Adding new objects in visible plane( not default XY plane)

If you select Align to: View in Preferences, new objects will origin to current view, not world:

But if the view is not top/bottom/side (rotated using MMB), object will be rotated in same direction as a view point.

You can also adjust last operation and set align to view here:


How to compile several maps into a texture

Yes.  Here's a basic node layout:

If you have a normal map you wouldn't also need the height map generally.  Note on the annotation that you need to set the right type of normal map.  If you don't know, you can try the different types.

The images are, from top to bottom, Ambient Occlusion, Color (Diffuse), Roughness, and Normal maps.

Note as JtheNinja points out, Ambient Occlusion is not "real" lighting...so it's a stylistic effect rather than realistic.  You might play with different modes (besides Soft Light), or decide to not use that map.  Blender also has built-in AO that you can turn on if you choose to.


make this piece of object separated (in edit mode, to make them still be 1 object), add bone in edit mode either with add armature or shift D and weight paint the armature of the object and if u want to make the object bone parented to main bone, just add parent inside edit mode with keep offset.
i think this should help


How would I animate vertices randomly up and down (+looping)

There are multiple ways to do it, the simplest I can come up is to set an empty as object in the displace modifier, animate the empty and make the first and last frame the same, then make "cyclic" extrapolation of the animation
If you need add randomness, you can consider the noise f-curve modifier

First example with 3 keyframes and the noise modifier

The second example use Make Cyclic f-modifier and only two keyframe

Not sure why in the second example the loop works only twice if someone knows please advice, either it's a bug or it's a matter of mapping (I'm to tired now to debug)


Render an object with a freestyle outline, ignoring objects made invisible by holdout

This is a known limitation: freestyle not influenced by holdout collections.
If you set Holdout as shader material to an object, it works:

Except, one line is missing. This is because majority of the line is hidden. If majority was in front, the entire line would be visible (well, unless the line is cut by another line):

This is also a limitation of Freestyle: Freestyle with occluded objects - freestyle lines bleed into hidden regions. The solution is increasing the geometry (effectively dividing the line into many segments).

If there's too many objects to go for that, you can create a new View Layer, in old View layer disable the holdout collection by clicking on the check-mark icon , while in new layer make the base collection (the one that should be visible), as the holdout layer. This way on the 2nd view layer what's visible is what you want to cut from the first view layer, which you set in a compositor like this:


Why are the instances on the right side turned 90 degrees?

If you are using a mirror modifier then the particles may not work properly until you apply the mirror modifier.


How come my keyframes don't show up in graph editor?

Both the dopesheet and the graph editor have some options for what they display.

With the cursor button highlighted, only selected items will be shown, for a node tree this means the node that has keyframed values needs to be selected. As you are creating them by script you can set the select property of each node as you create them.

eg.

bpy.data.materials['Material'].node_tree.nodes['Emission'].select=True

The ghost allows you to see items that are hidden, that is the object containing the keyframes is hidden in the 3dview.

The filters list allows you to show or hide based on what data blocks have the keyframes. By turning off the node symbol you won't see any keyframes from nodetree items.


How to use generated textures (eg. wave) as normal map?

Normal maps expect RGB chanels to represent the XYZ axis of the surface.

A monochrome texture like wave only has one component and can't effectively be used as a Normal Map directly.

What you need is to convert it into a bump map which represents height values from a single component instead, that can be used to influence normals.

Use a Vector > Bump node instead


does anyone knows how to make similar Materials to this? (Blue marble)

Here. I played around for a while and made this. I'm not sure it's what you're looking for, but it's SOMEWHAT similar. At least you can see how some things are done and maybe play with it to make it more to your liking.
EDIT - here is the full description of the thought process I used to achieve this result. I have also added an updated .blend file which reflects some changes I made .
First off,  to start,  I took the "generated" vector from a texture coordinate, as this is the convention when making procedural textures.
The main idea was that the planet in your image seems to have both surface and atmospheric "ripples". There are also "bright spots" in the atmosphere that have a wispy look that is also somewhat rippled. To get the ripple shape for all of these, I used noise textures.
For the "atmospheric spots" As you can see from the graph,  I took a noise texture and subtracted another noise texture with a slightly larger scale (smaller pattern) to get some more "believable" and "disruptive" distortion. However, the resulting combination was too "noisy", so I added the white values from yet another noise texture, scaled slightly higher again to isolate some "spots".

From here, I turned this "spot" image into to 2 different color graphs - one emission based and the other plain color, which I mainly used to highlight the spots and darken the planet, which results in somewhat of an "atmospheric subsurface), especially when I also combined the emission map with the noise texture I used for the normal (more on this later) to cause certain parts of the emission to shine, and others to be suppressed.

With regards to the normal, I wanted something rippled and distorted to reflect the light at different intensities through the emission. For this I used a noise texture scaled up substantially to make very small ripples, which I then put thorough a bright/contrast node to lessen the difference between light and dark on the map - giving a smoother more subtle appearance to the normal (more appropriate for an atmosphere than for ground). I also used a math node to  subtract some value from the image to make it slightly darker so it would shine a bit when used as a roughness map.

For the "inner" planet, I wanted it to seem mountainous with a rich topography, so I took the values from the normal map noise and used it as a mix factor between light and dark (high and low) areas of the planet. I then combined this with a slightly blued gradient texture to help give that "planetary" spherical look.

I then used a musgrave texture with the detail turned up to get some white values that look like spotty clouds. I then added this to my planetary color (non emission), which darkened the whole thing (to make it stand out as a g"ground" when compared with the emissive atmosphere), but also added those spotty cloud "whites" to the mix.

I then started using my color maps as the values for emission shaders in order to get different levels of "glow" for the different layers.

I also added the light values from a fresnel (combined with emission is great for "atmospheric glow"), which is influenced by the normal 0 this helped preserve the "rippled" atmosphere.

Finally I combined all the maps together, using the fresnel as the factor for the final mix. I then turned on bloom to make it glow, and turned up the bloom intensity so I could get a bigger glow without washing out the colors (as opposed to increasing the emissions strength).
The final result is below:

And here is the .blend file for those interested in playing around with it.
File is here -----


Possible to hide mesh/texture at a perpendicular viewing angle?

In Cycles.

The idea is to compare view vector (from the "camera data" input node) to the normal of the faces (from "texture coordinate" input node).

If you calculate the dot product it will be low when these two previous vectors are nearly orthogonal.

So, just compare the resulting value to some threshold.

1- Each input is converted to world

2- The threshold ("greater than" or "lower than" depending on the way you want to use it after)

3- Combined with your texture transparency

Note: viewing the image in your question, you may also have an alpha values issue (it's not certain but possible)

Comparison node replaced by a colorramp. To be tuned: type of the ramp (cardinal), values of the control points.


Thank You. Delta transform aren't present in bone animation, and editing graph is tedious. Sadly it's the only way.


Can I link a .blend file instead of separate object?

No, as their name tells you: links are... A link between two files. You make a link between something in an external .blend and the .blend you're working in.
No matter what you have linked, it will update once the changes are saved in the linked file and the link reloaded (or the entire working blend reloaded).


Make plan that has vertex that match the grid

I think I figured it out. When he does the first 2 extrusions, the only way I was able to do the same was to select the 2 vertices, then hit "e", but left click before dragging. This seems to make it an edge or a cut or something. After that, leaving whatever was already selected, selected, I hit "e" again and then drag it out. I did that on both sides.

This left the vertices that he clicks on the side. However, here you had to do the same thing. Hit "e", left click to finalize the extrusion, then hit "e" again and then drag it out. This allowed it to come out at 90 degree angles. Otherwise it kept it all connected.

After that, he went to object mode, hit "a", then w->s to subdivide it into equal squares.

Thanks for the help.


Problem with the weight Paint, probably a to low resolution, give it a subsurf modifier (just in Addition) and then, because you are making something natural ( a Body) I would always use weight paint to tell the bones which area they should affect (just optimizing the weight paint should actually work already)


"import bpy" first.

They automatically import that module in the console as a convenience,
so you don't have to type it in every time.  -cheers


Eevee screen space refraction weird black shadow

You have set Refraction Depth to zero.
It is not clear to me if values below are correct, but you get rid of the "shadow" thing.

Glass Plate
Go to Properties Editor > Material > Settings > Refraction Depth and play with value.
In your case 0,1-0,4 m works. It seems to be distance from glass to Monkey.

Deep Water
It seems to be more complicated ... it depend if it should be glass plate or deep water. In second case probably make sense increase to 4 m, that is distance from surface to bottom.

In that case you have to also increase Thickness under SSR Render Properties.

My theory notes behind
The "weird shadow" (as you call it) is a part of bottom plane surface that is not visible from current point of view on background plane. You can see actually through the plane what is behind in that place.
You can actually confirm that by your self. Check where is the issue located on glass plane and switch to wire mode. Real monkey object is placed exactly on the same place on background plane from current point of view .
I guess by default this is some kind if refraction clipping to keep Eevee real-time.
Similar thing happens when you try set reflected floor with object howering above - in a floor is not reflected bottom part of mesh that is hidden from point of view. Like here – Screen Space Reflections in EEVEE
See also ...
Eevee Limitations
Manual - Refraction Depth


blender 2.8: 'Object' object has no attribute 'hide'

Blender 2.80 use a more complicated (sound and safe for code) API to deal with some attributes.

As the object.hide in Blender 2.79 is replaced by getter and setter function:

object.hide_get() # get the hide value {True, False}
object.hide_set(True) # set hide to True

so, ob.hide needed to be replaced by ob.hide_get()


There are two things you need to do -

Setup the script in blenders text editor. The name of the text block needs to end with .py and the register checkbox needs to be enabled.

Ensure that Auto-Run Python Scripts is enabled in your preferences.


This is probably because the material is locked in the node editor. Click the two overlapping circles to unlock the material!


