text:
Changing the units in blender breaks camera view
I changed the scale in blender so exporting to unity would be less of a hassle. I followed this tutorial to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnAb1w-Dmuc.
The problem is that after changing the scale, I cannot see anything through the camera. Even if I scale it up and point it directly in front of the model, nothing renders.

Make sure the camera's far clipping limit is big enough (properties editor > Camera > Lens > Clipping).

thanks for the fast reply! where is the far limit?

ok, I made it so it starts at 28 cm and ends at 33m. i positioned it directly in  front of the model. I originally positioned it by aligning the camera to view. I really can't work out why it is blank. Thanks for the responses!!!

Is it possible you could upload your .blend?

Sure! I've never done this before though so I don't know how.... where can I find out how to do it?

Just upload it to a hosting site like pasteall, then put the link here

wow that was easy. here it is http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31499

ah no! I made a new file and for some reason this one works when I change the clipping plan to more than one metre... I was reluctant to send out the model I did (not that it's that great, haha). I'll keep fiddling with that one for a bit.

Is it possible you could upload your file? (you can delete the bits which you don't want to release). It's possible it's some object setting, but if you delete the geometry of your model in edit mode, then the object settings will be preserved.

It's ok, you've helped me solve it now. I just wasn't using clipping effectively. Thanks so much for your help! If it happens again I'll send the actual model file.

Sounds like the clipping distance is too small:

One meter is the default size of the spaces in the grid, and in this case isn't large enough.
If you enable limits in camera > display, you can see a representation of the clipping distance in the 3D view, allowing you to see what might be wrong:


text:
Make uv vertices evenly spaced
This topic has already been raised but the solution doesn't seem to work for me. I need to find a way to make the lines in a uv map evenly spaced.

There was an addon for blender 2.61 that would distribute the vertices on the horizontal and vertical axis https://developer.blender.org/T29981 but I'm not sure if it would work for 2.74. I read that using the uv sculpt smooth tool should work but nothing happens for me when I use that tool.
Does anyone have advice about how to evenly distribute vertices on the x and y?

Check the answer to this question and see if it helps you. http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/26037/how-to-evenly-distribute-vertices-in-an-uv-map?rq=1

I couldn't get UV sculpt to work. I wentover the area with smooth but nothing happened. I must be missing something :/ The UV squares addon does the job perfectly though, however I would like to know what I could be doing wrong with uv sculpt.

I believe this is what you want. Its a great addon, I've been using it for ages now. Basically what it does is it converts the selected uv area into an nicely lined up square, or into an evenly spaced grid.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Corrective Shape Keys for the Shoulder
I'm using the rigify rig with my model, and following this tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3JWNIkwBZ8&list=PLaPYMM3efL6nAqPsMwC3jJAc-r7CUTOd4) helped me work out how to use corrective shape keys for the hips. I tried to apply the same process to the shoulders but nothing is happening.
For the shoulders, I made a driver and and selected the thigh.fk bones as the targets. I selected Y rotation, local space, and averaged values. I didn't add a generator modifier as, unlike the hips, changing the coefficients to 0 and -1 didn't make any difference.
Here's a screenshot of my settings:

DanPro (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4lLVkUGPtM5pnS3ZskvECg) answered my question with this post (https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?412404-Corrective-shape-key-driver-for-the-shoulder) and this tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUs04SGUnVI).
Quote from DanPro in the BlenderArtists link:

The shoulder does not rotate on the Y axis for the standard Rigify Rig. It only rotates in X and Z and that is on the bones Local axes. I can't tell from the screenshot how you have the bone aligned so I cannot tell you which axis to use. (Turn on bone axes display.) You can find this out by using the hotkey R, then X,X, or R then Z,Z (if you are using Normal or Global Transformation Orientation). Change your variable to this other axis, once you determine which it is.
Also, change the bone to ORG-upper_arm.L instead of the FK bones. This way, whether you are using IK or FK controls to pose, the driver and corrective shape will still work. The ORG bones for legs and arms is the intermediate that switches between IK and FK, so this is the bone that should be used to drive corrective shapes. (In most cases. Exceptions always apply.)
One more tip, a human cannot raise their arm like in the screenshot unless they involve the shoulder. The shoulder needs to be raised whenever the arm reaches the T-pose position and above.

His rigging tutorials are the best I've found on YouTube.

In general it is preferred to add a text summary of the solution in your answer rather than just links. I have added a quote from the BA thread to fix this.

