There are at least 2 ways, the Displace modifier or the Sculpt mode.
You could find a black and white floral repeatable pattern, blur it a bit:

Then create your object, subdivide it a bit, give it a Displace modifier with the floral pattern as texture (If you've unwrapped your object you can choose Coordinates > UV), give it 2 Subdivision Surface modifiers, put them above and below the Displace modifier, and when you're glad, duplicate the object and apply the modifiers:

You could also sculpt on your object. In that case make sure your object is subdivided enough, then in Sculpt mode, use your pattern as texture image (go into the Properties panel > Texture to load your pattern) and set the Mapping to Stencil (left click to move the image, left click + Ctrl to rotate the image, left click + Shift to enlarge). This way you can be more precise:

If you struggle in any of those steps, please tell me.


frame_change_pre handler not getting called for scene strip

The resolution to this problem was to use the frame_change_post callback to as described in this answer.


Pretty simple really. You have 2 vertices on the same spot. You may have accidentally duplicate the vertices while you were working on it. Good news is that it's really easy to solve.

While you are in Edit Mode. Hit W
Look for the option "Remove Double" in the drop down list.
Now try moving the vertex again.

You should have no problems!


The sword doesn't have a material assigned to it.
Create one and create a texture that uses the image using your UV mapping.


How to organise dope sheet keyframes with color or strips/groups and how to change the order of displaying animations?

There is some built-in color coding. Select a keyframe in the dope sheet, and press R, you should see a list of options. The same is available in the timeline, see: New Keyframe Types


Can a realtime webcam image be displayed on a plane through scripting?

Blender is more geared towards content creation and is not the right software for your project.

You can write a python operator which continuously grabs frame from the webcam and writes them onto an image texture.

Add an image texture and name it image.
Add a 3D object and texture it with the image. You will have to go to material or rendered view to see the image.
Create a new text block. Write a modal timer operator. You can get the structure for this script in the text editor menu: Templates > Python > Operator Modal Timer.
The modal timer operator is a Blender operator, which can be called from the interface and starts a timer. The timer calls a function at a fixed interval. In this function, we'll grab the camera frame and write it on to the image.
Install opencv-python, which can access the webcam. Identify the folder which contains the python executable Blender is using. You can do this by going into the python console and typing import sys and in a new line sys.exec_prefix. Upon pressing enter you will see the path to the python executable folder. Go to that path (...\2.82\python\bin) and open a new command line interface. Install opencv-python with the command python -m pip install opencv-python, which will also install other relevant modules like numpy. Restart Blender.

Now that you're setup, open the modal operator and remove all content from it's classes methods. When entering the modal operator, execute is called. In this method, we have to initialize the modal timer, the opencv VideoCapture and a reference to the image in Blender.

def execute(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        self._timer = wm.event_timer_add(0.5, window=context.window)
        self._cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0)
        self._img = bpy.data.images['image']
        self._size = tuple(self._img.size)

        wm.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

The modal method is called every timer tick. As in the template, let's leave the check for an exit condition (like a pressed Esc key) when we exit the modal operator. On a timer tick, we start by grabbing the frame with the opencv VideoCapture object.

ret, frame = self._cap.read()

Then we resize the captured frame to fit our blender images dimensions.

resized = cv2.resize(frame, self._size, interpolation = cv2.INTER_AREA)

To make the numpy array (which is the image opencv produced form the webcam) compatible with Blender's image datablock, we'll have to flip the R and B channels as well as the Y-dimension, convert the image pixels to floats and flatten it. (Blender expects image data to be a long list of rgba pixel values.)
This resulting "list" can be assigned to the pixels property of a Blender image.

rgb = np.flip(resized, axis=[0, 2])
rgba = np.ones((self._size[1], self._size[0], 4), dtype=np.float32)
rgba[:,:,:-1] = np.float32(rgb) / 255
self._img.pixels = rgba.flatten()

The full script at the end of this answer. Run it by pressing Run Script in the text editor. This will add the modal operator to Blenders runtime memory. In the 3D view, press F3 and type the name of your modal operator (the bl_label of your class). I named the classes bl_label Modal Timer Operator as in the template. Then click on the result.

Run this script at your own risk. Blender might crash, remember to backup.

While the framerate is insanely low, I can see my camera capture writing to the image. However the viewport updates sampling method doesn't get enough samples to udpate the image enough.

While my answer gives a method to inject your webcam image into Blender in "realtime", it clearly lacks speed and almost removes the Interactivity from the user interface. To make this remotely usable, you would have to implement multithreading storing the images in some sort of concurrent bag.

import bpy
import cv2
import numpy as np

class ModalTimerOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "wm.modal_timer_operator"
    bl_label = "Modal Timer Operator"

    _timer = None
    _cap = None
    _img = None
    _size = None

    def modal(self, context, event):
        if event.type in {'ESC'}:
            self.cancel(context)
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        if event.type == 'TIMER':
            ret, frame = self._cap.read()
            resized = cv2.resize(frame, self._size, interpolation = cv2.INTER_AREA)
            rgb = np.flip(resized, axis=[0, 2])

            rgba = np.ones((self._size[1], self._size[0], 4), dtype=np.float32)
            rgba[:,:,:-1] = np.float32(rgb) / 255
            self._img.pixels = rgba.flatten()

        return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

    def execute(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        self._timer = wm.event_timer_add(0.5, window=context.window)
        self._cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0)
        self._img = bpy.data.images['image']
        self._size = tuple(self._img.size)

        wm.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

    def cancel(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        wm.event_timer_remove(self._timer)
        self._cap.release()

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


You should:

Remove the 2 Armature modifiers from the mesh object
check and align the bones for the mouth of the metarig
Scale up a bit the armature (metarig) and object (like x 2)
Apply their rotation and scale
Select the object, switch to Edit mode, Merge by Distance in order to remove all overlapping vertices
(re)generate the rig from the metarig
Parent the mesh object to the generated rig With Automatic Weight


How to lock to desired axis permanently in edit mode

If you're using hotkeys to translate your vertices, the fastest way to work is to use the middle-click shortcut:

Press G to begin your grab operation and begin moving your selection roughly along the axis you want to lock to.
Now, middle-click and you'll be locked to that axis.

Alternatively, you can hold the middle mouse button down (again, while still in the Grab operation) and you'll see lock guides in the 3D View. While still holding the middle mouse button, you can drag your selection to lock to one of these axes. When you release the middle mouse button, the lock remains in place.

Both methods also work with the right-click-and-drag "tweak mode" way of initiating the Grab operator.


Raycast from outside a model to delete all inside faces?

One trick I used in 3ds max once, was to bake a tiny AO map.  Auto uvif you can.  Or maybe can vertex color as well.

But basically whatever faces were totally black, I then selected / deleted. Since we're then basically fully hidden from view.


The DOF effect itself has a negligible amount of overhead. Even in a very simple test scene I just did (some monkey on a plane) there's only about a 3% difference, and that is an incredibly simple scene with HUGE dof (50cm lens radius. Not 50mm, 50cm). That overhead would normally be overwhelmed by lights, texture lookups, shader calls, etc on a full scene.

But.

Raytraced DOF (and motion blur, for that matter) creates a really insidious kind of noise. It creates a new kind of variance in camera samples. "variance" is where that render noise comes from, it refers to the possible outcomes you can get from launching a ray. For example, a ray might bounce into a light, or it might not. You get sparkly noise when you cast 2 rays and one hits the light, and the other doesn't. By firing a lot more rays the random noise will eventually average out and you get crisp images. There's lot of possible sources of variance, such as which direction a ray will bounce off a glossy surface (reflection noise), whether it will go towards the visible portion of a partially obscured light (soft shadow noise), etc. But normally, you can be assured of one thing: this noise is all in subsamples, like glossy rays or shadow rays. You can be sure that a ray taking off along a particular initial vector from the camera will always either strike a particular object, or miss it.

3D DOF and motion blur break that. They add a random factor to the ray on takeoff that can cause it sometimes hit an object, or sometimes miss it. This averages out to a transparent blur with enough samples. But until then, it's noise, and what might have otherwise been enough samples might not be enough to clear the DOF noise. So you may end up having to increase the sample count beyond what you would've needed otherwise. Additionally, if you are using branched path tracing, you may need to reduce subsample count and increase AA (primary) samples, which results in a less efficient render overall.

That said, 3D DOF has some advantages over post-processed DOF. It correctly handles reflections/refractions, which should blur reflected/refracted objects based on total path length. 2D DOF will rely on the z-buffer and incorrectly blur based on distance from the eye to the mirror/glass. 3D DOF can also correctly handle letting you "see around" out of focus foreground objects, which for 2D blur requires rendering them to a separate layer in order to get the render of the "obscurred" object.

2D DOF also lets you do some weird non-physical tricks like depth of field falling away at different rates in the foreground vs background, plus it can be faster and you can change it after rendering without having to re-render. So it all comes down to the needs of your shot.


I dont know if there is a way to render backwards, BUT !!

if you set the same render output path to some network directory for every machine and tick/check Placeholders and uncheck Overwrite you can render with both.

it works like this: if a machine starts a frame it creates a placeholder file and if the other machine tries to write the same frame it can not because it thinks the frame is allready there, so proceed to next and so on.

for example Machine 1 starts Frame 1, creates a placeholder and Machine 2 starts with 2.
now - 1 is finished and 2 is working
Machine 1 wants to render Frame 2 but Frame 2 is already (placeholder) in the folder it continues with Frame 3 -and so on.
everytime a machine finds a placeholder it skips the Frame and continue with the next


How to render the black lines at the edges of an object?

It is called Freestyle Line style

Add a base color and in the Render -> Freestyle (tick mark)

If you want to change the color of the stroke (line)
Under Render Layer -> Freestyle Line style -> color -> Base color (change the color from black to any color)

Hit F12 to render after finishing the render wait a second to complete the Freestyle Line style render and you can see a outline of the color.


