text:
Render background and freestyle in different image layers
Can anyone tell me how to render an image (tiff) with two different layers, one for background (need it white) and one for the rest of the render (just freestyle lines).
I am using Blender 2.8
Thanks,
Bhupen

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/38725/adjusting-freestyle-in-the-blender-compositor and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/48712/rerending-only-freestyle-on-previous-render

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos, I don't think any of those answers related. The OP is using 2.8 which has a different way of addressing the raised issue.

As far as my understanding goes, Blender isn't capable of creating multilayered TIFFs.
However, you could use other software to acchieve that.
 1. Change the file format for the output
In Output Properties you would specify the file format "TIFF".
Any file format that supports transparency (and can be converted by ImageMagick) should be fine.

 2. Assign Freestyle its own render pass
Since Blender 2.83 there is an option to set Freestyle as a render pass in View Layer Properties.

In the compositor, Freestyle can then be processed separately.

In case you have multiple layers that you like to export in a single run, you could use File Output Nodes.
For the default cube, the rendered image would look something like this.

 3. Use other software to create a layered TIFF
Any software that is capable of creating multilayered TIFFs will work.
For ImageMagick this command should work. (As ImageMagick doesn't have a graphical user interface, this is executed from the command line.)
convert canvas:white -resize 1920x1080! blender_render.tif -compose over multilayered_result.tif

The resolution should match the resolution of your render.
Without the trailing exclamation mark, the background would keep its ratio (a square).

I misunderstood the original question and therefore changed the answer so that it better fits it.

You want to separate what you want into different collections.  Then above collections there are view layers.  Make view layers for what you want separated.  Go to the collections and right click to exclude from each view layer.  Now go to the compositing tab to work with nodes.  Add Render Layer nodes for each view layer and select the view layer in the box at the bottom of the Render Layer node.  It's also a good idea to make the view layers transparent.  To do this go to Properties>Render>Film and tick the Transparency check box.


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How can I slow down an image sequence animation, without adding more frames?
This is a problem I've been trying to come up with a solution for for a couple of days now, but wasn't able to.
Basically, I have an image sequence of a spinning tornado, which does 1 full loop in 32 frames, and I want to slow it down by a factor of 4. My idea was- since I want to slow down to 1/4th speed, I could make it do only a 1/4th rotation, instead a full rotation, which could be made into a seamless loop by creating 4 parallel animations, and offsetting them by 1 frame and cross-fading between them. But this didn't really work.
I also tried to introduce "steps" into the animation, by making each of the 32 frames last for 4 frames each, making the whole loop 128 frames long, and again, making 4 copies and offsetting them by 1 frame and overlaying them on top of one another, but that didn't work either.
If anyone could help me with this I'd greatly appreciate it.
You can download the blend file with the image sequence here.

Here's the result with Luis Quintana's method:

in the Output panel > Frame Range, there's a Time Stretching value that can allow you to speed up or speed down your animation, but if you have some physics it may not slow it down

But that would increase the amount of frames the loop would be made of. I want to keep it 32 frames. There are no physics involved, this is just a looping vdb that I rendered into an image sequence.

I don't trully understand your question. Why not just slow down your tornado spin by 4, and increase your frame number by 4 ? You can't still have a full rotation and the same number of frames, if you want to slow it down.

From my post, I was trying to make it so that instead of looping once every full rotation, it would loop once every 1/4th rotation. I want to keep it 32 frames total for optimization, because I want to put it in a game.

I suppose that you want to make a 32 frame duration loop.
To make a sequence loop fade in the sequence and over it, fade out the same sequence but with an offset so that the first frame and the last frame of the loop are the same.
To use the tornado loop as example:
In the Video Sequence Editor
(Shift-A) Add the Image Sequence and
(Shift-A) Add an Effect Strip>Speed Control (Stretch and Interpolation On).
Drag the end of the sequence strip to stretch it to the desired length.
Duplicate it and offset (Drag) it so the first frame of the sequence is the same as the last one in the timeline (this is a must for a smooth fade).
Select an effect strip, shift-select the other and with the effect strips selected (NOT the sequences) add a Transition>Cross.
Stretching to half speed you have this:

In the timeline the first and last frames show the same sequence image, while the top sequence fades out, the bottom one fades in.
If you decide to stretch to a slower speed, you may choose a different section of the sequence but make sure you see the same frame at the begining and the end of the timeline.
EDIT:
This is the method explained in a simple way.
You may have noticed that being the same the first and the last images of the loop, it freezes a frame when the loop restarts.
A simple solution for a 32-frame loop is doing the above but in a 33 frame timeline and render only the first 32 frames (in animation is common practice to key the loops at frame 0 and render from frame 1).

Awesome, thanks! That worked. So basically the key was the interpolation. That will do the work of fading between the frames on the stretched sequence. Then I can simply place the 2 sequences end to end with an overlap that has the length of the original sequence.

I had to modify the workflow just a bit, since this method will will not work for images with alpha channels, so I used the shader editor for the cross fading.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How to make a spherical gradient texture "concave"?
I have a spherical gradient texture in one of my materials, and I would like to make it concave, kinda like a banana or boomerang shape:

However, I couldn't find a solution, the vector curves node doesn't allow for this:

Volumetrics:
The result I'd like to reach is a sort of upside down bowl shape. Currently the shape in 3D space looks like this:

But that's kinda hard to see, so here it is in mesh form, it's like a disk with 2 opposite points on its circumference pushed down:

This is the shape I'd like to get:

See the difference between them for more clarity:

Updated .blend:

Do you want a hard cut-off as in your geometric illustrations, or a fuzzy one?

A fuzzy one, it's needed for combining it with other procedural textures.

You could 'model' your bowl as the difference between two spheres:

The origins and Z-scale of the spheres can be adjusted to make them more or less ellipsoid, and cut into one another at different levels. This is what the internal Mapping nodes do. The Less Than and Greater Than nodes determine the overall diameter of the spheres. The whole lot can be shifted and/or scaled using the Mapping node before those groups. It's just for convenience.
This is the result:

To soften this, you would swap out the Less Than and Greater Than nodes for a Range Mapping of the absolute difference between the Lengths and the current Threshold values, to a range from 0 to 1, clamped.
To make a fuzzy version, use Map Range nodes to make fuzzy spheres, and subtract one fuzzy sphere from the other fuzzy sphere.

It's harder to see that it's bowl-shaped.. but it is...

It's got a bit late for me, here,  to make the fuzzy version.. I'll get to it if you haven't. As I'm sure you've figured, it's pretty difficult to light /  illustrate the soft version...

Great stuff! And very elegant as well. Thanks! And yeah I think I need help with the fuzzy version when you have time :)

@Geri.. see edit. Blend file replaced.

Perfect, thanks!

Create a circle using gradient texture node set to spherical.
Then, insert a sep xyz node. We need to make two lines. Equation of first line is y-x=0. Put it like this:

Now, create second line using equation y+x = 0 like this:

Make sure you do it the correct order otherwise it may be wrong.
Now, insert math node and set it to "smooth maximum". And insert both outputs of the lines to the smooth maximum like this:

Set the distance to 0.6:

Now, add another math node and set it to smooth minimum. Then connect the output of the gradient texture node to the first socket and the smooth maximum node output to the second socket. Then after the smooth minium , add a map range node and just set it to smoother step for smooth gradient.
End result after tweaking things:

Please see the blend file attached. I have marked the tweaks I did in blue color. Thanks!

Awesome! This is exactly what I wanted and it has all the controls to fine-tune its shape to my exact needs. Thanks a lot! (not gonna mark as answer just yet, curious to see if there'll be other answers, but this is already perfect)

No problem dude! Thanks for such kind words! You are an awesome guy

Well, I've been trying to implement it to my material, but I've seem to have run into a bit of an issue. See, I actually wanted this as a 3D volumetric material, as a sort of upside-down bowl. But I've been struggling with it. Can you also help with that?

I haven't played with volumes so I don't think I can help with that but I will try and let you know ok

Are you talking about displacement? I am very familiar with displacement

Can you describe your issue? Maybe that can help.

Yes, I updated the question.

Woah. This looks very hard for me.

Yeah, I thought maybe it could be done like you spun that cross section on the plane around 360° somehow?

Sorry I can't understand can u plz elaborate

I don't know much about volumetrics so i may not be of much help

Let's wait for an answer by someone else.

I kinda found a solution, see my answer. It's messy though, would be nice to find a cleaner solution.

Well, I kinda found a solution:

Iterated on @Kifayat's node tree, but it's really messy now, and not very elegant.

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


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Volumetrics clip through objects, they always render in front of everything
 (shown material)
I'm really not sure what causes this, I have several volumetric objects in my scene, but this one renders always in front, as you can see below:

The first very obvious thing I tried was to change the volumetrics clipping values, but they didn't really solve the problem consistently. Sometimes you can see the volume through objects, sometimes you can't. This may also be caused by the fact that it's an emission shader that's plugged into the volume socket of the material output, but I'm not sure, as I tried swapping out it for a principled volume shader and the problem persisted.
If you know what's causing this, please let me know!
Thanks!
 (comparison with 2 materials)

I'm afraid this is an limitation for Eevee... If you try to see what is happening when testing "is camera ray" from "light path" node, that makes no effect in the context of this shader node tree.

Interesting, so why don't any other objects with volumetrics have this issue in my scene? This is rather silly to be honest, stuff just shows through solid faces. Have you checked out the actual material in the .blend file? Maybe there's something wrong with it that I'm unaware of?

Could you upload a scene with this object and one of these other objects? for comparison. I need to precise: i'm not sure at all about this possibly Eevee limitation (just seems to be).

