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How do I merge two UV map islands into one without losing faces
Look at the selected faces in the below UV map. Clearly it's one continuous face of the object, and I'd like to texture it as such, but the UV map splits it into 4 separate islands.

How can I tell the UV map tool to keep those faces together as a single island?

Figured it out. For future askers, select the mutual edge you want to join on, and then use "Stitch" or alt+V to merge them.


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I need help with making realistic feathers
Right now I am making a Velociraptor head and I am having trouble with the feathers. I found a large amount of information on how to make the flight feathers for wings, but I am just making the head of the animal and need to make the head look like it is covered in body feathers and not long, stiffened wing feathers. I have been trying to use the particle tool to make it look more downy, but It keeps coming out looking like a bunch of single hairs instead of branching feathers. I was just wondering if someone could give me advice on how to make head and neck feathers to cover my Velociraptor with. I should also add that I am trying to make this look as realistic as I possibly can.

Hi , can you use texture instead ?

Hi. This question was put on hold because as it stands it is not answerable for lack of essential details to understand the issue. Remember only you have access to your scene, so unless you illustrate it thoroughly only you know your exact setup, settings and what steps you took to arrive where your are now. Please add some accompanying screenshots with the [edit] button above showing your setup. Don't post a comment or ask a new question, editing will automatically put it up for review so it can be reopened.

Please add a screenshot of your work and reference images or a sketch of how you imagine a Velociraptor because nobody knows how they looked like when they lived. There are pictures of them with feathers and without, green-colored, brown-colored, etc. Maybe helpful: Grooming a parrot (https://youtu.be/8yoIW4va-VY). In the video hair cards for the feathers are created and used with a particle system + another particle system with clumped hair to mimic the feathers on the head.

Hey! I found this on twitter and tought it might be helpful!
https://twitter.com/JoannaKobierska/status/1440832423000895493?s=20

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Blender 2.93 won't work on raspbian buster
I tried to install blender 2.93 on a raspberry pi 4b running raspbian buster, but I only can get version v2.78b, and I can't install the zip file for linux downloaded from the blender website. I need at least v2.80 or newer. Any answers would help.

It's impossible, 2.80 requires OpenGL 3.3 at least, while Raspberry Pi 4 can support only 2.1:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=244520

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


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How to convert a .blend file to .md3 or .iqm format?
I have a thing I made in blender that I want to add to cube2 sauerbraten; that is a game similar to quake.  My problem is, I can't export the file into either of those two formats, so I can't get it to work.  What do I need to do?  I am running ubuntu 21.10.

Sometimes you may want to utilize files that either came from other 2D or 3D software, or you may want to use the things you have made in Blender and edit them in other software. Luckily, Blender offers a wide range of file formats (e.g. OBJ, FBX, 3DS, PLY, STL, etc.) that can be used to import and export.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/files/import_export.html
Then import / convert the file your program requires.
Also you can try online tools
Online 3D Model Converter - File Formats
https://www.greentoken.de/onlineconv/
Blender Export from 2.81 to MD3 Model Format
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjvSA7dpWXQ
And another one but will depend on the version of blender and python you are using.
https://github.com/mino-git/rtcw-wet-blender-model-tools

I already looked at all those sites; notice NONE of them can export a file in one of the needed formats.  Blender can't do it either.  I can do it as a .obj, or k3d, but not .md3 or .iqm.

Looks like it depends on the version of Blender the .blend file may have been created with.
This guy actually made a video with the title
Blender Export from 2.81 to MD3 Model Format
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjvSA7dpWXQ
Add what version of Blender your using to your question.

Also it may depend on the version of python your using.
This Developer created a script that does this.  You may want to email him/her and ask about the best version of blender to use.
https://github.com/neumond/blender-md3

And another one but will depend on the version of blender and python you are using.
https://github.com/mino-git/rtcw-wet-blender-model-tools


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There is a crease on the chin of the person I'm modeling. I am pretty certain its from the mirror and subdivision modifiers
The crease appears after adding the subdivision surface and it is happening at the center where it is mirrored. The mirror modifier is at the top of the list. I have deleted both modifiers and added them back. There are no faces on the inside (on the plane of the mirror). Clipping is enabled on the mirror and the vertices are all the way against the edge. Also the vertices are not doubled stack. I checked all of these because that's what I have found has worked for others but the crease is still there.

From the way that your topology looks, that sharp change from orange to black means that those vertices are not connected, maybe you have duplicates of that vert in same place or maybe it is wrong face orientation... Try to merge vertices in that spot

Orange gradient and no sharpness towards the rest of the mesh suggest it's neither normal nor doubles. But I wouldn't trust the clipping too much, perhaps the vertex has negative X, in this case clipping won't move it to 0.

Put origin at 0; 0; 0:
N for Numbers panel, go to View tab, set 3D cursors coordinates to 0, in Object mode select the object, F3 and search for Origin to 3D cursor.
Remove doubles
A, M, B to Merge by Distance, expand the popup, right click on the distance value, Reset to Default Value. If you still see the artifact, try increasing the value until the artifact disappears, even if it breaks the rest of the mesh, just for debugging purposes - perhaps the double is somewhat far from other vertices but at a "funny angle".
Put vertices on 0 of the mirrored axis
Turn off mirror clipping, in Edit mode Z, W for Wireframe shading, Numpad 1 for Front Orthographic View, ShiftSpace, B for Select Box tool, drag over left-most vertices (those that are supposed to be shared), S, X, 0(zero), Enter to put them all on same x, N for Numbers panel, set median X to 0.

It turns out it wasn't a double of the vertices. It was an edge that connected two vertices that was barely visible.

So it was an edge going between two vertices connected to the selected vertex on the screenshot?


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Blender shows transparent .png with bloom when rendering but there isnt bloom when I view it with a photo editor
I am trying to render something with bloom and a transparent background but nothing has worked! I do have the .png with RGBA and blender shows when rendering that there is bloom on the png with a transparent background although when I check it with a photo editing software there is no bloom! When I render it with a black/non-transparent background there is bloom. I have also tried using compositing the bloom in blender and it hasnt worked either. I am using the Blender 3.0 release and the EEVEE rendering engine.
Help would be very appreciated!

there are some tricks to keep the bloom (in the Compositor) but it's not a simple button activation

Hi :). PNGs don't support both transparent and emissive pixels. For compositing render with EXR. Or render it on a non-transparent background ;)

@moonboots Can you please show me how to keep the bloom in the compositor? I have tried multiple tricks in the compositor but none have worked.

@JachymMichal Hi, I tried rendering with EXR but the bloom still wasn't there. I am also making this asset for game that only supports .PNGS and if this asset is rendered with a non-tranparent background some things will not be visible, thanks!

There are some tutorials on how to do it but I don't know what's the best method

@moonboots Can you give me any method? I would really appreciate it.

You'll find some methods on youtube, you need to test them, I don't know what's the best, maybe someone will tell: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blender+bloom+transparency


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Can I import multiple strips of different fps into Video Sequence Editor?
I have a few video strips with audio that I want to import to the Video Sequence Editor (VSE), but they are of different fps... examples are 23.97, 24, 29.97 and 30 fps. Let's say I want to select an fps of 30 in my project, is there a way to import the video clips and converting them to 30 fps?
Making every 4 frames into 5 frames, for example for 24 to 30 fps conversion. I am not sure what it's terminology in the video editing area.

It has been my experience today that if you add a 1FPS video and then a 30FPS video both lasting 1 minute that you'll end up with 1 channel that plays 30 times faster then the other. If I then set my render speed to 1fps, then the 30fps channel lasts for 30 minutes.

Currently there's no support for motion-compensated frame interpolation. So you will need to run your footage through an external application.

There is actually an effect strip "Speed Control" which can sort of change the fps of a video strip. If converting from 24 to 30 fps, you can set the Multiply Speed to 0.8.
However there isn't any interpolation at all, it's like every 5 frames there are two frames exactly the same, thus creating a not so smooth resulting video.

I think it's better to use Speed Control, leave the Multiply Speed at 1.0, and make sure "Stretch to input strip length" is checked.  Then you adjust the length of the strip and the speed control stretches to match it.

Mutant Bob's answer did exactly what I needed it to do taking at 23fps video and upscaling it to 30fps.

Blender imports video sequences based on the current render settings. An easy way to tell the settings are wrong when importing video is the audio imports with a different length than the video. The audio time gets read in but the video rate is set by the render settings.
Try setting the render frame rate to 23.97 then importing the 23.97fps videos. then change the frame rate to 29.97 and import the 29.97fps videos and so on.
When finished set the desired output frame rate and render the animation.

Have you actually tried that? Changing the render fps after importing the video does not change the length, but the A/V is obviously out of sync.

This answered the query that got me here, "Why doesn't my video length match my audio", so thanks ;)

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


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Going down the wrong path for human skin?
I'm trying to find a way to apply skin texture detail to my model. I'd like to use normal mapping to represent the surface details, and thought I might use a ready made normal map of a skin surface like

However, in order to get good coverage for my model I think I need seams. But, if I were to simply tile on my skin map I'm pretty sure the seams would become really obvious.

So I'm left with a chicken and egg problem - in order to match up the normal map to the seams I'd need to bake one from a seam-aligned map. But if I had that, then I wouldn't need to bake one!
So

If I should abandon the seams, what should I do instead?
Or is there a way to make it work this way?

