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make soft bodies stay inside another soft body
I have a cube, with a transparent surface, and make it a soft body and drop it.  It's transparent because in it are some red balls.  How do I set it up so that the red balls inside the cube bounce around from the cube's bouncing and stay inside the cube and not travel outside of the cube?
For example, how did they get the red balls to stay inside the cube in this video?
https://youtu.be/qdusMZlBbQ4?t=33

Could you please describe your problem with words. Videos are helpful but don't rely on them exclusively to understand what you want. Please edit your question and provide more details and possible screenshots of what you wish o achieve

This is an interesting problem. On the face of it, embedding one Soft Body object within another should be quite straightforward, but the Soft Body simulations don't interact in quite the correct way to get the desired effect. Also, there is only limited scope for adjusting the interaction and it is very difficult to prevent the objects from intersecting and passing through one another so that the internal objects escape from the 'parent' object.
To solve this we can separate the soft bodies so that there are two separate simulations - one for the cube and another for the embedded spheres. As they are separate simulations, this prevents the spheres from distorting the container when they interact with the sides of the container. To achieve this, the 'container' soft body will control the shape of a Rigid Body mesh and this will be used to contain the sphere soft bodies.
Firstly, create the container and set up the Soft Body simulation. This can be as simple as enabling the Soft Body in the Physics tab, disabling Soft Body Goal to allow it to interact with the scene, and enabling Stiff Quads in the Soft Body Edges panel.

Create  a plane to act as the ground, Add Rigid Body physics and set to Passive and enable Collision. Rotate and position the cube so it hits the ground at an interesting angle.

Running the simulation should produce something like the following :

Sub-dividing the cube will produce more pleasing distortion and bending when the cube impacts the ground (bear in mind that the more complicated the mesh the longer it will take to simulate) - although you'll need to tweak additional soft-body parameters (such as increasing the Bending setting in the Soft Body Edges properties). You might also want to add an Edge Split modifier and set the mesh to Smooth shading so that the bending of the faces is kept smooth while still having sharp edges to the cube (as a precaution, disable the Edge Split 'Edge Angle' and use Sharp Edges (and mark those edges as 'Sharp' manually) - this way the sharp edges won't change dynamically and break the Mesh Deform mentioned below!).

Next we need to create the mesh to act as the Rigid Body container for the spheres. For this you can simply Duplicate (D) the soft body mesh (be sure to do this on the first frame of the animation so it's in its original position) then scale it slightly smaller than the original mesh (so the spheres will not get too close to the edges). At this point it might be worth going into Wireframe mode (Z) so you can see what you're doing.

Remove the Soft Body from this copy of the mesh (click the cross on the Soft Body button in the Physics properties), and add a Mesh Deform modifier. Select the Soft Body container mesh as the deform object. Click 'Bind' (this might take a while to complete). Deformation of the Soft Body container should now result in the copied mesh being similarly deformed. Add Rigid Body physics, set to Passive and enable Collision.
Now with the duplicated (Mesh Deformed) mesh selected, press M, hold Shift and click a second layer so that the object resides in two layers. This second layer will be for the second Soft Body world.
Swap to that second layer and run the animation - you should see just the Rigid Body mesh visible and this should follow the motion of the 'actual' soft body mesh on the first layer.

Select the Rigid Body container mesh and go into Edit mode (Tab), press Space and Flip Normals. This is necessary for the object collision as the soft bodies within the mesh will now behave as if they are inside the box and rebound back inside the box rather than passing through to the 'outside'. Create the Soft Bodies within the box (you might want to set Soft Body Edges Bending to, say, 1.000 so that the Icospheres retain their shape) and run the animation :

Add Collision to each of the spheres (so they bounce off of each other) and Bake the animation. If any of the spheres break out of the container (depending on how and when they collide you might find that they force each other through the boundary) you can change the Soft Body Solver properties to refine the simulation (reduce Error Limit, increase Min/Max Step, etc.). Finally, add some materials (and set the Ridid Body bounding box to not render) and render the result.

Blend file attached.

Awesome. I've been struggling with a similar problem for a long time! Thanks

You're welcome - glad it's useful. Been struggling with it for a while but loving the soft body physics now - much more versatile than cloth sim.

I also turned up Fuzzy to 3 in soft Body Solver and I think it helped

Haven't tried increasing Fuzzy - I thought that would have the opposite effect from the description. Flipping the normals of the rigid body definitely helps a lot since the spheres are then teated as being effectivrly "outside". Also, if the 'internal' soft bodies collide as they hit the inner surface I found that one could force the other through - but increasingg the Min/Max Steps considerably higher helps with this. By chance when I re-did it for this answer the don't collide before the cube bounces so they have less force to break through so default setting were fine.

@MicroMachine - also, don't forget to Apply Scale to the meshes. The simulation seems to be more consistent and better behaved if the scale has been applied.

True! It's a bit of tinkering but the result is great. Might be worth editing these comments into your answer

As MicroMachine said, Awesome.  Thanks for figuring this out.  I had been using "strut" edges between the inner and outer bodies (click a vertex on the inner object then one on the outer object and press F) but those sometimes deform the outer body.


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How to make an object point in its movement direction? (BGE)
I tried to do it in with actuators, but so far either the animation gets stuck, or it hangs up on a direction if you let go of one of the keys. Help?
Edit: I added the logic I'm using so far. The actions are displaying one frame of the rotate animation, each frame is a different rotation. This was my workaround for the question above, but when I hold down and right, and let go of right, it stays in the same orientation but goes downwards. Is there any way I can either fix this setup, or is there a way I can make the object point in the direction it moves?
Edit #2: I changed the program, making a logic brick for each key, and another for each one not being pressed. It works, going left or right makes the block display the up/down frame but then quickly changes to the left/right frame. Also, The jumping doesn't seem to work moving diagonally, except when moving up and to the right. If you could take a look at the blend file and let me know what I did wrong, that would be great.

Please provide more information from your logic configuration, some images and/or scripts so we can help you.

I have now edited the post to clarify.

Have you try activating Add in all action actuators?

Also you can provide a blend (if you want to) through https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/, copy and paste the link in your question.

Alright, I made another edit and incorporated the blend file. I rewrote the logic bricks for the cube as per the edit details.

I found really hard to work with your file since everything was rotated, i made new one just placing the camera where it need to be to achieve the look you want.

I made it diferent as you was doing it but i think its more easy this way.
Instead using animation i add 8 cubes rounding the cube player and make them vertex parented with no collition physics and add 8 edit object actuator set to track to for each cube.

Abd here the blend.

I edited my logic in the way you suggested and..... it worked! Thanks for the help!

You can download the blend that i made for a more closer look.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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Camera view is broken
Camera placed like this (settings can be found at right):

If I enter camera view, I see this:

If enable viewport render it shows ok:

Also render from this camera is also proper
Why is this happening to camera view in any other mode?
UPD

UPD2
video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV24sDP3spg&feature=youtu.be

probably camera/view  clipping issue...

It would be useful to those who might want to help you solve your problem and to those who might chance upon a similar problem in the future, if you would upload the ~.blend file to Blend-Exchange and edit a link to the uploaded file into your question.

Can you see anything in the render mode?

@brasshat added

@cegaton very strange... system: mac os 10.12.4, blender 2.78c

@cegaton yes, radeon pro 460 4gigs

added video screencast to post

I have experienced weird issues with opebGL in 3d view before. Try setting the camera clip manually, by zooming a long way out and using Alt B to define clipping region. Make sure to include the camera and other geometry.

Not really sure what is causing this issue. (I'm not able to reproduce this) However it should be fixed when you upgrade from 2.78 to 2.79.

We experienced the same issue here, though in our case the Viewport Render would not work either any more. However, we found out that it is linked to the Blender Screen Area, not the camera. We noticed this because we actually had more than one 3D View in our layout, and only one of them would show the described behavior. We checked again and again, and all properties were set correctly. They were indeed identical across the areas.
To fix it, switch another screen area to a 3D View. The camera should behave as it is supposed to there. Now collapse the broken one. You can also switch to a different screen layout using the Dropdown box in the header:

Wow, thanks for this. I had "Lock Camera to View" active to navigate camera view but it was scaling the camera and its origin way way up. I killed the window and used another one. All went back to normal. So I guess its a screen space issue?

Instead of only pressing Numpad 0, press Ctrl + Numpad 0 with camera selected and it will set it as active.
Then it should display the correct facing orientation.

There are a couple of things I noticed. Although I could see the objects in camera view, these things were present when I was testing your blend file and it could be the solution to the problem.
Under Camera.001 Selected > Properties Panel > Object Data > Clipping, your clipping distance is too small at 1 micrometer. It cause artifacts when viewed through the camera changed it to 1mm and it was fixed.
Your camera is really big but I doubt that could be the issue since it works fine regardless of size - but it could be the issue, so it wouldn't hurt to scale it down to what I have here:

Tested On: Windows 10, Version: 2.79

I had the exact same trouble, what I was modelling was ridiculously out of scale. (Lego brick 5m long). I edited the end clipping distance (went up to 60m) and the problem was solved.

I don't now whats happening,  but I'm pretty sure that you can fix it by deleting the existing camera and replacing it with a new one.

Rather than deleting the existing camera and replacing it with a new one, I'd add a second camera, in the same position, and if there is a difference between the views of the two cameras, begin changing any parameters in the second camera one by one, so that they match the different parameters of the first, and see where the problem lies. This is a technique I've used in the past.

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How to make my created object to be bright just like a monitor
Hello I am trying to create a PC monitor with a texture displayed on the screen. Now when I render, texture is displayed on the screen, but it look dark. I want to make it brighter without using a lamp like sun.
Here is the image when I render it.

And I'm just a newbie I don't know this thing right here:

And I tried this thing right here:
Using an Emission shader with textures without affecting the color of the mesh?

