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Hide an emission object but keep it's glare effect
I'm using the glare node in the compositor to create a lens flare effect. Is there any way to make the emission object not appear in the render, but keep it's glare effect?
I've tried turning off camera ray visibility for the emission object, but then I loose the glare effect too.

I think you'll have to render it as a second layer (or indeed just a second image) and composite it over.

Thank you for the suggestion, I'll give that a go.

glare set to 1 or -1, I forget which, outputs only the glare result, and you can mixrgb -> add to add it in


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Rotate all objects around world origin
I wish to rotate everything around the world origin by 90 around Z axis, thus effectively swapping X and Y axes. When I select everything and rotate, all objects get rotated around their local axes. I'm new to blender and I have no idea if there's an option to change this behavior. Can I somehow swap X and Y?

At the top of your screen, in the middle of the top, you can see the word, default there is the word "Global" in this part of the blender you can change what alignment is used and what is midpoint of rotation, If you want to rotate around world origin, you should place 3d cursor in the world origin and rotate around 3d cursor

Blender Manual - Pivot Point

Is you want to rotate around world origin, you can snap your 3D cursor to the world origin (Shortcut SHIFT+S --> World origin or shortcut SHIFT+C)

Then select all the object you wish to rotate, and select the 3D cursor as transform pivot
And to rotate, you just press R and typing 90 on your numpad, or using the rotate gizmo.

Thanks! I seems to work.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Mesh from masked material
is there a way to convert a mesh with a masked material to fully opaque mesh? That is, generating holes where the mask is 0.

Could you apply the mask modifier?

Hello what do you call "masked material", could you please give details?

@moonboots I mean a material in which the alpha channel describes transparency, rather than translucency. For example, any value less than 0.1 is fully transparent; any above is opaque.

If you have an alpha channel, just color ramp it in shade nodes

@DanielMöller unfortunately, I'm too new to blender to know how this will convert a material to geometry. Could you share an example/instructions?

Nothing converts a material to geometry. The most you can do is have invisible geometry. But you have to ask your question properly, we have no idea about what you have and how you have it.

@DanielMöller to give more context - I wish to convert leaf cards into geometry.

We still have no idea of what you have and how you have it.

@DanielMöller ok, let me give an example - I have a quad with a texture like this one: https://www.textures.com/system/gallery/photos/Nature/Leaves/109758/Leaves0158_1_350.jpg - I would like to convert that quad into a geometry in the shape of the leaf.

If it doesn't need to be strictly "geometry", you can easily make materials invisible with "alpha".
Add a plane, add the texture and connect alpha:

If you do mean geometry, this is a naive approach that gives you a pixelated square mesh, starting from a plane with geometry nodes:

You might find it useful to combine both approaches, you can have a rough geometry with bigger pixels (less subdivision) and yet use the image transparency to make the borders look high quality.
You might need to use "faces" instead of "points" in the "separate" node, so you can get the stem with low quality mesh.

That's what I have now and that's exactly what I want to avoid :) I need actual geometry.

@krojew, updated my answer.

Thank you - this looks like what I need.

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


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Overlaying Image Textures
So, I'll try to keep it simple. I'm just trying to overlay a transparent image texture on top of another image texture. I've followed various examples on this and I'm just not getting the same results. I've included my node set-up and what my model looks like as a result.
I will also note that although I've got each image texture set to a specific UV map, the texture currently displayed on the model changes as I click between them. Not entirely sure why that's happening either lol...

I haven't checked your file but in the first screenshot, the values for the UV maps are red. That's an error and Blender tries to tell you they are invalid. Are you sure the names are correct?

I think Blunder is correct - you changed the named of your uv maps to HeadMap and EyeMap respectively, but didn't change the nodes to reflect that (as they say UVMap and UVMap.001). Click the box and pick the maps by name.

@Blunder & Christopher, swapped the UVs and nothing changed.

You need to fix the UV names in the node setup, and choose Viewport Shading mode Material Preview or Rendered.
In the Shader Editor, you will see that the names of the UV maps for UV map nodes are displayed in red. That's an error and Blender tries to tell you they are invalid. Choose the correct names for the UV maps.
Nothing will change because you are still in Viewport Shading mode is still set to Solid with Color set to Texture as you can see here:

This shading mode uses the Workbench render engine which is a very simple render engine. It uses the image texture of the active Image Texture node and displays it. This causes the texture to change when you click on the nodes.
It's useful for texture painting so you see what you paint. But it also simply uses the transparency of the image - which hides the face.
To see the result of your node setup, switch the Viewport Shading mode (Z) to Material Preview or Rendered. There are also options when you open the dropdown menu right next to the sphere icons.
I've added an Area light to the scene and enabled the Use Scene Lights and Scene World options. This is the result:


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Mirroring only specific textures?
To put it simply, I want my textures to be symmetrical for the most part, but I have some asymmetrical features I want to add after I've got all the base texturing down. How do I "un-mirror" the textures (without starting completely over, preferrably.)

you can use a second UV map for a second texture that you'll put over the first one

hey @moonboots i'm still having trouble with this. could i send my file over again & have you help me identify the issue?

hello you can share it with https://pasteall.org/blend/ make sure that you've packed your images before saving

https://pasteall.org/blend/62901d009bb840d6b17623e5f48facfc here you go. so my edits are still reflecting even tho I've tried to assign a different texture to the left & right halves of my model.

ok I've answered, I hope it helps

you haven't packed your image but it doesn't matter, what I see is that in the UV Editor, left faces and right faces are overlapping, this is OK if you want to have a symmetrical texture. But if you want to paint something on the right side only for example you'll need to have a different UV map where left and right faces won't overlap. First thing create a new UV map in the Object Data panel and keep it selected:

Then select your object and, if you plan to paint in the 3D view, you can unwrap with the Smart UV Project method. You have assigned 2 different material to right and left but instead assign the same material (Right_Body Material) to both the 2 sides. In this material, create a new Image Texture node. Before this Image Texture, create an Input > UV Map node with the new UV map selected. In the Image Texture, create a new image with a transparent background (Alpha 0), mix it with the main material and use the alpha as factor:

Paint on your object, the main texture will still be symmetrized but not the new painting:

took some finessing, but i eventually got it to work! thank you so much for the help!

also i'm so sorry- in the future, do I pack my file by going to file > external data > pack all into .blend? Cos that's what I've been doing before sending it over.

yes that's it, have you done it? Because there was no texture in your file

That is how I've been doing it... must be missing a step somewhere.
Anyway- this method has been working out for me, but I'm having trouble trying to figure out how to keep the original UV map on the main texture only. They're overlapping on both textures atm & I'm unsure why.

You probably need activate the first UV map in the UV map list, but anyway you can plug another UV Map node into the first Image Texture if you want, and select the good UV map.

I figured it out- I had only partially unwrapped my model for the 2nd UV, so parts of it were clipping.
I've been working on this for a little while & I've  noticed that when I do it as you've got it pictured there, my 2nd texture is all white on the model & I think yours is too in the screenshots. Any reason why that is?

hello, please pack your images and share the file

https://pasteall.org/blend/e5b19a990779453b91dd70bcdee0e22f lmk if this is packed correctly.

first thing I notice is that your second UV Map is exactly the same, do another one, choose the Smart UV Project mode. Your second image need to be Alpha 0 (transparent), put a Diffuse after it and plug the diffuse into the Mix Shader. Plug the Alpha output of the Image Texture into the Alpha input of the Mix Shader

omg okay that did it. I hadn't unwrapped the new UV yet because I was trying to figure out this color issue, but now that it's working as intended, I'll do the unwrap. You're awesome- i really appreciate the help.

You can deactivate the symmetrical when you texturing by simply disable mesh symmetry as highlighted picture below.


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2D Eyes Overlapping Unintentionally
So I've got all my model's eyes drawn & assigned to a number, etc. I noticed when the eyes start cycling through the closing pngs that the original eye is acting as a sort of mask underneath? I want the last 2 eyes specifically to be transparent (closing.png & closed.png or 5 & 6) and I'm unsure what I've done that's resulted in this error.
(GIF of what it looks like right now: https://i.sstatic.net/XXlad.jpg )
I've been following this tutorial and I'm not sure where I deviated since his eye textures seem to be working: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GtAFAfe5tU&ab_channel=TheObservatory (Skip to 2:37-ish to see him cycle through his eyes)

The Reason for the problem is that all eye texture images use the mask of the default eyes to mix the color of the eyes and the color face. This works for all of them except for the closed eyes. For the closed eyes this fails because requires a different mask to exclude the eyelids that are the eyeball for all other images. In the case of the closed eyes you must use the alpha mask that comes with this image.
In the image editor, you can display the channels individually to check them out. Use the last drop-down menu to choose the channel:
Here you see the eye images and their alpha masks. The top left image shows only the Color, the top right one shows Color and Alpha. Both images at the bottom are the Alpha channels/masks.

It's All Black and the closed eyes are barely visible because the face is almost black, the eyelashes are black, and the eyelids are also black because of the used mask.
(Side note: The eyelids are black because the image's Alpha option is set to Straight (default). This renders any transparent (background) pixels black even if the background is white here. If you need the real color use Channel-packed. The background (=color of the eyelids of the closed eyes) is visible because you took the mask of the open eyes.)
A Possible Solution to fix the shader is to use the Alpha mask of the closed eyes for the closed eyes. A quick and dirty way is to add another MixRGB node for the Alpha mask. It's a bit "dirty" because if you add another image with open eyes that requires the default alpha mask you need to swap the order of the images or adjust the condition for the selection of the alpha mask. Ideally, you would use the individual alpha mask for each image. However, this would greatly bloat the node setup.
Time to Clean Up the Eyes Node Group. There is no need to have several input slots for the image threshold value (Value) as shown in the tutorial because the value is always the same. With a Reroute node you can organize the connection lines. (Use G to grab and move the Reroute node.)
In the side panel of the Shader editor, you can remove the unnecessary slots, give the slot a proper name and limit the value range. Then you can also remove the other dummy node group that just limits the value range.
Get Some Contrast, you need to increase the Brightness of the face a tiny bit. Also, increase the Roughness value and lower the Specular value of the Principled BSDF to get more contrast and make the black eyelashes visible. Otherwise, you won't see them ;-)
The shader for the head:

The adjusted Eyes node group:

For animation, you need to set the Interpolation Mode to Constant to keep the image threshold values constant (Graph Editor, then context menu).