Added it to the OP, but now I'm 100% totally confused about this, the volumetrics just act totally inconsistent. Now, even the other one shows through sometimes, and the first one doesn't seem to all of a sudden. Uhh, I really don't know what's going on here.

It occurs too, but less visible for some reasons: https://i.sstatic.net/1ppiG.jpg

Probably because it's not emissive like the other one. I actually scaled the nebula one way down, and the other one up a bit, so maybe that plays a role as well somehow, I really have no idea.

I've seen the impact of scaling, but have not yet decrypted all your node setting. For now, have no idea too. And by the way, the wall has inverted normals, but this is not the matter here (no impact).

When I connect only Emission into Volume sockets its still blinking throught a wall. So its not a material it self. Distance between objects make a difference. Visible from 0 to 4.45m, above its gone ... also decreasing Render Properties > Volumetrics> End fix somehow issue, but moving wall closer to emitter I had to decrease more ...

Well, in my specific case reducing the end value way down did fix the issue. The only thing I need to look out for is to not get too close to the volume. You can make this an answer if you'd like to.

No surely, no. You can answer yourself if you want. I've though about reducing the end value, but this works only if pov is constant.. so, to me, this is not the good solution (if there is one).

This is due to how renderers process depth. Basically they squish all depth into a range between 0 and 1. With large ranges, rounding errors will create visual glitches like clipping. You may already be familiar with this in the viewport and cameras for the view range of geometry, but volumetrics also use this. I'm not sure why volumetrics are so much worse at this, but the way to fix it is by giving blender less information to cram in.
This means reducing the range where it renders volumetrics or increasing the number of samples. Both of these settings are in render > volumetrics.
Renderers bias toward objects closer to the camera so increasing the lower value is the best way to improve results. You might also be able to get results from the distribution slider which I think changes the bias on the renderer but I haven't been able to get anything out of it.
TLDR: Reduce the volumetric render range and increase samples.


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How to create a "heat distortion" effect with a cycles procedural node set up without compositing
I know how to do a heat distortion effect in compositing.
What I am looking for is a way to do the same effect with a material set up in cycles.
What would be the best way to create a procedural material that can be placed in front of any object and make it look like heat is rising in front of it (without compositing)?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I've never done it before but I remembered a tutorial from Andrew Price. It's from 2010, so it might be a little outdated in terms of Blender's UI but it still covers the nuts and bolts. https://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/how-to-create-heat-distortion/

Hi icYou. This is  an interesting question and it's definitely possible as a material. The trick is to add a plane between the objects and the camera and to either vary the IOR or the Normal based on a noise texture. This answer http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/19298/29586 does get most of the way there but it doesn't allow for changing angles between the camera, object, and plane. I think I've got a solution using the Incoming geometry node output into the Refraction shader normal (so the rays are always treated as perpendicular) with variation based on a noise texture.

While it's not possible to vary the refraction throughout an object using volumetrics we can mimic the effect by varying the refraction at points on a surface and view the scene through that surface.
The Refraction shader affects the ray at the point of hitting the surface. If the ray hits the front of the surface then it is treated as a transition from air (IOR = 1.0) into the material, while if it hits the back of a surface then it is calculated as exiting the material back into air. Normally the ray would travel through the mesh, entering through one surface (bending one way) and exiting through another (bending the other way), resulting in the material acting like a prism. However, if we use a plane rather than a manifold mesh then only one side of the refraction effect takes place and we can use this to redirect the ray - as if it had passed through a lower density patch of air.
Refraction is dependent on the angle the ray hits the surface - with zero refraction if it's incident along the Normal and increasing refraction as the angle with the normal increases. We can use the 'Incident' Light Path property to determine the angle of the incoming ray and use this to manipulate the Normal of the surface to get the desired bending of the ray.
To achieve the effect, create a plane and add a new material to it. Open the node editor, remove the default Diffuse shader and replace it with a Refraction shader. Add a Geometry node and link the Incoming node with the Refraction shader Normal. This will mean that the Normal at any point in the shader will always be the same angle as the incident ray and will result in the surface behaving simply as if it were a Transparent shader (as all rays will hit it along the Normal and so no refraction will take place).
Add a Bump node between the Geometry node and the Refraction Shader to affect the distortion and feed this with your heat map as a series of images. Placing the plane between the camera and your scene will now distort the view to simulate heat haze distortion.

Note the addition of a Transparent shader mixed in for Shadow rays to prevent the distortion plane from casting a shadow. Also, ensure the Refraction shader colour is set to pure white.
For the heat map you can either use a Blender smoke simulation saved to a sequence of images or generate simulated smoke using a procedural texture. I used the following crudely generated heat map. This was generated using a Musgrave texture (and some noise), warped so as to taper towards the top, and masked off at the sides. It was animated by simply keyframing the Z-coordinate for the vector of the texture nodes.

This produced the following result :

See the attached blend files for details.
Heat Haze
Heat Map

WOW Rich! great job. That works perfect! much better than what I came up with. Thank you for going into so much detail about it. I will make sure I mark this as answered.

You're very welcome - glad I could help.

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


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What are all the possible string you can use for bl_context?
Based on the lists of inputs for bl_space_type and bl_region_types I'm assuming there is a set of special strings that you can input for bl_context correct? When I look at the doc I see

TODO: explain the possible combinations
  bl_context/bl_region_type/bl_space_type)

EDIT: The Todo has since been removed and the options are documented.

where in the UI or python type space is "bl_space_type" and "bl_region_types" ?

''bl_space_type'' and ''bl_region_types'' are keys that allow you to define the context of new UI panels in the BPY.

Op here I found the answer here at the bottom of this Blender3D Noob to Pro, right after I posted this question. I guess I should of done a tiny bit more research haha.

bl_context    "mesh_edit", "curve_edit", "surface_edit", "text_edit",
  "armature_edit", "mball_edit", "lattice_edit", "posemode",
  "sculpt_mode", "weightpaint", "vertexpaint", "imagepaint",
  "particlemode", "objectmode"

After spending a bit trying to find an updated list I had to peek into the source code to find an answer.
This link should show the currently updated list:
https://github.com/blender/blender/search?q=data_mode_strings
As of 2022 the list is:
[   "mesh_edit",           "curve_edit",          "surface_edit",        "text_edit",
    "armature_edit",       "mball_edit",          "lattice_edit",        "posemode",
    "sculpt_mode",         "weightpaint",         "vertexpaint",         "imagepaint",
    "particlemode",        "objectmode",          "greasepencil_paint",  "greasepencil_edit",
    "greasepencil_sculpt", "greasepencil_weight", "greasepencil_vertex"]

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


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Lifetime and/or age Info not working?
So, I was trying the particle system in Blender 2.8 for the first time and made a simple changing color depending on the age of the particle.
After many many tweaks, the color still doesn't change.
I would like to know if the Particle Info node isn't working properly or am I just making a mistake.
I'll leave a screenshot of the nodes I'm using and the (wrong) output I'm having.

Thanks in regard!

I upvoted, but voted to close as unclear what you're asking. The exact same node setup works as expected. Perhaps your lifetime is to large to view the change? Are you in rendered view mode? Are you using cycles (I added the tag)? The ParticleInfo node doesn't work with EEVEE.

@Leander Shouldn't it turn blue in the end? Because the higher particles are close to the end of their lifetime.
The lifetime I choose was 20

Yes, please look at the image I posted in my first comment (the first link). I replicated the exact same nodes which you have and got the desired result.

@Leander I see the results in your set of nodes is the desired one, but, if I'm not mistaken, this was replicated in a version prior to 2.8.
I might be doing something wrong but in my file, the output is constantly green.
The question was "if the Particle Info node isn't working in Blender 2.8" because of this particular incorrect result, that in other version would work (2.79 as reference).
Hope I explained myself in a clear way

It is the same in 2.8. Check the blend-file, you can open it in 2.79 and 2.8. The particle node works in 2.8 but only with cycles.

@Leander Apparently, from time to time and file to file it works.
Your file worked, I created a new one and it worked but in the original still hasn't worked. And it's out of nowhere that it does. So, not sure what conclusion I should get

Upload your file here. Then others can check it.

@Leander No, actually I got it. The render engine was Eevee instead of cycles.
When I read your comment I thought you were refering to the display in the viewport, but now I get it.
Sorry to bother and thanks for the explanation and the time you took to help me

I added "EEVEE" to your tags and added an answer.

The particle info node does not work with EEVEE.
From the manual

Particle Info Node
Cycles Only

Switch to the Cycles Render Engine and your node setup will give the expected result.


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Is is possible to create an animatable morph between two lines?
I'm trying to create a morph/blend as seen in the second image, but instead of beeing the same line from start to end I want them to be like the first image different lines A and B. The result has to be animatable so I can move a vertex of the line A or B and Blender updates the inbetween-lines during animation.
Is this possible?

Shapekeys sound like a useful tool here, but as far as I know there is no native way to achieve what you want without some script of some form

You could use the Animation Nodes Addon.
Create the a shapekey, morphing from A (Basis) to B (Key 1).
The (in animation nodes) instance them with the Object instancer and vary the shapekey value in a loop. Remember to check Deep Copy, otherwise all mesh are going to have the same shapekey value.


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How do I pan the view in Blender?
I'm trying to navigate in Blender, but I can't pan around the scene.

do you mean pan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panning_(camera))? What version of Blender are you using? What have you tried (UI, mouse/keyboard combinations)?

Yes, Sazerac, it's what I need to do... And don't find...

Which version of blender and keymap are you using? 2.8 has a different default keymap which changes some of the view navigation controls.

See https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/interface/keymap/industry_compatible.html and https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/3dview/navigate/navigation.html depending on your version.

