I believe it's best to just make this animation in Unity itself. How did you import this animation to unity? Legacy? Was the rock animated seperately? if it was, you could add a script to it, that plays the animation and then destroys the rock gameobject, or you could make an animation in unity and make the gameObject invisible.
one way of coding that in C#:

    Transform.Find("Rock").gameObject.enabled = false;

or, if you've made a prefab of the rock, you could just destroy it, and spawn it again if you need it:

    Destroy(Transform.Find("Rock"));


Show length for surrounding edges as well

While transforming the lengths of connected edges will show.

But there is no way to make them display at all times.


Normally Id suggest checking normals and non manifold geometry for anything causing trouble.

However I did a little mockup and found that simply blender doesn't support it. I did hear stuff about miter options that might change this stuff in the future, but I recommend using the knife tool with cut through or a loop cut if you want more straight loops.


This behavior of a mesh is almost ever an issue of either "zero weighted" vertices or "ungrouped" vertices. To clarify:

Zero Weighted Vertices

Vertices which have entries in one or more Bone Weight maps, but the sum of all weights is 0. This can happen when all weights for a vertex have been painted to a value of 0 (blue).

Ungrouped Vertices

Vertices which have no entries in any of the Bone weight maps. This can happen when you manually removed weight entries from some of the weight maps, or when you cleaned up your weight maps with the limit weigths tool.

Finding the locations of problematic vertices

when you are in weight paint mode, then you can open the tool shelf, locate the Options vertical tab, and set the value of Show Zero weights to All
Then all areas with unweighted vertices or with vertices with a weight sum of 0 will be rendered in black.

Note: You can change the color from black to something better visible. I changed the User Preferences -> Themes, in the 3D View Section: set "Vertex Group Unreferenced" to your favorite color (i used Magenta):

Selecting ungrouped Vertices

In edit mode, in the Footer of the 3D View: Select -> Ungrouped
Then all vertices will be selected which are not mentioned in any vertex group:


How to increase the resolution of a rendered image?

Given that the question is about resolution.
See that slider that shows 35% in the resolution settings?
You are rendering an image that is rougly a third of the resolution. Instead of 1200 pixels you are rendering only 420.
Set the value to 100%

As for why the picture is blurry, there is no  information on the question that can yield a conclusive answer. The focus or depth of field of the camera might be set incorrectly, or there might be some nodes in the compositor we don't know about.


Your normals are facing the wrong direction (as evident by the yellow color on your normal map that you have circled).

First thing you'll want to do is familiarize yourself with what normals should look like. You've circled some areas in your map that demonstrate the problem. Here are two images that go over all the different colors a normal map could be in tangent space.

The image on the left has appropriate colors, the image on the right has colors you want to avoid. If you look at the areas you circled, you'll see they are that muddy yellow and do not transition smoothly with the surrounding area, indicating a problem.

So how were these two images made? By baking the same hemisphere and simply inverting their normals:

In case you're not familiar with this display, the blue lines indcate the direction of the normal on each face, the spheres were baked to the plane below it. You'll notice that the sphere on the right has its normals pointing in the direction opposite of the plane, this will generate the image on the right.

Here's a simplified version from the side. With the normals of the plane shown.

So what could have caused it? Well it looks like you were playing around and sculpting. You were probably pushing and pulling the faces and ended up with something that looked like this:

If it were just the mesh (its not in this case, its the normal map) you could fix it by hitting ctrl+n in edit mode, which attempts to repair your normals. Since (Im assuming) this was a sculpt, you can attempt to use ctrl+n on the sculpt, or you'll need to find the problem areas and manually fix the geometry then rebake the normal map.


Modify Boid collision distance with hard boundary - v2.80

I will go ahead and post this as it works well enough for my use case, though it feels like there's a better solution:

I was able to get the simulation to work if I drastically increased the scale of the whole model - so that even if what earlier felt like a large collision distance remained the same, it would still be relatively small compared to the path the rats would travel through.

If somebody has a better solution I would gladly accept it in place of this one! I would prefer to keep the units life-size as they were before.

Current below: it appears that the relative collision distance from the stairs is the same compared to the images above. On the right of the image, there are still some bouncy rats but I can perhaps add a forcefield to direct them so I'm not too worried about that.


Cycles Taking 2 Hours to Render One Frame

You should turn off "Square Samples" unless you actually intend to square the number of samples being used (e.g., see https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?342753-Square-Samples for some insight into why you might want to square the samples).  For previewing purposes, you definitely want to turn it off.  And you'll probably want to bake the simulation so it doesn't have to calculate it every time you switch to a different animation frame.


First off you're going to want the pupil and white connected on the same surface. having them disconnected can only lead to strange shadows and collisions like this. The best way to set up eyes so that there are no strange collisions like this is to make a sphere for the eyes. once you have the sphere you place the 3D cursor in the center of it (key stroke : shift+S > U aka cursor to selection) then select your eye bone and put the Head in the cursor at the center of the eyes (Shift+S > T) and then put the tail in the center of the pupil. Now the eye will rotate from the center of the sphere and therefore the pupil will stay flush against the surface of the sphere no matter what direction you rotate it.


It's fixed on Blender 2.71 for windows.

(As part of our network is still using XP we are stuck on 2.70a, and I didn't had the chance to test 2.71)


In the View menu, switch on Waveforms and F-curves.
Select the strip.
In Add menu, select Fade - Fade In Out
(Alternatively right click in the Sequencer area and select the fade options there - here is also an option to Clear Fades)

Gif:

If you want to animate with the diamond, first set the value then click the diamond, so it is filled(you set a key-frame). Having the f-curves visible makes it much more visible what happens. Alternatively you could change ex. the File Browser area to Graph Editor:


How do I motion track a camera when the scene contains more than one camera?

Rename the "sets" of photos, so that they are seen as a single image sequence with continuos numbering.

Track specific elements that are common in different "sets" of images.

Use "Join tracks" in places where the tracked items are not recognized, or change placement dramatically, become occluded, or re-appear.

Read the following links: Joining 2D tracking markers with an offset and Motion Tracking objects that go out of frame and re-enter later


It looks like most of the faces in the model are disconnected. When you activate smooth shading on disconnected faces, Blender treats each one individually and it looks like flat shading because each face's boundary is handled independently from its neighboring faces.

It's best to model (or import) objects with connected faces if you want to use smooth shading, but here is a quick and dirty way to join most of the faces in your model:

Select the object.
[TAB] into Edit Mode.
[A] to select all vertices.
Mesh > Vertices > Remove Doubles

This will join most of the faces and you will get smooth shading for the most part. You will probably need to manually repair some faces to get it working across the entire object.


Here's a example I made a long time ago using the same techniques.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Krn7CrYg4h8

This can be done easily with some render layer trickery.

Start out by putting both of your scenes on two separate layers, and align everything so that in your first scene, the opening into the next scene is in the same place.

Then, create an object on a trash layer, and shape it in the inside of your "portal". Then, in your renderlayer settings, in the mask group, select the layer you put your "portal mask".

Then, on your first layer, using the exclude group, exclude the layer with your first enviroment in it, and then do the oposite for the other one. This is done so that lighting and shadows from one enviroment, doesn't transfer over to the other.

Than, if your camera crosses into the other world, you need to stop the first one from rendering. This can be done by animating the checkbox next to the name of the layer.

After you render everything out, you can paste the two scene together using an alpha over node in the compositor.


Switch between materials within material

To use nodetree elements multiple time and have all update, when you change a single instance, use node groups.

Grouping nodes can simplify a node tree by allowing instancing and hiding parts of the tree. Both material and composite nodes can be grouped.
Conceptually, grouping nodes allows you to specify a set of nodes that you can treat as though it were “just one node”. Node groups are similar to functions in programming, they can be reused in many places in a node tree and can be customized by changing the “parameters” of the node group.

To make a group, select the nodes and press CtrlG.


A good material consist of the following element.

Diffuse map with no harsh reflection, usually resembling photos taken on an overcast day.
Normal map to improve the surface texture, usually to push the limitation of a lower polygon mesh to look really high in density.
Specular / Roughness map to provide information where the object is more reflective than other areas. Real material in the real world don't reflect in a linear fashion or have the same roughness over all of it's surface.
Ambient Occlusion map to improve cracks and fine crevices. Giving a fine touch to realism.
Dirt and Grime map added to improve on wear and tear like scratches, can be bundle with or multiplied with Specular map.

Note : If you look at the image you posted the planet you aim to achieve has an atmosphere. By looking at the blue glow around the planet we know that atmosphere exist in that image. The moon for example will never have a blue band of glow, because it doesn't have atmosphere. You will want to look into how atmosphere affects color at a glancing angle, normally the word used in CGI is "fresnel" effect.

And remember due to the harshness of the way sun light reflect off a close by celestial object like a planet. Stars would be very difficult to see with the naked eyes. That is to say not only your material but your understanding of how light behave in the background is needed to communicate realism.


You can use the Bisect Tool for that.
It's pretty simple.

In Edit Mode, select the whole mesh through Select > All
Use the Bisect Tool and adjust the parameters to your needs
Enable X-Ray Mode and select the parts you want to delete

Note: If you don't need a sharp cut, step 3. should be enough :)

Use the Bisect Tool to cut the object in half

Then enable X-Ray mode and select the parts you want to delete


Using blender as a video converter for multiple files?

There is no direct conversion for this in Blender, but you can do this kind of thing using the Video sequencer/editor in the video editing tab of blender. First you open the video editing tab:
And then press SHFT+A to open a dropdown menu that will give you the option to add a movie. Press this, and Blender will take you to a browser. Select the movie (.avi) you want, and press 'select'. Now you have added a .avi (if you selected that) in your sequencer:
Now you can have the output of the video type set, and then sequence the video to a location of your choice:
Now you can render animation like you would any normal animation, and it will automatically sequence through the video editor, and output your video.