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


text:
why do changes to the armature made in edit mode vanish when I change modes?
Sorry for the basic question!
I found out that my knees in the blender armature where not bending because I extruded them in a straight line. When I tried to create a bend in them in edit mode, the legs would revert to their straight position in edit and pose mode.
Why is this???

Do you have any keyframes on them?

wow that was fast! No I don't.

ahhh, sorry. I tried to unlock some of the inverse kinematics to stop the leg from bending incorrectly and I forgot to change that. Hope that made sense. This is all new to me. The knees are now bent in all modes but they still will not bend!!!

I did it from scratch with a bend in the knees from the get go and there is no problem now.

Unlike plain objects armature bones have two defined positions. The first position is known as the rest position (or rest pose) and is the position while in edit mode. While in pose or object mode the pose position is used. This pose position is the one that you keyframe to get animations.
While in pose mode any movements are retained as locations relative to the rest position, You can rotate a bone in pose mode then go into edit mode and move it sideways, it will also move sideways in pose mode but will also retain the rotation that was applied before the edit was made.
While in pose mode you can select bones as desired and clear any rotation or location changes to get the armature back to a rest pose with AltG for location and AltR for rotation.
In the armature properties you can also switch between rest and pose position to see any pose alterations.


text:
Stop blender from creating redundant animations for each new object
I'm creating a player character asset in Blender for use in Unity. I'm separating the armor and weapons into separate objects and attaching them all to the same rig so they animate in sync.
The problem is that several animations are created for these objects which is annoying as they are all empty animations that add nothing to the asset. How do I delete these animations or, better yet, stop Blender from doing it in the first place?

I deleted the redundant animations by right clicking in the outliner and removing animation data from the individual objects. This worked and Unity is no longer freezing whenever I try and open the asset (due to the eighty or so animations it was trying to load). It would still be great to know how to stop this from happening at all.

Although this is a really old question, I could not yet find an answer. Can meanwhile somebody tell me how I could prevent freshly created objekts from getting an animation?

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


text:
How to render transparent textures in blender render?
I've managed to make the background of the image transparent, but I can't work out how to render the transparent textures on the leaves as transparent and not opaque. How do you do this?

here's a link to the blend file: https://www.mediafire.com/?1iou4i1ansu2a6s

Possible duplicate of Texture Painting Transparent

please to share files use http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/, (free permanent, integrated) then paste the provided link editing the question

On Material Tab, go to Transparency Section, activate leaves' Material transparency, set it's transparency mode to "Z Transparency" and then set the Alpha value to 0.
On Texture Tab, go to Influence Section, tick Alpha and set it's value to 1. Don't forget to tick Use Alpha on Image Section.

If you use an opaque image with transparency mask image, you can make the transparency mask to overlay the opaque image one using Texture Index and do things above (But, I don't guarantee it will always work).
if material still black in render mode, On Material Tab go to Shadow section tick Receive Trasparent e don't tick Cast.

Seems to be already answered this way here.


text:
Scale custom bones
Does anyone know why custom bone shapes become enormous when applied to a particular bone? How do you get around this?

Check whether you have applied the scaling. The world transformations will be ignored.
So make changes to the custom shape in edit mode or apply location / rotation / scale afterwards.
The shortcut is CTRL  +  A  or choose it from the header menu Object -> Apply -> Scale.


text:
Armature advice for the hip region
I'm using a basic armature: a couple of bones for the hand, a bone for the abdomen, chest, neck, head, clavicle, arm, forearm, thigh, shin, ankle, foot and toes. I'm use poles and targets for the arm and leg.
This basic setup works fine for walking animations, attacking, tree chopping etc. but as soon as I attempt an animation where the model is picking something up or crouching, it looks awful. The buttocks completely disappear and the abdomen is pushed in by the thighs. I've tried to weight paint my way out of this but I suspect I need more bones around the hip region to stop this from happening.
Does anyone know any good resources for improving armatures? Keep in mind that this is for a game so I'm aiming for minimal bones. I can post my blender scene on pasteall if that would help.

Have you looked at this: http://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/introduction-to-rigging/ ?

No I haven't. Thanks a lot for the link. I'm sure it will answer this question and many more.

...the tutorials are excellent and the will definitely be a great help but unfortunately the character he is rigging has a skirt so he doesn't go into the intricacies of rigging/weight painting the hip region. I suppose the next step would be his character creation DVDs.

I've just started animating again after spending a lot of time modelling, so your suggestion is very timely! I'll definitely look into shape keys and drivers. I've never studied them before. I've also neglected the curve editor -which is probably why my animations look so robotic and, well, crap.