Shift + Middle mouse to "pan"

Hold ⇧ Shift MMB and drag the mouse to pan Blender 2.8 Release Candidate.

If you are using Blender 2.8, you may be using the new industry compatible keymap, in which case, you pan by holding Alt and  MMB and dragging your mouse.
Otherwise you can use Shift and  MMB with the old default keymap.


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Blender Freestyle : Vertical lines
On Blender Freestyle documentation, a picture is shown with two Suzannes made of vertical/horizontal lines.

Click to enlarge
How to reproduce this effect with Blender Freestyle? Using modifiers? Custom shaders?

That would be easy to achieve with a basic cycles shader. Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/76141/a-mishmash-of-questions-about-lighting-and-messing-with-parallel-line-textures

The contour lines are genuine mesh edges auto-generated by a Blender/Python script as described in the following blog post:
Blenderyard: Contour Lines as in Maps
The script implements a new operator named 'Slices'.  Put the script into a text datablock in Blender and run it by pressing the 'Run Script' button, and the operator will be registered.  If you have an active mesh object, then running the script for the first time will apply the operator to the mesh object.  Then the operator can be invoked using the spacebar search menu and looking up the 'Slices' operator.  The operator allows you to change the vertical interval of contour lines.

While the original image was generated by 'slicing' the original model (as detailed in @T.K.'s answer) an alternative method is to use the compositor as described in Create Topography Map Lines.
Using the same method produces the following result for a Suzanne model :


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Folding a box with bones
Can anyone help me with this simple rigging animation. I want to fold a piece, but my bones would not stick to the edges, what do I wrong? I am very new to blender.
I'll explain the problem from the beginning:
I would like to make an animation of a display. I am very new to Blender, so I have to learn a lot. To start I would like to make one part of the whole display. It is a tray.

I exported this from Illustrator as a SVG file. When I import this in Blender and tried to make a mesh of it, but it will not be a flat part.

How can I solve this problem first? After that I have to extrude it and use shift K to make the dieline? And add bones to make it move?
Do you recommend this way?
I've added the Blender file with the imported SVG file.

Hi. You need to explain your problem, if you wish to get good answers. The better you explain, what is it that you are struggling with, the better the answers. Pictures and screenshots would also be usefull.

Hi, you are right! I'll make a better explanation with pictures in a moment!

Sarah, from what you write I get the feeling that you are completely new to Blender. There is nothing wrong with being new, but I am afraid you will not be able to skip the learning part if you wish to use Blender. I would suggest starting with at least some basic modelling tutorials on YouTube. You will need to learn how to create your model first, rigging will be the next step after that, however, you may not necessarily need a rig for simple animations not involving organic deformations.


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Cycles Displacement Socket performance considerations
Preface -- I'm not a skilled C-language coder at all, just a hobbyist-artist. This is an absolute newbie question involving Cycles code, and I was referred here by staff at CGCookie.
Question: In the Cycles material node setup, the only displacement socket is the input socket in the final output node. I can see a use for intermediate nodes (separate from the material output node) to incorporate their own displacement "output" and "input" sockets, for things such as generating derived normals, the way various deform/generate modifiers appear to. [In other words, chaining several render-time displacements together as if they were modifiers in the mesh modifier stack, which is more accurate than linear adding of texture maps.]
If even a more skilled coder attempted such a thing -- would it be certain to introduce significant performance impacts; would the existing code structure even allow for it? Could it be done at the Python scripting level instead of hitting the C-level code?
This is my first time on any Stack Exchange site. If my question is poorly formed or if this is the incorrect venue for it, I can take advice on improving my approach for any future questions. Thank you to any and all who have read this far. [EDIT] (The intended output is the micropolygon dicer, not an image file.)

Which would output to what? An image for example?

Examples might confuse the issue, but here goes. Two textures to apply, one displaces a flat plane, creating hills; other extrudes blocks perpendicular to hill curves. Combining textures with add nodes won't work; the second texture projects straight from the Z axis of the original plane, causing sharp skewed blocks instead of right-angles. Applying the hills-texture with a displace_modifier can work, but increases the mesh vertex count. Giving material nodes intermediate output-input sockets for chaining displacement textures is the idea I had, but the viability of coding it is unknown to me.

"Which would output to what?" @qwazix, The output would be the micropolygon dicing engine, the input would be a plane and two textures that must be in serial, not simply added together and saved as a new image. That's why the derived normals are necessary.  Ran out of room and edit time to add this in my previous comment.

Ok this explains it. Unfortunately I don't really know how to answer your question in that case. A dig in the code might help.


text:
Blender 2.8 Saving Add-on With Text Editor
I got this code from my info window when I rotate my object at a certain angle:
bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value=-0.744767, orient_axis='Y', orient_type='GLOBAL',
 orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL',
 constraint_axis=(False, True, False), mirror=True, proportional='DISABLED',
 proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, release_confirm=True)

How do I save this as an add-on once I paste it in the text editor?
I'd like to map it to a hotkey afterwards so I can perform it often.

This would require a tutorial, keep in mind that Blender 2.8 API is not finalized yet, it's being amended a lot recently, and there's really no documentation and many features are still not made yet.

Thank you for the honest response. So I take it there is no tutorial available right now to find out how to save it to a button?

No, that's not what I meant, I'm sure there is a way, but since the API will most probably see further modification, there's a chance that any development you do now, might not work later. I developed an addon for 2.7X amended it for 2.8 a month ago, then after a more recent update it stopped working.

Ah, got it. Well, putting updates and future problems aside, do you have any ideas how to accomplish this at the moment? I've spent the last 5 days watching every tutorial I could find on how to do this, but so far I haven't found any tutorial that answers this problem.
Thank you for your time-

I don't have my computer in front of me ATM, but you can check python templates in the text editor, there are many templates of UI elements, but you need to have some knowledge in python, and Blender API (bpy), also keep in mind that some code in the info listener might not run in the console or scripts, Blender uses python as an intermediate language, the core is written in C and some parts in C++, for instance, if you change the transform orientation, you'll see in the listener something like bpy.context.scene.type = "GLOBAL" , if you copy paste this in a script and run, you'll get an error


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Cant paste flipped pose properly
I cant properly flip the pose in dope sheet. I created the 1st half of the walking sequence, now im trying to flip it using shift+ctrl+c(in gif). The problem is it doesnt even paste everything. I tried duplicating it then mirroring it(in gif), i tried to flip it on the x axis.
[]

hello, you need to check the bones name and their orientation, but maybe share your file: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

I added the project. The bone names and orientation are right in my opinion. I hope you can help me :D

what do you mean by "it doesn't paste everything"? It seems to work fine actually...

if you look at the first part of the GIF youll see that i selected everything, copied it, then ctrl+shift+v, but it only pasted the hips, torso, chest and neck keyframes

Yes. It works now. I read somewhere that the L/R/Left/Right can be wherever as long as they have a dot or a space between words, so i just typed it as it felt natural to type (ex:left foot, left finger)

Ok I've never heard it was possible to use prefixes, but it looks like they haven't implemented them everywhere  ;)

You've called your bones Left_Shoulder and Right_Shoulder (prefixes), and so on for the other bones, instead of Shoulder_L and Shoulder_R (suffixes). Actually I was a bit surprised that you were able to copy flip with this kind of terminology. That said, it looks like in the Dopesheet, with CtrlC and ShiftCtrlV you still need to use suffixes. I guess it's something they have forgotten to fix: Either you can use prefixes everywhere or you can't, or I miss something...

I added the project. The bone names and orientation are right in my opinion. I hope you can help me :D

please don't use the Your Answer field, it's only for people to give answer, instead use the "add a comment" function

... and copy link to your blend into your Qeustion via "Edit", Thank you

yea... i missclicked

Thank you :) Do you have a privilage to delete this Answer? Please do it. Thank you

i dont really know how. it is the first time using this site, and i cant see a "delete answer" button


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How do you move the last bone with IK without it rotating?
I have a line of 3 bones, and I want to be able to move the last bone, without it rotating, but I also want to be able to manually rotate it outside of IK. How do I do this?
I want to be able to move the last bone in this chain, like in this picture, without it rotating.

hello, maybe create a second IK instead of creating a chain of 3 bones?

What do you mean a second IK? Sorry, I'm very new to rigging let alone IK, I just know how to turn on IK for a bone, and set the chain length for how far back it effects the rig.

please show some picture of your armature or even share a part of your armature, it will help to understand what you want

https://imgur.com/a/NQExBJ9
The red circle is a ball joint, I want to be able to move the plunger head around on the end of the arm without it rotating, but NOT lock it's rotation such that I couldn't separately rotate it.

maybe edit your question and go more in detail, show some pictures of what your want your object to do and not do

I've added the new image to the question, but it's nothing I haven't already asked

so do you want something like that? https://zupimages.net/up/21/26/rk6c.gif

Yes, exactly that :) I'm guessing you parented the separate bone to the yellow bone?

So if you're looking for that:

Bone 3 has the IK constraint with a Chain Length of 1, its Target is Bone 2. Bone 2 is deparented. Bone 1 is parented to Bone 2. Bone 1 has a Copy Location constraint with Bone 3 as Target, and a Head/Tail value of 1.

As for your second question, if you want a sliding piston, what you could do is the following setup:

Bone 1 is parented to Bone 2 and has a Copy Location with Bone 3 as Target and Pose Space/Pose Space. Bone 2 is deparented. Bone 3 is parented to Bone 2 and has a Damped Track with Bone 4 as Target and Track Axis > Y, and a Limit Distance with Bone 4 as Target, World Space/World Space, set the good Distance value. Bone 4 is parented to Bone 5 and has a Damped Track with Bone 2 as Target.