I cannot get the grease pencil to render

It seems that at versions of Blender prior to 2.78 the only way to directly render the Grease Pencil is using the OpenGL Render option - since this effectively renders the scene as it would be viewed in the viewport.

However, in the Grease Pencil panel there is a Convert option which can convert your Grease Pencil layers into a path or curve. This can then be used to generate geometry (eg, by setting a Bevel Depth in the curve properties) and this can then be rendered.

It does appear that there are plans for a significantly improved Grease Pencil at later versions as detailed here https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.78/GPencil and this includes an additional GP_Layer when rendering OpenGL to multi-layer EXR.


Object is darker after joining it with another object just like it

It is likely that your normals are flipped. If you used the Mirror command, then it will have flipped them. To confirm if this is the problem, go into edit mode, open the N panel, and turn on Face Normals by checking the box under the Mesh Display tab.

If this is the problem, then you can recalculate or flip your normals by selecting the mesh in edit mode and using the commands under Shading/UVs in the T panel.


How can I enable dynamic paint in the viewport without the weight colors?

Under the Dynamic Paint rollout of the Physics panel (on the canvas object) there is a Display surface preview in 3D views eye-button next to each DP surface slot.  This does exactly what you are looking for.


Same material different result within object

Solution:
After fiddling around for while with the issue, recreating and mapping the room also redoing the material and lights ending up with the same problem. The solution to the problem was adding a normal map node in between the Image texture and Diffuse BSDF

Result:

Thank you everyone for input, hope this helps out someone in the future.


Nevermind, I should do more research before posting. The problem was that the normals got messed up. The answer can be found under this post:
Why my Bevel move verticies along the edges instead of bevel them?


How do I make sure my objects are always touching the grid floor?

There are different ways. If your object has a bottom face that is supposed to touch the plane on z = 0, you select that face in edit mode, call shift+s, cursor to selection.
Then switch to object mode and change your object's origin by selecting origin to 3D cursor, as shown here:

Then, still in object mode, you can move your object to z = 0 by entering the value directly into the coordinates box.


I think the easiest thing for you to get this working is to do the following:

Separate all of the individual faces into their own objects.
Reset the origins of each face to their natural median point.
Parent all faces to another empty to make it easy to manipulate as a whole (move / rotate / etc...)

This step didn't work out all that well.

Change the driver on each object to calculate the distance between itself and the original empty you have shown.

I've included a file that demonstrates these instructions.

Here's the results:

Also for mass reproduction of the faces...

Make the driver work on a single face.
Alt + D duplicates with links, which preserves the driver data on the duplicated face


How to use boolean intersect with two plans and the mirror modifier

Finally I found the problem: Boolean Intersect (and Knife Tool)  work only if the objects are joined.


Looks like you most likely have flipped normals on some of your model (the arm). The Shrinkwrap is set to move the cloth above the closest surface. For the arm the normal is pointing “inside” so “above” is effectively inside your model.


How Do I Change Which Key Is Used To Focus on An Object?

Open User Preferences then Input and then search for "View Selected" as shown below then assign the key you want instead of numpad


Emission wont emit through black colour screen

Reframing the idea behind “Alpha” as occlusion should make the idea clearer, where “Transmission” is a degree of filtration.
The 0.0-1.0 range in alpha represents the degree of occlusion from 0% to 100% in a properly encoded image, while the RGB represents the quantity of emission. Something can be completely unoccluding (0.0 alpha, 0%) and emitting (nonzero RGB units), as well as completely occluding (1.0 alpha, 100%) and not emitting (0.0 RGB units).
Transmission represents the ratios of light permitted to pass through the object. 0.0 would indicate that 0% of the given channel is permitted to pass through, while 1.0 would indicate 100%. In this way, Transmission behaves like a light “filter”.
In this way, the RGB values are pulling double duty, both as the emission for the alpha component and as the filtration mechanism for Transmission. It is worth understanding that in different contexts the values present in the three channels can mean different things, and it's not always a "colour" per se.


Why doesn't blender use my graphics card?

In Blender head to File -> User Preferences -> System.

At the bottom left under "Cycles Computer Device" choose "CUDA" and you should see your GPU underneath. You need to be using the Cycles render engine for this to take effect.


Imported WRL not showing in render, initially also hidden in editor

The cause of that is return in 2699th line of code in import_x3d.py which returns the method. Moreover, the color vectors need alpha value to be added.
Fix:

def appearance_CreateMaterial(vrmlname, mat, ancestry, is_vcol):
    bpymat = bpy.data.materials.new(vrmlname)
    diff_color = mat.getFieldAsFloatTuple('diffuseColor', [0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1], ancestry)

    if(len(diff_color) == 3):
        # .wrl does not have alpha, we need to add 4th element
        diff_color = diff_color+[1]
    bpymat.diffuse_color = diff_color

    bpymat.specular_color = mat.getFieldAsFloatTuple('specularColor', [0.0, 0.0, 0.0], ancestry)

    if False and is_vcol:
        bpymat.use_vertex_color_paint = True
    return bpymat


How to make the Doctor Strange reality bend?

Actually your idea of using the Simple Deform modifier seems to work with the Twist option and an empty as Origin that you move on the X axis. Once your good, parent both the stairs and the empty to a new empty that you rotate 45° on the Y axis:

In the clip you show, the stairs don't even seem to bend on their height, they just duplicate the first stairs and delayed a bit the animation, imho it's as simple as that, but you can also deform it a bit with a Lattice or a Mesh Deform modifier.


How to efficiently model a pile of stones or pebbles

1. Add a plane and Fractal Subdivide it

A Fractal value around 0.5 is good for this size of plane.

2. Subdivide it again

Do a second subdivision of a single cut, this time with a higher Fractal value. In this example I used 3.

3. Add a collision plane below

This is to catch the stones after we explode the fractal plane. Scale it up to be somewhat larger than the fractal plane.

4. Specify the collision plane's settings

This is done in the Physics Context with the collision plane selected.

We just want some Particle Friction and Particle Damping. No need to be exact.

5. Select "Quick Explode" from the Object menu

POW! Why sculpt and cut when you can just blow things up? Huge time-saver.

6. Specify Quick Explode settings

Adjust these while playing your animation in a loop to see what you like best.

Once the settings are committed, they're committed.

7. It's exploded but needs thickness and form

Next we will perform some magic to turn this confetti into rocks.

8. Add some more Modifiers with these settings

Note the Solidify Thickness of 0.1, the Decimate Ratio of 0.3, and the SubSurf Subdivisions of 1 each. There is room to experiment here - these values are not set in stone.

What's happening: First the Solidify Modifier turns the flat shards into chunks with volume, but they still look too uniform and not organic enough. Next the Decimate Modifier crushes that geometry down into a shape that looks more like stones by merging neighboring vertices. Finally a Subdivision Surface Modifier takes care of taming the jaggedness.

How many subdivisions? 1 or 2, depending on how smooth you want your stones to be and what kind of poly count you can afford. Usually less is more, and this can be changed later.

9. Apply all modifiers except SubSurf and set shading to Smooth

The Particle System Modifier is the only one that can't be deleted or applied in this stack.

Instead, navigate to the Particle Context. From there you can click the minus icon-button to delete it. We no longer need it once the stones have been created.

The purpose in leaving SubSurf on is for flexibility. You may later choose to remove the SubSurf altogether or increase its subdivision level to 2 for smoother, hi-poly (but also heavier to calculate) geometry. The Modifier settings from one stone can be copied to the rest. More on the SubSurf Modifier later.

10. Select the stones of desirable shape and size

In Edit Mode (Face Select), select a face which is about the ideal size (meaning area) that you want your remaining stones to have. Then press ShiftG to Select Similar and choose "Area".

Immediately after selecting similar faces a Threshold slider will appear in the Operator Panel. Adjust it until it's catching the appropriate amount of stones.

The goal is not to catch every face of every stone with this method, but just to get selected at least one piece of geometry on each stone you want to keep. After this you can shift-select parts of any additional stones you like. Then press CtrlL to Select Linked and this is how you get the whole stones selected.

11. Delete the rest

While still in Edit Mode and with your desired stones selected, press CtrlI to invert the selection so that only the stones you don't want to keep are selected. Then press X to delete them.

12. Separate by loose parts to get individual stone objects

At this point you may want to rename your object from "Plane" to something like "Stone", before breaking it into a bunch of smaller objects that will be named "Stone.123" etc.

Press A to Select All, then P to Separate. Choose "By Loose Parts".

From Object Mode you may now want to Hide (H) the collision plane if it is obscuring some of the stones.

13. Set Origin to Geometry

Having the origin point of these stones off in an arbitrary location is no good, especially if they will be used in a particle system. Let's set it so each stone's origin point is at its center.

In the Tools Tab use the Set Origin drop-down selector to choose "Origin to Geometry", or press ShiftCtrlAltC.

14. Group your stones

Grouping your stones is not only a good way to stay organized and be able to select them easily in the Outliner or Append them to other .blends - it's also necessary if you're going to use them in their own Particle System.

With all of your stone objects selected in Object Mode, press CtrlG to group them. In the Operator Panel name the group something creative like "Stones".

From here you can either use these stones (rocks, gravel, whatever) as particles or as rigid bodies, or with the Molecular Add-On. Self-collision is possible with the latter two methods. If you want to apply the SubSurf Modifier to all the stones you can press AltC and Convert to Mesh.


How to set the value of a string property when a button is pressed? (Not in bge)

A button is a representation of an Operator in a layout. Example operator code:

import bpy

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

    def execute(self, context):
        ob = context.object
        if ob is not None:
            ob.name = "Foo Bar"
        return {'FINISHED'}

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":

You put your code to assign the new string value in the execute() method.

If you don't need any logic, but want to plainly assign to a context member, you may use the existing operators bpy.ops.wm.context_set_*:

import bpy

def draw_func(self, context):
    props = self.layout.operator("wm.context_set_string", text="Change object name")
    props.data_path = "object.name"
    props.value = "New Name"

bpy.types.OBJECT_PT_context_object.append(draw_func)

This code adds a button to the Object panel in the Properties Editor to change the context object's name property (which is a string).