Hi! So how did you add that "Type: Float" option to your group input? I'm trying to follow along with what you've outlined here and you seem to have a much better grasp on nodes than me.

Hi. Select the Group Input node,  open the side-panel in the Shader Editor (key N), and select the Group tab. It's one of the vertical tabs on the right side. There you have the input slots as shown on the screenshot. With [+] and [-] you can add and remove input slots, and choose the type, like Float. The same you can do for the output slots. It works like other lists such as the vertex group list, UV maps, material list.

I'm in the group panel after selecting the group input node, but the only values I can change are "name, default, min, & max" and there is no option for type.

Ok, I see what you mean. This is new in Blender 3.0 and not present in 2.9. In Blender 2.9 you have to drag a node that has the correct type to the group input/output to create a slot of that type. I think that you cannot change it once it's created.


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How do I get GPU to render scene, even with AMD GPU recognized and selected?
As the questions states, I have HIP slected and my AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT checked under System>Preferences AND I have the Render Engine set to Cycles, Feature Set as Supported, and Device as GPU Compute.  When I start to render my video my CPU dials up to 70% usage and my GPU stays at 1.6% in task manager.  Does anyone know why?  I'm running the newest version of blender, 3.4.

Hi, Dan, and welcome. We're not collectively competent to answer questions on hardware, its configuration, or bugs in the application, here. So this post is off-topic, sorry. If you're confident your configuration is good, this should probably be submitted as a bug report.

Windows Task Manager does not report correct usage of the GPU and CPU is still used during GPU render. If you selected the render device and correct render settings like you say, those settings are used during render. So you don't need to do anything else, your described process already uses your GPU.


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Only show HDRI lighting in the surface illuminated with sun light
I'm trying to make a series of moons in blender. I'm on cycles and have a very simple set up for the moment.
I have a UV sphere as my moon, a camera and a sun light that can rotate to simulate the phases of the moon.
The results look like this:

This is a very simple example. But I want to create a different material moons. Let's say one is rock, another one gold or glass.
In my experience the only way to make this materials look realistic is using and HDRI.
So I set up a HDRI with an environment texture, added some roughness and the mateial gold starts looking better:

But as you can see, the HDRI illuminates the whole sphere, so I loose control about the moon phase.
Is there any way I can only use the HDRI in the surface that the sun is illuminating, like the first moon from above?
I've been trying with light pad node with no luck at all... asked chat gpt, watched a ton of YT videos but I'm not able to figure it out. And it's key for me to have realistic golden moons for my collection.
PS: keep in mind that I'd love to keep it as procedural as possible, so I can create a ton of moons at scale!
Thank you so much!

You can edit the HDRI image, just paint dark the part that you want to keep dark

Ty! But will be able to animate it with that?

What kind of animation do you mean? Like rotating the HDRI? Another solution (Cycles) would be to put an object that would mask the HDRI and prevent the reflexion

I'd like to animate the moon phase change ;)

You could create a half sphere that you'd rotate and that would mask the reflexion of the HDRI? But maybe show a storyboard of the different images of moon that you plan to show

Gonna try it for sure, thank you


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My Shader Nodes are not exporting Blender
I made a 3d model on blender and created materials with using Shader Nodes (I dont know how to call them i just made material on Shader Editor).

When i export the model and put it on the Unity well... some of the materials did not work.

I looked what did i miss and i relized the broken materials are the one i made by Shader Nodes
(The water and big ground!)
(I just selected and assigned materials on trees so they work :P)
The Ground

And the water

I realy dont get what to do about this...

Does this answer your question? .fbx export why there are no materials or textures? Although you don't bother to tell us what kind of export you are doing, I guess the answer there will hint at the reason why it's not working for you. Whatever software/file format you are exporting to, it is most likely or almost certain that they don't have the same shader system as Blender.

Hi, Berk, Please edit to include the export method, as suggested. if @GordonBrinkmann's suggestion works for you, could you let us know in the comments, here, please?

its fbx sorry i couldnt reply @RobinBetts also i relised there is a problem with unity... it just not seeing materials made with shader nodes in blender


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Loopcut and Scale
I'm new to blender, I'm watching this video tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGmS9gKreDU at minute 2:34 there is a loop cut, and the scaling of the two edges. I did the loop cut on my model, but when I press S for scale the distance between the two edges doesn't work. What happens seems to be an extrusion.
anyone can help me?

Make sure to scale on the Z-axis only - So the whole thing is Ctrl+R (Loop Cut) > Mousewheel up (make 2 cuts) > Click to set > S (Scale) > Z (Z-axis).

yeah now work, thanks a lot for the tip.


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My model doesn't export as seen in blender
When i see my model in blender (both solid mode and rendered mode) it appears with no problem,
But when i export it (fbx obj or dae) it has some kind of deformation.
More info :

I have no texture (only assigned materials to faces)
I did not used any other workspace other than layout(default workspace)
I did not used any other mode other than edit mode and object mode.
I did not used any modifiers on this model
There are no other models in this scene(not even hided ones)
I checked for overlapping faces there are none.
There are 1397 vertices and 2790 triangles

Thanks to kind OpenVFX : The Blender Community member AmyLynx#7602 we have solved the problem.
The main problem was i have had so much vertices on individual faces.
Solved with Triangulate Modifier.

Before :

After :


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How can i force a Custom UI to close when blender is already closed?
I'm a newbie Blender ^^"
I've some issues with a custom UI/widget. When I close Blender, my custom widget freeze and stay open (but blender is closed !). I can't close it. When I force the close, this Exception thrown at 0x00007FFBE94C50D5 (python39.dll) in blender.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation writing location 0x0000000000000009.
Does someone know how I can close my widget?
I use Python.
Thx

Not sure exactly what your widget is but you can user atexit.register to add a callback to close your widget. It will be called just before blender closes. https://docs.python.org/3/library/atexit.html

thanks. I will try it.
My widget is a window with 4 buttons (load/publish/import/create entity).


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Render Higher Resolution but keep same aspect ratio without it being cropped?
I'm trying to render an image 1080x1350 but 2x so 2160x2700 for a higher resolution, everytime I render it crops like most of the image and just renders only the left bottom corner even though in the viewport the camera aspect ratio is still correct to I how I want it to be 4:5? any solution to this?

Provided screen is just a part of render ... A tile of unfinished rendering ... Probably wait until render is done.


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Render keyframe with changed location without applying it
Simple project with my problem:

I create a new project
I insert a keyframe in 0
I duplicate that object with same keyframe
I move my new object to random X location
now I see both in viewport:

but when I render i just see 1 because they are render in the keyframe not in like in the viewport.

Complex problem:
I have a metaball with x keyframes with diferent positions and I want to interpolate that keyframes with linear, Hermite...
When I create more metaballs, copying the original keyframes and applying random location it  shows in 3D View but not in render.

This is a work from college and profesor said we can't add or change original keyframes so I'm not able to solve it that way.

Thank you in advantage.

If you are copying an object which has keyframes, the keyframes will be copied too. The keyframes "define" the location and Blender will automatically calculate the position for you. You can verify that by pressing Spacebar to start the animation. The copied object will "jump" immediately to your keyframed value. You can stop this by

deleting the keyframe of the new object
overwriting the keyframe with a new value

When rendering Blender calculates these positions again. That's why you don't see them (because they are on the same position).
Explanation of the colors when keyframing them:
Grey - no keyframes at all.

Yellow - keyframes at current frame.

Green - no keyframes at current frame.

Orange - properties changed but unsaved.

With metaballs You need to create different metaball objects but not multiple balls in one metaball.

The problem I found is that renders set's atributes to 0 (deafult every frame) and when is setted that frame works but in the next it reset to 0
I have:
if (frame_desp % obj.frec) == 1:
obj.rand_val[coord] = (np.random.random()-0.5)(obj.m_max2)
this works only in keyframes when % = 1 and in the other don't work. The stranger think is that it works in 3d view but not in render....

May be you can share you blender file How to add a blend file. I can't clearly understand what do yo do?


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How to tie up multiple objects with a rope simulation?
Does anyone know if it is possible in Blender to tie multiple objects together with a rope by using simulation?
The goal is to have the blue objects floating until the red rope wraps around them and ties them together. Preferably without the rope getting all messed up. Maybe by using pressure in the Cloths tab?
Another important factor is that instead of the boxes in the example image a complex split up mesh (600000 verts) will be used.
My attempts:
I already tried multiple options with cloth, rigid body and soft body dynamics. To get the objects floating I turned off gravity in the scene properties.

The first step was to try rigid body dynamics on a reduced (low poly) mesh and then apply mesh deform on the high poly object to bind it to the low poly version with physics. This absolutely didn't work because the mesh deform doesn't recognize a rigid body moving as a mesh deformation.

The second attempt was to use soft body physics on all objects. This also didn't quite work as shown in the attached image.

Using cloth on all objects. (Had to convert the curve to a mesh). This didn't work since the red rope couldn't be scaled anymore and therefore wasn't able to wrap around the blue boxes.

I also fiddled around with the parameters and some other combinations but it won't work anyway. So does anyone have an idea or solution to this? I'd appreciate it very much.

Hello, don't you want to fake physics instead of trying to use it?

This is probably the easiest way to do it. If it is actually possible with a simulation approach would still be interesting. Especially in regard to multiple objects interacting with each other.