I have it working, thank you! The bit that caught me up was that the copy location part. The location doesn't have a target option, but the rotation I have been trying with does. I set the mix to add, and inverted the axis' and this has the same effect as in the gif.

for the Location constraint, I forgot to tell to put the Head/Tail value to 1, it should work

Ah, thank you. I do have another feature one part of this rig needs to have, added onto this, but it's something that is fine being manual if needed. Imagine that bone 3 needs to be extendable up to 300mm. I have that working manually using 2 bones in the place of the single bone 3, with the one connected to bone 1 having a location restraint, but is it possible to make this extension automatic? (As shown here: https://imgur.com/xQjqZhu)

I won't have time to answer right now, maybe ask a new question with all the details

@JackHainsworth, I've tried a solution, see my edit

Ah thank you, I’ll try it out when I get to my computer. I tried and got somewhere last night, but the biggest issue was the Pose Space orientation. I couldn’t find one that made it rotate and move correctly.

I'm trying it now. Does it still need the IK for this to work?

no, no IK this time

Is bone 1 physically attached to bone 3? I can't get either to move using the instructions above, unless they're deparented

Bone 1 is parented to Bone 2, oh and Bone 3 is parented to Bone 2 as well, I've edited my answer


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Beginner's help with topology? (Extruding and beveling letters)
I know I'm terrible at topology, but that's because I don't know how to properly approach it. All I read is quads = good, ngons & tris = bad. But I'm terrible at looking at a shape and being able to break it down into something I can make. For example, I'm toying around with letters, and trying to figure out how to make them better.
Can anyone advise me on how to approach these letters? (Or just letters/shapes with holes in them, etc). I know it's not that efficient, but as I said, I don't know how to do this. Any help is appreciated (or any good materials to learn this).
Also, the 'T' is stylized like that, just fyi.

you don't always need quads, it really depends on your final goal, what do you want to do with your letters?

I'd eventually like to extrude them, bevel them, and then wrap them around a cylindrical object, and have that object rotate. Honestly, I'm just having a hard time getting the letters to bevel nicely, and I think it's because of my topology.

You have 2 ways:
Converting your letters to mesh and working the topology so that it works fine when you bevel, but in your case it's more a matter of how your topology is than a problem of tris and ngons. Here I've made a X > Limited Dissolve and tried a bevel, then create new edges where I saw that the bevel failed:

Or keeping your letter vectorial and giving it extusion and bevel in the Properties panel > Object Data > Geometry, then converting it to mesh (then, same thing, you can simplify the topology with a X > Limited Dissolve):

Thank you very much for your help! So for method 1, when you look at the letter B for example, do you tell yourself that you need to rework the topology so that you have an edge that flows all the way around the B? Or do you split the B in half (so like two capital D's on top of each other) and try to get the edge flow to fit the D shape? I'm just having such a hard time wrapping my head around where I need to place verts & edges.. -__-

I just made a X > Limited Dissolve, then tested the bevel and looked at where it failed, then created some edge loops with J (to join) or K (knife, K to activate, Z to cut through, C to cut orthogonally) in order to avoid the overlappings


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Problem with Nishita in Eevee
I followed this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KFIs5qip-g& and my car started moving. When I wanted to configure the lighting, I get a warning that Nishita is not available on Eevee. I'm new to making animations so I don't know what to do.

Yes Nishita doesn't work for Eevee so you either need to switch to the Cycles motor engine (in the Render panel) or use another background for your World

Nishita doesn't work for Eevee (follow moonboots's suggestions) ... if you really want to use Nishita result you can easily render it in Cycles as Panoramic > Equirectangular texture ....

... in OpenEXR 32-bit format ...

... and use it as World texture to light a scene in Eevee.

Cycles – Scene lighted by Nishita node

Cycles - Scene lighted by Rendered Texture

Eevee - Scene lighted by Rendered Texture

... without additional light source like Sun object. To light scene in Eevee with HDRi use Irradiance Volume object with baked Indirect Lightning. A bit tricky with shadows, but it can works in some cases.

This will work in many cases, possibly most, but be aware of the differences between using a Nishita sky and using an HDR and yes, that includes HDRS derived from a Nishita sky.

It's kind of a weird question and an even weirder answer, IMHO. Nishita is a procedural generated texture, and an HDRI is a baked texture. End of story. There's virtually no end-result difference between using Nishita alone and the same Nishita baked into an HDRI. The rest is only the difference between procedurally generated content and baked data content. It's like asking the difference between the gradient node and the image texture node.

Should have mentioned I was reacting to @MartyFouts comment. Too bad we can't edit them.

@L0Lock  The difference between Nishita computation and a simple HDRI is that once you make the Nishita into an HDRI its light contribution to a scene no longer has an atmospheric scattering factor.  This doesn't matter in scenes where the distance between the camera and farthest objects is small, like the above example, and is only apparent in scenes where atmospheric haze would be visible.

@MartyFouts ... ? Please, can you share blend example to avoid other misunderstanding? Probably the best attach this file to your mentioned link?Thank you a lot


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How to make bevel square with bevel curve?
I am trying to make a bevel square that will be used in a grid.

I want the following results controlled by two parameters:

Bevel Amount = 0 / 0.5 / 1
Bevel Curve = 0

Bevel Amount = 0.5
Bevel Curve = -1 / 0 / 1

This seems to be working ...

Notes:

Math > Add > Value 0.000001
Float Curve > X 0.25, Y 0.75
for each Group Input socket you can setup Default / Min / Max values, like you mentioned Bevel Min 0 Max 1 and Curve Min -1 Max 1).


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Particle aim direction geometry nodes
My goal is import crowd particle data from Maya to Blender, but I'm stuck at how to find aim direction from each particle, because all points not pointing at the velocity direction.
I try this workflow:

export particle cache (nparticle) via ABC
in Blender import that Alembic
then using geometry node point instance to add some object instance

abc format has .velocities attribute under modifier, but when I tried to use this attribute as vector under geometry nodes, the "Group Input" socket plugged into Viewer node is zero ... so I'm not sure if there is something to be used ... or I could misunderstood the velocity usage :)

In theory ... there probably could be a way to generate from vertex a point for each frame, connect by curve spline as motion trail and let follow instances this curve spline ... ?

Velocity Attribute

connect Vector input socket of Align Euler to Vector node directly to empty socket of Group Input, it will automatically set socket type as Vector.

go to Modifiers and under Geometry Nodes > Input click on icon and then click into empty field and select Point>Velocity

Tested on an one of the developer's .abc file used as proof of implementation.
Note: Alembic's velocity was implemented in 2020, but due unification of handling velocity data, this feature wasn't available for 2.93 and some versions above (A velocity was available only for objects changing point count, like a fluid.)
It is back in 3.6+ (thanks Leander for the comment) ... maybe earlier, I don't know from what version, so just a notification if you need to use some older blender in between those mentioned versions it is miss there :)
For 3.6+ I had to switch vector direction. You can use ...

Vector Math node > Scale -1 or
under Instance on Points node set Scale for XYZ -1
(It probably make a more sense, since velocity is a forward force.)

Works still/again in 3.6 Don't delete.

@Leander Thanks for letting me know :) Great ... Edited.

Currently a velocity atribute is not part of .abc file. Velocity is stored only for mesh sequence like fluid, because there is not any other way to calculate velocity due vertex amount change.
For more info read here.

For particles exported as vertices is kept vertex ID and continuity from frame to frame. It means you can calculate velocity from previous/next vertex position.
As workaround you would have to duplicate object and under Constraint Properties > Transform Cache > set Frame Offset 1 (don't forget to make this data block unique).
Then you can use Geometry Nodes to calculate velocity from previous vertex position by Transfering Attribute from the duplicated object and Subtract vector from original object.

With particles it works in the same way ...


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Quick Smoke goes weirdly flat at default settings (2.93.4)
Basically, the Quick Smoke seems to behave as if it was contained within a cube, with the smoke going flat a little over the emitter object, even though there's no cube in the scene other than the Domain itself. I haven't changed any settings.

Do you use also default scene so you can be sure there is not any hidden obstacle object? Bottom part seems to be blocky thanks to low resolution, but top flat smoke looks like end of domain. Please share your file https://blend-exchange.com/ if issue persists?

Yes, I've been using the default scene. In fact, here's a Quick Smoke done using the default Cube of all things. https://blend-exchange.com/b/w8bPb4sm

which blender version are you using? It works perfectly fine to me when I opened your file

It's in the name of the question, 2.93.4

Okay, after you said that it works on your end, I figured it out. Turns out that, for SOME REASON the WiggleBone addon breaks Quick Smoke, even though it should only interact with armatures.

Okay, after MikoCG said that it works on their end, I figured it out. Turns out that, for SOME REASON the WiggleBone addon breaks Quick Smoke, even though it should only interact with armatures.


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Hide emission plane and walls/floor in render
In the image, you see I have a mech, a emission plane and floor and walls to reflect the light. Now I am ready to render, but I do not want the emission plane or floor/walls in the render.  How do I remove them from the render?

A simpler way to do this than with a material like Leander mentioned is you can disable the cycles camera setting on the object found in the object tab of the properties window. Of course, this is faster if you have more materials than objects and the other is easier if you have more objects than materials (because this is a per object setting). If you want to script this, select all objects and run the following in the text editor:
import bpy

for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = obj

    obj.cycles_visibility.camera = False

In cycles, use the Is Camera Ray attribute of the Light Path node. For the camera ray a Transparent BSDF will be rendered, for all other rays the previous shader stays the same.


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Mesh curve to Nurbs
I'm new here. I'm want ask you if there is the possibility to transform the curve that comes from subdivision surface (shown in the photo) in NURBS curve.

I don't think it's possible...