With a text file like this:

test1;E:\yourpath\file1.blend\Object\;Cube
test2;E:\yourpath\file2.blend\Object\;Sphere

Where:

First field: a name
Second field: the complete path to your object
Third field: your object name

You can:

import bpy
import csv

textFile = 'E:\\Blender\\yourpath\\import.txt'

with open( textFile, 'r' ) as file:
    reader = csv.reader( file, delimiter = ';' )
    for row in reader:
        bpy.ops.wm.append( directory=row[1], filename=row[2] )


How to quickly rename an object in 2.8+ (like with the Item section in 2.79)

Use the F2 key after selecting the desired object either in the 3D View or in the Outliner.


Here is a node setup to achieve the transparent gradient sphere effect:

I'm using a Mapping node to control the direction of the gradient, Gradient Texture node for the gradient itself, and a ColorRamp node to control the transition. For the transparent part of the object, I'm using a glass shader with IOR very close to 1 (or it will look like real glass), and 0.6 roughness to make the object behind appear more blurry.

And make sure you enable screen space refraction in both render and material settings, or the transparency won't render correctly.

I don't know why you are trying to avoid using textures. While this procedural setup works well on a sphere, I don't think it will work if you are going to apply it to something more complex (like a frog model). Since it's using a simple linear gradient, it's very hard to make it fit perfectly on the frog's chin. I would recommend using texture painting if you really want to do that.


Is it possible to achieve a spirograph efect?

How about tracing the position of your object with an edgeline?

import bpy

start_frame = 1 # when do you want to start the tracking?
end_frame = 1000 # and when should it stop again?
stylus = 'Empty' # name of the object to track
new_name = "Whirl" # name of the created object

verts = [] # list of all vertices
edges = [] # list of all edges

sce = bpy.context.scene # the current scene
old_frame = sce.frame_current # remember the current frame

vertex_count = start_frame
while vertex_count <= end_frame: # iterate through the specified time
    sce.frame_set(vertex_count) # set the frame so the object is in the right place for any given frame
    loc = bpy.data.objects[stylus].matrix_world.translation # the global coordinates of the stylus
    verts.append((loc.x, loc.y, loc.z)) # add the position to the vertex list
    vertex_count += 1

edge_count = 1 # starting with the second vert because the edge list is one item shorter
end = len(verts)

while edge_count < end: # building the edges
    edges.append((edge_count - 1, edge_count)) # assigns the indices of the verts to the edges
    edge_count += 1

#edges = [(x-1 , x) for x in range(len(verts)) if x > 0] # this does the same as the above edge code. list comprehensions are scary

mesh_data = bpy.data.meshes.new(new_name + '-mesh') # makes a new mesh
mesh_data.from_pydata(verts, edges, []) # fills verts and edges into the mesh
mesh_data.update()

obj = bpy.data.objects.new(new_name, mesh_data) # makes a new object with the mesh linked
sce.objects.link(obj)

sce.frame_set(old_frame) # repair the frame position

You can even animate it using a Build Modifier. And if you want a particle effect, just convert the mesh into a curve with ALTC, maybe change the spline type into bezier with auto handles and you can let a particle emitter follow the path.


why won’t the hsv v scale go any higher than 1

Values in HSV nodes in both the Compositor and Shader Editor can go above 1:

1 means 100%. If we are talking about color information in an image 1 represents 100% of some color channel - the most it can be so it cannot go any higher, however color in Blender is 32bit so it can be pretty much any value. The dynamic range of colors can be a lot greater than it can be displayed in an image inside Blender. Colors of a render can be adjusted the way you want them to fit into an image - that's color grading. Anyway, you can definitely go above 100% or 1 in Blender in value of HSV nodes. It is not a good idea in some cases though as it might make your renders unrealistic.


Is it possible to drive other properties in realtime with a single float or int property button without using drivers?

Yes, this is possible, it can be done 2 ways.

Using a property set or update callback.This lets you either use your property as a way to access other data (by having get & set callbacks, you could for example, keep your property outside of the blend file even).With an update function you can use this property to control others.See https://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_current/bpy.props.html#get-set-example
Using drivers, although these need to be setup in the file each time and probably not what you're after.


How do I assign a material to an Archipack object?

Archipack can take advantage of a predefined material library.
If the default material library is missing, you get dumb white materials assigned.
Please take a look at https://github.com/s-leger/archipack/wiki/Materials in order to setup your default material library.
The aswer of @light-pankakes remains still valid when it comes to setup new materials.


An alternative to inverting the curve is inverting how the curve affects the material. The curve will remain the same but the resulting colors will be inverted.

Create a value node and create a keyframe for it. Bake the sound curve to it.

After that you can invert the values with an invert node.


I had a look at the suggestion from @brockmann. My first attempt was to simply up the samples. The following image is using 2000 samples.

As you can see - all that has really happened is that the artefacts have moved ever so slightly to the centre.

I looked into the intel denoising. This is a feature that has been added in 2.81. I used the following settings (compositing nodes):

Quite simple really. At 500 samples, the following image was the result:

And this is at 2000 samples (same denoising setup):


Right method to use for tiles of buildings in various phases of construction

I don't know which game engine you are using. But probably you could use 'shape keys'. At least in the bge that would work fine and it would be easy to set up.

you crate different shape keys.

Than you create an animation with all the shape keys.

You can use logic Bricks to create a logic which controlls the animation with a property.

Than you just have to change the property and your building gets upgraded.
It also would be easy to crate a little blending animation so that the new stage doesn't just pop up.

Probably I didn't describe that too good so I added a .blend to Download where you can see what i mean. Just start the bge with p and use w and  s to transform the building.

I see that this method doesnt serve the job very well for a 2D java game.
Another method would be to use the 'restrict Rendering' Button in the Outliner.

The workflow would be:

Create the Building...

Than you mark everything which should be visible in the first stage. Go to frame 1 in the 'TimeLine' an Press i over the Camara Icon of ALL the Objects of the building.

Next you do the same for frame two...

The nice thing with this Method is that you now just can render an animation from Frame 1 to the Frame with the final stage (for example 5). If you configure your render output as in the picture below than you will get seperate Images of all Stages.

than you will get separate pictures of all stages.
I just pressed the animation button and had all the images int the right folder and with good names.

you also can configure the names by just writing the name behing the path.

Hopefully this is a good method for your project.


How to zoom out of the backdrop in the compositor?

The four controls for manipulating a Background Image in the Compositor:

V zooms out.
Alt + V zooms in.
Alt +  MMB pans around.
Alt + Home fits backdrop to the available area.

Also note the changes to the Node Editor Properties panel, such as the addition of the Backdrop dropdown, which, among other things like the hotkeys, allows for precision zooming.

Refer to the Manual for additional info.


You could use an always sensor logic brick on the enemy character with a steering actuator for every direction the it will go. You might have to play around with this but that’s what makes BGE fun. Let me know if it works.


BGE: How do I hide the player HUD from other players or cameras?

You should use the overlay scene in the game logics. I played around with that and you can find something easily on the internet. Good luck and have fun.

Some more details:
In the game logics you can add an always sensor and connect it to the add overlay scene node. I think the connection has to be a python script but i'm not shure. Then you can code the properties of the player and connect them via scripting to the overlay hud.

I watched this videos some time ago and i think they are very good for you. They are for 2.6 but i think the bge didn't change that much...
Creating a HUD in bge

Personally i hope the game logics get an upgrade. They should be more like a node editor as in UE4... But i think i have to wait a bit longer...

I hope that helped. Later i can try out again for you and send some screenshots.


How can I make indoor lighting less uniform?

I have decided to post my solution to the problem:

Always, if possible, make it so that something is occluding your light. That way, the shadows look nice.

From another angle:

Look at the bookcase in the bottom right of the image as a perfect demonstration of my example, as you can see the shadows intersecting from the lights either side of the bookcase.

Also, bloom and occlusion really complete the look. There is absolutely no way that the shot would look anywhere near as good without either one of them.


Convert node-based texture to exportable image

With your baked Image Texture selected in the Shading tab (the node should have a "selection outline" - like when you selected it before baking), you can easily save your image from the UV editing tab:


Is it possible to clean up overlapping faces?

See if you can dissolve those faces by hitting X on your keyboard and then Dissolve Faces:


I remeshed, with meshlab and reduced the model to 3millions poly ant no more lags I definitely thinks it's a blender issue :(


Press I to insert/update a keyframe, do this before moving to another position on the timeline. Once pressed, it will give you a choice of what to record. If you have no scaling, use LocRot.


The easiest way to move an object to 3D cursor

Select the object and then bring up the Snap-To menu with Shift+S and then choose “Selection to cursor”.

As mentioned by @JoanCharmant, Blender version 2.8+ allows you to right-click in the viewport to get a context menu that provides an easy way to get to the 'Snap' options instead of requiring the use of a keyboard shortcut. This option wasn't present at the time this answer was originally written.


Look at pictures of a real fox!
You have to model the tear duct.

Same goes for other eyes, by the way. The Spheres won't fit unless you add a tear duct.


Background is not moving with respect to camera position

The world background is assumed to be infinitely far away. (see this link).

In order to have some change for the stars you would need to generate them like in this image:

.

In this case the stars are generated using an icosphere used as emitter. See: Animating a masked sphere with "star" particles


Way to make a gradient for emission strength based on elevation

I'm not sure which tutorial you followed, but you probably have something like this in your node setup. Just add an invert node between the colorramp and separate XYZ node.


How to animate Light's Power/Strength in 2.80?

You can do it the same way you animate most other quantities in blender. Go to a frame, set it to the brightness you want, then right click on the Energy slider and click Insert Keyframe from the menu. Go to another frame, change the value, and insert a keyframe again. Then it will automatically animate the brightness between those two points.

Below is an image of inserting a keyframe.

This is actually the exact same process as in the other question you posted, and it works for me in 2.8. If this doesn't work, maybe say more specifically how that method didn't work for you.


denoise node not available under compositing in blender 2.8

Denoise node is only available in Blender 2.81. You can download the experimential builds here.


Mixamo rig bones are messed up when imported to blender

ive found a solution.
These 3 boxes need to be CHECKED.

!Experimental! Apply Transform
Force Connect Children
Automatic Bone Rotation.

im using Blender 2.81.