It's working fine here. Check your normals maybe? Or upload .blend file to: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

here's the file

You're using a Diffuse shader. You should be using the Emission shader

Remove that Light Path node, then connect the Image Texture Color output to the Factor input of the Mix Shader. Swap Emission Shaders if necessary.

you're right about the emission shader thank you


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Rigid Body objects passing through container
I am tiring to simulate a tic tac box shacking and moving from side to side.
I tried to play with the collision margins but still noting change, in some speed the objects just fly through the box.
Cheers and thanks for all the helpers

Could you upload blend file to: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/. It could be due to wall thickness of container or object scale or something different. It's hard to tell.

Make sure u don’t have deactivation on for the pills inside and make sure the block is in passive and the pills are in active


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Create good edge flow for subsurf on a plane
I have a very mesh made in a single plane that I'd like to extrude down to create thickness and add supporting geometry to use a subsurface modifier while keeping the sharp edges. The problem is I can't get a nice edge flow so the supporting geometry doesn't reach some edges. How can I fix that?

After changinging the geometry to correct the previous problem other part of the mesh gets weird, which is prone to catching light in an unwanted way:

This method will need a lot of Proximity Loops and Supporting Loops but they are necessary to keep mesh clean without glitches on sharp corners (inside K).

You can try to add to the Base Topology three modifiers.
Solidify > Bevel (3 segments) > Subdivision surface. But this method has flaws like before mentioned glitches.

I really like the way you've set the base topology, it will help me immensely. Thanks for your answer. :)

@TiagoMarinho always try to keep it as simple as it could be at the beginning. Also check here for some amazing tips: http://topologyguides.com/

Hard to tell from the images themselves. But it looks like you have some errant geometry in both pictures.
In the first image, the lower selected vertex does not appear to be connected to both adjacent vertices. This can mean that either what you think is a flat plane is slightly warped, or you have overlapping faces that the render engine is having difficulty with.
In the second image, the left-most selected vertex is misaligned. The adjacent selected vertex also appears to be misaligned. A slight misalignment in the normal direction can be hard to spot and will introduce variations in the visible shading.
In both pictures, the differing colours of the faces indicate different Normal directions.
I am assuming you made this shape by extruding a standard plane rather than using a Text object and converting to mesh. The Text object has an Extrude property that allows you to set the thickness.
Given the simple nature of your geometry at the moment, my first thought is to scrap that object and start again. If you don't want to use a Text object initially, keep in mind the following tips:

Extrude along a single axes at a time, or at least exclude the
direction normal to the plane. You can do this when using the
keyboard by using (e.g.) Shift-Z to prevent extruding in the Z
direction.
Use loop cuts to create new elements of the geometry, this will
preserve the 4-gon nature of your object faces, meaning the loop cuts
and extrusions will behave more consistently.
Look out for, and remove, duplicated vertices.
Rotate your view on a regular basis and visually check to see if any
of the faces look strange.

I have tried to fix up an object with some of these errors. It is hard. If you don't want to scrap this and start again, I suggest:

Making sure your vertices are connected in all relevant directions
Ensuring your faces are all consistent in terms of n-gon-ness (i.e. 4 vertices)
Ensuring all your faces are in the same plane without any warping. The easiest way is to ensure that all your vertices are in the same plane. A trick for this is to scale all vertices along the normal of the plane to 0 (e.g. S-Z-0 through the keyboard on selected vertices)
Checking for obvious overlaps, and moving vertices (in the plane) to ensure you can see what is happening.
Removing duplicates

The colors are, as you said, just because of the normals. I just didn't told blender to recalculate it. All the vertices are in the same plane on the Z axis and there's no face overlap. Sorry about not having calculated the normals before the screenshots.
My question is mainly about how to get a good geometry/edge flow to that shape.


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How to make an ice lake with the Principled Shader?
I know back in the day you would just use a Glossy Shader and mix in surface imperfections. I'm trying to do it now with the Principled Shader and the only way it seems to work is if I turn the Metallic setting to 1 but wouldn't that be incorrect as it's not a metal? I'm trying to achieve something like this.

Final:

Node setup & overview:
First of all you want to have Roughness value to be pretty low. I've used procedural Roughness map, but without it value around 0.05 will give good results. This is based on the ice you want to make.
Secondly, don't forget that clear ice is transparent, you'll need to add Transmission (like for glass). It don't need to be fully 1.0. Also ice has IOR value 1.309, I've forgot to change it.


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Microdisplacement Bug?
I am using blender 2.79 and I think I might be experiencing a bug.
I have been using microdisplacements for a few months and I've had solid results, until a few days ago. My set up is normal, I've set blender to experimental, and I'm using 'true', as opposed to bump. My renders recently have had a weird rigid effect where it distinguishes faces, almost as if the mesh has been set to flat.
I have tried uninstalling blender and reinstalling, using different computers, and even following along with tutorials just in case I've possibly forgotten a step, yet the problem still persists and im following the tutorials correctly.

additionally, this problem also persists even when i am close up to the mesh. i forgot to mention that adaptive subdivision surface is on!

Could you upload your Blend-file to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com? I'll have a look then.
And you could try this: In the Texture-Node change the first drop-down from color to non-color data.

That seems to be visible and dependant on Dicing Scale in Subsurf modifier settings, if decreasing it (and increasing amount of geometry) then problem becomes less visible

is you mesh set to smooth shading?

set your displacement texture to "non color data" also run it through a math node set to multiply. I find this help.

It’s your file depth. 16 bit tiff as opposed 8 bit jpg

I have seen this a couple of times and it turned out to be one of the following:
the mesh is insufficiently subdivided (or not subdivided at all) before microdisplacement is executed
the mesh is overly subdivided before microdisplacment is executed
the max subdivisions setting is too low for the distance from camera to mesh (properties > render (set to experimental feature set) > geometry > max subdivisions)
the solution that worked for me in all cases was to find the sweet spot between too much and too little subdivision before I applied microdisplacement - in some situations (for reasons of available RAM) I was never able to get the visible mesh resolution to disappear entirely but it became a non-issue when motion blur was applied and/or when the render was viewed full frame (as opposed to very close in a pixel-peeping zoom-in)


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Regularly spaced holes in a cylinder
What would be the best method for making regularly spaced holes in a cylindrical mesh? Similar to the vent holes you'd see on gun barrels like these:

Without creating any n-gons, having good topology, and not excessively increasing the tri/polycount overall (this is for models that would potentially be used in a game). It would be good to know how to do this in a way that would work where the holes overlap on the x axis of the cylinder if you see what I mean, like the MG34 barrel, and where they don't, like the SMG barrel.

Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/28103/creating-a-truck-exhaust-mesh and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/63196/how-to-make-this-cylinder-model-with-holes

Being a huge fan of modifiers, I've tried this solution here, which keeps the modelling geometry as simple as possible (I guess). You can see the results here in this Blend file:

There are two layers, I've experimented a bit with the topology of the base mesh to reduce shading artefacts. Unfortunately, they cannot be avoided completely.
Procedure
You can start off with laying down the polygons highlighted in this screenshot:

A rather elaborate modifier stack will then turn this into the pipe geometry you're looking for. I won't explain all of them as you have the Blend file too, but I'll talk a bit about the first Array.

The thing is, here I'm using the object offset option. The Array I defined basically rotates the mesh around the empty by 180 degrees. The merge option is turned on in all three arrays, and the limit set to 1mm in my case, to make sure the neighboring points are merged together.

Now that you have the alternating geometry in place, you can use simple arrays to get a flat base mesh. A simple deform modifier bends that into a pipe shape, and the rest (solidify, bevel, subsurf) is optional.

You'll notice that a seam is going through at the ends. That's because there unfortunately is no merge option in the simple deform modifier, neither is there a remove doubles modifier. I wish there was so badly! If you have to remove the seam, apply the first three arrays and the deformer, and then remove doubles.
You'll notice shading artefacts as pointed out in the beginning. Using the geometry below, those artifacts become less apparent, as they happen in a more logical place:

This is a wireframe on that final result (Layer 2 in the Blend file):

My approach here would be to use vertex bevel coupled with the loop tools add-on.
Here for the sake of example, I started with a  cylinder with 16 vertices, and added 8 loop cuts.

In vertex select mode, select a pattern of vertices that will be the
location of the holes in your object.
Use vertex bevel, to bevel the seleced vertices with Ctrl+Shift+B and
use the clamp overlap option by pressing C
Switch to face selection with Ctrl+Tab >Face and
subdivide the selected faces a few times (4-6 will do). -Then delete
them.
With those faces deleted, switch to edge selection with Ctrl+Tab>Edge, and
Shiftselect a couple of the edges in the new holes. With a
few selected, use the select similar menu option, Amount of Faces Around an Edge to
select them all at once with Shift+G
Press W to bring up the specials menu, and go to Loop
tools>Circle or just press W>L>C

If needed, you can change the pivot point to individual origin here, with Ctrl+.(period) and scale the holes a bit larger or smaller.
Here is a .gif of the procedure:


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Glass spherical lamp - How to create correct light diffusion inside the glass
I am trying to render a suspended lamp made of spherical glass with led source inside. Here is my reference image:
I have modeled a very simple object made by 3 elements:
- Light source: An hemisphere with emission material, like is in real world (see this diffuser for led: http://download.khatod.com/documents/pljt20_test_report.pdf). Light orange in the image.
- A painted metal tube for suspension (dark orange in the image)
- A glass sphere diameter 7.5cm with hole inside, like is in real world (black in the image). The glass is 3cm thick.

And this is my result (5000 sample), quite disappointing.

I tried many variants with Light Path in the glass material, different glasses roughness... without results.

How can I improve? I would like my glass sphere will be "real".
Many thanks!
Blend file:

Could you upload blend file to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com? It's hard to tell without some experiments.

