bones that are close to your cloth - in your case chest, neck, collarbone, etc. No legs and such;
Press Ctrl + i, then H;
Select character mesh;
Select cloth;
Enter weight paint mode;
Push Transfer Weights and use options as below:


automatic weights feature seems to be broken

One of the requirements for automatic bone weighting is to have a single mesh; your is made of many separate parts. I selected the main (body) vertices, then inverted the selection, hid the selected spare parts, then the auto weight went allright. Then you will have to manually weight the spare parts (or join them with the main mesh, manifold and unbroken). Auto weighting is an useful shortcut, but we cannot ask it for the complete job.


You can't bake the reflections 100% accurate but you can just hide the object you want to have reflections on and position a panorama camera and make the mesh reflect that panorama. If you do it like that of course you can't see the reflections from the object itself, but you could split your object in parts to achieve complete baked glossy.
In Cycles you could do it like this:

instead of glossy I would then use emission and also mix the color from that environment texture with the diffuse texture


When using multiple GPUs, is there a way to set Blender to use the memory from the card with the largest amount of RAM?

Blender is actually using the memory of BOTH cards. The scene has to be fully loaded into both GPUs as they are entirely separate. They cannot share memory. You are limited by the size of the smaller card. The order in the preferences makes no difference.

There is no way to fix this, and no way to have it not use selected cards with insufficient RAM to hold the scene. The only option is to set it to select only the larger card for the time being.


Those are refered to as fireflies - search for "reducing fireflies" for ideas of how to reduce/remove them. They look like the result of Caustics - the light reflected or refracted from (usually curved) surfaces. You can disable Caustics in the Render settings Light Paths panel - disable Reflective Caustics and Refractive Caustics and see if that helps. Alternatively, significantly increase your number of samples - but bear in mind you need a lot of samples to render good quality caustics.


How to wedge in, or extrude triangularly?

You can push your top face down, add a loop cut, then extrude one face up. Then, you can simply drag the remaining edge to the same height.

You can also skip the first step, and simply add a loopcut. Select the face on the right, press extrude, and LMB. Then, pull up that face and the other edge.

This one is a little bit tricky, but uses the same method. Add a loopcut, Select the face on the left, press extrude, then click. Then, with the vertex selection mode active, press Ctrl+I to select evreything but the vertices connected to that face. Then, deselect all vertices except for the two in the middle. You can now move them down. DO note that you may want to also press W - Remove doubles, as this method will have two vertices in the same spot.


Ruler/protractor reports doubled measure

Scales values aren't dimensions. Scale works as a factor of the object's original dimensions.
I.E if you look at the default cube, its scales are 1:1:1, but if you look at its dimensions: 2:2:2.
If you set the scale at 2, the dimensions will be 4:4:4. If you set the sclaes to 0.5, dimensions will be 1:1:1.


One way is to render with opengl, using the menu or the icon:

but this can't be enough in some cases...


Getting global axis value of the vertex with the lowest value

I'm a noob when it comes to python but won't this do the job?

import bpy
import bmesh

object = bpy.data.scenes[0].objects["Cube"].data
vcount = len(object.vertices)
cube = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(object)

if (vcount > 0):
    lowest = cube.verts[0]
    for i in range(vcount):
        if (lowest.co.z > cube.verts[i].co.z):
            lowest = cube.verts[i]

    for v in cube.verts:
        if (v.co.z == lowest.co.z):
            v.select = True
        else:
            v.select = False
bmesh.update_edit_mesh(object, True)


Set Array modifier to duplicate the object in both directions

Works with three Modifiers for a x-Axis symmetrical centered model from Front view:

Just add your Array Modifier to your object for the right two duplicates.

Then Add a Cube, translate it 1 BU to the left (minus x-Axis) in Edit Mode (thus keeping its Origin) and scale it up if necessary to encase the complete left half of your Mesh.

Now add a Boolean Modifier behind your Array Modifier selecting this Cube as Object in Difference Mode splitting your center Object in half, optionally hide the cube (H) and afterwards

Add a Mirror Modifier to replicate the right half to the left side...


press CTRL+N to recalculate the Normals. And it seems like you have subsurf modifier over Mirror modifier. Move Mirror modifier up


I resolved this by uninstalling all blender software, and all wacom drivers and software. Thereafter I re-installed the respective drivers and software.

Note: This issue seems to have arose at random as I have been using the wacom tablet with that specific driver version for a number of weeks. It should be noted that this error was presented itself in blender vers. 2.77 and 2.79.


Yes.  That's what an edge split modifier does.  If you don't want to disconnect the edges, don't use an edge split modifier.  If you're trying to use an edge split modifier to create hard edges, there are other techniques (mark sharp, autosmooth, which it appears you're already using); if you need an edge split modifier for an export somewhere, don't apply it until after you weight, if it's screwing you up.


How can I change IntProperty default value?

You can't do that to an actual instance:

import bpy
bpy.types.Object.prop = bpy.props.IntProperty()

bpy.context.active_object.prop
# this evaluates what the value is and returns <class 'int'> - not subscriptable

To adjust the min max etc. you need to re-declare it:

bpy.types.Object.prop = bpy.props.IntProperty(min=100, max=300)
# note: re-declaring will change it for all the objects

Changing the default value will not change the actual value of that static property - you will need to assign it a new value in that case. But newly created objects will have this new default.

You can make it work like this:

create callback function for your hT property
have this function re-declare your fW property with new parameters based on hT value


Animate an object along the z-axis in a sin wave

You can use the Graph Editor for this by adding Modifiers.

Simply add a single keyframe to your object's Z-Coordinate (right-click the property in the Property panel (N) and select 'Insert Single Keyframe') and then swap to the Graph Editor.

In the Modifiers properties panel add a Built-in Function, select 'Sine', and adjust the properties (Amplitude, Phase Multiplier, etc.).


A rigid body sim where at the end all objects textures make out a picture?

The trick is simple: this is 'bake to the future'!

Once the simulation baked, go to the last frame and you'll know how to color the balls.

Here (but this is just an example as the materials could be totally different), I've assigned the object pass index knowing the positions at the last frame and used it to drive the color.


Removing the arms/legs from a mixamo model

You can essentially get rid of the arms by adding a cube, scaling the cube over the part of the model that you don't want, and adding a boolean modifier to that cube. In the boolean settings, make sure that the boolean operation is set to difference. (It should be the default). Finally, set the object that it removes mesh from to your model. Now apply the modifier.


Imported model only visible in orthographic views?

As we can see in the n panel of the 3d view with your object selected in the Outliner, the dimensions of your object are 2.4km by 1.35km by 2.509km:

So that might be an issue, since the viewport clipping ends at 1km. In any way, it is hard to believe you want an object multiple kilometers in size, so just press s followed by something like 0.001 to scale it down in order to be able to see it. Or you could also check the clipping one more time and this time set it to something appropriate for the enormous size of the object like 10 and 10000.