Grease pencil stroke wont show while the pen is down

I faced the same problem as well. It is quiet annoying. The solution I found is :
Install the latest blender 2.8 version and try drawing over the 3D object. If the problem persists add a new stroke or grease pencil from object mode and draw on that new stroke/ grease pencil. Adding a new stroke/greasepencil worked for me.


My view port option is missing from material panel

In 2.79 you have these options in the Settings.


It will be much, much easier to reconstruct the cylinder from scratch, this time before confirming, set 42 subdivisions...


Solved the problem. It was a basic issue related to the texture being in the wrong path.

Here a video / Highlight I made from a past stream. So feel free to watch.

Youtube Link

It was mostly on the fly and serves as a reminder for me and others in case someone needs help with this. I might do a more detailed video on this.


Follow path Constraint, relative locations for offset objects

One approach, (I don't know whether it's the snappiest, or most controllable)

Copy the entire rig, track and trucks
On the copy, delete all trucks except the copy of the one you want to remain stationary in world space.. 'Target Truck'... ( red in the illustration )
Put a Copy Location constraint on the original track, targeted on 'Target Truck', World space, X,Y and Z, all inverted in the constraint.


Background environment texture not rendered in viewport or final render

Your environment is disabled.

Check your scene settings, "use environment".


For a script that only runs once, say a setup script, you can use an Always Sensor without True level triggering (the buttons outlined in red in the image below). Doing so will unintuitively to the Always Sensor's name will only run once.

As for scripts where you only want a function to run once, but the rest constantly evaluated, I would highly recommend using The Python Controller in Module mode.

The way it works is you pass in the name of your script (must have a .py), then the name of the function. So in the picture my script is named script.py and the function I am calling is functionName.

The final way is to use a variable, or property.

import bge

cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
own = cont.owner

if 'init' not in own: # Will only run once, or when the var gets removed
    own['init'] = True
    print('only once')

Then if you need that code to run again use this line del own['init'].


How do I open JSON files using the Text Editor

The easiest way to see files of any unexpected format (including JSON) is to disable filtering (click on the funnel!)


The annotation tool is an internal tool for the user, it is not for adding visual drawing to the rendered output.

In the VSE, you can add a scene strip, which means you can create a circle using geometry or a grease pencil object in the 3D view and add it to the VSE.

You can also add a single image to the VSE. So you can save a circle as a PNG with a transparent background and add that to the VSE.


How to check if object is cycles light source?

You can do this by getting the material and checking if there is a node called Emission in the node tree, like this:

import bpy
obj = bpy.context.object
nodes = obj.data.materials[0].node_tree.nodes
if "Emission" in nodes:
    print("yes")

Likewise, you could also check for a EMISSION node by using this instead:

for node in nodes:
    if node.type == "EMISSION":
        print("yes")

That way if the user had changed the name it would still catch it.


Image bleed when using Import Image as Plane

I believe you to be right as for the cause of the problem. I can see two easy ways to solve it:

Scale the geometry down in the UV Image Editor and live a happy life ever after.
If you actually need to presicely fit the plane to the image, add a blank (as in zero-alpha) border around your image in your favourite image editor (1px should do it.)


What's wrong with my node setup for PBR materials?

1) What's wrong with my nodes?

There is no real reason to solely use a Diffuse shader. Virtually all materials have gloss, so you should either mix a diffuse and a gloss or use Principled BSDF.

2) How to hook displacement into nodes?

Turn on the Experimental feature set (can be found under the "Render" button). Go to your material settings and under "Settings" change from Bump to True. Then plug in your displacement map (you may need some math nodes to get a good looking result). Also consider using adaptive subdivision to ensure you have enough geometry to displace.

3) What is the purpose of Texture Coordinates and Mapping?

The texture coordinates tell your material what coordinates your textures should use—generated coordinates, the UV map, etc. The mapping node can be used to scale, rotate, or move your texture around independent of the texture coordinates.


An n-gon like the one on the right will be transformed into triangles (triangulation) by Unity, and that triangulation is unpredictable. The insets might be covered by stray triangles, for example.

In general, any topology with concave polygons is problematic, because you don't know how it will be triangulated. Convex polygons, in the worst case, will only give shading artifacts.


A PBR map with Principled shader doesn't add value to the object

The normal map is ok, it only changes the light reflections according to the faked angle of incidence, but it actually doesn't move any vertex of the mesh. Maybe what you are looking for is a displacement effect: you can subdivide your mesh (the more subdivided, better the result but heavier the mesh) and add a displace modifier, using your specular map as input and trimming the strenght value to a quite low level: in this way you will have a real vertices roughness, that may help the realistic effect.


You need to use Remove Doubles.
 In Edit Mode, press  A  once or twice to select all vertices, then Ctrl +  V  and choose Remove Doubles, this will weld all vertices sharing same location.


Blender render recalculate faces on shape key animation

There is probably a problem with the shape key animation: Since you are using quad faces, you have to deal with the fact that two edges of that face can make an angle of more than 180 degrees. This is not correct.

Correct:

Here you can see that there is a triangle formed between those three vertices. They actually have a part of the face to close.

Incorrect (your case):

Here, the angle is over 180 degrees. Blender still wants those three vertices to hold up that face. It gets confused. It wants to keep that straight line between the two vertices, but it will happen outside of the preferred boundaries. It's just like folding over a piece of paper like this, and pressing them so much together, that they interfere with each other. In some situations, it will result in a very strange defect in your geometry.

So, technically speaking: your shape key animation is the source of the problem. The vertices move to far into their own faces.


Material importing and exporting problems (wavefront .obj format)

If you're in Cycles apply your color to the viewport color of the mesh. The exporter will use this value. This option is located under Settings in the Materials-Panel.


The usual way to improve efficiency in such case, would be to use planes with leaves texture as leaves particles (this way you already have 40 times less polys for your comp to process). You could also restrict particle emission to the part of hedge, that is actually in the camera view to avoid too big number of particles. Creating branches with leaves on them and then using this branches as particles would be some solution too. By converting praticles to objects and joining them into one mesh you will also achieve better efficiency.


Use a generated texture for Grease Pencil

Grease Pencil Materials don't support shader nodes (yet). Link to the docs .
Since you can't use nodes, you can't use procedural textures like Bricks or Noise Textures.
You can still use a texture for the stroke or the fill in the material properties.
However, the controls are limited to Blend between a plain color and the texture, and Mapping (offset, rotation and scale).
Using a raster seamless texture you can achieve this kind of result :


Why can't I sculpt on a plane I added a solidify modifier to?

You have two options:

Option 1:
In sculpt mode, on the left tool shelf you need to enable "Dyntopo" the lower the number the more detailed your sculpt will be.

Option 2:
In the modifier panel add a subdivision surface to sub divide your plane so there are more faces to sculpt.

Hope that works.


How to go back to previous state from amimation player?

After pressing Alt+A the animation is played back.

During the playback:

Press Escape to stop the playback and return to the original frame before playback.
Press ⎇ AltA to stop playback resting on the current frame.

If you haven't changed the user preferences, this is the shortcut setting (note the checked property Restore Frame).


Use a point light instead of a sun lamp. Sun lamps create shadows in one direction regardless of their placement, whereas a point light (or a spot or area light) emits only from a specific coordinate in the 3D environment.


Is there a good UI layout/style for laptop screen?

There isn't a single layout that would work for everything.  Different parts of the workflow require different windows to be available. Blender comes with a set of layouts, called screens that are a good starting point for customizing your own.  You change layouts in the screens drop down on the Information header.

After the workflow, the size of your laptop screen matters.  I have a 17.3" screen, so have a good deal of space available. Pick the screen that goes with the work you're doing and customize the UI to suit your workflow.

To save space, use the TKEY and NKEY to toggle the two side menus on and off.  Also, SHIFT-Fn will quickly switch between windows.  I use this sometimes to avoid having too many windows open at once.

An example: When I'm working on lighting in cycles, I tend to switch back and forth between the Node editor (SHIFT-F3) and the 3d Scene (SHIFT-F5) rather than splitting the screen between the two windows.

Beyond that, it is really a matter of taste.


How to setup particles rotation to follow the camera?

Issue resolved. I am attaching the new file for details also adding some words and screenshots for faster resolution.

Check the Advanced tab under particle settings. It will open the
Rotation tab between Velocity and Physics.

Check that Rotation option and tweak the Orientation & Phase to get the desired result.

Use the "Track to" constrain for the mother particle with the
Camera. (no other tracking constrain has that much flexibility.)

**don't forget to set the origin in the right place for the mother Particle (for the cat image it's at the bottom middle where the 3d cursor is in the 1st image.) To set the origin in Custom places you must go into Edit Mode the select the corresponding vertex/edge press Shift + "S" then select Cursor TO Selected. get out of edit mode select the Mesh and right-click >> Set Origin >> to 3D Cursor.
***setting the cursor to the selected edge will place that at the middle of that edge. If you want more freedom make a loop cut at the exact point you want to place the Cursor/origin and select only that vertex in the edit mode. Then do as previous.
Screenshots-

Here is the link- >>>>>>>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Os-NCiLtDF0AkZP4hDP5Qc6NGPT3yC1s/view?usp=sharing.


If you want the origin to rotate 90 degrees on X axis, in object mode press R followed by  X then -90 Enter,  then Ctrl + A (Apply Rotation), then R followed by X 90 Enter.
replace X with Y or Z depending on what axis you need, -90 is the degree of rotation replace that too with whatever value you need.