Hi, here is the blend:  The HDRI is missing for file weight reasons. Thanks!

I'm not entirely sure how this lamp should be built but I think the solution for your problem would be to add thickness to the glass part - separate it from the rest and add solidify modifier with 1-2mm. Also try to use only glass shader for it.

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


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What is the best way to reduce polycount of the leaves
I have a small desk plant tree I modeled in Blender (using the Tree Sapling Generator) and it might be used in a game. It has a high polycount, so I've tried decimating it with the Decimate modifier but it gives me bad UVs and removes almost all the leaves. I don't want to use a texture, I would like individual leaves.

Possible duplicate of What would be the most logical way to reduce polycount of grass

No point in asking the same question twice. I think you should understand that poly counts and proper topology are not something you just randomly "paste" or blindly decimated on top of your object. They are an intrinsic part of your mesh. If you need low poly game assets model them accordingly from scratch, or at least make a decent high poly version and a low poly one you can bake your details to.

this is not a duplicate

In the first image the faces are 36K

but when you switch from Auto to Vector in Handle Type you can see the number of Faces reduce to 13K
you can see the difference
if it look like less ploy then you can increase the polygons of the branches in the Branch Splitting settings and modify the Curve Resolution


text:
Where can I find Blender 32 bit version?
On the blender.org Download page it only says 64 bit installer. I have a Windows 7, 32 bit computer and OS.

You can find all versions here: http://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.79/

Here it is:
Blender 2.78c Windows 32 bit Download (clicking this link will start the download)
To find it in the future, click on the "macOS, GNU/Linux, and other versions" button to find alternate versions, including 32 bit versions.

Hope this helps.


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How to bend top part of the mesh?
Im trying to make a fireplace so I want to bend the top part of the mesh upwards and I have no idea how to.
The bending i want to make on the mesh.

Please tell us more. What do you need it for? High quality render? Low poly mesh? Please add some images with desired effect.

See if this helps https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/60239/how-to-round-the-edges-of-this-object/60242#60242


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Place emitter type particles on the surface evenly
I'm trying to recreate this effect:

I've managed to deform a cylinder to get the wave effect like so:

However, I'm not able to evenly add the particle objects since my emitter does not have even faces. A noob-friendly guide to adding the particles on the surface evenly would be extremely apprectiated! Thanks!

You could create one more mesh and shrinkwrap it atop of this one, Remesh modifier could be used there to ensure more even topology. Still that looks more like parametric modelling, e.g. Sverchok addon

Final:

You can make it with Ocean Modifier (it will keep mesh evenly distributed) and Particles System.
Ocean Modifier:
Add Ocean Modifier to any mesh (could be Plane). And literally just play with settings until you will be satisfied. I've marked my settings for this example.
Remember to check how much Verts your mesh contain as this will be important in Particles setup.
Do this in Wireframe view to see density of the mesh.

Particles:
Add Particle System to your mesh.
Set Start/End to 0 and Particle Number to match mesh Verts count. Sometimes Blender will leave a gap (I don't know why) you can fix this by adding one more Particle. In this example it's ok, but with earlier try I've needed to increase it by 1.
Check Use Modifier Stack, this will allow to use mesh generated by Ocean Modifier.
Add to the scene mesh you want to use as a render object. In this example it is simple IcoSphere. Select it under Render tab > Dupli Object.

Final thoughts:
You can manipulate Ocean Modifier after adding Particle System. Just remember that changing Resolution or Repeat X/Y will change Verts count and then you will need to change Particles Number accordingly.

If you want to store the shape you already have, just change the emitter type to grid, increase resolution value and make sure that none of the random values is switched on.

Here is a mesh a made

A the result

Remember to turn off gravity and normal values so the particles will stay in place


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Why are my objects gray?
Some of these pieces of rubble are a dark gray color, and won't texture properly. I can't figure out why. The normals are fine, there's no overlapping geometry, and even when I convert the tris to quads, the objects remain dark grey and won't texture normally. What did I do? These are sculpted, but so are the large, unaffected pieces with them. How can I fix this? :(

Oh my god, ha ha ha, how the hell did I miss that? Thank you! I obviously need more coffee today.

And you need to rename your folder to something different than Blender Shit! :)

Oh, ha ha. Whoops.

@HudsonVonMonkeytreat you can now mark answer as accepted.

How do I mark it as accepted?

The reason meshes are different is that darker mesh doesn't have Material assigned to it and brighter one has.


text:
Why my object looks like this in Object Mode?
When I am in edit mode it looks like this:

When I am in object mode it looks like this:

Why is this happening?

check geometry: doubles, normals

Possible duplicate of edges missing in wireframe view, but visible in edit mode

Duplicate of a duplicate, please use search before asking

Does object have any modifiers? Please use http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ to upload your file and include link here to avoid further guessing

First possibility.
Change Viewport Shading to Solid or press Z in Object Mode.

Second possibility.
Change Maximum Draw Type in Object tab to at least Solid. Have object selected.

I had to change Viewport Shading to Solid or press Z in Object Mode.

The viewport shading in your first screenshot was set to Solid already. According to your answer it wasn't set to Solid in your second screenshot. Was that made intentionally?


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Best way to unwrap half a sphere or a helmet?
Any chance anyone knows how to unwrap half a sphere? Or what the best way to unwrap half a sphere? I've been looking through forums and I couldn't find a way to unwrap my helmet.

Final:

Overview:
In this particular case I would go with Follow Active Quad unwrapping. You can 'cut off' the top of the helmet (there is another mesh there) so it's the easiest way I can think of.
Steps:

First of all Mark Seams around the top of the helmet and one through the back of the mesh.

Select all faces and Unwrap them.
Select one face, preferably near the Seam, it will keep texture more seamless.
Align this face in UV Image Editor by selecting edges and W > Align Auto.
Select all faces on your mesh (keep aligned face as active face).
Unwrap it by Follow Active Quads.
Hit Ctrl+P to Pack UV Islands.
Manually correct the top of helmet UV map.


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Strange bug with the Subdivision Surface Modifier
I just started using Blender yesterday. I'm trying to create a shotgun model but I've encountered a strange bug (I think) with the Subdivision Surface modifier.

Why is this happening? I've tried deleting faces and edges and putting them back but nothing seems to get rid of these pinches.

Could you upload blend file to: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/?

Check for faces inside the mesh. These are referred to as interior faces and they mess things up in ways similar to what's going on in your model.
One way to find them is:

Go to Edit Mode (Tab)
Make sure to deselect everything (A key)
Open the Select menu (bottom of the 3D Viewport window)
Choose Select All by Trait > Interior Faces

If anything ends up selected, hit X or Delete.
If that doesn't work, you'll have to hunt it down by hand. To do that:

Enter Edit Mode
Turn off your Subdiv modifier (eye icon in the modifier pane),
Delete a face near the problem area,
Rotate your view around and peek inside.

If you see an interior face, select and delete. And when you're done, of course, replace the face you deleted.

In addition to what was said also look for duplicate geometry which is far more common, then in Edit Mode select everything, press W > Remove Doubles.

... and, that often, that the quickest way to find flaws in the  topology is to attempt Alt-selecting edge loops. If the selection fails in an unexpected place, that's where to look.

If @Sackadoo 's answer didn't work for you, you may want to fix the flipped mesh normals, in 2.7 it's Ctrl + N , in 2.8 it's Shift + N . (You have to select the mesh with problems first in edit mode)


text:
Rocket Engine Plume/Exhaust
I am totally new a pictures and blender therefore I dont know how to ask. I want to add rocket plume but I am not interested with animation. I need to add like texture.

Reference image:

Could you post some reference image to show us what you want to achieve?


text:
How to make a Particle System follow a Cloth Simulation?
I've been looking all over the internet and can't seem to find an answer. I'm sorry if this is a really dumb question, but how do I make a Particle System follow a Cloth:

How do I make it so that the rainbow colored particles follow the rainbow colored cloth instead of staying in one spot?

Final:

Overview:
If you want to keep Particles over the Cloth surface you will need to turn off any Particles Physics simulation (choose No) and also to prevent Particles from rotating like crazy after collision you will need to set Emitter Geometry > Normal under Velocity tab to 0, like so:

Edit:
You also need to pay attention to Modifier Stack as this is very important thing in many operation based on modifiers. You have got Cloth simulation as a last modifier so Blender first started Particle Systems and after them Cloth. So as a solution you will need to move the Cloth modifier above the Particle modifiers in the Stack:

@quinnamations I also think that this will allow you to simplify your setup a bit: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/38207/particle-color-based-on-where-the-particle-is-emitted


text:
Snap object to the center of another object face
Hi I got a Cube and a Cylinder. What is the fastest way (minimal steps) to move the Cylinder, so the center of the bottom face of the Cylinder will snap to the center of top face of the Cube ?

Three Steps

Make origin of Cylinder at it's bottom face.
Place 3D Cursor on the top face of the Cube.
Move Cylinder (Selection) to 3D Cursor.

2 1/2 Steps
In Object Mode, With Pivot set to 'Active Element', Manipulate Center Points switched On, Snap Off, but set to 'Face' and 'Closest'..

Select Cylinder, then Cube, and S,ShiftZ,0
If the bottom of the cylinder isn't close to the top of the cube, GZ until it is.
CtrlGZ to snap the bottom of Cylinder to the top of Cube.

But there are so many settings I'd have to undo again, in real life I'd do it @cgslav 's way.


text:
How would i create a realistic coat material for a horse model of mine?
I'm wondering how I could make a more realistic material for my horse:

So far it's just an image mapped on to a diffuse shader. I want a more realistic coat. Also, I was messing around with hair particles, but couldn't get a realistic mane and tail. I've tried so many things for both of these, but I cant get it right. Any ideas?