You can create another UV map where the seams are hidden and set the normal texture using this UV map.

But if I could hide the seams, wouldn't that solve the problem anyway? Or maybe do two bakes with the seams in different positions and then blend them together?

I was recently dealing with a similar problem.  I found that I didn't really have to worry about it-- these kind of detail, high-res normal maps can stand a bit of noise.  Specular rarely aligns closely enough with a seam for it to be visible.
If you try that and find you're having visible problems, you may want to consider masking your normal map with another (hand-made) texture.  I'm not sure of your application, but with what I was doing, scaling the R and G components down smoothly eliminates the normal map (leaving only the meaningless depth component of the vector).  You may want to consider an unorthodox seaming strategy for this, seaming along the smoothest parts of your model rather than natural lines, since these seam lines are exactly where you'll be masking the normal map.  That may mean using an extra set of UV coordinates.

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


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Change the RT shader used for the 3d view?
The model I'm working on uses a weird Cg-based shader. Is there a way I can run it in the 3d-view so that I can see what I'm doing?

Blender supports GLSL, because it is the most portable way to do it. You could port Cg to GLSL - maybe even with the help of nvidias cgc compiler  and use that in blenders game engine. Though this assumes a certain understanding of Cg, GLSL and some limitations inside BGE.


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Bevel operation results in different result in similar mesh
I have 2 house shaped objects that are made following different sequences of extrude, knife, and edge dissolve. Now when I try to bevel the top edge of the house I get two different results. How do I start investigating what the problems/difference is in my model? (The back one is what I expected)

A file showcasing the problem has been recreated here: (Not uploaded by OP)

Looks as if you may have a disconnected or duplicate edge on the front one. In vertex mode, select all then press 'm' and Merge by Distance and see if any vertices are removed on the bottom status bar. Then try again. If that doesn't do it, upload your blend file so that we can have a look.

Yes, I merged vertices but the problem still persists. I forgot to save the file, but I'll attach it here if I can reproduce the issue.

no you didn't merge them. If you had merged them, the problem would have been gone. i just tried it. in your uploaded file are still duplicate vertices.

@Chris Please note that the file was not upload by me. It was uploaded by Allen Simpson.

Yes and I must be crazy because last night I swear I had one with no extra vertices.  Oh well, I will post my answer anyway when I get home

Hello Quazi, this question popped up yesterday and it reminded me of this.  I think you stumbled onto a situation which produces this odd behavior.  https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/229916/110840

It's hard to say exactly how it happened - I'm sure there are a million ways to achieve it, but the only way I've found to reproduce this is to scale a face to 0.
So, ignoring the issue of vertices for the moment.  There is a single edge at the top of the house in the back, it bevels correctly.  On the front house, you're selecting one edge of the two edges that exist in the same place at the top of the house.
If you weren't aware that it was created, it's not clear that it even exists or is available for selection if you're not in x-ray view.  It is also beveling "correctly" it's just that the nearest edge is in the same position so you just see it crawling down the roof.

Moving the edges around (right click sends it back to its original location) you can spot the problem easily, and in x-ray view you can select the edge again to grab what is under it - the second edge.

It's also possible that a Merge would not work for a similar reason.  If you tried to box select all the verts and you weren't in x-ray view, you probably wouldn't catch any vertices that were hidden beneath others.

If you want to get the whole mesh, box select while in x-ray view or press A to select all.


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Keyframing from properties panel and from 3d viewport creates different entry on Graph Editor
I have Bone.001 Armature selected, and I want rotate it and set a keyframe.
If I try to set the keyframe by pressing I while hovering my mouse pointer over the rotation properties on the properties panel, the following entry is created in the Graph Editor, (the rotation turns yellow when the keyframe is set)

But if I try to set the keyframe by pressing I when the mouse pointer is on the 3d viewport and selecting Rotation from the context menu, I get a different entry in the graph editor,

Notice that in the first one, the keyframes are enlisted under "ArmatureAction" and in the second one, the keyframes are enlisted under "ArmatureAction > Bone.001". The second one makes sense to me because I am recording the transformation of Bone.001 so the transformations should be enlisted under the name of the object.
Question is, what's the usefulness of first approach?

Rather than the former being a deviation from the latter, the latter seems like an automation implemented for convenience reasons.
Channel groups can be created manually with Ctrl + G. When inserting a Keyframe on a property in the UI rather than with I in the 3D View, in my experience it's usually something miscellaneous like render settings.

The Samples and Preview Samples properties have only one instance per Scene, and the Scene already has an all-encompassing group element in the form of SceneAction.

I don't understand what your statement with Channel groups means in this context? Do you mean grouping transformation?

The channels here are "X Euler Rotation", "Y Euler Rotation", "Z Euler Rotation", etc. Channel groups are just collapsible groups created in the Graph Editor, or any editor that lets you view animation data Actions such as SceneAction, CubeAction, and SphereAction. They're created automatically when inserting Keyframes on a set of related transformation properties like "Euler Rotation" which, as viewed from the Properties panel, has 3 values (XYZ) and could easily clutter the UI if left un-grouped when animating alongside other sets of transformation properties such as Location and Scaling.

Got it. So, the question is - when someone is setting a keyframe on any or the transform property of an object, the keyframe should be under the object name. Allowing it to on the graph editor without the name of the object is definitely a problem. Yesterday, I've spend long hours trying to fix an animation problem on my game only to discover that the animation was exported incorrectly from blender.


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Including 3rd party modules in a Blender addon
I wish to include the libSBML library in one of my Blender addons. Although I was able to successfully do this on Linux, I'm having problems getting it to load in Blender's python console in my Windows box. I wrote the libSBML developers about this, and they replayed:

When I looked at Blender it seemed to be using Python 3.3.0. (Which is unfortunately the only python binaries we do not currently distribute). So I went ahead and created a set of binaries for the 'official' python 3.3. Looking at the dependencies, it depends on python33.dll and python3.dll. However, Blender only comes along with the python33.dll.
the best thing to do would be to be able to link directly against the library that Blender uses, unfortunately there are no lib files distributed with Blender. So I'm afraid I cannot help there. It would help to know how precisely they built the numpy module they distribute and then use the same build procedure for libSBML.

My specific questions would then be:

Is it possible to either get python3.dll from the official python distribution and use it with Blender, or
if there is a set of lib's that Blender uses that I could compile my own version of libsbml against so that I can include it in my addon.
Alternatively, what are the set of steps that one needs to follow to compile a library against Blender python's libs and dlls in Windows (for example, like the cited mail states, how was Blender's numpy compiled).

DingTo created the Windows builds of numpy. You can find some info in this task's discussion, especially Juicyfruit's wiki page should be of interest.
The compiled numpy libs were added to the library repository and are placed in the site-packages folder when you build blender.
You will have to

provide a complete, customized blender buildor
ask your users to manually place the required lib in blender's site-packages folderor
add the lib to your addon's folder and import it from there (sys.path.append should do the trick)

Is this question about external libraries that are C/C++ based? I have a similar question, but everything is just python. I hoped I could just bypass the need for compiling Blender.

AFAIK only numpy was compiled from source to a Python native module, and no compilation of Blender was involved.


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Audio and video segments are not the same length
I have a bunch of videos recorded from a Samsung Galaxy S6. They all have a resolution of 3840x2160 and are supposed to be at 30fps. The weird thing is, some of the clips have video segments twice the length of the audio. In Blender my project's framerate is set to 30fps.
Looking at the source files in VLC, all the video framerates are about 30fps. Why is it that some of the files imported have video segments twice the length they should? For example, the video segment will be 400 frames, and the audio will be 200. I can set Blender's expected frame-rate to 60, which causes the a/v to line up. But then the video plays back poorly (since it was not 60fps to begin with, something is messed up).
Note the following information reported by VLC.
Codec: H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1)
Resolution: 3840x2178
Display resolution: 3840x2160
Frame rate: 29.981651
Decoded format: Planar 4:2:0 YUV

You could report this as a bug, or at least make available a file which fails to import properly.

After looking at the other stackexchange queries noted above, I am not persuaded that they relate to the same issue.

Yes, the suggested duplicate has a similar question, but the answer does not answer the question. This has to be a bug with blender, so I will do as suggested and report it with a sample faulty video to import. I will post the bug ID here later.

Here's a workaround for you: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/49219/2843

Modern codecs like AVCHD  often are not well supported by Blender's decoder. You may find that these clips are frame segmented, which Blender incorrectly treats as sort of interlaced, thereby reducing the frame number but maintaining frame rate. Only solution is to transcode into a format that Blender does understand. Check out this thread for details on the effect of frame segmented media in Blender. Sorry.

I thought blender used (up-to-date) versions of ffmpeg for encoding/decoding?

Ok, yeah that's probably the issue here. Maybe I'll have to build Blender from source and swap in a newer ffmpeg.

Given Blender's frame handling it may be that it cannot recognize the temporal nature of the codec you want to use.

While blender may be compiled using the newest ffmpeg version, it hasn't been programmed to use all available features and formats.