To import an SVG file go to File > Import > Scalable Vector Graphics(SVG)

Make sure that the SVG file you are importing contains vectors (paths) Blender cannot import raster data or text directly form SVG files. In other words, the information on the SVG has to be traced. For a detailed explanation read this link

If the plugin is not enabled for any reason go to the User Preferences Window (press CtrlAltU and enable it there.

It is also possible that your file is importing successfully but is so small that is hard to see on the viewport. Check if the outliner shows one or more curve objects.

If so, select one of the curves and press Numpad . to move the view to selected. Then you should be able to see the object.


Yes, this is possible.

Delete the extra faces so the hole is even
Select the boundary with ⎇ Alt RMB
Press ⎈ CtrlF> Grid fill. If it looks strange, adjust the options in the redo panel until it looks right.


My blender is so laggy that its unusable, any suggestions

I found the answer. Might be a bit confusing.

So when I turned my computer back on it said my driver was not compatible, so I looked online. I got a file called "opengl32.dll" which let me open blender, thats when I found the lag.

I recently updated my graphic drivers and the lag was still happening, so I removed the "opengl32.dll".

So pretty much, I had to update my graphics driver and not add in that file. Thank you for the answers though :)


How do I to make a model in blender be color customized?

If you are using 2.79 the color on wireframe mode for the viewport of the object is decided here:

and on blendee 2.8 you could have wireframe colors per object, like this:

If you found this is the answer, please mark it up and vote it as answer by clicking on the check mark icon to the left side of the answer. Thanks.


Is there a way to move multiple objects together?

why not parent them CTRL+P (keep offset) under an "Empty" (to use it as a control object) which will be also nested under the main object that you want to inherit the movement from ?

Another method would be to use constraints (like copy location) but I wouldn't suggest you to do it for such simple task.

PS : You may also parent them directly to the main object that you want to inherit the movement of course.


You need to unwrap your model. In edit mode select all vertexes and press U -> Smart UV project. It will creates very basic UV for you, if you want go farther, study UV unwraping.


How to create a Torus with a non-circular cross section?

You've already made the profile, you're nearly there..
In Edit mode, drag the profile a little way from its object's origin

(Here, the axis of rotation is going to be Y, it's the profile's Y axis, as well as the world's)
Give the profile a Screw modifier..


Select the points you want to connect and press "F".


Cycles replacement node for the BI "Lamp Data" node

It is not currently possible to get the incoming light vectors for materials in Cycles with nodes. This would be a lot more complex than in BI, because of all the light bouncing around in the scene - I suspect(just a guess) this is the reason this data is not exposed via nodes. In Cycles it should only be possible to achieve these kinds of results with OSL that is not supported by GPU rendering so I don't know much about it. I suppose it would require a separate question as well if you were interested to pursue this further.


SCULPTING: Is it possible to keep base mesh vertices in place while subdividing?

In addition to what Mr Zak mentioned, you could try:

Both Subdivision Surface and Multiresolution have a Simple option,
when you turn it on, each subdiv will add vertices between already
existing ones without averaging the general shape.
Secondly you could make a
copy of a basemesh, then add ShrinkWrap modifier on the mesh you will
subdivide and pick the copy as a target. This way you will keep the
mesh shape the way you want it. Both copy and subdivided mesh must be in the same location.


Can't bake Cycles material to texture - "no active image in materials slot" or bake doesn't work?

Guessing a bit, but for this to work, you need to have an active (i.e. selected) Image texture node in the node editor. Did you remember to select it (make it active) before hitting Bake?

Also: I see you have selected multiple passes to bake. I think you need separate textures for each. (Select an image in the texture node, make sure it is still active, select a Bake type, hit Bake.)


There are a couple ways of doing baked shadows that you can use with three.js:

Ambient Occlusion (AO): How do you bake ambient occlusion for a model?. AO provides subtle shadows in holes, corners, and other occluded areas. It remains useful even if the object or lighting moves.
Lightmap: How can i bake a lightmap and use it in Blender Game engine. Lightmaps provide more complete representation of shadow and light on a surface, including hard shadows cast by other objects, but is only accurate if the object and lighting do not move.

An AO map can be embedded in the model in formats like glTF (see https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Blender-IO), which three.js can load via THREE.GLTFLoader. I'm not aware of a way to export the lightmap as part of your model, so you'd probably need to load it separately via THREE.TextureLoader.

In either case, the material can be modified independently of the AO or lightmap.

Finally, you could also bake the shadows directly into a base color texture, but then you lose the option of modifying the material in three.js.


How to model the three aortic valve domes with polygons?

A possibility to model it is to start from the idea that half of a subdivided cube is nearly half a sphere:

From that, we can take a circle as guide, subdivide the cube and adjust vertices to conform to a third of the guide:

Once ok with it, duplicate it twice around the circle centerr:

Join them, add an edge loop at the junction, close the center. Then rip from the center in order valves to be separated:

Add a solidify modifier.

Extrude, clean the junctions to the artery:

Steps included in the file:


How can I find a mesh's position when affected by a constraint?

Presuming you can see the model in object mode, Select it and press SH-S, choose "Cursor to selected".  The 3D cursor will jump to the model's origin point.  Press N and you can read off the 3D cursor's location.

If you want to store this within the Blender file, ADD an Empty.  It will appear at that location and it's own location readings at right will be the same as the 3D cursor's.

You haven't stated what constraint(s) you're inquiring about so I've just tested this out both with a path constraint and parenting the object object to another.  Both work as described.


Traceback - Attribute Error: 'SpaceView3D' object has no attribute 'context'

I had the same problem. I solved it By doing following steps:

Just go to Edit -> Prefrences. In the bottom left corner click on load factory  preferences. It will solve your problem.


At the moment you have the scale set at 0.01. From the testing I have just done this means you can zoom in so that each grid square that you are trying to snap to is a single micro meter. Do you really need to build roads to that level of accuracy?

Wouldn’t it be easier to leave the scale at 1.0, then the smallest grid square that can be snapped to is a millimeter?

Which perhaps would mean that you wouldn’t be hitting the rounding / precision issue that Duarte mention ?

Posted this in the Answers section because I can’t add images in Comments


Why Blender Rendering and Previewing Wrong Colors in Video Editor?

Eventually, I fixed the problem. As I said, I'm quite new and haven't got a comprehensive knowledge about the panels and settings in Blender.

Instead of deleting the question, I will answer it and help the other people who have encountered this problem. Let me explain how I solved it briefly:

Under the "Render Context Tab", there is a setting called "Color Management". As a default, its "View Transform" is "Filmic", let's change it to "Standart" or "Raw". The problem will be fixed in this way.

In a nutshell, Render Context -> Color Management" -> View Transform -> Standart.


How to add "celestial objects" (extremely distant images) that behave correctly

You can make a hemisphere or a sphere(depending on what you want). Then, use a particle system on it. Use a material for the stars, and another one for the half dome. Make the half-dome transparent too, so it wont get in the way of the stars.


Can you find lost Nodes in the Node Editor?

If Blender crashes while centering the Node editor on the selected node then they are indeed moved to infinity and it's some sort of a bug so at least compositing might be better to be redone.

Still there's a way to move one node from somewhere you don't see to another one you can actially see with snapping in the Node Editor (just like in 3d viewport) with Shift+Tab and then choosing element to snap to.

With the node somewhere far away selected, choose Snap To X/Y to snap selected node to any border of the node to snap to. Then press G to move selected node and hover mouse over the node which is seen in the editor.

With this way the node from somewhere away will be moved to the current 2d viewport position.

It's also possible to select all the nodes, press S to scale and enter 0 to move them all to the same place (like written in your question), but the pivot point will be somewhere between the selected nodes so that's where they will be moved to (actually it might be not really important). Hence after scaling with nodes still selected press Numpad . (period) and you should see the nodes in the center of the editor.


How to use cell fracture add-on to break only part of the mesh?

You can use Bisect followed by V (not sure what the function is called but it duplicates the vertices selected effectively creating loose parts). The use Fill then Separate to split your object by loose parts then apply the cell fracture on the piece you want.


A simple solution with no compositing, is to have two images as the background material for your environment texture.
You mix them using a color mix node controlled by Is glossy Ray in the light path node. The glossy surfaces reflect one image, while others use the other HDRI image normally:

Alternatively, you can use Is Camera Ray to can have the one image not interact the objects at all but stay as backdrop for the scene:

Update for 2.8

In the shader editor, set to edit the world.


How do I fix vertices scaling towards selector?

If your selector is what it is scaling to, then you may have changed the Median point, or bumped your keyboard and it changed.

Easy fix!

The third little box on the end of your screen will have the options to change the median point.

The original option you were probably using was the one called median point before it changed. just click on that one and it should fix it.


Mesh not staying fixed to bone when moving

I seem to hava partialy solved the problem be deleting all the constrains on all the objects but am still having some trouble with a few of the objects that have been copied and are keeping their bone constaints and have mesh parts duplicated seperately


How Can I change the Alpha parameter in this Material nodes

use the math node to modify the alpha output of the image :


You can use the Screw and Decimate modifiers to create this shape and others like it.
First, add a Bezier Curve and shape it like the slope of that volcano-ish shape.

Next, exit Edit Mode and add a Screw modifier. You can leave all of the options as the default for now, though if you want, you can disable the Smooth Shading option. To better view the mesh, switch into Wireframe mode in the viewport.

Next, add a Subdivision Surface modifier and leave the options as default for now.

Technically, this works fine. However, in the image you showed, the topology has two perpendicular edge loops running diagonally, while right now we have edge loops running horizontally and vertically. To fix this, add a Decimate modifier, set the type to Un-Subdivide, and set the Iterations to 1.

Any of the above modifiers and/or curve can be tweaked to get the desired result. The most useful values would probably be the Steps in the Screw modifier, and the Subdivisions in the Subdivision Surface modifier.