My config trying to find color management, how can I make it gone?

Look for the color management folder within the previous install folder (C:\Program FIles\Blender Foundation\Blender XXX\datafiles) and copy it to the new install.


It can be several issues with Booleons, sometimes can be the underlying geometry you are cutting into, can you provide screen of the wireframe of the wheel, also can be worth turning on auto smooth. Will await screenshot of wire.

its fine for me with auto smooth ticked under object properties.


Is the Game Engines Coodinate System different?

No - Suzanne (the monkey) has her Z axis pointing out from her face, and the Motion actuator defaults to use local coordinates. Either:

Apply rotation to the mesh (Object>Apply>Rotation), or
Switch the actuator to world coordinates (press the L toggle button on the right of the Rot row).


How to get all collections of the current scene?

Recursively walk the tree.

Similarly to https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/137866/15543 and Sorting Collections Alphabetically in the Outliner

import bpy

def traverse_tree(t):
    yield t
    for child in t.children:
        yield from traverse_tree(child)

coll = bpy.context.scene.collection

for c in traverse_tree(coll):
    print(c.name)


Have mouse wheel move the viewport camera instead of zooming

One super fast way to dolly a currently selected camera, whether it is currently being viewed though or not, is to press 'g', 'z', 'z', and then drag the mouse in the viewport. The last 'z' switches the constrained axis to the Local Z, instead of the Global Z. It likewise would suffice to switch to Normal space before doing this, in which case only one press of 'z' is needed. Same goes for Local space. In fact, it doesn't matter whether you have your transform space currently set up as Local or Normal, at least not in this case, since either with work with just 'g', 'z'. If you instead remain in Global transform space, and don't want to switch into one of the others, that's the only time when 'g', 'z', 'z' will be necessary.

Note: There is a more specialized way to move the camera along its depth axis. With the camera selected AND currently looked through, you can press Shift-~ and this will put you in "free look mode" in Blender 2.8. This is the same as the older feature from Blender 2.79 that was accessed with Shift-F. Once in this mode, you can use the WASD keys to move around the scene. However, it's very slow at putting the camera anywhere new, so I prefer the 'g', 'z', 'z' method.


Python script performing boolean operations slowing down

After some experimenting I found two things that can improve performance.

First is the mesh you are cutting into, cutting holes into a large face is slower than if it was subdivided into many faces, this would be making it easier for the boolean operation to find connecting edges.

For example the subdivided object on the right will give a faster boolean result than the single faced object on the left, by faster I mean it can cut the time almost in half.

In my testing I was starting with a cube so I could do a simple subdivide. With your extruded shape you may want to add loop cuts across your larger faces so you don't add unneeded cuts to smaller bevel edges etc.

For the second speedup, the really odd thing is that your approach of using one drill object that you move and reuse for each hole seems to be the slow way, I don't get why but creating and deleting a new drill object for each hole is faster.

Also using target.modifiers.new is faster than bpy.ops.object.modifier_add.

def drillIt(target, x, y, d):
    '''Drill a hole at x,y with d diameter - using a boolean modifier'''
    # this should get similar result as subtract()
    # for some reason this runs faster

    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(vertices=8, radius=d/2, depth=50,
                location=(x, y, 0))
    drill = bpy.context.object

    # Add a modifier
    mod = target.modifiers.new('Boolean',type='BOOLEAN')
    mod.object = drill
    mod.operation = 'DIFFERENCE'
    target.select = True
    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = target
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(apply_as='DATA', modifier=mod.name)
    bpy.context.scene.objects.unlink(drill)

Remove the use of bit and instead of -

bit.location=[x, y, 0]
subtract(pcb, bit)

use -

drillIt(pcb, x, y, drillWidth)


To set up textures properly follow these steps:

Cycles Render

1. Select the material and open Node Editor window
2. Add an Image Texture node, then load the texture and connect Color to Diffuse BSDF node.
3. Add a UV Map node and select proper UV Map if you have more than one on the mesh and connect the node to the Vector of Image Texture node

Blender Render

1. Open materials tab.
2. Create a material or if there is one already existing, make sure the material you want to add the texture to is selected.

3. While the material is selected open texture tab.
4. In texture tab scroll down to Image section and open the texture you want to apply to the material.
5. In mapping section make sure the Coordinates are set to UV and choose the correct UV map in case you have more than one on the mesh.


Hard to tell without looking at your specific mesh and modifier stack.

Anyway there's not much one can do with complex meshes, if there's a lot to be calculated there is no way around it other than watching your modifier stack order and keeping poly count low.

Here's a few things you can do from most destructive to least destructive.

See if there's any point in your modifier stack bellow which you don't plan to make any more changes. If so, then apply all the modifiers above that point, keeping live only the ones that matter. Be sure to do this in a copy of the object, keeping the original safe in case you need to go back for some reason.
Watch the modifier stack order. When possible keep calculation intensive modifiers (like the Skin modifier, or Bevel) before the simpler ones whenever feasible. Like if possible modify before mirroring, arraying, or deforming. Limit bevels by crease or angle, etc..
Keep viewport subdivisions low, to speed things up, and increase only the render subdivisions so you won't lose quality in final images but keep viewport responsive.
Watch out for any modifier that have "Viewport Settings" and "Render Settings". Be sure to keep the viewport ones low, if they don't negatively affect your work.


Blender and external files not working, giving error in numpy

You can use Synaptic Package Installer to download individual numpy files which fulfill the dependency Blender requires.
Specifically, I downloaded the file python3-numpy 'Fast Array facility to the Python 3 language' from Synaptic.


Filling holes on the bottom of scanned design?

Sometimes I've found that doing it piecemeal, fixes the issue, i.e.

selecting the open area's vertices using ALT+LClick on an edge of the open loop
deselecting half of it with using Box select
press F to seal it with a new face,
then selecting the remaining open half and hitting F to seal it


How can I completely remove Blender from my Mac?

Check the OSX sections in the Blender manual, it lists all the default paths where Blender stores data / scripts after you install them.

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/advanced/blender_directory_layout.html?highlight=directory

If you remove Blender from all those places, and then reinstall, you'll be ready to rock again.

__

Blender, like almost all programs, must store persistent information like preferences, themes and scripts somewhere on your hard-drive. This is information you don't want to lose when you update Blender to a newer version. Normally that's exactly what you want, but if the stored information contains some weird content ( like in your case ) you can do a purge by removing all references to Blender from the directories listed in the link above. Blender will add those directories back again if it needs to.


Making realistic mold (fungus) in blender?

I'd suggest adding a hair particle system to the fruit.  After all, fungus looks very much like white hair.  If you turn on children and set it to interpolated, you can clump up the hairs and change other settings to make it more random and realistic.


This is a very specific task, if I may add a personal note to that. But luckyly I studied physics and happen to know the answer.
OBJ are saved in form of Vectors. One point is represented by 3 vectors along X,Y,Z -axis. Most likely they are called a,b,c. 0,0,0 being the origin. I don't want to go to deep into that. Unless you want that - let me now.
Representation in Form of a,b,c, in a 3D space is called a Cartesian System.
Since earth (approx) is a sphere we need to transform this Cartesian System into a Spherical System. From a,b,c, to Spherical coordinates (r, θ, φ) radial distance r, azimuthal angle θ, and polar angle φ.
you can calculate each point with this:
Cartesian (x,y,z) → Spherical (r,θ,ϕ)
r=√x2+y2+z2
θ=tan−1yx
ϕ=tan−1√x2+y2z
Last step is to calculate Sperical Coordinate to UTM which is a cylindrical projection. Which results in X and Y [Because a cylinder is a unfold rectangle]
X=rθ
y=r ln[tan(pi/4 + ϕ/2)] = r/2 ln [(1+sin(ϕ)/(1-sin(ϕ))]
There are calculators for this.
search for Cartesian to UTM / Spherical to UTM
Hope it helps


I think you are missing the point of what CUDA is. CUDA is a tooklit for running calculations on a gpu that are not part of a 'normal' graphics display pipeline. In the case of the viewport, rendering is already happening on the gpu using this normal display pipeline (in this case, opengl is the API used to communicate with the gpu).

The fact that playback is slow, and most time is spent on the cpu suggests that the performance bottleneck is somewhere other than rendering. The most likely case for this are modifiers, if they are doing expensive recalculation each frame. Many modifiers in blender are not efficiently multithreaded. Try disabling or tuning as many as possible (e.g hide corrective smoothing, subdivision etc). You may also want to look at limiting the number of armature weights per vertex, as this can cause reduced performance too.


Comprehension question about "Interpolation from Curve Mapping" node

This (at the first glimpse) unexpected behavior exists because otherwise you can't create certain types of interpolations. eg the 'back' interpolation with an overshoot would not be possible.

This is why AN (Animation Nodes addon) remaps the Y values: 0.25 -> 0; 0.75 -> 1

All values below 0.25 or above 0.75 will be the 'overshoot' (and you need this overshoot quite often in motion graphics..)

Fortunately, Blender draws the horizontal lines in the curve mapping editor so that it is easy to see where 0.25 and 0.75 are.

Use the Debug Interpolation node to see the mapping performed by Animation Nodes.

If the remapping would not exist, there would just not be enough space in the node ui to have control over the overshoot:


In edit mode, there is an origin located off the side of it's face. It ends up clumping everything together when subdivided. How do I fix this please?

This is most likely because of the face at the bottom that is not visible to us. Subdivision Surface modifier divides concave face like that - this is normal. If you wish to avoid that you should divide the bottom face so it consists of a few convex faces instead of one concave face.


Select the objects or objects of interest.
Press Numpad .
(that is the period on the numpad)
Menu and Space bar alternatives which present a puzzle for me.

For blender 2.8-2.9:
The same action is now called "Frame Selected" and can be found in the view-menu of the 3d-viewport. The shortcut remains the same though.


Screencast keys is now an external addon (it was formerly distributed with blender, but has since been removed).
To use it:

download it ( RMB > Save Link As… in most browsers, to save it as a .py file)

Click install from file in ⎈ Ctrl⎇ AltU>User preferences > Addons:

Select the downloaded file:

Enable it:

If you want it to stay enabled after quitting blender, be sure to click Save User Settings.