I suggest you discard the materials on your horse completely. You should add a bunch of particle systems instead. Trust me, when you add a hair particle system it will look a lot more realistic.

Okay. What should I try, though? I've tried, like, countless particle systems, and nothing worked right. What should I do for this?

Have you tried using multiple particle systems put together with weight painting?

Don't know how to use weight painting, but I've tried combining particle systems. Still no idea what to do.

I figured out weight painting, watched a 2 hour tutorial, still wont work correctly

I have a similar problem; I need to render a horse in Blender Render for work, and the best thing I've found so far is to add noise to your texture, and then use the noise layer as a bump map. With horses, I've found, having good definition of the muscles on the body really helps a lot.  Alas that's something I'm still working on.

I still have no idea what to do.


text:
Running Track, painted material, right way to do it?
I'm doing a running track with painted lanes and numbers. It it easy to do base material itself (eg. sand or black rubber) using the principled shader and correct material setup and I have also png-texture with orange lanes with white stripes and numbers + alpha channel to broke uniform color.
The problem is how to mix them together to make a realistic outcome?
I try to add the lane texture to "Subsurface Color" input but I'm not sure if this is the right way.
I would like to get something like this:

Final:
You can make this with procedural texture mixed by alpha image (lines/numbers).

Node overview:

Base procedural textures. Voronoi for main bumps and Noise to make it less uniform.
Color Ramps for fine control over textures intensity.
Mixed base textures and Color Ramp for Base Color input.
Brightness/Contrast to tweak Roughness.
Bump node to feed Normal inputs.
Image Texture with only white shapes and transparent background mixed with base textures. Color Ramp controls how much wear there is on shapes (how much orange color is visible trough them, based on Voronoi texture).

Thanks for Your material - great one! I can't make it work in later Blender versions. Can You please update materials for Blender 2.83+ ?


text:
Greeble Cube Microdisplacement - how to prevent edges from opening up and becoming black
Hi I am trying to create a greeble cube with hi res texture. But when I use microdisplacement it make the edges open up and create unsightly dark border - I have tried using bevel but then the edge is rounded and not crisp.
I can also use a pointiness texture to mask the edges but then there's border which does not look natural.
Does anyone have a solution to avoid such dark edges?
Here is a screenshot of what I mean:

Here's the blend file in case anyone wants to examine it:

And here's the greeble texture:
https://i.imgur.com/G29bdCI.png

You should note that you are using different build than latest stable and what exactly, especially if you are using things added after certain version. And also provide image you have used for displacement (packed in blend file maybe).

Thanks cglav for your reply.
I am using 2.79.6 (build:2018-09-06)
I have already added the greeble texture (displacement) at the end of the question.

I can't replicate your problem with Blender 2.79.6 as I don't have access to 2.79.6 and I can't load your file into 2.79.5 since I don't have a 'safe' environment that I can risk loading "foreign" blend files). I did try loading into 2.79b but without success (from your file I couldn’t get any displacement working - even after tweaking the material to remove the unsupported nodes).
I tried replicating your situation afresh in 2.79.5 using the default cube, adding Subsurface modifiers (one set to '6' and the other set to '3' - so 9 subdivisions) and with the following material :

This produced the following result :

I don't see any dark gaps and the edges all seem to displace correctly without splitting.
Can you try following these steps in a fresh file to see if you get the same results? - or identify anything that you have done different that may have resulted in the issue.

Hi Rich. Thanks for your reply.
I followed your process on 2.79.5  and it's still there in a smaller extent.
Here is my result: https://i.imgur.com/M7QvRiF.jpg

@saicode Are you using Adaptive sub-division? If so, can you try again but using non-adaptive subdivision. The Adaptive subdivision is an experimental feature as as such may have issues and/or be subject to change. Certainly, at 2.79.5 the adaptive subdivision is only in the Experimental functionality set rather than 'standard' - and I can get some artifacts using it which aren't present when I use normal (non-adaptive) subdivision. I suspect this could be a problem with how the edges are being knitted together with different subdiv amounts.

I thought without 'adaptive' subdivision turned on (after turning on the experimental features in Cycles render tab)
microdisplacement doesn't even work!

@saicode At release 2.79.5 of Blender the True Displacement feature is no longer 'Experimental' - it is now part of the 'standard' functionality. However, the Adaptive subdivision is still experimental - presumably because there are still known issues with it, perhaps this very issue. If you leave the Feature Set as 'Standard' you can therefore still use the microdisplacement - you just need to add enough subdivision levels to give it enough detail. For example, the sample image in my answer was created from the default cube with 9 subdiv levels (one modifier set to 6 and another at 3)


text:
Is it possible to get automatic smooth edges with flat faces without adding geometry?
I'm new with Blender and this seems like a simple thing but I haven't been able to find the answer.
The only way I've been able to find to get smooth edges while retaining flat faces is to add extra edge loops as in the first answer to the question posted here: How to keep flat faces flat when using smooth shading
However, manually adding extra edge loops all over the place just to get smooth edges is not an option for my workflows. I need an entirely automatic way to get smooth edges of a certain thickness, similar to how it's possible to get beveled edges of a certain thickness automatically with the bevels modifier.
Here is a shape with automatic bevels. I need something similar, but with the edges being smooth.

Here it's changed to use smooth shading. This doesn't work since the faces are no longer flat.

Note:

The "Auto Smooth" setting in the Normals section of the Data pane for the object won't help here. It too will either smooth both edges and faces, or neither, depending on which angle is used.
Subdivision surface modifier doesn't work. It requires adding edge loops to control the width/size of the smooth edges so is not automatic.
The Smooth modifier doesn't work. This modifies the vertex positions rather than splitting the edges similar to bevels.
This is for use in a game, so any solution that produces results with lots of triangles won't work (like just using bevels with a high segment count). I basically need the same geometry as Bevels produce, just with normals that make the bevels smooth while retaining the faces flat.

Is this possible in Blender?
What should this look like:

So basically you want the Bevel modifier to set the shading of the edges of the mesh to smooth but flat faces that it doesn't touch to stay flat shaded? I'm not sure how to do that, but I'm presuming you would need to make a plugin.

You may want to look into Custom Split Normals

@Lukaash More or less. I tried applying the bevel and manually marking all the bevel faces as smooth but this actually doesn't give the desired result either, because the edges between the flat original faces and the smooth bevel faces look like creases. Instead, the bevel (or equivalent) would have to explicitly set the normals themselves in a specific way that matches the adjacent original face normals.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos The Radial and Directional modes of the Normal Edit Modifier don't seem related to what I need. Are you talking about implementing something new, similar to those but different?

If I am not mistaken the Blend4Web addon had a relatively capable custom split normal editor that might have what you need

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Thanks for the pointer. It seems like this Blend4Web addon will make it possible to manually align the normals the way I want. However, I can see no indication that it can do it automatically.

@runevision You can sort of do this using the data transfer modifier to copy the normals from a flat-shaded version, but the interpolation on edges isn't quite right. Here's a demo.blend anyway, in case you care to try and make it work (note the linked-duplicate on layer 2)

While I was googling about addon Y.A.V.N.E, I've found also this: https://rightclickselect.com/p/modeling/gkbbbc/harden-normals-option-in-bevel-modifier and this: https://developer.blender.org/T48583. So it's gonna be incorporated in Blender but probably not until 2.8 or maybe even later. I don't have an account on developer.blender.org so I can't contact with author (Howard Trickey). Also I don't know rules there. Maybe @DuarteFarrajotaRamos could help as he was proposing there some things (I don't remember what exactly).

Account creation at developer.blender.org is freely open to anyone, you can register for one at any time, I think. Rules there are strict though, which is understandable, since it is the developer realm. Too much general public, chit-chat, and feature requests creates distractions and disturbs the delicate development work.

From what I have gathered researching, no, it is not currently possible in an automated way inside Blender.
For what it's worth, it would not be hard to implement a solution for this in Blender. I ended up implementing a solution in a Unity AssetPostprocessor instead since that's what I'm familiar with.
The approach I took was to calculate smoothing (smooth vertex normals) using a different weighing method than Blender does. When averaging face normals together in order to calculate smooth vertex normals, it's possible to weight the normals according to the areas of the faces contributing to the vertex normal. This way larger faces contribute more to the normal than smaller faces. This fairly standard weighing approach already produced much improved results.
I ended up going a bit further and kept track of the largest area of the contributing faces. Then when calculating the average, I only included face normals in the average from faces with areas of at least a certain percentage of the largest contributing face. This mostly keeps the bevel faces from influencing the normals at all.
These techniques only work well when the bevel width is small compared to other details of an object. But it worked very well for me in any case.

Wow, does that ever look nice! For what it's worth, I've added a RCS request for an implementation of this in blender.

Try Y.A.V.N.E Addon.
Easily found by searching 'YAVNE Blender' in google.
Thanks to Umdee for creating this addon and sharing it with us for free.
Mark the large faces 'Strong', while keep the corner/bevel on 'Medium' or 'Weak' will give you a result below:
Note: the shading breaks if you use mirror modifier or triangulate the mesh.
Note: works with edge sharp and auto-smooth.  May want to turn auto-smooth angle up to 180.
So, you'll have to apply the modifiers and redo the markings again.
Manually assign normal strength

Automatically calculate normal based on face area.

Manually assigned on a complex mesh, works with auto-smooth and edge sharp.

Auto generated based on face area on the same mesh

From the question: "I need an entirely automatic way to get smooth edges of a certain thickness, similar to how it's possible to get beveled edges of a certain thickness automatically with the bevels modifier." - This method is certainly not automatic and it's not working with Bevel modifier.