Water simulation hangs over the surface of the collision object

Here is a fluid simulation with a liquid Effector Collision Thickness of 3 vs a Thickness of 0

and here is a domain where collision distance is too large and particle radius is rather large (2.0):

In other words, try dropping your collision thickness to '0' and particle radius to < 1.0.


Non-uniform fading from one texture to another

Here is a simple setup how you can do this. I created a spherical gradient that will control the transition from one material to another:

And to control this gradient I use coordinates of empty.

You can use this setup to control textures to.

And you can add some distortion or waviness for this effect using noize texture:

To animate noize move texture in Z-axis:


I think the distortion may appear, because the vertices of the mesh are improperly assigned to the bone.

Select the object you want to be affected by the bone, enter Edit Mode and in Vertex Groups panel select neck group and click Remove.

Select the head group and click Assign.

The maximum weight of the mesh is assigned to the head bone, so now all the vertices will follow the bone completely (you can see the weights entering Weight Paint mode).

Now it should work fine.


"bullet" is a property that you should put on all your projectiles, that way your weapons will not track to the projectiles being added. all of your projectiles should have this property, only because the weapons behave very odd when they track to the bullets being fired. "target" is the name of the object that that the guns track to.

It essentially works like this:

The object "camera" sends out a ray from the ray sensor. if the ray collides with anything that does not have the property named "bullet", the object "target" will snap to the position where the ray collided.
And because your guns are always tracking to the object "target" it will appear, and function as if the guns are always pointing to the center of the screen, wherever the object "camera" is looking.


Creating the Minecraft End Portal in Blender

In Cycles you may achieve this cool effect creating two different Scenes and combining them in compositor using the Alpha Over node (with a Holdout shader as a mask).

First check the Transparent checkbox in the Film panel of the Render header.

Create a plane and place it so it fits the door's jamb. Give it a Holdout shader. It will be used as a mask for mixing the two scenes in one render.

Create a new Scene (press the + button in the very top header), then choose New.

Now you have two scenes. You may switch between them as pictured below. Build two different worlds in each one. Your Camera and door object with holdout plane should be in the first Scene.
NOTE: Remember to change all the settings (such as render engine type, render settings etc.) for the nelwly created scene, so it fits the previous one.

Now select the Camera and door object, press Ctrl+L-->Objects to Scene and choose the second Scene (Scene.001). Objects origins should change their colors to blue- it means they're linked. Now you got them present in both scenes.

Now being in the first Scene go to the Node Editor (compositing nodes), add two Render Layers nodes, choose different scene for each one, render each scene (press the camera icon) and finally mix them using Alpha Over node (Add-->Color-->Alpha Over).

Open the Uv Editor in separate window and render (F12) being in the first Scene . Thanks to Alpha Over node your 'magic portal' is ready.

BONUS: To 'pass through' the other side of the portal you have to animate the Alpha Over node's Factor value. Keyframe it (I) with value 1.000 at the start of your animation, then go to the point when your camera 'doesn't see', what's on the other side of the portal and keyframe it again. Now go to the next frame (where your camera is behind the holdout plane), change the Fac value to 0.000 and keyframe it. After rendering you'll be on the other side :).


The vertices were just hidden. I found this which worked.
process for other newbies:

Select the object
Enter edit mode
Select all with 'A' key
Show hidden using 'Option' + 'H' key


Why can't I scale or rotate objects in the viewport?

As said in comments, uncheck "Affect only locations" option:


Is there a way to know when color picker is closed in the scripting API

import bpy
from functools import partial
from time import time

from ..third_party.boltons.funcutils import wraps

def parametrized(dec):
    def layer(*args, **kwargs):
        def repl(f):
            return dec(f, *args, **kwargs)
        return repl
    return layer

@parametrized
def delay_execution(func, delay_sec=1.0):

    lock = False
    def timer(*args, **kwargs):
        nonlocal lock
        lock = False

        func(*args, **kwargs)

    @wraps(func)
    def wrapped(*args, **kwargs):
        nonlocal lock

        if not lock:
            lock = True
            bpy.app.timers.register(partial(timer, *args, **kwargs), first_interval=delay_sec)

    return wrapped

@parametrized
def on_release(func, delay_sec=1.5):

    exec_time = time()

    def timer(*args, **kwargs):
        nonlocal exec_time
        if not abs(exec_time - time()) < delay_sec:
            func(*args, **kwargs)

    @wraps(func)
    def wrapped(*args, **kwargs):
        nonlocal exec_time
        exec_time = time()

        bpy.app.timers.register(partial(timer, *args, **kwargs), first_interval=max(1.0, delay_sec))

    return wrapped

I achieved this by creating these two useful decorators. It'd require the library 'boltons' to be added to your addon.

@on_release() is the one you are interested in. Simply put that over your update callback, you can also specify delay (default is 1.5 sec) after which the function gets executed when you stop changing the property by doing this @on_release(delay_sec=your_delay)


How can I switch connected Falloff nodes on a keyframe?

I continued my SOW browse and came across a post that mentioned the Switch node. I combined this with a Compare node using the Time Info node and I have exactly what I needed.

Credit to 3pointedit for asking this question How can I drive the Switch nodes True/False value?


baking to multiple objects at once with multiple materials

Use the 'Texture Atlas' addon. It comes with Blender 2.7 or higher and can be enabled in the preference panel.

Once enabled, you can access it from the Render Panel:


What is the difference between Set Render Border and Set Render Border Camera Only?

SHIFT + B lets you select a portion that you wish to see in the final render image or in the camera view.

CTRL + B lets you select  a portion you wish to see in the render view mode. to then delete the border is CTLR + ALT + B

while CTLR + B works also in camera mode, SHIFT + B if is not in the camera view mode acts as a zoom tool.

CTLR + B does not affect the camera view or the final render. unless you are already in camera view


Go about designing a world map for game engines

There is indeed a difference between having one giant soil and placing elements on it and dispatching pieces of landscape where it is needed. Since you have an incline, I suggest the first. I strongly reccomend that you work with armory3d which is the pbr engine for blender. Thus with arrays and displace you can have a soil, add another displace with a texture for the paths/roads, use the nodes with normal -> dot connected to mix shaders via colorramps to get different surfaces types depending on the slope. Even add some tesselation displacement and you'll get quite near to photorealism. The next step is to create/get a grass shader and some vegetation models and dispatch them on that land with a script or grease pencil. That's for the natural part of it.


Access auto tracking feature detection with python script

I know this is years late but I will answer this incase anyone stumbles across this.

In this case you need to force context since the operators require a certain context to execute. To do this for the detect_features method you can do:

ctx = bpy.context.copy()
for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'CLIP_EDITOR':
        ctx['area'] = area
bpy.ops.clip.detect_features(ctx)


Difference between a paintmap and wetmap

When a brush with a Color and a Wetness moves through a canvas, it lays paint.

As a result, the canvas gets

a color, represented by the (RGBA) Paintmap, and affected, for instance, by the Dissolve effect

(no dissolve in this example)
some wetness, represented by the (greyscale) Wetmap, and affected, for instance, by the Dry effect.

Once the paint dries out (if it does), its color remains while its wetness goes away.

Example shader where the color is the paintmap, the specularity is the wetmap, the roughness is one minus the wetmap (there is also some alpha-based bump here):


Achieving a photo-realistic scene with only built-in textures

(this response is more about the 'theory' of rendering planets and less about the technique)

The two principles I live by for making planets look better is minimal patterns and more detail. Starting with minimizing patterns, it's easy to make a planet that has a very visible repeating pattern, in this case it's most prevalent on the right planet. It's very obviously just a simple noise texture attached to a color ramp and it causes it to be very unnatural looking. Real planets generally do not have patterns like this on this scale, at least so visibly. I would recommend using a more complex mask for the color and bump. Essentially: combine different kinds of textures, with different scales. Using just one texture as you have here is too obvious, and adding more variety to the texture will make it much more natural. Blender has a few different procedural texture nodes to choose from, but no single one is really much good without mixing and balancing it against others. Try to aim for creating large "biomes" with different formations and colors in them. I'd recommend using larger scale textures as a mask for the different biomes, and textures with a smaller scale for the details. As for adding these details, definitely think about what sort of features you want your planet to have. Craters, mountains, ice caps, bodies of water, rivers, etc are all good examples of details that will bring your planet to life and make it more believable and interesting. Craters are easy to make with a Voronoi texture and color ramp. Ice caps can be mixed in using gradient textures. Rivers can be made with a noise texture and a color ramp that looks similar to this:

There is no written law for how to make different features and details, so play around with things and figure out what you like best!

With this image in particular, I personally would also work a bit on the lighting. The backlighting on the planets and vivid background picture aren't really photorealistic. I would make the background image much dimmer and remove any backlighting on the planets, as it wouldn't exist in real life (unless another star or planet was nearby to provide the light). This is an artistic choice, but to simulate reality better it is important to keep in mind how incredibly dim stars are, and no camera taking a picture of a planet like this would be able to capture surface detail and stars at the same time without one being far too dark or the other far too bright.

I hope this helped, and nice job on your render!


Superimposing architectural models onto street photographs

If you want to place your models so they look like they are part of a photograph, you should be looking for VFX (video effects) tutorials.
CG Geek has a few on YouTube, where he adds objects to video footage, but the same techniques apply for still photographs.
Blender Guru has some too.  Try searching for "How to render onto a photo background" on his website.


You are asking "how I can show doublesided display" but if i'm understanding your problem correctly what you need is to not show double sided faces.

To do that open the Viewport Shading menu and put a check against Backface Culling.