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How do i get rid of those deformities in the shading?
i tried to use subsurf in this object and then use edge loops to keep the corners of those windows sharp. but that resulted in weird shading issues near the corners. any idea what can i do to fix this?
i have this link here i hope the issue is seen clear enough.
https://youtu.be/ZAkJh8MS10Q
and i add an image here so you can see the wireframe.

I will be very much gratefull for any help you can give.

I think we'd need to see the Blend file to see exactly what's going on as that image is somewhat distorted and not very clear as it's taken in viewport shading mode. Share it via https://blend-exchange.com/ following the instructions there.

very well. i am uploading the file here.
keep in mind i had changed the topology sense the post. with no backup i had to work on it to restore the topology you see in the screen shot so it may not be 100% identical
https://we.tl/t-uoCUuMgCMH.

You can mark edges with a crease in the 3-D viewport properties panel, and then tell subdivision to not smooth those areas. Try that with the edges of the window.
As a matter fact, it looks like you’ve got the whole thing set to shade smooth, so you should probably turn on auto smooth in the mesh properties, and mark those edges as sharp as well.

Hey Thanls for the Reply!
its already set to shade smooth. as for the creasing, are you sure? because i had being thought that can lead to a bad topology once sub surfing.

It really depends on the exact result you want, but this is a quick view of one I did from scratch:

I've only added creases to the centre window surround. The object was created from a cylinder with the cutouts made from deleted faces. I then added and applied a Solidify modifier, bevelled the inner edges of the frames and added the Subsurf modifier. The Blend file is here:

well i do want to keep the edges of the side menu sharp as well.
also. may i ask what is the bevel of the inner edges for?

Just apply the creases to the side widows as well in that case. I just left them clear to show what it looked like without them. The same applies to the bevels. - It looked as if the edges might be bevelled in your original image but there's no need for them if you want the corners sharp.

Ok so i was trying to recreate your work. overall its looks great but there is some weird distortion next to the corners.
https://youtu.be/8TJjcUnBggo
also i don't want the edges to be unrealistically sharp. i tried to overall bevel to the windows but it ended with more issues. any ideas as for what to do?

Try creating it without any bevels. If you select the edges which are too sharp, then open the 'N' panel Item tab, you can reduce  the Edges Data: Mean Crease amount to reduce the sharpness.

Ok so i got it work! i kind of cheated my way out by using the data transfomer modifier. but it seemed to do the trick.


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what is the best way to UV unrawp this model
I am trying to unrwap this model but the bevel on the windows seem to make thing difficult.
any idea as for what to do?

Also a picture of the entire model

also in case its needed here is a link to the Project File

Hi Please use a title that reflects the content of the question. It should be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the issue so that users can at a glance understand what your post is about. Use the [edit] link below your post and avoid anything not strictly essential to the post. Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors will see, and makes your question findable for future users. See "What is the problem with posting an image or link and asking “How do I do this?""

Apart from @moonboots answer, you could simply select All, use U > Clear Seams, then use U > Smart UV Project if you want an easy life! :^)

Select the outer and inner faces, choose the front view and unwrap with the Cylinder Projection option, scale the UVs on Y, the 2 UVs are overlapping but you can select each one in the 3D view and separate in the UV Editor:

As for the top and bottom ring, select them and either unwrap by default or choose Follow Active Quads if you want the faces to be orthogonal

hey sorry for the delay it took sometime before i was able to respond.
I did the "Cylinder Projection" But the result is completely warp.
Here is a screen shot

choose the front view before unwrapping

i did choose the front view

The link has expired, could you please share the file again?


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How to export cube animated with boonlean modifier to .glft?
blender 3.4.1
Is it possible to export this animated cube? I used the Boolean Modifier for the animation. The target format is .glb

It looks simple but I have tried different variations of these actions:
bake animation
export to .abc
import .abc and export .mdd
import .mdd and export .glb
and .fbx
No success so far...
.blend file:
https://storage.fleek.zone/54c212c3-61ec-458b-aff6-d56851b32e8e-bucket/clear.blend
thanks
Error when exporting .mdd----
Exception: Error, number of verts has changed during animation, cannot export

Unfortunately that's not going to work. Animating a Boolean produces different meshes at different points in the animation, so traditional object export can't support it.

While the mdd workflow won't work with a boolean, it will work with a shrink-wrap modifier since the geometry is projected to the target and so it is preserved.
When using the shrink wrap modifier use project mode and use a vertex group for the surface you want to follow your target.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures


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How do I stop the middle of a soft body from drooping?
I am currently making a simulation in which a jelly cube will drop. the desired effect is for the cube to jiggle a lot on impact but for it to slowly come back to the shape of a cube. in general terms, how do I get a soft body to be extremely sensitive to collisions but to return to its original shape when undisturbed?

there might be some clue here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/117463/soft-body-preserve-volume-when-deformed

The parameter you want to set is the stiffness, also make edges sensitive to collision will help.


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How do I find the velocity of an object and use it to chaneg the colour of a material?
I am trying to make a material for a fluid simulation in blender 2.8.2 that will change the colour of the fluid as the fluids velocity increases. I have tried a few things:

Both attempts were unsuccessful. Currently, it seems as if it is not possible to find the velocity as there is no way to detect how much time has passed.
I am aware that there is a question almost identical to this one (is there any way to get to velocity of a fluid and use it in the cycle material editor) that has already been asked but it has no answers so I thought it would be ok asking again.

I found a similar question to this with some answers that might help
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/61485/can-nodes-use-an-objects-x-y-position/61520
I think the second answer is better for you purposes. I'm pretty new to blender so I'm not going to pretend I understand whats going on there but it seems that basically you take the location of the object (or in this case the particle), separate the XYZ coordinates and then use it to calculate it's distance from a specific XYZ point.

the "particle info" node is just for particles. Not for fluid simulations with the fluid simulator physics. You can do SPH simulations with particles, and the materials for the particles should then have that node setup. In order to SPH simulation "looks" like fluid, you can use "cubesurfer" addon, metaballs or similar, to create a mesh with the particles.

Thanks for the reply, Trash Panda, I can already find the displacement with a dedicated node, I don't know what finding each XYZ coordinate from object info would do for me, especially without a reference for time.

you will also just need to use the "particle info">"color ramp">"principled shader" or "color">"material output". Dont forget to use cycles, instead of eevee

As I told in comments, you can get that with a particle emitter. On the next image, you find a cube emitting a ball. The material of the emitted ball is the node setup presented. It works in cycles.
If you need to get a surface made of the particles, you can use Cubesurfer addon, or instead of using a sphere as emitted object, you use a metaball, and fine tune the options of it (size, etc). However, the generated surface wont be with colour change by velocity, for both methods.
If you dont want to use a shape itself, another way, in the "particles" setup, you render as "halo", on "viewport display" you sent as "point", in "colour" you can choose "velocity" or "acceleration". You can fine tune the colours increasing "fade distance", as showed in the next image:

Thank you for replying, MCunha, I am not sure how to apply the material to the particles, it only gets applied to the emitter.

Thats quite easy: first you add a shape for your particles (example a sphere, like i did - the big green one). Select the emitter, go to particle settings, under "render", change from "halo" to "object" and select the "sphere". Then select the sphere, and give the material showed (my node or your node setup)

if you don't want to give it a sphere, under "particle settings" go to "viewport display" and change  as showed in the last image i provided in the answer


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EEVEE NEXT: Hard Shadows of SunLight with ToonShader
does anybody here know how to achieve harder edges on the sunlight, falling through the window? I didn't seem to find adjustments that do the work, so I thought I'd just ask if anybody has an idea.
this are my current preferences:

and the prefs of the sun light:

ok i found out that it was connected to the orthographic camera somehow. using a perspective camera works just fine and produces hard edges!


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How can I get the "Render" and "Dimensions" panel
I want to export a video I've edited into an MP4 file. I've watched tutorials on YouTube about how to do it and in all the videos I've seen, they've all had panels for "Render" and "Dimensions" whereas, these panels are the only ones I have:

How do I gain access to the render and dimensions panel?

Switch from game engine to one of the render engines, blender internal or cycles.


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Perform multiple bake types automatically
I'd like to bake some high poly models to low poly to import them into Unity. The problem I have is that I have multiple parts that go on the same texture, and I need color, normals, ambient occlusion, emission textures.
This makes for a highly tedious workflow of changing one setting, bake.
Are there any tools to make baking all maps more efficient?

https://blendermarket.com/products/baketool

^ Note that Baketool is not free.  I recommend Bake Wrangler (free).  It uses nodes which is more flexible.

^ Edit: Bake Wrangler is no longer free. I recommend scripting yourself.


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patchy transparent textures

for some reason some downloaded files come out looking like this. i've noticed it with some, but not all, mixamo fbx files. does this look familiar? any thoughts? Thanks!

Looks like you need to adjust your materials
I'm taking a stab here but I'm guessing that you've downloaded these models in the formats you've stated, and are using Eevee?
If so, then I'm fairly confident in my answer.
Go into the materials for your objects scroll down to Settings and check your Blend Mode. Experiment to see which one works best out of the three highlighted in my screenshot here:

I'm just speaking from experience. If any of my assumptions are wrong, let me know and I'll remove or amend my answer.

Fantastic! Your assumptions are spot on. Thank you! This has solved a long-standing headache


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Rendered water looks different in viewport
I followed a tutorial on god rays as I thought would make my project more interesting (I had a cube with a water material on it before and it didn't look as good) and since it starts with a plane and an ocean modifier the only way to square it is to get a cube and add a boolean to the plane (which is later extruded down). In viewport it looks great but when I render absolutely nothing shows, and there's a line close to the chest.
here's the blender file if it helps
https://pasteall.org/blend/cfc4ee3a0d7f4caf8ef8e890b027f98b
this is the viewport:

this is render:

Hello and welcome. Rather than take photos of your monitor post actual screenshots instead, see How to take a screenshot. Photos are harder to read, because we have to guess if we are looking at a external interference like reflections or smudges or Moiré patterns, hardware issues such as a malfunctioning display or connection, a software level bug or driver malfunction, or an or actual artifact or issue with the model itself.