Extracting exact distance information for an animation

You can use the "MeasureIt" add-on: enable it from the user preferences.

Then select your two objects and, from the left panel of the 3D viewport (T), look for "MeasureIt" and click on "Link" under the "Add measure" box. Then hit "Show" to visualize it, if it isn't displayed already.


It's the Edge Crease to control the sharpness of the edges when you use a Subdivision Modifier. you can control it in edge mode by pressing Shift + E

Hope that helps.

Good Luck


Whichever shape you want the nozzle, it's probably better to loft it than to deform it. Make a series of profiles with the same number of vertices, use 'Bridge Edge Loops', adjusting its options, (Number of cuts, Profile, Smoothness, etc)...

... and then you can use modifiers to Solidify, Bevel, and Subdivide the geometry.


Trying to make a stone wall- Cycles has weird glitch where it doesn't "fill in" the image texture even though evee does

Gaps are generated by Displacement node in your shader. Eevee doesn't because doesn't use displacement feature. Changing Scale value to zero in Cycles does the same what Eevee looks like.
I'm not sure, but I would say you can use only Bump Only Displacement type with combination of UV texture. Any edge of UV will generate gaps, because blender doesn't know how to stick these parts of images.

Also it seems quite enough disable Displacement and use only Normal Map node with Strength like 10.


How to apply scale to a multi user object

You can't apply scale on multi-user object data. You will have to make the single user objects. U > Single User

You can relink the object data after applying the scale. See this answer for more information on relinking.


Why is the transparency on my particles not working once exported to Godot?

From what I've found Godot uses the alpha value of the albedo color as transparency.
A blender material with transparency enabled and the alpha value changed looks right in Blender, but doesn't work in Godot:

As you see, it correctly turned on the "Transparent" flag, but still has no alpha.
You have to change the alpha value of the albedo color in the Blender material for it to work:


How can I add soft body physics to multiple objects at once?

This will work for any type of physics.
Select all the objects then hold SHIFT and select the object you want to copy from,
this will make it the active object.
Now simply press CTRL + L and select modifiers,
Since all Physics Properties are modifiers this will copy the same physics setting to all the objects
NOTE: This will also copy any other modifiers present on the base object.


How to exclude objects from cloth's collision?

Yes. This is possible with Collision groups.

Make a Group of the objects you want the sheet to collide with. (select objects and press CtrlG)

Set that group in the cloth collision settings for the sheet under Cloth Collision > Collision Group:

Now the sheet object will only collide with the objects in the group Bed.


Can I use object's Custom Properties inside Cycles materials?

An alternative to using the pass ID is using the object name and an OSL script. It is not very elegant either, but at least allows for setting multiple values. I have explained it here.


Problem: Can Not Make Blur Affect Emission

Firstly, your blur is set way too high - 100% will blur everything over the entire image. This results in the mask becomming a uniform grey that has little noticable effect when added to the image. Try toning the blur down to, say, 5% or less for a more subtle effect.

I've set up a scene similar to your example - with two materials (each with pass index of 1), one yellow, the other white. I've added some monkeys around the border to illustrate the lack of blurring for other materials.

I presume the effect you are going for is something like the following :

Here are the compositor nodes I used to achieve this :

The main difference is to use the mask as the input to a Mix node (rather than Add) to mix between the blurred version and the original image. In this way, anything that is Material Index 1 is blurred but everything else is left untouched. I'm sure there are other ways to achieve this but this was the closest I could come up with to your original setup.

Obviously you can adjust the Blur node to affect the amount of blurring - either by changing the percentage or by reducing the 'Size'.

EDIT

Another way of achieving a similar effect is to use the Defocus node and drive this directly from the ID Mask :

My original post used a Blur node in a similar way but it seems that the Blur cannot be dynamically controlled in this way - but the Defocus node can.

Also, I notice that your emission materials are outputting values much higher than 1. This could be causing oversaturation, masking any blur. Try reducing your emission to 1 and see if that helps. If it does then you may need to use a Light Path node to limit the emission for camera rays - or include nodes in the compositor to limit the light before passing into the blur/defocus.


How to create haze around a uv sphere with emission shader

This kind of effects are often demanded to the compositing, using glare node and/or gaussian blur nodes.


BGE: trying to connect many nodes with lines, but would prefer bezier splines instead of straight lines

You could use the bgl module to draw the curves from a Python script. You can use mathutils.geometry.interpolate_bezier() to compute intermediate points (depending on scale etc.). Not too sure about the performance, though.


Yes, you can use Blender for 3D print modeling. Look for these addons:

"3DPrint Toolbox"
"Measureit"

These addons are not a must, but I highly recommend them, and I'm sure they will help you a lot.

Also I recommend these series:

https://store.blender.org/product/blender-for-3d-printing/

Is not free, but you save you a lot of time. You learn the correct workflow quick and with explanation, no like many people on YouTube who use Blender for two weeks (so they know almost nothing), and they think they can teach others :D


Moving hook stretches edges in cloth sim

This is likely related to https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/83096/29586 - ie, the sequence of the modifiers in the modifier stack. Ensure the Hook modifiers are above the cloth sim modifier - otherwise the cloth will apply first (to the unmoved vertices) and then the hook modifiers will move those vertices after the sim - rather than the sim taking account of the new location of those vertices.

EDIT I've put together a test and this is working as I would expect - ie, with the hook modifiers 'above' the cloth simulation. Here's the setup :

The 'cloth' consists of a subdivided plane. I have added a Vertex Group named 'pin' and assigned two vertices on the top edge to it. I selected each of these same vertices in turn and used Ctrl+H to 'Hook to New Object' to create two new empties hooked to those vertices. Note : It's important to use the exact same vertices for the vertex group as is assigned to the hook.

Using keyframes I animated the right-hand empty.

This produced the following animation :

This only works with the hooks above the cloth simulation in the modifier stack.

Blend file included


Blender noise texture scaled in z axis by default?

Texture coordinates matters

No, by default the noise texture is isotropic. Here's a picture of it covering the default cube:

You are probably experiencing that "strange" behaviour becaues you are feeding the vector socket of the texture with a non-uniform vector fields.

As said in the manual, Generated texture:

  ... [automatically-generate] coordinates from the vertex positions of the mesh without deformation, keeping them sticking to the surface under animation. Range from 0.0 to 1. 0 over the bounding box of the undeformed mesh.

This means that if your object has a non-uniform bounding box (even a loose vertice counts), you'll get different density of the vector field in the 3d space to be able to guarantee the same range. A tall object will show a stretched texture upon the z-axis, while in a short (as in your case) will look squeezed.

See in this image sequance how altering the x-size of the object by modifying its mesh (e.g. moving some vertices) leads to a stretch of the texture on that axis.

If you want to keep the texture's size indipendent from the object's bounding box you should use Object Texture coordinates, maybe targeting an Empty if you want to keep the size consistent across multiple object (Object's Texture coordinates is object's transformations dipendent).


Try using the Bisect tool.

Click Numpad 5 to enter into Orthographic View, then click Numpad 7 to go to top view.

Click A to select everything, then click Spacebar and type Bisect.

Click and drag across the cylinder while it is selected. This will cut a line into it along where you clicked.

Next, on the left tab, under bisect, make sure Fill and Clear Inner (or Clear Outer) are checked, or uncheck them if you simply want to add the edges along the mesh.


FIXED: Glossy Shader in cycles Render rendering with White particles

Fireflies were reduced via mixing two different scenes which were duplicates of each other, however one was rendered with a seed of 10 while the other had a seed of 0.
(Only 100 samples were used to test this so the quality is (hopefully) likely to go up when i do a full render with more samples)


I would approach it like this:

Find out what camera sensor size and lens where used to create the picture.

Create a camera in blender that matches those characteristics.

Add an image as background, and set it to Front with an opacity of 50% (so that the image is always present over the model)

Then activate Lock Camera to view, move the camera until you find the spot where the photo was taken from using the background image as a guide.

Once you find the location and rotation where the photo was taken from, use the UV project modifier on the landscape object and set the camera as projector for the texture.

Note that this is not an easy task in any way.


Blender Hair Dynamic not working with both force field and collision

So, I have fiddled around with my model, and I saw one post says that before certain version the Hair won't collide with itself.
My understanding is it should be able to collide with it self now, but somehow mine didn't.
(someone save me on this part pls)

I made a new mesh, used collision(as in image), and I achieved some collision but some hair is still going through.
note that the thing will now have any collision if it is hided (the eye button). I hope this helped those have the same problem with me.
(And please post better solution if you have one.)


So I think I have figured it out...I managed to track down the empty that was the parent of "some" of the brackets and wheels. It was just an orange point, but once THAT was parented to the empty in front of the train and the train body (the parent of everything else) was hooked up - it all worked. Gee what a head scratcher.


I want to add my own armature to armature menu

Although you can't add your armature design into that menu in particular, there are other ways you could go about doing it.

What I usually do is to save my armature rig in an entirely different file. In the event that I want to use it in another project, I just have to Append the armature over to the project.

Hope this helps :D


This is a really simple task.
If you have an equirectangular height map, just use the Displacement modifier using the texture as input on a high-resolution sphere.


You could also do this with Python!

To do so you could run the following  code, manually, before rendering:

import bpy

for obj in bpy.data.objects:
    obj.hide_render = obj.hide

A better solution would be to somehow run the code automagically before rendering, which can be  done as follows:

import bpy

def unhide(self):
     for obj in bpy.data.objects:
          obj.hide_render = obj.hide

bpy.app.handlers.render_pre.append(unhide)

To make the script run every time you open up the blend file, name your text block with a .py extension and check Register.

Note that you must run the script once;


Just figured it out. I had to apply the modifiers to my object.


Is there a way to hide and show the timeline in blender 2.8 series?