I'm not sure if this will help but if you go into object mode and click on the overlays dropdown and say check the checkbox that says face orientation is the mesh red or blue? if any of it is red you can go into edit mode and select the parts that are red and press alt N to flip the normals. Hope this helps.


so I'm not an expert on blender, just someone who messes with it occasionally, but i think a good way to do this would be to use a normal map.

Just in case you don't know what that is, it's like your standard image texture, but it tells the light how to interact with as if it's 3d. This can make an object look like is has more geometry than it actually does. here are a couple of examples of how they look

https://i0.wp.com/unitycoder.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/poormans_normal_specular_map_generator_unity3d_big.jpg

http://wiki.polycount.com/w/images/thumb/c/c9/Normalmap_stairs.jpg/1406px-Normalmap_stairs.jpg

So what you do is you pair a normal map with a standard color texture map and boom. it can look pretty nice. There are plenty of tutorials on youtube that show you how to use all kinds of other texture maps than just your color ones.

They aren't usually used with a high poly sculpt, but i bet with a little searching and adaptation of standard stuff you can do it.

anyway that's my piece of advise, again I'm no professional but maybe this will help.


I'm not sure what tutorial you're following, but I think I see what happened.  It looks like you selected the opposing faces, then extruded them along the Y axis by pressing E and then Y like so:

Which has the unintended effect of squishing the far face inside the cube, since both are moving in the same direction. Which causes the overlapping mesh you're struggling with.
What you're probably wanting to do is extrude the two faces away from each other.  For this you'd press E to extrude, then S to resize them, and Y to still restrict it to the Y axis:

Or alternatively you could extrude just one of the faces with E and then Y, repeating as needed:


What does this mean when I try to parent armatures together?

You can't edit parents in pose mode.  You need to be in edit mode.

Select your armature and change to edit mode.  Select the bone you wish parented, then shift select the bone you want to parent it to, and hit ctrl-p.  You can choose between connected and keep offset.

You can change the connected property via the properties window, bu you rarely need to.  If you make a bone connected, it will change the location of the head of that bone to the tail of its parent.


Why isn't my node setup working to create a smoke effect in cycles?

Alright, I'm a fool. Thanks to pycoder for pointing out my error. I forgot to add the Quick Smoke Simulation. It seems to work now. I have lots of smoke! Thanks!


Since the game engine does not support drawing with grease pencil while the game engine is running, I made a script to draw on the camera in the game engine.

To use the script, enter it into the text editor and name it grease_pencil.py. You could call it anything, but it must end in .py to work as a module.

Add a Python controller to an Always sensor, with true level triggering enabled, on any object. Change the python controller's Execution Method to Module and set its source to grease_pencil.draw or whatever you named it only without the .py and followed by .draw (draw is the name of the function we are calling).

Press P, in the game engine, and click and drag to draw.

The complete script.

import bge

color = (.9, 0, 0)
lines = []

def position():
    scene = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()
    camera = scene.active_camera

    x, y = bge.logic.mouse.position

    vec = camera.worldPosition - camera.getScreenVect(x, y)
    vec = vec * camera.worldOrientation * camera.world_to_camera

    return vec

def mouse_just_down():
    return bge.logic.mouse.events[bge.events.LEFTMOUSE] == bge.logic.KX_INPUT_JUST_ACTIVATED

def mouse_down():
    return bge.logic.mouse.events[bge.events.LEFTMOUSE] == bge.logic.KX_INPUT_ACTIVE

def mouse_moving():
    return bge.logic.mouse.events[bge.events.MOUSEX] == bge.logic.KX_INPUT_ACTIVE or \
        bge.logic.mouse.events[bge.events.MOUSEY] == bge.logic.KX_INPUT_ACTIVE

def draw():
    if mouse_just_down():
        lines.append([position()])

    if mouse_down() and mouse_moving():
        lines[-1].append(position())

    for line in lines:
        prev = None
        for vec in line:
            if prev:
                bge.render.drawLine(prev, vec, color)
            prev = vec


The problem with your mesh are Ngons; Blender can process and show them correctly but once exported you get unexpected results because they are treated in a different way by another program.

This is what model looks like:

The reason why it worked with Triangulate faces checked is because there were no Ngons any more, all them were converted to tris. You can use this way, however you won't be able to control how it will triangulate faces.

Hence I suggest to start with changed topology of the model (note: it may be a bit complex to redo for all the model, however it will save time further on):


Indirect lighting casting "shadows" where it should not

This issue arose because the UV for every other windowpane was upside down, correcting this resolved the lighting issue, although it is unclear why.


Well it's been about a week and with no real help here, I tinkered and finally came up with a solution.  Deleting the connecting vertices between the side panels and the arm.  There were two cylinders I had extruded from the arm through the side panels, which caused the problem.

You can test yourself by using the sample file I uploaded here at moonboots  request

tab into object mode
select object
tab into edit mode
select all faces
click P and select "by loose parts"
tab back to object mode
deselect all
select long arm and notice side panels are still connected
tab into edit mode
using faces select mode, press Alt and LMB to select all faces of first cylinder in the center of the arm.
press Shift-Alt-LMB and select all center faces of 2nd cylinder
press delete button and select vertices
tab into object mode and deselect all
verify side panels have been separated from arm by selecting each item

I now just had a few missing faces that needed to be filled in, but I preserved the location and size of all the pieces so they would fit in the model.  Also I was able to finish the editing I needed to do, to prepare my model for 3D printing.  You can verify how the assembly fits into the total model by clicking on the eye icon next to "frame" in the outliner.


(noob here) odd discoloration on my model, what does it mean?

your normals are not all facing outwards, in general its a problem of the mesh recalculating them is the easiest way to solve it.
If that doesnt work out (if your model isnt solid), you can also in edit mode flip faces.


Using a 32 bit grayscale TIFF in the displace modifier

You can convert a .tiff file to a .exr file using blender.

First switch to the Node editor

Next in the bottom panel you will see a box with 3 buttons in it click on the right one. Also enable 'use nodes' and 'backdrop'.

Next add an input. 'Shift + A' Input > Image. Navigate to your image you would like to convert.

Next add an output. 'Shift + A' Output > Composite.

You now should have something like this.

Thats all the nodes you need. Next you will need to change the render settings.

You will need to change the render size to the size of your image. You can get this by in you file browser RMB on the file properties > details. Change the output type to EXR (not multi-layer) and make sure that its set to 'float full' not 'float (half)' full is 32-bit half is 16-bit. Make you sure you know where you are saving the image.

Next hit render and wait for it to render. Should be pretty fast though.

If that does not work you can you use irfanview to export the tiff into a different file format. Here is how. First open irfanview.

Then open your file you want to convert.

Choose 'File' > 'Save As'

Chose where you want to save it and the format.


2.5 can't handle N-gons

Subdividing a single face implies that each edge of its boundary is getting new edges and vertices too. This means that the faces in the neighborhood are increasing their edge count.

If the subdivision process brings the faces to have a number of edges, like in your case, greater than 4, you are creating an ngon.

N-gons has been supported only since 2.63 (see Release notes).
 Before that version only quads and triangles were handled. That's why you see the subdivision.


i wanted to make horizontal gradient text color?

Change the Gradient Texture Node to Linear.
Edit:
After that use the Z rotation in the Mapping Node to get a vertical or horizontal gradient.


Is it possible to render 180º equirectangular with eevee engine?

It appears that this isn’t possible at present - but has been asked before and is expected to be a planned feature - see https://blenderartists.org/t/will-eevee-support-vr-equirectangular-rendering/699631 in particular :

  At last blender conference, there was a talk about the benefits of using Grease pencil + VR to create a scene.
  There are devs dedicated to VR. I don’t doubt that VR support for EEVEE is a goal they want to achieve.


Dynamic Paint to select vertices in edit mode

No. While it appears to be possible at first, the data is only there during the simulation, going into edit mode clears it out.

If it suits your needs, you could dynamic paint vertex weights and use that with a mask modifier to hide part of the mesh.

I expect you will have to use border, circle or lasso selection to get the verts you want in edit mode.


The official one, made by Sebastian Koeing, comes with Blender automatically. I think you might have installed the first one manually, since I don't have it.

You could use the first one if you like. Whichever one fits you.


Can I color the empty space between two objects?

you have many options :

create another material with a different color
select the face you want to color and click on assign in the Material tab

OR

create another object that fits inside the torus and give it another material

OR

use a texture  and unwrap the object to map it correctly


Easy way to remove faces occluded by other meshes?

Maybe give the Mask Modifier a try.

Add a vertex group to the body named "mask",
Assign the verts you want to be hidden to this group
Apply a Mask Modifier, & select the vertex group in the modifier settings.

( If the modifier hides the opposite of what you want to see, be sure to click the double arrow icon next to the vertex group field in the modifier )

Here is a video example : https://youtu.be/AYVNNT_IeSA?t=1246

Dunno your situation, but this is probably the least time consuming and least destructive option.

Hope this helps, and good luck!


you used NGons the bad way.

Everything is fine after triangulation of the faces (Edit mode Tab, select all A, Ctrl+F and "triangulate faces" in the face menu or Ctrl+T)

Recalculate normals (all selected and Ctrl+N)
Back in object mode Tab, select the mesh RClick, then the armature with Shift+RClick, then Ctrl+P and choose "armature deform"/"with automatic weights"
Then parenting the hand to the armatures works fine.


You can do this fairly easily if you use proportional editing and scaling.

Turn on proportional editing:

Select the top layer of vertices using box select:

Scale (S) along the Z axis (z) then press 0 to scale it it flat. Scroll your mouse wheel to adjust how much of the mesh it affects:

And you get:

If your curve isn't flat like in the previous example, it's still possible, it just takes a little more work.

Select the edge loops around the area you want to flatten (using Alt Right click):

Pull them out to be flat with the middle edge loop.