Some modifiers have different settings for the viewport and the render. In your case, you have set the viewport settings higher than the render. That's why the render looks different (worse).

the Ocean modifier has a value of 24 for Viewport Resolution but only 7 for Render. That's the reason why the god rays are less prominent. Set it to 24 for both.
you have hidden the water object in viewport but not for render. This makes the scene look very different. Click the camera icon in the outline to hide it.
the corals have a Subdivision Surface modifier that has level 3 for viewport but only level 2 for render. Set them also to 3 for render.

Rendered image:

thank you so much, fixing it right now!!!!!


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How to remove pixel with an RGB value of 1,1,1?
Is there a node that would allow me to specifically remove pixels that have a 1,1,1 RGB value? Not looking for a ColorRamp, rather something that specifically targets the pixels by RGB value. Maybe a replacement node 1,1,1 -> 0,0,0 or a clamp node < 1,1,1. Thanks

Despeckle, maybe (compositor)

There is no way single node that will do this.  You can use a group of math nodes that will approximate it with shader nodes in various ways.  Here's one example of a math node group that does the approximation:

The left half of the group simply generates colors to test.  If it were plugged directly into the Principled shader it would make the lower half of the default cube red and the upper half white.
The group in the frame in the middle uses compare functions to see if the RGB value is approximately (1, 1, 1).  If it is, the output of the group is 1. If it is not, the output is 0.  This is the result you wanted.
You could plug the output into a combineRGB node, but I used a mix node instead.  With this technique you can replace white by any color of your choice.  Here I picked a shade of blue, but you could easily use black.
Here's what the default cube looks like without the node group

Here's what it looks like with the node group and the MixRGB node:

It's only approximate because the color values are floats and so the compare function has to deal with floating point representation.  I've set it to be accurate to 1 part in 1000.

Oh wow thank you. That's a lot more involved than I would have thought. I wonder if there is a way to do it in Python after the render using PIL...

The render image is available, so you would need some code to convert it to PIL, but you could probably process it and convert it back.  You might also do the same thing with Numpy, as the actual math is simply a loop substituting values for colors that are the numerical "white" for the render format.

Yes, I ended up doing it in Python because I already had a post-processing script running after the render. I used the Pillow module and image.load() to retrieve an array of all pixels. It was trivial to loop across this 2 dimensional array to test and change the pixels one by one. I found out that the problem was not an RGB value of 1, 1, 1 but an RGBA value of 1, 1, 1, 1 for some isolated pixels due to a rendering artifact (I have a transparent background). So I tested for that last alpha value.


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Shortcut for alpha channel in render window?
Is there an existing shortcut to display the alpha channel in the render window, or a way to set one up? 'a' is working but only if I manually expand the "Display Channels" menu with the mouse first.

I don't think you can, at least not in the popup version.  Blender creates that window on the fly, so there's no permanent internal data that you could hook a shortcut to.


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In Blender 3.2, can I exclude light sources form a shadow catcher without compositing view layers?
My scene has an object which is lit from the side by a light. There is another light on top of the object, and a shadow catcher underneath the object. I want the object to be lit by the side light, but I only want to catch the shadow from the top light. In the past I have achieved this using a second "shadow" view layer and composition.
I'm wondering if Blender 3.2 now has an option to exclude specific light sources from a shadow catcher? I see that there is a light group option but I'm not sure it would allow me to do that.


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How to play a physics animation in a background python script?
I'm trying to run a simple physics simulation in my code. The problem is I need to run the script in the background. When I run the following code, I have no issues if Blender is open and I am running the script in the scripting console. However, if I run the script in the background in my terminal, it appears that the animation doesn't actually run (I have checked this by printing the current frame prior to exiting the script).
 def stop_playback(scene):
    if scene.frame_current == FRAMES:
        bpy.ops.screen.animation_cancel(restore_frame=False)
    elif scene.frame_current == int(FRAMES/4):
        scene.gravity *= -1
    elif scene.frame_current == int(FRAMES/2):
        scene.gravity *= -1

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(stop_playback)
bpy.ops.screen.animation_play()

Additionally, I have tried simply iterating through the frames as is in the proceeding code. However, the animation results of this are terrible, and result in significant object overlap.
for i in range(FRAMES+1):
    bpy.context.scene.frame_set(i)

So my question is, how can I get the quality simulation I see with bpy.ops.screen.animation_play() while still being able to run the script in the background?
Thanks in advance for the help!

You may need to bake a physics simulation before you can play it depending on the simulation's settings. Have you done that?

Thanks for the response. I had not done that, but I was able to get the latter method to work by simply increasing the steps per second parameter. Still unclear why I was getting such drastically different results to begin with, but in the future will definitely try that.


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Data Transfer artefacts in Blender 2.79
part of my loop, which I am trying to solder with a mesh is displayed incorrectly.
and, if you move the mesh with the DataTransfer along the surface of another mesh, then the loop becomes incorrect in other places.
Thanks for your help

I found the answer! The fact is that there is not enough geometry in the main mesh. if you add horizontal loops, then the mapping becomes correct.


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How can i add texture with a realistic fabric look to my mesh?
I've created a mesh in blender and am trying to add a material in a way that will give the model a realistic fabric look.
I added a material with an image texture, but the model looks very smooth and unrealistic far from a cloth like/fabric look.
Please how can i achieve this? (is it the image am using or i will have to update some properties in the node editor?)
Secondly, the end goal is to export the model as .obj/.mtl file and import/render it in an AR app using opengl es, so the key is to be able to retain the look in the app, please which method/approach is the best....how do i go about it?
Thanks.

Try a PBR material: https://www.textures.com/browse/pbr-materials/114558

maybe share a part of your fabric picture so that we can try a material

@FFeller Thanks for your reply, i think some of the materials there were created using substance painter. I know there's a way to
to use substance painter materials in blender, but can i read it via opengl and attach it to my mesh? since my main goal is to render the model
in my android app

@moonboots thanks for your reply, here's the link https://imgur.com/a/mknr7n2 its an african fabric style

There must be a lot of solutions to make a fabric material but here is one that doesn't look too bad:

First find a fabric texture and make it tileable, if it's not already. Convert it to a Normal map and a Specularity map with a software like CrazyBump or else.
Build your node organization as below.
Increase the Scale in he Mapping node so that the texture is repeated.
Mix a Diffuse with a Glossy, use the Specularity as factor, it will make the threads shine a bit.
Plug the Normal map to both the Diffuse and Glossy to give a bit of 3D relief to the whole thing.
Then, as a fabric might shine a bit like velvet, bring a second Mix shader and use a Fresnel.
Now you just need to plug your colored pattern in the yellow socket of the Diffuse.

I really appreciate your time, i will give this a shot now. However i got some clarifications i would like you to help me with
The process in step 2 to 7 is an option to doing it in CrazyBump right?

i think my reference image (https://imgur.com/a/mknr7n2) is not 100% tileable how do you suggest i make it seamless, edit it?

i read somewhere that node editor settings are specific to the renderer, and blender doesnt export this
(https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures)
are you sure this setup will be exported and take effect when i read the material and render in model opengl?

I'm not sure what you mean about CrazyBump, if you want to give your fabric a fake 3D relief you need to create a Normal or Bump map, with CrazyBump or this sort of software. About your reference image: you only need to make it tileable if you want it to be repeated on the fabric, if it's only displayed once you don't need. And for the last question I'm sorry I don't know a lot about export  :/

Oh I get you now, you gave me two options to give it a Bump map...i.e either with crazy bump or by building my node organisation as you stated, I will try that. About the export I will try it for myself and see... seeing is believing ...Thanks @moonboots

no, you don't understand, for this node setup, you need 2 image textures that are 2 maps: one normal map and one specular map. To generate normal or specular maps from a picture you need a software like CrazyBump or else. Then when you have your maps you open them in the Image Texture nodes and plug these nodes into what there are supposed to be plugged (here Normal Map node and the factor of a Mix Shader)

Waoh, thanks so much for the breakdown...sorry i'm an android developer trying to build basic model for my AR app ♂ (with little knowledge on 3D/blender). Thanks once again.

A quick one, can designing a fabric like image in Photoshop work? And also PBR materials with a software like Surface painter is another option too right?

I'm not sure what you mean by "designing a fabric like image", but one thing I didn't tell you is that to make a pattern repeatable you can use a filter in photoshop: Go on the top menu > Filter > Other > Offset, play with the parameters and use the clone stamp tool to help making the picture repeatable

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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Imported image is not showing in render
I have a imported image in a scene in blender. Yet when I render the image.

This is what I get:

Add the image to question that you are trying to import!

i will try, thank you

Try images as planes!
First things first: Go into Preferences,

Select Addons then search for "Image"

Now tick the box, then now in "Add" you will see "Images as Planes"

It is also accessible from:
File > Import > Images as Planes


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Why can't I get edit_bones data?
I Have a human mesh and corresponding bone

Then I change it to Edit Mode and hope to modify the position of bones. But when I use rig.data.edit_bones, it gets nothing.

How can I get edit_bones data and modify its head and tail position? Hoping someone can solve my confusing. Thank you so much!

Your active object before switching to Edit Mode was you mesh object, so you went into that object's Edit Mode, which is a mesh edit mode.
Make you armature object the active one either by ⇧ Shift LMB or using python:
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = bpy.data.objects['rig']

Thank you so much for your answer~And can I ask what's the difference between rig.data.bones and rig.data.edit_bones? It seems that for some data bone.head/tail and edit_bone.head/tail is not the same.

Looking from ArmatureBones(bpy_struct) — Blender Python API and ArmatureEditBones(bpy_struct) — Blender Python API, it looks like edit_bones is meant to edit bones, it has functions to create and delete bones.