Edited to add:

You appear to have a set up something like in the screen shot below:

View from below and the teath in my "snake head" are hidden (no Backface Culling):

With Backface Culling enabled teath are visible :

and finally Vieport Display > In Front unchecked:

another edit :
Perhaps for the inside where the In Front option is causing problems, disactivate that and use a Offset distance in the Shrinkrwap modifier to keep the faces above the high poly model as in the image below.

......... or simply assign the outside faces to a vertex group for ease of selecting/deselecting and hide them while working on the iside if the snakes head.


Is "value" Blend mode same as "luminosity" Blending mode from Photoshop?

TL;DR is that there is no canonical method to derive "value", and it is up to the various applications to determine how it derives it within the constraints, using arbitrary formulas.

While luminance has a very strict definition and varies from RGB colour space to RGB colour space, rarely does bad software handle it properly. The Y in YCbCr also varies based on the coefficients used.

  In photoshop the technique in a nutshell: You have 2 scenes with a
  mask mixed together. Then you add over them a 50% gray layer with
  luminosity. That way you will get a color map of all the colors you
  have in the scene.

Photoshop's handling isn't a reference. This is because it is a display referred application and handles colour in a hacky kludgy manner based on the limitations of the display referred model. The formulas Photoshop uses are mostly strictly display referred and can not work in a scene referred environment such as Blender. To see the display referred formulas, you can research the Adobe PDF specification that outlines the various blend modes. Specifically, in a scene referred model, colour energy values extend from potentially zero to potentially infinity, subject to quantisation limits.

The notion of 50% grey varies from implementation to implementation based on the models used.

  So I tried to do this in Blender and found out that we don't have "luminosity", so I am trying to look something that works a similar way.

To apply a colour to greyscale image, you'd have to reverse the average luminance to the colour you have chosen. This is a non-trivial problem in a scene referred application such as Blender because of the variables involved. For the record, the proper luminance weights for a REC.709 / sRGB based reference space are:

(0.2126 * R) + (0.7152 * G) + (0.0722 * B) = Average Luminance

This works for both display referred and scene referred values, and as of the most recent master branch of Blender, should be what the RGB to BW node delivers.


CYCLES RENDER

To give a texture only to the inside of the box you may use a Backfacing output of the Geometry node.

Unwrap your mesh and set the nodes as pictured below. Use a Backfacing output as a factor for two materials/textures.

BLENDER RENDER

In Blender Internal you may also use the material nodes to achieve this effect.

Unwrap your mesh and give it a new material. Check the Use Shader Nodes box.

Now add two other materials- one for the inside and one for the outside of the box.

In the Node Editor window set up the nodes as pictured below.

You may also add just one material and create two others within it using nodes. Unwrap your mesh and add a new material. Check the Use Shader Nodes box.

Set up the material nodes as pictured below.


Boolean Difference not working as expected

It seems like you added Boolean to both, the Bottom part and the Ring too. Don't add to both of them.

Just add Boolean to the bottom part and pick your Ring thing in it, and change it to Difference.


In the Playback panel, enable the Limit Playhead to Frame Range option:


Ambient Occlusion Bake Too Dark On Some Meshes on Blender 2.8

The normals are inverted for those portions of the mesh so it's trying to light it inside out. You just need to view the problem parts, select linked and then flip normals.
The new Blender 2.80 quickest way to indicate which way the normals are pointing is in the Viewport Overlays popover (top right of viewport) - toggle option that says 'Face Orientation'.


How to zoom in and use the scroll orbiting with a 1mm object?

I had the same problem to zoom into 1mm sphere and to solve it you should select the object you want to zoom into then click /. This works like a charm


Why are extra faces deselected when deselecting vertex groups?

This is because they are vertex groups, not face groups.

Deselecting a vertex group will deselect all the vertices in that group, which will also deselect any faces which those vertices where a part of.

Think of it this way: For a face to be selected, all the vertices which make up that face must also be selected. So by deselecting a single vertex in the subdivided cube example, you actually deselect four faces:

If you deselect the vertices in your group manually, you'll get the same result as clicking the deselect button on the group.

What you want are Face groups, however unfortunately there is no support for these yet. There is a proposal though.


Fluid geometry not flowing when baked inside of domain

Your inflow object (head) is not closed/manifold. Close it with faces. You can retruy it yourself. Insert a simple UV Sphere, make it inflow -> works. Insert another simple UV Sphere. Delete some faces. Make it inflow -> does not work.


The User preferences such as addons have been separated from the startup .blend in Blender 2.66

So as of Blender 2.66 clicking "save user settings" in the User Preferences menu will only save settings such as enabled addons, themes, shortcuts/hotkeys, etc..

To save the current blendfile (includes layout(s)/materals/models/settings etc.. Pretty much everything.)  as the startup .blend, press Ctrl+U and click "save startup .blend" (Note that this includes User Preference settings)
To save a different screen layout so it is accessible in the selector at the top of the window,

Press the + to the right of the drop down selector, Arrange the screen the way you want it, then name it whatever you want. (Note that to have it defaulted when you start Blender you then have to save the startup .blend (Ctrl+U)


How to set a fixed background image as reference for sculpting?

It is possible!

A few steps needed for it though.

You have to use a camera for this to work, the camera can be set up so the boundaries are at the edges of the screen, activating "lock camera to view" (function is in my favorites menu) makes it then possible to look around and rotate the view while staying in the camera.
After setting up the camera view, we need to add a background image or images to the camera, each image can be placed on the screen and scaled to our liking, allowing us to make a collage like in the mentioned video. If you made a collage of all the references already, fine, less images to load and position.
Under the camera object in the "Background Images" header we have the "Add Image" button. Clicking on that gives us a new entry "Not Set" under which we can Open/Select an image either from disk or use an already loaded one in the scene by using the little image icon with the arrow down, left to the "Open" button.
Once the image is loaded/selected, we have options like color space, alpha, depth (here we chose back) as well as frame method, where i would go with crop, to keep the image in ratio rather then stretching it. Further there is the X and Y offset which allows us to position the image(s) where we want them. Lastly rotation and scale for the fine tuning as well as options for vertical and horizontal flipping.
Once a picture is set up we can set up more by repeating the 3rd and 4th step, til we have all the screen estate used up. It is even possible to pack in more images that would lay on top of each other and show or hide them depending on their need.

Don't forget to save the file and eventually pack the images in the .blend file to open the file and realize the images are gone.

With all that said, here a little visual demonstration:

Excuse the small size, the 2MB upload limit forced me to cut down on size. Hope it still shows the essential part, that is, it works.


Here's my approach showing how you can achieve it using the Cast Modifier (Cylinder) and shrink/flatten tool.

Add the Cast Modifier and set its mode to Cylinder. Set Factor and Radius values to 1.000. Apply modifier. Next enter the Edit Mode, select all the inner faces with Alt+RMB, then press Alt+S to scale them down. Finally in Object Mode press S,Shift+Z to scale the whole object fitting the original mesh's parameters.


How to map a texture onto an object correctly?

The "Project from view" UV projection is the one you want. Just make sure that first you are viewing the mesh face-on.


How can I change the number of vertices in surface mesh?

Reduce the number of vertices with the decimate modifier

Add a decimate modifier to the object and set it to collapse.
In the ratio field, enter desired amount / current amount.
If needed, apply the modifier.


You can't really extrude outwards, it's actually a two step operation composed of an extrude and a scale commands.

Select the desired geometry and press E to extrude and immediately after Right Click to cancel the operation.

It will look like it id did nothing but it acualty created duplicate faces that are now overlapping the original.

Now just scale it outwards by pressing S.
You may optionaly press . (period key) before scaling to scale outwards relative to the 3D cursor position instead of the selection center.


Extend those vertical edge-loops all the way through those three bottom horizontally-aligned faces (the top of those three clearly being an n-gon, not sure of the two below it). This should go a long way toward fixing your problem.


You need to be in Pose mode to have access to the constraints.


Real depth of field in blender, without post processing

With the Cycles Renderer, DoF is supported natively. Select the camera, switch to the Camera properties panel, and set up DoF.


Sound visualization: Length of animation does not match audio file length

Some times when dealing with Audio files in blender, the viewport becomes slow due to some factors, however, the audio files is maintaining its speed and rate, so they go out of sync.

A possible solution is to enable AV-Sync, which dropes some frames in order to keep up with the sound file. Another solution might be to reduce the factors that are slowing down your experience.


Your scene lack environment lighting, meaning that the shadows will be black, giving your scene that odd look. Furthermore, due to the import-export your materials are not textured. What you need to do is to first, add environment lighting, and then second, add textures/better materials


Ok I found the problem. I had forgotten to uncheck the 25 repeats.

I changed the base plane to be smaller and then use an array, but left it repeating the texture 25 times. Thank you for the answers :)

Also fixed the green in the background problem by selecting field in the texture panel.

Thank you for the suggestions Omar Ahmad and lemon.


What are some use cases for the singlar ray output?

I still have not spent the time to do a proper write up of this, but here is a preview of the effect, and the Blend File for your own use.

Even though this seemingly begins to look like a distance based thing, I really believe (in my own opinion, without further study) that this is still using amount of refraction as the basis for this effect, and the margin is pretty small. I would imagine that playing with settings such as the ones found here: This Link would change this potential up quite a bit, how ever I can see some sequential lighting animation being done with this node, as long as each light would have to pass through something that would cause this type of refraction like the glass prism shown in this answer.


How do I cut a flap using edges or vertices

This can be done using the Rip tool. Go into edit mode, select and edge or a selection of edges (or a group of vertices):

Now press V. You will now get something like this:

For your specific instance do not select the shown edges.

Every edge is made from two vertices, one on each end. When you rip them, those vertices separate from the mesh, and a new edge is created. However the vertices at the end connect to the mesh still. In your example, pressing V would make there be a single vertex connecting the two parts, instead of two edges. Use the suggested selection to get the desire result.