Shift-Select the middle edge loop and push all of them in:

Continue tweaking it until it's flat enough:


The mesh and the curve need to start in the same place for best results.
Your mesh is probably a bit offset.

Set both origins to the same place
Make sure both curve and mesh start at their origin point
Done.


Ok, I got it:

I simply go through each line, and if a line starts with "v ", I mulitply each of the 3 values with the desired scale.

It should be noted that a scale of 1 is "100%", a scale of 10 would be "1000%", etc.


Why is this character's arm moving when I edit its armatutre?

If merely entering then leaving edit mode on an armature leaves lasting changes to your pose, then you probably have a dependency loop-- some place where bone A depends on bone B which depends on bone C which depends on bone A (for example).  That's not going to work.
To rule in/out dependency loops, open a console window (from main menu's "window" menu) and look for any "dependency cycle" warnings.  If you have well named bones, you should be able to see where the loop exists.
Changing parenting on bones could easily create a dependency loop-- it interacts with constraints.  But changing parenting on bones also changes how they interpret their animation data.  You didn't ask about this, but if you change your parenting, don't expect your animation to be the same.


How do I cycle through the camera views?

You can try by binding the cameras to the markers. In the timeline, press M to add marker in specified frames. You can rename that frame by pressing Ctrl + M.

Assuming you have 2 cameras on viewport, then add two marker on timeline (adjust location of the marker diferently, ie : marker 1 : 1-20, marker 2 : 21-50). Now select the first camera, press Ctrl + 0 to set as active camera, make sure first marker selected, then in timeline press Ctrl + B to bind active camera to first marker.

Select the second marker, then set second camera as active again Ctrl + 0, hover the mouse on the timeline and press Ctrl + B.

Now, when you start the animation Alt + A, the camera should switch between first and second based on marker position.


How to join different objects (different modifiers)

You can set the joined mesh CREASE where you wish to limit the subsurf effect:

with CREASE 1.0 subsurf has no effect at all...


Projecting a 2D road onto a 3D elevation mesh

you can do that with the shrink wrap modifier as follows :

original mesh

Add the shrink wrap modifier :

and you will get this

if the road is not curved enough " didnt follow the mountain exactly " try to subdivide it before applying the modifier


You can reset the shortcut in the User Preferences (Menu / File / User Preferences) Ctrl-Alt-U

Select the input tab
Searching the command
Click the x right to the shortcut to remove the shortcut.


How to stop normal map from different seperate meshes from overlapping when baking?

try reducing margin in the bake settings


How do I close a circle without having to deal with tris and ngons?

there must be several ways to do it, like the following ones, I'm not sure how it could be useful though. As said by Robin, an easy way to begin is to ctrl F > Grid Fill, then modify the grid that has been created with some alt shift S to make your selection round:


Thanks to Yohello 1, I was able to solve the problem. There is no need for a separate round of UV unwrapping, as long as you haven't applied the modifiers.

This means, that if an object has an array, and you UV unwrap before applying the array modifier, then after you apply the array modifier, or any modifier, it will also use the new meshes on the same UV map as the first it was based on.


Also, the side "N" panel has a symmetry section.


How to replicate a Laowa 24mm Probe lens in Blender cameras?

Camera settings don't scale in Blender. If you scale the camera object in the 3d Viewport, all you're doing is changing how big it displays and not the lens or any of the settings int he camera properties.
What you're trying to achieve is a perspective trick. If you shoot anything in real life from a low angle and with a wide enough lens, the subject tends to feel bigger and more imposing.
So to take this into blender, you can do it a couple of ways. Set up a wider lens or scale up your models. The latter I wouldn't recommend. it messes with the realism too much because of lighting and textures etc.
So shoot low, and wide.


How can I edit shapekey value without editing mesh?

Under the Value slider adjust the Range's Max to 2 and increase the Value to 2. Every other Shape Key value must be 0.

Then click on the little triangle under the minus button and select New Shape From Mix. This will create a new shapekey with what you wanted. Delete the original and reset the settings.


How to make 2 objects appearing as connected (while remaining separated in the outliner)

The only reason I know of NOT to intermesh objects would be that it may cause complications with modifiers (eg. subsurface modifier).  But for all the hard surface stuff I do, my gosh, 99% of it is objects overlapping eachother. Another solution is the boolean tool. It can union/join objects together so there's no inner/hidden vertecies.


How do I know the path to the file in the Blender Game Engine?

Have you looked at the right console?

You need to start the game with option -c to see the console window of the game.

When you do not see the game's console you might have looked at the console of the still opened Blender.

In my test the path was correctly pointing to the location of the game's folder.


How can I modify the Default Blender Keymap within my Add-on module registration code?

I had similar problems when tried to modify default key maps with python.
The keymap_items collection was empty at startup script but after the start, items were accessible.

The problem was solved using thread and time.sleep
It is not the best approach but working..

The load_post handler didn't work for application start but worked for file open.

I didn't find any "start_post" handler method.

here is the first code (startup scripts folder):

import bpy

wm = bpy.context.window_manager
kc = wm.keyconfigs.default
km = kc.keymaps['Screen Editing']
print('item count:',len(km.keymap_items))

#> "item count: 0"

here is the solved version

import bpy,_thread,time

wm = bpy.context.window_manager
kc = wm.keyconfigs.default
km = kc.keymaps['Screen Editing']

def thrd_func():
    time.sleep(.1)
    print('item count:',len(km.keymap_items))

_thread.start_new_thread(thrd_func,())

#> "item count: 12"

and with handler

import bpy
from bpy.app.handlers import persistent

@persistent
def hand_func(arg):
    wm = bpy.context.window_manager
    kc = wm.keyconfigs.default
    km = kc.keymaps['Screen Editing']
    print('item count:',len(km.keymap_items))

bpy.app.handlers.load_post.append(hand_func)


If you're not sure whether Edit Mode is the right thing, then you need to read about fundamentals like mesh editing, extrusion, selections etc. and build yourself a firm foundation. Learning by doing is hard with the airplane cockpit that is Blender and leads to many road blocks which can be avoided by learning before doing.

And I'd suggest to do some modeling before doing deformation animation. The rig for a helix can become quite complex, depending on the amount of realism.

You wouldn't untwirl your helix actually. You would probably model it straight like a ladder and then rig it. After that, you would pre-twirl it and, in the animation, undo the twirling.

Since I don't know the style you're after, proposing the right solution is hard to do. Ideally you wouldn't want the rungs to distort while twirling. Keeping the two helixes, the rung and the connections between them separate objects might be the easiest way. You might even avoid Edit Mode that way.

Anyway...

I blindly assume you mean a DNA helix and try to keep it simple. So there we go:

Here's the relatively easy way to do it:

Model this shape. Edit Mode needed. It is a simple T-shape done with extrusion. It has its object center (orange ball with black outline) smack in the middle of the right opening, that's crucial. I did it by scaling the default cube to zero on the x axis, removing doubles, then extruded from there. Last step is to delete the three end faces.

The edge ring near the vertical part will help the rung to keep its shape.

The 3 ends are open, they don't have a face. After that, I selected everything and recalculated the normals.

That's it, modeling done.

Give it a Mirror Modifier

Give it an Array Modifier

Give it a Simple Deform Modifier

Give it a Subsurf Modifier and set the object to shade smooth in the left tools area.

You want it fancy? Learn all about start and end caps for Array Modifiers:

Here are  the settings for the modifiers:

After all that, it's time to animate. Go to frame 1, hover over the Angle value (720°) in the Simple Deform Modifier and hit I. Blender will remember that value at frame 1.

Go to frame 50 (which will translate to 2 seconds if you use 25 frames per second), then enter 0° into the Angle field, hover over it and hit I again. Animation finished.

Be prepared for a slightly cooler version in a while.


The volume is proportional to the cube of the scale. For example, doubling all of the dimensions would result in a volume that is 2x2x2 = 8 times the volume.
Therefore, in order to scale the volume by 1.312464 you have to scale each dimension by the cube root of 1.312464. ie, approximately 1.0948678.


How can I achieve this "security camera" effect?

Switching a camera is pretty easy with the Scene Actuator in "Set Camera" mode.

Switching controls/behavior is independent from the camera, as it has no relation to what is rendered. Typically you "enable" a set of controls while you "disable" another set of controls.

There are many ways to achieve this effect. The basic idea is that each entity remembers if it is enabled or disabled (= state) and acts accordingly.

Additionally you need a way to request one or multiple state changes e.g. via property change, message listening or other events.

Example:
When receiving message "enable security camera", you

let the camera switch to the security camera,
disable the current controls on the player's avatar
enable the controls on the security camera
...

When receiving message "enable security camera", you

let the camera switch to the player's camera,
disable the controls on the security camera
enable the controls on the player's avatar
...

if you have a lot of such objects and possible toggles, you might want do this is two steps:

disable all
enable what was requested

This way you do not care the previous state.


How can I overlay snow onto a static scene to make an animation?

Some tips that might help:

If you want visual depth, then some snow has to "dissapear" behind the
castle (So the snow density in front of the castle is much lower).
If i understand your current setup correctly this doesn't happen.
If you put the snow and the castle on different layers be sure to
tick mask for the castle layer on the snow layer (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/post_process/layers.html)
Also make sure your particle emitter Geometry has enough depth.
(horizontal plane).
Then it might be nice to add some force fields (to add some vortices
etc. you might add keyframes to the strength of some force fields and
use noise
How to make flickering light?
...

PS: You can loop your particles like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yanQ1C7GB04


How to Get Multiple Images as Planes at Once

This was a pretty dumb question.
I just need to select multiple images from the blender's file browser that appears when I run the Images as Planes command.


How to get accumulated render time of animation

There's an add-on called Render Time Estimation that will do that for you.

Full disclosure, I wrote that add-on.


While UVs are seldom "right" or "wrong" you can visualize distortion compared to 3D model geometry by enabling "Stretch" in the UV editor Properties panel under Display:

With hard surface modeling this makes the out of place vertices pop but the biggest usage is perhaps with organic modeling where you have complex unwrap shapes and you want to tweak out the hard to spot local stretches.