The Timeline is not part of the 3D Viewport, but it is a Editor Type with a window of its own. In the default start up file you can get rid of it by clicking on a bottom corner of the 3D Viewport and hold and drag it down over the Timeline.
(Alternatively you could also right click on the edge of two windows an select Join Areas)

Click and drag the corner back up to make the window appear again. Only now the window is another 3D Viewport so you'll have to change the Editor Type back to Timeline.
This for instance can be done to mouse-over a window and press (by default) Shift-F12 twice.

I'm not aware of any quicker way to do this : )


You have to understand that the curve modifier displaces vertices depending on the relative distance to the origin of each object. Also, it is good practice to apply your scale when working with modifiers. If you don't, the values in the modifier won't reflect reality. It is also good to apply rotation when there is no benefit in having one, else you will have trouble tweaking axis rotations. Try to re-name your objects as you go so that they aren't confusing afterwards (eg a plane converted to a curve could be renamed curve-something)

Apply rotation to your mesh object (Object (top left of the viewport)> Apply > Location)
Apply scale to both your objects (Object > Apply > Scale)
Go into edit mode after selecting the curve and set the radius to 1 :

Set origin of the mesh object to the origin of the world (Object  > Origin > Origin to 3D Cursor)
Move the geometry back to the origin (in edit mode) like so :

Set relative Offset to x,0 y,1 z,0
Set the length to "Fit curve" so that your object will fit the length of the curve whatever its shape
Set the axis in the curve modifier to "-Y"

Final result :

You just have to move the handles of the curve object and the mesh object will follow along :


Can two windows be active at the same time?

It is normal for different windows of a window manager to not get input (from the keyboard or mouse). That is, only one of them can be focused; and having the focus means that it gets keyboard and mouse input. Different applications can still get mouse and keyboard events however when they are aware of the other window: they can explicitly ask the window manager to still receive events. In the case of blender these aren't even two different applications; so I'm inclined to call it a bug of blender: blender should be aware where both windows are, and when the  mouse hovers over a split area of a window that doesn't have focus still process hot keys for that area. Blender could do the 'focus' part internally thus, and not care which of its windows has focus in the eyes of the window manager.


Is there something like Layout.template_fileselector?

It's not possible to use a path variable from inside the Panel to achieve this effect. The fact that the used path is either used per object or per scene on the other hand offers a great workaround:

In your __init__.py-file you need the following code:

from bpy.props import StringProperty

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)

    # assigns a propery someName to every object.
    # If you want one var per scene use bpy.types.Scene
    bpy.types.Object.someName = StringProperty(name="Exported Layer",
        description="The UVLayer that will get exported",
        subtype='DIR_PATH') # so blender notices that as
                            # a directory path

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Now you can use that variable inside yor panel:

from bpy.types import Panel

class MyExporter(Panel):
    """
    This exports the current object
    """

    bl_label = "Mobster Hunter"
    bl_space_type = "PROPERTIES"
    bl_region_type = "WINDOW"
    bl_context = "object"

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

        # use either context.object or context.scene and
        # the same name
        col.prop(context.object, 'someName', text='Export directory')


How to improve this rendering so it looks more like the target image? (Disaster)

When I look at his ankles in the target image, they do not seem to be proportioned like normal human ankles -- they look MUCH too thick. I suspect the creators of that figure ran into the same problems you did with trying to generate a realistic looking figure on such a small scale and compensated by not using anatomically accurate proportions.

So, if you want to try to use Blender's environment to make your figure, I would recommend finding proportions that might not look correct in the 3D Viewport or in MakeHuman, but that do look correct when rendered at 32x32.

It is also possible that the original creators did not use a 3D model rendered at 32x32, but rather just painted the image by hand, pixel by pixel, or perhaps used some process other than rendering from a 3D environment.

Another possibility is to render your figure at a much higher resolution so you get all the details you want, and then shrink it down & selectively edit it in Photoshop.


Adjust handle's tilt value

According to a Blender reference manual's page:

  If the “curve path” is 3D, the Tilt value of its control points will be used [...] to twist the “curved” object around it.

See also this page for further explanation, but basically the setting control the direction of the beveled/extruded object along the curve.

You can find the absolute value of the control point tilt in the properties shelf

You can edit the titl value directly there, or tweak it by pressing Ctrl+T shortcut or you can find the operator in the 3D View menu bar-> Curve-> Control points-> Tilt


Remove selection overlays when Editing UVs?

You can get close (though you still need to keep Edit mode enabled):

In the 3D View's Properties region (N), go to the Display panel and enable the Only Render checkbox
In the Mesh Display panel, disable all of the overlays
Change to Edge Select mode in the 3D View (this at least hides the vertices, although the edges will still be highlighted).

And if you enable the UV Select Sync button in the UV editor (it's in the header), then the only edges you'll see in the 3D View are the ones that are selected in the UV editor.


My Rigges are moving other parts of the model

You only need one rig. You only need one bone per leg segment unless there is extra geometry in there and you want each segment to be bendy. Parent your combined mesh to the armature and choose Armature deform -> With automatic weights. Should be good to go.


If you use the BPY module, you can still run it as non-runtime code.
This is perhaps what is wanted in your case (you are not forced to create a game with the BGE.
However, in most cases, the authors want to create a game. Non-runtime code will prevent him from creating one.
Using BPY in a game is a typical mistake as you yourself can find in research regarding Blender scripts. It is usually plain copied from there as it is not clear to them that Blender and BGE are two separate rendering engines. This image exists. as this topic comes up from time to time. I hope it is a funny way to help remind to stay clear and avoid BPY for games.


it is necessarty to fill this gap ? on eyeball?

If you're working low poly it would better to close it and colour it black. It would be different if you were going for max realism but at the moment I don't think it's necersarry. You may also find it easier yo UV unrap.


There are a few ways of creating a delay. I have two* different ways below.

A timer game property

One simple way is to use a timer property, and reset the timer each time our event is triggered.
I have a game property named "timer" and it is a timer type of property.

The Keyboard sensor and Action actuator are just so my object does something. You only need to add a Property sensor and a Property actuator.

The Property actuator needs to be set to assign a value of zero, this is how the timer gets reset.

Now the Property sensor checks to see if the timer is greater then 1.5 seconds, when it is it will send a True plus to the And controller. If it is not then you will not be able to trigger your action until the timer counts high enough.

A timer game property v2

In this screen shot the logic bricks do the exact same thing as the ones above, but here the And controller is switched out for an Expression controller.

The expression timer >=1.5 checks if the game property "timer" is greater then or equal to 1.5; doing it this way there is no need for the Property sensor.

* It is the exact same method, just with sightly different logic bricks.


How to create a plane about such dimensions as the length of other edge?

There are several ways to model with precision, and the first step in this kind of modeling will be to turn on Edge Length and / or Face Area options in 3D View > T panel > Mesh Display rollout.

After duplicating the original edge there are several options to model square plane then.

Extrude with snapping

Turn on snapping with Shift+Tab and set it to Increment. Alternatively, without turning it on hold Ctrl while extruding.
Extrude edge and see the values of the edges.

Duplicate and rotate original edge

Set the Pivot point to Active Element, duplicate original edge, rotate it by 90 degrees around appropriate axis (in this case Z).
Select all and press W > Remove doubles (because one appeared when you rotated the edge).
Select 2 vertices on the edges' ends and connect them with F. The triangle was created.
Subdivide the diagonal edge. Select the vertex which apeared after subdivisioun, turn on snapping, set it to Vertex and grab selected vertex to align it by X and Y axes with already existing vertices.

Read:

Showing measures in the viewport
How to model effectively using exact measurements - related question.
Mesh Display panel - wiki


Glossy object seems dark and non-reflective

Looks like you need some lightning and other objects for it to reflect off of. Additionally you could load it up in a game engine with a glossy shader and test it that way.


Objects being deformed when in rendered view

In each material that have a bump node go to settings (on the material tab) → surface and change displace only to bump only. Then enter edit mode and come back to object mode to refresh the bump.


How to fix Makehuman Textures in blender?

What you need is to set transparency to "hairy" objects, like lashes and brows.
Though the texture image contains transparent data, in Blender your material is probably set to plain diffuse, which won't read alpha channel generally.
You have to set it manually, combining the diffuse with a transparent shader, and connect the mixing factor with the image's alpha output (see the picture below).

Remember: the image texture must be PNG format. If you have it in JPG for some reason (like you edited and saved it in Photoshop), it won't work.
JPG is only RGB, while PNG is RGBA. That means with Red Green Blue channels comes a fourth one: the Alpha channel, the transparent channel.
(MakeHuman creates PNG textures by default)

In Cyclyes, the shading what you need goes like this:

Have a nice day! :)


You can avoid the modifier step: as said above in comments,

in edit mode, select all faces
then use CTRLE to split all edges

now all faces are unconnected (note the vertices/edges count increased)
then select all and press P to split by "loose parts"

now you have an indipendent object for each face


Is it possible to simulate a long exposure shot in Blender?

You can use motion blur, and you don't even have to animate the objects going absurdly fast or anything. Just set the shutter speed really slow (just like on a real camera):

However, there is one rather major problem; by default cycles only uses one step of interpolation between the positions of the object at the beginning and end of the exposure. This is fine in most cases, but for long exposures this is likely won't do at all:
Animation:

20 frame exposure:

To convince cycles to interpolate between start and end locations with more steps, we have to use Deformation motion blur. This allows us to set the number of interpolation steps per object in Properties > Object > Motion Blur.
20 frame exposure with 5 interpolation steps:

Setting up deformation motion blur
To do this everything must be in a single object (motion must come from the mesh itself deforming). A simple way to accomplish this when you already have animated objects:

Duplicate the objects you want to be blurred
Join them into one object
Hook each individual part of the joined object to it's corresponding original object (Select the original object, then the joined object, enter edit mode (↹ Tab), select the part with L, and create a hook with ⎈ CtrlH> Hook to selected object)
Hide the original objects in the render so they don't interfere

Once everything is joined into a single object, cycles will use the steps setting in Object > Motion Blur for determining the number of interpolation steps. Select the joined object and bump this up, e.g. to something like 5:

Result:

Note that deformation motion blur is quite a bit slower than normal motion blur. Ideally there would be a interpolation steps option for object level motion blur too, but unfortunately this is still on the todo list.