This answer is incorrect, as mentioned, Blenders decoder is not old (You can see the ffmpeg version used by going to Help -> System Info)


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Merging seam borders when using 360° Spin Tool
/Users/stephanepras/Desktop/Split Glass.png
I made a nice glass by spinning a profile 360° around Z axis with Spin Tool. Then when playing with Smooth modifier I see a split appearing along the seam!
This means both borders of the seam (i.e. the 0° and 360° vertices) never merged, despite I clicked AutoMerge Editing. Of course if I "Apply" after having used Smooth modifier, I get a glass with a slit…
How can I "weld" both sides of the seam after a 360° spin and avoid that ?

did you remove the doubles in edit mode? W-->remove doubles?

The error can still persist after remove doubles

Yes, I did use Remove doubles.

I would not use Spin Tool for this particular purpose, closed surface of revolution.  Remove doubles, a necessary step, did not solve the problem.  My problem was a hidden internal face problem.  Hidden faces are bad.
My initial actions produced an internal face with Spin Tool.  The face of the initial mesh.
I had to remove edges and one internal face and then bridge edge loops to get the mesh in good form.  The extra work seems unnecessary.  Consider sleuthing down an internal unwanted face.
Perhaps the best evidence is that loop cut seems to have difficultly with the resulting mesh. What appears visually as a loop has failed with Loop Cut.  It has simply created difficulties in your situation.
Finally I [deleted face only] before the spin tool and got the correct results. If felt if I were smacked in the face with a whipped cream pie.
I would use Spin Tool for corners of edited cylinders.
Consider Screw Modifier firstly.  (Array Modifier if you feel adventurous)
I applied the Screw Modifier.  Loop Cut worked as expected.
Followed by Smooth Modifier.
You might also just use proportional edit to achieve your [spin/lathe] shape.

Correct. Using Screw Modifier (with 0.000 screw path) produces the lathe shape with not gap, while Spin Tool was leaving one, revealed by the Smooth Modifier.
I just wonder why I had to choose Y-axis for my profile to revolve around the Z-axis. Never mind, it works however ...

Y-axis Why?  Perhaps you should have NO rotation in your model. Apply rotation.  I am giving a quick comment with no investigation. Or edit the vertices only in Edit Mode, thus no object rotation is applied.

Since it is a lathe operation, I need an axis for my profile to revolve around (rotation). I'm just surprised to state the axis choice in modifier panel doesn't match with the world axis chosen in 3D view. By the way, after applying Smooth Modifier, I do not have any more split … but a hole all the way through, on the object axis ! Nobody is perfect.

I agree you must specify an axis in the Spin Tool.  To clarify .... some operations work best when the participants have the rotation and scale [applied].  Applied in the special Blender Sense from the menus.  You will see Apply Rotation in the menus.  Thus two objects may look as though they have the same orientation ... yet one has an object rotation active [non zero] and the other has the vertices moved and a rotation inactive [zero].  I do not have images of you object rotation ... I am just conjecturing.


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Which is the best way to bend a rod

What is the simplest way to bend a plain rod (subdivided cylinder) and give it a U-shape (for instance) ?
Here is a solution: As suggested by cegaton best option is using Warp (not Bend) with cursor on symmetry axis (distance gives radius) and 90° offset. Straight plain rod is changed to round rod with no deformation.

As suggested by cegaton best option is using Warp (not Bend) with cursor on symmetry axis (distance gives radius) and 90° offset. Straight plain rod is changed to round rod with no deformation.


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Mouse is painting, stylus is erasing
I am using Blender 2.91 and a Huion stylus. I set up a simple mesh, with a texture material, and switched to texture paint mode, using the default brush. Everything is working great when I use the mouse, but when I use the stylus it's behaving like an eraser and it's clearing whatever I touch to alpha 0. See video below.

Larger image. Left screenshot is what I get after left-clicking with the mouse and dragging; right screenshot is stylus-down and dragging.

What's going on?
Some ideas
Could it be a virtual/button/mapping issue of some sort? Under which condition the same thing would happen when using the mouse? Maybe if a modifier key is pressed?

It's pretty hard to make out what's going on from such a small gif. Could you [edit] in a couple screenshots in instead? Win + Shft + S is a good way to do screenshots on Windows.

Thank you, I am going to use Win + Shft + S a lot from now on!

Even though the poster was having a different problem, one of the answers to another question Painting problem when using pen in Blender seems to do the trick for me. If I change the Preferences > Input > Tablet > Tablet API to Windows Ink then the stylus paints with the selected color.
I have no clue why this is happening though; I will accept any answer that sheds some more light on this issue.

I know this is an old question, but here is my contribution. Maybe it was something simple. Make sure you haven't pressed the stylus button that switches to eraser mode. It happened to me once and I wasted a few minutes trying to figure out what happened.

On default the top button is "Pen/Eraser". However I had changed (customised) the top button to be "right click" and I was at a loss what to do as every time I used the pen it just erased.

I solved it by switching it back to the default Pen/Eraser clicked it once, checked that the pen painted then switched it back to "right click" as I use it for navigation.  Then from then on it works as a pen/brush


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Rendered animation brightness shifted in some players but not others
My rendered animation output's brightness is way too high in some players but not Windows 10's default player and Blender's play rendered animation. I think either the codec setting is wrong or Blender's output format is bugged?
Firefox, which specifically stated it supports MP4 container with H.264 codec, says the file is corrupted when I tried playing the file in it.
Output:

All extensions
24 fps

Encoding:

Tested formats: All codecs
Others are default

Apparently, AVI RAW is the only format that works.

Notice the background color. They are marked.
I have experienced similar problem with other render softwares on my other PC. Is this a universal thing?
By request, here is the final frame image I'm rendering: (The sample is low, I know)

The background color is #111111. It is precisely correct.

Looks more like a (player) gamma issue, For comparison you could try to render an image sequence instead and encode it afterwards.

@poor Why is that though. Is that because the encoding is errored?

I think it's caused by the player. I'd suggest check your vlc settings first. Could you please add a rendered image to the question?

You might want to ask this question on a video editing forum as well since it's pretty specific to video formats. The only immediate things that comes to mind to ask are - are you first rendering image sequences in either OpenEXR or Radiance HDR formats by any chance? Also what is your color depth?

@Mentalist I'm really not sure if it's a video encoder problem or Blender's, but it's made in Blender. I might as well ask it here :/

@poor I've edited my question

@poor Nope, rendering from sequence is still problematic

I expect the issue you are seeing is an artefact of colour management, while blender uses a colour profile in it's image generation - I'm not sure if it embeds the info into a video file, not all software will read it or will use their own default settings. As @poor suggests it may only be the gamma setting, try adjusting the gamma

@sambler Thanks for you reply, I don't think it's a gamma thing, the internal playback is perfectly fine, just externally, some players have problem playing it. But the weird thing is, all the format failed except for AVI RAW

More to the point is what gamma setting each player uses and does any of them read the gamma setting in the video? If one reads the gamma adjustment and others don't then adjusting the gamma to match will allow the others to get the same colour. Of note is that every screen that other people use to watch the video will look different due to custom brightnes/contrast settings and variations between monitors, I have an asus and a samsung monitor side by side, each shows a slightly different colour, you shouldn't get too fixated on this.

@sambler OK, I had an experience using another video editing software and the brightness turned up too. But if I turned the gamma down, blender and other player will see the darker version and the others will see the "normal" version. The problem will just shift?

@sambler Also, it doesn't look like a gamma shift, more like a brightness shift. Gamma just turn the image white or dark, brightness makes the color too saturated

It's a color space, h.264 are using YUV color while AVI RAW are using sRGB, you can convert BT601 to BT709  with ffmpeg CLI by using -vf colormatrix=bt601:bt709, but render with AVI JPEG format works too


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How to assign a keyboard shortcut for a mesh selection mode?
I want a keyboard shortcut for switching between selecting things; vertices, faces and points. One key for each, not a pop up menu where i have to select with the mouse. Does this exist? Modelling should be like playing a piano or something, a key for everything, minimal aiming the mouse pointer att small icons, this aiming the mouse att small icons all the time is so.. breaks the flow.. Im sure it exists but i cant find it anywhere?

Blender provides Shortcut Keys. http://download.blender.org/documentation/BlenderHotkeyReference.pdf

See related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/21383/is-there-a-way-to-switch-the-mesh-selection-mode-by-a-shortcut

I vote to reopen this question since OP wanted to have 'One key for each [mesh selection mode], not a pop up menu where i have to select with the mouse'.

In Edit Mode press Ctrl+Tab to open a Mesh Select Mode pop up menu. Hover the mouse cursor over a selection type you want to add a shortcut to, press RMB-->Add Shortcut and input a desired keyboard button.

You may change or remove a shortcut in the same way.

Thats IT!!! Perfect solution, thanks super much Gonzou!!

Great to hear that mooz :). If my post helped you to solve your problem, please mark it as accepted using the check mark at the top left of the post. Also could you rename your question to something like ''How to assign a keyboard shortcut for a mesh selection mode?'' so other people may find it easier. Thanks.

Changing between these is so common that I'm amazed people don't go crazy over the extra keystrokes. Especially since ctrl-tab requires quite a bit of hand movement to reach both keys, and then reposition again to choose VEF or use the mouse to do so. This same question has been asked many times since the first one I saw from 2006 (in blender forum I think) with the same answer of "You can press ctrl-tab."  Thank you so much for this tip on adding hotkeys from menus!