When building/compiling flip fluids, I just get a bunch of error s and a weird, partial build

That is nai be a pre release of its latest version and you will have to complete it yourself. I know that can be tricky but there are many blogs which can help you complete it yourself if you are able to find one which suits you and is understandable.


In the top left corner of the bottom window, notice how there's a dropdown menu labelled Object? Click on that and select World.


Numpad 0 may do what you want.

Numpad 0⌨


I acted on a guess that what might be happening could count as a kind of very minor bug with the updating of properties. Based on that idea, I added a trivial update function to the custom property to try to force Blender to update the rest of the gui as well. With that addition, the code and driver now work completely as desired.

Here is the updated, working example.

import bpy

from bpy.props import (PointerProperty,
                       FloatProperty
                       )
from bpy.types import (Panel,
                       Menu,
                       Operator,
                       PropertyGroup,
                       )
def update_example(self, context):
    pass
    return None
class SerialProperties(PropertyGroup):
    example_float: FloatProperty(
        name="User Input Float",
        description="Float to send to new item",
        default = 0.0,
        update=update_example #This line is SUPER IMPORTANT because it forces Blender to update things including Drivers that rely on the property. If you didn't do that, the Drivers won't update.
    )

class ModalOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "object.modal_operator"
    bl_label = "Simple Modal Operator"

    def __init__(self):
        print("Start")

    def __del__(self):
        print("End")

    def execute(self, context):
        context.object.location.x = self.value / 100.0
        return {'FINISHED'}

    def modal(self, context, event):
        if event.type == 'MOUSEMOVE':  # Apply
            self.value = event.mouse_x
            context.scene.serialtool.example_float = event.mouse_x
            self.execute(context)
        elif event.type == 'LEFTMOUSE':  # Confirm
            return {'FINISHED'}
        elif event.type in {'RIGHTMOUSE', 'ESC'}:  # Cancel
            context.object.location.x = self.init_loc_x
            context.scene.serialtool.example_float = self.init_loc_x
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        self.init_loc_x = context.object.location.x
        self.value = event.mouse_x
        self.execute(context)

        context.window_manager.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

class SERIAL_PT_MainPanel(Panel):
    bl_label = "Serial Panel"
    bl_idname = "SERIAL_PT_MainPanel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_category = "Serial" #You can replace serial in this line with any other word you want
    #bl_context = "objectmode"

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

        layout.prop(serialtool, "example_float")
        layout.operator("object.modal_operator")

classes = ( #list all your classes here so you don't have to register them individually later
    ModalOperator,
    SerialProperties,
    SERIAL_PT_MainPanel, #Order matters here
)

def register():
    from bpy.utils import register_class
    for cls in classes:
        register_class(cls)
    bpy.types.Scene.serialtool = PointerProperty(type=SerialProperties)

def unregister():
    from bpy.utils import unregister_class
    for cls in reversed(classes):
        unregister_class(cls)
    del bpy.types.Scene.serialtool