Blender does not have a very good NURBS modelling workflow, and I don't think you will be able to do this.

One option to try is exporting your object in *.OBJ format with the NURBS checkbox ticked, as shown below.

Note that this question says that currently the export only supports Nurbs splines, not surfaces. This is confirmed by the Blender webpage on Wavefront file export.


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Export PBR material for the web
How do I export PBR materials from blender to files formats for web frameworks?
Are there any easy to implement solutions like Verge 3d (I am aware verge 3d exists for Blender), where the node setup created in blender is easily translated. Basically is there a fork of Blender I can run on a browser, like Blender Lite possibly, which can translate basic material setups directly?
Currently, I have to bake all the textures in order to translate them.

I have not heard about any similar solutions... still what's the problem to just use Verge?

Baking complex nodes into a flat texture helps lower-end devices on the web render your content more easily.  Not all battery-powered mobile GPUs are capable of handling complex Blender node setups, but they can easily do texture lookups.  This is why glTF uses textures, not nodes, for example.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures/57541#57541

@Alexander verge as far as I know is not open source like blender, which means I can't edit the end output to my liking although verge is quit a blessing for 3d designers trying to move to the web.

@emackey I agree with you but the workflow still feels like a lot of trial and error to get all the bakes right, however if we had some sort of exporter we might be able to preview things on the web quicker without spending hours getting a good bake. things like noise maps or mixing materials with multiple textures which can be edited on the fly and programmed to change on command.


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Character Foot Pivot
I'm trying to animate this cool looking jump kick, but I'm running into a snag.

At the point where he first turns, he pivots, switching his weight from left to right, while turning on his right foot before taking off and doing the kick.
The problem: When I rotate my character, the foot drags across the floor. I tried adding an Empty as a marker to pivot on, and I adjusted the leg bones frame-by-frame, and it still looks horribly unconvincing.
Is there a way to lock the right foot to a point in space, leaving the other joints in the leg free to move?
Here's the video of the guy doing the kickbif you need to see it slower.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCqlZrwrABY

Can't you use the IK control of the foot?

You can always lock position of the foot controlling bone, but I don't think it's a good idea to do that in this example. As you can see on the video, pivot point of the rotation of the man is rather his lower body/crotch then foot which goes in a circle around this pivot point.


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materials not being rendered
all my materials applied to my model is not being rendered out when i go in for the final render. as shown here. PS look closely its not just a black bachground
the bottom picture is what is suppposed to be rendered

any help would be appreciated

pretty sure you have the same problem as I answered here


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Can I use blender with Azure Nvidia K80 to render using GPU
I am using the K80 Nvidia series on Microsoft Azure and when I try to detect available devices using the script on this thread:
How do I get Cycles to use GPU on a linux server?
I get the following output - I am using Blender 2.78
GPU compute configuration:
Property             Value                Possible Values
Device Type:         NONE                 ['NONE']
Device:              CPU                  ['CPU']

It seems as though blender is not detecting the GPU - is there a way to force this or is it just a compatibility issue?

The problem I was facing was caused by the fact that I hadn't followed the correct setup steps:
1) Use the latest LTS Ubuntu image (16.04) - I was using 14.04
2) Install the correct drivers
Details for using GPU on Azure can be found at:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/virtual-machines/linux/n-series-driver-setup


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How to properly transfer Blender animation to Maya?
I found this Curiosity rover from NASA, which is actually animated and is in blender format. I want to use this rover in my personal student showreel. That's the reason I want it to export, along with textures and animation to Maya for lighting and render passes kind of stuff.
I tried doing export, in FBX, but in Maya when I opened it. The result outputs something like this:

Is there any step I'm missing? Am I not exporting the animation properly?
I tried researching on the internet about this, but the only thing I found was opposite of it (Maya to Blender). The nearest question I found is How to transfer rigged model from Blender to Maya?. Even if it is about rigging, it says rigs can't be exported to Maya. In that case, can I bake the animation and export?
I have found similar post on Reddit. But it's unclear how to do it. FBX file exported from blender doesn't show up in MAX's import dialog.
EDIT 1:
If everything fails, can I export stationary model (with texture) to Maya?

How about baking animation and then sending? Or just transfer model with textures and no animation?


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Particles falling through plane with collider
I have particles coming out of an extruded half circle on top of a plane but they keep falling through even though I have a collider on in the plane. How do I fix this?

First thing that comes to mind is that you need to make sure that the emitter and the collision object need to share the same layer for them to affect each other in physics simulations. From your screenshot it looks like you are using at least two layers, so maybe that's it?


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Images with Alpha look different when layered in compositor compared to Photoshop
I'm struggling to get the same result in the Blender node editor when layering images with transparency, to the result I get when doing the same in Photoshop.
The Blender result is shinier/washed out compared to the result from Photoshop (see below).
The blend file can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B54MopLgZnccM2VnVWVTLUxlNUk/view?usp=sharing
I've played around with Premultiplied and Straight Alpha, tried 32 bit pngs, mix nodes and Alpha Over nodes, and pulling out my hair, but haven't been able to find the answer.

Thanks for any help!
Mark.

Thanks @cegaton for the link. I'm not sure if it's colour/monitor issue, as the Blender result looks the same in both Blender and Photoshop, as does the Photoshop result. I've also tried saving the overlay with and without the ICC profile, but this didn't fix the issue either. I will keep investigating the colour profile anyway...

Photoshop has a non-linear reference space typically, and as such, all blends are wrong.
Blender's compositor on the other hand, uses a strictly linearized reference space, and alpha overs, assuming you are using associated alpha and the Alpha over node, are correct.
Nonlinear Over:

Linearized Over:

Thanks Troy. That seems like a good answer, though not one I was hoping for. :-) Do you know if there's a way to ask Blender to not be so strict on the linears?

No. You actually always want this. See https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-6sF9XjjZclJ43NDi4fAelVybeCZpp7mOiA2wpxlitA/edit?usp=docslist_api if you don't understand why. Photoshop has a hack "linear blend" mode. Fundamentally, you always want linearized blends. If you absolutely want broken backwards blending, use an alpha over in the VSE. Awful idea however.

Do different colour profiles effect how the alpha is treated? Because all of the colour in the image that is fully opaque is identical in Photoshop and Blender. I would have thought that if it was a colour profile issue, all of the colours would be different, not just the alpha. But I don't know much about colour profiles.

It isn't a colour profile issue if the two colour spaces are identical. It has to do with how light mixes, which is a linear radiometric effect. Photoshop and other anachronistic image editing tools are nonlinear, display referred models. This means the blends are nonlinear and, as a result, wrong. Try a fully saturated red star, slightly blurred, over a cyan (blue and green) background. See how broken it is?

A-ha! Thanks for sharing your brains, some really great learnings. I've found if I work in 32 bit mode in Photoshop, I get the same effect as in Blender. Is that the only way to set the light mixes to linear in Photoshop? Thanks!

Yes, but remember in Photoshop that is a hack, and will only pseudo-linearize the operation for sRGB imagery, and only for that operation. It is an anachronistic behemoth with legacy code. It will likely remain that way for a long, long, long broken time.

Ha ha. Poor Photoshop. I also found that, going to Edit > Colour Settings > Blend RGB Colours Using Gamma (1.00) makes the overlay look the same as in Blender too.

You can use a linearized ICC profile as a working space if you are interested. It would require working at at least 16 bits per pixel.

I opened the file, and immediately it looked like the photoshop reference you posted (No mods to your file), see attached.

Your backdrop appears to be set to the PS reference file packed in the .blend?

Yep, sorry, I forgot to mention that I included the Photoshop version in the blend file as well.


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Blender internal - pure white plane with shadows/gloss
I'm trying to do something like this in Blender internal renderer:

Here are some Cycles-solution using, which I'm trying to replicate in Internal:

How do I make a pure white plane that receives shadows?
Render shadow on transparent background with Blender Render

I will be making something very simple, with bouncing balls etc, so I don't need the realistic features of Cycles, and like the render speed of Internal.
So how would I do to make everything white, and only cast simple shadows? So it's kind of like a light box, with only my objects in focus.
I've tried make a bent plane, but it doesn't look white.

I also tried a white Horizon color but this affects the lighting in the scene.

I appreciate any help, and if you can point me to some good material/lighting tutorials for Blender Internal, it would really help. It's so hard to google it, due to the generic name, and most tutorials I can find is using Cycles.
Thanks!

You could try to use "Shadows Only" option in the material's shadow settings

and set horizon color to white in the World tab.
The result looks like this:

This is the blend with such simple setup (I have also enabled Ambient Occlusion effect in the World settings).

Thanks, it worked great. At first everything was white, but I realized I forgot to add the plane. :)

Hi again, is it possible to do this without Ambient Occlusion, and by just using lamps instead to get simple shadows, instead of the more realistic shadows, but still have everything white in the background/plane?

Of course, just add some Lamp (for example a sun) and activate Ray Shadow in it's settings.


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Why is my finger deforming so weirdly and not following the bones?
I have copy rotation from the parent bones, and when I rotate the first bone of one finger, the bones don't follow along 100%, and the mesh deforms horribly.
I think it's something with weight paint, but I can't figure out why this is happening. I've attached the blend file.
Any help appreciated!

did my answer helped you solve your problem?

Yes thanks a lot, this is part of a bigger mesh/armature, so I can't do automatic weighting of it or I will break other parts, but this will help me set up the weights manually in a correct way! Unless there is a way to do Automatic Weighting with just a part of the mesh?

To solve this:

Select your armature in Object Mode
Hit Ctrl+A and Apply Location
Select your mesh then keep holding Shift and select your armature
Hit Ctrl+P and Parent with Automatic Weighting

This will fix your problem as shown below:

Updated .blend file can be found here:


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How to add faces to a cylinder top? (cookie)
I am an absolute beginner, and while completing the donut tutorial I have been trying to model this industrial cookie just for fun.