No, you don't need to add extra bones. You may need to rearrange some of the existing bones.
Remember, when something doesn't work like real life, the best thing you can do is try to mimic real life.
Here's a picture I drew, with proper weights on the leg and a diagram of how the real bone structure is.

Notice how the effects of the leg bone has are very little on the glutes. This will help with crouching as the but won't have to stretch out in order to reach a full squat. Above the hip joint there should be little to no weight, except a little on the abdominal muscles, which need to suck in a little in order for the leg to not collide with them.
I think this should solve most of your problems; it always works for me.

Thank you for the detailed drawing. I tried to implement your advice but I suspect that my low poly model simply does not have enough vertices in the hip region for the correct deformations to occur. If you have time, could you look at my actual model to see if this is the case? Here is the link: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/33866


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Assigning vertex groups to bones precisely
I've looked at several answers to this question and none of the responses are giving me what I need.
Vertex groups are selected in the armature options, the vertex group names  correspond to the bones I want them to be attached to, and I parented the armature to the mesh with the 'armature deform' option (I tried automatic weights and the result was even worse).
I would have thought that the vertex groups would be influenced 100% by the bones sharing the same name as the vertex group, and 0% by the bones that do not have the same name.
This is not what is happening, as can be seen here:

The 'base' bone influences the 'base' vertex group fine, but also influences the 'lid' vertex group -which I don't want. Furthermore, the lid vertex group looks like it is only 50% influenced by the lid bone, as shown here:

I know there is an obvious remedy to this, but it's one I don't like using. Weight painting is not precise and very fiddly.

Fast and easy way to do it is in edit mode, select the part of the mesh that you want to be effected buy one bone, then in vertex groups select the group of related bone and assign weight with value of 1.
Then select other other vertex group and hit remove button.
Then repeat the same process on the other part of the mesh assigning or removing weight that you want to be associated with that part of the mesh.

Ok, so I wouldn't create two custom made vertex groups at the beginning. I'd simply make the bones I need, attach it with automatic weights, and then edit which vertices I want those bones to influence with remove and assign. Works well. Thanks :)


text:
Polygon hair in blender using bezier curves
In the attached image you'll see a hair model made by Apachii (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/10168/?) -a Skyrim modder. I downloaded all her hair files and have tried to reverse engineer her hair technique. It's extremely hard to replicate in Blender and I've probably seen every tutorial on the subject.

I suspect the best approach would be to use bezier curves and then convert the curves to a mesh. I have two problems with this:

how did she get the curves to lie so closely to one another without overlapping? Is there a way to snap bezier curves together so they hover above each at a set distance and never overlap?
how did she unwrap all those bezier curves so beautifully (see image below).

Here is a clearer image of the sort of hair technique I'm trying to master:

If you look closely they do overlap at times, overlapping should not be a big problem. My guess is that it is just done by hand, with lots of work and patience, I don't think there are many shortcuts

There are many good tutorials about creating polygon hair in Blender on youtube. The magic formula is always the same: patience and practice ;-)
Take a look at this one (and don't get turned off by the pink theme; it's actually very good): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_Zj2H0UEes

CGCookie has a tutorial using curves to create hair. I doubt the last example you show used curves. This can help with uv's.

Here's another link to a dev tutorial by s.o. who worked on "Rise of the Tomb Raider": http://tombraider.tumblr.com/post/131320726110/dev-blog-creating-believable-hair-and-fur

Thanks guys! Time and patience it is. I found those two tutorials before, but I didn't  think I could get results like the first image using those techniques. I'll give it another crack :) The UVSquares addon is useful, but in this case it didn't make all the hair strands the same size like in the above photo. Maybe it's a max or maya thing?

If you want the UV scaling to stay accurate you can select all the objects and do average UV scaling and hit pack island. That’s what I do


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no Shape keys and weight painting, are they compatible?
I've made a shape key for blinking, but the head is also weight painted 100% to the head bone. When the head is not attached to a skeleton, the blinking works fine and I can control it via a script in Unity 3D. When the head is weight painted, the eyes stay wide open.
I'm assuming that the head bone is telling those vertices to stay in place and this must be overriding the shade key. Is that right?
Is there any way shape keys and weight painting can work together?
*I should add that this is only a problem when the character is being animated. I'm not sure how to get around this as I can't exactly not animate the head. I'm stuck.