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How to properly import Image as Plane with Alpha Channel in Cycles?
I am making an 2-D animation using images-as-planes with alpha channel.  I am using the Cycles render engine. I am using Blender 2.75.
How do i properly import 300 dpi images, with alpha channel?
Thank you!
Edit: It seems there was a glitch with the version of Blender (portable) that i was using.  I have downloaded the newest (portable) version of Blender, 2.76, and the problem is gone.  I have posted my new PNG problem to another question!  I will leave this question up because Cegaton posted a valuable link, and maybe someone can benefit from it.

I tried premultiplied!  I really don't know what is going wrong, probably something basic I am not doing right.

I pressed the 'official' render button to check, and the images are completely pixelated, not at all like the way they appear in the workspace area & render.

I will see if i have the same problems in the new Blender, and if I do I will come back to this question!


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External data packing did not work! What did i do wrong?
I clicked "external data > Pack all into .blend" and when i opened the blend file without my external hard drive plugged in (it contains the external image-as-plane PNG data), the images-as-planes came up as black (not pink).  How do i contain all the PNG files into the Blender file properly?  I would like for it all to be one file if possible!
Thanks!

Packing single images should work (with the exception of image sequences), if this fails - report a bug.

The only external data are the images-as-planes PNGs.  They are animated in the .blend file, but they are not imported as sequences.  Is there any other way to move the entire file including the images-as-planes, and not have blender lose track of where the PNGs are?

OK, so i tried it again, nothing happened.  Am I supposed to be doing more than just clicking "Pack all into .blend" ?  I am using v2.76 on Windows 7.  How do i report a bug?


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How to apply a texture via Python?
I'm not at all sure what the title of this question should be.  In the following image, you can see how I've used the Shading editor to create a texture.

What I want to do is to do this via python.  I would like a single script to both create my mesh, and fill in all it's faces (these things I can do), and define and apply a procedural texture. I've been searching for tutorials for how to do this, and found several that show me how to create custom nodes (and even node groups..), but.. that's not what I'm after. I've found this: Part of the solution, but it seems to me like there must be a tutorial that covers this more comprehensively.. I just don't know what key-words to use yet to find it. Any help appreciated, including with figuring out what the title of this question should actually be.

Node types are hard to guess sometimes, in your case it is VALTORGB (color ramp) and TEX_WAVE (wave texture). Also no need to create any texture in this case, just create the material, done. Recommend try to understand how blender works then re-create all the necessary steps using python.

@brockmann  -time will tell, but it certainly looks helpful!  thanks!

That's all what to need to know to create a shader, once you understand the principles of that post (50lines of code) you can create whatever your want...

@brockmann that, plus this:  https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Materials_and_Textures I needed to see.  I've got plenty more research ahead of me.. cheers! :-D


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how to build a scene with imported fbx objects
In the following two lines of code:
bpy.ops.import_scene.fbx( filepath = "C:/Users/Michael/Documents/plants_from_internet/Plant_one/Plant_Model/Plant_FBX.fbx" )
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_monkey_add(location=(2,0,0))

the first imports a scene, the second "imports" a mesh to a specific location.  What I want to do is import the scene as an object (can that even be done?) and place it in my scene at locations and orientations of my choosing, with python.  The benefit of of working with the fbx (or equivalent files) is that they can be files produced by others that come with texturing, etc.  From my research so far, I'm afraid that the solution to this is not simple.

After the import (well for most cases) The newly imported objects have context (context.selected_objects).  Can move all, parent to empty move empty or add to a collection and add instance of to scene.

@batFINGER thanks for the tip!  will check it out!


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how to selectively show indices as developer
One can choose to "show indices" of the vertices of a mesh when in edit mode.  However, when there are a lot of them, you can no longer read individual ones, it becomes a giant cloud of indices.  I would like assistance in coding an add-on that would allow one to add a boolean value to indices that you define (if defining them in python), so that when, as developer, you request to "show indices", only those indices that you've indicated you are interested in are the ones that get marked.  Perhaps this functionality exists already?  If it doesn't, help in finding the code of the existing functionality would go a long way to helping determine how easy or hard this will be..

This is not directly, what you asked for, but it may help anyway:
Only the indices of selected vertices are displayed. You may write an add-on, that selects only the vertices with certain indices to achieve what you want to.

yup, that would do it..   -the main difference with such an add-on is that the code would have to be changed in two places.  I'd have to have my main code, then a separate code to select the vertices..  so, ... vertex selection code..

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/43127/how-do-i-select-specific-vertices-in-blender-using-python-script

You do not necessarily need to change your code at two places. Instead you have other options:

You could save the interesting vertices in a vertex group and use the vertex group for selection.
If you would like to operate on the indices of the vertices, you may save them e.g. in a list in an ID Property of the parent object of the mesh. The selection code could then evaluate this list.


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Why does zooming out too far cause my object to vanish?
If you think the title of this question sounds hilarious, you aren't alone, but that's what's happening. I've built a large complex shape (crude description, I know), and now find out that I can only view it from certain angles and certain distances. If I zoom out too far it vanishes, just as if it was passing through a pressure curtain to another world. The object is generated entirely using python code.

ok, scaling the object down gets around the problem.  so far.  it still vanishes when you get too far away.. fascinating.  I'm used to solidworks.. which has it's own limitations..

change the clip distance

@susu hi, changing the clip distance will likely work.  I have now noticed (hard not to), that my question has been edited, and informed that other answered questions provide the info I need, and ... I'm not actually sure what I should do or what I'm -supposed- to do.  what I was intending to do was to come back in a week or so when my mind will be motivated to study this part of blender again, absorb the information, thank everybody, and be on my way.

When you are ready and motivated with more questions feel free to ask.

Likely your viewport clipping end distance is too short. Press N in object mode to bring up the tool menu and change it under "view".


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How to invoke draw_handler_add while running script?
I have a draw_handler_add like this:
import bpy,gpu

def draw():
    global to_draw, begin
    if to_draw:

        print("drawing")
        framebuffer = gpu.state.active_framebuffer_get()

        viewport_info = gpu.state.viewport_get()
        width = viewport_info[2]
        height = viewport_info[3]

        framebuffer_image.scale(width, height)

        pixelBuffer = framebuffer.read_color(0, 0, width, height, 4, 0, 'FLOAT')

        pixelBuffer.dimensions = width * height * 4
        framebuffer_image.pixels.foreach_set(pixelBuffer)
        framebuffer_image.filepath_raw = "/.../MyImage.png"
        framebuffer_image.save()
        to_draw=False

if __name__ == "__main__":

    global to_draw,b
    to_draw=False

    if "color_buffer_copy" in bpy.data.images:
        framebuffer_image = bpy.data.images["color_buffer_copy"]
    else:
        framebuffer_image = bpy.data.images.new("color_buffer_copy" , 32, 32, float_buffer=True,alpha=True)

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

    bpy.data.objects['Cube'].rotation_euler[0] = 1.5

    bpy.ops.wm.redraw_timer(type='DRAW_WIN_SWAP', iterations=1)

    to_draw=True

The problem is that the draw() is being invoked after the script it completed
but I want it to be invoked while the script itself is running, so how do I achieve this?
(just for context my ultimate aim is to setup a server)

Found the solution thanks to iceythe (you can follow the thread there to see the details)
import bpy,gpu,time

def draw():
    global to_draw
    if to_draw:
        print("drawing...")
        framebuffer = gpu.state.active_framebuffer_get()

        viewport_info = gpu.state.viewport_get()
        width = viewport_info[2]
        height = viewport_info[3]

        framebuffer_image.scale(width, height)

        pixelBuffer = framebuffer.read_color(0, 0, width, height, 4, 0, 'FLOAT')

        pixelBuffer.dimensions = width * height * 4
        framebuffer_image.pixels.foreach_set(pixelBuffer)
        framebuffer_image.filepath_raw = "/.../MyImage.png"
        framebuffer_image.save()
        to_draw=False

def update_draw():
    global to_draw
    for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
        if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
            area.tag_redraw()
    bpy.ops.wm.redraw_timer(type='DRAW_SWAP', iterations=1)

    to_draw=True

    bpy.ops.wm.redraw_timer(type='DRAW_SWAP', iterations=1)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    if "color_buffer_copy" in bpy.data.images:
        framebuffer_image = bpy.data.images["color_buffer_copy"]
    else:
        framebuffer_image = bpy.data.images.new("color_buffer_copy" , 32, 32, float_buffer=True,alpha=True)
    draw_handler=bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add(draw, (), 'WINDOW', 'PRE_VIEW')

    bpy.data.objects['Cube'].rotation_euler[0] = 1.5
    update_draw()

    time.sleep(10)

    bpy.data.objects['Cube'].rotation_euler[1] = 3
    update_draw()

    bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_remove(draw_handler, 'WINDOW')
    print("we're done")

Up vote his answer if you find it helpful too!
Just incase anyone want to know, I am using the 3.3.0 Alpha version of blender & using the compositor branch which you can download here
(Blender 3.3.0 - temp-viewport-compositor-merge)


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How to make camera fit viewport in fullscreen mode?
I'm trying to get my camera to fit the entire viewport (home button) in fullscreen mode
and this is what I've come up with so far:
import bpy

context = bpy.context.copy()
for area in bpy.context.window.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':

        context['area'] = area
        bpy.ops.screen.screen_full_area(context, use_hide_panels=True)

        area.spaces[0].region_3d.view_perspective = 'CAMERA'
        bpy.ops.view3d.view_center_camera({'area': area})

but it keeps giving the error

RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.view3d.view_center_camera.poll() failed, context is incorrect

How do I fix this?