UI Update issue PropertyGroup UIList Item 'name' prop's update hook?

When defining a PropertyGroup one can define a StringProperty 'name', overwriting the internal name property.
Any interaction with the name will use this new Property.
This can be used in conjunction with a second StringProperty to create an update-hook like this:

import bpy

class Test(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    # there's allways "name" as a StringProperty.
    # we may overwrite it though, to add callbacks
    def _upd_name(self, context): # this will handle our update
        if self.name == self.old_name: return # abort: no change, no update
        print("changed name from '%s' to '%s'" % (self.old_name, self.name))
        for item in context.scene.test_collection:
            if item.ref == self.old_name:
                print("...updating ref in element:",item.name)
                item.ref = self.name
        self.old_name = self.name # update our old name
    # the _upd_name function must handle all callbacks.
    name : bpy.props.StringProperty(update=_upd_name) # our public name
    old_name : bpy.props.StringProperty() # helps us with our update
    # lets get a property to update
    ref : bpy.props.StringProperty()

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(Test) # register it and assign it
    bpy.types.Scene.test_collection = bpy.props.CollectionProperty(type=Test)
    # lets give it a test
    scn = bpy.context.scene
    A = scn.test_collection.add()
    A.old_name = A.name = "A" # setting both at the same time suppresses update.
    for n in "BCDEFGHI":
        item = scn.test_collection.add()
        item.old_name = item.name = n
        item.ref = A.name
    A.name = "A" # no real update
    A.name = "my-chosen-name" # update

if __name__=="__main__": register()

Note that this will lead to a second entry inside the rna_type.properties collection:

print(list(bpy.context.scene.test_collection[0].rna_type.properties.keys()))

Ideally we'd like to add the update function to the original item, but that seems to be impossible. Notice that you can not patch a hook to the name of objects either, as they are done internally. You'd only loose the ability to change the real name as your interface starts using the new name.


bmesh.ops method to get Loose vertices / edges and delete from that list?

Verts with no linked faces

Possibly easiest here is to look for verts with no linked faces. ie they make no part of any face

import bpy
import bmesh
context = bpy.context

meshes = set(o.data for o in context.selected_objects if o.type == 'MESH')
bm = bmesh.new()

for m in meshes:

    bm.from_mesh(m)
    # verts with no linked faces
    verts = [v for v in bm.verts if not v.link_faces]

    print(f"{m.name}: removed {len(verts)} verts")
    # equiv of bmesh.ops.delete(bm, geom=verts, context='VERTS')
    for v in verts:
        bm.verts.remove(v)

    bm.to_mesh(m)
    m.update()
    bm.clear()


I guess you need to put the Armature modifier above the Lattice so that the Lattice works after the Armature.


So I started over. Turns out actions have to be performed in a specific order: editing values afterwards does not seem to work well.

The issue I ran into must have been because I applied follow path before I animated the rotation.

Use ZYX Euler on object you want to apply the rotation too
Select local transformation
Animate object rotation first in local transformation
Apply follow path


Object as transparent mask in Blender 2.8 Workbench engine

Material with Holdout Shader (in node editor: Shift A - Shaders - Holdout). Add that material to your blocking object.


Set Size Of Object To Perfectly Align 64x64 Image

If it's sufficient to align the UV islands to the pixel grid of the image, then you can snap selected vertices to the pixel grid with Shift+S > Snap Selected to Pixels.

Additionally, there's the option to snap the vertices with every transformation by activating UVs > Snap to Pixels in the menu of the UV/Image Edtior.

If the proportions within your texture are important, you should make sure to align and scale all islands so that they approximately lie on the grid before you snap them to it. Otherwise your islands will be distorted:


How to set Z transparency in Blender nodes using the Blender's Render?

you can use the alpha input on the output node.


You can use the curve modifier, just make sure that your model has sufficient geometry.  If you select your model, go to the modifiers tab, and select the curve and deformations axis, then it will deform your model on the curve that you selected.


Mass of shards with the the cell fracture add-on

This setting is located in the properties panel>physics>rigid body tab.

You may also go to the tool panel>physics tab, (while in object mode) press T if it is not open already. Select calculate mass, and Blender will give you a host of preset values such as broken glass, iron, cardboard, etc.


Welcome to blender.stackexchange. Please only post one question per post, you can post as many new questions as you want!

If you have the 3DView Transform Panel (N) open, it will show you the coordinates of a vertex. You can use an arithmethic operation if you want to offset a value. E.g. if the vertex is at (1, 2, 3) and you want to move it 4.5 units along Y, then you can simply double click into the Y field of the vertex transform. It will now read 2m followed by the cursor. Typing +4.5 and pressing ⏎ Enter will shift it to 6.5 as expected.

You can also use the operation properties which appears in the box after completing an operation. Press GY and confirm with  LMB to move the vertex along Y. The operation dialog will show

Move X       0m
     Y       0.12345m
     Z       0m

Now you can change the the relative value, by clicking on the individual field, entering it and confirming with ⏎ Enter or  LMB.

The BoolTools Addon is not yet updated for 2.8. (25.12.19)
In Object Mode (↹ Tab if you're in edit mode): Press ⎈ CtrlNumber to change the view level of the subdivision surface modifier. ⎈ Ctrl1 will be level one while ⎈ Ctrl0 will show no subdivision at all, etc...

The gizmo is enabled with the buttons on the left hand side T or with Space > G/R/S/3
Questions 1 - 4 are almost right for this forum, view the asking section for more info. They should however be split into several posts in the future. This question  may get closed for that reason. Question 5 however, does not have anything to do with the usage of Blender, but with the  usage of this forum. It belongs to meta.


How to clear values in measurelt (Toolpanel>display))

Perhaps a quicker way to do this particular job is with an array?

Create your 14-sided cylinder at the origin.
Create your cube at the origin
In Edit mode move/scale the mesh of your cube to  your desired position with respect to one of the the cylinder's faces (probably down X in your example).. leaving its origin behind.
Create an empty at the origin
Assign an Array modifier to the cube with 'Object Offset' and the empty as target
Rotate the empty in Z, entering '360/14' as the angle
set the array count to 14

You can then select the empty and the cube array together, and translate them in Z to adjust the vertical position of the cubes. and if you edit the cube, all the arrayed instances of it will be edited too.

If/when you need the cubes to be independent, you can apply the modifier.


Can dictionaries be stored in globalDict?

The list is only an example of types -

  Python built in types such as int/string/bool/float/tuples/lists can be saved,

while it does not give a complete list of built-in types, a dictionary is a built-in python type so does belong to that list of types. While an int and float may be simpler types, a list or tuple would be equal to a dictionary in this context.

  GameObjects, Actuators etc will not work as expected.

This indicates the types defined by blender, most of which are not fully implemented the way that the python built-in types are, will not work as expected.

As the first line states can be saved which also implies being loaded back between games, I would expect the exact criteria to be types that are picklable, which would also mean that the items in the dictionary must also be built-in types, not blender types. Of course if you aren't actually saving the globalDict between games and just want to use it during game play then you should find these restrictions to be irrelevant.


How get drawing area in callback for quadview?

Thanks to CoDEmanX, I have the solution:

 if not context.space_data.region_quadviews:
        rv3d = bpy.context.space_data.region_3d
    else:
        # verify area
        if context.area.type != 'VIEW_3D' or context.space_data.type != 'VIEW_3D':
            return
        i = -1
        for region in context.area.regions:
            if region.type == 'WINDOW':
                i += 1
                if context.region.id == region.id:
                    break
        else:
            return

        rv3d = context.space_data.region_quadviews[i]


How do I get rid of the ugly lines around my object?

First, it is hard to tell without your .blend file, but I believe I have a two part solution.

Part 1

Many of your nodes are repetitive and unnecessary. You would get a near-identical result with just the following. Use the Layer Weight node's slider to affect the glossiness (higher value = more glossiness).

Original node setup vs. My node setup:

 vs.

Part 2

I assume you have Smooth Shading on, as activated in the Toolshelf. If you do, either return to Flat Shading or add a Subdivision surface object modifier.

To add such a modifier, first go to the Object Modifiers tab in the Properties panel. Select Subdivision surface from the options. Set both the View: value to 2 and the Render: value to 3.

Final modifier settings:

Smooth shaded Suzanne without any subsurf:

Smooth shaded Suzanne with subsurf at 3:

Flat shaded Suzanne:


The problem is the way you are creating the transparent surface at the front of the eyeball. This works with a single eyeball object but the Generated output is no longer the same when the eyeball is joined to other objects.

I am not sure but I think Generated is using the bounding box of the object. Hopefully someone more experienced with using cycles Nodes will see this and can explain exactly why it gets messed up when joined and offer another solution, maybe UV unwrapping the eyeball and using the UV's output ?

In the meantime I would suggest you don't use the Texture Coordinate node, and instead make the front of the eyeball a separate material and give it a glossy transparent texture.


How to play the animation after it has been rendered?

To play the Rendered Animation Click Ctrl+F11

Or :
Select "Play  Rendered  Animation " from Render menu :


API command for general Edit Mode toggling (TAB press)?