I don't care.  This gives the best result with least amount of error and does not take a horrible long time to setup.  And plus, YAVNE addon has the ability to automatically do this, less accurate, but is the fastest way.  It just doesn't need Bevel modifier.  @user105387 Also said it will be used for games.  The Bevel modifier has to be applied before it goes into the game engine, doesn't it?

I also wanted that 1-click retopo unwrap UV packing.  Laziness is not a problem I'm going to help solve.

Maybe try and extend your answer; show some workflow with a little bit more complex mesh. It's not 1-click retopo. Similar approach to weighing normals is used in Houdini. And I didn't say it's not a good method but check once again title and content of this question. It says "automatic" a lot. You have just mentioned about marking faces and... That's all. Show us this automatic method on complex object and maybe this will be the best method.

Added some more demonstration.  Unfortunately it's not very 'automatic'.  But I care not.  I believe this has the best quality/efficiency ratio.  @runevision's solution is on a different level of automation.  "Entirely automatic way".  I'm sorry, but not gonna happen.

On a second thought.  If anyone take the principle noted in @runevision's solution, write a plugin in for blender, it maybe done with a click of button, and tweak around a threshold bar.  It's not going to be perfect, but that's your entirely automatic way.  Still doesn't work with bevel modifier though.

@TeaCrab "The Bevel modifier has to be applied before it goes into the game engine, doesn't it?" No, the bevel appears in the exported mesh without having to apply it. I also use mirroring a lot, so any solution would have to work correctly with that. I'm sure the plug-in here is nice for many things, but is not an answer to the original question which required an automated solution.

@runevision  Good luck, there maybe a way.

You can try with Edge Split Modifier:

Note:
Edge Split modifier keeps the polygon count of the object but increases the vertex count.
Second option via
Data Transfer Modifier

On the picture above is the Source object (i.e. before beveling)
On the second picture is the beveled copy of the object that has the non-beveled object as source and Data Transfer modifier activated (note the settings!).

You have to add Copy Transforms constraint to the source object and hide it. Both objects should be exactly centered.
In such manner the beveled object can be used inside Blender.
But if you want to apply the Data Transfer modifier, Blender will reset the normals back to default.

First of all thanks for your answer, sadly it's not what it supposed to be. Check here why: http://imgur.com/PCudha2 In your method Vertex-per-face Normals aren't recalculated thus they are producing visible transition between Smooth and Flat faces.

I see. The only thing that is close to the look you are aiming to is by using
Data Transfer Modifier.
The only drawback is that if you apply the modifier Blender resets the normals to default. See the picture below.

Second method was proposed in comments below by gandalf3. If I remember correctly it wasn't working as well as your method here.

When you apply the Data Transfer modifier you have to enable autosmooth to see the custom normals created by the modifier.
@LukeD I came up with the same solution as gandalf3. He mentioned that the interpolation on edges didn't look quite right, but that's only when using the basic solid shading; with matcaps and Texture/Material shading (GLSL) it looks the way it is supposed to look.

I haven't seen mentioning of Data Transfer modifier anywhere else in this thread.
Anyway, it seems that by exporting the object to FBX format and applying DT modifier seems to keep the normals.
Here is a more detailed video showing the result of the export in Marmoset:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAGEGBulzSU


text:
How to make holes in several plains at once
Image of what I'm talking about:

I can't figure out how I can make holes in that pages where each ring is attached there in several pages beside it like 15-20. How can I cut holes there?

Do you need it to be low poly?

@LukeD no i m trying to making realastic render

Final:

Simplest way with quad topology would be to cut holes in Subdivided Plane and add Subdivision Surface modifier.
Steps:

Create a Plane.
Go to Edit Mode and Subdivide it twice. First time with 10 cuts, second one with 1. You can go further if you need different hole placement.
Select faces where you want your holes and delete them.
Remove unnecessary faces to trim page as you want.
Select outer edge of the mesh and add to it Mean Crease > 1. This will ensure that corners stay sharp after Subdivision Surface modifier will be added.
Add Subdivision Surface modifier. I've set it to 2.

Final touches:

If you want smaller holes you can select Edge Loop around them in Edge Select mode, switch to Pivot Center > Individual Origins, then Extrude and Scale them down.


text:
Blender objects moving together - not proportional editing
I was working on an animation in Blender, and for it I was essentially breaking apart a joined mesh... however when I went to move those joined bits (I separated them using P) it worked, at first, then when I moved the animation along the whole object jumped to where I had moved the broken part...
This is not Proportional Editing. I have looked everywhere for an answer...

Make sure you they are not children to a moved object. Also double check if you have not inserted a keyframe accidently for the wrong objects.


text:
Can't find backface culling setting in version 2.78
I'm using version 2.78c and I just noticed I 'lost' the backface culling setting (I haven't used it in a little while). I can't post a screenshot of the shading area in the properties panel (blender render mode only), but the only check boxes available are:

Textures
Shadows
Subsurface scattering
Environment map
Ray tracing
World space shading (which is unchecked by default).

There's also a drop-down for alpha, which I'm leaving at the default.
Every entry brought up in Google says 'Turn in on the in the shading area' - but it's not there and I can't find anything in user preferences that might control it's availability. Where has it moved to? I need to be able to check normals, and tasks like that.
Thanks in advance,
Frank Alviani

Press N key while in 3D View port (hover mouse there) and you will find Shading tab close to the bottom of this panel, which will show on the right side of the view port.

Edit:
Honestly I didn't ever paid attention that both of them panels are called 'Properties'.
The one you are looking for is here (from your screenshot):

The shading panel no longer looks like that in 2.78. :( As I mentioned above, neither backface culling nor ambient occlusion is an option. The options I have available are listed in the original post. That's why I posted - and I can't find any mention anywhere of when the panel changed. Thanks, though.

@FrankAlviani This is from 2.78c. Blender Render.

@FrankAlviani also I've upvoted your question so you can add screen shot now.

OK, I saved a screenshot to share:  - I hope this makes it easier to understand. The changelogs don't say anything about this change...

I messed up the link - here's another one that hopefully helps:  - thanks for your patience.

@FrankAlviani Could you please upload whole Blender window screenshot?

OK - I'll have it up in just a few minutes. Thanks for continuing with this :)

Here's the entire screen:  By the way, how do I put this in so it's embedded rather than just a link? (Another noob question :( )

@FrankAlviani check my Edit.


text:
Rendering gold in Cycles
I'm tying to get expected rendering results from many days but not able to get it as seen in image. I have attached image of expected results.

Show us what you have so far and specify with what you need help - shaders, lights, scene, object?


text:
Model doesn't subdivide very nicely
I'm making scissors. I made the two parts with two different methods.
File attached:

For the green part, I made an svg file, imported it and extruded it. However, now when I apply subdivisions and I'm not getting sharp edges.
For the white part, I made the svg file, imported it and  extruded it. This time, I selected the inner ring and the outer edges and separated both cuts with the Boolean modifier. I then used Alt+F to fill it. If I apply the subdivision modifier it just fills the inner hole.

How can I fix the subdivision modifier for both scissor blades?

New model made

To give you a god answer we will need a wire frame to see what the sub' is doing.

you might want to bevel a bit the edges you want to make sharp, or add extra loop cuts. Basically, if you add more geometry will constrain the subdivision, and will look sharper. You can also add the ammount of "crease" on the edges you want sharper: under edit mode, select those edges, press N for right lateral panel, under "transform" look for "edge data" and increase the "crease" until looks like you want. Those creased edges will look red under viewport material shader.

@ MCunha can u plz try with my model. And send me the image or .gif file

Ok, I'll give it a look

Give the subdivision modifier squares and triangles to work with and it will do what it should. You have a real big mess of faces in the mesh. If you make faces with four vertices it will work fine.

to correctly model your model: import reference image as a plane. change to ortographic view (press 5 then press 7 with numeric keypad, not the numbers of text keyboard), add a plane, move to where you want to start your draw. Enter edit mode. Select and extrude edges and/or vertices to match the draw (see image, extruding and refining edge position, all faces of new object are quads - 4 edge polygon). when your are done, if will have a projection of your model on a plane, with pure quad-faces. Exit top view, select all your faces, extrude in Z-axis to give depth. Then select vertices where you want them to be at different Z-levels. Select edges to be sharp and increase de "crease" in the transform panel. Perform subdivision surface and add extra loop cuts if needed to constrain geometry. Exit edit mode, Press T, under tool, select shading to smooth.
In the following link, is a Blend file, with one of the blades retopologized by me, you see how I performed a pure quad-mesh, and I do the other blade:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7t43CPM6VA-RzFKYVJLSmlkQ1E/view?usp=sharing
In this tutorial, you might see a guy doing a scissor:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8VmGtBebHs
here you see a guy working with reference planes, doing a pure quad-mesh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOxD-T6nLys

I have attach my model image. Thanks u said u will redo my model. But i want to learn. I dont want to have ready made model from others. As im a learner i want to know where im going wrong and right. I want to learn good from u good expert and make new models.

one more thing, don't perform boollean modifiers, unless you really need! Just manually extrude your faces and vertices around the holes you want to cut! The boolean modifier (or other modifiers) might mess with the number of edges of your faces, doing a N-gon mesh. Good luck!

Thanks for ur brief reply. I have made the model and above my file is attached (New model made ----.blend file). I have made the model but not satisfied with it. I have made it look just a general view. In the model i was unable to make the cutting edge of the scissor. And the twist of the handle.