I guess I forgot the proper region, this should do the trick:
import bpy

context = bpy.context.copy()

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':

        #sets into camera view
        area.spaces[0].region_3d.view_perspective = 'CAMERA'

        #sets to fullscreen
        context['area'] = area
        bpy.ops.screen.screen_full_area(context, use_hide_panels=True)

        #sets camera to fit viewoprt
        bpy.ops.view3d.view_center_camera({
            'area': bpy.context.screen.areas[0],
            'region': bpy.context.screen.areas[0].regions[0],
        })
        break

reference answer (please upvote their answer!)


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Edge bevels weird behavior
I'm trying to make a simple rounded edge for a wall corner. But when a try to make a bevel, I have this result :

I don't understand why, the mesh is pretty simple and symmetric but the bevel is completely off...

have you tried to apply the scale in Object mode?

Oww, nope I completely forgot the deformation ! Thank you, it work after applying the scale :)


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How to connect parts of mechanism and make them relative to each other?
I have number of objects and I want to make them relative to each other. When I change location of one part other parts should either rotate or change their location also.

If I understand correctly what you want, parent A to B. Put the origin of A at the rotation axis (here, at the tip of the cone):

If moving an object makes another one rotate, you can give a Transformation constraint to the rotating object.


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I am making a Skydome with light emanating from the bottom, I am trying to get it to have 1 color on one side and another on the other side
What I am essentially asking is how I would make my skydome have 1 color on each side, with one color in between both.

By 'each side' do you mean the outside and the inside?

If by 'each side' you mean outside and inside the dome having different colors, the trick is to use the Geometry Node output for Backfacing to drive the color selection.  Here's one easy way, using a mix node:

Thank you! this actually worked


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Strange textures in render
I am currently making a movie on blender. One scene is a city scene, so, i duplicated buildings of the city to make the scene. But now, when i render the animation, i get this textures :
Everything is rendered in Blender 2.78 and Cycles Render
As you can see, strange black squares appear and some faces of the building apper to be transparent. What could i do to solve this problem ?

This is the building's material.
I removed the precedent image, because i need more than 10 reputation to post more than 3 images.

Need more info, like screenshots of what the material for those parts look like in the node editor, and possibly a simplified version in file format to examine.

you seem to have a problem with lighting,as evident by the dark places.what are you using to light the scene.use a couple of sun lamps and adjust their position and strength and see if the dark shades disappear.

I do not think the screen shot you posted is of the correct material.

I have tested what KnowledgeSeeker said, but, the black squares are still there. What can i try ?

@KnowledgeSeeker I am sorry, but the squares and light errors are still here. I put the lamp a syou said before but the image and lighting doesn't change.

OK try using a sky texture and increasing the strength.(in cycles go to world,surface(background),color(sky texture).).Also,looking at your node editor's screenshot it doesn't seem to be that of the building but of the green thing inside,maybe carpet or whatever it is.Usually on buildings we use diffuse shader and sometime maybe a combination of diffuse and a slight gloss or whatever depending on your custom demand.

I am really sorry.I have completed the task, but it didn't change

I noticed something new about the problem. In fact, it doesn't only affect the building on the image, but 2 others. Maybe the duplication could be source of this problem. I will now re-upload the image, because the screenshot of the Node Editor isn't of the correct material.


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(Internal) Render Won't Save as Transparent Image
So I have quite a simple question, but basically I have a picture of a model and want to save it as transparent. So I went up to the Render Layers panel, Layers, and deselected "sky" and rendered it out. It showed that checkered grey background with the object still there, so things were going good! I saved it, but for some reason there is a black background and it isn't a transparent image. Any help? Thanks!

Not sure what you mean by what format I used to save. When the render showed up in the UV image editor, went to image and clicked save image. I posted a picture of my settings for you.

I found the answer, those ones don't explain it well, but in Internal you set it as a PNG image and then you uncheck the sky option.


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Smoke Domains Overlapping?
I need to have two smoke domains overlap each other due to the fire having different textures as well as one being affected by wind, rotating, etc. But for some reason they don't overlap right. This means that when I have the two domains overlapping each other, one domain covers the other and makes this bad effect. This is what the effect looks like:

Anyways to fix this? Thanks!

"they don't overlap right" is pretty vague. Can you elaborate, preferable with pictures?

Yeah, I included the blend file, updated the question. It's kind of like my first question with transparent alpha images in front of smoke domains. Thanks!

Just edited it. I really appreciate what you're doing!

Possible duplicate of Is it possible to have more than one smoke simulation in the same scene?

I uploaded the blend file, sorry about that!

Ah man that was a good answer. Someone help me out!

The Problem
Your problem is that you are currently determining material transparency with Z Transparency. This doesn't work, since Z Transparency calculates the alpha per-face. When your domains intersect, it doesn't recalculate the alpha.
If the Domains Move or Change Size/Shape
Change the Transparency method to Raytrace:

This will slow down your render a little bit, since it is calculating the transparency per pixel instead of per face, but it isn't too significant and definitely produces a cleaner render:

If the Domains Do Not Move
If your domains are static, instead of using the Raytrace method, you can fix this by cutting an outline at the intersecting parts of your domain (easier shown than said):

This way, the faces of the domain inside the other domain are calculated separately from the faces outside the other domain.

I tried changing both domains to Raytrace but I got the same result...I think I made a mistake..

@GodzillaDude No, I'm sorry. The mistake was mine. My solution does not actually work. I am deleting this answer now. I recommend you look at the solution commented as a possible duplicate, or try using the Cycles render engine.

Reverting this for a bit. @GodzillaDude check again if you missed something as per flag.

Ah never mind, that was on me. I didn't check fast enough. I will, however, up this answer because it answers the question for people who work in Cycles. But if anyone knows the answer to this and works in Internal, I'm open to suggestions. iKIsR, thank you very much for going out of the way to revert that, greatly appreciated!


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(Blender Internal) Render Layers keeps duplicating
So I'm trying to have two smoke domains in one shot. I have a fire on the first layer and the explosion on the second. I add in the Render Layers tab another render layers. I want the second layer to be transparent, so I disable the sky option layer. I set under the layer tab the Scene and Layer the second one, and the first Render Layers is the first layer for both options. But now it's duplicating my settings to the other Render Layers. Anything I can do? Thanks!

Hey sorry abut that I added pictures, but basically the scene layer keeps staying the same.

The render layers shown in the Scene group are the ones which will be included in the render. So the RenderLayer.001 will be included as 3d layer enabled for that render layer is the same as turned on for the whole scene. RenderLayer will not be included as it is not enabled and won't be used for anything

I'm sorry I'm so lost I'm kinda new to this, what should I do?


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(Blender Internal Camera Tracking) Camera stays still while empties move?
So I'm new to Motion Tracking and have a simple set up. I was following a tutorial and all seemed well and good, but then I realized that something was wrong when I wanted to put an object in my scene. In the footage I'm recording the ground then walk around it in a half circle, but in my 3D view the camera isn't moving at all, and instead the empties (markers) are moving around? There's a blue chain as seen in the photo and I don't know what to do?

I need the camera to be the motion of the camera i recorded with, I've tried going to solve and solving the camera motion but nothing worked. Is there any way I can fix this? Thanks!

I have 8 trackers? I solved the camera, I used tripod to keyframe, testing each one out and the camera didnt move like I wanted. I posted the Blend file, it's really simple but I can't figure it out.

I don't think it's a duplicate. Also I'm not sure about setting the keyframe A and B as well as the refine settings. I'm really sorry, I'm just so lost on everything, i just want the camera to be moving and the objects to stay still, not the other way around. If it's any help, I followed this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0WhYNfZ1KI exactly, so maybe there was a setting that I wasn't suppose to put? Again I'm really sorry.

Those videos are each like an hour long? I'm just looking for a simple answer.


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(Internal) fire Simulation with wind force field is too curvy
I have this simple set up that I use every time when simulating Godzilla shooting his atomic breath, and the set up is basically like this. I have a cylinder that's a flow object, the domain, and a wind force field facing the direction of the breath being shot with a strength of 50. Sometimes I notice when I have a set up like this the fire curves too much, what I mean by this is that the flow of it bounces up and down crazily, like a sea or a flag. Is there a way to turn this down in the settings of the domain or flow object or even the forcefield? Thanks!

Here's a link to the settings for the force field, cylinder, and smoke domain. But you can see it curves a lot which I'm trying to make it not do.
https://i.sstatic.net/Ldocz.jpg

It would be helpful to provide some images of your set up, results, issue, etc. so that others can understand your issue.

Have you tried reducing Vorticity in the Smoke Flames settings?

Adjust the Vorticity settings to affect the turbulance in the smoke or flame. From the Blender Manual pages :

Vorticity
  Controls the amount of turbulence in the smoke. Higher values will make lots of small swirls, while lower values make smoother shapes.

Reduce Vorticity for a more stable flame.


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Infinite Droste Clock in Blender
I've been trying to re-create this effect I saw on a TV series:

Essentially, the phone box originates from the center of the clock, comes to the camera, swivels to the other side, and then the clock opens up. I know how to do the phone box animation and camera, but this clock really stumps me. I need to find out how to make it look this way and to have the swivel effect work. There seem to be droste plugins for some other software but none (that I could find) for blender. Any help would be appriciated.