# test call
#bpy.ops.object.modal_operator('INVOKE_DEFAULT')
if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()
```


How to turn on vertex display while in edge/face selection mode?

You can press Shift when you click on vertex/edge/face selection modes to activate several or all of them.


Depth of field requires a bit of knowledge to make it work to your advantage, as it is the combination of many factors:

Lens size

Sensor size

Focus distance

Aperture of the iris ($f$ stop)

Depth of field is not an absolute term, but is relative to the size of the final image, and there is also a subjective factor as it is usually defined by "the area where things are acceptably sharp", based on the size of circles of confusion
What you need to find is a combination of lens, distance and F stop where the elements you want are in focus and the rest is not.
To have a smaller area that is sharp and selective focus, a trick is to use a much larger sensor size than the default one, which will force you to use longer lenses to keep the same field of view. Longer lenses will have a shallower depth of field.
To find the right combination there are quite a few online calculators for depth of field, use your favorite search engine to find one that you like.
There is an addon for blender, developed by @p2or, to visualize the depth of field in blender. Read:
How to display F-stop limits in viewport?
I don't know if this works correctly in current versions.
Additional links:
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field)
How do I set focus range?


How to modify mesh after import in Blender using Python?

Set imported object active:

ob = bpy.context.selected_objects[0]
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = ob


How to change camera from perspective to orthographic?

Go to the Properties panel > Data > Lens, press the Orthographic button, and choose the Focal Length to zoom in/zoom out.


For popular and common items it might be a good idea to search for wireframes other people have made in order to learn from them. For example sites that offer 3D models for sale.

Here's one I found.
I post it here for educational purposes:


How do I extrude a shape along a curve in Blender 2.8

For some reason I thought modifiers were the "next generation" geometry tab.

Luckily it turns out I had overlooked that the geometry tab still exists in Blender 2.8!
It's the green triangle icon in the menu on the right hand side of the default layout.

From there on, it's just like in Blender 2.7, as I described in the question.

Thanks for the quick comments to my questions!


how to transfer rig from one model to another?

There is no way to do it automatically in vanilla blender, not that I know of. I recommend copying and pasting it, then parenting the mesh to the rig. That's not too long to do and you don't have to search for any scripts


How to get rid of fireflies caused by glass material?

Increase your clamping values.
Within Blender's render settings tab, there are two values: Clamp direct and Clamp indirect. In essence, a higher value for these will reduce fireflies at the cost of realism by lowering the values of very high intensity pixels. With your samples already at such a high value, a slight amount of increasing the clamping could definitely reduce your fireflies.
(side note: some of your fireflies appear to be a result of noise, you can try using the new denoise node in the compositor.)


We don't know a lot about your topology, but you could try this way: Select your top cube, then click Face > Intersect (Boolean), then change the Operator box setting to Union. You may need to make some adjustments like Remove Doubles (Merge by Distance in 2.8) or draw some edges with knife (or J to join vertices).


how can i make one object copy form of another object?

I think the ShrinkWrap modifier could the job you are looking for.
It allows you to shrink vertices of one object to the closest vertices of the other one.

Steps:

Place the objects to the same position
Select the low-detail one
Go to modifiers tab and select ShrinkWrap

Pick the high-detailed object as a Target

There are some useful options available in the modifier so you can look at the ShrinkWrap Modifier overview in the Blender Manual.


AttributeError: 'SCA_PythonController' object has no attribute 'getOwner'

This is Python code written for BGE 2.49 and earlier.

You need to convert it to BGE 2.5+. This includes API changes and upgrade to Python 3.0.

To make it short:

.getOwner()      -> .owner
.getSensor("F1") -> .sensors["F1"]
.getObjectList() -> .objects
["OBServer"]     -> ["Server"]
Server.Activ     -> Server["Activ"]

It looks like this is just a fragment of more logic.


You need to set the Manipulate Center Points to Off as shown below:

Now you will be able to rotate your bones as shown below:


Enable/disable Force Field function of keyframe

if you are in blender 2.8, you can click the small circle next to the settings you are trying to animate (frame X), which will make it go brown, then go to frame Y and change the value and then click the diamond shape to lock the setting


The bake settings are a collection of settings available in bpy.context.scene.render.bake.

So, to access the Margin you would do:

bpy.context.scene.render.bake.margin = 16

This was a little tricky to find, but there were a few hints.

Hovering over the Margin property showed the tooltip, which revealed that the bake options were going to be in the Scene's properties.
Baking is linked to rendering, which made me think to look under the bpy.context.scene.render settings.

The best way to explore the Api is via blender's Python Console editor and use Autocomplete to see the available properties of a given class, e.g. typing bpy.context.scene. and pressing Ctrl+Space will reveal:

>>> bpy.context.scene.
                      NWBusyDrawing
                      NWLazySource
                      NWLazyTarget
                      NWSourceSocket
                      active_clip
                      active_layer
                      alembic_export(
                      animation_data
                      animation_data_clear(
                      animation_data_create(
                      appended_header
                      as_pointer(
                      audio_distance_model
                      audio_doppler_factor
                      audio_doppler_speed
                      audio_volume
                      etc......
                      etc....
                      etc..


I would do this in Cycles using volumetric lighting.

Here's the basic setup: just one light on a landscape.

Then add a cube around the scene with some volume scatter and volume absorption as materials.

for the background you can use a color ramp like this:


My object is too transparent, how to fix it?

Ok, so all I had to was move the Alpha output and move it to the third mix shader from the right like-so.

Thanks root.


How to detect and repair errors in mesh?

The operator is called Select Non Manifold in Mesh menu. It should help you  to find out weird mesh. With further configuration, you can choose what you want to inspect.

After you select those vertices, you still need to clean up them by hand or using operator again:

But don't rely on these method to fully fix your mesh since if your mesh is broken in some degree, that mesh will probably been so weird that algorithm can not figure how to fix it.


Adaptive Subdivision Hides Parts of Mesh

It seems that the problem is related to the ngons the mesh has. Convert them to quads and try rendering again. Also, it seems that this only happens when the shading is flat.


How to select the entire object on edit mode

You hit Ctrl-J to join all your objects (they need to be selected). When in Edit Mode hit the A key to select all your points (vertices). You can hit it again to deselect everything. If you want to only select your object, use L.


Why cant i see the verices on this mesh?

Object Mode always displays the entire mesh, even if you have parts or the entire mesh/vertices/edges/faces hidden by using H.

So coming back later in object mode and switching in edit mode to find that parts are missing/not displayed, is solved by pressing Alt+H, which brings everything hidden back.


Rendering ocean scene, but ends up as a cube

If you are using the ocean modifier, then it would be best to use a plane not a cube. Also, you need to subdivide the plane before you add the modifier. You can do this by adding a subdivision surface modifier, or subdividing in edit mode. You also may need to keyframe the ocean modifier, if you have not done so.


Possible to rotate middle loop of cylinder (for example) to rotate whole top part

Select the loop first, hit shift+s and choose Cursor to Selected, and set the editing Pivot Point to 3D Cursor. Then select all verts, what you want to move, of course.


Black screen following me whenever I zoom out in blender

The clipping settings that ETHAN DAY mentioned in the comment are in the Sidebar of the Viewport. Just press place the mouse cursor in the viewport and press N to open the sidebar. Then choose the View tab. There you can adjust the clipping settings of the viewport.

Keep in mind that the camera (that is used to render the final image) has also clipping settings. You will find them in the Camera Properties (green camera tab on the options panel/right side).


You need to open the image in the UV editor, then from the side bar click on the image :

Set the source to UDIM Tiles
Click on the + button in the UDIM Tiles tap
In there you change the attribute (count) to the number of your udims
Finally back in the image tap : click the refresh button next to the image name


Can I avoid an undo when operator is called due to a property change?

Operators automatically push their actions containing the properties used onto the undo/redo stack, by calling an operator with different options you are adding it to the stack each time.

To prevent calling the operator each time an option changes you could move the properties for the options to outside of the operator, maybe to an AddonPreferences instance? This can then be accessed by the operator and a panel or directly in the User Preferences when enabling the addon. See Cloud Generator addon for an example of properties added to bpy.types.Scene and used by both panel and operator.

You could also try having the operator take a single argument as a string (comma separated list you can split?), a CollectionProperty or BoolVectorProperty, which I think would integrate better with the undo stack. A panel displaying the operators options could then combine the options into one property to be passed to the operator call.

Having said that, you may also find that calling the operator with defaults and only allowing the user to change options within the Redo Last to be a workable solution. See the sapling addon and it's large array of options only available in the redo last. Also the space tree addon in contrib has a similarly large list of options. You can adjust properties in the redo last panel, see the results and only have one undo step.


Firstly, the 3D cursor doesn't interfere with selection.
By default LMB places the cursor, RMB selects.

The crosshair is the 3D Cursor, it is like a cursor in a text-editor it shows where Blender will put stuff and also where the center of some operations can be set to be performed from, such as scaling, rotating, the pivot point when bending, the depth grease pencil is drawn and a point you can use to snap the selection to.

While it may seem strange at first, when you start using Blender but it becomes an indispensable tool when you get more experienced.

Here is a link to the blender manual describing the 3D cursor. https://www.blender.org/manual/editors/3dview/3d_cursor.html

Here is a quick video that will help you better understand how it works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlk28Ex9jVQ


I created a nice looking ocean but I cant get it to move... Can you help?

Set your start and end frame

Select render as animation

This will generate an image sequence which you can then convert to video by following this tutorial


I have a Mesh with an Armature. The Mesh has a "Mesh Deform" modifier, which itself has physics. Why does it break when Rendered?

I'm an idiot! I tried everything, consumed pages of archaic documents on modifiers, I dug all the way over to page THREE of google search results, I lost hours of sleep, watched an embarrassing amount of tangentially related tutorial videos in which the teacher, bless them, had to communicate through a thoroughly mashed potato they had stuck two wires into,
...the solution was to update Blender. SMH. I can't believe I forgot.
For future reference, the above set-up works! If anyone in the future is having trouble figuring out Mesh Deform with Armatures, I hope these pictures and descriptions help. Just... make sure you've updated blender. Lord.
And make sure you Bake any physics or wiggle bones before rendering, as always.


Modify render settings for all scenes using python

It works fine for me.

import bpy

for scene in bpy.data.scenes:
    scene.render.resolution_x = 1920
    scene.render.resolution_y = 1080
    scene.render.resolution_percentage = 100
    scene.render.use_border = False

Placing this in a file (test.py) and running blender with

blender test.blend -P test.py

Opens blender with all the settings set to the values defined in the Python script, in both scenes.


Render a wireframe animation where only half of the mesh has wireframe

I think that the only easy way to achieve the result is to render the animation two times: one showing wireframe and one normal; then use a video editing tool (even Blender itself) to show on the left part of the screen the normal render and on the right the wireframe one.


Here's what I came up with using the ocean modifier and a volume shader:

I used a cube with a volume emission particle system to add stars:

I had planned to use a smoke simulation with the ocean objects as emitters, but a smoke rendering bug is preventing me from testing this atm..
Will update further once the bug is fixed.


There should be no issue with such naming. As long as the end of the file name is that of the sequence, for exqample: xxxx_xxx_#### in which # stands for the frame number.

If you are importing into the VSE make sure you select all of the frames that are part of the sequence (press A).

As for the compositor use an Image Sequence node you just need to select the first image in the sequence. Then enable Match movie length and Auto_Refresh.


Blender is gray by default:

So it sounds like the theme you were using was somehow reverted.

There is a black theme bundled with blender called Back to Black. If you select it in File menu > User preferences (or CtrlAltU) > Themes > Presets, then blender looks like this:

To set this as your default theme, click Saver user settings at the bottom of the user preferences:


Answer:
I don't think there is a way to point a Python module installer to the Blender bundled Python.  So if you must use a third party Blender Python, there are generally 3 ways to go about that:

remove blender python sub-directory, blender will then fallback on the systems python and use that instead. Note that Python version must match the one that blender comes with.
Install a Python environment that's the same version as the bundled Blender Python to your system directory. (i.e. Python 3.3 64bit). Then install Pyserial (py3k) into that Python installation. Lastly copy the installed Pyserial module manually to the Blender Python installation under Blender\2.69\python. Installed Python modules can be usually found under the lib/site-package directory.
Most Python modules are just .py files that can be copies without going through a formal installation process. So, mostly likely, you can try to extract the module files from the installer, and just copy it straight to the Blender Python. This way, you don't have to keep a system Python just for installation purposes.

Non-answer: Do you really need to install it to the Blender Python? You can set up the PATH variable to basically load a module from any where on the disk.


Once you have the coil, you need to set it in motion by adding keyframes.
Go to the first frame press I and select rotation.
Move to a different frame, rotate the coil and set a new keyframe by pressing I again.

Now set the coil to a passive rigid body.

Add the object on the vending machine and the rest of the collision objects. Set all of them, except for the box to be dispensed, as Passive rigid bodies.

Then set your dispensed object as a Rigid body but make it active.
The big problem, as you'll soon see, is that the coil does not work correctly as as rigid body to interact with the dispensed box. The box goes out flying out at at the beginning of the animation.

