text:
Answering OP's situation vs. actual question?
We get a fair number of questions here that are something like this:

How to do X

While trying to create/do Y I tried doing X and couldn't figure out how to do it.  I tried various ways of doing X and nothing worked.  How can I do X in Blender?

Even though the question is how to do X, I often see answers on another way to do Y that doesn't have anything to do with X at all.  These answers are often upvoted, and not infrequently even accepted.
I have mixed feelings about such answers.

On one hand, the OP's original problem is fixed and end goal achieved.  The OP is happy and the answer may even help some future potential visitors with similar situations and trains of thought as the OP.
But on the other hand, such an answer doesn't really answer the question at all, it just addresses some backstory/context specific to the OP.  After all, if I was looking for how to do X in my own situation, I would probably want an answer on how to actually do X, not Y.  And if I wanted to do Y, I would be searching for how to do Y, not X.

Personally, I tend to lean towards the latter viewpoint (though thinking back I have posted a few answers like this myself), but I don't really have any idea what do do with such answers either.
So do we (or SE in general) have any guidelines on what our policy is with regards to answers giving different ways of going about the OP's situation instead of answering the actual question?  Are these answers OK, encouraged, or discouraged?  What should be done with such answers?

To be clear, I am talking about situations in which the question is actually asking how to do X, the OP just also mentions to some degree that in their project, they are trying to do Y.

Found this somewhat related post on global meta.

If it turns out they're asking about x, but really mean y and all the answers point to y, then maybe their question should be edited to reflect that.

Related: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/1119/599

Sometimes there's an obvious end goal as stated by an OP, the OP has nothing invested in doing it any specific way other than what works and is a useful technique for future projects (like non-destructive editing where possible).
I think a good analogy is the problem of 'be careful what you wish for'. Do you really want the literal answer to your question, or do you want to get an answer which takes a different but educated perspective into account.
Part of the Zen of BSE is to ask more information in the comments before answering. Often we have to unpack the information if the OP glosses over important details, knowing how they got into a situation in the first place can help suggest a line of answers. It's not unheard of that a new user takes a very roundabout approach to modelling something, I think we do them a disservice (and future readers) if we don't take a step back and give the alternative view.

That was and is my intention as well. A good answer brings you further, enables you to see new horizons. It reminds me of a question asked here on how to model a piano key a certain way. The way the questions (there was more than one thread) were asked clearly showed this persons mind was so far trained in Solid Modelling. The task X was so narrow that anything except booleans was not accepted as an answer. If in this case you keep on answering X, this person never gets the idea of polymodelling.

@aliasguru yes we have to use our discretion sometimes, even if the OP doesn't want to hear about it. A group of us take a step back and look at what the OP is trying to achieve and how, and those of us with more experience will try to persuade (with reasoning) a different approach. therefor only answer X as X if Y isn't a much better solution, else hint at Y.

we don't get that many unhappy people, but if they are unhappy they tend to be more vocal , and they throw stones into our zen garden :)

Introduction
Personally, I'm coming from a Design background. At University, one thing that we were taught is the design way of dealing with problems (or questions, in BSE terms):

Solving problems in essence means freeing yourself from the problem

(I hope the translation somehow makes sense, the original quote is German). In other words, if you really want to solve a tricky issue, sometimes you need to step back and rethink the issue itself. This leads to 'thinking out of the box'.
As an example, we were given the following scenario:

Each cigarette lighter is suffering from the same issue. Whenever you'll try to light a cigarette in strong wind conditions, the wind would extinguish the flame before the cigarette burns. Come up with solutions to this.

At first, you think of the problem as a flame being extinguished by wind. The solutions you come up with are all kinds of shields, tubes that surround the flame, higher power fuels, whatnot. Then, you run out of ideas.
At this point, you look at the top quote again, and realise something: The question made you think in a certain way. You were thinking of flames, not cigarettes! The problem to you always was the flame going out, while the actual issue was to light a cigarette in stormy conditions. BOOM creativity and ideas come back. The best solution in the end was to spawn a mini electric lightning (like those devices you see in action movies sometimes do put people out), as this one doesn't care about wind speed at all, and will also work indoors by the way. So, to forget about flames was necessary to get to a solution.
Why am I saying all this?
For me, it is valid to provide alternative solutions to questions, as long as the essence of the question is answered. Think about it: The OP has decided to ask the community because he or she navigated himself into a dead end many times. The solution he's looking is inspired by his own background, and many users have little experience yet in how to tackle 3D geometry, and also polymodelling. Some have a NURBS modelling background, and still think in that terms. So they tend to think their way, and that might be the reason why they fail to achieve X. A question which solves the actual issue, but not necessarily answers the question literally, can open much wider corridors and inspire new users in a very powerful way.
That's why for me, such answers are encouraged.

My issue with this train of thought is that even though the OP may come off completely satisfied, the purpose of SE is to create a valuable resource for everybody who uses Blender, and knowing how to do Y won't help most future people looking for a way to do X.

X should be X
I agree with you on that point and often I feel that some people see SE/SO as some kind of game where the goal is to collect all of the achievements. So answering Y instead of X, as long as it is mentioned in the question, seems to be legit to proceed faster.
BlenderSE's goal should not only to be a Q&A or a FAQ, it should try to deliver quality content. But most of the time the problem is not necessarily on the side of the person who delivers an answer.
My problem with this is actually the exact opposite. We all know and love people who drop those annoying one-liners, right?
When X actually isn't X
Sometimes I catch myself answering X instead of Y, which would be the actual answer to the OP's question and most of the time the reason for this is that people don't give all the needed information in their questions, like ...

what render engine they intend to use
what's the purpose of their model (still render, animation, game asset)
what have they tried already

...in short: Well... relevant stuff.
So, you went through the process of creating a detailed-as-necessary answer on how to create a nice looking thingy for a still render in cycles and then you read the comment "Yeah, right... but dude, how does that apply to my question? I want to create a game asset".
Actually I remember at least one case where I completely lost any interest (aka being p'd off a little) in correcting my answer after such a comment and just let it stay there as it was. Some days after that it got UVd by someone who had the same problem but actually wanted to do a still render instead of a game asset. Problem solved, the upvoter was happy, I was happy again, case closed.
Quality Content
Quality content comes not out of thin air.
If someone answers Y instead of X for the sole purpose of gaining reputation we could at least comment that and remember him to stay on topic.
We get a lot if trivial questions that are answered in nearly every "Blender for Beginners" tutorial you can find on youtube, vimeo or (for those who prefer to read) on the various blogs and websites that pop up when you feed "Blender for Beginners" to google. In my opinion those questions should not be answered on BlenderSE directly, at least not for the sole purpose of "grinding" (to stick with game terminology) reputation.
There are quite some tutorial requests on how to create complete scenes, building game assets and exporting them to unity/UE4 and the like. Instead of answering those questions here over and over again or redirecting the OPs to related questions, there should be a possibility for us to create that kind of tutorials somewhere within BlenderSE or maybe outside of it.
I also suggest that we should improve the help section and in particular the "How do I ask a good question?" part. That certainly won't prevent vague questions and annoying one-liners but at least we wouldn't have to write the whole sermon into a comment over and over again. Those new users who are really committed to learning Blender would certainly try to adapt to the ruleset and over time become valuable contributors themselves.
Reviewing
We should encourage (not only, but especially) new users a little more to review their own questions and adding relevant stuff to them instead of writing it into the comment section. And we should quit answering vague questions for the purpose of grinding reputation.
If they won't do it and the topic seems to be interesting and important enough to us, we should do it on their behalf.

Mostly agreed (although it's maybe quite difficult to differentiate between simple helping and gaining rep), but what does it mean "to stay OT" ?

@MrZak - It should mean "on topic", I just realized, that  OT is the abbreviation for "off topic"... ;-)


text:
Can we rethink requesting MathJaX?
I know this has already been brought up and (sort of) rejected, but that was over a year ago and I think it deserves a new discussion.
Computer graphics is an inherently mathematical subject (we do even have a mathematics tag).  As raytracing, shading, and procedural textures are some of my specialties I regularly write questions and answers dealing with vectors and other heavily mathematical topics.  So I often find myself wishing I could include prettyprint mathematical typesetting in my answers.
Currently I usually include mathematical equations by either typing them single-file in code blocks or doing the typesetting in MS Word or Mathematica and taking a screenshot.  Both of these are horribly inefficient and/or hard to read.
So here are my questions:

Does anyone else think being able to natively typeset mathematical expressions would be valuable to Blender.SE?
What would be required to enable MathJaX mathematical typesetting for Blender.SE?
Why would we not want MathJaX?
Do we even still have the option of adding new features now that we have graduated?

This was eventually implemented in 2018, per this post.

I'll answer your bullet points in order.

Does anyone else think being able to natively typeset mathematical expressions would be valuable to Blender.SE?

Yes I asked for it originally, and still think it would be useful.

What would be required to enable MathJaX mathematical typesetting for Blender.SE?

The SE devs set all that up, from our perspective not much. They just add a library (MathJax) and a bit of js.

Why would we not want MathJaX?

The overhead of adding another library to load. It can make pages slower, and the rendering of the math can be slower still.
For 90ish% of our questions it would do nothing.

Do we even still have the option of adding new features now that we have graduated?

Sure! There is a feature-request tag just for asking for things like this; and the meta is the place to suggest them. If you look at SE's update log they are always changing things.

The overhead in loading MathJax seems trivial. It also renders fairly fast in most browsers. "If taken from the MathJax CDN, the actual (compressed) data transferred for MathJax.js will be about 14.4KB. [...]minimal configurations can be as small as 3.7KB." see 1st para of http://docs.mathjax.org/en/latest/misc/faq.html

When you need it - it's incredibly useful. There is math everywhere in Blender (e.g.) and yet right now it's hard to write enough of an equation to talk/ask/answer about it.

I needed it today for this question so I used it in another stackexchange site and then pasted a screenshot.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
Is there a way to encourage voting?
I find that there seems to be a misunderstanding among many users of this site  about how voting posts up/down should work.  In my mind a question should be upvoted if it is clear and fits within our scope.  An answer should be upvoted if it is clear and makes an honest attempt at answering the question based on the information given.  Though this is my opinion I have based it on this post on global meta.  Please correct me if I have misinterpreted anything.
However I seem to get the feeling that many users, I think especially those coming from other forums, seem to think you upvote a post if you personally like the content or were helped by it.  I believe this is what favoriting a question is for, upvoting is more broad.
What gives me this feeling is that when I periodically go through the unanswered questions list I often find a few of them have (often multiple) perfectly good answers with no upvotes, even though the question has had fair number of views.  I have taken many questions off the unanswered list by just upvoting a good answer.  Don't get me wrong, I don't upvote answers just to get questions off the list, I am talking about perfectly good answers which have little to no upvotes.
I also occasionally get slightly frustrated when one of my own answers goes without any votes even though it answers the question.  I have noticed this happening more frequently in the past few months too.
Am I just imagining this or has anyone else noticed this?  Is there anything we can do to educate users more about voting and encourage people to vote more frequently?

This seems to be becoming a bigger problem as our site grows. I seem to have been seeing a lot of good posts lately without any votes (until I add mine). I think with the the uptick in overall activity, posts are getting pushed quickly down the homepage with little to no views, let alone votes. (I also can't help but notice this on my own posts as well.)

Similar question, solid answer in my opinion: http://meta.video.stackexchange.com/questions/1446/how-we-can-motivate-our-users-to-vote

I also note that many visitors to this site probably don't have the reputation to vote. I don't think the vote count will ever match the view count.

We could use some API queries to get real numbers on those questions, rather than judging the state-of-affairs by how things appear to us. (prone to confirmation bias)
I can only speak for my own reasons to vote:

The topic interest me, and the post was informative
I know enough about a topic to feel my vote is a good indicator for other users.

Reasons not to vote:

I don't know enough about the specific area mentioned in the title, so I won't even read the Question / Answers.
"Wall of Text" answers, bug me :)

You can look at the top voters for week / month / quarter, to get a sense of who's doing what.

Possibly we could send reminders to people who log in, but don't show much voting activity

"Hey, our visitors rely on people like you to vote on good answers, please vote or leave a comment to help strengthen weak content" .

Who votes?
Some people it seems have time to answers questions, but don't care to vote much at all. So without doing a witchhunt here's the list of 15 top rep contributors and their total vote count. This is just a snapshot
User             |  Rep  |  Votes
-----------------+-------+-------
gandalf3         | 63.1k |  7155
iKlsR            | 20.2k |  3706
ideasman42       | 19.7k |  1300
stacker          | 18.5k |  5699
sambler          | 16.1k |  1092
David            | 15.1k |  1802
cegaton          | 14.7k |  1385
zeffii           | 14.5k |  1922
CoDEmanX         | 13.4k |  442
Leon Cheung      | 12.4k |  1175
Jerryno          | 12.2k |  78
Chebhou          | 11.4k |  893
Ray Mairlot      | 10.6k |  344
NoviceInDisguise |  8.5k |  2352
CharlesL         |  8.4k |  538

I think this shows that most of us who see a lot of posts also tend to vote on them, those who don't vote a lot are definitely in the minority -- I wouldn't worry about it.

I like the reminder idea; but I think we should include a simple guideline on why one would vote up.  I haven't voted much, though I read a lot of things; and I usually only vote up on questions that I thought were a question that would be something another or myself might want to know, and is clear what is being asked.  Same for the answer, if I understand it and it appears to be the answer, or an answer.  I think wall of texts occur because some are attempts at a tutorial to a complex question specific to the questioner's problem in design only.

@Cyberchipz yep, I think we can forgive new users from not being very good at abstracting out the problem from their current scenario/blend.. But a short tutorial on the elements that help us answer questions better, and help people make better, more generalized, questions is not a bad idea at all.  Learning how to learn or how to ask question is arguably the most important skill...

You can use some of my answers for good 'bad' examples.  I'll take this advice personally. :-)  But, in poor defence I'll say that we noobs gotta get points where we can find them. XD

I wonder if adding something more opinion based could help, some sort of level of quality enabled only when you vote.
Level 1 : this answers the question
Level 2 : Good answer
Level 3 : Good, intersting, informative, sexy : I like it!
Level 4 : AWESOME!!!
The ability to easily give a bit of personal opinion could encourage voting.
It could also be some stars (or mini-blender logos) to click for visual quality, understandability (this word exists?),...

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
What to do with trivial suggested edits?
From the help center:

Tiny, trivial edits are discouraged - try to make the post significantly better when you edit, correcting all problems that you observe.

I often run across suggested edits in the review queue which seem quite trivial, often just correcting one or two punctuation or spelling mistakes.  Sometimes the suggested edits aren't even fixing anything technically wrong, just adding a tiny word or something that makes it read better.
From the above quote it seems obvious that these are discouraged.  But that doesn't say anything about what to do with these types of edits pop up in the review queue.  Should I approve them?

related: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/241/micro-editing-does-everything-need-to-be-perfect?rq=1

I typically approve these if I don't see any other problems with the post.
I like to rate the triviality of an edit proportionally to the number of things the edit could potentially fix.
For example, if the post is riddled with typos grammar errors, poor tag choices, unhelpful titles, etc. and the edit corrects a tiny punctuation mistake, then I would likely reject and edit.
If the post has a couple grammar errors and "help: blender question" for a title, and the suggested edit fixes the grammar issues, then I would pick improve edit.
On whole I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the editor. If an incomplete edit touches on only a few small issues, yet fixes them the same way I would likely fix them, and it would take me longer than e.g. 1 second to type up the same thing, then I'll choose improve edit.


text:
What is a "well received question"?
The Socratic badge's criteria says

Ask a well-received question on 100 separate days, and maintain a positive question record. This badge can be awarded multiple times.

Unlike most of the other badges' criteria, this seems pretty subjective and not very clear as to what a "well received question" is.  For instance, I have asked 65 questions, but according to the badge tracker only 54 of them are "well received".  So what exactly qualifies as a "well received" question?

According to Meta.SE, the criteria is:
(total questions - negative questions - closed - deleted)/total questions >= 0.5

where each question can be counted more than once (i.e. a closed deleted negative question will counted as -3 total).
So any question with a positive score (that has not been closed or deleted) is considered well-received.
Source: List of all badges with full descriptions


text:
Who won the election?
The election recently ended, and there is lovely file of the results, but it looks like this when displayed in the browser.
4 3
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 4 3 0
1 1 3 2 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 3 2 0
1 4 2 1 0
1 1 3 2 0
1 2 3 1 0
1 3 2 4 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 2 4 0
1 1 3 2 0
1 2 3 4 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 1 2 4 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 2 4 0
1 3 4 2 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 2 1 4 0
1 1 2 0 0
1 1 2 4 0
1 2 1 4 0
1 1 2 4 0
1 2 0 0 0
1 3 1 2 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 1 3 4 0
1 1 3 2 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 1 3 4 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 4 1 0
1 2 1 4 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 2 3 0 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 1 0 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 3 4 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 3 1 2 0
1 2 3 4 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 1 4 0
1 2 3 4 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 1 2 0 0
1 1 4 2 0
1 2 3 1 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 2 4 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 3 1 0
1 1 3 2 0
1 1 3 2 0
1 1 3 2 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 4 3 0
1 3 1 2 0
1 2 1 4 0
1 2 0 0 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 3 1 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 4 2 3 0
1 2 3 1 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 3 2 0
1 2 4 1 0
1 3 4 2 0
1 3 1 2 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 1 3 2 0
1 2 1 0 0
1 1 0 0 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 3 1 4 0
1 2 3 1 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 3 2 4 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 3 4 0
1 2 0 0 0
1 2 4 1 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 3 2 1 0
1 4 0 0 0
1 2 3 1 0
1 4 2 1 0
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 2 4 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 4 3 1 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 3 1 2 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 1 4 0
1 4 3 0 0
1 2 1 4 0
1 1 2 4 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 3 1 0
1 2 0 0 0
1 2 3 1 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 2 3 1 0
1 3 1 4 0
1 2 1 3 0
1 3 4 1 0
1 3 1 2 0
1 4 3 2 0
1 4 0 0 0
1 2 4 1 0
1 2 1 3 0
0
"iKlsR"
"gandalf3"
"David"
"NoviceInDisguise"
"Blender Stack Exchange Moderator Election 2015"

That is obviously not the most useful information, unless you know what it means, unfortunately I do not, so my question is, How can these results be read in a remotely useful form?

I guess the votes were still being tallied, the results can now be viewed here.
For more detail about the exact algorithm used, see wikipedia. For an explanation of the file format used to store the votes, see this answer.

your first sentence answers my original question (pre-edit)


text:
Funny Questions #3
- THREE STRIKES DOES NOT MEAN YOU'RE OUT! FUNNY QUESTIONS RETURN FOR ROUND THREE! -
The rules of this contest are simple

Write a funny question as an answer to this post. Put the title of that question following a #.

You may pretty much use any method you want to make your question funny.

The winner will be decided based on who has the most up votes.

Downvotes are Not Counted When determing the winner, so save your daily votes. (you only get 40)

Although I highly doubt there are any five-year-olds on this site, we must use the same rule from the previous image contests, and keep the entries "Politically Correct" .

This is now the third time that this event has run. Although there is nothing stopping you from stealing ideas from previous entrees, You may NOT directly copy entries from the previous events and post them here. Mostly/Entirely original content is recommended.

The main point is to create a question that other users will find funny.

The winner will be chosen and his/her/its entry will be accepted. The link to that entry will be placed in the space below, along with the entries that almost won.

The winner will be chosen on October 27th. Other entries are welcome after that, but the winners entree will stay accepted (even if new entries gain more upvotes).

YOUR QUESTION SHOULD NOT BE POSTED ON THE MAIN SITE OR IN ANY PLACE OTHER THAN THIS POST UNLESS YOUR QUESTION IS A REAL, SERIOUS QUESTION.

- You may enter no more than twice.
However, only one entree can obtain first place. (Obviously)

WINNER AS OF 10-27-2015
There was a two way tie for first place.
First place entries from David♦ and cegaton.
As absurd as it is, there was also a two way tie for second, and another two way tie for third!

Previous runs of the event:
Funny Questions 1
Funny Questions 2

I just Dowloaded blender, but not working HELP plz!
PS I'm using the latest version of Monkey Linux.
PPS how do I format my question correctly?
PPPS how do I make those cool videos like @David and @gandalf3 have in their answers?

installation dowload monkey i-dowloaded-the-blender-exe-version-2.21.--but-it-is-not-installing-corectly-on-my-computer.--i-do-not-know-much-about-blender-or-exe-files thanks

+1 for the  tag

Only sightly inspired from the events of a certain blend hosting service.

PS anybody notice the latest release date for Monkey Linux?

+1 for "Dowloaded" @GiantCowFIlms

i have problem...
i download blender from there website and isnatlled then i maked a new file and tried to add monkey and it worked until here but then i click modifier and error occured a friend tried to click also modifier but no problem please help me and fix blender to not give me error when i click modifier i dont want to lose my work and not sure if i can save with error exists i will leave blender open until working version of blender give me workaround or fix modifier click error that wood be helpful thanks!!!!1111eleven
problem help blender

How to make blender darken, cause its all whited out and I can't do anything with it after I moved the bones on my character
OK, so I'm making a minecraft animation, and I have a rig with every block!
And so I create a world with it (It took me about a month) but I finally had copied enough blocks to create a world. Its not infinite, unfortunately, but It goes as far as you can see in every direction. Trees, mountains, caves, ect.
But now I imported a player, and when I tried to move his hand, the the whole tab whited out, and now I can't do anything! I'm sure there's some setting somewhere that makes it do that when you try and move the bones on a character, but I don't know what one it might be. Is it in the settings? What buttons should I push?
UPDATE Never mind guys I came back from lunch and it wasn't whited out anymore! Thanks for helping!
Another Update Ignore that first update! I tried to move the character again and it did the same thing!
Help!

The sad thing is this is quite close to some real questions we get.

bug in my python!
Please help! A bug in my python causes a lot of trouble, I use Blender to fix this problem. I can't make it run. This reptile doesn't feel ok at all, it swallowed a spider. Does someone know how I can use blender to fix this.  Maybe if I run my blender, the noise makes the bug come out my python, and so my reptile feels ok.

HELP! my monkeys eyes keep falling out! how can i keep the eyes int eh monkey head?
i have a BIG problem when i make animaton of cloth sim for monkey head the eyes always fal out and it looks gross so plz HELp cuz i dont know what is wrong wiht it they just fall out and i didnt tell thme too

get the "fix monkey and make everything better." addon. it is great for this type of situation.

Seriously people, Why won't you answer my question!!?!?!?!?
This is a simple question people, it shouldn't be too hard for any of you to figure out. blackhole could solve this it is so simple. your probably thinking, "if it is so simple, why cant you figure it out?" Because Im an Uber noob!!! My question is so simple I'm not going to bother telling you what it is!!!!! I want an answer and I want it now! and I'm not saying please!! But just because I'm so nice, I'll give you another question. I just watched two videos of someone rendering a cube in cycles, and somsone rendering a cube in Blender internal. Most useless video EVER!!! Yes or No? On a scale of 1-10 do you prefer cycles or blender internal? If I don't get any answers on this, I'm going to just use both Bi and cycles! I'm making a full length movie in the game engine and I need to know whether or not I should use cycles or blender internal! I would think that everything you do inside of blender is blender internal! isn't that the dumbest name ever heard of for a render engine??? and cycles- what is it cycling through? Headaches caused by trying to decipher the reason for the name? Bonus question! Just for you because you guys are so good at answering questions already! I wanted to make a breathtaking nuclear explosion on a hillside with the camera swooping up over a  mountain with a view of the sunset behind. how can I make this? I just download blender and any tips on how I can un-zip the folder would help immensely.
Ps. If you choose blender internal, how can I switch to it from cycles?
Ps. 2.0 I need my full length sci-fy movie of aliens causing the nuclear apocalypse done in 5 days. My assignment is due by then so I need an answer FAST
thanks!

This guy manages to steal 2.7k rep from the system but cannot unzip a folder?

There are layers who graduate with a doctorate from law school, but they don't know how to change a light bulb.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Do questions about Python belong here if the issue isn't strictly with Blender?
The Big Picture

While I've seen many questions about Python and Blender together posted here, most of them have strictly to do with the Blender Python Library. My question is, do question that discuss programs that use the Blender Python Library but aren't specifically about the Blender Python Library belong here?
Similarly, are "help me with my code" questions, such as many of those on StackOverflow too specific for this Exchange?

Me, myself, and I

Since the above is a little vague, I'd like to provide an example using a question I have:
I'm working with a script for Blender. There is a portion of my code where I scan through a list searching for a certain matching set of data. However, it returns an error that I want it to simply ignore and continue on doing; however, because of the structure I have set up, I can't seem to use the standard try/except, as that stop executing the command I want it to execute. My question would revolve around trying to solve this: should I use loops, reformat my try/excepts, what should I do?
As you can see, this question could be about something not involving Blender equally easily and still be a valid question. However, simultaneously, there could be a solution specific to Blender much cleaner then a general purpose solution. It also focuses on an area that makes it difficult to be directly applicable to another topic–it could, however, depending on the solution. So, does it belong or not?

TL;DR:

In essence, there are two questions that need to be answered here:

Is the nature of such discussions on topic and in agreement with the direction of this StackExchange?
Are questions that center more around "help me with my code" too specific for this StackExchange?

Your example question would probably get closed. We have had other questions in the past get closed or moved to SO because it was a general python question.

@David Hmm... where should I post it? I'm afraid StackOverflow would send me back here... bit of a sticky situation.

I would ask it on SO, you dont even need to mention blender. You just have a question about looping through a list in python, but can not use a try except.

@David Interesting. Posted it on blender.se and actually got an answer that would not have been possible to find on SO due to the nature of the answer; instead of changing the loop type, the syntax got changed to prevent errors. You can read about it here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/35759/help-with-setting-up-nodes-for-specific-materials-in-a-list

I think we're quite lenient regarding the scope of Python questions. The main criterion is 'is the code an integral part of a script for Blender'. To most people who answer python questions here it's quite obvious when a question stems from a weak understanding of python, vs one that arose due to misconceptions about bpy, or misunderstanding of the control flow generated by certain constructs (like simple Operator vs Modal Operator..).
In the end BSE benefits from having several levels of user skills catered for, from:

proficient Python coders with weak understanding of Blender
proficient Blender users experimenting with Python
proficient Blender users with strong Python but confused by the API.
users not proficient in either

You can always just straight up ask, and provide a working/broken snippet as a link, and say: this doesn't work, I know / don't know why / have suspicions ; are there better mechanisms available? If you do share code, it's conventional to first do your own reduction on the code to take out all the bits that are not important to demonstrating the problem. The process of reducing the problem code to as few lines as possible often results in valuable insight to you as a coder -- sometimes even negating the need to place the post in the first place.
Generally you should preface the code with an explanation of what you had hoped it would do, and the general idea of the larger scope of which the code is only one element -- because you might be coding something one way that has a more elegant solution ( for example: bpy.ops.* vs lower level bpy calls)
Even if we can't help, or the problem has nothing to do with bpy / blender we tend to close the question after suggesting links for further reading. It isn't intended as an insult.

Okay. It's just so sad when a question gets closed or deleted with no answer simply because it's too specific, and I wanted to make sure that I stayed within the bounds so this doesn't happen.


text:
Helpful post reference index
This is a place to keep track of and categorize good questions or answers which may be helpful to refer to at a later time, a kind of general Blender reference index.  If you find a post which you think belongs here feel free to add it to the corresponding answer.
Please keep a few things in mind when adding to the list:

This is for keeping track of general descriptions of basic Blender tasks or common questions/answers that arise, which would be useful to point other users towards in the future.
Please follow the organization already set up.  Each category (not link) has it's own answer.  To add a reference just edit the proper answer and add the link.  If you feel you need to create a new category please ask about it first and get approval.
If you do add a new category please also edit this post to add it to the contents section below (in alphabetical order).
This is not a place to put links to your posts just to get rep.  That said, if you honestly feel that a post of yours meets the standards feel free to add it.
Use the share button under an answer to link to a specific answer, see this meta post.

Contents:
Blender Internal (render engine)
Cycles
Modeling
Python Scripting

Note: this was discussed in meta here, if you have any comments or questions about this post please add them to the original meta proposal.

Modeling

Explanations and technical stuff:

Applying transforms
Texture coordinates description
Explanation of normals

Common problems:

Inside faces caused by mirror

Tips:

Quickly creating a city
Creating a spiral "onion dome"

Cycles

Explanations and technical stuff:

Differences from BI
Explanation of ray tracing
Explanation of BVH
BVH settings
Branched path tracing
BSDF description

Tips and tricks:

Finding edges/corners of a mesh
Speeding up rendering interior scenes
Avoiding aliased edges around emission shaders
Bluring a texture
Enabling GPU rendering

Useful shaders:

Sci-fi force field shader
Old painted cement shader
Mirror shader
Snow shader
"Moon rock" shader
Sugar cube

Blender internal (render engine)

Differences from Cycles

Python scripting

Tips:
Helpful code snippets:


text:
What's the point of closing as unclear?
One of the reasons for closing a question is as follows:

unclear what you're asking
Please clarify your specific problem or add additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it’s hard to tell exactly what you're asking. See the How to Ask page for help clarifying this question.

I get that there are a lot of unclear questions, and that we need to let the askers of such questions know that they need to majorly rephrase and fix up their question so that we can answer it.  But what's the point in closing such questions?
Say the person does fix up their question and make it understandable, now we just have to go through all the shenanigans of opening it back up again so someone can answer it.  And even if they don't end up fixing up their question, all closing it does is make it unanswerable, so even if somebody manages to decode it and thinks they can answer it they can't!
So, why do we close questions as unclear?  What harm does an unclear question left open do us?

I think the vote-to-close is a bit of a misnomer and misdirection, don't we put these questions on hold when it's unclear? The question gets locked but the language of 'on hold' suggests it is still redeemable.

@zeffii  Yes I guess that's the terminology that is used, but it's really functionally no different than being closed.

OK, but saying something is on hold rather than closed conveys a different message. Like if someone puts you on hold while on the phone, you expect to be able to resume the conversation in the not too distant future. Unlike if someone says 'i'm going to hang up now'. If i had it my way the options would be share | edit | close | hold | flag | protect

because if you flip the u and the n in unclear you get nuclear! :-)

I agree that we should keep the question open for a time period. Let some users vote it as unclear when more than 3 marks the question as unclear give the original poster say 10days to rectify the question? If he fail to do so , there is a high chance he already found the solution?

I think closing helps encourages the OP to make an effort to clarify their question. If they know no one can answer, they know right away that they aren't getting an answer if the question is left as is.
If it's still technically possible to add answers, then they might (knowingly or not) end up waiting and finding out the long way that no one is answering.
If someone thinks they can decipher the question, they can edit and decipher it for everyone else too. If their edit is accepted, the question will be put through a review queue to (hopefully) re-open it quickly.

That said, the OP can't be expected to just clarify their question after being told "it's unclear". It's possible (even probable) have no idea what to clarify; what appears as total nonsense to an outsider may make perfect sense to the writer.
I'd suggest always leaving a comment with an unclear vote, describing as exactly (and clearly) as possible what it is about the question that isn't understandable.

It should also be mentioned that closing bad questions that no one can possibly answer removes the question from the un answered list, improving our answer ratio.

@X-27 Well.. tbh I don't think those statistics matter a whole lot now that we are graduating. (idk If they really mattered much before for that matter :P)

There's never a reason to put a perfectly good answerable question on hold. Some questions do need clarification and putting them 'on hold' is the mechanism we use to get it. An OP who is invested enough in getting an answer will stick around and be happy to clarify once prompted.
The question needs to be clear or else the answer will become a meandering tour-of-blender, covering many possible answers in the hope that one of them hits the spot. This takes a disproportionate amount of effort than it's worth to both parties.

Questions rarely remain 'on hold' when the question has been clarified. if at least 1 person elects to reopen it, other reopen votes will often follow. You can always leave a comment to a moderator to suggest you are comfortable with providing an answer.

It seems to me that questions that are unclear fall into at least two categories. One category is questions from users whose first language is not English, and as a consequence, the obscurity of the question is perhaps to some extent the fault of Google Translate or Babblefish. Another category is when the problem of clarity lies in the perception of one or more readers, rather than the questioner.
I understand the value in closing questions that are unclear, or poorly asked, but in my opinion, the vote to close should always be preceded by a comment requesting the OP (or someone else who understands what the OP was asking in the question) to clarify what was meant. After a suitable duration (in this case I propose that "suitable duration" would be 36 to 72 hours) has elapsed, then a vote to close is reasonable.


text:
Is there a way for the community (or moderators acting on behalf of the community) to accept answers?
Zeffii's question comes close to, but is a little different from, something I've been thinking of for a while. The scenario is that a user, who may have only come to the community to ask one particular question, asks that question—a really really good question—and gets a really good answer. And having gotten the answer, leaves the community before accepting the answer. The reasons for non-acceptance are not as important in this discussion as the fact that it did not get accepted. And because it never got accepted, it has remained marooned on the unanswered questions list.
A similar situation would be where after a question was asked, and an answer was accepted, a much better answer was offered--more thoroughly complete, better resourced, &c.
Should there be some mechanism by which the community, or the moderators operating on the community's behalf, could accept answers, or mark a different answer accepted than the answer originally accepted by the original query poster? A parallel to the "close" vote comes to mind as a reasonable parallel.
Or is this question worth moving up to the "Big Meta" discussion list?

this question is a natural evolution after assessing the various reasons for unaccepted answers.. Obviously a percentage of them does have an objectively correct answer.

What about questions which already have answers in a different question, and get an accepted answer before it can be marked as a duplicate?

The accepted answer is the indicator that the answer solved the problem for the original poster (OP), it doesn't mean that is necessarily the "best" answer or even at times the "correct" answer. The checkmark shows that the OP selected the answer that worked for them.
Adding a community accept feature was on Meta Stack Exchange and it was declined.

hey @blue, good to see you around.

At the current time, no. There is no other mechanism to accept answers, other then the OP pressing the check mark button.
Force Accepted Answers on Questions by Inactive Users
However just because a answer is not accepted does not put it on the unanswered list. The answer has to have 0 up votes to be on the unanswered list.


text:
Funny Questions #2
- FUNNY QUESTIONS ARE BACK -
The rules of this contest are simple

Write a funny question as an answer to this post. Put the title of that question following a #.

You may use plays on words, you may make fun of noobs, regular users, or smart users.

You may pretty much use any method you want to make your question funny.

The winner will be decided based on who has the most up votes.

Downvotes are Not Counted When determing the winner, so save your daily votes. (you only get 40)

Although I highly doubt there are any five-year-olds on this site, we must use the same rule from the previous image contests, and keep the entries "Politically Correct" .

This is the second time this event has run. You may NOT copy entries from that event and post them here. Mostly/Entirely original content is recommended.

The main point is to create a question that other users will see funny.

The winner will be chosen and his/her/its entry will be accepted. The link to that entry will be placed in the space below, along with the  entries that almost won.

The winner will be chosen on September 27th. Other entries are welcome after that, but the winners entree will stay accepted (even if new entries gain more upvotes).

YOUR QUESTION SHOULD NOT BE POSTED ON THE MAIN SITE OR IN ANY PLACE OTHER THAN THIS POST UNLESS YOUR QUESTION IS A REAL, SERIOUS QUESTION.

- You may enter no more than twice.
However, only one entree can obtain first place. (Obviously)

WINNER AS OF 9-27-2015
First Place -Gandalf3 6 votes
Second Place -Gandalf3 5 votes
Third Place -GiantCowFilms 4 votes

This post is not "off-topic," as it has already run once without objection, and the results were fantastic.

Whats with this two rule??? I wan't more funnies, not less!

I suggest that we wait until the deadline of the contest to allow voting, then have a 2-3 day "voting period".  Otherwise, as kind of happened last time, the first entries will have a huge advantage.

Good idea, we can try that next time.

I saw this story made in MS paint, how to do it in blender?

One fine day the colorful hills of Stackexchangia were just as calm
  and peaceful as always.

Tardises were making, Novices were disguising, X was 27, and the
  M.O.D. team was still busy deciding the meaning of their acronym.
All was right in this corner of interland.. Until there came a
  disturbance. Something unusual. Something uncanny. Some thing which
  did not quite have a definition. No one knew what this thing might be.

Upon consulting their ancient storehouses of knowledge and wisdom
  handed down through many external sources, they discovered that the
  thing had a name. Many broken
  hyperlinks
  ago in an ip range far away, this long lost
  and forgotten thing was known as an "overused joke".
Long they debated what to do next.  The guy with the funny hat said
  "Why, this be thine kitchen implement"!
  The XL cow said
  "Perhaps
  beating it with a hammer will help"?

Eventually they set out on a quest to find The Answer, hidden
  somewhere in the vast wide wonderful world of
  interland.
  Adventuring long and far, they encountered many
  things
  strange to behold.

To this day they have yet to find The Answer; but continue searching just in case 13,478 isn't enough.

I wasn't sure where to start, so I tried using this on it. Now it looks better:

on fin day th coloro hilz of ztackexchangia wer ot az calm
  & pec az alwayz
imag of explozionz in an otherwiz pec zeting htp://giantgfycatcom/zinotameblacklegif no cowz wer harmed in th making ofdiz gif
tardiz wer making novicz wer dizozing x waz 27 &de
  mod tem waz ztil oy deciding th mening ofder acronym
al waz rigt indiz corner of interl& untilder cam a
  dizobanc zomething uoual zomething uncany zom thing which
  did not ot hav a definition no 1 knew whatdizding migt be
imag of blender faling from zky htp://giantgfycatcom/zlimharmoniohydatidtapewormgif i bet u didnt oz what it waz
upon conotingder ancient z2rehoz of knowledg & wizdom
  h&ed down throh many external zoczdey dizcovereddatde
  ding had a nam many broken
  hyperlinkz htp://blenderztackexchangecom/oztionz/18665/help-me-plz-i-cant-fioe-thiz-o
  ago in an ip rang far awaydiz long lozt
  & 4gotending waz known az an oved joke
longdey deb8d what 2 do next  th o with th ony hat zaid
  whydiz bdin kitchen implement!
  th xl cow zaid
  perhapz
  b8ing it with a hamer wil help?
imag of giant cow with a hamer htp://giantgfycatcom/lefyflawlzbegif & not ot any old hamer atdat
evenolydey zet o on a ozt 2 find th anzwer hiden
  zomewher in th vazt wid 1dero world of
  interl& htpz://xkcdcom/256/
  advenoing long & fardey encotered many
  thingz htp://wwwoztercom/zervice-&-oport/prot-oport/prot-faqz/blenderz/general-oztionz/blenderz-general-oztionz-faqhtml
  ztrang 2 behold
htp://giantgfycatcom/loathzomecoztlyoflehedgif i cant red abo blenderz with a ztraigt fac anymore
2diz daydey hav yet 2 find th anzwer o contio zerching ot in caz 13478 iznt enoh

bu i dontdink it helped enoh can zome1 writ an anzwer plz?
mayb i ned mor comprzion it zayz it only re th ziz by 15% d:

My neck! Ahh, my neck! Its all fine and well not hurting cows in the first gif, but the third gif is another story.

Best Entree Ever!!! This should Sooooo win!!!!!

Gandalf you have out done yourself (and everybody else) this is great!

This is awesome!  You should stick this on BA.

I like how everyone goes off in a boat when they've got a WORKING TARDIS with them. It's much more comfortable. Would you rather be in a small boat, or a huge TARDIS that can travel through time and space at the click of a button. It's a no brainer really.

I guess that means they must have no brains

The whole thing is pure awesome.  :-D  I especially liked how the diffuse-white Suzannoid doesn't know what to do with the sailboat and keeps trying to put it on the stray Suz head. I just noticed where the giant cow's texture is from... hilarious. Congrats on the win!

Haha, just seeing this. Loved it.

@iKlsR :D hey, welcome back!

Wait a second, let me get this straight. You don't know how to ask a question, so you made an ANIMATED gif to try to "explain" your issue, and you knew enough about the theme to know what the color of links AND the font are?

@TARDISMaker I just followed the instructions..

(serious question) What do the <!--/--> tags do?

@PGmath Those are comments, used to prevent bits of markdown from rendering.

Poor Newbness

On your latest post, 1 view and -3 score?????

@X-27 Even the spam bots and web crawlers were horrified enough to DV

How did that meta post get 6 upvotes?

@Gwenn because at least he tried to go to meta to get his issue resolved

Help Using Blender
Sorry for the noob question...
I have been trying to use my blender for a while now...
I've got some of the functions straight, but it's all so complicated to me...
I cannot seem to figure out how to utilize the bake functionality.
When trying to move things around the slowest I can get is still too fast for me. Can the speed settings be more flexible?
Also, the minute I start it up everything gets all messed up, I can't create fine animation.
Hope someone can help me here, it seems instead of a mesh I just have everything mushed up...
If it helps, my version of the tool:

This image is from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at wikimeaia under the creative commons cc-by-sa 3.0 license.

How to do simple thing: Select cube?
How can I select a cube in blender? I'm so leet I think minimalist answers are cool! Its called efficiency.
interface3d-viewleet-rep-club

LMB
You use LMB. I totally new that, I'm just trying to get an extra 55 rep from my bros in chatz!. (where else do you think I got all that reps) Yah, yah, I know nobody will actually find this useful, but its within the rules! (not bother to link, only noobs don't know where that meta post is)

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. You use RMB to select! Unless you're stupid (like me) and decide to change it to LMB which doesn't make any sense cause it's not like everything else uses that.

@TARDISMaker Oh lolz... I'm so pro I use blender left-handed with a single button mouse! So there is only a Left-mouse, button. Duh you newbs...

Did you mean l337?

@gandalf3 Wut dat?

What did I just read...

@ShadyPuck A parody of people who self answer questions to get extra rep, despite creating virtually useless content.

@GiantCowFilms Heh... One of my posts.

DUDE I NEED HELP, STOP CLOSING MY QUESTIONS
i CAME HERE FOR SOME HELP AND ALL THET HAPENS IS THESE PEOPLE WITH DIAMONDS DELETE MY POSTS. i AM A VERY SERIOUS bLENDER USER THAT NEEDS REAL HELP. wHY ARE YOU SO WORREED ABOUT QUAILITY ANYWAYS? wHEN SOMEONE NEEDS HELP THEN YOU SHOULD HELP THEM. i THINK MY POSTS ARE VERY CLEAR, i DON'T SEE WAHT YUR PROBLEMS ARE!!!!!!!!!!!

If you're going to go for a caps lock style, go all the way. NO LOWER CASE

@TARDISMaker Well when you gotta caps lock then like you try capitiklize a wurd an it dont work, it gets small

Aim for China, not the earths core.

Blender StackExchange needs a better class of criminal...
And I'm going to give it to them!
Just look at this... GiantCowFilms. Broke one rule by writing three questions. He was only allowed two, so added one to it! Then he read this post and deleted one! I'm tellin ya, if you're gonna break the rules, go all the way. Don't attack the earths core, attack china! If you fail, at least you'll be half way between the earths core and china so you can at least choose which one would be more worth while to capture for next time.

HELP i have some problem!

Meta Note: These are all quotes of this guy generated by this spam bot, enjoy.

The active object is a lattice. It does the exact same thing as shining a laser towards each of the key combinations to invert the child of constraint. Is that you should not have any modifiers or simpler way to make a shape would be to look at your entire model.
In this gif I think it works quite well in Camera view NumPad 0. Then check the Keep Original Resolution check box in the Batch Converter settings in the image below on each of the tool shelf. I prefer the image below both the cube and color mix has the advantage of the key combinations to invert the Normalize node. Add a Normal Map node. Another option is to use any means of changing the frame. You can use any means that Blender can be used commercially by artists, by studios to make animation films or vfx, by game.
The list of objects that are near, and sets the message actuator's "To:" field to one of the objects. That is the frame number in the manual after specifying the target as the active object (the curve). It sets a Object parent, with a Combine XYZ node. The parent bone will not effect the four methods explained above. For a Separate RGB node. Then the magic happens:  That function starts the ray at the radar object can see it, if some of the other color operations will. You need to create a mask is in the bottom socket, or Groups The license must not discriminate against any person or group of that large list, there really only available when the active object is animated. Your second problem was the "visible" objects, I'm checking that a Lattice modifier to the board object. You needed the Action actuator on.
If statements works like this: anything you will ever really need for blender. Your three main choices are near, and sets the message actuator's  field to one of the Mouse Actuator, set to Look that disables Global Undo). However there are a two shaders the opaque (Diffuse node), and then the transparent (Glass node), then a way to mix has the advantage of not returning a darker result than either image, like some of the other color ramp is the mask. Plug that the properties window runs bpy.context.object.parent = None for poly in plane.data.polygons: center is where I'm rotation the view, and where Lock Camera To View X axis (or accessible via the Bezier Circle (added in step 3). Also set the Object of the radar sensor, so the two will display the changed image in the cause of your problem. There is no confusion with the active object.
Thanks in advance.

untagged

I perfectly under stood that. The solution is quite simple. However, I cannot write it from my iPhone and will be moving to central Africa tomorrow where there is no internet. Sorry, but I do know the answer.

Import - Export - Report MAJOR ISSUE
I need to import my .banana, .strawberry and .ice file into my blender. I'm doing this for a school report. After that I need to export my .docx report. Thansk a mill. BTW, NO PYTHON, I got an F in computer science :O. Cyu later.
helpimportexportbanana
posted on behalf of GiantCowFilms


text:
Awesome Weapons - Challenge #2
Contest: Crazy Firepower
The two most modeled things in blender are shiny cars and awesome guns.
Here we are going to expand a little and make any type of weapon. It can be anything, from a rugged battle axe, to a powerful scy-fi cannon. It can be an existing weapon, or something totally new. It only needs to look cool and be semi realistic
Objective: Create an artwork whose main subject is an awesome weapon.
You can use any method you want, as long as you use only Blender, but it must in some way resemble a weapon.
Rules:

Only new and original work
Blender only, non commercial add-ons are allowed
Keep it nice, nothing you wouldn't want to show to a five year old.
If any doubt is raised about the validity of your entree, you will be required to Include .blend file, so we can be sure it is yours (use Blend Exchange)
The competition runs for a week, you can edit/change your submission at anytime
Late entries will be disqualified
Only one entry per person
Downvotes will not be considered when picking the winner

Voting guide:
(Going beyond the simple visual appeal)

Meets objective, not missing anything
No rules were broken
Artistically sound:

Good composition
Good use of color
Solid design

Well Executed

Technically impressive
Quality of execution meets artistic goals.

It is awesome!!!

Winning criteria:
Submission with the most upvotes as of December 4th 2014. The submission must to be posted before the deadline.
Deadline: December 1st 2014 at UTC +0000
And most importantly, have fun!
Results:
Winner:
NoviceInDisguise [6 votes]

X-27 [5 votes]
David [4 votes]

All other entries were to late to qualify

This looks like fun! Good choice!

@X-27 Does it *have* to be some powerful weapon?

No, it just needs to look like something that could be used as a weapon.

Seeing as there is no way to regulate it effectively, I would say vote on as many as you want. Adding restrictive rules that can not be enforced is completely useless.

@SixthOfFour you can definitely upvote as many entrees as you want.

@SixthOfFour the only thing up voting all of them would do is essentially lower your entree by one vote, because you can't vote yourself up.

How to submit yeah? i've got my model ready.

@Vince Scalia You just add an answer with your artwork embedded as an image, a little description, and maybe even a caption. Hope that helps!

Welcome to the forest! Here is my entry, that I have been working on over the past few days. The characters are fully rigged, everything is UV-unwrapped. I think in this piece I got much of my inspiration from the "crazy" in Crazy Firepower, but I hope you all can understand and appreciate the story behind this piece of art.
Created in Blender 2.72 and Cycles, with advanced compositing in the compositor, and some minor post processing in Paint.NET.
Tree Cannon - The Oak's Last Stand
(click for full size)

Description:

War broke out in the forest, with a new species of tree making it's
  presence known. A hard, cruel species, hardly even a tree at all. The
  other citizens of the forest lack the ability to overcome their slow,
  methodical onslaught. They utilize those they vanquish to create
  machines of destruction, of terror.

This artwork is dedicated to all of those helping prevent invasive species from spreading.

Wow ! that is nice! mine is still rendering...

Thank you! I'll keep my eyes peeled for when yours gets posted, should be good if your past work is any indicator!

Why did you roll back my edit, then go back to it? I would never change the content of your entree. In the Edit Summary I wrote what I changed. I really like the story and message behind your image.

Sorry, I didn't quite understand what you had changed. I was trying to find the original version for a comparison, and accidentally rolledback your edit. I hope it didn't get you any negative points?

no problem. No I would not and did not loose anything. You can always look at the edit history by clicking the link at the bottom of any edited post that says "edited X hours ago"

Thanks for the pointer! And I am glad I didn't mess you up.

Quick critique: The image could have benefited from some more head room the rightmost oak's eye is too close to the top of the image. You could have either moved the camera up a bit or changed the aspect ratio.

Good point!Thank you for the input, I'll keep an eye out for mistakes like that in the future.

@NoviceInDisguise When you're ready to post you're image, go through the voting guidelines. I put them their (I wrote the original template) not only to guide the voting, but as a reminder to artists on how to create better images. PD I really like the tone of your image. Good use of design!

Thanks for the input! I really appreciate it, and it really helps me progress faster!

X-27 Anti Material Pulse Beam Emitter
Made in Blender using cycles render engine.
(click for higher resolution)

due to the .jpg artifacts you can't quite make out the caution label. it reads
CAUTION
X-27 ULTRA CANNON
EXTREMELY POWERFUL
DO NOT LOOK INTO BEAM
UNLESS YOU ARE WEARING
THE X-27 FORCEFIELD

Interesting! A very different approach from mine, I can't see what else will show up over the next few days!

Did it meet your expectations?

Pretty much ;-) Maybe work on the wall a little, the tiling of the texture is pretty obvious. Maybe spend the rest of the next few days trying to make it a little more photorealistic?

I was thinking of adding some barbed wire on top, and maybe some cracks or damage marks on the concrete.

That would really add a lot to it! Any ideas of ways to improve mine?

not really, yours is great! the only thing i can think of is using the sunbeams node to make really cool light effects.

Good idea! I'll see what I can come up with . . .

Looking better! Doesn't quite match with the environment now, though . . .

It is early yet in the competition, got plenty of time to get more votes ;-)

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

Though this contest is called "crazy firepower" there are clear provisions in the rules for any kind of weapon, including melee. So I present to you
BwadiBwa Kobold Mk. III
For hi-rez: https://i.sstatic.net/3OsaM.png

This is a knife. I think you can probably see that.
On the back i put my special 'Vince Scalia' symbol; the Kifwebe mask: https://i.sstatic.net/sfJux.png
(that pic was taken before i was finished btw.)
Generally if you couldn't reach your opponent with a weapon like this you'd just throw it at them, and even if it didn't hit blade first, it still weighs five pounds and would clunk them pretty good.

Good concept, according to the rules, this does look cool and could certainly be considered a weapon. however you entered after the deadline so sadly this entree does not qualify to win. :-(

o shucks. i thought it was dec 4

No, December 4th is the point when the voting ends and the winner is declared. the entrees had to be in by December 1st

okay, sorry. that's a bummer though. You like the knife?

Yah, I thought the topic awesome weapons would attract more participants, however this contest had a lower result than the last one....

Something I guess. Maybe a longer entry period?... just kidding.

well, there is always next time.

Heh Heh. yeah. It'll be fun, and I'll make sure I enter early. I did that on my black belt test too.

Thanks.........

My entry for the Awesome Weapons contest.
A military testing zone where work is being done on a rail gun launched intercontinental  missile.
click for full size

Awesome textures. could use more ammo and more detail.

Yeah a little bare. you can edit though.

What would make this scene more interesting is a hole clipped in the fence, and a sign of the weapon having been tampered with. Then it would tell a story. :-)

@Mentalist thank you for the suggestions. If I ever come back to this piece, I will add more of a story. Thanks.


text:
Is this question off topic?
The purpose of the Meta for any site is to discus a wide range of subjects relating to the main site, including whether or not questions are on or off topic. So my question is this:
Is this question off topic?
Edit:
For those of you who want the question link I'm referencing:
Is this question off topic?

Either I'm missing something, you forgot to link to the question, or I'm going to vote to close as "Too meta". :P

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because its too confusing for non-sophisticated users, and is there for discriminatory.

I see no point to this and yes it would be considered offtopic as it is not asking anything related to our site or se. Questions soliciting extended discussions are a no no.

This more of a hypothetical question thus it really would be better suited to http://philosophy.stackexchange.com. However it the broadest scene, yes it is (kind of) on topic.
Quoting from https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/whats-meta

Meta Blender Stack Exchange is the part of the site where users discuss the workings and policies of Blender Stack Exchange rather than discussing blender itself.

So yes, asking if a question is on or off topic is proper for the meta. However posting a question on the meta asking if itself is on or off topic is borderline spam.
I say "spam" because if you look at the flag and close reasons given, spam with its "It is not useful or relevant" line is the closest.