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Node Wrangler Preview not working
I have the node wrangler add-on turned on, the mapping shortcut works but when I try to do the Ctrl + Shift + LMB shortcut for the preview node it doesn't work. The node just connects to Material Output. I reinstalled Blender and it still won't work. Please help.

My Node Wrangler (3.4.3 on blender 3.4.1) behaves the same. But the current behaviour gives the same results as before really - it just ommits the Emission shader node that was there previously (the "Viewer" node).

Also, Viewer node's documentation (https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Source/Nodes/Viewer_Node) currently does not list Shader Editor as a place where it should be available. There's Compositor and Geometry Nodes (where it still works with Shift+Ctrl+LMB). So looks like it was removed.

Yup, plugging a color socket directly in the surface output or through an emission shader set to a strength of 1 (which is what the viewer node was) provides the same illumination. You do need to be in material preview or rendered view mode though. Here you're in solid view


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Is there a way to make blender start rendering the next frame before it is finished the current so the GPU usage is constant?
As you can see from this screenshot GPU usage goes up and down as the current frame is finished rendering and the next frame is prepared. Because the GPU is not needed while the frame is prepared the GPU usage spikes and drops, spikes and drops and so on.

For more detailed renders this wouldn't be a problem, but as each frame only takes 5 seconds to render this basically doubles the rendering time, because of downtime. Is there a way (either theoretically or practically) to make the GPU work constantly? Perhaps by preparing the next frame behind the scenes?
As you can see by the CPU usage, it spikes up and down also, as it prepares the frame to be rendered and then waits for the GPU to render the frame before starting up again.
My thinking is that you could have 100% up time for both the GPU and CPU by having the CPU prepare the next scene while the GPU is rendering the current one. Perhaps similar to how a real time game might work. Right now it seems one is waiting for the other and that seems unnecessary (as far as I can tell) at least after the first frame.

There's an old trick to render an animation using multiple instances of blender (possibly even running on separate computers!) which you might be able to use for this. It is of course somewhat memory inefficient to have multiple instances running on the same computer, but if the scene is simple enough that the downtime between frames is significant perhaps that doesn't matter.

Also related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/252445/599


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Using only Python, generate fillets(bevel) on only the bottom edges of a cube
I have been plugging away at this for a couple days without any real progress.  I am creating a series of cubes in Blender which I need to all have beveled bottom edges (see image)
I was able to easily do this in CAD but this is kicking my butt in Blender.  I have tried programmatically selecting the bottom vertices and creating a vertex group, however none of my attempts have resulted in a vertex group being created, and when it has been created the vertex groups end up being empty for some reason.  The following script is what I am using to create this cube.
numberSpaces = 3
baseWidth = 32.25
wallThickness = 7
wallLength = baseWidth + wallThickness
tolerance = 0.2
floorHeight = 2.5
wallHeight = 25.75

brickLength = 10
brickHeight = 5

groutSpacing = 0.5
#Createe Base Geometry

#Insertion Base
# Add a basic cube to the scene
# Add a basic cube to the scene
def create_base_geometry():
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()
    bpy.context.object.name = "Base Geometry Cube"
    cube = bpy.context.object

    # set scale and location of the cube
    cube.scale = (numberSpaces * (baseWidth + wallThickness)/2,
                  wallThickness/2 - tolerance,
                  floorHeight/2)
    cube.location = (numberSpaces * (baseWidth + wallThickness) / 2,
                     0,
                     floorHeight/2)

    # Select the cube object by name
    cube_object = bpy.data.objects["Base Geometry Cube"]

    # Get the active object
    obj = bpy.context.active_object

    # Switch to edit mode
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

    # Deselect all vertices and faces
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')

    # Select the bottom face of the cube
    for face in obj.data.polygons:
        if face.normal.z == -1.0:
            face.select = True

    # Create a new vertex group for the selected face
    group_name = "Bottom Face"
    group_index = obj.vertex_groups.new(name=group_name)
    bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_assign()

    # Switch back to object mode
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

This creates the geometry, however I am unable to script-select the bottom vertices (I could do it manually but I would like this all to be scripted).  I have the current selection criteria shown just to show what I have been trying, though there have been numerous incarnations of this and none of them have worked.
I followed This example however at the end of that script, although the selection claims to be created in the console the face/vertices are not selected in the UI, nor does the vertex group cretion menu allow me to create a new group from the selected vertices.

Depends on the average z position of each face vertices
import bpy, bmesh

def fn(obj, bevel_width, bevel_segments):
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = obj
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')

    mat = obj.matrix_world
    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data)

    lowerest_z = float("inf")
    lowerest_face = None
    # Select the bottom face of the obj
    for face in bm.faces:
        coors_z = [(mat @ (v.co)).z for v in face.verts]
        z_average = sum(coors_z) / len(coors_z)

        if z_average < lowerest_z:
            lowerest_z = z_average
            lowerest_face = face

    if lowerest_face is not None:
        lowerest_face.select_set(True)
        obj.data.update()

    # Create a new vertex group for the selected face
    group_name = "Bottom Face"
    group_index = obj.vertex_groups.new(name=group_name)
    bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_assign()

    # Switch back to object mode
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

    # add bevel modifier
    md = obj.modifiers.new("Bevel", "BEVEL")
    md.width = bevel_width
    md.segments = bevel_segments
    md.limit_method = 'VGROUP'
    md.vertex_group = "Bottom Face"

for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    fn(obj, 0.1, 6)


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How can I rig mesh (from particle) on armature?
I got some mesh by particle.
(particle > Render > Dupi Object > 'ctrl+shift+A')
And I make a Armature, and parent meshes on that.
But..

I want to attach each vertex (in mesh) on each bones.
(so I used 'Set Parent to - with Automatic Weights')
But They moved like they were one object.
I want to treat them like normal polygon mesh, but they still have particle properties I think.
And I can't remove that properties.......
(because I don't know what is that)
Please help me.
How can I attach them on armature with Automatic Weights
like normal polygon mesh?

I got the answer.
They have multi user data. So they have set as like one object.
Unlink short Key = U 'make single user > object and data'


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Height-map low resolution displacement
Hi I am trying to import a height-map and create a 3d model of it, but when I import it the resolution of it is very low. I've seen it done in youtube videos and it seems I am doing the exact same, but their image imports at a much higher resolution and therefore they get much more detail in their model. My heightmap is 2017x2017 pixels. Anyone knows why this is happening?
I am very new to blender. I added a plane, a subdivision surface and a displace modifier

I am very new to blender fyi but I added a plane, a subdivision surface and a displace modifier https://ibb.co/bK9xXsc


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merge objects for 3d printing
I have several objects (see the attached picture) I want to merge, so that I finally get one uniformly mesh.
In the end I want to 3d print this object but the slicer software for the printer can´t handle these several loose objects. It preferes one single, clean mesh without non manifold edges.
I already tried using the Boolean modifier to join the objects but it ended in a mess with lots of non manifold edges.
Here a link to the .blend file i created.
Does someone have expierience with joining mulitiple objects into one single? Slowly I´m really annoyed from this problem and would be really pleased if someone could help me out with an solution for this.

Typing Ctrl+J should work. It is a shortcut that joins meshes. If there are any modifiers that are not applied yet, apply them then hit Ctrl+J.

When I do this, the 3D printer interprets the intersection of objects as the XOR of the individual parts and the model becomes unstable at these intersections. When I add the boolean modifier 'merge', it works well, but I have too many objects to merge them all manually. Is there a way to merge (not join) all objects?


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texture mapping without texture being mirrored on other side of object
I have a cylinder I want to map a texture to.
To specify the location of the texture I use an empty.
In the material node editor I then use the object function of the texture coordinate node and select the empty in the dropdown.
So this is the result I get out of this:

As you can see on the pictures the image is not only mapped at the front of the object, but also at the backside of it (like it´s printed through the object).
Can someone help me to let it just appear at the front??
My node setup looks like this:

Maybe try and set the Texture coordinate to UV and adjust your image on the UV Editor. It should do it.


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how to keep all bodies together
hi I am new to blender and creating this animation where the phone hits the ground, but while falling down it breaks down into pieces how can I keep them together?
https://i.sstatic.net/15VLa.jpg

Hello and welcome. Instead of having users go through links and external sites please use the builtin tools to embed images in your post. See How to upload an image to a post? or GIFs

You can create an object that has the dimension of your phone as a whole piece, make it invisble, parent all your pieces to this object, and give it the physics simulation.

hi, tried it but it glitches when the model touches the ground...

maybe share your file on https://pasteall.org/blend/

let me know if this will work: https://we.tl/t-ZsjnkyALv5

apply the scale of both the parent object and of the ground

yeah, it worked, thanks...

The easiest and cleanest way is to use "Object Constraint" tools such as "Child of" or "Copy Location/Rotation/scale" on each component mesh
group each component as it should look when complete then parent using "child of" to an Empty (highly recommend) or primary piece of the phone (can get sloppy)
after parenting is done, you can animate as a solid mesh and also keyframe the individual pieces independently using "Influence"


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Parts of texture missing on Cycles render
I've seen other people having issues where they're missing textures on Cycles render, but in my case, it's only a part of the texture.
Below is what the texture looks like on material view and EVEE render;

And below is what it looks like on Cycles;

What could be the possible causes of this problem?

Hello, maybe overlapping faces, check in Edit mode

Definitely overlapping faces.

Ah, of course. Silly me, I didn't even think of checking the faces


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Unable to Edit Objects
I edited several objects but somehow when I subdivided new cube and wanted to edit face it doesn't allow and it shows cube with wireframes or mesh what ever you call it. Please i need help.

hello, please show some screenshots or even share your file: https://pasteall.org/blend/

How do i share screenshot or profile. I don't see any options to upload on here.

you should be able to edit your question and upload a picture no? or use the link I've given, upload your file and share the link (URL) it will give you

You can edit your question and drag and drop images into it at the cursor position (at least under Windows).