Blender 2.8: switching between Vertex/edge/face Selecttion

Its the 1, 2 and 3 keys above the letters (not the numbers pad)


Texture not showing correctly on specific faces

You've got to play with a coordinate "Mapping" node. First of all Apply your rotation and scale (select the box then Ctrl A, it's always a good habit, it helps to avoid unexpected behaviours). Then add a Mapping node.

If you want finer control you'll have to generate an UV map and use UV coordinates.


One way is to assign the material to an object (i.e. the default cube), then save the origin file, open the new file and choose "file - append - choose the chocofur file, object (not "mesh"), cube: the cube will be imported with all its attributes, with its material node tree.

Another is select all the nodes, Ctrl G make group, rename the group, save, open the new file and append the node group.


You can simply use spin for this check out this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRgcXnd1Wl4


How can i make an interesting tree trunk without having to sculpt it?

As I know from my expierience with substance designer you can create almost everything with a height-map and a Displacement Modifier. Since blender has the amazing possibility to create stunning procedural textures, I would go with that. Create a few basic trees, with some branches and apply a procedural displacement-map on it, you can create it in the node-editor. The big advantage of procedural textures in blender is to create many different variations by just tweaking a few parameters, in blender you can even use the position of your trees as a driver for different parameters, it's not the easiest thing to do, but it creates a lot of realistic varaitions once you've done the node setup. If you have no expierience with procedural textures, you can watch a few youtube tutorials how tree-barks are made procedural. This is what I found.

https://youtu.be/Rh5gAQLtOls
https://youtu.be/tS3D3cSgRyE
https://www.blendernation.com/2019/03/14/download-procedural-pine-bark-shader/
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.79/render/blender_render/textures/types/procedural/index.html

All the best Marco


Why is the acc variable jumping back to 10?

Every frame you are assigning acc = 10.

to avoid that and make it persistent assing it as a attribute og bge.logic

from bge import logic

if not hasattr(logic, 'acc'):
    logic.acc = 10

Then can use:

if anything >= logic.acc:
   logic.acc += 10


How to organize different animations when you didn't finish your scene yet?

So I may be wrong but here is what I think you should do from what I understand:

As you don't want to use the File > Link function and as you absolutely want to use Scenes, I think the best way to do it is to create a New Scene > Linked Copy mode, so that the objects stay linked from a scene to another, then you need to make linked duplications of your object (altD instead of shiftD), so that if you make any edit on one instance of this object, it will be replicated on all the other instances on all linked copy scene.

Why linked duplications? Because if you simply reuse the same object from a scene to another you won't be able to change the animation of one instance without changing the animation of all the other instances.


I found the solution.

For Blender Internal

In the Energy label: press right mouse button and select Insert Keyframe.

For Cycles:

Create an emission node and animate the strength.


As @TeeTrinker said, you can left-click and drag the mouse to change the value in the field.  Of course, this will change the value by increments of 0.01.  If you want the value to change by increments of 1.0, you can hold down Ctrl while dragging:

An alternate way, purely by keyboard is to simply add 1.0 to the value in the field by typing + 1 and pressing Enter:

There may be other ways through scripts but I'm unsure.


Short answer:
You can't go back to the creation parameters once you've made any transformation (rotate/scale).
Solution:
Delete the spiral, make a new one and use the parameter's options to place and rotate the spiral.


This is because of vertex groups and weight painting. I just got through this myself.
if you assign and select a single vertex group in edit mode and then switch to weight painting mode you can change how the bones affect the model.

You can find vertex groups in the data tab of the properties panel.
in the vertex group section you can select a number of vertices and create a group. you can then name each group you create. for example

You could select all the vertices in the head of the mesh and create a group and name that group head. from here you can now weight paint your head vertex group.

To get to weight painting, make sure you have the vertex group selected in edit mode. click the menu where you choose edit/object mode and choose weight paint. this will allow you to paint on the influence the bone will have on the mesh.


1° Possible cause:

"Limit selection to visible" must be Enabled, if you don't want to see behind faces while in edit mode. You can find the icon in the 3D View bar.

2° Possible cause:

Those are artifacts caused by not appropriate settings of camera's clipping limits for your scene.

This is the "default scene", except from the clipping near limit.

Clipping plane determine the boundary of camera's frustum (which is the portion of space where computations are done). The bigger the boundary , the less precise calculations could be. As the calculation in this case are about visibility, here they comes the strange effects.

It may not seems that your frustum is so big, as in your scene clipping planes seem not to far away from the default settings...but you must consider that in that calculation also global scaling is involved...

The cube is 150mx150m, the near clipping plane is 1mm/0.01=10cm and the far clipping plane is 1000m/0.01=100'000m! The scale of the frustum is not optimal for your geometery. I suggest to lower the value of you far clipping plane.


Update
I recommend using the newer measureit addon instead.
To measure the sum of the length of a bunch of edges like this:

Select the edges
Set the Sum group in Tool Shelf > Measurit > Tools
Click Segment in Tool Shelf > Measurit > Tools

Now the total length of those edges will be displayed at the bottom of the Measureit panel in the properties region (N).
Be aware that addons have no reliable way to track vertices, so if you modify the mesh your measurements may go awry.

Original answer
You could use the new Ruler/Protractor tool located in the 3D view > Tool Shelf > Ruler/Protractor

Note that this was just added in Blender 2.67.


Why Can't i get back to the normal screen layout?

By the looks of it I'd say you have several (5, to be exact) 3d-View Windows. Selct one of the cube icons, I would suggest the second counting from left to right and set it from 3d view to "Info". Then you can change between the presets.


Flatten mesh from uv's to retopo in blender 2.8

Wow so i got it, a bit weird process but I got it. you first have to use tex tools to flatten it. after that, you duplicate the flatten mesh. then delete shapekeys on flatten mesh of the duplicated version. then export the duplicated mesh. as i think obj might have been fbx. but point is it has to have shading on it. so reimport it. then on the new imported add a shapekey from the flattened uv version. so it blends back onto the mesh. then on the new imported version with shading. retopo on it. i used retopoflow alpha but you can use your choice of retopo workflow. after i applied on the retopoflow modifers. then added shrinkwrap on the retopo. then i just used the shape keys to put it back on mesh. then you can apply the shrinkwrap i believe then export from there.


Edge loops work only in clean quad topology, when they reach a triangle or a N-gon (your case) they stop. To add one more edge to your loop you can use the knife tool (shortcut K), then select the last vertex of the loop and click where you want the final vertex.


Could I see a simple example of using a color picker in a script?