You need to export the FBX file using the ASCII exporter, not the binary one.
My character can now blink while being animated. The only issue is that the ASCII exporter exports the model x100 smaller. This can be easily changed in the model properties panel, but if there is a way to import it with the correct scale that would be great.


text:
The results of python scripts and python console are different?
I'm running a script to create a bone and rotate it by setting rotation_euler of the PoseBone. But I got wrong results from the scripts.
My scripts code:
import bpy
bpy.ops.object.armature_add()
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
bpy.context.object.data.edit_bones[0].name = 'Bone_1'
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='POSE')
b = bpy.context.object.pose.bones['Bone_1']
b.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
aaa = b.y_axis
b.rotation_euler[0] = 1.57
b.rotation_euler[1] = 0
b.rotation_euler[2] = 0
bbb = b.y_axis
print(aaa, bbb)

scripts running result:
<Vector (0.0000, 0.0000, 1.0000)> <Vector (0.0000, 0.0000, 1.0000)>

The bone model is rotated correctly, however the outputs are wrong because the attribute of the bone has not changed.
But when I using the python console to run the same code line by line.
The outputs are correct:
>>> bpy.ops.object.armature_add()
{'FINISHED'}

>>> bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
{'FINISHED'}

>>> bpy.context.object.data.edit_bones[0].name = 'Bone_1'
>>> bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='POSE')
{'FINISHED'}

>>> b = bpy.context.object.pose.bones['Bone_1']
>>> b.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
>>> aaa = b.y_axis
>>> b.rotation_euler[0] = 1.57
>>> b.rotation_euler[1] = 0
>>> b.rotation_euler[2] = 0
>>> bbb = b.y_axis
>>> print(aaa, bbb)
<Vector (0.0000, 0.0000, 1.0000)> <Vector (0.0000, -1.0000, 0.0008)>

The bone's attribute has changed correctly.
I don't understand why the console runs correctly but the script runs incorrectly.
Any suggestion where I'm going wrong?

In the python console, the scene is updated at each step, this is not the case in the script.
You can add bpy.context.view_layer.update() after the rotation is changed.
import bpy
bpy.ops.object.armature_add()
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
bpy.context.object.data.edit_bones[0].name = 'Bone_1'
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='POSE')
b = bpy.context.object.pose.bones['Bone_1']
b.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
aaa = b.y_axis
b.rotation_euler[0] = 1.57
b.rotation_euler[1] = 0
b.rotation_euler[2] = 0
bpy.context.view_layer.update() # Update here
bbb = b.y_axis
print(aaa, bbb)

Thanks! It's done

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


text:
Subsurface-Modifier Anvil
Hello my fellow Blendercomunity,
I'm using Blender for a week now so I ask you - can you help me? I can't figure out how to get rid of that:

I tried everything.
To better understand my problem, I give you more screenshots.

Hello could you please share your file? https://blend-exchange.com/

How much is everything? Please be more specific.

@moodboots ok, I did. Can you see it?

@BentleyCarpenter I tried multiple loopcuts or knifes, but I can't put one there. I tried to move the vertexes together (into the mirrored one). Subsurface more or less did nothing. But more than that is above my knowlidge. Thank you

Have you tried selecting and deleting the face in editmode?

And by the way it's @moonboots, not moodboots :)

@BentleyCarpenter You are truely a master of your craft. Thank you. So simple. And yes I knew it's moonboots, I guess I had a grave typo. ^^' By the way, how do I like / vote your answer?


text:
How to apply and export baked cycles textures.
so I have successfully baked a texture onto my object in cycles. Is this new image texture already applied as a texture? When exporting, for example, with collada, it's recommended to export from the blender render. I tried to switch over to the blender render and make a new texture using the image texture baked with cycles, but the uv's didn't match. What is the quickest and best way to export a mesh with the new baked texture.

BI and cycles use the same uv data. Do you maybe have a mapping node that scales the uv's in cycles? Are you mapping to uv in BI and not generated?

I'll have a look at the .blend file if you like.  You can post them using PasteAll.org.  Once you upload it there, you can paste the link here.

There's a good chance this answers your question http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1750/blender-uv-mapping-error


text:
How can i make this low poly edges smooth without bevel?

this is a low-poly mesh I want to make smooth edges like high poly mesh without beveling them

you need to bake the details from a high poly mesh

You can't make round edges without bevelling

Well, you could use the Bevel  shader in Cycles, but that's a trick that's unlikely to be exportable


text:
How do I avoid my lowpoly mesh being all stretchy and weird in shade smooth?
So, I'm learning 3d modeling, and I've become 10 years older in just a week. I love it.
I'm starting my journey by doing low-poly stuff. However, I've been encountering a problem
Every once in a while this happens:

Low-poly face looking pretty good so far. Yum yum. Let's add a low-poly nose.

meme_surprise_boom.mp3
That's obviously not supposed to happen, right?
Then I think to myself, "That must be because of the ngons! I've heard about ngons..." and I try to triangulate the mesh around the nose.