I've just uploaded the file to the link you've sent me, can you please check if its on there?

You have to share the given code with us ... copy-paste into your Q via edit.

Where's the code and how do I find.


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Why do objects get removed from collection?
Can anyone tell me why my objects get thrown under the "rig" node/null (sorry, not sure the correct term)?
You'll see in the before screengrab (left) that they were neatly sorted into collections, and now they're all thrown under "rig". I'm worried this will create problems down the pipe - is that a reasonable concern or is this just a display thing?
Thanks!

You parented the objects to rig.  The way the outliner works, parented objects appear as a tree underneath the parent.  If you select the arrow next to the icon by 'rig', it will open to show all of your parented objects, as you probably know.
It is possible to also have the parented objects in a second collection, but that tends to be more confusing then helpful, usually.
There's no harm in the organization, and it's how Blender has arranged the outliner since even before there were collections.

Thanks for your reply! Does this mean my collections which previously contained the objects are now void? Or is there an under-the-hood relationship somewhere?
Reason I ask is because I'm working with an engineer who was writing some code to toggle the visibility of those collections.

Follow up question:
Can I move the objects back into their respective collections without breaking the rig?

The previous collections aren't void, although they may be empty.  There's no under the hood relationship.  You can move the objects back to their original collections but that leads to the 'more confusing than helpful' state.  The manual way to do this is to open the rig, find the object, left click and hold control while dragging it back to its original collection.

Gotcha, and really, thank you so much for the info.
In order to get the renders I need I'm relying on toggling the Enable/Disable in Render for certain collections. I've lost that ability now that the objects no longer reside in those Collections.
Since I have a need for the objects to be in the collections, would you consider that justification for moving them back? I'm sure you're cautioning me for a reason, but since I don't know the risks, I'm inclined to say my need for the control of the collections might outweigh the organization confusion. What do you think?


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Normal Node Causing Flat Shaded Polys
Why might I be getting flat shaded poly's here? My model is smooth shaded (no hard edges, etc). There's not image texture on the Normal node which is usually where I see this problem come up; the image texture is not set to 'non-color' or 'linear'. Any ideas?

We need to see inside the node groups, or, preferably, to see a file so that we can look inside the node groups ourselves.

It's going to be difficult to diagnose from here.
In this screenshot we're looking at the result of this node:

but there's a lot of Normal vector data being passed around all over the place.
There are a few posts on this site detailing how to mix Normal Maps, and by my estimation you are running into one or more of the problems discussed there.
You say you aren't using an Image Texture so I assume you're generating everything procedurally with Blender's built in nodes.  What I would do is work with the black and white data and pass it along the node tree until the very end right before the Principled BSDF and put the Normal Map node there.
My supposition is that Normal Map data is currently being added using Vector Math -> Add and this magnifies the blue channel such that it can't properly interpolate down to a value that makes sense anymore... Idk if that makes sense.


text:
Making a dome with Hexagons and Pentagons
I want to create a Dome mesh with Hexagons and Pentagons.

Each side of every Hexagon needs to be the same size
Each side of every Pentagon needs to be the same size
Use of Pentagons is optional

The shape of the Dome should have more hexagons and pentagons (a denser geometry) than a football
Is there a plugin or a python script for this?
I tried using the geodesic dome plugin, but it always ends up giving me hexagons with different lengths (even when I specify the frequency to be 1)

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/148932/how-do-i-create-a-perfect-hexagonal-dome-like-the-image-below

@RobinBetts But I don't know if it is even possible mathematical at a higher resolution to keep the hexagons equilateral and create a sphere. The geodesic polyhedrons of higher frequencies in the Wikipedia article also seem to have different sized hexagons so I guess this is "normal". Just as a comparison (which looks like what I think is the desired result): Conway polyhedron Akila: do you have an example where this is actually the case, that they are all the same size?

@GordonBrinkmann hexes not regular in your ref? Instinctively I suspect it's not possible, once you're not directly  a dual of a Platonic solid, inheriting  its symmetry?

@RobinBetts The red and blue ones are regular, the yellow ones are not...


text:
Looking for a complete list of Shortcut Keys for Blender 2.8
I’m new to the world of Blender and looking for a complete list of Shortcut Keys for Blender 2.8.
Thank you,

You will find them in the preferences menu. Edit>>Preferences>>Keymap


text:
Trying to understand how Blender works with Measurements
I have been told that in 3D Modeling there are 2 general methods Artistic and the Engineering.
The Artistic method is where the Modeler worries more about how the final project looks good.
The Engineering Modeler generally models real world objects & generally prefers to model the real world measurements.
I’m a self-taught Hobbyist and I know that I’m an Engineering Modeler, I’m trying to make an Old Sealed  Beam Light (using 3 Spheres) but I’m having trouble connecting the reflector to the housing, I can’t match the diameter reflector (6 inches) to housing (6.5 inches) I can’t scale down or extrude up & the edges meet the other.
How I can I ensure my measurements will match each other?
Thanks,


text:
A Disabled User in need of Suggestions/Help (UI Question)
I have a minor case if Cerebral Palsy which affects my left hand therefore using some of the keyboard shortcuts are impossible for me to use.  I’m using Blender 2.8.
Just a few Examples of the problem keyboard shortcuts (in Windows)…
Ctrl+Alt+LMB for (Bridging Edgeloops)
Shift+Ctrl+ALT+C for (Set Origin)
I have tried making Macros but they are too limited.
I’m hoping someone has any suggestions,

Is it convenient to use the ui buttons? All operations done with shortcuts have equivalent ui buttons or selectors

Georges, If I understand what you are saying, there are UI Buttons/Selectors for every shortcuts. I just have found or seen a list of them yet.

Ok, for bridging edge loop, let's assume you're already in edit mode, and both edge loops are selected, at the top in 3D View, you'll find the drop-down menu items, among them is Edge, the bridge edge loop is there, also at any time, you can press space bar and wright the name opperation you would like to use

Also for aligning objects and origins, I created an addon called Easy Align, and included some already existing operations as buttons, I also find shift+ctrl+alt+C very awkward, here's the link: https://blenderartists.org/t/addon-easy-align/685704

Do you already tried using pie menus in Blender? If that's an option we can easily transfer all the operations to a custom pie menu.

Are you still able to type? You could use the "Space Menu". In Blender 2.80 Beta it got moved to the F3 button on your keyboard. Press F3, then type the first letters of the function you want to use (e.g. "loop") and select the function in the suggestion list. That's what I do when my left hand cramps due to Multiple Sclerosis.

You might want to look at programs like Stroke Plus. It allows you to add multi-key keyboard shortcuts to mouse gestures,without having to take up more shortcut keys on a already crowded keyboard.
Really almost anything you can do with a keyboard such as type in commands or strings like an email address. You can assign gestures globally or per-program.
See the video on the home page for a quick explanation.
I have used this for years to speed up programming.

For setting the origin, I use the drop down menu to the right of the "Object Mode" title/ menu bar. "Snap" /Cursor is just below that, along with many other options.  Each Mode has a set of drop down menu options that do not require shortcuts.  Hope this helps.


text:
Color difference between 2 objects in Object Mode/Solid View
Blender 2.79
Two objects with identical material settings and no texture.
Viewed in Object Mode/Solid View the one on the left has a dark, bluish tint. The two look identical in other views and render with identical colors. But why the different colors in Solid View?  A minor but nagging and annoying nuisance. Much thanks from a newbie.

The normals on the left object are flipped (facing the inside of the mesh). Select your left object, go to edit mode, hit 'A' to select everything, then hit 'Ctrl+N' to make the normals consistent or go to Menu - Mesh - Recalculate Normals/Flip Normals'

The left object doesn´t have average normals. I can see it because on the bottom there's a black face and there's a different color on the object.
Enter edit mode. Select all faces, press CTRL+N to average normals. Your object is now of the same color than the right one.


text:
what is the name of the blender feature in which a 2d artwork/image is used as a guide to create a 3D model of the artwork
I have been watching some blender tutorial videos, in which it is like a 2D art is traced in other to build the 3D model of it. like this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAO4C_8y0w8&t=1301s. What is this feature called in blender ?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/118/how-do-i-set-a-background-image-while-i-am-editing ? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/110532/cannot-find-background-images-feature-in-blender-2-8/

Background Image. Hit the plus sign to the left of the outline panel, and it's located about 3/4ths of the way down the panel.

It's called background image. In Blender 2.8 it is much better and easy to use ,
You can find it at:
Shift+ A  > Image > Background


text:
is it possible to write a script that renders an image in blender
If i had an image on my computer which acts as a texture and an already created scene in blender which has a 3d object in it. Is it possible to write a blender script to take the image which resides in a location on my computer and use it as a texture on the 3d object in my blender scene, then render the scene and also save the rendered image in a location path on my pc ?

@cegaton none yet.  I wanted to know if it is possible before i start the process. I also want to know if  blender  GUI has to be running for the process to work ?


text:
Ctrl+L to copy modifier from an object to another does not work
What is it that I do wrong? When I click ctrl + L instead of the copy menu, a Make Links menu opens instead (Object to Scene, Object Data, Materials etc are in that menu). Please help...

Copy Modifier should be at the bottom of this pop-up, or you can enable the Copy Attributes addon and use Ctrl C but it doesn't answer your question...

Ctrl+L is the Link/Transfer Data tool, so it is absolutely correct that this menu appears. Copy Modifiers should be in the list, too. If it is not working it might be that you are not using it correct. It copies modifiers from the active selected object to the other selected objects - which means, you have to select the objects that should receive the modifiers and the one that has the modifiers to be copied.


text:
Sides of extrusion are not showing
The sides are invisible when extruding a png images exept part of the logo who touch the image border. Any idea why it dose that?