Generated texture coordinates with shape key

Try using the Object texture coordinate input instead of Generated. Works for me.


The problem was solved when I switched to the CPU renderer. I am guessing that OpenCL is at fault, because it happened during GPU rendering. More information here.

Looks like GPU OpenCL is lacking many features, so I recommend using CPU renderer for now.


Blender armature screwing up rig hierarchy in ue4

The unreal engine devs were aware of this issue and have made it so that unreal just ignores the extra root that blender creates when you import so the problem should be fixed now for everyone importing rigs into unreal.


if I got what you mean, you could toggle cyclic (ALT-C) on the 2D curve in edit mode, to get a fill. In Blender there's no concept of "object border" but you could use freestyle to obtain something usable maybe.

Here is the overall setup from which you could start...

for the fill, you should be able to use a "Blend" texture type using also transparency, see second image example


Turns out i just need to add as material the Original Footage on a plane and cover the Camera's Field of View .


You are looking for the system console. That's in windows > Toggle system console:

Do not click the X on the console window since this will close blender. You can close the console only by clicking the toggle system console button again.
Edit: Here's how to do it on a mac: How to open system console to get output from Blender on Mac OS 10?
Hope this helps :)


Yes.

In Image editor > Header > UVs, select Export UV layout:

This will take you to the file manager and allow you to set the export options:


How to select outermost vertices in a shape like this?

Select Boundary Loop.

First, A Select All
Then in 2 Edge select mode,
Select > Select Loops > Select Boundary Loop
At this stage an option is to PS Separate Selected, to make the boundary edge a new object... or

dissolve (or delete) internal verts to end up with one big ngon state
1 Vert select mode,
CtrlI Select > Invert
Then XD Dissolve Vertices.


How to use different types of data blocks for driver variables?

Make a test driver script to see what works what doesn't.
Using textblock as a driver variable target was going to be an other suggestion re your question on bringing in a text datablock when linking.
Re Text blocks
Speculatively at issue here is drivers use evaluated scene objects, and text objects don't get evaluated... a custom prop may not update in the driver if animated.
>>> eto = D.texts['Text'].evaluated_get(C.evaluated_depsgraph_get())
>>> eto
bpy.data.texts['Text']

>>> eto.is_evaluated
False

A simple test driver
To fiddle about with drivers I often make use of this little test script

Use use_self to pass the evaluated object. \

Can pass all driver
variables as as locals()

Generic test script.
import bpy

def test(*args, **kwargs):
    for arg in args:
        print(arg)

    return -1 # a simple val to indicate working

bpy.app.driver_namespace["test"] = test

Now set up a driver and test the test.

The driver is on object "Circle", the text object evaluates to None as do most. However the matrix world of the cube object is passed.  As is the depsgraph the driver is using to evaluate the objects.
<bpy_struct, Object("Circle") at 0x7f1cb1372e08, evaluated>
{'text': None, 'var': Matrix(((1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0))), 'depsgraph': <bpy_struct, Depsgraph at 0x7f1cbeb80108>}

Adding a rotate driver on cube, the console shows updates the values for both viewing and rendering animation
Now from the matrix world it appears we have all the transforms of the Cube object in our driver in one fell swoop.
The ideology of a driver is to return an int or float as the value of the driven property. Will find however can make this driver a "pseudo" copy transform constraint by adding before the return statement and re-running driver.
args[0].matrix_world = args[1]['var']

which using better names is self.matrix_world = cube.matrix_world   If say the x location is being driven by this, then it is given that value and all others are taken from the matrix world..  This is abuse of the driver system .. but hey it's fun.
Some answers using drivers
This one adds drivers to drive material index of each face of a mesh
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/183716/15543


Can't open hdri in Blender 2.8 release candidate

You've probably accidentally removed image files from the filtering in the file browser. Make sure that when filtering is turned on that the image icon is also enabled. Otherwise it won't display image files.


How do I make the camera follow two objects at .5 influence each in blender game engine?

Instead of attempting to give the camera multiple parents (which is impossible, an object can have unlimited children, but only one parent) you can put an object in between your two other objects that dynamically moves to the new average position.

scene = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()
one = scene.objects["one"]
two = scene.objects["two"]

sense = cont.sensors["Always"]

if sense.positive:
    PosX = two.worldPosition.x + one.worldPosition.x
    PosY = two.worldPosition.y + one.worldPosition.y
    PosZ = two.worldPosition.z + one.worldPosition.z

    print(PosX, PosY, PosZ)

    own.worldPosition = (PosX/2, PosY/2, PosZ/2)`

The code looks like that. You will notice that it is simply taking the average of position on each axis and applying it to the new object. Now all you have to do is make your camera track the center object, which will dynamically place itself in the right position.

Please note that there is probably an easier way to get the average, but seeing as I am fairly terrible at python, this is the best I can come up with. THe workflow, however is the correct one.

here is the test file:


Bring back the scale of your empty to 1 with AltS
Rotate it 90° on the X axis
In the Image Texture node, switch from Clip to Extend
Scale the empty as much as needed in order to have the scale you want for you image


How can I get an object's previous location with Python?

The reason why the script doesn't work as expected is that you're keeping a reference to the object's data followed by a redo. This causes the reference to be invalid. Blender's Python API provides access to the underlying functionality implemented in C (or C++), which is why some precautions are necessary to avoid undefined behavior. Basically you're dereferencing a pointer to freed memory. The freed memory may still contain the old values, which is why in some cases you're still getting the correct result. However there is no guarantee for that since it's undefined behavior.

The problem is explained in the Help! My script crashes Blender section in the Gotchas of the manual.

  TL;DR: Do not keep direct references to Blender data (of any kind) when
  modifying the container of that data, and/or when some undo/redo may
  happen (e.g. during modal operators execution…). Instead, use indices
  (or other data always stored by value in Python, like string keys…),
  that allow you to get access to the desired data.

  Ideally it would be impossible to crash Blender from Python however
  there are some problems with the API where it can be made to crash.

  Strictly speaking this is a bug in the API but fixing it would mean
  adding memory verification on every access since most crashes are
  caused by the Python objects referencing Blenders memory directly,
  whenever the memory is freed or re-allocated, further Python access to
  it can crash the script. But fixing this would make the scripts run
  very slow, or writing a very different kind of API which doesn’t
  reference the memory directly.

Your script can be fixed by creating a copy of the location.

oldLoc = bpy.context.active_object.location.copy()

Another possible issue could be that you're developing and running the script in Blender's text editor which is also part of the undo history. Editing the script appends a step in the history which is why the second time the script is run, you're not seeing the original location as in the previous run. Instead it's the "new" location, which was the current location when you were editing the script.

Putting the code in a function and executing it multiple times will show the same results for each function call.

import bpy

def undo_redo():
    bpy.ops.ed.undo()
    oldLoc = bpy.context.active_object.location.copy()
    bpy.ops.ed.redo()
    newLoc = bpy.context.active_object.location
    print(f'newLoc: {newLoc}\noldLoc: {oldLoc}\n---')

for i in range(3):
    undo_redo()


The easiest way would be to delete the faces then recreate them.

Using edge select in wireframe view you can easily select the edges connecting each end using box select B.
Delete edges X will remove the duplicate faces and leave the two ends.
Select both ends and bridge edge loops (in the specials menu W) will fill in the faces you want.


Cutting the face it create extra geometry

its because the boolean operator works only on volumetric meshes.
say tube and cube, but not tube and plane. a plane is flat.

also sometimes it goes wrong because you think the shape is 3d but its not some flaw, resulting in a non watertight shape.

in your case you might apply a solidify modifier to the plane and then go on with what you did. (you need to apply it, not only add the modifier).

happy blending.


how to cleanly add transparent image planes, or overlay material, ontop of another mesh in 2.9

I also think that the better way to achieve your goal is the use of UV, materials, decals over the same mesh,  but if you really want to use a different mesh you can duplicate the object, add a solidify modifier with an appropriate factor, apply it and  delete the unuseful faces.


How to apply proportional force based on length of keypress?

Ok, I don't have much time today, so I will just provide a few hints and try to guide you in the right direction. I think there are basically three ways of approaching your problem.

The pythonic way. You can use a python script on your golfball which uses the applyImpulse method of the game object. This is basically what you asked for. You need to start some timer once a key is pressed and apply an impulse to your golf ball one the key is released. Bam!
The physical simulation of a golf club. You could use two objects connected by a hinge which serve as a simplified golf club. You can find a nice introduction on John Hamiltons Introduction to rigid body joints
The non pythonic way. The "Action" actuator allows to apply the value of an IPO curve as a force to an object. This basically lets us create arbitrary nonlinear force vs. time curves which can be applied to a certain axis. Here is an example using a force applied to the object in global z-Axis.

Most probably you will find an elegant solution by combining these methods. I know this is not a ready to use example. But hey - I showed you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it. ;]


Blender 2.8 uses CPU rather than GPU, contradicting with settings

As @RobertGützkow already mentioned in the comment, you have not only selected your GPU for rendering, BUT also the CPU.

Selecting GPU Compute makes Blender render with all selected devices to speed up the entire procedure, while sometimes it is faster, it may even be slower, depending on the render and the devices as well as the render performance settings like bucket-sizes.

If you only select the GPU, as in un-check the CPU, Blender will render only on the GPU, but even then Blender needs to prepare some things beforehand and will use your CPU a little. After which the CPU should be left rather idle compared to what you experienced.

The Solution thus would be to make sure to not have the CPU selected in the render device settings.

Maybe it could be reasonable to change the GPU Compute to Compute on all selected Devices well a shorter name could be helpful, but i believe the you get the point.


Weight paint, I can't subtract but can draw

With weight painting, you aren't actually painting any colour, you are just using painting tools to get a less technical approach to assigning values to each vertex. The colours you see are a visual indication of the value assigned, blender uses a colour ramp to indicate the value assigned, which is a range from 0.0 to 1.0.

The weight setting is the weight value you are assigning to each vertex, the strength will determine how many brush strokes it takes to get there. To remove the weight from a vertex, set it's weight to 0.0.