I tried triangulating those faces in every possible combination

To no avail. He still just looks angry.

I noticed that the model of Leon's face from RE2 I imported has the same weird stuff going on.
Any tips on how to fix that?
Thanks in advice
xoxo

That's what supposed to happen, Blender will smooth between the triangles and give this result, if you want the shading to be more gradual you can give your object a Subdivision Surface modifier, it will create virtual topology. Try to use quads rather than tris though, it will make the modeling easier.


text:
send instructions to blender from external application
I need to send instructions to blender trough an external application.
for example: import model to current scene
Is this possible? Can someone point me in the right direction based on previous experience.
Thanks in advance
Ghus

You could poll a file with instructions or use sockets (for remote networks) or something else from pythons interprocess communication.
Using a file could be quite simple, the basic idea is to execute the statements in a loop:
Process A                           Process B(lender)
------------------------------------------------------
                                    File exists No -> sleep
Create file with instructions
                                    File exists Yes -> read and execute statements
Does file still exist Yes ->sleep
                                    After execution delete file

While Process-A just needs to print some lines in a text file like:
import,file1.obj
import,file2.obj
import,file3.obj
cancel,none

The Blender side could be timer operator (based on the build in template) it actually reads the commands from the file (the last command 'cancel' deletes the file and stops the timer):
import bpy
import os.path

class ModalTimerOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Operator which runs its self from a timer"""
    bl_idname = "wm.modal_timer_operator"
    bl_label = "Modal Timer Operator"

    _timer = None
    filename='C:\\dev\\command.txt'

    def modal(self, context, event):
        if event.type == 'TIMER':
            if os.path.isfile(self.filename):
                for line in open(self.filename):
                    line=line.rstrip("\n")
                    cmd,arg = line.split(",")
                    if cmd == 'import':
                        print('import requested file=%s' % arg )
                    elif cmd == 'cancel':
                        self.cancel( context )
                    else:
                        print('unknown request=%s arg=%s' % (cmd,arg))
                os.remove( self.filename )
                print('command file removed')
            else:
                print('waiting for command file=%s' % self.filename )

        return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

    def execute(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        self._timer = wm.event_timer_add(5, context.window)
        wm.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

    def cancel(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        wm.event_timer_remove(self._timer)
        print('timer removed')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(ModalTimerOperator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ModalTimerOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.wm.modal_timer_operator()

thanks stacker
this is very useful
i don't want to push it but do you have a tcp server integrated in blender =)

@Ghus I hadn't a use for a direct network connection yet (consider sharing filesystems over network) But you could find a lot of examples by google: serversocket blender python 3

how would this code look like with a tcp server instead of a file?


text:
Library Linking with compositor and VSE
Let's say I have the characters linked to a scene named "Shot_002" in Shot_002.blend where I did the animation. I can link the Scene to a new .blend file and use it in the compositor, or I can link the same Scene to another .blend file and use it in the VSE.
Is there a way to link the file with the compositing work to a file with the editing work to make a render of the full short film directly after the editing is complete?

No, but you do have recently opened files listed in File->Open Recent.
There is the Edit Linked Library addon that adds buttons to switch back and forth between linked mesh object files, but at this stage it doesn't support VSE strips. You may want to make a suggestion to the author or use it to make a similar addon for the VSE.

You can only use scene strips of currently open scenes (linked or appended into the current VSE .blend file). You cannot appends a scene in directly to the VSE.


text:
It"s possible to morph a spline in multi-spline controling the delay on time?
moving in the same direction of this idea -Morphing Object-Distributions on multi-splines(Animation Nodes - Blend distribution of objects on a curve into another curve), i find the way to morph spline in multispline but i dont know how to offset this distribution on time. I need some help.

To offset the time use Time Delay node.