Just declare a FloatVectorProperty, set its subtype to 'COLOR' and add it to a panel or whatever.
my_color = bpy.props.FloatVectorProperty(
             name = "Color Picker",
             subtype = "COLOR",
             default = (1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0)
             size = 4
             )

In order to access the values of the property, you would have to create an Operator. Minimal working example, adds a new panel to the render settings, allows to pick a color as well as printing the values to the console. Further reading: How to create a custom UI?

import bpy

class SimpleOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Tooltip"""
    bl_idname = "object.simple_operator"
    bl_label = "Simple Object Operator"

    def execute(self, context):
        clr = context.scene.mytool_color
        print (clr[0], clr[1], clr[2], clr[3])
        return {'FINISHED'}

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

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

        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(context.scene, "mytool_color")
        row = layout.row()
        row.operator(SimpleOperator.bl_idname)

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

    # Register the property per Scene, Object or whatever
    bpy.types.Scene.mytool_color = bpy.props.FloatVectorProperty(
                 name = "Color Picker",
                 subtype = "COLOR",
                 size = 4,
                 min = 0.0,
                 max = 1.0,
                 default = (1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0))

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

    del bpy.types.Scene.mytool_color

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Many ways to do this: keyframes are stored into a so-called "Action".

If you turn a window into a dopesheet window you will see all your keyframes, that you can select and delete with the X key.

But if you turn the dopesheet editor into an action editor you can animate a new action without deleting the old one, simply don't forget to press the "f" sign near its name (f for Fake User): this operation ensure that your old action will not be deleted even if it's not the active (used) action. Then press the little x sign to close the current action and create a new one.

After you have animated the new action, you can select the action to perform with the action editor menu (or even combine them with the NLA editor).


Generating blue normal map channel from red and green channels

I managed to generate the Z channel in the normal map according to this scheme (taken from UE4). In the "normal" texture, everything is as usual, only the Blue channel, replaced by roughness.


Having non-English Text in the addon code of blender

Enable international fonts in user preferences. Bottom right corner.


Blender Crashes after a few Renders from a Batch Script

You could change from a batch script to a python script. You can call the python script on startup by adding a parameter to the call like so:

call "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe" -b "E:\Project.blend" -P pythonScript.py

the python script would look somewhat like this:

pythonScript.py:

import bpy
from bpy.app.handlers import persistent

renderInformation = {
    'Scene1': (r'E:\exports\Fredericksburg1\Fredericksburg1_', [1, 435], 'JPEG'),
    'Scene2': (r'E:\exports\Fredericksburg2\Fredericksburg2_', [1, 480], 'JPEG'),
    'Scene3': (r'E:\exports\Fredericksburg3\Fredericksburg3_', [1, 180], 'JPEG'),}
# you can use any slash and just copy-paste the path from the explorer
# as long as it doesn't end with a "\'"

@persistant
def callbackFunc(context=None):
    try:
        sceneIdent, info = renderInformation.popitem() # get the next scene to render
        scene = bpy.data.scenes[sceneIdent] # get the actual scene
        bpy.context.screen.scene = scene # set the scene
        (scene.render.filepath,
         (scene.frame_start, scene.frame_end),
         scene.render.image_settings.file_format) = info # extract information
        bpy.ops.render.render(animation=True) # render as animation
    except:
        pass # then the list is exhausted and we can end the process

if __name__ == "__main__":
    if callbackFunc not in bpy.app.handlers.render_complete:
        bpy.app.handlers.render_complete.append(callbackFunc) # we register a callback after each render
    callbackFunc() # and call it ourselves at first

This just keeps blender down to one instance and might be worth considering anyways if you want to get deeper into the action, with more scenes to render etc. A batch script for that seems quite irrational, idk :)

I hope this fixes the problem for you, if not, then you might consider taking a look at your CPU-loading, maybe your scenes are just too big :? I don't think so since two render good but you never know. Tell me if there is anything you're interested about or if the proposed "solution" doesn't work.


What should I connect with the Emission notch in the Principle PSDF (Blender 2.8)

All the connections are color coded, the "Emission" slot on the "Principled BSDF" shader for example is yellow and stands for "Color", while grey connections are usually for sources that deliver values between 0 and 1. (usually because they do not complain, more about that later)

The blueish connections are for vectors, means a triplet of values from 0.0 to 1.0, here you can also connect color values as they are delivered as triplets RGB as well.

And then you have the green connections, which are either the output of a shader node or the input for the "Material Output" node.

You can connect colors to grey nodes, but it is usually better to convert the values to the correct range, be it by "Color Ramp" node or "RGB to BW" node. "Image Texture" nodes with their Color Space set to "Non-Color" or "Raw" also deliver values from 0 to 1, and should therefor change their output to grey if you ask me, but that's something you for now just have to keep in mind. Because "Image Texture" nodes set to for example "sRGB" default would represent a grey-scale image different then if you set the node to "Raw", since it would convert the data into another Color Space, which is not wanted. You can test it by using a height map image and changing the Color Space from "Raw" as it should be, to "sRGB".

As mentioned already, you can use colors as input for a vector connection, but here it's up to you to know what you are doing. One example would be that you can use the "Mix Color" node with the "Factor" set to 1.0 in the same way the "Vector Math" node would work. Both give the same result but i'd suggest to try and stick with the color coded connections to be on the safe side.

Since the Emission connection is yellow, a color, you can connect "Image Texture" nodes as well as "RGB" nodes, but here a little tip:

If you want to have a really shiny "Eevee" "Bloom" effect, connect a "Combine XYZ" node (vector) BUT here comes the thing.. you can enter a value like 500 for X,Y or Z and it will literally bloom your mind ;)
As you can use the XYZ as RGB you can compared to a "RGB" node go over the 1.0 value and thus create cool neon effects.


You have experimental subdivision enabled in Properties > Object data:

It appears that it does not yet support UV maps, hence the experimental part..


How to proper model Toilet as in example

Here’s my best crack at it. I used Curves to create edge loops which I then bridged, subdivided, creased as needed, and mirrored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjdiLHzDEVY&feature=youtu.be

I would highly recommend watching a car modeling tutorial (or better yet, invest in a true hard-surface modeling course) to understand approaching difficult shapes like these which you’ll encounter many times in the future.

Good luck,

John


My car's topology is messing up as soon as I attempt to move a group of vertices along the y-axis

Okay, I fixed it. I had to delete most of the vertices in the middle of the car and then fill in the edges and faces. It was tedious, but I did not know any better way. The only question I have now is will using the loop cut/slide tool cause bad topology again? That is what I used and it messed up my topology, so I am wondering whether or not I should continue using that tool or if there is a better way of adding more vertices. Thanks for your help!


Is it possible for a emission shader not to cast shadows?

Simply go to the object panel on the right, scroll down to the Ray Visibility panel, and uncheck "Shadow". Note that this will apply to the entire object, not just the material.