Don't make people watch a video to understand what you want. Please edit your question and describe with words your objective, possibly add some references images.

Sorry for the video thing! I've edited the question.

Blender has a builtin addon to create spirals objects with bezier curves, those might help with this. Under File > User Preferences Addons Activate Add Curve: Extra Objects, then in the 3D View Shitf + A > Add > Curve > Spirals

Good idea! I'm giving that a try, but I'm not sure about how the swivel effect will work.


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Fluid visible in viewport but not able to render
I have created a fluid sim which looks fine in the viewport rendered mode but will disappear in the final render. The usual solutions are to check render visibility which in this file seem all on. I'm using blender 3.2.2 are there any other things to check - I'm stumped.
I have also checked that show emitter is on, so it is not that either.

Just found where the error lies - if I unchecked the liquid section in the fluid domain, the fluid will then render as expected. This is extremely confusing, and needs to be either automatically switched once a mesh has been generated or something to indicate this is necessary after the generation of the mesh from the sim.


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Wrong shading of surface (normals are OK)
I would appreciate your help with my model. I'm a beginner so can't figure out how to solve this issue. It's all about wrong shading of the back side of wings and wing flaps (please see attached .blend file below). It is not related to normals but rather to face geometry I believe but how to handle it?

Please use only this site to upload .blend files here: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Use "auto smooth". You can find this option in the object's properties 'data' tab. But this is a workaround. The main problem is due to the mesh itself: ngons...

I understand that but I can not see a way to evade using ngons in this particular situation except as to divide one wing flip into 2 separate flips and connect them.

@VictorA For some reason I can't download the .blend file, but additionally to what lemon said, check that you don't have Custom Split Normals Data added, this might be the reason, specially if your model is imported. check this answer: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/76513/strange-black-shading-cannot-fully-light-mesh-cycles

@Georges Thank you for the comment. This is not the case as I made this model by myself in Blender from the scratch and did not add custom split normals.


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Black bounding box surrounding camera view has disappeared
The camera view bounding box is not showing up when I go to camera view mode '0'.  No box guide-lines, no passepartout (although I checked to see if it was set to medium strength, which it is).  The bounding box enclosure does however appear if I click "Render" (not render mode in viewport, the 'official' render button).It's been a very long time since I worked on my blender project and I have no idea what happened.  Is there something obvious I'm forgetting?  Please help!

A 'Bounding box' in Blender is the 3d space defined by an imaginary box with sides parallel to the axis of the object's local space:

They can be used for simplifying complex scenes or simplifying various simulations or also may help visualizing the space an object occupies and so on.
Clearly you are using the term incorrectly.
What you are talking about is the camera's 'passepartout' or overlay around the camera's view. It can be switched on and off in the camera properties in the Properties Editor under Display section:

You may not be able to see the camera or the overlay if you are looking through it and are zoomed in too much, and also have locked the camera to view in the side panel of a 3d View (the n panel):

You would need to unlock it and zoom out in that case.

Thank you!  Yes, I know i am using wrong terms, I have been away so long I have basically forgotten how to use Blender, so many little things to recall that are so simple but so important.  I appreciate your patience with a forgetful artist.

Glad it helped. Welcome back to using Blender then. Have fun with it :)

Object menu View > Align View > View Lock to Active
Toggle the Camera View and tick Lock Camera to View checkbox

This does not appear to answer the question. How does this help to get the passepartout? It seems to me that everything that is necessary to make this work was already explained in the original accepted answer.


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How do you fade the edges of a model?
I have a model that is made of a flat plane that has been sculpted in the middle.  I need to fade the edges of the plane gradually into transparency.  How do I accomplish this?  I am totally new to this!  Thank you for help!
Edit:
Response to Cegaton:
Thank you, this works just as described on a new plane.  It is really just what i need, but it does not work on my model, which was modeled in Blender 2.7, if that makes any difference.  On my model, the adjustment only affects the top half of the mesh, and the bottom part is either translucent or opaque, with sharp edges.  I am baffled.  I will add that the model was made from a plane but many nips and tucks and extra rows of vertices have been added since the beginning.  I wonder if there is something about an older model that does not work with the new compositing options ('separate xyz'  was not available in 2.7).
PROBLEM SOLVED: The transparency begins at model's origin.  I moved the origin point from the center to the bottom of the model and now the transparency adjustment is operating exactly as demonstrated in Cegaton's answer.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/33155/599 (the application is different, but the technique can be applied to your situation)

A cycles material where the Diffuse node could be replaced with your own shader tree. This method uses the distance x,y from 0,0,0 (ignores the z component) - but does need the Separate XYZ node.


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How do I create texture that resembles texture of human body?
Right now my human model looks way too smooth, in cycles render.  I prefer the bumpier look of Blender render, but I want to use cycles.  How can I create a bumpier, lumpier-looking human, something that looks more lifelike? Specifically, I want my good-natured wise man character to have a lumpy belly that ripples when he laughs! I am currently using diffuse BSDF node and a little bit of glossy BSDF node.  Thank you for help!
Edit:
In response to atomicbezierslinger: I wanted to go ahead and say that yes, I do mean a protruding round belly, with slight rippling and dimpling, just enough to look like lifelike. This is the closest I've come to finding a photo reference, I hope this is not an inappropriate photo.
Just slight dimpling and lumpiness.  I will see if i can find a better reference photo.
Since you mentioned it, I would also like to know how to create fat folds that move realistically; that would come in handy for another character.  I appreciate all help and I will look into the SSS Shader.

Please place an image in your writing above to make it easier for others to help.  By lumpy do you mean a protruding round belly, ..... or folds of fat, or many protrusions such as in 1 inch size protrusions on a 5 foot human.  Or something else?

sssshader is for you

It is unfortunate yet no wisemanbellyripple modifier available in 2.75a  only available if plug-ons. but also hard even so still. If your human wanting lifelike, best of things you had better do is studying actual jolly-mans lifelike bellyripple. How many hours you spent watching really belly ripple?  I bet nothing! You post an question showing not anything research! how you are gonna use a stacksexchange not even have some sense to study a bellyriple first beforehand ; and various individual having to instruct you "use an sssshader" because you doesnt know even that!! what's?!!

To Mentalist: I have spent many hours examining my own rippling belly, but this does not reveal the secrets of the elusive Blender.  I have far to go.

@WishyQ, creating realistic skin or anything realistic for that matter is a pretty hard task. It involves many layers of work on modeling, shading, texturing, lighting, rendering and post production. I doubt you'll be able to get a thorough answer to your question here (unless someone makes you a several hour long video tutorial or 50 page long answer). I'd suggest you look for tutorials and courses for realistic human sculpting, texturing, shading and rendering. I'd start with https://cgcookie.com/courses/

Ha! Okay, so you were serious? I'm sorry, I really thought you were trolling us all with this question because it wasn't clear if you were asking about skin texture, modeling, or the render engine, and you described your character by his personality ("good-natured") which is totally subjective.

Anyway, for the dimpling use a combination of a Displace Modifier and some bump in your material. For the skin material add an SSS Shader to your glossy+diffuse mix. A skin texture image into the Diffuse color input would help too. For the ripple you can use a Cloth sim like in this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1lHca7I3So or a Soft Body sim like in this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuzIDG4z_Gk Finally here is a Soft Body tutorial specifically for belly ripple, lol - although it is in Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiO52a-iK_k Good luck!

To Mentalist:  Many thanks for your helpful suggestions!  I will probably be able to achieve my goals using this information.  If not fully achieve, at least a good start.

To TLousky: Thank you for suggesting cgcookie. I am enjoying their tutorials!

Usually stuff like this is done by sculpting.  Then you can use soft body physics and/or add some extra bones to the rig (protruding from the spine) to get the skin to move realistically.

Since it seems you found it useful, I am re-posting my comment as an answer:
For the dimpling use a combination of a Displace Modifier and some bump in your material. For the skin material add an SSS Shader to your glossy+diffuse mix. A skin texture image into the Diffuse color input would help too. For the ripple you can use a Cloth sim like in this tutorial. or a Soft Body sim like in this tutorial. Finally here is a Soft Body tutorial specifically for belly ripple, lol - although it is in Spanish. Good luck!


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Alpha channel is white, not transparent, in Texture mode
I imported images-as-planes into Blender Cycle.  I clicked "use alpha" (premultiplied) and "emissions and transparent".  The images are fine in Render mode, but the transparent areas appear as opaque white in the viewport in texture mode.  I need the transparent areas to be transparent while I'm editing.
How can I fix this problem?
Thank you!


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How to make semi-glossy emissions material?
How can i make a material that looks semi-glossy, but the "glossy" accents are being generated from emissions, rather than being generated by reflections from light sources outside the object?
Thanks!
Edit:

This is the current material.  Here is the node setup:

Here i have added some highlights in Photoshop:

I want the highlights to be emissions (rather than dependent upon outside light sources), if possible! (Although it would be interesting to see how the nodes would be set up for adding an environment-dependent gloss to the emissions material.) It does not have to be true-to-life; the goal is to simply add a layer of depth/presence/interest to the material.

I want a material that looks "glossy" no matter what the outside light sources are, a material that would have glossy-looking accents in complete absence of an outside light source.  I will look for an illustration !