Apply texture to a model via blender script

What it was missing is a link between the shader and the texture. We can do it as follows:

myobj_material_links = myobj.active_material.node_tree.links
my_obj_shader = myobj_material_nodes.get('Principled BSDF')
myobj_material_links.new(my_obj_shader.inputs["Base Color"], node_texture.outputs["Color"])


Project flat plane on node displacement object

Syncing displacement textures between two (or more) objects/materials is as easy as mapping to a single object.

First link the texture coordinate of the ocean object to the object itself like so

Then copy the Texture Coordinate, Mapping, texture and Displacement nodes to the material of the foam.

As long as you keep the Scale values of the mapping, texture and displacement nodes in the foam material the same as the values of their counterparts in the ocean material they should displace identically.

Further, if you need the foam to flatten toward the shore you can just use a colorramped gradient to ease between displaced water and the flat ground.


NLA editor, default value before NLA strip starts

This behaviour can be set with the extrapolation menu of the "N" panel, strip properties.


Such difference between Edge Split as modelling tool and modifier

so why it splits edges and at the same time keeps them connected
  before applying?

Edge split modifier actually split geometry. But you test this using wrong way. Try to add Susurf after Edge Split:

When you adding hooks it moves both arrays of vertex, that splitted by edge split modifier


How to make a cycles light emisson object invisible to the camera?

In the object properties, you can turn off Ray Visibility of the 'emission object' for the camera:

As of Blender 2.76 the Ray Visibility panel was renamed to Cycles Settings:

As of Blender 2.8x, Ray Visibility panel is now part of the new Visibility Panel:

You can also run this script to toggle the Camera Ray Visibility for selected objects (updated for 2.8x):

import bpy

for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:

    # toggle mesh lights
    if obj.type == 'MESH':
        for slot in obj.material_slots:
            if slot.material:
                for node in slot.material.node_tree.nodes:
                    if node.type == "EMISSION":
                        obj.cycles_visibility.camera = not obj.cycles_visibility.camera

    # toggle light types
    if obj.type == 'LIGHT':
        obj.cycles_visibility.camera = not obj.cycles_visibility.camera


View looks around in first person, rather than orbiting around

It turns out my blender was just glitching and restarting it helped.


How do I make a new rest pose when using wieghts and MeshDeform?

There are almost certainly multiple ways to set up a mesh deformer and an armature, and there are things that seem like they should act like mesh deformers but don't really.  Different techniques demand different solutions, so you have to understand your particular model first.

Let's take the example of a model where it is being deformed by a mesh that is being deformed by an armature.  I'll skip local loc/rot/scale-- really, your armature ought to have a root bone so that you don't need to have any local loc/rot/scale on the object level.

1) Select your object that has a mesh deformer modifier.  Copy the modifier and unbind the copy.  Apply the original mesh deform modifier.

2) Select your deformer-- the target of the mesh deform.  Copy the armature modifier.  Apply the first (top) armature modifier.

3) Select your armature.  Apply pose as resting pose.

4) Select the object to be mesh deformed.  Hit the bind button on the (copied) mesh deform modifier.


The cmake patch for OptiX searches for the SDK in the following directories

SET(_optix_SEARCH_DIRS
  ${OPTIX_ROOT_DIR}
  "$ENV{PROGRAMDATA}/NVIDIA Corporation/OptiX SDK 7.0.0"
  /usr/local
  /sw # Fink
  /opt/local # DarwinPorts
)

Where OPTIX_ROOT_DIR can either be an environment variable or the path explicitly set by using -DOPTIX_ROOT_DIR when using cmake. $ENV{PROGRAMDATA} is the environment variable to the ProgramData directory, which would usually be C:\ProgramData.

So your OptiX SDK has to be in either one of these paths (although on Windows it should be C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation\OptiX SDK 7.0.0) and you would have to create a release build. Alternatively you can configure the cmake setup yourself and specify that you want to use Optix (unless you do a release build) using WITH_CYCLES_DEVICE_OPTIX=ON and the path to the SDK OPTIX_ROOT_DIR=/path/to/NVIDIA-OptiX-SDK-7.x.x-xxx. This is described here, but can also be seen in the code of the patch. How to set these cmake variables is documented in Compile Blender with CMake for building on Linux in the section for Editing CMake Parameter which is pretty much the same on Windows.


The point density that this addon needs to create the clouds volume is now only supported in the Gooseberry branch: Point Density Cycles

Without point density you need to model/sculpt those clouds yourself.

Edit: As the Point Density texture is in trunk now, it is reflected in this answer:

Is there an easy way to make volumetric clouds for Cycles?


How can I change theme for background color?

Preferences -> Themes -> 3D View ->Theme Space -> Gradient colors -> Gradient high/off


How to find if geometry linked to an edge is coplanar

Checking if all selected geometry is coplanar.

Similarly to this answer I find using the convex hull bmesh operator, and calculate volume on result a quick and dirty (and somewhat bulletproof) way to calculate if all geometry lies on the same plane.  Doesn't need to calculate face normals at a all.

Here is a test script to run in edit mode, that will report if all selected edges are coplanar.

import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector

def coplanar(geom, TOL=0.0001):
    verts = []
    for g in geom:
        if hasattr(g, "verts"):
            verts.extend(v.co for v in g.verts)
        else:
            verts.append(g.co)
    if len(verts) < 3:
        return True
    o = sum(verts, Vector((0,0,0))) / len(verts)
    bm2 = bmesh.new()
    for v in verts:
        bm2.verts.new(v - o)
    bmesh.ops.convex_hull(bm2, input=bm2.verts)
    vol = bm2.calc_volume()
    bm2.free()
    return vol <= TOL

context = bpy.context
ob = context.edit_object
me = ob.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
edges = [e for e in bm.edges if e.select]

print("Coplanar:", coplanar(edges))

As mentioned by @kheetor if you are seeing zero normals, you most likely need to update them bm.normal_update() or on a per face basis with face.normal_update().

Also suggest using a tolerance rather than equality when comparing float values.  For example in your script above.

# check they're all the same vector
coplanarity = all((normals[0]).angle(x) < 0.0001 for x in normals)

would IMO be a better test than normals[0] == x.


How to accurately simulate an anamorphic lens

There is a way to anamorphize the rendered image by controling the aspect ratio values

The values depend on the proportions of the container.

For a 1.33 image the anamorphic pixel ratio should be 2:1 meaning that the image should be squeezed 2 times horizontally (X axis)

The unsqueezed image would have a format of 2.35:1

For a 16X9 image the anamorphic pixel ratio should be 1.33


No, there is no way to set the size of a text object in points.
A point is just another unit of measure (wikipedia), so if you know the size point that your other programs and printer are using then you can set the size in blender. Typically a point is 1/72 of a inch or 0.3515mm. So for your 155pt you could set the size to be 54.4825mm.

The quickest way to do so would be to first, set the units to be Metric.
Then in the Properties panel, N to show it. Type in 54.4825mm to the Y axis. Copy the scale from the Y axis to the X and Z axes. The text is now sized at 155pt.


Animating Dynamic Paint with noise texture

It sounds as if you've done most of this already.. but will illustrate anyway..
The Canvas
A plane, subdivided sufficiently for resulting texture resolution.

Format: vertex colors, as per your example, no effects (Drying, etc)
We're only interested in the Paintmap

The Brush

Color, White, this is just going to be a mask, Alpha: 1, this example isn't overlaying anything.
Wetness: 1 -  the full 'load' of paint should be available immediately
Proximity will do, we can't see inside the rocks
A Color ramp for falloff. A nice soft falloff will expose the waviness of the noise in the material, gradually decreasing away from the rock. Also provides another adjustment for the final effect.

The Brush, on its own:

The Nodes
Here, the Brush color is used as a multiplier on an animated Noise texture, before the product is put through a threshold in a Color Ramp, as part of the river's material.

If you've UV mapped your river, you may want to use that texture coordinate.
The Y location in the Mapping node is keyframed to make the Noise 'flow' down the river
An Attribute node is used to pick up the vertex color layer. Just enter its name in the text field.
Strictly, I probably should have used the 'Fac' output of the noise node for a 0 to 1 output, but clamping the multiply and tweaking elsewhere seems to be enough

The result - tweak the brush Falloff, texture scale, threshold in the Color Ramp, to vary the effect.


The best is probably to delete the face, dissolve the useless vertices, select 2 opposite edges and CtrlF > Grid Fill:


The quality of your bake depends on the number of render samples you have configured for your renders, the resolution of your target image and the size of your texture's features. If the 'lines' making up the crosses on your texture are very thin and/or the number of samples in your render are quite low then there is an increasing chance that the baking will miss those features. Also, there will be blurring resulting from the resolution of the image that you are baking to.
Try increasing the number of samples and/or increasing the resolution of the target image to see if that produces a cleaner bake.


How to access depth (z) buffer data of a render result from python

Image.pixel is not available for Render Results, nor does it contain depth-information.

You can get the depth in Node Compositor / Cycles, but I don't believe it's possible to read with python in-place.


How to make an action that contains keyframes from 2 or more different objects?

You could select two or more different actions in the NLA editor to create a meta strip of actions by pressing Shift + G. All the actions of a meta strip will move together inside the editor, which is what I think you wanted.

You can read more about the NLA editor at http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Rking/Doc:2.6/Manual/Animation/Editors/NLA


BGE - move (absolute) camera to static target

With your camera create an animation action with location keys.

Example:

frame 1 - Position A
frame 2 - Position B
frame 3 - Position C

Option A)

When you want to set position A you play the action from frame 1 to frame 1.
When you want to set position B you play the action from frame 2 to frame 2.
When you want to set position C you play the action from frame 3 to frame 3.

You need one action actuator for each position.

Option B)

When you want to set position A, assign a property "frame" the value 1 and activate an action actuator in property mode playing the frame of property "frame".


One way is to use the split and vertex
connect operators.

First step would be to use vertex
connect
and create two faces of the ends of the cylinder by selecting two
adjacent vertices and pressing J
Then Simply select either the top or bottom half, and press the
Y key to split.
Translate as desired


You had the properties panel pinned.