Point density and transparent background

If point density is visible in RGB (set the viewer channel to "Color" only) it means that pixels in transparent areas should emit light, despite they don't occlude the background.

That's perfectly fine for an associated alpha image, and it means it can be conmposited straight away with an alpha over operation in the compositor.

Just go to the compositor and use an alpha over node to composite your plate over a solid background (black or gray should work) and check the result.

If that worked it means your plate is perfectly fine for compositing, although the viewer won't show the emissions in transparent pixels.

This is caused by a longstanding bug (sadly still present in 2.8) that makes the viewer pre-multiply images (that are already associated, resulting in a double up), making transparent emissions disappear.
They are there, but the broken viewer doesn't show them.


How can I make a script to make Cycles load a new texture each frame?

Try this [Modified according to comments].

It assumes that:

You have one root folder (ReplaceMe1) that contains a subfolder for each cubemap. Each subfolder has 6 images, one for every side of the cube.
Your cube is comprised of 6 separate objects, appropriately named ('side' / 'front', etc. See script for full list).
Each side object has a separate cycles material with an image texture node.
You want to save all your renders to a specific folder (RepalceMe2)

Code:

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

# Root folder which contains a subfolder for each environment map
imgFolder = 'C:/ReplaceMe1'

# Subfolders, each containing 6 images - 1 per side of the cube
mapSubFolders = [ d for d in listdir( imgFolder ) if isdir( join( imgFolder, d ) ) ]

# Output Path (where your renders will be saved)
outputPath = 'C:/ReplaceMe2'

S = bpy.context.scene

sides = [ 'top', 'bottom', 'left', 'right', 'front', 'back' ] # Object names

for d in mapSubFolders:
    folderPath = join( imgFolder, d )
    imgFiles   = [ f for f in listdir( folderPath ) if isfile( join( folderPath, f ) ) ]

    for s in sides:
        # This line will crash the script if this folder doesn't contain an image
        # for each side, with the same name (for example: 'bottom.jpg'; format doesn't matter)
        sideImg = [ f for f in imgFiles if s in f ][0]

        imgPath = join( folderPath, sideImg )

        # Open image file or apply the relevant image path to an existing image object with the same name
        if sideImg not in bpy.data.images:
            bpy.ops.image.open( filepath = imgPath )
        else:
           bpy.data.images[ sideImg ].filepath = imgPath

        img = bpy.data.images[ sideImg ]

        sideObj = S.objects[ s ]
        t = sideObj.active_material.node_tree

        t.nodes['Image Texture'].image = img # Apply current side's image to image texture node

    outputFile = d + "_" + s + S.render.file_extension

    S.render.filepath = join( outputPath, outputFile ) # Set render output path

    bpy.ops.render.render( write_still = True )


I'm Ted. I'm the developer of XPlane2Blender. The best place for this type of question is GitHub's issues page.

XPlane2Blender used to have a feature where it would use a material's texture slots to automatically fill in the TEXTURE path. Blender 2.80 removed Texture Slots so now while a similar feature is being implemented, we're just having people put in the relative file path by hand. Remember not to use spaces. You'll find that in the OBJ settings.

In this image, some Empty or Mesh or other Blender Object has been marked as exportable (or "Root Object" in old 2.79 UI). The name is my_example_object, and its TEXTURE is my_texture.png

XPlane2Blender doesn't check that this file exists so that is up to you.

Read the release notes pages for recent releases of XPlane2Blender as it is currently the best source of documentation on new features.


you can do this with a script :

set the group name
select the chosen object and run the script

Note : you can choose to make them linked or non-linked duplicates

import bpy

group_name = 'Group'
linked = False

chosen = bpy.context.object
mygroup = bpy.data.groups[group_name].objects
for obj in mygroup:
    if linked :
        obj.data = chosen.data        # linked duplicates
    else :
        obj.data = chosen.data.copy() # Non linked duplicates


How do I correct my curve deformed array?

You may scale the curve (S) holding Shift button to precisely close the object's ends.

You can also select the curve, go to curve data header and check the Stretch and Bounds Clamp checkboxes located in the Shape panel.


Do I need 2 normal maps to solve this issue?

You could use a BW mask the turn normals on/off locally.
Use the Strength input of the Normal Map node.
Then just animate the BW mask.


Do invisible polygons influence rendering time using Cycles renderer?

Blender calculates all geometry in the scene at render time.
Here is a very simple example:
Suzanne alone:

render time 00:12:30

Suzanne with torus and cube outside the camera field of view:

render time 00:14:37

The scene from the above example:

The difference in render time is not alot here, but in a large scene could become exponential. If the object is redundant then remove it. Interior geometry that the camera will never see can be in many cases safely deleted. This will only improve render time.


Set color of Blender object based on external data (e. g. temperature) using a colormap

In this case you have a predefined range 10 ... 90 degrees, it's simple to remap those to a 0....1.
Using a Cycles material
You could give each object a Value Node and key-frame its values within a range 0 ... 1, then convert them via a ColorRamp node to your Jet colormap (here quickly defined by hand).

Octave Gradients (add-on)

I wrote a little add-on that can recreate Octave/Matlab default gradients: Get it here. Installation can be done using the zip on github and Blender's Install from File feature in User Preferences. {category: 'Node', name: 'octave gradients'}
This adds a panel called Octave Gradient Demo to the Cycles node view.
From here you can choose the gradient by name, it will display the colors in the same panel.

The set gradient button will write the gradient to a ColorRamp if it finds one in the current material, else it adds a ColorRamp and then fills it with the gradient info.

The location of the newly added ColorRamp is a contentious issue, how would I decide where to add it? for now i've set it to add the node to (0,0).

Notice i've defaulted it to Linear, but gradient might be smoother.

Choices:

Usage

enable addon
make sure renderer is set to cycles
click an object, and create a new node based material
get a view open to see the nodes for the material
in the right side panel (use N to show the shelf) you'll see the Octave Gradient Demo panel.
initially this will show all black ramp slots until you change the palette from the dropdown.
If you haven't already added a ColorRamp node to the current Material, that's OK the set gradient button adds a ramp for you (but it might not be visible, zoom out if not)


Different ways to call an imported function from a separate py file, returns error

Your function seems to be in a class (guessed from the self parameter).

Method using self are meant to be used on instances.

You should either instanciate the class it belongs to in order to have an instance on which to call the method, or make the function static, or make the function a module function (out of a class definition).

Also the package init file should be named __init__.py, not __innit__.py.


You need the bullet hole to modify the texture applied to the material. That way it will never stick out!