Thank you for your feedback. I have found it by chance playing with the trim spline node
and noise falloff inside a loop.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iqo0RRLqMOjWQlj4ZYs8HTnF0BGtCnBZ/view?usp=sharing

Any suggestions would be welcome. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BUi8weqt5RGvn8QODO_OoDMp2XDV5uy8

And the new step forward -https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AdfJdiRfZ_634mi1Oa1TwOsUGC99qJJQ

It looks like you want to create a cloth weaving effect. I think you can use this setup https://i.sstatic.net/fIADZ.png

yes, that was the starting point, ..thanks for this setup, it is useful and has inspired me a lot.


text:
Attaching another object to cloth simulation
For my project, I have a basic plane with Cloth Modifier applied to it that falls and collides with an object, draping over it in a sheet ghost-like way
What I would like to add is a big over-sized tag sticking out of it like this, so that when it falls, the tag stays stiff and faces the front.

I've tried to parent the tag (as its own object) to the cloth simulation but it didn't apply to simulation, either not following the geometry of the cloth and going inside it or only attaching or only to a single vertex.

I've tried extruding out the tag from the fabric, but it folds over like the rest of the cloth.

Is it possible to "paint" stiffness/weight to certain parts of a cloth?
I'm pretty new to Blender and not too familiar with cloth physics so I've done a lot of Google searches, looked for YouTube Tutorials, documentation, etc. but couldn't find something similar and the program is changing all the time (I think I wanted something like this post form 5 years ago?). Any help would be  greatly appreciated.

You can define a Vertex Group and assign the tag mesh to it. This Vertex Group ("Stiff" in the example) you can add under Property Weights of the cloth sim and experiment with the values.
All in all, I got a good simulated shape but it's not suitable for animation because the collision detection is inaccurate and the tag appears sometimes on the other side or gets overlapped (clipping).
I removed a few edges of the tag, it's more low-poly than the rest. But I am not sure if that is a good idea (collision). You can also try and add some of the verts around the tag to the Stiff group for a better result.
The simulation is somewhat sensitive to the entered values. Small changes to Self Collision for example can have larger effects. If the value for Self Collision in my example is increased from 0.001m to 0.005m then the plane wraps around the tag and goes crazy.
Good luck ;-)


text:
Projecting image of a flat (originally 3D) sphere texture onto 3D round cube
I'm trying to remake these flat early 2000s chat client smilies in 3D:

What I've done so far: add a round cube, add a subdivision modifier, add the image as a texture, and UV unwrap using "Project From View". It's added to the object and the eyes are projected on to the exact spot they need to be. It looks exactly as the original image does, more or less.

I want to be able to draw on the back of the smiley and quickly edit designs in Photoshop.
Is there a way to take this "Project From View" UV projection and manipulate the originally given texture into a UV projection that is more manageable and customizable, like one I would get when using smart unwrap with a seam on the back.

In the end, I would like it to look like a standard head unwrapping.
My example is simple and I could just quickly draw them in the UV projection I'm aiming for, but there are more complicated designs I'll eventually use this process with.
I'm lost at trying to describe/ask this question so please bare with me. Thank you.

if you want to change the UVs you can create a second UV unwrap and bake your texture onto another image texture

@moonboots I didn't know you could create a second UV unwrap! Thanks so much. I didn't have the right words to even be able to search for a tutorial. I followed this tutorial: link

if you want to change the UVs you can create a second UV unwrap and bake your texture onto another image texture.

If you ever need to use several UV maps in the same material, you can use an Input > UV Map node.


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Sampling color from texture so each mesh island is a single, solid color from that texture (making a mosaic)
I'm making a mosaic using geometry nodes, and I'm trying to make each stone a singular color from a texture. Currently I'm able to project an image texture onto the object, which looks pretty good, but it makes each stone multiple colors rather than each stone being one color. I know how to do a random color based on island, but I would like to pull color from an image texture instead.

Think of these Iberian mosaic cobblestones.

There is slight variation of the three colors in this mosaic, but each stone is distinctly one color rather than a stone between two colors having more than one color. I know the size and placement of each stone in real life is exact and specific based on the design, but I'm not too worried about the details like that for this.
Is it possible to get the average color of the texture at the center of a mesh island, or any single color from the texture within the mesh island? It doesn't have to be too exact, just an overall simplification of an image to have one color per mesh island that has been created by the geometry node -- without having to manipulate the texture in photoshop.
I'm thinking of the way the mosaic effect in photoshop gets an average color of an area and makes it into a square, but I'm not sure how I would translate that to irregular sized and shapes meshes.
This is my blend file:

Thank you

You need to scale each separate pebble UV island to 0, so it will basically only sample a single pixel from your image texture

Does this answer your question? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/268934/

If you simply scale the individual elements to $0$ and then transfer their positions to your mesh with Sample Index, all elements will receive exactly the average position.
You can then use this as a basis with Attribute in the shader and evaluate a color at a single position:

PS: If you use a lower version than 3.4, then you need the node Transfer Attribute instead of Sample Index.
(Blender 3.4+)


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Creating bracelets with different size beads with geometry nodes
I've been wanting to make randomly generated jewelry in Blender and I really like how easily I can cycle through different seeds to see different variations of it. I've made more complicated ones with closures and pendants, but this is the simple fully bead one:

Let me know if my geometry node setup is needed, but I suppose I'm just asking for a push in the right direction.
I have a pretty simple geometry node setup to distribute different beads on a curve. The beads are currently the same size, more or less, evenly distributed instances to points. But I would like to introduce beads of different sizes, which would make them overlap if I were to do it this way.
Kind of like how there are these little beads, and then larger beads:

I was wondering if there would be way to distribute these bead instances based on the size of each bead that is randomly chosen, so that there is minimal (or a controllable) amount of space between beads.
In my head I'm thinking about how I would code it as if it were a simple program -- the first one would be drawn, you would get the width of that, add it to a current width variable, add the spacing, and then iterate to the next bead a place it at that position, and repeat until you reach the end of the space possible. Though I'm not too familiar with any sort of coding within Blender as of yet.
I suppose it doesn't have to be done with geometry nodes, but I'm really liking this type of work flow.

You could use this, and then bend it into a circle shape.

@quellenform Thank you so much for your response and sharing those two references to past posts, both which hold a lot of knowledge. I didn't have the right words to find them on my own. It seems like what I want to do is a bit beyond my skill level so a lot of the groups of nodes in those solutions go above my head. It seems I have awhile to go and a lot of trial and error before I can achieve what I'm going for, and perhaps I'll have to rethink my method overall. Thank you.

Do not give up! ...these were only examples. There are certainly simpler solutions, but the question is always how detailed you want to implement something.

Thank you for your encouraging words, I'm going to keep giving it a try of course! :)

You can try the Distribute Points on Faces node.
Your preference would be for Poisson Disk drop-down option.
A lot of examples distribute on plane, but I think it should work on a ring as well.
Here’s a link I found with node graphs and various extras :: https://artisticrender.com/how-to-scatter-objects-with-geometry-nodes-in-blender/


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Both Blender 3.0.1 and Blender 3.4 have startup links showing in my Ubuntu 22.04 apps. I see only Blender 3.4 In .cache and .config
How can I get rid of Blender 3.0.1?
Is it a subset of Blender 3.4 and there is no real need to delete it?

Hello and welcome. I'm no very sure, but i think your question is more about OS setting, than Blender. You could try Ubuntu Stack

If I go to Ubuntu/linux and ask the question, I'll have Stackexchange users suggesting it is not a Ubuntu question but instead an app question.  Very frustrating.

Maybe if you use more general terms you won't be ? Have you tried https://askubuntu.com/q/40884 ?

This is definitely not a question regarding the OS, but the Blender package provided for Ubuntu. Nevertheless, the question has nothing to do with the use of Blender itself, so this is strictly off-topic.Try removing both versions, and then installing only 3.4, maybe that will recreate the necessary startup files.

quellenform, your answer is it.  I read a bunch of answers involving terminal commands but never was sure my question was answered.  I entered:

quellenform, your answer is it. I read a bunch of answers involving terminal commands but never was sure my question was answered.
I entered: sudo apt autoremove --purge blender and no longer have both versions.
Apparently, 3.4 survived and is usable without reinstallation.

Great that the comment could help you. Note: with autoremove --purge you remove the package with its automatically installed dependencies. The personal user settings in your home directory will be preserved.

In the end, it looks suitable for Ubuntu Stack (you can't use Sudo for Blender Windows)


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Want to Overlay an Image on top of many instanced object in a grid
I am trying to recreate the intro to the show Ted Lasso, and ran into a problem.
When trying to overlay this image:

overtop my seating configuration, I only get a blue color on the seats. The seats are set up as instances based on the stands, using geometry nodes

The image I am trying to overlay treats each seat as a pixel and is 133x120. I was wondering if anyone knew of an easy way to get this done. The seats are laid out uniformly with a set offset:

I suppose, and I am very not sure, that your problem is to set properly your image coordinates.
May be you can do it like that:

I hope it help.


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display automatically turns to perspective when I move the view
whenever I manually move the view with the most blender automatically switches from ortho to perspective mode.
how do I stop it?