Hi @atek, for the cutting edge, or the twist of the blade, you need to select vertices or edges and scale/translate or rotate them to a place desired. Example: one part of your scissor (blade+handle) has always same depth/width (like a cube), now you have to rescale some edges, so you get areas thinner than others. If you see the model I've uploaded yesterday, you see that the edges on the blade are thinner. Also check that I didn't increase the crease level for all the loopcuts, Just the parts I wanted to be sharp

for a faster way, you can apply a boolean modifier like this: duplicate Cube and Cube.001 and move them to layer 2. After that, you do a Boollean difference between Cube and the copy of Cube.001, and a boollean between Cube.001 and the copy of Cube. When you have the desired effect, apply the boolean modifiers and delect the copies that are on layer 2, than you just need to resize the edges of the twist of the handle.


text:
What methods can be used to cut irregular shaped holes in flat beveled surfaces with clean topology?
How do I fill these empty areas (left image) with no distortion(right image)?
I tried deleting all the faces and edges and then filling it which gave me a smooth flat surface around the holes but that method resulted in hard lines where the flat surface meets the bevel (the blue arrow), I want it to be a smooth transition (green arrow). I've tried marking that edge smooth and auto smooth with no avail. I'm having the best luck with the Subsurf modifier but I need better topology for that method to work well. Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks!

Here's the file:

Modelling these with Proper topology is the way to go

Thanks, I'm going to try redoing it so that link should be useful.

I obviously have a lot to learn about modeling. I'm going to try the HardOps and Box Cutter tools.

I don't know if this will help you (maybe post your blend file?) but I recently learned about the Offset Edges plugin (needs to be downloaded and installed from file).  This works something like the way I would expect the "Shrink/Fatten" tool to work with a loop of edges--it will extrude them (or duplicate them, or move them) inwards or outwards in a way that does not distort the outline of the loop.
https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Modeling/offset_edges
How you might use that here, in a sample file that is maybe a little like your example.

The face to be created is between the top edge of the cylinder and the surrounding square edge.

Since these are two separate edge loops, we will offset each of them separately.  First the square edge, using Mesh-->Edges-->Offset Edges-->Extrude

Then offset the circle loop using the same command:

Now we can fill our remaining face, either using Mesh-->Faces-->Fill or Mesh-->Edges-->Bridge Edge Loops:

Et voila, the ugly triangle topology of the filled flat face does not impact the edges (in this case) because it is "buffered" by a margin of proper topology.

How this may work out in your case is hard to say for certain, but it's worth a try.

I tried this but it just makes for a weird transition. Looks like bevels are tricky - I'm looking at this post here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/39424/glossy-reflections-and-smooth-shading?rq=1


text:
When I render, it just shows the render and it says it's finished, but there's nothing there
When I hit F12 to render, a screen (see 2nd image) just pops up, and nothing happenes. It acts as if it's finished, when it's really not.
Is there something I've done wrong?

Check Render Layers maybe?

@LukeD I don't see any different with it, only one layer, the basic "RenderLayer" one

I can't tell why then from just screenshots. Strip down the blend file to just one object and upload it to: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ and I'll have a look.

OK, done @LukeD

Overview:

First of all, I don't know anything about Video Editing in Blender.

First option:
It seems that you have some Strip (4.) added to the project and this is blocking/muting rendering.

Go to Video Editing.
Select Strip (if you see transparent render result hit ESC).
Erase Strips.

Or modify it accordingly to your project.

Second option:
If you don't use VSE at all and made this Strip by accident you can always turn of Sequencer completely:


text:
How can I fix this mesh rotation issue?
I have been crafting a 3D model of Mickey Mouse. I joined all of the meshes together and added armature. Everything seems to be correct, but when i rotate the head, the eyes and tongue don't rotate. Is there something I'm missing or something I'm doing wrong?

could you please provide the .blend file to help you?

you took a picture of your screen? oh boy....

You can take a screen shot using the printscreen button. To access your screenshot, just press ctrl V in paint.

@X-27 maybe they were asking it on the phone and making a photo is easier

I don't know... the Stack Exchange app is an absolute pain, and they obviously were running Blender on either a desktop or laptop, so they easily could have used the site.

You have to assign weights to meshes you want to move with a bone.
(After selecting your mesh and armature and parenting using automatic weights)

Select your armature and press ctrltab to enter
pose mode
Select your mesh and press ctrltab and then you can assign weights to parts to want to move with the bone

It appears to me that the most likely cause is that you failed to parent the eyes and the tongue to the head correctly.

but they are joined together into one mesh

i think you didn't assign weights to the eyes and tongue to the head bone


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How would I join an imported road from OSM to the terrain?
I am new to Blender (and very impressed).
I have imported a terrain, 3D buildings and roads into Blender using the OpenStreetMap add-on.

The roads are elevated well over the terrain and offset in position.
If z is the altitude, I would like to zero z so that the roads rest on the terrain.
The roads are off in x and y as well. The roads run off the terrain and pass over and directly through buildings.
The default Blender mesh would essentially be underground.

Ideally, I would like to be able to apply actual distances to the Blender model in imperial or SI units and if possible include a light grid throughout a volumetric model.
A possible workflow might be:

Use OpenStreetMap add-on to import an approximate rendering of the location of interest.
Correct placement of roads and buildings.
Apply a scale to the scene in units of miles, kilometers, etc.

I am currently researching 2 and 3.
Blend file:

I don't see here anything particularly unusual. Select All and Move (G) vertices along selected Axis (press X, Y or Z).

Hi Luke - the roads are about 100 feet above the terrain and some pass directly over buildings. The roads also continue running past the end of the terrain.

The blender-osm addon places the roads automatically on the terrain. By the way the addon is free now. Get it at https://gumroad.com/l/blender-osm

Overview:

Change Clipping to some really high value to see whole thing at once.
Go to Object Mode.
With still selected roads, go to Modifier tab and remove Boolean.
Change Shrinkwrap to Nearest Surface Point and mark Keep Above Surface.

Stellar!  Thanks very much for your help!


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HDR problem while viewing the camera
This happens only when I look from the Camera view while using a HDR.

what is exactly the problem?

@tacofisher look at the first picture...everything is in a sphere shape! The second picture is without the HDR!

Looks like you set the camera to Panoramic - Fisheye Equisolid.

Apply these changes to your camera:


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Blender 2.78c Cycles particles change color by age
Thank you for your time reader!
I want to change particle material colors by their age.
All threads and accepted answers I found dont work for me.
The setup I found in other threads is this:

The color ramp works.
If I switch the colors the particles become white:

After some trial and error it feels like no values are coming out of the particle info node.
For example if I turn the divide value up/down - nothing changes at all.
If I take an "add" node I can see clearly that all particles change independent from their age.
Does someone have an advice for me?
Even a method to see what (if at all) values come out of the particle info node would help me.
Thank you a lot for your precious time in advance :)
Blend file:

Here's what's going on, from Blender Docs about Particle Info Node:

This node currently only supports parent particles, info from child
  particles is not available.

So your only option is to turn off Particle Children and crank up Particle Number to make it 'similar'.
Also if you turn on Parents in Particle Render section some of them will be white but only a few.

I've checked also in Blender 2.79RC2 but it's not working there either.

AWESOME! thank you so much! RTFM again... ^^

Yeah, I've read it after I've struggled with every option connected to the topic. I've just needed confirmation in source ;)


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How to make a cross tee pipe fitting in Blender?
When I try to do it, it looks VERY sloppy.  I assume there's an easy way, I just don't know how.
Here is kind of what I'm going for:

It can't have a lot of faces though so the Subdivide modifier is out of the question.  I don't mind if it's a little blocky but I just can't figure out how to merge cylinders like that.

Not at a computer to make a full answer but extra objects addon has a pipe joint object.  That is the fastest way.

That's not what I want though.  Those are sharp.  This has a much more gradual curve into each other

Smooth curving surface will be available only with adidng new geometry, no matter if with Subsurf or any other way.

Final:
I do know that you said you don't want to use Subdivision Surface modifier, but just check those numbers:

Steps:

Select four faces around a Cube.
In Tools Panel choose Extrude Individual and enter desired number or move your mouse (I've entered '1').
Delete selected faces.
Add Subdivision Surface modifier.
(Optional) Add Solidify modifier.
(Optional) In Data tab check AutoSmooth and set Angle to 60 degrees.


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How to make a specific image stop casting reflection?
I'm not sure if I explained right in the Title, but what I want is to make the birds stop casting a reflection on the surface of the water (the birds are a image)?
Thanks

You are really active questioner here, but could I ask you to use question marks "?" at the end of the questions and not exclamation marks "!"? It's just a thing I caught up reading your questions (and answers). Exclamation mark is often used to make a "screaming" statement, and screaming at people from whom you ask help isn't a good idea.

I know how to use them.. I will be more careful next time


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Mirror weight painting from left to right in a character

I've found that weight is not the same on both sides even if I already mirrored it.

Is your mesh using a mirror modifier? Do you have the names of the bones the same but with .L and .R? Did you use automatic weights to begin with?

yes, I did apply mirror modifier and flip the name from .l to .r
but the parent is not automatic weight, is empty vertex group

Yes, but if you applied the mirror modifier, then you have no mirror of the weight. The mirror modifier needs to be active for the mirrored weighting to work with the left and right bones.


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How to create a texture for icicles
I have some very simple icicles that I made using the icicle generator addon.

I was wondering how to create a distortion/texture on the icicles to make it look realistic. Here is an example of what I am looking for.

With lighting from the first screenshot it's likely pretty much impossible to achieve the same look. Add some environment lighting, add volumetric material to the icicles and it should provide something at least for starting. This will be quite resources heavy way though

Could you provide link to this add-on? I can make an answer but I need to know if its possible to add some loop cuts to the icicles and UV Maps.

Here is the link: https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?331186-Add-On-Snowflake-and-Icicle-generator.  And yes, you can add loop cuts and use UV mapping

Final:

Node setup:

This is pretty simple setting, mixed Wave Texture with Noise and used as Bump for Glass.
Before this you have randomization for Z position per object to make icicles looks different from each other. They should be separated objects.
Mesh notes:
It's not part of the question, but I'll try to briefly describe how to use it with this add-on.
To get this working you need to have UV Map for icicles.
I've used Cylindrical Projection on all of them.
After this I've separated icicles - P > By loose parts.
Another issue could be Smooth Shading. Check here for solution: Smooth cone with glossy or anisotropic texture gets dark spot or use Flat Shading.