An interesting approach may be to have multiple U,V vectors per object, and in the fragment shader, detect how close a fragment is to each of the U,V vectors, and if close enough, draw a bullet hole (maybe darken pixels as a function of distance between current U,V, and bullet hole U,V)

I am not sure how this is normally implemented in games however ;)


Summary

(Not official: based on own research)
Two kinds of icon
I think that "the monochromatic icons", the small ones used in menus etc, are not present as separate files in the compiled releases of Blender because they are compiled in the binary code. By the way, they are not necessarily monochromatic: this isn't "forced" in the code, it's just a design choice made for version 2.80.
The ones that you find under datafiles/icons/*.dat, that come with the built releases, are the (usually colored) ones that are used, for instance, in the tool shelf (see pic below)

So which ones do you want to change?
To change the small "menu" icons
you will need to recompile blender from source after having updated the blender_icons16/*.dat and blender_icons32/*.dat files in the $SOURCE2.8/release/datafiles/ folder, and to do so you must first edit the vector image $SOURCE2_8/release/datafiles/blender_icons.svg

and then update and make the icons, roughly following this guide (a bit old but I think still valid)
To change the bigger "tool" icons
I'm not sure how to change the (usually) colored ones that are not compiled into Blender (i.e. the ones that are present as separate .dat files in the downloaded blender builds). They seem to be generated via this blender_icons_geom_update.py script that pulls the design from a icon_geom.blend file that is present in Blender's Library Resources SVN repository.
I've found this message that confirms that the process is currently not documented:

«Currently, it’s just a .blend file that generates the icons.

[...] Once we are more finished with the tools we will probably document how people can do this, if anyone wants to make new icons, or change them.»

William Reynish (billreynish), Apr 28 2018

Documentation?
There is anyway another script: blender_icons_geom.py that contains a documentation of the pixmap format which could be what you are looking for:
This is a simple binary format (all bytes, so no endian).

The header is 8 bytes:

:0..3: ``VCO``: identifier.
:4: ``0``: icon file version.
:5: icon size-x.
:6: icon size-y.
:7: icon start-x.
:8: icon start-y.

Icon width and height are for icons that don't use the full byte range
(so we don't get bad alignment for 48 pixel grid for eg).

Start values are currently unused.

After the header, the remaining length of the data defines the geometry size.

:6 bytes each: triangle (XY) locations.
:12 bytes each: triangle (RGBA) locations.

All coordinates are written, then all colors.

Please note
To answer your question I have just made a short investigation across the repositories and forums, but I have never tried myself to edit these icons.
One thing is for sure: if you do something like
cp brush.gpencil_draw.draw.dat ops.mesh.bevel.dat

the "bevel" tool actually becomes a little pencil (this proves that the "tool" icons are read directly from the datafiles/icon folder).


How may I get a single stripe of color to flow along an object?

We can use the "generated" coordinates (from "texture coordinates" node) property: the coordinates are given before any modifier deformations. Using it can simplify what we have to do here.

Or with several rings:

The base shape is a tube/cylinder with a simple deform modifier to make to U shape:

And the node setting is the following:

Take Z value of the generated coordinates (remember this is still considered as a non bent cylinder)
Substract it to some value that will be animated to move the ring(s)
Keep positive value
Multiply (integer values) to have the amount of rings
Take module 1 to keep something between 0 and 1
Compare the result to 0.5 with an epsilon that gives the width of the ring

The documentation about generated texture coordinates:

Automatically-generated texture coordinates from the vertex positions
of the mesh without deformation, keeping them sticking to
the surface under animation. Range from 0.0 to 1.0 over the bounding
box of the undeformed mesh. See Texture Spaces for more information.


Open a new file in Blender
Set any setting you want saved.
File > Defaults > Save Startup File

Now every new file you create will open with the saved settings.


change/create hotkeys for vertex\edge\face select

Can use the window manager context setting operators. The property that needs changing is
scene.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode

which is a 3 member collection.  All modes  (True, True, True), just verts (True, False, False).  To set verts alonr mesh_select_mode[0] = True.
To set them individually,  set vert select mode on. Leaves faces and edge mode as is.
bpy.ops.wm.context_set_boolean(
        data_path="scene.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode[0]",
        value=True)

to toggle
bpy.ops.wm.context_toggle(
        data_path="scene.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode[0]")

To set the mode to vert only
bpy.ops.wm.context_set_value(
        data_path="scene.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode",
        value="(True, False, False)")

or mesh.select_mode with no extend selection and vert type.
bpy.ops.mesh.select_mode(use_extend=False,
        use_expand=False,
        type='VERT')

Ok that looks good, add to 3Dview, mesh shortcuts.

Setup with wm.context_set_value
now Alt+1 will set to vert mode.


Just in case somebody comes across this thread looking for the answer (because I believe OP is no longer waiting for one): If you have a SubDivision modifier, it should come AFTER the Mirror modifier, so that the transition gets smoothed.


Alpha channel through glass material instead of background (Cycles)

By mixing a glass or glossy shader with a transparent shader based on a fresnel node, rays will be allowed straight through the glass at smaller angles of incidence, and will reflect at grazing angles. Rays which go through and reach the environment background will give alpha transparency:

Note that the Fresnel node is not necessary for mixing (setting the factor directly will get something like what you are looking for), but it does make the reflections of the material behave in a more physically based manner.


Not an answer to your question directly but will solve your problem. In Photoshop duplicate your unblurred HDRI to another layer so that it is on bottom. use Filter/Offset to offset image 50%. Blur both layers. Offset the offsetted layer back where it was, and erase the sharp borders from the original top layer. Voilà.


Setting euler rotates camera, but setting quaternion doesn't

It works with eulers because rotation_mode is set to XYZ by default.

Either change it to QUATERNION or modify matrix_basis (or some of the other matrix attributes). You can easily convert any quaternion to a matrix using its method to_matrix and resize it with to_4x4

I.e.

mat = q.to_matrix().to_4x4()
mat.translation = cam.location
cam.matrix_basis = mat


Just change the view port shading to solid.


Printing a game model that looks rendered

This looks like a perfect time to use a Subdivision Surface, which is a modifier that adds additional polygons for each polygon in your base mesh.  The default implementation of this also smooths them out, which should produce the result you're looking for.

You can then apply the modifier and turn it into real geometry, and then send that geometry to the 3d printer.

The easiest way to apply a subdivision surface is select the object and press ctrl-2, which (at least in the default keymap) is the shortcut for apply a subdivision surface modifier with a 2x resolution, effectively subdivide-smoothing the mesh twice over.  Once it's on the modifier stack, you can adjust the number of subdivisions until it looks how you want.

It might make any creased areas of the mesh overly smooth though - I can't tell from the original image how sharp it's intended to look, but there are ways around that problem too - investigate the bevel modifier with the limit method set to angle, and experiment with the angle value.  30 or 60 degrees usually looks good and preserves some but not all creases.  Make sure to put the bevel above and thus before the subdivision modifier, or it won't appear to do anything.