I have modeled the top cookie as a cylinder, beveled the edge and extruded it to create the border, and added a couple of loop cuts to sharpen rounded angles, and I am at this stage:

Now I would like to sculpt the "shield" (and then carve holes and add text), but the center face has not enough resolution. How can I add enough poligons into that face so that sculpt works?

Hello :). This looks like a job for the Grid Fill function.

Thank you Jachym!

If I were you I would make the text apart, you won't notice it's another mesh, or join it with the rest with some tris. I would just model the ornement then join with the outer circle:

This Moonboots uses cookies Accept ✓ / Refuse ✕ :)

ah ah I even eat them  ;)

How umiliating!!!! :-D
It's wonderful.. Yes I already had the idea of creating the curved text as a separate element (though, I want it "rounded" as i goes up, not with so sharp edges), but... that's the only thing I sort of know how to achieve.
How did you model the ornament? I see you created some poligons "in the big empty area of the cylinder cap", but I don't know how to do that...
You then extruded them (and that is ok), and then "joined" the new faces with the existing ones... This also is something I don't know how to create.

Oh! And... you didn't carve holes in the cookie, did you? I think the chocolate cream splotches are that big on purpose. :-P

yes I dug some holes with extrusions. To fill the inner circle you need to follow the shapes of ornement, then fill the faces. Maybe you should follow some tutos on how reduce topology like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGL6QpVRyXk  or https://topologyguides.com/  If you don't want sharp edge, create bevels and move the edge loops so it doesn't sharp the edges.

and don't cook the chocolate with the biscuit or it will melt

Thanks, will do! At the moment I can't say I understand this last answer because what I do not know is how (which keys and commands) I can create new poligons in the cylinder cap... Unless what you did was to grid fill the whole part and then moving the verteces to mimic the ornament...
But if not, I guess the tutorial you linked will explain everything, thanks!

no grid fill in my case, only edge extrusions, fill edges or faces, knife tool, join vertices... if you don't know all this, maybe follow some very basic tutorials, like Grant Abbit or else...

Ideally, that face should reassemble a grid made out of quads (polygons of 4 vertices) so that when you sculpt it, the resolution is more or less equal along the entire mesh
The fastest way to do so would be to delete that big face on the middle, selecting the edge loop (Alt+Click) corresponding to the face you just deleted and in the face properties menu (Ctrl+F) selecting the option "Grid Fill". If the results are not what's expected, in the redo menu (the small popup that appears after you perform an action on the bottom right of the screen) are some options to adjust the algorithms response.
In classic stackexchange/overflow I will refer you to an older question  and the manual that explain this exact function in a more graphic way.
If you are a beginner this is the simplest yet more correct way i can think of to set you up and running. As you keep learning you will probably need to find more appropriate ways to correctly preparing your mesh for modelling or whatever,providing you with the best results. One step at a time.

Thank you for your suggestion. I could correctly subdivide the face but, as you anticipated, this is not enough for my sculpting need because I selected too little faces and verteces, and therefore when I create a grid it is not enough "detailed", each generated face is still too big and so, not practically sculptable...
In the end I settled for a "remesh" modifier, which I suspect would be a problem to carve the holes for the chocolate cream, but... I don't know how to drill the holes yet. Way to go!
Anyway, thank you for the valuable information!


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Rounded shapes with hard surface modeling (lubricant bottle)
Working in Blender 2.82a and I’m working on my hard surface modeling skills.I keep getting stuck. One of the things I find most difficult, and cannot find many answers too, is how to create something like swirls or rounded indents (don’t really know how else to describe it).
To illustrate what I mean, here is the image of the motor oil packaging I'm trying to recreate. The swirl with the dots is what I have the msot issues with. This is something you also see a lot on laundry detergent packaging or bleach packaging::
To illustrate what I have started to do is this:
1.  Create a cube roughly the shape I need.
2.  Add edge loop, remove half of model, add mirror modifier
3.  Add in subdivision surface modifier
4.  Create supporting edge loops to keep a rounded square appearance
5.  And I thought creating the swirls would not be so difficult. I’ve tried to move the vertices to get a more rounded shape, but I failed. To be more precise, I went around every view and tried to model it exactly how it looks from every view, but I get stuck at making it look more rounded. I thought that maybe something like sculpting would help, but the edges are either not crisp enough, or I can’t get the shape I want. It almost seems so simple that I cannot find anyone talking about this specifically.
Here is were I got to:

As an example something like this would be my goal. Different shape but the same types of swirls and indents I'm looking for:

How do you handle a model like this? I've tried to figure this out for a long time, but I really need someone to at least point me in the right direction. Any help is appreciated!

Here are 2 methods.
You can use the picture of your object as a blueprint and draw its profile on a flat plane, then make some extrusions, bevels to round the edges, etc...

Or you can use a method like yours, directly beginning with a 3D cube, then edge loops and extrude, but you have to keep in mind that you need to go from the general shape to the details, don't begin with details like bevels unless the general shape is good.

Thank you for the explanation and the clear screenshots! I think I got too much into the details and I couldn't see anymore how to get the shape. Having the subdivision added in does not help at this stage either I think. I really need to begin with blocking out the shape.


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Why is my animation fading away?
I made a simple particle simulation where a ball produces particles and the ball follows a path. Unfortunately, when I render my project the whole animation fades away before it is finished.
I have no idea why and what to do about it.
The animation flickers for some reason is well... which is bad.
Here a video:
https://youtu.be/hp5JPoQF_Sw

As you can see the particles are fading away.

 here the file

it's a donut, are you sure it's the good file?

just edited it. Sorry :D now it is the correct link

first thing you have used Time Remapping, it slows down your animation speed, is it what you want? Also, are the Lifetime and Frame End of your Particle System correct? It will make the emission ends at about frame 140...

All of that should be correct. I wanted to speed down the ball. That is why is used Time Remapping.

If I go in Properties panel > Particles > Render > Scale and increase the scale you can see particles until frame 138, so I suppose they are  currently too few and too small to be seen around frame 130?

That is interesting. Before I try it out: Do you still see them in the viewport or in the finished, rendered animation?

Yes I have some bugs sometimes but I don't know why. Actually I think particles work better if you bake beforehand

I guess I need to start over again... as you might see, the colors do not work in the final rendered animation. The whole thing is just weird. Thank you for trying to help me! :)

oh ok it might be because you've assigned a limited time in the particle's material, you should check that, play with the ColorRamp to see if it makes the particles more visible

yeah oh thanks :D

So did it fix the problem?


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Danny Phantom transformation effect
Okay this is a somewhat complex one but basically I want to set up a transformation effect similar to that seen in the mid 00s Cartoon Danny Phantom. For those who were born either too late or too early to have seen the show the effect in question is that the protagonist manifests a ring of light around his waist which splits in half, one travelling up his body, one travelling down, and where the ring has passed allows the character to transform between his hero and civilian form ...

Now using Geometry nodes I have set up the basic concept of how the rings would manifest

Since it is hard to see the node tree essentially it is a mesh primative cylinder, utilizing a bounding box to set the radius and height, with map ranges to transition the rings from 0 to the bounding box value and color ramps affording more control, allowing me to drive the entire effect from a single slider, so the cylinder grows to it's full radius and then grows to encompass the mesh, currently a cub for reference. The cylinder is then converted to rings by deleting the side faces, converting the remaining faces to curves and back to mesh, using a curve circle with another map range/color ramp combo to set it up that the rings grow to their full thickness as they grow to their full radius, then shrink back to nothing by the time it reaches their full height. The end portion is a merge by distance and delete geometry, the latter powered by an edge neighbors node so that, when unneeded, the rings are deleted.
For reference here is the effect with the section converting the cylinder to rings muted.

Now the part that I am asking for help for; Right now what I have rigged up is simply the rings forming and washing over a mesh. What I want is to rig up a transition in which if the mesh, which would be a character with additional mesh such a clothes and hair, would switch between two shaders depending on whether the mesh is inside the cylinder or outside. Now I am aware that I could just rig it up with a set of boolean nodes, one to difference and one to intersection, with one character set up to colour scheme A and one set up to Colour scheme B.
However if possible I would like to achieve an effect similar to what is seen at around the 12:04 mark of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHkLN0QT7as&t=777s in which the transition iteslf is masked by a band of an emission texture on the mesh itself.
Personally I am stumped so I figure I'll ask for help.
For the record the final transition would be controlled by a driver run by a custom property a major bone in the rig so if the solution requires separate node trees and objects it'll work since I can slave all the trees to the same driver.

version 01
Reference transformation happens at circle edge, depends on viewer position. And looks similar to portal effect - object seen above and inside a circle is green, everything seen between and through circle will be pink.

This example is a trick set by Light Path node > Transmission as factor for mixing two shaders.
Shader Object

To make it possible object contains a Cylinder (side only) - everything seen through cylinder side is pink. Cylinder uses Glass material, but since IOR is zero and Camera Ray is set to be transparent, it is invisible to viewer, but taken into account by Cube shader.
Shader Cylinder

Geometry nodes generates glowing Circles and invisible Cylinder scaled in sync with circles by single parameter.

version 02
Your link to the tutorial generates an edge at place circle "cuts" an object. So doesn't matter at what direction viewer observe the object, a transition happens at circle level.
Here is a shader controlled by value from GeoNodes, but it can be set in shader as driver as well.

Note: This concept seems to me almost the same as your answer ... I just at the beginning tried many ways to transfer attribute from one object to another object with shader, but all failed because it seems an object (using the shader) has to be a part of that geo-node tree. Thanks to Kuboå for his answer to let me know.