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Sun lamp gives horizon glow not direct light?
Simple scene: cycles , add sun lamp and the lighting is coming from the horizon, not from one singular direction?
Clearly a setting somewhere i've missed. any ideas?

Blend file:

https://i.sstatic.net/cETvV.jpg
Thanks
JK

You need to decrease Sun Lamp Size value to 1 for example. Technical explanation is here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/44719/meaning-of-sun-lamp-size

Considering the scene units I was using, my sun lamp was astronomically huge. I reduced its size and it began functioning properly.


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How can I mix Dirt surface with normal Color in Principled Shader?
I want to make something dirty but I don't know how to mix a surface texture with the new Principled Shader?

This should help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H5W6C_Mbck

not really, because he had finished shader with rust on it

You could always just use another principled shader and mix the two of them with a mix node. Then use your texture as as the mix factor. I will try to post an answer later to help you out.


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Is there a way to make layers for textures?
I want to make hair for my cuboid character, I will be making multiple of these cuboid character and I would like to be able to reuse the hair as it would be a bit of a hassle to have it to redraw it every time or have to crop it out every time I make new hair.

I don't really understand what are you asking for. Could you be more specific? Will hair be another mesh? Or do you want to add another image on top of this texture?

i just want to another image/texture to it but on a different layer, is that possible?

Yes, I will make an answer in a minute.

Final & Overview:

If you want to have an easy process you should have proper UV Mapping for your object and two textures.
Cuboid texture - It could be anything you want.
Hair texture - Should be painted on transparent background.
When you have both of them you can Mix them trough Inverted Alpha Channel from your Hair texture.
Blend file:

Edit:
To switch between textures in Texture Paint mode go to Slots tab and select desired texture. Always save them after painting and don't forget to save image file (or pack it) in UV Image Editor.

@MiloPaolone, I've changed a little node setup. Also if my answer helped you consider accepting it and/or upvoting ;)

when ill get more then 15 rep ill do it :p

You can always accept it ;) Will you managed to make this texture setup?

Uh, how do i exactly choose what texture/image to edit?

@MiloPaolone Are you painting them by Texture Paint inside Blender?

Yeah, i never tried using anything else

@MiloPaolone check Edit in my answer.

i didn't get what you just said?

@MiloPaolone I've added information about switching between textures in my answer. At the bottom of it.

Uh, is there a way to do the same thing but material + texture? I'm trying to put the letter "O" on a olive for a logo thingy                                                      http://imgur.com/gallery/XOJmY


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How to bake Particle System in Blender 2.79
I'm using Blender 2.79 and there no longer appears to be a Cache tab under Particle System settings. How can I bake a particle system so that when Blender crashes I don't have to start rendering from the beginning? I'm not looking to turn the particles into real objects because I am not using physics, I need each dupli object to appear in sequence from the emitter object. Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

For those having the same problem: The cache tab disappears when the physics are set to "none" because apparently without physics, there is nothing to calculate and save to the disk. Because I was after the sporadic and stationary emergence of particles from the emitter, I found that using a Particle System of type "hair" instead of "emitter" will suffice when I animate the "length" option in the clump settings. It's not ideal because they all emerge at once, but until I find a better way, this will have to do! Please comment if there is a better fix to this!

Cache is indeed located in the Particles system panel located in the properties editor as shown in the image below. It is located directly below emission settings:

I've updated my post to show that no, indeed there is no Cache tab

haven't try 2.79 but the cache particle bake is okay in blender version 2.80.you might want to upgrade it

I had the same problem. And I finally figured out, that you only have to check the box under Hair Dynamics (under Emission) and then the Cache-Option appears underneath.
There is no need for animating the particle system! Which indeed wouldn´t make sense if you only use the particle-option to distribute a specific object in your scene.


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Cycles and custom/face weighted vertex normals
I've been experimenting with Custom Vertex Normals lately. Unfortunately it seems like Cycles produces unsatisfactory results when rendering these, especially the more glossy the material is.
Have a look at this image:

The issue should be obvious in the fourth image, the Cycles Render. There's a sudden, dark gradient at the edges. I've also added the three passes where the issue appears: Glossy Direct, Glossy Indirect and AO.
This seems to be related to Cycles doing raytracing, as none of these issues exist in the viewport, the Blender Eender, Unity or Unreal.
It's happening with light sources, as well as with (only) environment lighting. I tried tweaking various light and render settings and different methods to do the Custom Normals. All without success. They look great everywhere except in Cycles with glossy materials.
I wonder if other raytracers have the same problem? I've tested in Substance Painter's iRay (only environment lighting) where it is not happening (or maybe very very slightly, barely noticeable).
I currently don't have access to any other renderers. If you have access to Vray, Octane, Keyshot or whatever else people use these days and want to test, I've uploaded my test cube as well: https://machin3.io/cycles_fwvn_issue.zip
Any input on this is appreciated. I have no problem recompiling Blender with some tweak or some patch, if that is what it takes, I just need the tweaks and patches as that is beyond what I can do :)

Did you make any progress? I stumbled upon this method (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAGEGBulzSU) and I'm excited about it! Would be awesome to be able to render it with cycles! I'll try it with arnold and maybe vray next week. Do you know any plugins to speed-up this workflow? Best wishes
Phil

Hey Phil, I've created a script based on the technique from the video. It takes a model with a live bevel mod, such as created by Hard Ops and once fired, lowers the segments to one, and creates the custom normals using a secondary mesh. I've shown it off here https://twitter.com/machin3io/status/827938829281681410 I'm currently busy with refining DECALmachine and plan to combine these two. Or maybe release it as a separate script. It's pretty simple, so I might actually put it out for free. I think this modiifer method is superior, easier and more flexible than the YAVNE approach for example.

As for the rendering in Cycles, I've made no progress unfortunately. However I also think it's not that important, or noticable on small chamfers, for what this is intended to be used. It's good enough for me to know that the chamfers + custom normals will look great in the viewport and when seen in engine. Maybe Armory is a potential evenue to investigate in this regard, but before I do, I need the dev to support mesh based decals :) Still if you could test in Arnold and VRay that would be excellent! Let me know how it goes. Also feel free to get in touch via email: human@machin3.io

I'm struggling with this as well. Issue is visible with all raytracing renderers. Blender Render + AO, viewport + AO, iRay, Cycles. It's ok in Blender viewport (without AO), UE4 and Substance Painter viewport. Also check here this amazing GSoC project: https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?427746-GSoC-2017-Normal-Editing-Tools

I've tested it also with 2.80 branch and EEVEE looks ok until... Turning on AO. Clay Render is good. I'm wondering is this issue is strictly connected to AO?


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Smoke in view port not always showing
Blender Ver 2.77a
hp elitebook 8460p
i5 2520m
Intel HD 3000 (crap) graphics
16GB RAM
I'm just starting Blender.
When I set up a smoke domain using a half a Sphere, and the Quick Smoke (the long way of doing this too, using youtube how tos).
When I run it Alt+A it will show the smoke, then every time after that it is gets worse and then begins not showing smoke, so I have no way of knowing my results unless I render it to a file then check it like that.
Problem two, it sticks on frame 1 at times as well after following the youtube video I go to play it again to see the results, using Alt+A and it cycles frame 1.
I wish, I knew what detailed information you really needed to understand what I am talking about, but I am confused about this so me making heads or tails out of it to enplane it in here better is a far cry to do.

You should post your .blend file

Upon further investigation, I found that Blender's Cycles render engine is not compatible with the Intel HD 3000 (waste of time developing it) graphics "card" on my laptop. I purchased a new (different, used) motherboard with an ATI graphics  card for 25$ cheap...hopefully that will fix this issue.

authors: Андрей Зотов


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How to apply compositing after stopped rendering?
It's often the case that it's not known how many samples are needed to render a picture. So I usually set a higher value and when the result already suits me I stop rendering. But if you applied compositing to picture, it doesn't apply when you stop rendering. So how do so that compositing apply when I want to stop rendering before it reached max samples?

Possible duplicate of What advantages in using progressive rendering?

Save the render as an image file then do the compositing from the external file from another scene.

Changing any value of any node in the compositing node tree will invoke processing of the compositing tree. Note though that if there aren't enough resources after rendering (e.g. not enough RAM available for compositing to be finished) Blender will crash with render. So better save it to OpenEXR file and then start experimenting

You can save the result of progressive rendering as an image file (exr for maximum information) then do the compositing in an external .blend-file.
See also: What advantages in using progressive rendering?


text:
How do I add rotational motors in BGE
Unlike Cycles Render mode, BGE has no Rigid Body Constraints in the physics panel. I can add hinges/etc but no physical motor force to move them. I believe the logic blocks allow you to, however it only allows translational motor servo for location OR simple motion where it rotates buuut teleports instead of passing coordinates in between. (edit, no it doesn't teleport)

The simple way is to use the "angular velocity" field of the simple motion brick. But that doesn't give you any angular-speed ramp-up the way things in the normal world work.
Another way is to use torques, and to set the rotational damping in the physics really really high. This gives you the required ramp up, but also affects how the object responds to impacts.
The normal solution I use is to code it. This can either be done by directly applying torques to the object (ie the KX_GameObject.applyTorque() function), or it can be done by creating a constraint and setting the various parameters. As you are making a game, I highly suggest learning python - it really will make things significantly easier.

The "angular velocity" route lets gravity etc affect it while on...do you mean the speed applied is constant? That too is correct.....And any speed inputed is fed in as more velocity into the cube, we know it adds up too because gravity adds to the velocity...

The angular speed is set as a constant when using the angular velocity field. So you can't get it to start out slow and speed up (spinning). But it does not affect linear velocity.

If I place a heavy object over my test cube, and hold down a button that makes it rotate to the edge of the floor plane, it doesn't ratate too fast and slows rotation at certain points from the above cube, meaning its rotation and translation velocity can intake/lose inertia.........It would have to purposely subtract a calculated amount to make sure its own force doesn't add to the cube's velocity, who would do that to BGE??

Oh, the rotational speed cannot go any higher. I tried dropping a heavy box on a rectangle that I had slowly rotating off a plane by holding A down, and it didn't intake as much velocity as it does when not holding A down.

It did however intake some. Using Torque seems to intake as much as when not holding down A.


text:
Cycles baking will not produce same colors
I followed multiple different tutorials and help exactly, but the bake is always completely different, it is darker, different colors, single colored, shows ONE light spot, and looks like bad like single colored walls from the worst game.
.blend

Look:

are you using filmic ? 'cause you shouldn't when baking.

no I am not using filmic

Then I may have to make many guesses before we find the cause (if there's only one). Could you edit your question by including a link to your blend file uploaded from https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ ?

Ok I added the blend file.

Your Normals are flipped. In Edit Mode, select everything and go to Mesh > Normals > Flip Normals.

You're welcome. Don't forget to accept the answer.


text:
Normal problem after baking
I've baked my normal from high res mesh and applied to a low res one, the result is here in the image. The shadow is weird and straight.
How to fix this please?


text:
How to UV unwrap this object and how to have the same textures resolution for the two objects
I'm a beginner in UV Unwrapping, I don't find the good way to UV unwrap this part of my object, it's called 'Detail' in the Blend file.

I tried different technics but I didn't get the best results to maintain the same resolution for the two objects, because I want them to share the same UV layout after.
Please, could you help me to find the solution? Thank you in advance :)

could you please precise what you mean by "maintain the same resolution for the two objects"?

when I put textures on the two objects, it looks stretched and low res on the 'Detail' object because I must resized its UV islands as it was out of the UV map :/

Ok so I'm guessing you mean relative UV scale between the two separate mesh objects when you say same resolution.
But first we need to clarify what you mean by "share the same UV layout after".
Do you
A. mean that you want the UVs to overlap or sit on top of each other in the UV space like this.

Or B.
Have their own separate islands but on the same UV map like this

I got this result by using blender 2.8 new feature that allows going into edit mode of multiple meshes at once and a combination. of uv mapping operation.
So in edit mode of both mesh objects, first using project from view, from the back with just the faces along the center point of mesh since its a mirrored mesh. Then using constrain to proportions, move to one side, then move to center using snapping to align that center line of mesh with center of x axis like in screenshots. Making sure when you scale them to scale them together.
Next I take all those uvs in the uv editor and hit p to pin them in place (the red verts in UV editor), then select all faces, and run unwrap. This will keep the pinned UV verts in place and fill in the rest linked faces with usual unwrapping.
Then we can use the mirror modifier setting for flip U to automatically mirror the UV to the other side like this.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a5dIbtKAD47t3x--GEjsx9qR0oqUPT-V/view?usp=sharing

thank you very much for your detailed answer :) I mean B: same islands but sharing the same UV map (not UV layout as I said, I'm sorry). And it's really difficult when the Solidify modifier is applied. Because I want to export it to another soft for texturing.


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Why does My Viewport show pixels?

Please see the screenshots.  My Viewport is showing pixels. this has never happened before.  The pixels come on and off.  My display unit is fine because it only happens when I open blender.  I am using a dell Inspiron with NVidia 640M graphics.
The only new program I installed is Skype which I installed yesterday
The pixels show up while editing.  Need help
Thabani

Welcome to BSE. Does this happen in other applications or games too or is it only visible in Blender?

ok forget my first comment partially, you stated that Blender was then only application showing this. However, is this the first time you installed Blender on this specific machine? Or did it start from one day to the other?

Hi, aliasguru.  It only happens in blender.  no problems with other applications.    I've used Blender on this PC for two months without any issues but all of a sudden the pixels started showing up today.

very strange. I was asking only because the whole User Interface of Blender is being drawn in OpenGL, so other Applications which do the same should suffer from the same issue. For the moment I have no clue what's causing this...

Thanks, cegaton.  that worked.  reinstalling the drivers worked


text:
Is there a "thickness" node?
I'm looking for a node that will return a white value for the thickest part of an object (as seen from the camera), fading off to black as the thickness becomes 0. Does such a thing exist?
I'd like to simulate an opaque light without needing caustics, so my idea is that center of the object would be the brightest part with the outer edge being darker.

I don't think there is such a node, but if you explain a bit more how you were planning to use it, maybe someone could find an alternative...

Is this just a volumetric effect? You can use emission in volumetrics as well.

Oh, really? I didn't know that. I'll give it a try.

The geometry node or the light path node with the  thickness output might help.

Is Vector Math set to Length close to what you need?
You can invert it (or not) with a Map Range node, and then the From Max parameter becomes a slider for you to control where the effect terminates.

Something I cooked up using this:

I didn't realize this was from '17, oh well.

Thats totally fine. Old unanswered questions get bumped to the homepage to get answers. :)


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How do I apply gravity to a chain?
I've never used physics in Blender before so I just have a quick question about the workflow. I've created a chain using the Array Modifier and made sure none of the meshes are intersecting, but what I would like to do is attach the first and last link to a fixed point and let gravity work its magic. However... I have no idea where to even start. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
UPDATE: I've applied Rigid Body physics to each link and also a Constraint between each, but when I run the simulation the links just go crazy. Does anyone happen to know where I'm going wrong?:

UPDATE 2 (final): I removed the constraints and set the shape to "Mesh" rather than "Convex Hull" and everything is working perfectly. Thanks.

Objects with physics sometimes has a mass weight range, velocity and collision issues. usually phyics object reacting with other physics object multiply velocities. In unreal there was a way to get around this by grouping the objects so they dont collide with each other. There could be some similar checkbox or manor to group the items. Also ive had to lower some of the force physic values to below 1.0 to decrease the physics reaction strength.

Step 1:
To apply physics on objects you first need to go to the properties physics tab and enable rigid body on this object.

Step 2:
If an object has to function as a hook/pin object that has to stay at its initial place, set it to Passive.
If an object has to to function as a dynamic physics object, set it to Active.

Step 3:
Select two of the physics objects and go to the 3D viewport physics tab. Hit connect and a new rigid body constraint empty gets generate.

Step 4:
continue until the entire chain is connected. It should look sth like this:

Step 5:
Setup the rigid body constraints of your chain.
this part needs to be tweaked to your specific needs so there is no concrete setup. But for a generic metal chain this values should be good:

Step 6:
 Run your animation! But make sure you have enough frames in your timeline. The physics will only get calculated to this point. if it is not enough, raise the number.

In rigidbody physics tab set Passive and uncheck Dynamic for fix first and last link. That's all.

While it is correct, please do not submit an answer like this. This method, while it may work, is not nearly as good as the above answer. Try to explain more, and perhaps include photos.


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How can I make my creature's legs look fleshy?
I'm creating the weird little creature below, but it's my first time modelling something organic and I can't seem to get the legs to look fleshy. They either look like plasticine (pictured) or like plastic, so I'm clearly missing something. I'm in Cycles and currently using Andrew Price's Dielectric PBR shader. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Does the shader have subsurface scattering or fresnel? Are you in cycles?

If I was doing this with the internal renderer or OpenGL I'd add point lights close by and set the specular settings to "Wardlso" to give the tentacles an organic moist appearance with lots of tiny highlited reflections.  If necessary switch off the point lights' diffuse and increase the specular (including the 'Materials' specular) to whatever is necessary.  Adjusting the Bumping would help to achieve this.

Sorry, yes, this is in Cycles.

@10Replies It has Fresnel, but no scattering. If I add that, do I just use a mix shader to blend it to my current one?

@Danial yeah, just mix it with whatever you already have


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Unable to select bones during weight paint of one specific object
I have been having an issue where I want to include a separate object (eye) and weight paint it to the same bone as the head. When I select the armature, and the eye object, then switch to weight paint, it will not allow me to ctrl click any bone. I am only able to have the entire armature selected and then paint the eye. Every other object on this model does not do this. What is missing from the eye that that the other objects have; why can I not select any bones to weight paint this object?

Because you probably haven't parented the object to the armature, for example choose to parent with the Armature Deform option, then select the armature, shift select the object, switch to Pose mode, select a bone and paint

Ah, that did the trick. Thank you much!


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How to cut out a box from within a larger box by all faces of the inside box?
I duplicated and expanded all the faces of the inside box, then set a boolean modifier to difference on the outside box. This was in hopes it would cut lines in the outside box that lined up with all the faces of the inside one (first picture). I hid the inside box to get a look at the result and it has created a mess of diagonal lines but I can see it kinda made the shapes I wanted (image 2). Although, it did not cut the outside box and create additional faces in edit mode like I had hoped it would (image 3). What is the correct way to achieve the cut-outs that stay true to the measurements of the inside box?
Thank you in advance.
(edit: Image 4, shows all the unwanted diagonal lines in edit mode after applying the difference modifier)

I forget about solidify modifier, that makes it instantly...

Why not duplicate and scale it down?

what are you trying to do? It looks like a XY problem.

@Fowl Thank you for the detailed response before mentioning the solidify modifier, much appreciated. I think both ideas will help me going forward.

Luciano and @Leander   Thank you for the help as well, I think Fowl's answer will get me what I need

I can think of a few solutions, but the booleans and extrude came to my mind first. I would do it like this:
insect face -> extrude -> add edge -> delete faces -> cap the inner box with face -> cap the outer box -> dissolve edges after insect -> box inside of a box!