Here's a couple of screenshots with a default suzanne, then a subdivision surface suzanne, and then a bevel at 60 degreees + subdivision suzanne:

 - base suzanne mesh.

 - with the subdisivion modifier

 - also with the bevel at 60 degrees or higher.  Note the eyebrow creases.


Detect with python script if a blend file has packed images

Image.packed_file

Look at the value of the Image.packed_file property. Will be None if not packed.

Console test.

>>> for i in bpy.data.images:
...     i.name, i.packed_file
...
('3cb598.jpg', bpy.data.images['3cb598.jpg']...PackedFile)
('3b17ebcf9eb9.jpg', None)
('huge.49.247445.JPG', bpy.data.images['huge.49.247445.JPG']...PackedFile)
('Render Result', None)

>>>


Why isn't this object becoming transparent in the render?

You have set your transparency to Mask. To quote the Blender Manual:

  This option simply masks the Background. It uses the alpha channel to
  mix the color of each pixel on the active object plane with the color
  of the corresponding background pixel, according to the alpha channel
  of the pixel. Thus for alpha = 1, the object color is seen – the
  object is completely opaque; but if alpha = 0, only the background is
  seen – the object is transparent (but note that any other object
  behind the active object disappears).

Essentially, any object behind a 'Mask' object will not be visible.
Instead, set the transparency type to Z Transparency or Raytrace:


Why when I try to add a point to the curve bezier I duplicate it

Consider

You may be unintentionally creating a new disconnected subcurve of the entire curve object.  This happens when the active vertex is not an endpoint of the curve.  Curve objects can have many disconnected subcurves. Flexibility and Complexity.
First select an end point of the curve.  Next control-click  the location  where you want the new point to be. The new point can be moved immediately after.
Optionally Click two points and subdivide to add a new point if that suits your needs better.  The new point will be in the current curve.  Subdivide is on the menu or keystroke w.


How to get rid of this seam on my texture?

Things to check:

Creased? Turn on the display of creases (N > Mesh Display > Creases), then enter Edit Mode (Tab) and look for a blue line along that section. If you see the blue line, clear the crease (Edge Select Mode, Ctrl+E, Clear Crease)
Internal Face? Check to see if you an internally extruded face along that section. Hit Z to enter Wireframe Mode, switch to Face Select Mode, and look for a third face attached to that edge. If so, delete it (them).
Edge Split? Ensure you don't have an Edge-Split modifier with too low of a value (Properties > Modifiers > Edge Split)
Shade Flat? Select all faces surrounding the issue and hit W then Shade Smooth

I downloaded your blend and took a quick look. It doesn't appear to be any of the things I've listed, but seem to be (as you suggested) associated with the UV mapped textures. The area in question is along two non-contiguous UV segments. So, unless the pixels directly under both segments have identical colors, one would absolutely expect there to be such a discontinuity.

My suggestion is to re-project the geometry so as to avoid seams in your UV in prominent positions.


The percentage entered below the render resolution is a factor that allows you to quickly decrease the output resolution, e.g. to render a smaller preview.

You accidentally set this setting to one percent which means the final image has a resolution of 19 by 10 pixels instead of 1920 by 1080.


Why does render resolution affect RAM use?

The image that is rendered need to go in the ram, so bigger image need more ram, have a look here: View Memory Usage There are other points like adaptive subdiv, but I'm not a specialist of these kind of questions.


How do you render background image through transparent object?

That's because the way you have it set up, it's going to be transparent on the edges and solid in the middle. Switch the top and bottom slots, and it should fix it!

EDIT: The Holdout shader also only uses what you have set for your world background. It's going to show up as a basically a hole to show the background through, with no consideration for any other object or faces behind it. If you simply want transparency, use the Transparent node instead of Holdout.

(It's doing what you you want, this is just how it looks in preview; see how it looks in render, then switch the top and bottom slots to see if it looks better, as well as also hookup up your mix factor back into your original mix; it can hook up to more things at once!)

EDIT 10/19: By switch the slots, I mean the sections that say 'shader'. When you use a mix factor, it's telling Blender to make all the white one of the shaders and all the black the other shader. Any mix is a combination of the two. Fresnel as a mix mask looks black where it's facing the camera, and white where it's angled away, and a fairly short falloff between the two. This means if it looks funny, you might simply have it hooked up opposite from the way you want, where it's hooked into the little green dots that say 'shader'.
To further this note, you don't have the same mix factor in your addition with the holdout. You just moved it to the second mix. For better results, plug the Fresnel Fac into the the gray dot that says Fac on both mix shaders.


How to get user preferences path from blender

Using: bpy.utils.resource_path('USER')

eg:

import os
import bpy

user_path = bpy.utils.resource_path('USER')
config_path = os.path.join(user_path, "config")

Or on Linux:/home/user_name/.config/blender/2.74
On ms-windows will return:C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.74

See: bpy.utils.resource_path api docs


Exported Model and Shader Not Displaying as Intended

The problem is that Cycles is a blender specific feature and any shader you make in a .blend file wont really transfer to say an .obj or any other exported file form.

For what I know, .obj's consist of a mesh and a texture and can't display such a complicated shader as a refractive, ray-traced glass.


Mist that only erases objects and not background?

With a single render layer, enable a mist pass.

Then in the compositor use the mist value and a color ramp a factor to mix the background.


Is it okay to move green bones from the armature layer?

Green means the bone has some sort of constraint on it, so other bones can interact with it. This is useful because it means the animator does not need to animate every single bone and instead just animate a few main bones.
You can always move the green bones, just make sure you are in Edit Mode. You might not be able to transform them in pose mode because it might conflict with the constraints.


Is it possible to speed up/slow down the preview playback of an animation in the Timeline?

You can use the Time Remapping. Since 2.8, go into Properties > Output > Dimensions > Time Remapping. Previously in Properties > Render > Dimensions:

It expresses the animation speed as a ratio of original speed / new speed, where the speed is expressed in frames. So to reduce the speed 50%, you can use 50/100, 1/2, 100/200 or any other ratio which reduces to 1/2, i.e. 1 frame for every 2 frames.

Note that while frames are used as the units, this setting will interpolate animations on subframes. Not all features support this, see Which animation features don't support sub-frames? for details.


Add a plane.
Go to Edit mode.
Subdivide 3 times (press W> subdivide).
Select the center vertex.
Enable Proportional Editing (press O).
Press G, Z (to constrain to Z axis) and lift the vertex up.
   the mouse wheel controls how much influence Proportional Editing has


Smoke and flame not showing up in render view mode and in render

Your smoke bake has to be starting inside the start/end frames. If the sim start frame is before the timeline start, the sim won't start at all.


So, are you wanting to draw a diagonal line and it generate a rectangle? You'll have to write a script for that by using the Pythagorean theorem. But you can't determine a rectangle knowing it's diagonal length only. You must also know the width to length ratio because one diagonal length can have infinite variations of a rectangle. So, unless you want a hard coded width to length ratio, every time you draw your line you'll have to employ the extra step of determining the ratio by determining the slope of the line on an XY coordinate.