I think this should be what you are looking for:

Its pretty much self explanatory: You use the facing node to add shadows and glossy reflections. If you need the gloss to be face-on, you just have to invert the ramp.


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Blender 2.8 Moving Vertices With G + X, Y, or Z Generates Odd Angles

I started working on a low poly model today and have run into trouble with the move tool. Normally, I press g + x, y, or z, and then the vertices snap to the axis I chose. However, for some reason now whenever I press g and one of the three axes, it no longer snaps to the axis I chose but rather some odd diagonal. I'm extremely new to blender so any help is much appreciated.

it is because you've set your transform orientations to Normals. Try settings it back to global. That should fix it

Thank you very much I would've never caught that.


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I can't render any fluid dynamic nor can see inside any fluid domain
Two issues have been crushing my dreams of doing literally anything related to fluid dynamics.
I am following along with this tutorial.
However, at the 2:00 mark, the instructor very casually turns an object into the fluid, but when I do exactly the same thing, nothing happens. I even went into Cache and gave the cache folder a specific folder since I recalled something about that from prior training.
What's killing me is that I have had fluid working, but I don't know what I have done - the specific steps I've taken - to turn this from object into fluid.
The second problem is one that has plagued me literally since the start of my looking into this: I can never actually see inside the region fluid-dynamics region. It's always a damned cube. I figured out I could apply a wireframe modifier to it just to see inside (in that project, I got fluid to work... somehow). But when I went to render, it was still a cube.
Anyway, if you have guidance, I would love it. I'm tired of banging my head against a wall. Here is the blend file.
Using v2.83.1 / Windows 10 64bit

The main problem is that you need to increase the "Resolution Divisions" setting for the Domain object. In newer versions of Blender (I'm using a 2.90alpha), the default looks like it's 32.  In the tutorial, the default appears to be 64.  It refers to the number of divisions along the longest dimension of the domain.  With a tall domain and short flow (in the Z direction), there's a reasonable chance the flow will get missed entirely, and it won't generate any particles.  Reset to the first frame with Shift←, and then try increasing the resolution division until particles appear.  (You need to reset to the first frame for this to work.)
Now, if you start the animation with Space, the particles should start moving around.  If they don't, it's probably because the cache directory is bad, so blank out that cache filename and try resetting to frame 1 and replaying the animation.
Once that's working, another problem is that a Replay Cache (i.e., Cache -> Type -> Replay) is extremely flaky in current versions of Blender.  You'll find that if you move participating objects (e.g., move flows and effectors) or change certain settings, stale cache information will be left in place.  You might get particles sourced from the wrong place, particles exploding, particles leaking, etc.  It's best to switch from Replay to Modular (which is what's ultimately used in the tutorial) so you have explicit Bake/Free buttons.  Specifically, you can "Bake Data" in the Fluid -> Settings panel to generate the particles and then play the animation.
Finally, you can make your domain see-through while working on the animation by going into its "Object Properties" and selecting Viewport Display -> Display As -> Wire.  This doesn't affect the render, so it will still render as a solid cube until you get the mesh simulated (see later in the tutorial).  Once the mesh is baked, that mesh replaces the domain mesh in the final render.

Thank you very much! This was extremely clear and completely resolved this block. My takeaway is: 1) Use the Explicit Buttons for Bake 2) Make sure that I turn up my Divisions at the outset.


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Rendering Error with OpenCL
so I just started with Blender and wanted my adjust my render so it will use the GPU. At first it didnt work so I updated my drivers and everything was fine.
So now i just tried to render a full image and suddenly i get this kind of error message and in no scene i am now able to render with GPU.
OpenCL error: CL_MEM_OBJECT_ALLOCATION_FAILURE in clEnqueueWriteBuffer(cqCommandQueue, CL_MEM_PTR(mem.device_pointer), CL_TRUE, 0, size, (void*)mem.data_pointer, 0, NULL, NULL)
Between the time when it worked and it somehow gave me the error i didnt change anything important in my opinion. I just made the render use 100% of my resolution and more samples per pixel and now i always get this error.
I use:
Windows 10
AMD Radeon R9 280  ( driver 17.2.1 )
Blender 2.78
something else you need to know?
Thanks for the help.

I just made the render use 100% of my resolution [...].

This is an important change, since a higher rendering resolution requires more memory. The error you are getting tells you that Blender could not get enough memory from your graphics card.
If you do not want to use a lower resolution, simplify your scene by using lower resolution textures for far-away objects, using lower subdivition levels, fewer particles or in general less geometry when you can afford it.
Also have a look at the simplify tab in the scene settings:

Another possibility might be to render your image in parts, like shown here or in the answer to this question.

Thank you. I will definietly try that partly rendering.
The strange thing was, yesterday even when i made a new scene with just a cube it wasnt able to render with gpu anymore. i got console errors. Today i tried again and everything is fine again. My original scene also wasnt a really big scene or sth.. but well i guess my graphic card still isnt able to deal with it.
Thanks again. Gotta go for your tip on partial rendering. :)


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Find boundary coordinates of a set of mesh points
I have a set of bmesh verts created like:
import bmesh
# ...
bm = bmesh.new()
# ...
bm.verts.new(...)

I intend to have all the points on the boundary of the verts. I can compute the boundary points by doing something like:
minX = min([co[0] for co in coords])
maxX = max([co[0] for co in coords])
minY = min([co[1] for co in coords])
maxY = max([co[1] for co in coords])
minZ = min([co[2] for co in coords])
maxZ = max([co[2] for co in coords])
print(minX, maxX, minY, maxY, minZ, maxZ)

However, I'm curious if there is any tool to get the min/max of bmesh verts, or even better, a tool to get the boundary points of bmesh verts. Thanks.

There is a BMesh API, but not sure how to use it:
is_boundary
True when this vertex is connected to boundary edges (read-only).

Type:   boolean

If an edge is only used  for  one face then  it is_boundary and so are both of its vertices. The cube has no boundary edges the plane 4.

While not bmesh, the region_to_loop operator will select the boundary loop of the current selection. You would think this would be available in bmesh.


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Installing local Python module works in Blender Python executable, but not in Blender console
I am trying to learn Blender to make math animations, and since I expect to use it almost exclusively through the Python api, I am writing a library of utilities as I go: https://github.com/bencbartlett/pyblend I would like to be able to import this library within Blender. I have run the following to install it:
git clone https://github.com/bencbartlett/pyblend.git
/Applications/Blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.93/python/bin/python3.9 -m pip install -e pyblend

If I then run /Applications/Blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.93/python/bin/python3.9 and import pyblend, it imports as expected, but when I open Blender and run import pyblend in the console, I get a ModuleNotFoundError. Strangely, the dependencies for the module which were not previously present (such as matplotlib) are correctly installed, but the module itself is not.
What am I doing wrong and how can I install a local module so that it is importable within Blender?

If you run this script it will print out all the places Blender (or other instance of Python) looks for scripts:

import sys

print(sys.path)

You can add to this path at runtime if you need to, I have a plugin that has a libs/ folder under its installed folder. There is code like this to add the library path in the folder the plugin file is running from:

import os
import sys
local_module_path=os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)),'libs')
if local_module_path not in sys.path:
    sys.path.append(local_module_path)


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Make object visible when intersecting with target path of curve modifier
I am creating an animation of a laser pulse traveling down a waveguide. To represent the laser pulse, I am using a long cylinder-like object with an emissive shader. To make the pulse follow the waveguide, I have defined a Bezier curve which determines the path the light travels, and have applied a curve modifier to the cylinder with Deform Axis set to X and the Curve Object target set as the waveguide curve. By varying the X position of the cylinder, I can make the object follow the waveguide path, as shown in the attached gif.

I would like to modify the object's shader so that it is visible/emissive only in the section of the object which is overlapping with the curve which is the Curve Object. So if the curve is 3 units long, only 0 <= point_on_object.x <= 3 is emissive. Normally I would do Geometry.Position -> Separate XYZ.X -> >=0 and <=3 and attach this to a Mix Shader node. However, I need point_on_object.x to refer to the parametric, curve-deformed coordinate of x, not the actual geometric coordinate in real space, so I'm not sure what input to use here.
Also, because I am creating most of this animation programmatically (the full animation will have many waveguides and many laser pulses), the shader method needs to be fully automatic, so should will fetch whatever cylider.modifiers.curve.curve_object.splines[0].calc_length() is to determine the range of parametric x coordinates which are visible. Ideally, the solution should also not require creating a separate instance of the material for each unique curve, because I am creating many linked duplicates of a single master object which represents the light pulse for efficiency reasons, as there will be potentially hundreds of waveguides and thousands of light pulses in the animation.

what is a waveguide?

By 'Overlap' , do you mean 'Within the length of', but still bleeding light radially?

@Chris a waveguide is a structure that guides light (or other waves), such as a fiber optic cable.

@RobinBetts by overlapping I mean that the center axis of the curve-deformed is collinear with the path which it is following. If we define $z$ to be the extrusion axis of the cylinder with motion animated over time $t$ and $s(z(t))$ to be the path of the curve, I would like for the surface vector $\vec{r} = (x,y,z)$ of the cylinder to be shaded with emissive shaders whenever $(0,0,z(t))$ is in the domain of $s(z(t))$.