You must have imported your logo with Add Image > Image as Planes, so what you show is an image projected on a plane, it is just a quad mesh, not a logo converted to mesh with all the contour converted to vertices, when you extrude you're just extruding a plane and it makes a cube. Note that the front face keeps the texture:

What you can do is convert your logo to a svg in an image editor like Illustrator or Inkscape, then import it into Blender, then convert your svg to mesh. You can do the whole thing is Blender but it's a bit more complicated:


text:
Using noise threshold of 0.1 produces a better result than 0.01
I was doing final render of my project. I hit F12 and I start rendering. After a while the result is horrible and grainy. This was strange since my viewport seemed to render just fine. Then I tried setting the noise threshold of the final render to 0.1 instead of 0.01 and got much better result. Why is it that "better" noise threshold produces worse results?
Below are my findings.

Which one is which? Which one do you consider "better"? JPEG compression is really poor choice for evaluating noise. Is there any denoising being applied? That would throw off any judgement we could potentially make.

@Duarte Farrajota Ramos The lower one is the one with 0.01. And yes I know that jpeg is poor choiec for evaluating noise. What I actually mean are those black spots that you can see for example at the brick in the background of the photo. Using noise as my choice of words was bad since I should have used the correct word from the beginning(english isnt my first language) There is denoising in both images. but the result looks almost the same without it

You should edit your question and clarify that, otherwise I suspect people will have a hard time helping. We don't know what the scene is supposed to look like so we can't tell apart what is unwanted noise, what are denoise artifacts and what are actual scene details from those images.


text:
Cut a face while snapping to vertices
I'm trying to cut a face along vertices. Basically, I've got one object (all one mesh) and I need to cut some parts out. I've already got the vertices in the right places. I've managed to create a face on the entire top surface, but I now need to cut out the shapes outlined by the vertices.
I tried the knife tool, but it doesn't seem to snap to the vertices, even when I turn on the magnet icon. I also tried selecting the loop edges for all faces involved and using the intersect (knife) tool in the faces menu. But that resulted in some very strange geometry.
Any ideas how to get the knife tool to snap to vertices?

Use the Knife Project tool?

If you share your file with https://blend-exchange.com/ if will be easier to help you

for me - it looks like your vertices are not part of the mesh-face - because they couldn't be a filled face like you show here.

I just tried it out, and as i wrote in the comment, this behavior where the knife doesn't snap only appears, if your vertices are not part of the face:
example:

The yellow vertices are not part of the face (you can recognize this because Blender cannot have holes in a face without edges which are connecting to the "outside" of the hole. They are just "added vertices" to the mesh.
So if you want to make a cut, you can use "knife project" for that, as moonboots proposed in the comments:

select all vertices which you want to make a hole of

press P -> selection

select your "face" object and TAB -> edit mode

select your "hole" object in the outliner with "shift" select

press numpad 7 to go to top view

F3 -> knife project

result:

now you can select the face and delete it:

Since you already created all the necessary vertices for the holes you can do the following, if the face you want to cut is flat and all the vertices for the holes lie in the same plane as the main face:

Holes in faces need supporting edges. Press K and use the Knife tool to make two cuts from one border of the face to the opposite side so that they cross through the "soon-to-become-holes".

The Knife doesn't need to cut the hole shapes - you only need the edges across. Now select all vertices with A. Enable the Auto Merge function at the top right of the 3D Viewport and make sure that under Options > Split Edges & Faces is enabled.

Next you press G followed by 0 (zero) so that the Move tool is theoretically moving the vertices, but they stay in place (do not abort the movement with right-click or Esc). Confirm the movement with Return or left-click.

After this operation, the vertices are cut into the face. You can now select the inner faces and delete them with X > Delete > Faces to get the holes.

Just a quick note: if the "hole vertices" are just edges, the faces can simply be selected and deleted because the underlying face got split up into these faces. If the "hole vertices" are shapes filled with faces themselves, you'll get double faces where the holes: the original faces of the hole shapes and the cut faces of the underlying plane, so you have to delete them both to get a hole.
And one more thing: If you let the Auto Merge function enabled after this, it might happen you accidentally merge and split vertices and faces just by moving, rotating or scaling something which can mess up your mesh. So I would recommend to disable this function after creating the holes.


text:
In Blender 3d, how do I start or change a wind force in a scene?
Some force fields, such as "turbulence" can be moved or changed.  But wind is one of those that does not seem to have any handles for controlling it with key frames.  Its just on all the time, and the  you can only change it and set its parameters before animating the scene.  Is there a way to control it?

Most values displayed in the properties can be keyframed. This includes the Strength, Flow and Noise for Force Fields.
With the mouse over the field press I or right click and select Insert Keyframe.
For more variation you can add a noise modifier to the value in the graph editor. Press N to show the properties sidebar to find the modifiers panel.

You can also animated the wind like any other object (rotation, location) to give dynamicsm to your scene.

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


text:
How to get the focus of an object right
I do not manage to get the focus right in this image. The focus should be on the left white pillow, which has a subtle grey line on it. I have selected it as the focus object for the camera, but somehow it is not sharp, actually nothing seems sharp. I do not know what I am doing wrong.
Can someone please help?

The render image is in Cycles, 1 Frame, 1500 samples, no treshold, no timelimit. denoise on, exposure 3.0. I tried also 1700 samples, which did not make a difference.

The camera setting is 50 mm, 4.5 F-stop, focus object left white pillow.

If I'm not wrong, the camera focuses on the object's origin, not the object as a whole. It would be probably better to use an empty object as the focus target and place that where you want the focus to be. Also there are some render settings that will make any render not as sharp as you might want: like having not enough samples will lead the denoising to smear everything, or too much Pixel Filtering.

@L0Lock thank you very much for your tip! The empty object actually works perfectly!!!

If I'm not wrong, the camera focuses on the object's origin, not the object as a whole.
Hence, it would be probably better to use an empty object as the focus target and place that where you want the focus to be.
Also, there are some render settings that will make any render not as sharp as you might want, like not having enough samples will lead the denoising to smear everything, or too much Pixel Filtering will effectively blur the image.


text:
X Axis sculpting is diagonal

I can’t get my x axis mirroring while sculpting to be straight. it keeps mirroring on the diagonal and i can’t find the issue. I’m new to Blender but over tried resetting location, rotation, etc that’s recommended in the threads I could find.

hello could you please show a screenshot?

@moonboots I added one! let me know if there's anything else you'd need to see

Are you sure that you have applied the rotation? Please share your file


text:
Sewing is making my clothes clip through my character
I want to make a default character with realistic clothes to my game. This is the first time I'm making them, so I can't figure out why are my clothes getting so tight, that it clips through my character.
I made multiple attempts with various tutorials on YouTube and answers to similar problems (on Stack Exchange and other) and every time the same thing prevents me from making it right.
Here are some screenshot from the last attempt:

back of the cloth

front of the cloth

3rd frame of sewing

20th frame of sewing

As you see the normals of both the cloth and the body are not correctly oriented, just flip them:

Thanks! I'll try to fix it tomorrow (I'm in europe).

Wow! Thanks! It works! I can't believe, I made such as mistake. Thanks again!


text:
Prior Blender question / answer with spacebar results, for me causes animation playback
I'm new to Blender, currently using version 4.0.
The answer at Face problem in cube, edit mode on the first paragraph says

Go into edit mode, and press A to select all the vertices. Press the Spacebar and type in Triangulate Faces, and that should fix the problem.

I try this and when I hit Spacebar Blender goes in to some sort of animation playback loop. What am I missing?
Prior to attempting this I did File / Defaults / Load Factory Settings.

space bar behavior depends on the preferences. In edit mode, use the face menu instead or use ctrl+T

Thanks for the ctrl+T.  Do all preferences get "defaulted" after "File / Defaults / Load Factory Settings"?  I'm curious how my setup has animation playback set to the spacebar, or if that is the default in Blender 4.0.

I don't remember what is the default, but this is configurated here https://i.sstatic.net/hcoYA.png

ok, thanks for that screen shot.

Spacebar for animation has always been the default setting on installation to my knowledge unless you've changed it on the splash screen when you installed it.

The video is trying to get you to bring up the Search Box (some setups use spacebar for this), however spacebar is default for Play Animation in blender (especially after a factory settings load) - for the Search Box use F3. You can easily pick between three spacebar actions in the keymap preferences:


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How to fix wierd denoise
I want an good looking render and this comes out, it seems like the denoise is not working properly in not enough light, but I want the scene to be dark
Does anybody know how to fix this?

Cycles- gpu
Noise tr. 0.05 - samples 4000
Dnse - Optix, Albedo and Normal

The high noise threshold might mean that low-light areas are not getting enough samples, so the light values aren't properly weighted in the denoise pass.

Denoising is working properly, but there is only so much it can do. It has limits. You need to increase samples or optimize the scene to render faster. At the moment it seems you have only one light source so there is not much you can optimize. Maybe try to make sure you have as little geometry in the mesh emitting light as possible, because the more faces it has, the more complex the calculations get. Light portals could be helpful if you had light coming from the environment(HDRI lighting).

well thanks that helped, I just aded more light and took it down in photoshop, thanks


text:
Creating a square pyramid with subdivided triangles
I have been trying to create a square pyramid with subdivided triangles in blender.
So far I've tried to create using cone and plane extruded. I'm able to create a square pyramid with same base and triangle length (by extruding a plane and merging). But I'm unable to subdivide each triangle face it into 8 equal triangles (as in the picture). Could someone assist me on this?