Yes, the original tutorial is a single gradient travelling in a single direction,which obviously I know how to make (because of the tutorial), whereas what I am looking for is indeed the effect in the second image, where the gradient travels in two directions along the character;s Z axis from a central point.

My first image is a way of Phantom transition (not tutorial) ... I'm asking what should be seen through the circle, because Phantom's circle hole style never display transition edge at object surface, it is always hidden by circle line. You see a part of green cube that is bellow hypothetical circle surface cut (seen at second image). Phantom transition edge depends at viewer position.

What I had in mind was the second image. It's true that the first one is closer to how it is in the show, but I feel that the latter looks cooler.

OK ... just what do you expect from object transition edge? For objects differing more in shape - How this part of mesh should looks like? if sharp, than weird flat cut appears at some areas, for blended surface transition some topology match will be required ... or some fogy glowing bubbling? :)

The best I can tell what I need to do is set some sort of vector attribute that produces the same effect as the object domain of the texture co-ordinate. However I cannot figure out how to achieve this attribute. I have tried plugging in the store named attribute to either a position or normal input but it will not achieve the desired result. If you, or anyone else, has any suggestions they would be  greatly appreciated.

Never mind, see third awnser

Great you found solution :) I did some edits since I dived into it. BTW it is not good to navigate in answers like "third" or "above answer", because position changes over time.

Okay, I have achived what I consider an acceptable effect within geometry nodes. I would note that this requires a high poly mesh, which works for my project, if you want to repeat this effect on a lower poly mesh, you'll need to look elsewhere. Also it does not repeat the emission effect as seen in the above answer in shader nodes, however it includes a mesh mask which shares the emission material of the rings, producing a similar effect, if not better due to appearing as a wave of energy washing over the mesh.As a note, the masking technique would also work using the boolean trick if you want to attempt this effect on a low poly mesh.
Now first the actual transition.

The transition itself is actually fairly simple all things considered. Plug the base cylinder into a Raycast node. Into the ray direction plug a normal node, and then zero out the Z value, I achieved this by plugging in a separate XYZ and a Combine XYZ and just leave the Z value unhooked Then use the Is Hit value to drive the actual transition, I have achieved this by plugging in a boolean math node set to NOT, then plug that into a Switch node, which I have set to float with true as 1 and false as 0 then plugged that into a colour ramp. In order to drive the material transition you need to plug in a store named attribute set to colour and face. Using the colour domain of the attribute node in the shader editor you can drive a mix shader or a mix node, depending on the effect change you a looking for.
Now obviously this leaves a fairly jagged result so we need to mask it;

Now what you can't see is what's being plugged into those two extrude nodes. What you need to do is delete the sides of the cylinder, as seen above to make the rings You then plug the result into one extrude node but also plug it into a flip faces node and then plug that into the other extrude node, so you have 2 smaller cylinders covering the transition. Use join geometry and merge by distance to make them whole meshes, don't know if it's needed but better safe than sorry.
Now you need the base mesh plugged into a bounding box, with the min and max plugged into the min and max of a Volume cube.Then after this you need two geometry proximity nodes, one connected to the base mesh, and one into the above solidified discs, then plug their distance domains into colour ramps set up the way you see in the diagram or play around 'till you get to the effect you want. then plug them into a mix node set to colour and multiply with the factor set to 1.
If you do it in this way and then turn the cylinder's radius and height to zero however then the entire base mesh becomes covered with the volume. to get around this plug the disks' colour ramp result into another mix colour set to mix, set the second value to black, and rig the factor to the same colour ramp controlling the map range that controls the cylinder radius, and rig it up as seen on the picture.
After that plug in a volume to mesh, use shade smooth to tidy it a bit and apply a texture (in my case an emissive volume) and you're done!

Okay I have found a way to pull off the first answer's effect with Geometry Nodes, it doesn't need a high density mesh, it does need an empty object, but it merely has to be there.

Okay, the cylinder needs a depth of 0 and you need to place the empty at the origin point of the object, which is where the cylinder will spawn. You need to delete the middle as I have shown before, then use separate the remaining disks of the cylinder into two separate items. After this you plug each disk into a Transform node, and plug all three vector outputs on the object info node into the 3 vector inputs of the transform nodes. however then you need to throw in a Combine XYZ node and put a value into the Z input; for this example it is just a Value node, but to get the full effect you just need to pull off the bounding box technique I used in the question example to plug into the cylinder depth and divide it by two.
Now on the string connecting the object info location to one transform node you will want to plug a vector math set to add, and plug the combine XYZ into it, then put a vector math node into the connection between object info location and the other transform node, set to subtract, so the two disks will slide in opposite directions away from the empty. Now whatever you plug into the combine XYZ you also need to plug into a store named attribute node set to float.
From there you need to jump into the shader tree. From there put together vklidu's node tree, except with a single texture coordinate, separate XYZ combo. Then repeat the add/subtract trick with regular math nodes and the previously set up atribute between the Separate XYZ and the map ranges.
Please note that the initial setup will not align the rings correctly if you rotate the empty, however leaving the rotation and scale unconnected on the initial transform node and plugging them into a second one after the displacement effect.

Edited to add:
Okay now the wayI have plugged in the Object into the geometry nodes allows  you to rotate the empty will rotate the rings, allowing for more dynamic transitions. However this was messing with the effect and the whole bounding box effect required tweaking to allow for this;

Before plugging the base mesh into the bounding box plug it into a transform node. From there plug the rotation and scale factor from the empty's object info node. on the string for the rotation input add a vector math node set to scale with a factor of -1, on the scale string plug in a Vector math node set to divide, plugging the empty's scale into the second vector option and set the first one to 1. The second transform node is to allow for an additional buffer zone, just in case you want it.
For simplicity's sake i subtracted the min from max in a vector math, then plugged that into a separate XYZ and. well you see what I did,. follow the diagram.
As a result of the transform node, the sample mesh from which the bounding box is generated will be aligned as though the node tree's host's Local XYZ (from which the bounding box is generated) is aligned to the normal XYZ and the rings will therefore resize to fit regardless of how the figure is arranged. Scale is completely nullified.


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When do I need to use a texture coordinate node?
I have seen several explanations about the texture coordinate node and have seen some clips that will use this node while creating a texture, but can anyone tell me when do I need to use this node? Do I need to use it when I want to apply texture to objects?

When you add an image texture to an object, it'll use UV coordinates by default, you don't need to add a texture coordinate node for that. For procedural textures such as noise or voronoi, object and generated coordinates are often used.

You use a texture coordinate node when the default Normals value isn't the right one.  Each node that has a Vector or Normal input has a default value that it uses if nothing is connected to the input.
The texture coordinate node offers a set of alternative texture coordinates that are useful for different purposes; and is often used in combination with a mapping node to modify its output.
If you look at the manual page for the texture coordinate node it will explain what the values of each of its outputs are.  If you look at the manual page for individual nodes, such as the Image texture, they will explain what the default is if no input is connected.  The image texture, for example uses the UV coordinates.
The usual uses of the texture coordinate node, include making sure that a group of nodes are all operating on the same coordinates.


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mp4 render output is too compressed - video editor
container: MPEG-4
video codec: MPEG-4
lossless
realtime encoding
render preview shows high quality rendered frames, but mp4 file is evidently far worse, despite hd settings.

Hello and welcome, the most recommended method to render is using Image sequences, that way you keep the best quality possible and then you just need to use a video editor (like the one included in Blender) or compositor to output a video format

@izer Have you tried other lossless codecs, so you can say it is an issue of this specific codec? If it is "too compressed" with others too - you have probably some issue with your setup or original files.


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How to fly leaves in Stylized Fantasy Tree?
I just downloaded Stylized Fantasy Tree Add-Ons, but have no idea how to let leaves fly/fall. I don't see any option for it. Is it possible to do it in the option or should I make it?

If you watch this video, you will be able to understand what I mean.
https://youtu.be/uL3qQ4Rwqbw

You should post some screenshots of the plugin, settings you've tried, what you expect the outcome to be. Right now no one except people who are highly proficient at this specific addon could help you now. If you post more info maybe we could help you figure it out.

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

Hi, I'm sorry. I'm a newbie on Blender, so my question might confuse you. I just uploaded the screenshot and hope it helps.

According to the gumroad page of the developer of that addon, it doesn't seem like that's a built in feature just yet.

You would be able to do this but it would require you to create your own particle system with the leaves that are generated by the addon.
Here's a tutorial on how you would do that. Obviously it won't be a 1:1 tutorial but it will give you an idea of the process. It's relatively straightforward.

Awesome! Thanks for the details and the tutorial video.

Glad to help, if this answered your question can you mark it as such?

How to mark it? Sorry, I'm so newbie here.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/tour


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How to use a 2D video to make a skybox and reflect it in a mirror object
I have a 2D video (nothing special, just view from ground) of a sky with clouds passing by. I want to use it and have it reflected on the surface of a complicated curved mirror-like 3D object in my scene. I think that what I want is called a skybox but my "texture" is a normal video, not a panoramic video.
The reflection doesn't have to be precise. My object could even be "satin finished" instead of mirror so it's more about "atmosphere" than precision. I want the viewer of the final render to feel that the object was there, surrounded by this cloud sky.
Just point me to a tutorial fs you know one. I will learn from there. Thanks for any help.

Staddy camera or in motion? Please add some screenshots of your video ... view angle matters ... also how environment in video looks like ... what is the motion of camera ... Here is one way for still image https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/140477/2214

Thank you for your reply. The video footage itself was filmed from a fixed camera. It is very similar to this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssRFnkZBdUY . The Blender camera looking at my object is also steady but my object is rotating around z (vertical) axis. So imagine a mirrored default cube or sphere rotating on itself and reflecting on its faces the footage of passing clouds video. I will study the example in the link provided. Thanks!