Keymap sets a toggle.
The operator has two properties, mode and toggle
>>> bpy.ops.object.mode_set(
mode_set()
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT', toggle=False)
Sets the object interaction mode

Mesh object active
The TAB Shortcut The toggle property is set to True.
which correlates to
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT', toggle=True)

GPencil object active
Why is it blank when GP is active, the keymap uses  'EDIT' as the setting, which is not available as an enum item. (See below)  Appears to be some dodgy fix in place behind the scenes, replacing 'EDIT' with a startswith 'EDIT' option.
The shortcut can be emulated by emulating this.
import bpy
ob = bpy.context.object

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(
        mode = 'EDIT_GPENCIL' if ob.type == 'GPENCIL' else 'EDIT',
        toggle=True,
        )

use this in your scripts to emulate tab.
Dynamic Enum
On the "Non Matching". An enum property can be dynamic, ie items added / removed based on context.  If a grease pencil object is active the options are different for if a mesh object is active, etc.
The documentation shows all possible items, of which only a subset will be valid, based on context.
EDIT
On further investigation, the shortcut is using
bpy.ops.gpencil.editmode_toggle()

this can be confirmed by pressing TAB with GP object active and in python console
>>> C.active_operator
<bpy_struct, Operator("GPENCIL_OT_editmode_toggle") at 0x7f3221be1988>

>>> C.window_manager.operator_properties_last('gpencil.editmode_toggle').back
False

when the context object is a gpencil, so without any knowledge of context, could use a try catch clause
import bpy

try:
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(
            mode = 'EDIT',
            toggle=True,
            )
except TypeError:
    bpy.ops.gpencil.editmode_toggle()

which will still throw a runtime error if the context object is None for example.


My materials look all scratchy and not cool,

Thing to try:

Increase the lighting on the scene.
Increase Samples. Check Properties->Render Tab->Sampling->Samples.


.FBX import is fine, just scale of the object is really small.

After import press S then type 1000.

You can alway check if something is on the scene in Outliner.


Why a scene render might have many very dark triangle artifacts?

In edit mode press A, so that the whole mesh is selected. Then press Ctrl+N (this fixes the normals of an object, normal essentially tell the render engine which way the face is facing). Then press W and select delete doubles.


Cannot overlay or combine render layer with video

Your render doesn't have an alpha channel and is replacing the whole video.
if you are using Cycles , enable Transparent in your render options to have an alpha channel

For blender internal    set Alpha to Transparent

For more info, see Can Blender render pngs with the background transparent?


When you create a low poly cylinder and then add a subsurf it creates a high poly cylinder but with a smaller diameter because the surface will be inscribed into the low poly cylinder's volume.
You have to push inside a bit the loop of your hole:


You can easily do this with a Bezier Curve object.

There is a builtin addon shipped by default with Blender that allows drawing spiral objects. You can activate it under the File > User Preferences > Addons > Add Curve: Extra Objects.

Then on the 3D View add a new curve type object, from Add Curve:Spirals > Archemedian

Adjust paremeters to your liking, more importantly Height, Radius and Number of Turns. You can also use Radius Growth although I fear it is insufficient alone.

After creating your base spiral, you can enter Edit Mode in it, activate Proportional Edit , select a buch of spiral loops as desired and use scaling to change the radius into that smooth shape.

Be sure to use S, then Shift+Z to restrict scaling to the XY plane, so it will only make the loops thinner/fatter, without moving them in Z axis.


Found the answer. I had to the "pivot point" set to the 3D cursor and had to change it to median point. Answer by courtosy of developer.blender.org


You have to use a shader like this. If your texture doesn't have alpha channel plug the color to the "Fac" input or you can use a separate mask texture of course.


Animation Nodes : How to access object properties in the 3D viewport

You can use the ID panel to create ID Transformation Keys to objects and set those ID Transformations in your node tree as follows:


Shape appears different in Edit Mode and Object Mode

it looks like one misplaced vertex. Try to fix it or use bisect at the modifier.


The feature to exclude a collections from rendering in the view layer was called Set Exclude in the early development of Blender 2.80. At least since the release candidates it is called Exclude from View Layer and can be set by toggling the checkbox in front of the collection name.

Alternatively it can also be set through the context menu, by right-clicking on the collection and then selecting either View Layer > Disable from View Layer or View Layer > Enable in View Layer.


First you have to add a key frame to a property. You can then proceed to use bake sound to f-curves.

See https://www.blender.org/manual/editors/graph_editor/fcurves/editing.html#bake-sound-to-f-curves


How do I turn an imported SVG into a sphere?

There is no quick 'one-button-press' way to do what you want easily, especially not directly from the SVG imported Curve Objects. Curve objects are not very suited for modeling other than 'extrusion based shapes.

You can however quickly simulate an approximation of a 3D object by projection. It will yield very bad topology, and the resulting object will not be very suited for further modelling, but visually it may satisfy your needs.

Import your SVG curves, fix their center with the 3D cursor, and center them at the scene origin.

Add two sphere objects and scale one to fit the largest radius, the other to fit the smallest radius. Move the logos above your spheres

By this specific order select the matching curve > the select the corresponding sphere radius.
Enter Edit Mode, select all faces press the Spacebar Menu > search for Knife Project and then tick the option Cut Through.

Press Ctrl + I to invert selection and quickly remove the unwanted faces.

Repeat with the other curves for the corresponding spheres.

Assign materials to chunks of your mesh. Press L while hovering a part of the mesh to select all linked geometry

In the end add a Solidify modifier and an EdgeSplit modifier to your objects.

Have in mind that this is an approximation, and will not necessarily look good viewed from all angles.


How to structure modal operator correctly with macro like step by step execution?

Your operator is not a modal operator and you are calling a modal operator inside it ,  SnapOriginObject will exit and leave transform.translate('INVOKE_DEFAULT') running behind ( it won't wait as you expect ) , you have to create a modal operator ( see the templates ) where you catch the mouse events ( movements, clicks, position ) to move the empty and delete it when you are done.


How to save shadow catcher image as png?

You can use cycles to bake the shadow into a texture file. To do so, create a shadow catcher, you can do this by clicking the object properties button after selecting your plane. (It's the orange square) Then once it's a shadow catcher, and you have set up the lights to get the shadow you want, go to render settings, open bake, and select shadow. Now open the material you are using for your shadow catcher and add an image texture node. Press the create new button, choose your resolution and name. Then select it in the node editor. Now just click bake.


Why does a Wave Texture not follow a rig?

you are using 'Object' as your 'texture coords' but you have no 'object' selected in the field box. You really should be unwrapping and using 'UV' coords instead.


Hair Particle grows different on curved mesh

This was caused by another plane that forgot to disable in render, as well as in the viewport.


Add colour to a cut meshface in animation

This works out of the box with the boolean modifer:

add your boolean modifier, don't apply it (this way you can use it in animations)
add a second material, the one to be assigned to the cut-off parts
change the order of the material so that the one created in 2. becomes the first material in the list.

This way, it will be assigned only to the cut-off faces created dynamically by the boolean modifier:


As @rob told in a comment it is simply the subdivision surface modifier, which doesn't change the mesh.

Here is how to create the same display with blender:


Locrot with amature isn't moving mesh at all when playing in timeline

As Brenticus said in his comment the stick bone type can make it hard to tell if the bone is rotating so I switched to octahedral and it works!


You seem to be in Local view, where only selected objects are displayed.

Hit /, or go to View > Local View > Toggle Local View (in the viewport header) to return to Global.


The center of gravity is placed at the object origin. To put move the object origin, press ⎈ Ctrl⇧ Shift⎇ AltC.

Center of Mass will put the origin (center of gravity) at the center of mass, assuming a uniform density.

3D cursor will put the origin at the 3D cursor, allowing for more customized setups.


How to add Wear & Tear effect in a Texture

Wear and tear detail on the surfaces of the models can be painted in using bump maps that are either imported or created using Blender's Texture Paint tools. Procedural textures also work well for this.

Start with a grayscale image(set to non-color) and connect this to Displacement socket of the Cycles Material output node.

The bump map node does not currently work for baking normal maps in Cycles.  Only use the displacement socket for now when baking.

Next, bake the texture so it can be used in the game engine this is supposed to be for(I'm making an assumption that this is what you are doing ;) Be sure to select the texture node that is being baked to so that the baker tool accesses the proper texture.  It should be active in the editor.

Now test the results by plugging the normal map into the shaders' normal socket.

You can bake normal maps using either Blender Render(Internal) or Cycles.  For many situations the results should be identical.

With Cycles, there is the additional option of using a custom defined cage when working with difficult geometry.


UVs shown when faces of another material selected

The behaviour is normal.

Consider that in display textured mode you'll see the last selected texture in the UV/Image editor for the selected faces... so it may not be one of the material's texture. There's no correlation between the material texture and the textures shown in the textured mode of the 3d view, unless you keep it consciusly. So keep an eye on it...

I could not find two of you textures (Texture.png and Texture.png.001 are their names) so I have replaced them with my own creation: Untitled (all right reserved...!!!)

We have a single object with two material and two UVMap.

The second UVMap is "empty", ... well not really,.. let's say it not contains useful info as is collapsed. Remove it by selecting it and pressing the minus.

Now we have a single uv map, but as contain the info for both material, it shows them overlayed.

We can:

1) Select all the faces of one material (Edit mode, deselect all, material tab->Select) and hide them:

2) Duplicate the uvmap, rename, make active first UVmap, select first material faces, invert selection, make uv info related to these faces unobtrusive in the uv/image editor (move them away, or scale them to a 0 factor..). Than select second UVmap, second material faces....and repeat as above.

By selecting one of the UVMaps with one clock you are now able to see only the its relative UVinfo.

(Note: remember to update Image mapping coordinates in the material's texture, they must point to the correct UVMap)

In both methods you are not allowed to see the texture of the other material while UV editing one

3) Assuming that you have one map with UVs overlayed, you can:

Unselect all
Go to the material tab and select one material's face
Go to the UV/Image editor, select all visible
Set repeating coordinates
Shift your selection on the x-axis by the texturex with (in pixel)
Select all in the 3d view

Nothing should have changed, as the texture UV are repeated by default (if no clamp option by enabled), but now you can clearly see and edit both UV layouts

(Note: not shure what to do if the X size is different between textures..)

4) As suggested by gladys, split the objects in two and merge the parts only at the end is the fastest solution.


How to create a realistic jelly sweet that is dusted with sugar?

Mesh: Default Cube with single loop cut Ctrl+r and the top Face scaled. With a Subdivision Surface modifier and Smooth shading.
Feel free to make this mesh a bit less "perfect".

Attempt 1: Just using materials.

Looks complicated but it can be broken down into simple areas.
The Far left Object Info and ColorRamp are just so any duplicated meshes get a random colour.

This leads into the base Diffuse BSDF which is mixed with a bit of transparency using the Fresnel as the factor.

Then the top set of nodes use the Generated texture coordinates through a Noise Texture (with quite a large Scale) into a constriction ColorRamp. If you play with the colour stops you change the pattern and distribution of "sugar". We then use a Bump node to create a Normal Displacement to give the "sugar" depth.

Attempt 2: Particle Emitter

Add another Cube (I have named mine "sugar") and setup the particle emitter settings for your sweet mesh.

I am opting to use an emitter not hair. The End is set to 1.0 so the particles are all created instantly. Render Object is set to "sugar". Children is Simple and size set to 0.25. Render is set to 10 but you can tweak to increase the total rendered amount.

FYI I added an Emitter Shader to brighten them up this time.

There is lots of room for improvement but I hope this gets you started.


Eevee: Light leaking into adjacent walled-off room

could have to do with this issue eevee is currently having with light https://developer.blender.org/T57752


simple python script giving unexpected results

I am working in inches for this project and had to convert the numbers to meters. I had to use the following to get the desired amounts
import bpy
for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    if obj.type == 'CURVE':
        obj.data.extrude = 0.000127
        obj.data.bevel_depth = -0.0000508
        obj.data.bevel_resolution = 4


Motion tracking footage from 24 DSLR cameras fails, but why?

Your tracking is inaccurate. Trackers are dancing all over. Fix that first.

The most important part is that your track elements in the foreground and some elements in the background. The difference (parallax) is the trick to solving a scene in 3D. But without accurate tracking you will get nowhere.


2.8 Can I automatically remove all vertex groups that are not influencing any mesh?

You can just:

select your skeleton
get a Text Editor window
paste the script below & run

import bpy
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
skeleton = bpy.context.object

for object in [object for object in bpy.context.scene.objects]:
    if object.type == 'MESH' and len(object.vertex_groups) > 0 and skeleton == object.find_armature():
        for vGroup in object.vertex_groups:
            if skeleton.data.bones.get(vGroup.name) is None:
                object.vertex_groups.remove(vGroup)

I still think the first answer is valid for those searching & do not feel comfortable running scripts to just mass delete everything in advance.  Hence the 2 answers. The question was a year old, and I also assumed the original asker had moved on.


Not sure if this helps or not but here is what I could come up with using only constraints  to simulate an umbrella like opening mechanism.

If you actually need an armature (for exporting purposes, linking, or otherwise) you could probably construct a similar setup with bone constraints on an armature object.

Make a three rod system with a $Post$ (blue), the $Arm$ (white) and the "muscle" or $Piston$ (red) object.

After that add two empties, one at the base will be the $Master$ controlling object, and should lie somewhere along the blue post, the other $Pivot$ will act as a hinge point and should lie somewhere along the arm length.

Then it is all based on a system of parents and constraints.
The red piston should be parented to the $Master$ controller empty, and constrained with a Track To to the Pivot empty along the $Arm$.

The white $Arm$ should have a Track To constraint to the $Pivot$ empty;

And lastly the $Pivot$ empty should have a Limit Distance constraint set to the $Master$.

The distance value should exactly match the total length of the "Piston" object (red). You can optionally constrain angles and movements of different parts, like say, constrain the master to move only in $Z$ axis no more than the height of the blue $Post$ rod.

Lastly duplicate the whole system around, making sure you leave the $Post$ and $Master$ out of selection so they remain as single objects

You can then probably use drivers to link the positioning of the $Master$ control object to the scale of any other object, thus achieving what you need.


the faces you're subdividing are NGons, not quads or tris, because you subdivided the surrouding faces. Subdividing them adds vertices but no edge.

What you can do is dissolving the non desired vertices with X

Then joining them to make edge and faces, select 2 vertices and hit J

subdivide smooth on the new edge and join


How to make a true linear quaternion rotation?

You would need to make a sinus/cosinus graph for that animation to have linear motion with quaternions:

For the 1st cube I set Euler rotation and animated a linear rotation, with Copy rotation constraint copied that to the second cube and then baked the animation on it with Object > Animation > Bake Action (visual keying on). This resulted in (the gif is little laggy):

This could be done easily with Sinusoidal easing type. Setting correct easingIn/easingOut for keyframes yields to this nice result:


UV Editing - Unwrap object and display measurements in the view

I have found a rather complex workaround for my use case. Hopefully somebody will post once a cleaner solution.
So since I want to print out the unwrapped model with the dimensions to help with a sewing project I came up with this way:

I export the model as an SVG file in uv/unwrap (one face at a time)
Import the SVG file in QCAD.
I scale the dimensions to match the edge the ones in the 3d model
Now I can set all the dimensions and angles in QCAD


How to set Node's group color via Python?

A node group is also a node, so you set the node group's color the same way you do any other node:

import bpy
C = bpy.context
D = bpy.data

compTree = C.scene.node_tree                   # Compositing node tree
matTree  = D.materials['MyMaterial'].node_tree # 'MyMaterial' material node tree

t = compTree # For this example we'll use the compositing node tree

groupName = 'Group'

# Turn on custom color
t.nodes[ groupName ].use_custom_color = True

# Set group's color to pink
t.nodes[ groupName ].color = ( 0.5, 0.2, 0.75 )


You can use intermediate empties to do that. Here is a UI version (not Python).

For ID1:

Hook ID1 to an empty placed at its location. Then after that shrinkwrap the empty to the plane.

For ID0 and ID2:

Hook them the same way: place 1 empty at the location of the wanted vertex, hook the vertex. But here after that, add a "clamp to" constraint to the empties.

How to hook:

Note: for ID0 and 2, you can also use 1 empty for both if you want to keep a constant distance between them:

Select them both
Place the cursor at the middle
Move the empty to the cursor
Do the hook on both

The file here contains this last version:

Following the question in the comments: keeping the shape "rigid", here is another setting.

The prism is constrained by a bone
The bone follow an empty which is clamped to the curve
The bone also tracks to a second empty
This second empty: shrinks to the plane, is limited in distance from the first empty and shrinked again to the plane

The new file:


How do I merge all of these objects into one, and only using one material and texture to apply colors using a UV color grid?

To join the objects, select them and then press CTRL + J.
but I imagine you only need a color grid material for all the objects in the scene and not really having them joined.

the easiest and fastest way to achieve this requires using and external addon.
http://renderhjs.net/textools/blender/

Once you have the addon installed you can just select all the objects in the scene (no need to join them) and assuming you already UV unwrap them, then in the UV window under the TexTools tab just press Checker Map. if you keep pressing Checker Map it will scroll between various grids


When should MIS be used and when should it be disabled?

Here's a blog post from the MIS creator's announcement of the addition. He describes a little bit his goals and the purpose behind the feature. Here is also another announcement of the feature. I'll quote from the latter:

  "There are generally less samples in the same amount of time compared to vanilla Cycles, but since the samples are smarter, the resultant image is clearer."

Fewer but smarter samples could swing performance either way (as the previous two answers indicate), and the impact on performance will vary widely from scene to scene, but the overall effect is an improvement in render quality. As a general rule, when building a scene performance > quality; when rendering your final scene quality > performance. Therefore, have MIS disabled when building a scene and enable it when you do your final renders. However, since MIS may not noticeably affect performance in some scenes, and it may improve performance in others, you may still want it enabled when building your scene.

There are a number of other settings that will also impact performance and render time and all of these interact with each other in weird and unusual ways in each scene. So go ahead and play with it in different scenes and decide for yourself how and when you want to use it. CGI is a very subjective art, and only you can decide if you like how a particular setting affects your renders.


Is there a way to make a game splitscreen in BGE

Maybe this thing can help you
https://youtu.be/78ORdi4-ynk


Each group in blender has an 'objects' property which stores all members of that group as a list.

In the context of your script this would loop through each group in the blend file and print the name of each object in that group:

import bpy

for group in bpy.data.groups:
    for object in group.objects:
        print(object.name)

Although, if you simply wanted to access the list, no looping is necessary, you can simply use:

bpy.data.groups['GroupName'].objects

You can then access objects with:
 ...objects[0].name


I will share my technique for muscle deformation:

You can use shape keys. However, there is a difference in the approach between a hinge joint (elbow, knee) and a ball and socket joint (shoulder, hip). In the first case you only need one shape key (if you ignore forearm pronation / supination).
When dealing with shoulder however, it is necessary to have a shape key for every extreme pose and then blend between them.

In the image are some of the poses that need to have shape keys, but there can be more (arm raised in the back + rotation)

The way I’m applying the shape keys is to reduce one to 0 and to raise the other one to 1 at the same time. Blender will calculate the transition. Then it’s up to the user to estimate the “arm’s”
position relative to the extreme and to blend the shape keys.

I posted this because I don’t think a more complex rig or muscles system will make the difference. I hope it helps.


You can set the 3D View far clipping distance in the properties panel (press N in the 3D view to toggle it),
and/or
the Camera far clipping distance in the Lens section of the Camera tab:

By the way, it's limited to maximum 10 000 units (or 10Km), so I don't think it'll works nice with objects having scale in millions.

You should consider scaling down the objects by a factor you know (say, *0.001):

select all objects (press A)
press S, then .001
then, left click to confirm.

If you want to control the scale center point in order to keep relative coordinates of the objects, you can place you 3D cursor where you want and choose 3D cursor pivot center before scaling your objects.


Why is this displacement not creating a perfectly square cube?

I would like to point out :

I think your math is off
You can get the length of a vector with a Vector Math node set to "Length"
The UV map vector Z coordinate is 0 (I think)

The resulting node tree would be :

But since the "Displacement" node pushes geometry along the normals, you can get rid of your UV map setup like so :


Short answer: No

If all what you want is smooth edges, then you are probably better off using a higher number of segments that's high enough for the critical parts, according to your artist's opinion.

First one should discern an adaptive number of segments for all edges together or for each edge.

For all edges together:
Calculating the number of segments for a given segment length has no closed mathematical solution and requires numerical approximation. Also some bevels don't have a constant offset but are smaller on one end than the other. You have to find the biggest segment width and increase the number of segments iteratively until your maximum width/offset is not exceeded.

For each edge individually:
 1. Using different number of segments for each edge does not allow a clean topology in the intersections (the vertices where bevelled edges meet). Unless you use Ngons for all intersections, there is no known good solution.
 2. In the video, multiple bevels are subsequently used. You can clearly see that the intersection is much different from a usual bevel (top face of the cube is a Ngon). If you have 20 edges and each should have a variable number of segments, one can think of 20 subsequent bevel modifiers. The result will depend on the order which edge is bevelled first and so on. 3. The same problem as in "for all edges" applies here as well.

The used formulae in the video is not accurate, it is just a bit correlated. The segment width or offset is far from constant.

Edit:
Approximate answer for 90° bevels with profile 0.5:

import bpy
C = bpy.context
from math import pi, ceil

# The approximate size of the segments
segment_size = 0.05

# The modifier you want to alter
modifier = C.object.modifiers["Bevel"]

# This is the arc length of a 90° corner, which is close to the
# summed length of the segments
arc = pi*modifier.width/8
seg = ceil(arc/segment_size)
if seg < 1:
   seg = 1

bpy.context.object.modifiers["Bevel"].segments = seg

Anything more general will require:

Face angles at every bevelled edge
3 nested numeric search algorithms


The plugin you need is called now add_mesh_extra_objects.
To enable it press CtrlAltU to open the preferences window.
On the Addons tab type extra and and check the box for Add Mesh:Extra Objects

There are new options on the add mesh menu. Select Math Function Solid.

On the tools tab (T) select Icosahedron

Alternatively press F6 to access the option for the tool.


Just installed for the first time. Blender closes instantly upon starting up

I have had a problem similar to yours when I first started out with Blender.

Firstly, I would recommend first running a debug on the program to identify what exactly could be the error. You can do this from the Command Prompt on a Windows machine. To do this, open up the Prompt (Win+R, type 'cmd' and then hit enter) and you'll want to navigate to where your Blender executable file is located. The easy way is to right-click on the Blender shortcut on your desktop (if you set for one to appear at installation), select 'Properties', and the copy the Target folder, then return to the Command Prompt and type 'cd' and paste the destination folder (cd C:/…/Blender).

Once that's done, simply type 'blender --debug'. Blender should run now, and if it instantly closes you'll now be able to see why.

What helped me when I had that problem was that I checked with two different programs to see if my drivers were updated. I know you said you have already updated them all, but there are some outdated drivers that one piece of software will not pick up, or it is not in the program's list of drivers to check (i.e. Intel driver checkers seem to only check Intel drivers and not exactly all of them), so it might be a good idea to look for a reliable software to check your drivers with. I use DriverEasy combined with the Intel Driver and Support Assistant to make sure all of my drivers can get updates, even ones outside of the ones IDSA looks at. We often thing our drivers are updated, but there's always some that are missed that are crucial to some program function.

Hope it helped! Good luck and happy Blending!


How to alter operator property while it's invoking

Since no one helped I changed approach.
Instead of using a menu, I used enum property, with the update function.

import bpy

def update_names():
    def func(self, context):
        self.first_name = self.names
    return func

def get_items():
    def func(self, context):
        items = [(name, name, "") for name in sorted(('Peter', 'Patrick', 'John', 'Colom', 'Jerry'))]
        return items
    return func

class NAME_OT_get(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "name.get"
    bl_label = "Get names"
    first_name = bpy.props.StringProperty()
    second_name = bpy.props.StringProperty()
    names = bpy.props.EnumProperty(items=get_items(), update=update_names())

    def check(self, context):
        return True

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        return context.window_manager.invoke_props_dialog(self)

    def execute(self, context):

        print("Hi {} {}".format(self.first_name, self.second_name))

        return {"FINISHED"}
        # return {"CANCELLED"}

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(self, 'first_name', text='')
        row.prop(self, 'names',text='')
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(self, 'second_name', text='')

class NAME_PT_panel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'TOOLS'
    bl_label = 'My Panel'
    bl_context = 'objectmode'
    bl_category = 'Test'

    # drawing menu
    def draw(self, context):
        self.layout.operator(NAME_OT_get.bl_idname)

classes = (NAME_PT_panel, NAME_OT_get)

def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)

def unregister():
    for cls in reversed(classes):
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

check() function is solving my problem with refreshing of first_name prop.

So I did not want to have global property, I have a global update() function instead. At least it is not registered as blender property. Is someone know how to make update function as a method in NAME_OT_get class?


Random black line appearing on glass texture from interaction of noise & fresnel node

How about something like this :

The Bump node uses the Noise to generate a Normal for the shaders. The 'bumpiness' can be adjusted via the Distance of the bump node. The Layer Weight node can be adjusted to vary the amount the angle with the glass affects the bumpiness (so shallower angles appear more bumpy while 'straight on' viewing is effectively flat).

Note that this is obviously a non-physically based material (since the bumpiness is directly affected by the viewing angle).


How to merge vertices of a ripped model?

Ok, I solved using "remove doubles".
Thanks anyway.


Unable to dissolve faces of a subdivided mesh (e.g. cloth) after deforming it

The limited dissolve will "reduce detail on planar faces and linear edges" - that is if you have a flat plane made up of 100 faces, limited dissolve will merge them into one face but if the plane is bent in the middle it will reduce it to two faces. For a mesh that has been deformed by the cloth simulation you will find almost every face is at an angle to the face next to it so limited dissolve is not likely to simplify the geometry very much.

If you want to reduce the geometry of your deformed mesh then you will want to try something like the decimate modifier or the remesh modifier that allows you to generate a similarly shaped mesh with less geometry.

From your comment it sounds like you want to use a simple mesh to quickly get a rough shape and then add more detail to be used in the simulation to get the final cloth shape that you want. To do this, start with a low res mesh, add the cloth sim and let it play through for a while, then apply the cloth modifier, subdivide and repeat. You could also model or sculpt a mesh close to the final shape that you want and then add a cloth sim to that.


Particle Emitter - Emit Hair from Skin Modifier Faces

Yes there is a way, you said you used a skin and subdivision modifier.

Then the following should work:

Make sure to add the particle system at the end of the modifier stack
In the particle settings look for the "Source" Tab
Select "Faces" should be default, and check the "Use Modifier Stack" option.

That should look like this:

You can use a vertex group to limit which edge(between 2 vertices) you want to grow the hair.

Deactivate the modifiers
Go in Edit Mode
Select the 2 vertices that limit the area of the later hair growth
Create the vertex group and assigning it with the weight of 1.0.
Go in Object Mode
Reactivate all modifiers
Go in the particle tab and under "Vertex Groups" select the new created group in the density slot
Smile

Happy blending:)


This setup will add the transparent shader to itself when seen by the camera. To avoid excess fireflies, an emission shader is used for non-camera rays.

I used two transparent shaders in this case, but if you don't need to control them separately then only one is needed.
Result with three overlapping objects:

Note that with many overlapping objects you may need to increase the max number of Transparent bounces in Render settings > Light Paths to avoid getting black spots where there are more overlapping transparent surfaces than the specified number of bounces.
Update
With the new transparent depth output of the light path node, you can avoid getting black when you run out of transparent bounces. This setup will replace the transparent shaders with an emission shader when the max number of bounces is reached:

This way you can use lower numbers of transparent bounces and not have annoying black spots.

Original answer:

This will make the emission shader become brighter the longer a ray travels through the object:

However, this only works with a single object, so it doesn't look too good with many overlapping particles.


Have you tried enabling snapping? When I am modeling, I typically enable snapping and set the snap element to "Face" and it works for me.


Open User Preferences Ctrl+Alt+U
Switch to Input Section.
Type in search Transform

Under Pose you will see the shortcut that is associated with bone transform.


Is there a way to temporarily 'ignore' keyframes on a specific frame?

You can't disable them as such, but you can move them out of the way.

Select the keyframes you want to 'disable' and ensure the current frame is frame 0. Press S to Scale and type -1. This will scale using the current frame (zero) as the origin and swap the keyframe to the other side of the axis - so, for example, keyframes on frame 20 will be moved to frame -20. This will move them outside of the normal range of animated frames and effectively disable them (provided you have a keyframe at the start of the animation to set the initial state).

Enabled - the keyframe is in it's 'normal' position

Disabled - the keyframe has been moved to the opposite side of the axis

To 're-enable' the keyframes you can simply repeat the same action to mirror it back to the positive side of the axis (ie, frame -20 scaled by -1 becomes frame 20 again).


Incorrect Vector Pass output (No Alpha & Zero Values)

Did you make sure to disable the Motion Blur check box under the Cycles render properties panel? If not, the Vector Pass won't work properly

Also, for some reason, in order to save the Vector pass to OpenEXR with proper values, you first need to convert it from to RGBA then to Image format.

Something like this should work:

Also, to verify the values stored in the OpenEXR, just drag and drop the file into the compositor where you can also doublecheck them (that's what I did).

Alpha channel is not used for the Vector Pass which uses XYZ components of each pixel vector stored as RGB only for the OpenEXR file. (see comment below)
The non zero value could be attributed to movement of your camera, the background of the scene, rotation... or whatever image/color processing of the viewer used.


You need to add a light to see (if everything is dark you can only see black).

You simply imported the mesh, there is nothing else in your scene. You have no lights in your scene. You (kind of) need a light to see your object.

For just a simple test render, or so you can see your object, just add a few lamps. If you add just one then the side in the shadow will still be black.