Example:

(X,Y)+(X౽,Y౽)= diagonal line

(X౽,Y౽-Y) = Other X vertex

(X౽-X,Y౽)= Other Y vertex

(X,Y)+(X౽,Y౽)+(X౽,Y౽-Y)+(X౽-X,Y౽)= rectangle


Final (almost) result

I will not go trough all steps in detail as they aren't part of the question (animation, modeling this sparkling stick and such).

Particle system

Create IcoSphere and scale it to be a bit wider then stick and add to it Particle System.

Create another one and move it to another layer - you will use it as particle object.

Most important settings are:

Lifetime, short lifetime does not allow particles to bounce and long one will get all of them messy.
Emitter Geometry > Normal. This will give our particles initial speed.

The rest of them are just some little tweaks.

Do not forget to set Gravity 0 in Field Weights tab.

Collision system

This is the tricky devil.

Create IcoSphere (Subdivisions 2) go to Edit Mode and Wireframe view (Z).
Select all - A and hit CTRL+E then Edge Split.
Select all again and set Pivot Center to Individual Origins then scale it down little bit. You should get something like this:

Now you can duplicate it and make them smaller, bigger, with any rotation - as you like. Remember to set Pivot Center back again to Median Point.
Final step, still in Edit Mode add another IcoSphere and make it the biggest one. This will be boundry for our collision system.

My final setup looks like this:

  Creating collision system is the worst part, everything depends on it,
  so you must try to make it right. If you want sparkles to be bigger,
  make whole thing bigger, if you want them to be more round - scale
  down less after edge split, to have smaller holes between faces.

Go back to Object Mode and in Physics tab add Collision. Set Particles > Permeability to 0.3. This will allow particles to "break" collision system. You can set it to 0, then nothing (yup, almost) go trough.

Hide this object in Outliner and set it to not renderable. Eye and camera Icon.

Materials

We will need only two materials, for sparks (particles) and particle emitter. Select IcoSphere you've moved to another layer and add this node setup:

Select IcoSphere which is emitter for particles and add to it Transparent node with pure white color.

Motion Blur

Go to Render tab, check Motion Blur and set it to 1.10.

And that's it.

Here is .blend file with all animations:


Blender VSE Waveforms not showing after changing file directories

Sigh

I jst had to reload my .blend

In other words:
Save and close, then re-open the project
(with the new file directory changes
so that they match where your files a newly located at)


How can I get the location of an object at each keyframe?

The reason your script was returning 0, 0, 0 is because you were printing the location of the object on the current frame.

Basically your code says:

  Print the location of the cube object the same number of times as there are number of keyframes.

So as mentioned by kilbee you need to set the scene frame to the frame that the keyframe is on in order to read the location of the object on that frame.

By combining your code with kilbee's:

import bpy

ob = bpy.context.object

for f in ob.animation_data.action.fcurves:
    for k in f.keyframe_points:
        fr = k.co[0]
        bpy.context.scene.frame_set(fr)
        pos=ob.location
        print(pos)

This way you only check frames with keyframes, as opposed to checking every frame.


Allow for precision errors.
In addition to @Secrop's answer, it is a good idea to allow for precision errors when testing equality of floats, ie 2.000001 is probably close enough to 2.
A commonly seen test to see if a value is within a tolerance TOL of 2
if abs(value - 2) < TOL

or in the case here, using math.isclose
import bpy
from math import isclose

context = bpy.context

scene = context.scene

for ob in scene.objects:
    ob.select_set(
            isclose(ob.dimensions.z, 2, rel_tol=1e-6)
    )

which is  setting the selection of all objects in the scene to the test result.
Using
if some_test_is_true:
    ob.select_set(True)

will make no change to selection if all where selected beforehand.
Can extend a selection using or.
    ob.select_set(
            ob.select_get()
            or
            isclose(ob.dimensions.z, 2, rel_tol=1e-6)
            )

or, as shown in your answer, add other specs with and eg ob.type == 'MESH' and ...


Merging vertical with slightly larger horizontal cylinder properly without creating Ngons?

Yes. Use the knife tool k to add these loops, while dissolving the one you already had and the triangle.

Remember to use c for 45 degree cuts and z to cut through to both sides.

Ideally when using cylinders I work with no more than 16 verts or it gets very messy and hard to keep the shape if you need loops to run parallel.


Materials are globally stored in:

bpy.data.materials

which is an array of materials that you can index per name or per index.
On the other hand, an object has an array of material slots (which correspond to what you see in the material panel of the object):

obj.material_slots

And get the material from the slot is:

obj.material_slots[i].material

and it also has the list of the materials it is using in its data:

obj.data.materials

Each polygon of a mesh knows the index of the material it is using. This index is the index in obj.material_slots (or obj.data.materials):

p = obj.data.polygons[0]
p.material_index

So to answer your question, it depends of what you want to do.
If the goal is to know which materials are referenced by an object, look at obj.data.materials.
If the goal is to know which are really used, you'll need to dig into polygons to check which is really assign to them (you can have more mats in obj.data.materials than the one really used).
Notice that a material slot can be empty. In this case, the material_slot exists but contains no material. And also, obj.data.materials contains an empty element (as these two arrays are internally kept at the same size).
To have all the materials references by the objects of a scene, in a dictionary by name, you can:
import bpy
all_referenced_materials = set((m for o in bpy.context.scene.objects if o.type == 'MESH' for m in o.data.materials if m is not None))
dictionary = {m.name:m for m in all_referenced_materials}

Note: if I remember well, 16 material slots max. So no more than 16 materials per object.


How can I add a realistic metallic texture to this node setup?

To start off, download the weighted normals add-on: https://blenderartists.org/uploads/default/original/4X/b/b/6/bb60fd3ddf118fca056b6840acae494f6e57a06b.zip

To give credit where it is due, I obtained everything I use in this demonstration from here: https://pr0f3550rz00m.deviantart.com/art/Thanos-Fortnite-3D-Model-744104114

Now, for each individual mesh piece: (make sure you're in object mode) Select the mesh, press SPACE and search for weighted normals and hit ENTER. Then, with the mesh still selected press SPACE again and search for Clear Custom Split Normals Data and then hit ENTER

Note do not apply the split normals to his face, as it will cause hard edges on an organic surface, which we do not want. After applying that to mesh, we can begin the node setup!

Also you'll need to remove all of the parts which relate to his skin, as they should not be treated as hard surface objects either.

For point of reference, the metalness and specularity maps contain information as follows:

R = Ambient Occlusion

G = Unknown

B = Roughness/ Metalness/ Emission

A = No alpha channels are included

Helmet and Torso Node Setup

This is the general setup for the helmet and the torso piece, however; the gauntlet and face have an extra part to them as they both seem to contain a part that emits light.

Make sure that textures not affecting the colour are set to non-colour data

Face Node Setup

You could just use the original diffuse map to control the emission value, I just happened to make a duplicate of it in this example.

Gauntlet Node Setup

This time I just use the original diffuse map for the colour input.

Just in case it isn't clear from the image, the blue channel from the metallic map is controlling the factorial of the mix node.

And here is an example of the final result:

Hope this helps.


How to animate a character throwing their hat on the ground?

Here I explain how to use Child Of constraint to make your character pick and hold his hat.

Also, give your hat Physics > Rigid Body > Type: Active. Give the ground Physics > Rigid Body > Type: Passive. At frame 0, enable the Rigid Body > Animated option of the hat and create a keyframe. The frame before he releases the hat, create a second keyframe. The moment he releases the hat deactivate Animated and create a third keyframe, the hat should fall.


How to duplicate object with it's animation then relocate/rotate

One way is with a DupliGroup:

Group your object(s) with ⎈ CtrlG
Add a dupligroup with ⇧ ShiftA> Group Instance > name of your group.

This will create an empty which represents the origin point (0,0,0) of the space in which the duplicated group resides. By transforming this empty, you can transform the dupligroup:

Dupliobjects use instancing, which means this will also be very memory efficient.


Getting to a file easily/quickly in blender's file browser

Blender's file selector doesn't support this kind of filtering, but since you ask this question, here is some related functionality.

You can use Tab to auto-complete when typing a file name as you would in a shell..
You can also filter files by typing wildcards into the filename field *. followed by an extension eg foo*.blend, project*.*. When you press Enter, this will highlight all files with the extension in the current directory. (you can use A to clear the highlighting).
When opening files, you can use the filters available in the header to help narrow your search etc..

Search (Addon)

There is an addon that can further help you when searching for files called File Browser Search. It presents you with a list of results that matched your query.


Complex organic-like object from two splines (imported)

A simple way of achieving this is to use a combination of Solidify and Boolean modifiers.

First model your splines to match your desired profiles. In my case I started with a Nurbs Circle and then manipulated it in Edit mode to get the desired shape - one for the Top profile and another for the Right profile and rotated them and position them appropriately.

Next, convert each profile into a Mesh and, in Edit mode, select all and create a Face by pressing 'F'.

Select the 'Top' object and open the Modifiers panel and add a Solidify modifier. Increase the thickness sufficiently so that it will fully overlap with the other shape. Repeat with the 'Right' object so that the two objects overlap as shown.

Position and scale the objects so that they match - I had to stretch you're example 'Top' view to match the dimension of the 'Right' view.

Select one of the objects and add a 'Boolean' operator. Click the dropper in the Object field and click on the other object in the viewport. Set the Operation to 'Intersect'. Select the other object in the viewport and press 'H' to hide it. You should now see the generated object from the intersection of the two extruded profiles.

To tidy up the geometry of the generated mesh, right-click the object and add a Remesh modifier. Select Smooth for the Mode and reduce the Octree Depth until it doesn't quite start to distort. Enable Smooth Shading.

You could also optionally add a Subdivision Surface modifier.

Select 'Apply' on each of the modifiers to apply them (be careful to apply them in Top-to-Bottom order).

Once the modifiers have been applied you should unhide the hidden objects (Alt-H) and select them and delete them as they are no longer required.

You'll get better results by adding additional profiles - preferably you want at least a Top, Front and Side profile (although you could have more if you know the profile from other angles) and position them and scale them in a similar way and add in as additional Boolean modifiers in the modifier stack - eg, Solidify, Boolean1, Boolean2, Remesh, Subsurface.

The generated shape will most likely need some fine tuning in Edit mode as the profiles don't provide enough detail - in particular for concave shapes.


Project Texture from Camera (like Window, but not from Viewport)

This setup projects texture from camera and adjusts scale based on Z depth.

Works only in camera/perspective mode due to Z-depth socket used in calculations, viewport zooming doesn't affect texture scaling also due to Z-depth.


Colorramp node makes colors clip or blow out

Color Ramp, nor any thing in Blender, is pixel managed.

As a result, I believe the Color Ramp is taking the scene referred 0.0 to 1.0 range and clipping it, which is leading to the harsh cut transition from 1.0 scene referred onwards.

The complex solution is to mangle the data going to and from the Color Ramp. The more elegant and powerful solution is to pixel manage every single UI element to permit the audience to control the context of the tool to meet the need.


Yes you created an ngon in the back. Being that It's in the back maybe it's not a problem. If you are encountering a problem a very easy thing to try is to inset the ngon face which gives you quads around the perimeter of the ngon which will solve some problems. If you want to rework your topology so that you don't have ngons or unnecessary geometry on the sides without detail I recommend watching this video which shows how to step down your faces while maintaining quad geometry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGL6QpVRyXk&list=PL0v8ug1WwacVeXGNVRHexenYbip_7LMPD&index=19&ab_channel=DECODED


Create easily reusable character for still images

Well, in fact what you are asking is something easily accomplishable whit the correct rigging technique and enough patience to pose the characters, animation and posing are areas that require patience to get things correctly done, so keep that in mind.

But if your models are simple enough in terms of polygon count, you could easilyuse shape keys to make transitions between poses:
http://www.chocofur.com/using-shape-keys-in-blender.html

Here is a tutorial where you can get started, but remember, nothing is better for posing that rigging.


Select all and press w
Then choose "subdivide".


How to add good light to surrounding to get a best result

Your question isn't terribly clear, but I'll give you a few hints at the complexity behind such questions.

For one, your scene referred render (assuming you are using Cycles) will range from zero to infinity in terms of values. The viewing transform (see the color management panel) determines how much of this scene you are going to "see" end up in your final render.

So what is "good" then? If we are talking about a photographic "good", then you can't achieve it with the default sRGB mapping of scene values to display referred values. It is fundamentally impossible without additional tweaking and bending. This is apparent from the clipped scene values in the upper right of your sample image.

The proper solution to getting a photographic dynamic range is simply to replace or add one of your transforms to properly map your scene referred range down into the display referred range.

For more information, you can peruse the tip of this complex iceberg over at this link.


Use the Shrinkwrap modifier to form a skin over a collection of objects

I don't think this is possible. Not the way you're looking at it anyway. However, this might be a viable solution. If you're trying to do this in the editor (rather than in the BGE) you could create a single duplicate of each of the objects you want to wrap around. Merge them together. Wrap your cloth or what have you around the duplicated/merged version of your objects. Apply the modifier. Delete the duplicate version. Move your cloth to the objects.

If you're trying to do this in the BGE I'm not sure it's possible without manipulating verts in script.