Another similar option that make less distortion on mirror (metallic), but some edges on glass ... For World shader is used video texture in Environmental node > Mirror Ball ... plus video object behind.

Thank you so much @vklidu! That's exactly what I did finally :) I also wanted to remove the background for later compositing so I used this method: link which worked just fine for me.

One dirty way ... World Shader with video texture mapped as type Window for Camera view mixed with the same video texture mapped as type Generated to stretch texture arround for ambient ...

Like now texture is the same behind the camera (is repeated) it doesn't look natural of course, but probably not an issue in your case. Your camera is pointed to clouds so ... in reality object should reflect ground, but I would say you want to reflect clouds as well, so this could work for you.

You can probably "fix" reflection if you use instead of World shader another object as Dome (big Sphere) unwrapped and for back part behind camera combine with some gradient to make darken opposite side.

Thank you very much vklidu! I think you suggestion will do it. I'm going to try now and report back with results. Thanks again for your time and effort!


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How to animate an 45 degree object to a curve?
I want to animate different walls to follow a curve and deform along the curve.
For object with a perfect 90 Degree to a path, it works.

But if I do the same with an object, that has an oblique wall, the object animation to curve doesnt work anymore. It does strange things. Is there a special trick here that makes the effect look like my straight wall animation?

I am happy for any help.
Greetings, Sascha

Apply Rotation to Object and Curve and animate along X axis

I think it isnt the same animation technique which I used.
How can I share my blender file here? via link to googleDrive?

https://blend-exchange.com/ copy paste given link to your Q via Edit.

thanks for the link.
The 2 other animation shows how i want it. The wall with the 45 degree angle at both end doesnt work with that technique. Maybe you know the alternatives.
Blender-file here:

Any reason to have object rotated 45 deg?  ... Apply Rotation to Object and Curve and animate along X axis ... I asked you to place link into your original question (not into comment section) so please next tine :) thank you keep this site organised.

Thank you sou much for the answer, the issue was really the Apply to Rotation to both (Object and Curve). Sorry, for the wrong formating of my blender file. I keep it in mind for the future. Again. Thank you!

Great it helped :)


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How small can you make a model realistically?
all! I have a model that I want to add to a THREE.js scene on the web, so making it as light as possible is the main goal. I'm not an expert, so I have no idea how 'small' one could make a model. Right now, I have a model with ~65k verts and faces, with ~129,000 tris. The smallest I've been able to get it so far is ~500kb with Draco compression (.glb format). without compression, it sits at about 5MB. How small can one reasonably get a model with Draco?

What's your export format (fbx, collada, obj. gltf)?

.glb is the format I'm aiming for. I thought I put that. ♂


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Vertex color value has weird offset in value when assigned from script
What might explain this difference in values?
mesh.vertex_colors.active.data[loop_index].color[3] = colorItem.alpha
print(str(colorItem.alpha) + " / " + str(mesh.vertex_colors.active.data[loop_index].color[3]))

outputs
0.03125 / 0.0313725508749485

Looking at the blender sources, the colors seem to get rounded.
static void rna_MeshLoopColor_color_set(PointerRNA *ptr, const float *values)
{
  MLoopCol *mlcol = (MLoopCol *)ptr->data;

  mlcol->r = round_fl_to_uchar_clamp(values[0] * 255.0f);
  mlcol->g = round_fl_to_uchar_clamp(values[1] * 255.0f);
  mlcol->b = round_fl_to_uchar_clamp(values[2] * 255.0f);
  mlcol->a = round_fl_to_uchar_clamp(values[3] * 255.0f);
}


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Render order of triangles is wrong with custom draw handler
Example code from GPU Shader Module (gpu) "Mesh with Random Vertex Colors" renders faces in wrong/weird order, what might be the cause?

import bpy
import gpu
import numpy as np
from random import random
from gpu_extras.batch import batch_for_shader

mesh = bpy.context.active_object.data
mesh.calc_loop_triangles()

vertices = np.empty((len(mesh.vertices), 3), 'f')
indices = np.empty((len(mesh.loop_triangles), 3), 'i')

mesh.vertices.foreach_get(
    "co", np.reshape(vertices, len(mesh.vertices) * 3))
mesh.loop_triangles.foreach_get(
    "vertices", np.reshape(indices, len(mesh.loop_triangles) * 3))

vertex_colors = [(random(), random(), random(), 1) for _ in range(len(mesh.vertices))]

shader = gpu.shader.from_builtin('3D_SMOOTH_COLOR')
batch = batch_for_shader(
    shader, 'TRIS',
    {"pos": vertices, "color": vertex_colors},
    indices=indices,
)

def draw():
    batch.draw(shader)

bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add(draw, (), 'WINDOW', 'POST_VIEW')

Can you elaborate on "renders faces in wrong/weird order"   Note that the code above draws in local coordinates If your context object has any transformation it will not be overliaid.

Added image that shows the issue

For default cube on 2.82.6 http://pasteall.org/pic/d3c9ad2bdab676539b02555e48df4df6  What is your expected result?

Actually I found the issue, depth testing was not enabled, enabling that fixed the issue. Maybe it was fixed in 2.82.6

pasting the added lines in case someone stumbles on the same issue
bgl.glEnable(bgl.GL_DEPTH_TEST)
bgl.glDepthMask(bgl.GL_TRUE)


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color and rendering Blender 2.8
I have finished my scene but the colors for my objects are not changing. they are still the default color greyish. I finished creating the scene before making color changes, is there a certain order I should follow to change colors?

Hello and welcome :). Please add some images that show your problem. Without that it's not really clear what you're asking.

where would I upload an image too?

before you hit the render button, click the material property icon down the right corner, click on new material, you could check the render in view port while assigning materials to your mesh. i hope this helps

Have tried using the "nodes" and that does not work either.


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How to keep stroke points uniform in grease pencil
I am trying to clean up a drawing in grease pencil, but I don't know how to keep the stroke points uniform, closer to each other. And also, is there a way to remove disconnect strokes turning them into a single stroke? I can take a screenshot if needed.
Sorry about my English, it's not my native language


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How to enable shape keys only for 1 animation?
I have 3 objects: human model, pants and 1 armature for both. Before I started work on pants, I made few animations for body (run, idle). Initial problem was that the pants partially fall into the character during the run animation. I decided to fix that with shape keys. So I made 18  shape keys which made the pants looks correctly in run animation. But when I change animation in armature, shape keys still affect and when I try to export (.fbx for Unity), shape keys change output animations.
So, how can I use key shapes only for 1 animation?
P.S. I know about cloth modifier and weight painting. Both approaches don't work well in my case.

The shape key's animation is also an action, so you can turn it on/off in the action editor if you select the mesh object.

@FFeller, I added my screen with blender. I can't find shape keys in action editor, only in shape key editor, but there shape keys turn on/off for all animations. Can you, plz, explain where should I turn them off?

Just create a fake user with the shield icon near the "run_shapes" in the Shape key editor, then click on the X to remove the action from the mesh. Later you can reassign it.

@FFeller, that disables shape keys for all animations, including running, and I want disable them for all animations except running.

@ФилиппШабатин did you find a solution for this issue?

authors: Филипп Шабатин


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Simple Camera Mapping in Cycles
Im trying to do some simple camera mapping using an equirectangular env.map that I have created from my real camera.
This I am trying to project onto my scene geometry.
This used to be done with sticky coordinates and there is also the UV Projection modifier.
Unfortunately I need it to work with cycles.
I am trying to use UV mapping, but am not sure whether to use a normal image texture or an env texture in my material nodes. The question is also what kind of texture coordinates I should use.
Thx in advance, R


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My Character Run Animation is not Playing in Game Engine
I've followed numerous tutorials and read a lot of material on what I could have done wrong, but nothing is working. I would keep troubleshooting myself, but I've already spent A LOT of time trying to figure this out, and I see no end in sight.
I have my character's run animation on frames 1 - 11 (1-10 for the animation cycle), and a jump animation later, I think 20 - 44. All I want to do is get the run cycle working and moving with the parented cube via the W key. Once I have that figured out I want to start adding other animations.
I just have no idea what I need to be doing at this point, or if I messed up a while ago. Any help is very very much appreciated.
File Attached, any assistance is highly appreciated!
Blend File: http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=43899

Solution
Activate an action actuator that plays the run action starting at frame 1 ending at frame 11. Let it play in Loop stop mode to get an endless cycle.
Details
You need to parent the skin mesh objects (with Armature Deform option) to the armature.


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UV map quality decreases after importing wavefront object that is exported as obj before
I have a blender model and the mtl folder that I found before:
blender file link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxFdejPeV4z3WEpMTVJGTDRsLXM
I am opening blender file and adding uv map files by selecting File-> External Data -> Find missing files  and selecting "mtl_files" folder (I also added mtl file from google drive : https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxFdejPeV4z3el80Y1djazRTX3M)
After adding mtl and uv map files it seems like this:

After that I am trying to export this file as wavefront with only this 6 options marked (File -> Export -> Wavefront):

Lastly I imported the obj file that I exported before and its uv map quality decreases a lot (if it cannot find the mtl path I am selecting the File-> External Data-> Find missing files and selecting mtl_files folder again), and it seems like that:

I have no any idea why this happens, I am doing the same process with a spider man model and it just works fine.

I solved my problem by enabling "normal map" from texture tab of properties. After I enabled this option, everthing seemed normal again (Properties tab-> Texture tab -> Show material textures -> select the normal -> mage sampling -> Enable Normal Map ).