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How to create concentric circle ripples in an upright emissions image plane, in cycles?
I would like to create a concentric circle ripple effect in an upright emissions image plane.  I have already tried a haphazard method using an invisible torus and sphere, and making the image plane a pinned cloth, which has created a modest ripple.  I have a screencast video of this but I am currently not sure how to imbed the video in this question, and the ripple really is not even noticeable in a still image:

Here is the setup:

There is a torus that becomes larger, and then a sphere is sent through the image which has a cloth modifier.

I was unable to figure out how to use displace modifier, wave modifier, or fluid to achieve a good effect.  But i am sure there is a better way to do this, possibly using nodes.
I would prefer if the edges stayed within the original confines of the image, but this is not 100% critical.
The ripple could be 3D or 2D (some kind of image disruption using nodes, or maybe something I know nothing about yet!).  I am interested in any possible solution!!!  The more I can learn, the better.
EDIT:
The difficulty here is making the ripple visible on an emissions image plane, from the front.  The 3D ripple would have to be at an outward angle to obscure the image as the wave expands, or it would have to stretch the image visibly as it moves outward...and be visible from the front!  Right now the wave modifier is not visible from the front even at its most extreme, but perhaps there is a way to make that work, and I am not aware of it yet!
Thank you!

If your displacement is perpendicular to the projection plane, it will be VERY subtle.  You might have to include some displacement along the projection plane.  I'm imagining a python program that creates a plane subdivided by radial coordinates and then animates the rings with bones or shape keys.  Mostly because I have a lot of experience with python.

One technique is to completely ignore geometry and instead distort the texture according to the formula
r = sqrt(x**2+y**2)
wiggle = (r+ amplitude*cos(r*frequency + phase) ) / r
x' = x * wiggle
y' = y * wiggle

which seems like ripples.  You will want to animate the phase (give it some keyframes in your texture node tree), then adjust the amplitude and frequency to fine tune the effect.
I have uploaded an example of the technique.  Unfortunately the simplest math turns into spaghetti when you translate it to nodes.  Also, there is a defect in blender's logic that mangles UV coordinates when you split them up and recombine them ( grouping texture nodes changes the coordinate space ) meaning there's a little extra logic to unmangle them.
(edit:) To adapt the example .blend file for something other than the checker test pattern: replace the connection from the checker texture to the "At" node with a connection from the Texture node (left and above the checker node) to the "At" node.  The example .blend file has a "bear" texture that points at an image you certainly don't have, but you can go into the texture properties and modify the bear texture to use whatever image you want.  If you eventually get the example blend animating in a way that is suitable you can File/Append this material to your original project and use it.

(edit2:) the .blend file now includes a cycles node tree implementing the math.

Thank you @MutantBob !  I apologize, I do not know how to use this... I downloaded the file, and there are red/white checkered boxes and I am not sure what to do.  I have no experience with code at all.  Can you elaborate, or am I missing something obvious?  Thank you for your help, I would like to try the technique you have suggested.

I was wondering about using nodes, combining a PNG image of a ring, then somehow using that data to distort the main image, then using the mapping node to animate the ring-shaped image displacement.  It would be better to use code, however, it just seems so far removed from my current knowledge base.

Thank you for the edit!  It does not seem to work in cycles however.  Is there a way to use this in cycles render?

Yes, you'd use identical math upon the coordinates feeding into an image texture node.  http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/52779/how-to-adjust-texture-coordinates-with-a-distortion-texture/52780 has some screenshots of a cycles material that modifies texture coordinates (although its adjustments are much simpler)

Can you please post a picture of what to do?  I apologize, I am not sure what you mean.  How do I feed coordinates into an image texture node?  I am sure this is simple but I am confused.  Do I type the formula into a special node?  Or can i move the ripple node into my Cycles nodes collection?  I'll go back and look again to see if I missed something...

There is a new .blend file to download which includes a cycles node tree.

Thanks!  This is great. :)  I would like to make custom nodes also, where is a good place to start learning?

When I want to learn something I generally do a google search and end up with an article or a video.

Have your tried the Wave Modifier? Play the animation afterwards to see the effect

Your plane must be sufficiently subdivided for the effect to be visible, there has to be enough geometry for the modifier to bend. Also make sure you apply the scale to your object, otherwise the effect might be larger than the plane and stay out of bounds. Set the wave parameters and size accordingly.

Sorry I deleted my question before i saw your comment!  I remember why this did not work for my purposes...it is not visible on the emissions plane from the front view.  It would work if I could make the ripples more extreme, angled over, so as to obscure part of the image as they expanded, or if they stretched the image instead of just moving smoothly over the surface.  Is there a way to do that?

No, I don't think so. Perhaps do it in the texture or color of the emission instead, if your objective is to affect the image itself. Either affect the UVs or the very color of the material/intensity of the emission


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Emissions material that is glittery?
Is it possible to create a glittery material that is emissions-only, that has "shadowy" areas and depth?
Thank you!
Edit:
Here are some images:

The material might be a mix of these, or just one of these.  I would be happy to just have a starting point, for a glittery emissions material!

I think this is a nice question. My first instinct would be to use a voronoi texture but this is not constant over a certain area, and cannot be made constant just by math nodes.

The pictures show a material thats not emissive but rather glossy with a bump. Is it required for it to be emission only inside Blender? I.e. only use emission nodes? Are we talking cycles?

@AdamTM Yes, I am using cycles.  I would like for the glittery sparkle to exist and shimmer as the object moves, without being dependent on a light source to do so.  So the shimmer itself would be generated by the material, but the material would still behave as a non-emissions material by having shadowy areas in the indentions, or at least a different, darker color in the indentions and along contours.  The contours and indentions of the mesh would still be evident and clear.  Can a material behave as as emissions and behave as non-emissions at the same time?

@AdamTM  I guess the intensity and/or color of the sparkle would depend on where the contours of the mesh are.  I am relatively new to nodes so I cannot speak in more detail than this right now!

Based on the same technique as in your glossy question, here is what i think would work:

Additionally you would maybe need a tilable image texture to make this work better than vornoi.
The glow like in the reference picture is post processed in with nodes.

You could use a texture as a mask for displace and emission, with a coloramp for tuning: It will look better with true displace on

Have a look at the node setup. Cheers.

This is not exactly what I'm looking for but it looks interesting and I will try it !


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What to expect transitioning from Blender 2.76 to version 3.1?
I am preparing to return to a project that I put aside for a few years.  I am eager to upgrade to the latest Blender edition, but I am concerned I will not be able to smoothly transition my 2.76 files into 3.1.  What can I expect?  Should I just finish my old work in 2.76?  I do not yet have the new PC that will support 3.1, and I don't have any way to otherwise test the files in 3.1.  How much has changed?  Will I need to relearn everything?  Thanks for any advice!
edit: am preparing to acquire a new PC that will support Blender 3.1, not sure if i should hurry up and acquire it or just finish my old work on 2.76.

if you don't have the new PC that will support 3.1, I guess you must not use it? The main changes with 3.1 are a lot of things the interface, Eevee, and collections (I must forget something important though), it takes several days to feel comfortable, but it worth is imho, but if you can't use it yet, stick to 2.7 and finish your project?

@moonboots  I edited my question.  Planning to get a new PC but would like to know ahead of time if files from 2.76 can transition into 3.1!

I would say it depends if you need to quickly finish your project, if this is the case then stick to 2.7 as your familiar with it, if you're not in a hurry then switch to 3.1, it will take several days to feel comfortable but it's not so big. Also 3.1 has Eevee, it speeds up a lot the preview and render time, but it's a bit different in terms of render, you need to fiddle a bit to have a quality close to Cycles

I started really using blender just before 2.79b, and am currently up to date, but it’s been awhile. Take this with a grain of salt.
Even though a lot changed under the hood with Blender 3, I feel like the actual “Blender three” was Blender 2.80, as it made the most changes to be incompatible with 2.79 and before. The most notable that I remember were:

Overhaul of the default screen layouts, with a new UI theme.
The addition of “gizmos” which are basically the thing where transform arrows would show on the selected thing in the viewport, but far expanded with many previously menu-only tools being available to show, plus some navigational tools that show all the time.
The game engine was scrapped.
The Blender Internal render engine was scrapped.
The EEVEE render engine was added. It is node based, like Cycles, and most shaders will be compatible with both, but EEVEE is built on OpenGL and is more like a game render engine in that it “fakes” (rasterizes) everything for amazingly speedy mostly-accurate renders.
The Workbench render engine was added. This is equivalent to the old viewport/OpenGL render (which I think was removed), and is basically solid view.
Viewport background images were removed as an option (there’s a workaround by using the world shader to show an image with Window coordinates).
Images as an Empty were added. Great for references.
The keyboard shortcuts for playback (now Shift+Space), de-selecting all (now Alt+A), and making an editor fullscreen were changed.

Later on, some other things were added/changed:

Geometry Nodes. Basically, construct your own modifier(s) with a node editor. Can’t bevel yet, but can add mesh primitives…
Asset Browser and “mark as asset”. Meant to make re-using assets easier, although I still mostly just have used Append.
“Cycles X”. Cycles was completely re-written on its tenth anniversary from the ground up, and is now much faster, with better OptiX support in general. It was a replacement, so the old Cycles is no longer in place.

For more information, check on YouTube. There’s a “Blender 2.80 basics” video that might help you.