Pinning will make the panel display the properties of a specific object (the active object when the pin icon was pressed), instead of displaying the properties of the currently active object.

Click the little pin icon, and it should appear as expected:


How do I turn a scene into a 3-color...logo or cartoon looking image?

Oh...you want to do that to a scene? Whoops. Well this is how it would work. You would still use nodes, but instead of using the Material nodes, use the Compositing Nodes (the tab with the two pictures at the bottom of the Node Editor.)

This is what the scene would normally look like.

Here's a few different effects you could try out.

A Persona-esque effect:

A Noir (or Gameboy) effect:

Or just a totally simplified color scheme:

Again:
Make sure your film is transparent. Open the tab with a photo camera on it in Properties, scroll down to "Film," and check the transparency box.

Feel free to mess around with the ColorRamps until you get a good result. Any change makes a big difference! Just remember to keep it on "Constant."


Principled BSDF and Glass BSDF black in GPU Cycles viewport rendering

I don't know if you solved this, but I had a similar issue until I realised that I had Transmission Bounces set to zero (not Transparency bounces as mentioned in your comment above) ...


The following code uses local vertex coordinates:
For global coordinates you just multiply with "matrix_world"
Take a look also at the MeshVertex struct here:
https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.MeshVertex.html

import bpy

mesh = bpy.context.object.data

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

for v in mesh.vertices:
    #the location of a vertex is in MeshVertex.co as a Vector3
    #Therefore you can filter by comparing via index
    #here the z-Axis is beeing measured
    if v.co[2] > 0:
        print(f"v is selected: {v.co}")
        v.select = True


Random distribution of objects over a plane

I'd recommend the Asset Sketcher commercial addon on CG Cookie Market. Perhaps you can modify it to randomize the Sapling seed value.


Okay I found the problem, actually you cannot bake a 1 mesh with 2 types of materials, a ColorBase and Emissive cannot be baked, doing a recap a mesh cannot iluminate itself. Maybe it sounds logical, but i tried so many times and results of trying has shown me that it is no posible.


Can you link two mesh objects and keep the UV mapping each one has?

You can do this with a very simple python script

# make sure to be in Object mode
# make sure to have two objects selected
import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Matrix
from contextlib import ExitStack

def work():
    C = bpy.context
    if C.mode != 'OBJECT':
        return
    if len(C.selected_objects) < 1:
        print("Must have at least one object selected")
        return
    # read into bmesh safely
    names = []
    with ExitStack() as stack:
        bm = bmesh.new()
        stack.callback(bm.free)
        for o in C.selected_objects:
            if o.type != 'MESH':
                continue
            m = o.matrix_world
            bm.transform(m.inverted())
            bm.from_mesh(o.data)
            bm.transform(m)
            names.append(o.name)
        # write to actual mesh
        mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new('Result')
        object = bpy.data.objects.new('Merge(%s)' % ', '.join(names), mesh)
        bm.to_mesh(mesh)
    C.scene.objects.link(object)
    C.scene.update()

work()

I hope this fulfills your needs, I figure you can easily adapt to even more objects but this script should do what you want. Just copy and paste in into the text editor, select your two objects and hit the "Run Script" button.

EDIT: the script can now handle indefinitly many objects.


First there should be a twist on the upper arm - so when the arm is rotated like that the twisting is distributed in the upper arm and not in the shoulder joint.

There are 3 bones in the upper arm

a control bone that the animator interacts with - the one with custom shape - goes through the whole upper arm. Has no deforms.
2 segment bones both parented to the control bone. The one closer to the shoulder has Copy Rotation turned off and a Damped Track constraint to the second segment bone

The twisting is done with blending bone weights between both segment bones.

The setup of twist is the same for FK rigs, IK rigs, and when there is FK/IK switching it's best to make it on the deform bones.

Second the motion of lifting the arm up is combined of raising the upper arm and the collar bone. The upper arm can lift about only horizontally, then the collar bone takes over and the whole shoulder raises. The lower the arm is the more the raising is done with the upper arm. As the arm goes higher, more movement is done with the collar bone. Having a smooth transition in both rotations is important for it to look natural.

CC attribution: www.sintel.org, model by Angela Guenette, rig by Nathan Vegdahl


Translate object using lowest Z value python

Here is a simple script that accomplishes this...let me know if you have any questions.

import bpy

# get a reference to the active object
obj = bpy.context.object

# get the minimum z-value of all vertices after converting to global transform
lowest_pt = min([(obj.matrix_world * v.co).z for v in obj.data.vertices])

# transform the object
obj.location.z -= lowest_pt

Note

For 2.8 replace * with @ for matrix multiplication.

lowest_pt = min([(obj.matrix_world @ v.co).z for v in obj.data.vertices])


Rendering issue: Camera keeps rendering the exact same scene

If your camera has a keyframe, that will override any future changes to your camera, unless you either set a new keyframe, or delete them. To check this, mouse over the timeline and press shiftleft-arrow. Then select your camera and move it to where you want it. Go back to the timeline and press shiftright-arrow. If the camera moves back on its own, then you've put a keyframe on the camera.

If there's a keyframe, the select the camera and in the timeline you should see a yellow line. This is the frame where you keyframe was set. If you don't have any animation at all, then you can just delete all keyframes. To do that, open the Graph Editor, press home, select everything in that panel and delete it. If you do have animation that you want to keep, then you probably know how to find the keyframes for the camera and delete or modify them.

I hope that helps!


I think you mean a gummy bear.  To do this I used Cycles and added a Glass Shader and Glossy Shader together with a Mix Shader.  I also added a transluscent shader with a second mix shader.  The light in the rendered picture is coming form the ground plane.


Tapered 8-sided cylinder with smooth shading is not very smooth

This is mostly due to lack of resolution in the mesh. Adding a Subdivision Surface modifier should fix this.


It's not parametric, but bevels (tool or modifier) do have a 'Percent' width type, which will bevel the given proportion of the way along adjacent edges. So if you can arrange for adjacent edges to have appropriate lengths...

You might also want to look at all the possibilities offered by the Bridge Edge Loops tool, for connecting open edges.


Mesh does not stay flat against same degree mesh when rotating on x-axis

The arm is rotating as expected, the apparent problem lie in the fact that the plane of arm joint is not perpendicular to X axis, it is slightly inclined toward it.

The behavior you are expecting can be achieved by rotating around an axis that is perpendicular to the arm joint, it happened that the local space of arm is aligned with the plane of the arm joint, so rotating around the local Z axis of the arm will achieved what you want. Simply change to Local Transform Orientation and rotate by using R >> Z + Z.

Let us, however, assume that the local space of the arm is not aligned with the joint. We can then create a local space manually and rotate around it. A possible way to do it is by adding an empty that is perpendicular to the joint's plane, this can be done by aligning the view to the faces of the plane of the joint and adding an empty using the Align to view option. Parent the object to the empty and rotate around it's local Z axis as explained above.


Actuator's Value and Message Sensor's Subject

Your trying to overcomplicate things. The property actuator changes a value which you can do in python by setting the property yourself.

score['Text'] = score[player]


The individual frames that you see with Blender Internal are more of an artifact due to the low number of samples, not really a feature.

You can achieve something similar in Cycles with a custom shutter curve that has multiple peaks:


How do I get my file to export as a .stl?

The Local View is enabled for this object in your file.

  Local view isolates the selected object or objects, so that they are the only ones visible in the viewport.

manual page

Press NumpadSlash to exit it, select the object and try exporting again.

A side note:
- although you recalculated normals some of them are still inverted (the bottom);
- the topology of the mesh is a bit off, especially on the bottom, which can cause unexpected results when triangulated.
- scale of the mesh isn't applied (which can also be undesired);
However, this doesn't affect your current problem directly.


Bone Constraint Copy Scale on multiple bones in chain bug?

I didn't know about the inherited parenting, disabling that fixed the problem


CtrlAltB will remove the render border and render every part of the viewport. To set it again use CtrlB, but if you are in camera view, it will be constrained to the camera's view bounds.


Why can't I see the render layers in the Scene panel?

The screenshot is showing the Render settings - the icon of a camera. The one next to it (looks like a couple of photos) is the Render Layers icon - click it and you should see the Layers panel.

The tutorial referenced in the question is using an older version of Blender (2.63) where the layout of the properties was different and the Render Layers were included in the Render settings.

Incidentally, the 'Scene' at the top of the panel refers to the current scene - it will change depending on the currently selected scene.


If I understand right, you want to rotate around selected point.
You can either move Origin point or the 3D cursor.
Moving Origin Point

Enable Transform Origins Only in Sidebar > Tool > Options
Move the object's origin to desired location

Moving 3D cursor

Position the 3D cursor using the 3D cursor tool.
Switch Pivot point to > 3D Cursor


Can you apply an action to an armature that has more bones than the one that created the action?

The toe bone shouldn't be a problem, but an extra spine bone might be, as it will have children that are animated by the armature. Because of this it is likely that the transferred animation may never look the same.

To fix this I'd suggest adding an extra control bone to the mixamo armature named after one of the bvh bones and constrain two of the spine bones (the dupilicate and another) to move based on its rotation. A picture of the two armatures would make this easier to explain.

You may want to check that the bone rolls on each bone in edit mode match between the two armatures.


How to make an IK chain stay above another IK chain

In an IK chain, you can limit bone rotations to keep them within a certain range of movement. Select the base bone in your IK chain and limit one of its rotation values (in this case either X or Z) until the mesh doesn't intersect with the bow's arm. Repeat this process down the chain to get a nice curve running along the arm. When limiting, it is not necessary to set both negative and positive limits to custom values. Most of the time you will want to keep one side completely open (+-180 degrees) while limiting the other. These limit values have hard limits of +-180 degrees because any rotation beyond will simply flip the IK solution to the other side. For more intuitive and predictable visual feedback, I recommend putting your IK chain bones in one of the many Euler rotation modes.


To have 100% quad based mesh you can use reduction flow. From 21 > 5 faces.

And only topology view:

If you want to use Smooth Shading, use Autosmooth option: