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Are curve physics possible?
For example, I'm using a tree generator addon that creates trees in curve form. I have a strong wind forcefield in the scene as well for the grass. Is it possible to apply the curve to the physics?

It seems I was wrong, answer updated below, if it still matters

Physics and simulations generally only affect mesh or particle objects, you often have to convert your curves to a mesh.
If you are using the builtin Blender tree generator Sapling Addon it even has an option to create an animated armature with wind animation, but even then, has far as I know you will have to convert it to mesh to work.
You may keep a copy of the original curve object in a separate scene or another layer in case you need to go back and change something.
It is however possible to use some basic soft body physics on Curve objects if it is well subdivided, although it does not work very reliably.
It seems most settings don't have any effect, except for the Self Collision options, as stated Quick Noodle Physics in Blender Tutorial Youtube Video
The trick is using a highly subdivided curve, there must be lots of actual vertex (display subdivisions are insufficient), then tweak the parameters under Soft Body Self Collision like *Ball Size and Stiffness and turning off Soft Body Goal.
Some other objects set to Collision Physics type must be present at the scene for interaction.

Maybe it will be within a few updates. In the game-engine, empty physics are already possible.


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How do I keep particles still?
I have a particle system that just doesn't want to stay still. I turned off all physics for it (including gravity) and removed all force fields, but they still move. Here's a gif of how they move:

Frame 1:

Frame 500:

I've noticed that there's a pattern of movement: they appear to be separating on the Z axis. The only reason they're also moving left is because I put in a wind force field, but this unexpected effect still happened before the wind.

It looks like your particles are getting a little normal velocity (i.e. being "pushed" off the emitter's surface).  You need to turn down the Normal value under the Velocity rollout of the particle settings.

Set this value to 0.000 and your particles shouldn't move.

source: Stack Exchange

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What are common causes for Blend files growing in size?
I have this blend file that seems to be growing.

The file size is now about 250MB. It contains this scene and the texture of the flag is 265kb and the texture of the sky is 640KB.
I have a wind blowing and I intend to render this scene as an animation. I have played the animation a couple of times and I have the feeling that this causes the growth of the file. What could be the reason for the ridiculous file size ?

In each instance the cause of growing file size may be different.
Common causes include:

Groups of objectsCause: Objects in a group might not exist in any scene.Solution: Check groups in the outliner, if you want you can add an empty scene and RMB in the outliner to instantiate all group objects in the scene to check all the objects you have in groups.
Physics cacheCause: Objects with internally stored physics cache may accumulate cache in the blend file.Solution: Clear the cache for your physics objects, you may want to use external cache files too.
Auto-packed texturesCause: Texture auto-pack is a feature, stored per-blend file, that will pack all your textures when saving.Solution: Check that you have auto-pack disabled in the menu: "File -> External Data -> Automatically pack into .blend".

feel free to suggest extras in comments - or add own answer :)

I have this force field Wind but I cannot find any cache. But I have this feeling the file size is because of the physics. Where to look ?

you were right :) it appeared to be the Cloth Cache. Thanks

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How can I do bumped textures in Cycles?
I was trying to follow this tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7aLH7XDhZ0
But I noticed those fields only show up in Blender Render. How can I achieve this same result in the Cycles Engine?

I'm sorry. You're right. I'm trying to get a sort of Dinossaur/dragon skin texture by using the Voronoi Crackles. And I want to know how I can achieve that by using the method the video showed in Cycles.

Take the factor from your texture into a Vector/Bump node, then take the normal from that node into the normal input on your shaders.

Awesome! Thanks. But how would I apply the Voronoi Crackle effect onto it?

http://www.instructables.com/id/Hand-Drawn-Voronoi-Diagrams/?ALLSTEPS


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H.264 encoding settings for High Quality HD (1080p) and High Quality UHD (4K)
Producing animations/video is quite new for me. I want to create Quicktime/H.264 videos and I have difficulties to find out what H.264 encoding settings to use for 1080p (25 fps) and 4K (25 fps). By the way is 25 fps the best choice for 1080p and 4K?

When I want to create a high quality H.264 video, what settings are relevant?

I guess high quality means "lossless output"?
I have seen this post about bitrate but what values to set in Blender for Bitrate and Minimum and Maximum rate? It is my understanding that the recommended bitrate is 8 Mbps for 1080p and 35-45 Mbps for 4K. But what does this mean for Blender? What values to set for Bitrate and Minimum and Maximum rate? What values to use for Buffer Size? How to determine Buffer Size?
Should I change the values for GOP size? How to determine GOP size?
What "Mux" settings?

Could you maybe explain those concepts a bit?
I really appreciate the discussion but my question is: what values should I enter in the encoding panel? Can someone maybe upload a screenshot of the panel with the recommended values for 1080p and 4k?
Based on the answer I got below it is my understanding that for High Quality HD these would be the Quicktime / H.264 settings:

A little bit related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/48709/2843

I have seen that Youtube post, but I still don't know what this means for the settings in Blender

There's a manual page which might help you answer a few of your questions!?

H264 is a delivery/archive format. IE: Finished product. It's not the best file choice for editing. Thats why stock agencies ask for other file formats like Pro Res and Photo JPEG. Their clients are most likely going to edit/color correct it to to suit their individual projects.

Try a daily build of Blender 2.79, it has a much improved encoding panel.

Unfortunately H264 is never going to give you brilliant quality video. It was designed to be efficient on storage and network bandwidth. Take a look at mjpeg or similar for higher quality video.
GOP stands for Group of pictures. And basically means how many frames between I frames. Generally you would have 1 I frame to 24 p frames so the GOP would be 25. The more I frames you have the higher quality picture but the higher storage and network cost too.
I frame is an interframe and is a complete picture. P frames are predicted frames and made up of the predicted changes between the last I frame and the next frame.
Limiting the max bitrate will cause Blender to over compress the image and movement or dark areas will look worse.  I can't see any benefit in setting the minimum bitrate

25 fps is considered 'Live' however if you compared a 25fps picture with a 30 or 50fps you would notice a difference.

"The more I frames you have the higher quality picture" - This isn't really true. You can have a smoother animation at a higher framerate but the individual frames are unaffected. Regardless, you really ought to have a specific framerate in mind for your animation rather than deciding on it at export time.

@DisplayName Concerning the bitrate ... those values I showed are the "default" values. What values (average, min, max) would you recommend for the bitrate (1080p and 4K) ?

I am really a newbie in animation / video. That is why I ask if 25 fps is a good choice ? Or is 30fps better ?

Also ... it was my understanding that H.264 is a sort of best practice for video codecs. but now I understand it is old and maybe obsolete ??? What is a better choice for high quality videos ?

This is wrong.  H.264 is tunable, and can be tuned for high quality or for low bandwidth.  At high quality settings, it uses less bandwidth than an MJPEG of the same quality.  So the only advantage of MJPEG is that there are no patent/licensing issues, an H.264 will almost always look better at the same bit rate or be smaller at the same quality.

This is an awful answer. I cant speak to Blender settings, but H.264 is capable of producing brilliant quality, even lossless. Check your facts.

@Steven Penny Can you please give your answer if you have other views on this matter ?

I opened a new question on video codecs. Please give your advices and opinions there ;)

As others have mentioned - this is plain wrong. h.264 has among other quality parameters a 'CRF' parameter which can be set to give virtually lossless quality.

Your opening statement is flat wrong and misleading H264 is never going to give you brilliant quality. Yes the default is lossy compression, but it is
perfectly capable of high and lossless quality. Do you need to be reminded that
Blu-ray uses H.264? http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray

Do you need reminding that it also has to fit on one disk?

http://www.tested.com/tech/photography/667-motion-jpeg-vs-h264-the-best-choice-for-dslr-video/

This is a very poor quality answer. Full of misinformation. There are several H264 profiles which are designed for studio and professional work and include high resolution chroma sampling as well as intra-only encoding.

I generally follow the guidelines laid out in Vimeo's compression guide.
The US follows 24 FPS for film and animation, 29.976 FPS for video, and as high as possible for games. Europe generally follows 25 FPS for film. This just depends on how you want to animate; it doesn't really matter nowadays. However, if you animate in 24, export your video at 24. If you animate at 60, export at 60.
Video codecs are funny business, because not all available codecs are standardized, and not all distributors support all codecs. For example, H.265, or HEVC, is a great improvement over H.264, but is not widely supported. H.264 is one of the most universally supported codecs, so I would stick with that for now. Because of that, higher bitrate correlates with higher quality video; Vimeo's guideline for 1080p footage is 10k-20Mbps and I would err toward the middle if I want good quality. For 4k footage, I would use around 45Mbps.
This is subject to your... subject matter, of course. If you have a very still shot, higher bitrate will not make it look better. If you have lots of shaking camera, high movement, fast color change, film grain, etc, you will need a higher bitrate to maintain all that detail. A common effect of encoding with too low of a bitrate is smearing, streaking, blocking or ghosting of fast-moving objects. If you see some of these artifacts, raise your bitrate.
Your specific questions:
1 - Lossless compression does not throw away pixels of similar data. The decoder will decompress the data and it will look and behave exactly as the original footage. This will increase file size, but results in a decent reproduction of the footage, especially if you are compressing with H.264, which uses interpolation between I-frames.
2 - "Bitrate" is the target bitrate for the video. Sometimes it needs more to maintain fidelity, sometimes it requires less. Maximum puts a cap on the bitrate the encoder is allowed to use. Minimum is similar. You can safely ignore the minimum unless you really feel the need for a bigger file size. I would put a maximum of 5k-10k above your target, just in case the encoder needs the extra space. "Buffer" is like a pre-fetch for the decoder. How much of the video is pre-loaded to assist in playback and frame interpolation? I have never changed this setting in blender. You can safely ignore the buffer settings unless you're on extremely low-end hardware.
3 - GOP is described in Display Name's answer pretty well. It's basically the distance between keyframes (I-frames). More I-frames increases storage size, but it enables better interpolation.
4 - "Mux" is short for "multiplex," which is the combination of video and audio into one packet of data. I will refer you to the wiki page because muxing is somewhat large. I have also never used these settings in blender. Without audio, there is nothing to mux.

thanks. But what specific min and max bitrates would you advice for 1080p and 4K ?

any thoughts on buffer size ? I also understand that if I don't have audio I don't need to worry about Mux ?

@JanScherders: Ignore buffer size.  I think it's only relevant if you need to play the video back on low-end hardware without re-encoding it, which is not relevant to your interests.

I don't think your definition of "lossless" is correct. Lossless just means no data is lost in compressing the video, nothing will be approximated, only scaled. Zip is an example of a lossless data compression, and flac is a lossless audio compression. You can still have P-frames if there are areas of the video which did not change, very common in animation. What lossless will avoid is blotchy artifacts, particularly in dark areas.

@Schwern Yes, that seems to be the case. I run a playblast through with lossless and GOP still changes the file size. I will edit my answer.

If I would set GOP at 25, does this mean that I should have a key frame in every 25 frames ?

It is now my understanding - based at the comments - that I best check Lossless Compression for the best quality ?

@JanScherders The animation has no relevance to the exported video. GOP of 25 means for every 25 frames, the encoder will store a frame in its entirety. The frames between these GOP key frames are interpolated. This works similarly as when working with animation curves, but they have no relation here. I could export a completely still shot and the encoder would still put GOP I-frames at 25-frame intervals.

Umm, surely you mean 10–20 Mbps and 45 Mbps, not kbps. Also, even 8 Mbps is usually fine for 1080p, no idea about 4K. And for animation you can get away for approximately halved bitrates. Anyway, it's better to use CRF (18 is usually a good value for visually lossless output, but YMMV), while making sure the output bitrate stays within sane bounds.


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Supported video codecs in Blender
When I asked this question it was my understanding that H.264 is a sort of best practice when delivering videos for high definition display. As I am delivering most of my video work to stock libraries I had a look at their preferences and I discover they want Photo JPEG or Apple ProRes 422. But when I have a look in Blender I cannot find Photo JPEG and Apple ProRes. Are those codecs not supported ? If not, can you convert H.264 to those codecs (or is this a stupid question)?
I would prefer to do the video editing in Blender and not having to go to Adobe Premiere or whatever ...
After reading the comments I understand it is not possible to convert H.264 to the mentioned codecs. Is good open source software (OS X) available to produce either a Photo JPEG or Apple ProRes video based on the image sequence produced in Blender ?

You can't convert an H.264 to Photo JPEG or Apple ProRes. My workflow is to render animations out of Blender as an image sequence and then export as a Photo Jpeg QT in After Effects. I'm sure there is other software you could use hopefully others will chime in with options for you. *Another advantage to rendering as image sequences is that if there is a problem part way through the render you don't have to re-render the whole animation.

ok, that makes sense. Thanks. I use Photoshop and Lightroom. Would Adobe Premiere or After Effects be the best choice ?

I'm sorry I do not know. I use After Effects because I am very familiar with it and I preform some color correction and post effects to my Blender animations. Photoshop has come a very long way but I've never used it for animations just still imagery. After Effects "used" to be the Industry standard but Premiere has also come a very long way but I have never used it.

I'd suggest render an Image sequence and compile it via ffmpeg into prores or dnxhd, See http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/14712/how-to-encode-apple-prores-on-windows-or-linux

@poor: If you are going to use FFmpeg, you might as well use FFV1 as the codec (which Blender supports) since this will make things easier.

Jan it looks like you can do it in Blender choose Quicktime in the output section of the Render pane. Then you can click on "Codec" for a dropdown menu with a list of options. Stock agencies lean toward JPEG because it keeps the file size manageable but the quality is good enough for their clients needs.

@poor stack exchange is really supers :)

I don't think JPEG is a good format at all in any forms. Avoid it. ProRes is very good intermediate format but dying as of late. As an alternative you could use VC-5 which is open-source Cineform or just DNxHD or Cineform itself. But you will have to encode in something different than Blender, blender is not good at encoding video anyway..

@Jerryno What would your suggestions for encoding be (as an alternative for Blender) ?

@JanScherders Under the hood it's an interface for ffmpeg. ProRes isn't supported in Blender, just because of legal issues at the moment.  Further reading: https://developer.blender.org/T35615

In Blender choose Quicktime in the output section of the Render pane. Then you can click on "Codec" for a dropdown menu with a list of options.

Aha ... So JPEG is Photo JPEG ?

For my understanding, PRORES is an H264 compression that saves space but retains the quality, so if you save as H264 best quality, it will work with software that accepts prores. However, prores will be a lower size file with a good quality.
So you can easily save as uncompressed and export to any format you want with VCL, after effects or any other free converters.
PRO RES is the standard for the industry as it retains a good quality for a smaller file size than uncompressed. But ideally you have a back of your files as uncompressed to export in any format you wish.

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Color Correction of a Video
So I have rendered an Image Sequence and created a video of those images. Suddenly I realised that if I had only one image (shot by a camera or created with Blender) I would now go to Photoshop and do some colour correction (for instance set a white and a black point).
How best to do this with videos? Is it possible to color correct the whole Image Sequence in Blender or is that to be done in another software (like Adobe Premiere)?

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/2105/2843

Also related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/42649/how-does-the-rgb-curve-work/42651#42651

why is this a bad question ?

Where ever you choose to do the color corrections make sure that you use the image analysis tools in the UV?Image editor window in the Tools tab. Or in the VSE see the scopes icons in the VSE preview window.

Yes, you can do color correction in both the compositor, and in the color management tools of the Scene Tab.
I would use the Scene Tab option for Black and White, as it is pretty simple to do.
My recommendation would be to render one frame, get this set the way you like it in the UV/Image Editor, and then render your sequence.

Here's a look at the compositor (NOTE for just B&W adjustments, BrightContrast Node might be all you need). For rendering an existing Image Sequence change your Input to Image Sequence. If you want to influence color there is a Color Balance node just for this reason (although you could just play with grayscale values here as well). This is a huge topic, so this is not definitive, just a good starting point. You could use all sorts of things like color ramps, blurs, etc... to get the "LOOK" that you are going for.
If you find that you need to animate the color balance at any point in your timeline, you can keyframe any slider value by hovering your mouse over that value and hitting I as well.

Also set white/black points ? Because that is the one thing I always start with when editing still images

Thanks, I will explore these color management tools. Could you maybe give some ideas how this can also be done in the compositor ?

@JanScherders I just appended my answer to address your request.

Via the Video Sequence Editor
Import your Image Sequence into the VSE and in the Properties Modifiers Panel with your Strip selected you can add a Strip Modifier for your whole Image Sequence like a Color Balance or a White Balance Modifier.

You could copy them to other Strips if needed selecting Replace or Append now since 2.77.
In the White Balance Modifier you can pick a Color from your Sequencer Preview to set a White Level:

All pixels will then mathematically be divided by this choosen color.
Apart from that, the Bright/Contrast Modifier might help you with the blacks. Or when you use a Curves Modifier, you can easily boost your black level when you lift the bottom left part of the curve:

Unfortunately, the Curves Modifier for Strips doesn't have the White and Black Level Color Choosers as the RGB Curves Node does - where you can set exactly what you want.

But this RGB Curves Node is only available in Compositing via Nodes. So You might consider using one of the VSE to Compositing Add-ons for this:
Alternatively via Compositing
To use only nodes you might set your frame range to the length of your Image sequence, make sure, in the Post Processing Panel in your Properties' Render Tab you have only Compositing selected, check Use Nodes in the Compositing Node tree, remove the Render Layers Node and add an Input > Image Node instead. Set it to Image Sequence and set its frame range accordingly. Put the Color > RGB Curves Node between it and the Composite Node and hit Animation (F12).

(You might have to delete your default camera to prevent Blender rendering your Default Scene again and again, but I think it shouldn't do that when you delete that Render Output Node)

I will dive into this. Thanks. Can you also set white / black points because that is one thing I have not seen in Blender ( or did I not search enough) ?

@JanScherders: I added some more details about the other Modifiers and mentioned a second possibility via the Compositor. That should help you out.

The VSE, again, is an extremely poor choice for colour grading for a number of reasons too long to list here. Proper grading should be done in a compositor, with strict control over the transforms for your primary and secondary grades.

I am new to Blender and wanting to change Black and white arrears in a video to colour which found hard to find information on and can confirm in following the above heading "Alternately via Compositing" instructions it can be done. Get to the picture stage in the above and click either the white level or black level on the RGB curves node to bring up its colour chart. click on the small dot and move it around the outer edge with the cursor and you will see it go through the different colours in your video clip. Many Thanks Rick Riggs for the answer.


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Color Management in Blender
Till now I rendered my images and took them to Photoshop and did some color corrections there. Made aware of Color Management options in Blender by Rick's answer on this question I am now diving somewhat deeper in Color Management in Blender.
I don't want this post to be a dupe, I just want some basic understanding of color management in Blender. How monitor profiles, color spaces and Blender act together. Like I have some basic understanding how working spaces, monitor profiles act together in Photoshop.

@poor I have seen that post but that is about monitor calibration and I have a calibrated monitor. Is my question really a dupe ? Hmmm .. perhaps you are right. I did not read the part about hooking the 3D LUT into Blender. Pfff .... heavy stuff

Ok, retracted. But it should answer question 3 and 4. Please ask one question at a time.

@JanScherders http://displaycal.net/ is certainly not the only option, some other companies will be happy to take your money for what you can do accurately for free using open source.

@JanScherders please read: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-6sF9XjjZclJ43NDi4fAelVybeCZpp7mOiA2wpxlitA/edit#slide=id.g11f6dea3e1_0_0

@cegaton Thanks for the link. After a first read I feel very confused. I have a photography background and I am used to live in the world of monitor profiles, AdobeRGB, Pro Photo.

@JanScherders also read this post: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/46940/1853 at the end of it there are some links that might interest you.

@JanScherders I would strongly encourage you to try and get a strong grasp on colour management across domains before delving in deep. I am happy to answer questions to the best of my ability, but many issues with colour arise when a software-centric approach is applied thinking it is a singular end-path. Having a firm grasp on the nuts-and-bolts will make it much easier to understand what is going on under the hood, and help avoid critical errors in workflow.

@troy_s I agree. I think I had a reasonable understanding of the colour management world of a photographer but I feel now confronted with whole new concepts. Where to begin ?

@JanScherders You already have. Don't get buried. Try to start with that slide presentation cegaton linked to, and perhaps read the PDF at the VES link http://cinematiccolor.com. Ask questions from there, once you grab onto some of the newer concepts.

@troy_s I will do that. For now ... would It make sense to use a dedicated monitor for motion and configure that in sRGB ?

Read through and you will likely have a much better grasp as to how the pieces fit. The short answer is that you can configure things however your pipeline desires. Where you see sRGB is a limitation is purely a small gap in understanding of pipelines and process.


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Color Management panel in Blender
I have some question about the Color Management panel in Blender

Display Device (Scene panel)
Now it seems to me that I have two options for Display Device in the Color Management Panel, either sRGB or None. I guess the color space for the monitor will be sRGB when I chose sRGB ? What happens when I chose none ? Will I see the linear color space ?
Exposure/Gamma
I guess under normal circumstances there are no reasons to correct exposure or Gamma ? When would this be useful ?
Render (Scene panel)
When choosing "Default" this means "Does no extra conversion besides the conversion for the display device.". That seems fine to me.
Sequencer (Scene panel)
The manual says:

The color space that the sequencer operates in. By default the
  sequencer operates in sRGB space, but it can also be set to work in
  Linear space like the Compositing nodes, or another color space.
  Different color spaces will give different results for color
  correction, cross fades, and other operations.

Is this about rendering image sequences ? Or video editing ? I am not sure what is meant here.

The CM panel is somewhat confusing due to some unfortunate labelling.

Now it seems to me that I have two options for Display Device in the
  Color Management Panel, either sRGB or None. I guess the color space
  for the monitor will be sRGB when I chose sRGB ?

Display Device is nothing more than a collection of View transforms. Think of it as a grouping.

What happens when I chose none ? Will I see the linear color space

Close but not quite. You will see whatever the reference space sees. If you assign a different colour space to an image in the UV Viewer for example, you will see whatever you have set the image to, as transformed to reference. If you properly linearize a display referred sRGB to display linear via a correct transform, you would see those values dumped directly to display. In the case of a typical LCD panel however, we have to remember that such electronic displays, though they operate almost strictly linearly, will have a 2.2 power curve baked into their lower level hardware. So the not-so-simple answer is that you would be seeing display linear values dumped to a 2.2 power curve in all likelihood.

I guess under normal circumstances there are no reasons to correct
  exposure or Gamma ? When would this be useful ?

One could correct exposure via the exposure control, however in most typical situations, the two controls are used to check compositing. Bending values can reveal problematic keys, comps, and other details, as well as previewing looks / creative grades, and how materials respond.

When choosing "Default" this means "Does no extra conversion besides
  the conversion for the display device.". That seems fine to me.

Default is simply a label. It is the sRGB specification's transfer curve. While default, the sRGB transfer curve was never intended for rendering, and has many implications. See some of my other answers on wide dynamic range for further information.

Is this about rendering image sequences ? Or video editing ? I am not
  sure what is meant here.

This is a byproduct of the VSE being hacked around how OpenColorIO was designed to work. It is how the VSE sees image data in its reference. That is, it is a hack around how OCIO was designed to give the VSE a unique reference space.


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Color Management Blender geared towards motion pictures ?
Made aware of Color Management options in Blender I am now diving somewhat deeper in Color Management in Blender. The manual tells me that OpenColorIO is used ...
OpenColorIO (OCIO) is a complete color management solution geared towards motion picture production with an emphasis on visual effects and computer animation.
So I understand that the color management of Blender is primarily geared towards motion pictures / video. Is this correct ? Is this the reason that the default for almost everything is sRGB ?

So I understand that the color management of Blender is primarily
  geared towards motion pictures / video. Is this correct ? Is this the
  reason that the default for almost everything is sRGB ?

Yes, OCIO is designed for motion pictures, visual effects, and animation.
sRGB is merely a default, and the reasons for this default are largely historical with where Blender borrowed the configurations from.
CM in OCIO is based on the notion of Views and other output transforms that operate independently of the reference data. To fully understand why, how, etc. would require a vastly more complex answer than this simple question touches on.

I appreciate your answer. Do you have maybe a link where I can read more of the concepts you are referring to ? For now I am "helped with your answer. I now understand some things of Blender better

@JanScherders See other comment. There are a few answers here that might help you as well. See the "Wide Dynamic Range" answer for example. Gather the puzzle pieces and ask where things confuse.

One more thing ;) Blender is not only used for motion but also to create stills (for instance architecture work). I understand the photographers have to live with the fact that the motion concepts prevail ?

There is nothing to "live with", as once you become fluent with the concepts you will understand why OCIO was designed, how it fits into place, and how ICCs are absolutely awful for photographic image manipulation.


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Can I save rendered images as PNG with a sRGB color profile?
It is my understanding that I can save rendered images at best as PNG files. But what about color profiles ?
The manual says:

The other place to keep color management in mind is when loading and
  saving image files. File formats such as PNG or JPEG will typically
  store colors in a color space ready for display, not in a linear
  space.
When working with image files, the default color space is usually the
  right one. If this is not the case, the color space of the image file
  can be configured in the image settings.

Where can I find those settings ??? Where can I set the color space of images ? In this post it is said that

Saving to a JPEG or TIFF at 8 bits per channel will apply a nonlinear
  sRGB curve to the data, and may change the internal float format to
  the respective format's storage type. Saving to an EXR will transfer
  the internal reference space buffers unchanged which, by nature of
  EXR, is a linearized float scene referred format.

What does this mean ?? Does this mean the image are saved in sRGB by default but no color profile is attached to the image ? So best to assign sRGB to the image when opened in Photoshop ?

This may help (If you haven't already read it)https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.64/Color_Management

Since my preference is GIMP, I don't know Photoshop. However, since I know Gimp has the capability to manipulate the color space, and format of an image, I would expect that Photoshop does, too.

There is a sizable degree of erroneous information listed here; some lacking clarity, while other bits could be classified as entirely misinformation or misleading.

Where can I set the color space of images?

Complex question that requires a deeper understanding of colour management and in particular, how OpenColorIO is designed, but the short answer is from the UV Image Viewer's Properties panel.

Does this mean the image are saved in sRGB by default but no color
  profile is attached to the image ?

If you do nothing to the default configuration, yes.

So best to assign sRGB to the image
  when opened in Photoshop?

Yes.

How is Blender saving the images ... with to without color profile?

Yes.

And is that sRGB?

Complex question, but simple answer is “Yes.”

I know that I have to better understand color management for motion pictures but for now I am interested how I can (best) save my rendered images ? In PNG format I thought, but as far as I know I cannot chose or assign a color profile ? How is Blender saving the images ... with to without color profile ? And is that sRGB ?

Colour doesn't require profiles. Perhaps an instant message format works better here. Go to the chat forum that is cegaton's @JanScherders.http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/34814/cegaton-and-whoever-wants-to-join

Ok. To summarise ... By default images are saved in sRGB, but Blender does not assign a color profile to the image. So when opened in Photoshop you best assign a sRGB color profile to the image.

You can find the color management settings in the Scene pane.

yes, I have seen the color management panel. but where can I make the settings for savings files (I mean the color profile) ?

This "Color Management" panel is where you change the settings. Render the image then under the "Image" tab select "Save As Image" from the drop down menu. The settings you made in color management will be applied.

OK. So when I have chosen sRGB for Display Device, then Blender will save the images as sRGB. Does Blender assign a sRGB color profile ?

The settings under RENDER. I'll mark up the posted photo.

you mean log/raw/default/film/rrt ? I know where to save the rendered image, but in in the manual it is said that you can set the color space of the image (see the png I included in my question) but I cannot find those settings in blender. Sorry

I'm not sure Jan. It might be version specific? You can set the color space in the panels I mentioned above. As well as exposure, gamma...

In my question I refer to the Blender Manual. The settings panel I show comes from the manual.

hi Dontwalk, I guess I have asked a bad question. Probably that is the reason for those down votes of your answer. Sorry


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Rendered image suddenly unsharp
I baked a smoke / fire simulation and then created this animation. After that I rendered an image of one frame and that image looked ok. After that I wanted to render some other frames and each time the rendered image was unsharp. I am not aware that I changed something and I also did not Free Bake. how can this happen ? This is one of those unsharp images.

I think you're referring to the motion blur. Your scene has motion blur enabled which is what you want for smooth animations. But if you just want to render a still image and you want it to render sharp (without motion blur) then you'd just disable motion blur for that one shot.
The amount of blurriness depends on the strength of the motion at any given frame, so you should not be suprised that some frames render with less motion blur than others (depending on your animation).

Motion Blur is not enabled by default but is recommended to use for animations so that movements are perceived as smooth, but if you're rendering at very high fps (60+) you don't need it. You can also use it for stills in order to depict rapid movement. (Take for example a render of a racing car moving fast on the race track: if motion blur is disabled then it would appear as if the car was just parked on the street since everything is rendered sharp and thus no sense of motion is transmitted).
As a final side note: As far as I can tell cycles does not support motion blur for the fire simulation per se, but in this case applies the motion blur from the rotation animation.

where can I find that motion blur ? Or did I add that myself ? And how can one image be sharp and the other one unsharp ?

It may be a subframe setting interpolating the "crispness" Probably a side effect of this - @JanScherders

it's in the render settings on the properties pane. It's not enabled by default, so... :-) Well, the way motion blur works is the faster something moves the more motion blur is applied to it. Thus if you render a still image at a frame where there's not much movement, you won't see much motion blur. If you render your image at another frame where there's fast movevemts, then there'll be much motion blur applied to those fast moving objects.

@coCoKNIght You are right, this motion blur box is checked. I will rerun the render of the still image. I hope that solves the problem. But I still don't understand why my first render did not have this problem

@RickRiggs Can you explain ? I am new to animation  ... as far as I know I did not create any subframes, but perhaps I don't understand your remark

@coCoKNIght Is "Motion Blur" best to have checked standard when you render animations ?

Yes unless you're rendering at very high fps, then you don't need it since the human eye will do it automatically then.

@JanScherders - I just saw that other post you were asking about, and thought you may have possibly introduced sub frames, if you re-timed your animation.

Try again based on your motion blur setting as that is quite likely the culprit, I was just trying to give you a little trouble shooting help based on some of the other factors that may have got you to this point. - @JanScherders

hi Rick, I have finished the render and now "motion blur" unchecked and yes, this was the cause of the unsharpness. No idea how this box got checked ... maybe when working on other stuff. Anyway, motion blur was responsible for the unsharpness

@coCoKNIght: you could include the important explanations and details from these comments into your answer. ;-)

@Samoth: Please let me know what details you consider important to add to the answer. Btw. I was just rendering a cycles fire animation myself yesterday and it would appear that cycles doesn't support motion blur for the fire simulation itself. Can someone confirm that?

You could add a Screenshot of your mentioned Motion Blur Checkbox. And the explanation about the further questions Jan had. So that the complete information (without the need to read all the comments) is directly available in your question.


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Is there a way to "calculate" speed/duration for animation?
So this video of the burning earth is one of my first (Blender) videos. I had made the quite arbitrary choice to let the earth turn in 10 seconds. It seems a little too fast ? Is there a way to "calculate" the best speed/duration for such a video ? And are there any tools in Blender to "play" with the speed of your video ? I guess I should study relevant concepts for this kind of work because now it is a bit of trial and error.

It seems a little too fast?

There is no "right speed" when it comes to animation. It all depends on what  you are intending to do.

Is there a way to "calculate" the best speed/duration for such a video ?

Best (or any other superlative) is beyond the scope of this site, as there is no categorical way to answer...
But calculating the duration of an animation is not only possible, but absolutely necessary for anyone trying to express ideas through animation.
To only way to get a sense of how your animation is working out, is to pre-visualize it in real time, meaning: evaluating while playing back at a sustained pace at the target framerate.
For simple scenes you can just playback the animation on the 3D vieport at the desired target rate.
As the scene gets more complex your system might not be able to compute the transformations in real time.
As you play your scene you'll see a number on the top left of the screen that reflects the actual playback speed. If those numbers are red it means that the playback speed is not the correct one and what you are seeing is not an accurate representation of your scene.

At that point you can use a multitude of strategies to get a sense the actual pace of the aninmation:

Visualize things in wireframe mode or bounding box.

Do a quick render in OpenGL

Render a low resolution file using a single simple material for the whole scene. Simplify it by reducing the numbers of subdivisions, baking all bakeable actions/surfaces/simulations. Hide objects that do not move or are irrelevant to the elements you want to evaluate. In other words, use every trick you can think of to simplify your scene and accurately evaluate it.

In short, make sure you have a good idea of what the pace of the animation is before you spend a lot of time rendering the real animation in full detail, only to find out errors that could have been prevented by pre-visualizing.
How do you modify the timing of animated objects?
The pace of animated objects is an easy formula: how much are the elements transforming over how many frames (time).
To slow something down you need to have less transformation occur on the same number of frames (time):

Or have the transformation occur over a longer period of time:

In the simplest form of animation you have a start key frame and and end keyframe. Spacing the keyframes apart in time will make the transformation slower, getting those keyframes closer together will accelerate the transformation.

See this post for more details
For complex animations where all the elements are working fine with each other, and you don't want to affect the placement of keyframes in any way,  you can use the Time-Remapping tool on the "dimensions" section of the properties panel:

More info on this post.

And are there any tools in Blender to "play" with the speed of your video ?

There are, and they should really be avoided and thought of as the absolute last resort.
Re-timing a rendered video is only going to create a new set problems. Not only will you be dealing with decompression-recompression issues, and multigeration quality loss, but even if your workflow involves real lossless formats you will be dealing with some form of spatial and temporal interpolation that blender handles very poorly.
When you are re-timing video, you are either creating new information for new frames by interpolating existing ones, or discarding/combinig frames to compress the time. Depending on how severe the changes are you'll be introducing stuttering/flicker to scene or will have issues with inaccurate motion blur.
To re-time video properly you need some form of otpical flow. Blender does not have any such tools.
There are some amazing tools out there that will allow you to re-time video like twixtor (Not cheap) or slowmovideo (open source) both require in depth knowledge to make them work correctly... Adobe Premiere, Davinci Resolve or Fusion have basic tools for optical flow

It is a bit of trial and error.

Just like life...
So to summarize:
Try to get the rhythm of your animation before you render, not as an afterthought.

Thanks again !! I get the message, don't mess around with the speed of the video after rendering. You say Adobe Premiere has basic tools for optical flow . What do you mean with that ?

Play Rendered Animation Speed
The default Blender video sequence player has keyboard speed controls. The menu choice in 2.77 is [Render/Play Rendered Animation].  Numpad 0-9 as an excerpt.
https://www.blender.org/manual/render/output/display.html#animation-playback
This allows you to keep your camera panel final render settings untouched.  You will see the speed effect with [no] explicit screen text or graphics to confirm your choice. In the video player press [shift] to see filenames and fps frames per second. This worked for .png image sequences.
The timeline window alternate has an alternate frame range. This setting affects 3D View [play animation] and [Render/Play Rendered Animation] as well.
If you choose not to use the Blender internal playback keyboard controls, there is another alternative.  Lowly recommended.  A quickly created new scene with [Copy Settings] will allow you to have a second choice for playback of the rendered images sequence.  Thus the Blender user can use the Camera Render panel to select a new speed and frame range for Play Rendered Animation. New Scene just to playback rendered sequence with speed or frame range changes.  Thus the original scene remains intact.
A quickly created new scene with the a new VSE editor can examine any frame range of any sequence at any speed. Thus the original scene remains intact.

If you create an image sequence with Blender such an .pngs or .jpegs they can be be played back at variable FPS frames per second by changing frames rate in the render settings panel with the camera icon. Playing Back an image sequence is not a great amount of CPU Consumption.  So final view may have one rate. Inspection may have another rate. Or the range of frames for inspection may be changed.  This affects the playback rate from the menu for image sequence [play rendered animation].
Of course the Camera Render panel will show your current choices explicitly.  You can choose to use the same scene to change settings.  The Blender user must remember to set the appropriate rate for a movie final render. The techniques above eliminate the need to remember settings with the burden of new scenes.
Sometimes I watch a video slower to look for defects.  Faster when I feel its too slow.
The playback of render command is printed to the console where it can be seen and copied.  Thus you can issue the the command to your Operating System Console. Name separators must be inspected. \\ or \ as an example. As an example you may want to examine a certain range of frames.  The Timeline window also as an alternate range of frames.

  'C:\\Program Files\\Blender Foundation\\Blender\\Blender2.77\\blender.exe -a -f 24 1.0 -s 1 -e 8 -j 1 J:\\A\\3D\\Blender\\C\\D\\E\\F\\G\\image_516_0001.png'

See this link for more information
https://www.blender.org/manual/advanced/command_line/arguments.html?highlight=playback
The Video sequence editor is capable of slowing down image playback in the same way.
If you happen to like a different speed you can then to decide what combination of scaled keyframes or different FPS will help you.  If your actions are a NLA strip they can be scaled.
Yoo Toob has a speed control on screen.

I did create an images sequence of PNG's. Where can I find the camera settings you for changing the frames per second ? Same question for VSE

Please see edit.

Add your Scene to the VSE and add a Speed Control Effect Strip on top while it's selected. You can then just grab your Scene Handles to adjust its length and the Speed Control will do the magic.
And since 2.76 Blender even calculates correctly interpolated subframes of your animation to be played back propely:

Speed Effect can re-time scenes with subframe rendering.

Make sure, your Sync Mode is set to AV-Sync.

if I play the video in VSE (AV-Sync = on) then the video is stuttering. Is this normal ?

uhh... what is a subframe ?

When you slow down video you need to create frames there where there are none. The stuttering you see happens when the software you are using is repeating frames instead of synthesizing new ones.

Frames are usually constant points in time dependant on your fps setting. But when you slow down or speed up a Strip you might need to have the information of some interpolated point in time in between two original frames. These are called subframes. They help in certain circumstances like fast simulations or speed effects...

no, the stuttering is there before I change the speed of the video. And the frame counter in the top left of the screen is also in red. I think the CPU of my computer is pretty fast, so what can be the cause ?

For calculating the time, say you need 60 seconds of an animation then it is 25 frames multiplied by 60 seconds giving you  1500 frames so for any real time calculations the number of frame rate multiplied by the desired time gives the exact number of frames suitable for the animation.
About the speed of animation, I have always scaled the keyframes where necessary in the dopesheet to make some parts in the animation fast or slow but that could mean adjusting other keyframes too, increasing the number of frames or even more render time than planned so it is better to always play the finished keyframed part to check out its play speed before taking more steps into animation creation.


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Importing Bodyparts3D into Blender
When I download a system from bodyparts3D, it's divided in different parts, and it's not organised in a single entity; and when I import body parts into blender, strange stuff happens. In fact to see the object, I need to rotate myself to see it, and I don't precisely know how to control it. So, how should I import obj. files from  Bodyparts3D? How it's downloadable a system in a single unit?

Pay attention to your tool shelf at the bottom left, you need to ensure that you don't split the verts on import.
As for the position of where the body parts land in space, my guess is that the original units were something other than what Blender is using by default, and that the origin is a shared origin, with the rest of the body parts, so that there relationship is kept.
So if that is important to you, then you probably should not change the origin like I did in the demonstration to simplify the scene with one part.
Instead:
I would recommend scaling your active import down by factors of 10 (eg. 0.1), until it comes into view - once you know how many times you needed to scale to make that happen (eg. if you had to scale down by 0.1 [3 times] then your scale factor would be 0.001), then you can do this for all future imports that were modelled with the same factor.**


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I Need Help on a Set Up on my Video Editor on Blender
So what's happening is let's say like I take this video, I split it in half, I encode the one half, and then the other, but the other half, the second half, plays the same video from the first half but with the second half's audio. This has been happening to a game series I was doing with a friend. I use OBS Multiplatform as my game recorder and I use the High Profile as part of the recordings. So I was wondering if anybody could help with this.

Could you show the Video Sequence Editor of both halves?

Could you show some examples of what exactly happens and maybe upload your Blend-file for further examinations?

@Samoth Do you want my property set up to, I can also send you the actual two videos to if you want me to.

Use blend exchange and just edit your answer for further details. You can upload the result (if licensing allows) to a video platform of your choice and link it here. Or show a screenshot of your VSE where the problem occurs (but that might still not be enough informations for a good answer)...

@Samoth, I thank you for the help, up on top you can see the .blend and I have these two videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9i8ulUouGo&feature=youtu.be - This is the first part of the video, this video strip works fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-FAHP2AEx0&feature=youtu.be - Then here is the second part of the video, as you can tell it encoded the first part video frames, but with the second part video's audio.

@Samoth is there anything else you need?

@Carlo Can you help with this?

It's hard to say. From the file I wasn't able to get any clue. If possible, I would suggest to somehow upload the audio and video source file so we can examine the whole thing. Did you experienced similar behaviour with other input video too?

@Carlo My first video that I have made for my Youtube had the same problem, you can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2cdYfswIEw Except with this video it just skipped through the first episode and played the second one which is fine but weird. Did you see the two Youtube videos I posted showing the footage?


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Object rotation in 360
Is it possible to make an object rotate, when the viewer rotates the screen on YouTube in 360? So, it wouldn't depend on the camera, rather than the viewer himself/herself.

I think this answer might be what you are looking for.

You mean a video like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eppTvwQNgro

You're trying to make it so that when a user rotates their view in YouTube 360 (I.e. Tilts their phone), rather than the camera rotating, just an object on the screen will? This is not possible due to the nature of YouTube 360. A 360 video is simply a very distorted normal video, which YouTube analyzes and molds into a 360 sphere, which the user is inside of. This means that a 360 video is still a normal video, and videos aren't interactive in the way you're trying to achieve.

Yes.
Keyframe the rotation on the axis you like.
For example

Object mode, select object,
select frame 0, insert keyframe rotation
select frame 40, rotate z 180, insert keyframe rotation
select frame 80, rotate z 180, insert keyframe rotation
play the animation frames  0-80 and witness the revolution
improve the animation

If you need a video tutorial please state so in the comments.

Yes, please.                                            Even if I'm not sure about the result .-.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHdTUJBs7so  .... a few dozen for you to watch

I don't want to rotate an object, instead I want the viewer to rotate an object while watching the video; so, if I am the viewer and I am watching the video on YouTube and I, for example, rotate the video itself, the object and only it will rotate with the viewer.

When you clarify a requirement put the clarification in the original question.  Then you can request people to look at a new clarification.  Then after that clarification you can delete your comment here.  Then I will delete mine.  Clarification should be directed at all readers.


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Keeping the Camera out of meshes in the BGE
Is there any simple way to have a camera act as a slow parent to an object yet still not go through meshes?
In many 3rd person 3D games, the camera will sometimes zoom into the player to avoid clipping through meshes.

I'm pretty experienced with the game-engine but I never needed anything like this. I never thought of it, but I don't know either. I could do some cool new games with the solution maybe.

Do you have any ideas of a work-around?

Is there any simple way to have a camera act as a slow parent to an object yet still not go through meshes?

But the answer is ... there is no build-in solution. This is because any solution would be a specific solution to your game. So you need to develop your own feature.
Btw. slow parent does not matter in that situation.
Examples:

Perform a ray test from target to the camera. Set the camera on any hitpoint discovered. This way the camera will be behind blocking objects.
Perform collision test at the sides of the camera's view. Let the camera orbit around the target to avoid blocked views (see FreeView).

Hey, that sounds like what I need! I hope it still works with the latest version of blender. Thanks a lot for the clever choice(I'll try free view)

Quite interesting problem, love it. As mentioned, solutions and their implementation will vary according to the game.
Given the context you provided, maybe you could set a radar sensor in the camera to sense a game object which is within the camera vision and set an actuator to zoom the camera when this condition is met. This way, whenever an object is found between your character and the camera, your camera may zoom past the object.


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How to place the right seams for the UV mapping of a curvy object like this?
In the pic is my object, it's basically half a deformed sphere cut in two.
I'm placing seams on an object in order to UV map it and add texture, but I don't understand how to do it properly. I chose the profile where the sphere has been cut, and two diagonals as the seams (you can see them in the pic). But when I use "Unwrap", I have no visible result in the UV/Image editor. I think it may be because I'm not placing the right seams, do you have any ideas on how to do that properly?
Thanks in advance!

I'm not at all an expert in unwrapping, but I'd say the trick is not so much in the seam placement, but more in the top geometry of the mesh where all the loops meet.
Make sure you have an all quads mesh that doesn't end in a triangle fan.
If you are not sure what I mean, try this:
1) Select the top vertex and delete it.
2) Select the first open edge loop, extrude it and right click to cancel (leave it in place).
3) Scale it to zero to make it meet at the center.
You may move it slightly up in Z to compensate so it's not perfectly flat.
Make sure you don't remove doubles so you have a quad's only mesh.
4) Lastly you can use the Unwrap > Follow Active Quads > Lenght Average to have an even rectangular unwrap.

Fun fact: I exported the poligon to another .blend file and now I'm able to unwrap it normally. By the way I see what you're saying. On the top right now I have a "triangle fan", I'm gonna switch it with an all-quads solution!


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Textures changing in render but not in 3D View
I've just textured a simple character that I've made, but then I saw that I could make the textures look better. So, I loaded the new image file. The strange thing is, if I set the texture on the material and then render, I see it rendered with the new one, but in 3D view I see it in the old way. And, if I shift+X button remove the old image, save, reload then charge the new one, and set the material, the rendering is always correct (as you can see on the right in the pic below) but in 3D view it's all white (on the left)! How can I fix this?

The textured view is a shortcut to see the texture mapping of the image in the UV editor window. I suppose your texture is applied to the material of your model: select the model, Tab into edit mode, select all vertices, open an UV editor window, close the image of the window (if present), load your texture.
In this way the texture is "attached" to the actual UV map and will be displayed in the 3D view.


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Closing a hole after adding solidify modifier
I modeled this part of a lightbulb and in order to create some thickness I added a solidify modifier (after adding a sub surf modifier).

Now i want to "close" this hole of the object.

But when I do this I don't get a smooth transition between the "old" geometry and the "new" geometry. Why is this ?

What should I do to "close this hole" and have a nice smooth surface (in combination with the solidify modifier) ? Or should I forget the modifier and created thickness by modelling without modifier ?
After adding some extra loops this is the result. It looks better but it is still like two separate objects are brought together and I wanted to see one object with a smooth transition

If the mesh has a hole with Solidify mod this means it has it also without modifier. It's worth revising the model for any holes / doubles etc.

Its really hard to tell what you're talking about.

Can you post screenshots of your mesh without modifiers? It's hard to tell from the images, but it looks like you have a non-manifold mesh, that is a mesh that could not exist or be built in real life.
In your case it seems you have edges that belong to more than two faces. Specifically that large circular "lid" that makes inner part of the lamp is probably attached to the outer faces causing an inconsistency in your mesh that the solidify modifier can't handle correctly.
I would advise choosing one of the two methods and sticking with it.
If you require modeling the inside of the mesh than abandon the modifiers completely and model it all the way through.
I always prefer a modifiers non destructive workflow so in your case you could either detach the "lid" into a separate object that doesn't use a solidify modifier, or leave it in the same mesh but detach it from the surrounding geometry, making it a separate chunk.
Edit: As I mentioned previously, closing the mesh at the selected loop will yield a non manifold mesh, you would be creating a an inner face that would be connected to the outer part of the shell.
I mean, you can do it, but it will generate a mesh that will most likely cause problems with most modifiers and create a topology that is troublesome.
The way I see it you have four choices:

Apply the solidify, enter edit mode select the inner center vertex, grow the selection with Ctrl + + until the desired loops are selected and X > dissolve faces.
Drop the solidify modifier or and manually model the interior with the closed loop as desired. There is an edit mode Solidify operator you can use.
Leave the solidfy modifier, duplicate the selected loop with Shift + D then press F to close it. It will create a separate chunk of mesh and a discontinuity in the object, but it will remain a manifold watertight object and leave the modifier in place.
My favorite would be to rethink the whole object and use a screw modifier instead. Just draw the section of the light bulb and then use a Screw Modifier.

sorry, I should have uploaded the blend file. I did now (without closing "the hole")

I'm sorry but I don't get it, model looks smooth and error free to me, only hole I see is the top opening where the glass will be. Is that what you mean?

no I don't mean that top opening, but the opening in the narrower part of the object (where I did draw the arrows). Maybe the word "hole" is wrong. I tried to make it clear with the arrows I did draw in the images above. I want to close that "hole". In the blend file the opening is still there. what can I do to explain it better ? The last image is made after closing the "hole", but I did not save the blend file like that

Yes, I saw your arrow, but I've been looking and looking at your model and I see no "holes" it all seems well modeled and continuous, no errors or discontinuities. The mesh looks smooth, so I don't understand what you mean.

I am terribly sorry that I explain myself so bad. what I mean is ... If you have a top view you can look into the object till the very bottom. What I want is to "close" the object where I painted the arrows (because I think that is also closed in a real lightbulb - but maybe I am wrong). Sorry for your time

I now re-uploaded the blend file and I made the solidify modifier inactive and selected the loop in the mesh where i want to close the mesh. Is this more clear ? If I close the mesh there and make the solidify modifier active then I get the result like in the last image

Ok, I think I know what you mean now, I'll update my answer later, right now I can't look into it any further

A couple of things to try: -Move the subsurf modifier below the solidify modifier. -Change the solidify "Offset" to Zero. - Add an edge loop or two.

@Dontwalk I tried your suggestions. adding an edge loop or two improved the result but there is still a crease between the "old"mesh and the added geometry. But perhaps that is normal ?

Updated original answer to reflect provided details. As mentioned you have to stick with a method that suits your model, or settle with a non manifold mesh


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My texturing looks dull, any tips to make it shinier?
I'm learning the basics of texturing, and I was trying to add textures to a character I made following this video. To make it short, I baked the shadows to have the Ambient occlusion, exported them in an image, opened it with GIMP, overlapped the UV grid I exported in another image to it, and colored only that layer. Then I exported it all in the "final texture image", and opened it in Blender.
There's two major things that bug me: the first one is that no matter the color I use to paint the upper level , it always seems too "weak" if compared to the other layer, and the overall effect looks way too dull, as you can see in pic. I used the color you can see in the "grid" that's on the character, but it seems as if the Ambient Occlusion's effect is too strong, making every color I put on it look a lot weaker.
The other thing I can't figure out how to solve is the fact that by doing so I find myself with the grid still visible in the texture: how can I solve this?
And one additional question: is it ok to do as I am doing right now? Baking the shadows, painting on them and having a single image for the texture? And also, is it a problem if I'm working with separate meshes in order to make texturing them simpler? Or should I have all in a single object to do things properly? (I'll also have to animate it)
Give me every advice you can on how to make better textures, and thanks in advance!

what render engine are you using?

Blender render, but I can see that it's not the color I want already by the .png texture file.

If you want the texture to have colors that 'pop' like the colors that the grid uses, you can enable the 'shadeless' setting under the shading section of the material tab.
The grid is visible because you either exported your texture with it(make sure the grid is not visible when exporting!), you are still in edit mode(which always shows the grid), or you've enabled 'display wireframe' from the display options of the object tab.
Having separate meshes for the same character is OK if it means they are still part of the same object., especially if it means you have to do less work. It is worth noting that you can have multiple UVs for a single mesh, and you can even assign individual materials to individual faces of a mesh, each of them with a unique UV map(generally this is not necessary, but it is possible.)

in gimp create seperate layers for the uvs and image and then drag the image to the top of the layer stack


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Smoke simulation not working in Blender 2.77a
I understand at least 100 people have asked this question before. I am going to be as specific as possible and provide a screenshot. I used "Quick Smoke" on a circle with an Ngon fill type. Nothing shows up. I stretch out the cache and the maximum frames available, it simply does not work. Rendered mode for internal and cycles, nothing shows. If anyone wants the .blend file, here, I will provide it, but I have no idea what I am doing wrong, and I am using an integrated CPU.
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/41482
What is missing or incorrect here? Any ideas?

You need to set up the domain object as Domain

Smoke starts after it has gone through all keyframes, you have yours at 10000, that will take a long time. Set the max to 100, press play and wait for it to start, then change it back to your desired amount. Oh, the top panel of your mesh behind the sphere's normal is inverted. :)
EDIT: And, as cegaton said, the domain has to be a domain object.

Another question, while I can: Editing the Domain and Flow colors does not edit the smoke color. Do I edit the color in the Node Editor? Add a node or something?

@Darknaviexe EDIT: Colour changing acts weirdly, i'm yet to fully understand. Also, it requires a light to be in the scene, try adding a Sun light.


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Cycles Render - Rendering Time
I have an iMac and I'd like to make it faster. I've made some modifications following some tutorials, but the process is still very slow, and I feel like the real change would be to set GPU instead of CPU; so is it possible to do that on iMac? Is it normal that to render one frame the program takes more than a minute? To render 40 frames I waited for more than 40 minutes..

1 frame a minute is really quite fast. With a complex scene and high render resolution, renders can take days or weeks (especially if you stop the render while using the computer for other things). As far as GPU rendering goes, it depends on what kind of GPU your imac has. If it supports OpenCL (or even better, CUDA), then it should be at least possible, but not necessarily faster. See this question for more detail

Rendering takes time. Complex scenes render slower than simple ones.  GPU rendering might be faster in some cases, but do not expect miracles. The GPUs on imacs are quite limited, and those that use AMD cards have still have compatibility /drive issues . You can optimize your scene (bake, simplify, remesh, decimate, etc...) but ultimately you'll have to be patient. read: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/24272/gpu-slower-than-cpu and http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/46050/how-can-i-optimize-my-render-times/46055#46055

Actually it's not a complex scene at all, there is practically an imported character from makehuman and a uv sphere

Rendering does take time, but check this out as well: http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/4-easy-ways-to-speed-up-cycles/ Changing the tile size, as mentioned, is the only truly affective speeder-upper that has absolutely zero trade-offs.

Change the samples down to increase speed and chance of artifacts and other horrible looking dots. Close programs, and finally keep your imac cool.


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Source engine weapon animation question
This is a pretty specific question, so I'm hoping someone with source engine animation experience could answer and explain what exactly I should do.
I've been trying to remove the screen shake when reloading a custom weapon in Left 4 Dead 2. Default weapons do not have it, and I want to keep it that way, but still enjoy the beauty of custom models and animations.
The screen shake is added for realism by the model creator/author.
This video shows what I'm trying to get rid of
Note that it's a different game, but works on the same engine.
So I've taken it upon myself to fix this. I've downloaded Blender and tried to find the source of the problem. I've decompiled the weapon addon and found the file that contains the actual model and animations. I've gotten to the point where I found the animation files:

So the two animations that contain the screen shake is when you deploy the weapon and whilst reloading it. So I think the files deploy.smd and reload.smd fit the description. I don't know what the _layer.smd files are though, after opening them in Blender, they seemed exactly the same as the original.
So after inspecting the animation I think I've actually found the bone (sorry if my terms aren't correct, I'm completely new to the program) that adds the screen shake to the reload and weapon deploy animation.

The thing is that I don't know how to edit it at all, when I play the animation that bone moves ever so slightly which I think fits the small camera shaking that happens in the weapon's reload/deploy animation.
From experience with zbrush and a lot of mapping programs I'm guessing that the "bone" is linked with the camera somehow. So how do I brake that link?
I can add more info, screenshots or even screen vids of what I'm trying to acomplish if needed. Take note that I don't know how to do anything in Blender yet and it wasn't really my intention to learn the entire animating process. I'm just trying to fix this one specific thing..
Here is the actual full model /w animations

You mentioned ...[I can add more info, screenshots].  I think that would help your question.

Please add the details of your question to the body of your question on this site.

@atomicbezierslinger Okay I've explained my question better and added some screenshots, hopefully it's more understandable now.

I answered the question and provided a finished file. :) Hope it helps

I don't know how to unparent it, but removing all the keyframes should remove the motion.
I did it to the file my self
Here is the file.
I would just replace the "_layer" version with that file as well, and rename it, just in case. There does not appear to be a difference though.
If you still want to know how to do it...
Here's how:

Switch to the dope sheet

Press a once or twice until all the keyframes are selected (highlighted in orange). (if they are already highlighted, press 'a' twice anyway, just in case a few weren't selected).

Note: That will get rid of all animation, and we just want to get rid of camera animation. You may have to box select b to just select the keyframes that are on the same row. You may have to expand the higherarchy (on the left) until you can click on the bone you want. There may be a location, rotation, and scale, instead of just a rotation like on my example. If there are, make sure you select all of them. Now drag a box around all those keyframes (after pushing b) so that they are all highlighted. (don't select the first column, allowing you to skip the next step of unselecting it.) (it will be white if it is not selected.)

Just as a check, the source engine may have glitches if there are no keyframes, so zoom in to see things better (scroll wheel) [you can click and drag the middle mouse button to move your view to the beginning of the animation] and hold shift while right clicking on the first keyframe (orange square) to deselect it (right click on the box at the same x location as).

Now it should look something like this.

Now press x on your keyboard, to delete the keyframes. (click delete)

It should now look something like this (except with more columns of keyframes.) The bone you are trying to remove the motion from should be the only one that has its keyframes (squares) removed. If it is not, there is something wrong.

That should be good. Check if the bone is not moving when you play the animation (make sure the other bones are still moving), and you should be good. Now save it and replace the old .smd with the new .smd. You may have to export.
Here is a video that can help you with importing and exporting .smd in Blender. I think it's all about the same still.

Thank you for explaining all this, definetly a big step in the right direction. I've actually managed to partially fix the reload animation myself but I forgot to leave the first keyframe (like you said, the animation glitched and i started to lean to the right while reloading). Now I have some good news and some bad news. I've compiled the file you sent and the screen shake was indeed fixed, the camera stopped moving when reloading. But I've now encountered a new problem: http://i.imgur.com/6yv7vMU.jpg

It seems that there's a problem in the import/export & decompile/compile process. I've tried recompiling the original files just to see if it would work normally, but that glitch seems to appear either way. I think I'll find the error somehow, but if you already have experience with importing/exporting and compiling .smd files I'll appreciate any kind of help.

Hmm, that's weird that there would be an error even with the old files. No, I don't know a fix, but it sounds like it's keeping some kind of cache of your data, and the caches are conflicting. Or maybe it's the compile, which would make sense, but then it seems like the errors would be fixed when you used all the old files. My only possible solution is that you need to update the "_Layer" file as well, if you didn't already. Or maybe just replacing the old one caused an issue cause there's something special about that file, but that one must be changed, because otherwise things would conflict.

So in an answer, no, I don't know what I'm doing cause I don't have experience with source engine, and I just rambled about what things appear. :P But I hope it might have helped, and I hope you get it fixed. (A little more rambling: it seems that one of the bones was dependent on some data that got changed, and so it may have broken a link making a bone invalid in some way. That would cause those vertices to jump over there like that. Once again, I don't know what putting back the old files wouldn't fix it though, so that seems like it must not be the answer.)

I'm pretty sure removing the keyframes didn't glitch the animation. Like I said, I tried decompiling and compiling the original model&animations and the glitch appeared anyways. So either there's something I'm doing wrong when compiling things or the software is faulty (it's been known to be faulty). I'm currently trying out different versions and ticking on and off some options to see if it fixes the problem.

cool. Hope it works. :)


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Number of Cuts when subdividing
When subdividing a plane I want to have 150 cuts (number of cuts) but the system does not allow me to enter a number larger than 100. Is there a way to change that ?
By the way, Blenderguru entered 150 cuts in this tutorial at about 07:30 min

For me the max is 10, either way, just do 100, and then do it again and do 50. Would that not work?

subdivide to 75 cuts, then subdivide the cluster again once?

I am doing this tutorial and there 150 cuts are entered. So I guess it must be possible

@Lukaash you can do more than 10 by entering the number on the toolbox or the F6 menu http://i.stack.imgur.com/o4FrK.png

@OldMan I don't think you can go past 100 on a single operation. you share the link to the tutorial in question?

@cegaton Interesting, surprised i've not tried that before.

related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/13652/override-range-number-buttons/13654#13654  and http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/2832/how-can-i-set-sliders-to-values-outside-the-limits-allowed-by-their-slider

I just tested and I can do 150 and 200 no problem on Blender 2.74. I even tried higher and it starts taking long after 700ish.
Sure you can chain the subdividing for extreme numbers, like do 5 and then 30 so that you get 530=150 in total. In fact for large numbers its much faster doing by factors than the whole ie. 8010 is faster than 800.

@kheetor In 2.77 the max number of cuts is 100. I agree this is not a showstopper, but since Andrew Price could enter 150 I was curious why I couldn't

@OldMan Something did change in more recent versions of blender. Using v2.73 (the one used in the tutorial you linked) you can indeed use 150 subdivisions... Maybe it is noted somewhere in the release notes.

Okay, I guess its smart they limited it since doing it in smaller numbers is faster anyway. But sadly now you can't divide an edge into 102 equal parts since 101 is a prime number :p

It seems that they really limited it to 100 :-/ But if it's really necessary then yes, there is the way to change that. Just find the limitation in the source file, and recompile. Thank god, blender is open source.

Note that the number of cuts != the number of subdivisions!. A single cut subdivision operation doubles the number of total cuts. total_cuts = initial_cuts^(subdivision_cuts+1) So to get 150 cuts, do one subdivision of 75 cuts, then a subdivision of only one cut. 752 = 150. Doing two operations of 75 cuts results in a total of 75*75 = 5625 cuts. Also note that a plane already has two vertices per side, so if you want the number of edge verts to exactly = 150, do 742 instead.

As an alternative instead of subdividing a plane you can create a grid object.

Then have 150 subdividsions for X and Y. And on top of that you can click on Generate UVs. No need to unwrap and all of this in object mode!

There is a soft input and a hard input in blender.
Soft has its own max value and hard has its own max value.
you use soft when you drag,you use hard enter when you press on the value,type a number and press enter.
Usually the hard max is larger.
But the max is the max,sometimes you can't exceed it.

yes I typed the number (hard enter) but 100 was the max.

As I said,this is the hard max so you can exceed it.

It was changed around June 2015 as part of a cleanup of parameters with very large maximum values.
I can't see any rationale behind the decision to opt for maximum 100 subdivisions, which may mean it was an arbitrary decision on the part of the developer.  It's possible it could get bumped up to something more reasonable (like 1000) in a future version.  However, feature requests are out of scope of this forum.

Subdividing can easily push your computer past what's practical, into the world of massive computing, which most users will not be able to deal with.  We've seen it happen often, when users get happy with the subsruf modifier and end up with several million polygons and wonder why the computer is not responsive any more.

Yeah, if you read the diff that's not why this was changed though.  There was a desire to move from having an insane max value (2147483647) to something more 'sane'.  However, they chose a max value of 1,000,000 for loop cuts, 1,000 for edge ring cuts and 100 for subdivide.  Clearly, adding a million loop cuts will task most machines but 101 subdivision isn't unreasonable.


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Bumpiness of grassy meadow
I am doing this tutorial of Blender Guru on making grass. Around 20:00 min he shows his render:

When I look at my render the meadow of Blender Guru is more "bumpy". As far as I know I have the same settings in my blend file (attached). Why is there a difference in "bumpiness" ?

You can download the Blend file here. For some reason (?) the file is close to 150MB and cannot be uploaded to Blend Exchange

If you could provide additional info e.g. unit setup, texture mapping, particle setup you can get faster response time from the community.

@Delagone I uploaded my blend file for that purpose.

Just increase the strength of the displace modifiers.

The displace modifier works by using the brightness of the texture to displace the vertices of a mesh on a particular axis.In this case the bright areas of the texture will displace upwards while the dark ones will push vertices down.
It is possible that the contrast and brightness settings used on your texture don't exactly match those of the so called "tutorial".

thanks, now I understand the function of the texture better. So I could also increase the contrast of the texture ? What is the better "method" ? Have an average contrast and work with the strength of the modifier or set higher contrast and be subtle in the strength of the modifier ?

The strength of the modifier will set the absolute limits, where white will be the highest value, black the lowest. Nothing will be higher or lower than that. Changing the contrast on ther texure will make the slopes more or less steep, the brightness will affect the overall displacement value, but will still be limited by the strength of the modifier.


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Make a mesh/plane deform on collision (and stay deformed)
I want to create a animation like those "spacetime deformation" ones, but I am stuck on creating "spacetime".  (a mesh/plane).
I created a plane, gave it a soft body, collisions, and a passive rigidbody.
A cube with a rigidbody and collisions will land and deform the mesh, but it snaps right back.
How can I make it so the cube lands, and then leaves the plane deformed, and the cube just sits there?
I googled around and searched this site, nothing comes up.
An image of what I want (after it settles):

The ball depressed the mesh, creating an indentation.

Have you tried shape keys?

@Timaroberts no.  What are shape keys? >.<

As suggested by timaroberts shapekeys could be a way to achieve this.
Shape keys a are a way to store or save a geometry state of you mesh, allowing to animate by morphing or blending between them freely.

Add a new plane object
Subdivide it as much as you need
Exit edit mode and go to the Properties Window > Object Data > Shape Keys
Add two shapekeys (base and one to make your deformation)
Select the second key
Enter edit mode
Turn on proportional edit with O key (letter "o" not zero)
Grab the central faces or vertex and move them down in Z axis
Use Mouse Wheel Scroll to adjust proportional editing size accordingly
Exit edit mode and you can blend freely between shapes.

Welcome, updated image with a better one

To expand on my previous comment, and address your particular use case, I will cover both the shape keys and the animation to achieve the effect you are after.
You will first subdivide your plane sufficiently in edit mode. Next, in object mode add two shape keys from the object data context in the properties window.

Tab into edit mode again, and enable proportional editing with O then select the central vertex of the plane and move it down the Z axis as far you would like while adjusting the proportional edit influence with MMB.
Next, return to object mode and make sure you are on frame one, then move your sphere to it's starting location, and add a location key frame by pressing I. Then go to your shape keys, you will notice under your second shape key, named key 1 by default, it has a slider with a value from 0-1. 0 being the basis, or original shape, and 1 being the modified shape you made in edit mode. With your mouse hovered over the slider, drag the slider to 0, and add a key frame with I
Now, jump ahead in the timeline to where you want the animation to end, to better judge the rate of fall for the sphere, first add a new key frame for the plane's shape key at a value of 1 and play through the animation to see where the plane begins to deform so you can judge which frame the sphere should make contact with the plane. From here, you can move the sphere to meet the plane at that specified frame, and key a new location keyframe, then another at it's final position.
When you play the animation, you may notice that the sphere moves a little too fast, so what you can do is split your window, and go to the dope sheet. Locate the key frames for the sphere, it will be titled SphereAction by default.

You can then drag individual key frames forward or backward along the timeline with RMB, and make any adjustments needed to your timing. When you're happy with everything, add your textures/ materials, and render!
A rough example of what you should be able to come up with following these steps is as follows:


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How do I make and apply a Normal Map?
I'm having problems trying to make a Normal map. Essentially I want the High Res model detail to go on to the Lower Res one. And that's done trough Normal Maps correct?
Here is the blend file:
https://mega.nz/#!EQ11RYgR!kwZ57m9rj-nQx7dTKSlOfLcM_4eOlhTOR1GBoLvCmDQ
I managed to go this far, but the texture doesn't look quite there. It looks pixalated in some places, and the effect ain't showing on the Low Res model either.
What do I need to do?

Welcome to BSE! This question looks like it might be a duplicate of either http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/32865/strange-artifacts-in-normal-map?rq=1 or possibly http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/38555/normal-map-looking-weird-on-mesh?rq=1 both of which have good, but unaccepted answers. Because StackExchange is a repository of answers (not a forum), we like to avoid duplicating answers. If your question is different from these, please reword it so that the community can be more helpful. Images of the problem you're experiencing would certainly be helpful.

It looks like you dont have any textures on either one.
One simply has more faces than the other....

Ray distance
You should increase your baking ray distance in order to capture the whole highpoly surface. Here's a comparison between different values (0 on the left, 0.1 on the right),

As said in the manual's page, the parameter controls

[...] how far a point on another object can be away from the point on the active object. Only needed for Selected to Active.

Low margin settings helps us to see how some parts are missing in the image on the left. Once naked correctly dont' forget to set "non color data" and to connect to the vector socket in the shader.

Notice how the wrinkles and other detais are correctly transferred upon the low-poly mesh.

For making a normal map from diffuse textures, I would use CrazyBump. For an in-depth guide on texturing and using maps on models, here's a really good tutorial video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W07H7xeUnGE