Hello, weird because I've just tried and a simple Subdivide seems to work fine: https://zupimages.net/up/21/44/wpye.jpg

@moonboots could you please stare your steps? I'm new to blender

create your pyramid (for example create a cone and in the Operator box, on the bottom left of the 3D view, choose Vertices > 4), switch to Edit mode, select all, right click > Subdivide, in the Operator box choose Number of Cuts > 2

one minute late :( I even prepared a GIF for the answer :(

@Ribbit12 you can still answer, especially if you know how to make an equilateral 5 face pyramid

but my answer is so similar to your answer

@Ribbit12 I don't know how to make an equilateral pyramid though

How to model an equilateral triangular pyramid? (click on this link if you want to make a subdivided equilateral pyramid)
Please follow these GIFs to achieve this result
(The result is not an equilateral pyramid)

Step 1

Step 2 (optional)

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.


text:
Bottom left corner's menu not showing

Hi everyone, I found the setting menu is not showing up when I'm doing something like bevel or subdivide, normally there will be a menu setting bevel's edge at that rectangle, but now it's just never poping up.
Thank you!

For reference, that "setting menu" is called the operator panel and I'm at a loss to explain why it's missing. For a workaround, you could try pressing F9 each time you do an action that you need to "adjust", but that's not an ideal solution by any means.

I am assuming that you accidentally unchecked the Adjust the Last Operation option, which is why your operator menu is not seen.
If you have not unchecked this option then follow Christopherb NBennet`s solution which he posted in the comments section.

Method
In Object Mode, click on the View button as shown in the GIF and then check the Adjust the Last Operation option.

That looks like it to me.

thanks Chris :)

That's correct, I did uncheck that option!! Thank you so much.

your welcome! ;)

It appears that you are currently running the operation. (as indicated by the dashed line toward your cursor.)
This menu only shows up when an action is completed and it is not visible when the action is in progress.
I would indeed like to see this menu when the action is in progress though, that would be handy. The right-click select forums are the place for feature discussions.


text:
How can I make this camera movement (with drivers)?
I've been trying to orbit objects with a motion similar to the attached video, but I cannot make it. I'd like a driver based solution since some trigonometry seems to be involved. https://i.sstatic.net/yNRhJ.jpg

All it is is 2 keyframes and the Z channel set to linear interpolation instead of bezier:
Keyframe 1:
X: 45
Y: 45
Z: 0

Keyframe 2:
X:-135
Y:-135
Z: 360


text:
Fill and merge for booleen reduction
1- I have a stl file (attached) for which I need to make a "footprint" by doing a boolean reduction on a cube, see image 1

2- I position my cube on the area I want to have in negative

3- I apply the boolean difference

4- The reduction is bad, As my initial file is not full, I can't get a clean reduction of my outline, all the shapes inside my initial file are interfering with the result

Here is the link to the stl
Thank you

Try to simplify you 3D scan with a 'decimate' modifier before the 'boolean' on your stack =)

Good luck!


text:
How can I precisely control light feathering and distance?
For an i/o plugin, I need to supply values to these properties of the light format: Falloff (the distance at which the light intensity is 0) and Falloff Exponent (the feathering of the light, or softness of edges). It would need to behave like this:

Notice how at a falloff exponent of 0 the light is solid—there's no feathering. I've already experimented with the light falloff node and was never able to come close to this result. So far, it has seemed I can't even control the "feathering" of the light (other than the radius property). Is what I am trying to accomplish even possible?

The radius (as you said) and Blend Options are a way to manage something close

I'm aware of those properties but they don't work in this case as I need more fine control if possible

@Emir: your gif is really hard to recognize...


text:
How Blender uses the command line to detect missing texture files
How does Blender use the command line to detect missing texture files and display prints? I am not very good at English.

Do you just want to know whether something is missing or a list of missing files or even fix broken links to the files?

Yes, missing file list


text:
UV Mapping Transparent Images onto a Model, Blender 2.8Beta!
So I am currently trying to figure our how I can take my Logo, and put it across a cube on one face. I want the Cube to be gold. and my label lay across it while allowing the gold to appear through.
I seem to have gotten it to work on the Cycles engine. But On the Eevee engine, the transparent area is black. Is there a way around this? or is it true, that in the current version of blender, getting this transparency just isn't stable yet?
This First image is me attempting to use the "Alpha Blend" but it just makes the entire face transparent.

Then in this picture  I turned the Alpha Blend off, and it made the transparent section black.( all of these "Alpha" options end up eliminating the entire faces opaqueness)

Then here is another weird thing happening. When i put this into the Cycles engine, the Top part looks great, exactly how i want it. BUT the other sides seem to be reflecting light a lot less. Almost as if the transparent part of the Label's PNG is adding a layer of gloss to the surface.

I figured it out. I had to use a principled shader instead of the transparent shader in order to bring out the gold underneath. still not sure exactly how the theory works, but it worked!


text:
How To Get Rotation Data Printed Every Frame
What would the script be to get the rotation of a cube printed after every frame?

Can you show some of your work in a Blender screen capture with a text editor window?

Please see related on the right side of this web page.

Using a frame change handler

Application Handlers
This module contains callback lists

Test script.  After (post) a frame change, print the local euler rotation of the cube in degrees.
import bpy
from math import degrees

def cube_rot_report(scene):
    cube = scene.objects.get("Cube")
    if cube:
        #rot = cube.matrix_world.to_euler()
        rot = cube.rotation_euler
        print([degrees(r) for r in rot])

#clear the handlers
#bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.clear()

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(cube_rot_report)


text:
Controlling Servos with Blender Arduino
I am making an animatronic using an arduino and I wan tot control the servos with blender. I have looked through every post an tutorial and nothing seems to work (I am a complete blender noob) I want the rotation of a servo to change with the rotation of a cube here is the python code I have
import bpy
from math import degrees
import serial
ser = serial.Serial('COM5', baudrate = 9600, timeout = 1)
def cube_rot_report(scene):
    cube = scene.objects.get("Cube")
    if cube:
        #rot = cube.matrix_world.to_euler()
        rot = cube.rotation_euler
        ser.write([degrees(r) for r in rot])

clear the handlers
bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.clear()

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(cube_rot_report)

here is my arduino code
 #include <Servo.h>

    // Servos to be used
    Servo servo1;
    int pos = 0;    // variable to store the servo position

    void setup()
    {
      // This is using pin 9 (change accordingly)
      servo1.attach(9);  // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object
      pinMode(13, OUTPUT); //LED
      // initialize the serial port
      Serial.begin(9600);
      servo1.write(45); //initial servo position
    }

    int angle, light=0;

    void loop()
    {
      // wait for the servo angle
      if(Serial.available() > 0){
        angle = Serial.read();
        servo1.write(angle);
        if (light==0) {
          digitalWrite(13, HIGH);
          light=1;   // set the LED on
        }
        else {
          digitalWrite(13, LOW);
          light =0;    // set the LED off
        }
      }
    }

please help! :)

Do you get any console errors from blender? Do you need a ser.open()? Can a non-blender script write a set sequence of data to the serial port? Can blender run the same script without using a handler? In blender ser.write is sending an array of three float values, while the matching servo1.write is sending all three values to the servo. Does the servo work if the data sent is larger than it uses?

I do not need a serial open but I think the three values is the issue thank you!


text:
Difference between Principled BSDF vs Diffuse BSDF (Roughness)
Beginner here.
Would like to seek your help in understanding the difference between 'principled BSDF' vs 'Diffuse BSDF'. To my understanding, the ROUGHNESS of both is just the same, but I am seeing that the image response differently on both node.
I set the Principle BSDF like below, see that the image seem still to retain its outline.

While the 'Diffuse BSDF (Roughness)' shows a different image though I set up the same:

Disclaimer: this will not be a very exact technically correct answer maybe, this is just to give a hint at what's going on there.
The BSDF stands for Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function and as the name suggests it means function(s) to calculate the scattering/reflecting of light on surfaces. Most of the time this is a general term used for a set of different functions which calculate reflections differently.
The Roughness value in the Diffuse BSDF is something different than its counterpart the Roughness value in the Principled BSDF. The Principled BSDF is a combination of multiple layers to make it easier to use, as you can simply see by looking at the node there is not only Base Color and Roughness but also Subsurface Scattering, Transmission, Metallic, Clearcoat, Sheen etc. whereas the Diffuse BSDF only has Color and Roughness (and a Normal input).
On the Principled BSDF now the Roughness is more like an inverted glossiness value - instead of higher value = more glossy it is the other way round with 0% roughness = 100% glossiness. And on the top of the node you have a dropdown menu to choose the Light scattering distribution on rough surface method: either GGX or Multiscatter GGX.
Now the Diffuse BSDF is not such a versatile node. It actually has no glossiness as you can easily see since a surface using only the Diffuse BSDF as shader does not really shine like a glossy surface even if the Roughness is set to 0. The Diffuse BSDF is only adding colored diffuse (i.e. rough) reflection with the formulas for Lambertian and Oren-Nayar reflection. A Roughness of 0 in this case means standard Lambertian reflection while higher values activate Oren-Nayar.
As you can see when switching the Roughness on the Diffuse BSDF to 0, the appearance resembles much more the surface of the Principled BSDF set to a Roughness of 1 (i.e. fully rough), since the GGX reflection is looking more similar to Lambertian reflection than to Oren-Nayar reflection. But since they all use different reflection functions, the results are not the same.

Thank you for this somehow I'm starting to understand the light scatter from this two node.
But how can I use the MULTISCATTER GGX? When I changed my microfacet from GGX to Multiscatter, Suzanne image still looks the same as that when it was in GGX.

I said you can change, I never said it would make a big difference ;) As the name suggests, GGX and Multiscatter GGX are both called GGX for a reason. It's not like they are completely different. I quote an article from Blenderartists.org on that topic (without any guarantee that this is true): "At low roughnesses there is hardly any difference between GGX and GGX Multiscatter. At high roughness, GGX looses energy - it becomes darker at glancing edges where it should still remain fully white. GGX multiscatter behaves much better and remains nearly perfect white."

@Red Oh, and here is an answer to the question When should I use multiscatter GGX? although there they are talking about the Glass BSDF which has an even wider range of scattering models to choose from.