The issue is that the physics for collision objects and rigid bodies is far from perfect and does not follow the real geometry of the object, but creates like a bounding box: The Coil becomes almost like a big solid object with no gaps in between.

The solution is then to turn the dispensed object into a rigid animated object for part of the interaction to force it to follow the turns of the coil, thus simulating the real motion of a vending machine.

Animate the object so it follows the movement of the coil.

Now all that's left is to animate the animate button. To do that go to a frame where the dispensed object has reached the edge of the dispenser. Hover with the mouse over the animate box and press I to set a key frame, Then move one frame in the time line, uncheck the animate button and press I again to add another keyframe. What you are doing is deactivating the animation settings for the rigid body and letting it act just with the physics engine. Press AltA to cache the physics and watch a preview of the object falling over the edge of the dispenser.

Here's the .blend file


My fluid domain still visible, even after baking. The FLIP particles are clipping through the box mesh

Yohello1's answer in image ...

to see inside domain go to Properties editor > Object > Viewport Display set Wire

or go to Properties editor > Simulations > Fluid > Liquid > enable Mesh


How can I render a model with both alpha textures and backface culling?

Try this arrangement for your model. The way you have it setup in your image, you're mixing white with your image using alpha as a factor. If you want transparency, you will have better luck with this arrangement. Pay attention to the right side where I highlighted the blend modes - these are necessary for transparency. Pick Alpha-Clip, Alpha-Hashed, or Alpha-Blend (whatever looks best), just not Opaque. This should be applied to the Shadow Mode as well - depending on what type of shadows you want for your transparency.

Hope this helps


That's not a layer view even tho it looks like one if you are coming from other software. The view you are looking at is called the Outliner and those are objects in your scene. To delete an object in Blender, you can go the the 3d view, select it and use the X key. From the outliner, right click the entry and choose Delete. Further reading — How do I delete an object?


Boolean union modifier doesn't look right

I tried to fix:

I set the Overlap Threshold of the boolean to 0.
I moved the bottom face of the Curve.001 down by -0.0001 mm


How do I properly select part of an object to separate?

The easiest way to select all the vertices in part of a dense mesh, is to switch to wireframe shading (simply press Z or from the 3D view header Viewport Shading > Wireframe) then use a selection tool like border select, to select the region of interest.

The same can be accomplished in solid view by turning off Limit Selection to Visible.

With either method  (wireframe or Limit Selection to Visible) you have disabled the depth culling on the selection, so you can select all the geometry, even the pieces "hiding" behind others.

With the piece selected the way you want then it is a simple matter to separate it P > Selection.


Camera dimmensions different than render dimmensions

You appear to have the Aspect Ratio set to 4/3 as shown in the below image :

This changes the ratio of the camera. You should generally leave the Aspect Ratio to its default of 1.000/1.000 for 'square' pixels and use the Resolution to set the dimensions of rendered image.


Short answer: Not much.
The amplitude is simply whatever time you let between the two keyframes. But you can't edit anything else.
I'd recommend making your own bounces anyway. Unless you just need a quick and dirty solution and don't have much expectations, doing it manually is simpler, and it's not hard to do.
I like to make a first arc, set the apex key to Autoclamped interpolation if it isn't already (use the V shortcut), and the low keys to Vector.
Then I duplicate this arc as many times I want, and I adjust the height of the curve. Scale the apex keys to adjust the timing, and use Free vectors if you really need fine-tuning frame by frame.


new Blender version 2.8 not working on win7 64bit

I resolved this issue on a pc x5675 older system, by installing blender 2.81 experimental.  It may have some extra bug fixes that may help you. Apparently the release for stable is in November.


My armature deformations inexplicably 'pop', without any shape keys or other modifiers. What's going on?

When in doubt, check out the various settings in Properties >> Bone Settings >> Deform Tab.  If there's more than one segment under 'Curved Bones', try dialing it down to 1.  While sub-dividing curved bones can lead to higher-resolution deformations, they are also problematic, and hard to trouble-shoot.  If you really want to have those high-resolution deformations, try selecting 'Multiply' on the deformation settings for nearby, connected bones.  Also do lots of testing before animating.


Keyboard Period . > Set pivot to 'Active Element'
Select center face, (the one to be moved,) Header 'Transform Orientations' dropdown > '+' create a new transform orientation from it
Ctrl Numpad + expand the selection to include the rim.
Keyboard 1 go to Vertex mode
Shift LMB twice, Deselect and select one of the rim vertices to make it active
S Z 0


How do i prevent active objects keep moving when they fall down on the passive?

Check Enable Deactivation under Physics->Rigid Body Dynamics. For me, the default Linear Vel. and the Angular Vel. worked great.


How to change color of glossy highlights?

You will have to resort to some compositing tricks to achieve this effect.  Cycles can't really perform an "if [glossy] reflection" check like you describe since a glossy surface is always reflecting something.  You want it to change the surface's properties based on what is being reflected.  This is impossible due to the backwards ray-tracing nature of Cycles since changing the properties of the surface will affect what is being reflected, creating a circular dependency.

To create the effect you are looking for I created three render layers, the main layer (as you have now), a just glossy layer (to use the lamp's highlight as a mask), and a black diffuse layer (to be mixed in with the mask layer).

The only other change I had to make to your scene was swapping out the mesh light with a point lamp since using material overrides in the render layers also overrides the emission material.  However, it basically looks the same and renders a bit faster and with less noise to boot.

First create two more materials.  Create one material that is just the black diffuse shader you want the skulls to turn into.  The other material should look like this:

The color ramp is simply to map your texture to its extremes (i.e. skull = pure white, background = pure black).  It is then used in a mix shader to make the skulls glossy and give the background a holdout shader (i.e. not rendered, pure black and transparent if enabled).

Next add two more render layers, I called one "mask" and the other "diffuse".  Give each one an override material, the "mask" layer should use the glossy/holdout material and the "diffuse" layer should use the pure diffuse material.

Now you can render your scene and head over to the compositor.  For the compositing, just mix the main layer with the "diffuse" layer, using the "mask" layer as the mix factor.

Which yields the following:

If too much of the skull pattern is darkening for you just add a Brightness/Contrast or RGB Curves node between the mask layer and the mix node and use it to knock up the contrast of the mask.


How can I make adjacent object meshes seamless?

To fix your normals I had to follow several steps.
Before beginning, I recommend that you unlink your world node and then create a new one for your scene, as doing this will quickly retrieve the default world settings without destroying your existing ones (be sure to first mark your present world node as protected by giving it a fake user, with the shield icon button, or else the unlinked node won't save with your file). This return to default settings will make it easier to see the results of the below changes in renders. I also created a sun light afterwards, because it's very dim after removing your modified world settings. I then turned off the selectability of this sun light in the Outliner, because I'm going to be box selecting the entirety of your meshes parts when all I want are mesh parts.
Start by selecting all of your mesh parts and then pressing Shift + d to duplicate them, then press x to constrain along the X axis, and drag these parts to the side so that they can be easily seen as well as selected independently of the originals. Left-click to conclude this transform operation, then press Ctrl + j to join all of these copies -- which should still be selected -- together as one object. Then press m bring up the Move to Collection menu, and click the option to create a New Collection for this new copy of your mesh. I renamed my mesh copy at this point to have the same name as its collection. With the new mesh copy still selected, move it back to the World space origin where it began. For the below steps to work, it must occupy the same space as the original. Now go into the Outliner and hide the new copy's collection so that we can only see the original version of the mesh.
Select all the parts of the original version of your mesh, then go into the Object Data tab of the Properties Panel, and with the Normals section expanded, hold down the Alt key, and while it is held, click the Autosmooth checkbox. Holding Alt will allow the change to take place for all selected objects at once. With Alt still held, change the angle value to something around 90 Degrees. You will want more than the default 30, or some of the normals will not be smooth.

The above step is intended to prevent Blender from complaining with a prompt that this be done when in the middle of performing the next step.
Side note: I noticed that you had two armature modifiers on all these parts. This is very likely to not be what you intend, nor want. You might want to purge them from these objects before beginning the rigging process later. I say this because, I have found that extra armature modifiers often get added accidentally, and often lead to double transformation weirdness. If you don't mean for there to be two, remove one of them. Probably remove both, as you will likely get yet another one added automatically when binding a new armature. If you want a fast way to do rid yourselves of them, delete both armatures from any one mesh part. Then box select all the mesh parts, including the selected one. The one you selected first will remain the active object, even though it wasn't selected last. Now press Ctrl + l to bring up the Make Links menu, and choose Modifiers. The active object has no modifiers, and now, neither will any of the others).
Select any one of the mesh parts (it doesn't matter which one) so that all the others are deselected automatically, and then go to the Modifiers tab in the Properties Panel. Choose to create a Data Transfer Modifier. Under the Source text field, enter the name of your copy mesh created earlier. Now, check the Face Corner Data checkbox and expand the same section to reveal more options. Click the Custom Normals button, then under the newly accessible Mapping option, choose Nearest Corner of Nearest Face. Leave all the other modifier settings at their defaults.

Now, with this modified object still selected, box select all of the associated mesh parts again, and the modified one will become the active object of all of the other ones selected, even though it was already selected beforehand. This will make it the source for all the others in the following operation. Press Ctrl + l to bring up the Make Links menu, and choose Modifiers. This will copy the modifier you just made to all the others.
At this point, your normals should be fixed. You can test this in renders. Make sure the copy version of your mesh -- which was only needed as a source for the repaired normals -- is set to NOT show in renders, either by turning off its display filter in the Outliner, or by deleting it outright, since you won't need it anymore.
If you want all these data transfer modifiers applied, one quick way to do it is  to select all the mesh parts, and then go to Object > Convert To > Mesh, which will save you the trouble of applying the Data Transfer modifiers one at a time.


your sample bias setting is screwing you over here. I tried your first file, and just loading as a texture, and using it without any editing, on Area plane, anchored mode, and custom falloff set to all max, it worked fine. I would however suggest you didn't use the fade on the edges, seeing how this alpha is a full object with hard edges, and not truly just a texture, but a belt buckle...?
in any case, blender accepts black-backed alphas by default, because they're easier to produce and provide much more detail in the most often used direction. Generally, grey-backed alphas (the background grey at 50% brightness) is used in alphas with both positive and negative deformation.


You've probably parented the mesh to the skeleton before joining additional parts to it. Thus vertices of the new parts don't belong to any vertices groups, created by "Parent with automatic weights" operation. If it's only about the helmet, the easiest way to fix that would be to separate it again from the body mesh and parent it to the head bone. If you're planning to add some equipment also to the chest, usually the way to go about it would be to keep that separate and use Mesh Deform modifier to control the character, cause it's usually hard to get perfect weights on fragments that are not physically connected (not just joined, but with common edges) with the main mesh.


odd distortion with smooth shading when extruding vertices

This is an important topology issue, not strictly Blender-related. Basically you have to add some loop cuts, trying to have even quads over all the mesh, then add some others loop cuts to "hold" the edges.

Hover your mouse over the leg, press Ctrl R, scroll the wheel until you get the desired number of loop cuts and confirm with left click. Then do the same near the start and the end of the leg, moving the single loop and confirming. The direction of the loop is dependent by the mouse position.

Experiment with this tecnique and search articles and tutorials on Topology, it's an essential skill for good modeling.


What does it mean to call applyimpulse on a point outside the object?

Force at center

When you apply a force to the mass center of an object all the energy of the force will turn into a translation.

Force outside of the center

If you apply a force at a point outside the mass center the energy will turn into a translation of exactly that point.

Be aware each point of the mass want to keep their momentum. This acts like a counter force. That means there is a stronger counter force towards the mass center as there is more mass then of the other side of the point. The result is mix of angular and linear motion summed up by all forces (including the momentum).

As more far away the point is as more of the energy will result in rotation. As nearer the point is to the center of mass as more of the energy will result into translation (to the maximum of all energy goes into translation and nothing into rotation).

Question

  [...] what it means to apply the impulse to a point outside the object?

It does not matter. The physics model does not care your mesh. It uses it to define the dimensions and collision but not to calculate forces.

You can applying a force anywhere in space. It is assumed this force should be applied to the object (otherwise you would not try to apply it). This force will be taken into account when calculating the final linear and angular motions.

Keep in mind: This is a game engine. The physics engine is designed to provide fast but believable results. Checking if a point is outside of a surface mesh eats a lot of processing power and is not necessary. If you really need such check you can do perform it with some Python code.

I hope it helps a bit.


There may be a more elegant solution, but i believe this process gives you the result you are seeking.

Select the mesh vertices you are interested in.
Invert your selection (Ctrl + I).
Unhide the hidden mesh components (Alt + H).
Invert your selection with Ctrl I again.


Why can't I delete the vertices and faces in the legs?

You have to switch to vertex select mode:


How to calculate a parent inverse matrix?

Oh wow, that was embarrassingly easy.

Cube.matrix_parent_inverse = Cam.matrix_local.inverted