In the Preferences > Navigation > Orbit & Pan, disable the Auto Perspective option:


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Why can't I project from view?
So, I am making a tree but when I select the trunk ( a cube with vertices all merged together to form a trunk ) but when I try to project it from view ( I have selected all of the vertices ), the button turns grey and I can't press it. Please help.
Picture of the button:
This is all the vertices of the tree:

Hello, it may be because you don't have any faces in your topology, only edges?

Yes, you need to apply the skin modifier first. Alternatively if you want it to stay editable you can use a UV Project modifier

how do i apply the skin modifier @Gorgious

In the modifier tab on the right, click on the dropdown arrow between the camera icon and the X icon and choose "apply modifier"


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How do i make procedular "stains" on the top of walls
i want it to look something like this

This is the second time you've asked such a question. Strictly speaking, this type of question is not really welcome on this Q&A platform because it is not targeted enough and does not clearly define what the starting point is. There are simply too many possibilities for an answer, making the question not only unclear, but also difficult to find by other users. Please take a very close look at how a good question should be asked without being closed. So please be so kind and edit your question to be able to open it again. Thank you!

Hi @hennayaz! Are you looking to simulate, for example, where stains would naturally appear on structures, as the result of rainfall / leaks? If so, could you make that clear, and give some indication of approaches you have taken yourself, or others you have seen?  Some sort of clarification like that, of what exactly you are looking for, so folks can try to answer more specifically, would repair this question.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/209762/110840

Here's a very quick and dirty solution (excuse the pun). You can play around with the texture settings and coloramp positions to get closer to the reference.
It's not ideal, especially if realism is the priority, but can work in a pinch. If proceduralism isn't a dealbreaker check out Quixel megasans - they have a ton of free leak, stain and grunge alphas you can use to create this effect quickly and convincingly.


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Geometry-Nodes: Adaptive curve subdivisions based on length
What I have:
A node system that takes in a Curve an creates mesh around it. It is thin at the start (left side) and thickens up towards the end (right)
What i want: I want to subdivide the curve based on the length of the curve. That means when the curve is longer, there should be more subdivisions. But more important: I do not want the subdivisions to be distributed evenly along the curve (like right now, marked with red) but many subdivision at the start going to fewer towards the end (marked with black lines, where one black line illustrates a subdivision).
I appreciate every feedback!

I think this is what you are looking for? https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/276888/157965

unfortunately this did not work for me.

@Ricardo Would you mind sharing the reason it's not working for you? Because it looks like it should be doing what you want.

Thanks for asking. I tried again and you were totally right. I made a mistake yesterday and since i do not fully understand what is going on behind the nodes, i thought it would not work. Thank you both and have a great day!


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Geometry Nodes: How can I calculate the Minimum Position of indivudal meshes of one Geometry?

Hello,
I have a Geometry consisting of a bunch of individual meshes.
I want to calculate the Minimum Position of each of the individual objects.
In the end every individual object should lay on the ground plate.
Here is my GDrive Link to the Blend File :)

Right now the objects are floating above the ground.

In my current node Setup I can only calculate the Min Position of the whole Geometry.
I do not know how I can get the Min Pos of each individual Mesh.

This not an easy task. These fruits are created by "extruding" a curve of varying thickness. Thus, the radius of each control point of each fruit curve is different. To put the fruits on the ground, you need to determine the maximum thickness for each fruit. In other words, you need the max radius of all control points for each spline (curve).


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Blender Geometry Nodes: Extrude faces based on curve
I want to extrude faces along a curve. I dont want them to extrude with a fixed length, but with a  length based on where the faces are located on the curve. I want the faces on the start of the curve (left) to extrude only slightly and extrude more towards the end (right side). Basically the same effect i did on the curve with the spline parameter (factor).
I appreciate any suggestions!

You can capture the factor value on the main curve (with either a Capture Attribute or Store Named Attribute) like you did with the profile curve, and feed that into the Offset Scale of the Extrude Mesh node:

You can do it this way

You need to put the factor in the offset scale (You have it plugged into the selection socket)
With a math node set to multiply, you can control the strength of the scale
You could also use a map range to control where the extrusion starts


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How to lock a Startup file in LTS Blender 3.3
I have created a custom blender start up and want to freeze the script so that other colleague’s doesn’t messup and save/ overwrite the startup file.
Is there any way to Lock/ Freeze the startup file?

Hello and welcome! Maybe try to change the write permissions on the file. What OS are you using?

i am using Windows 10 OS

Your startup file is located under C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\  > version > config then just google how to change file permissions on the startup.blend file and also make a backup of it.


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Baked texture comes out wrong. (distorted and in two images)
This is extremely confusing for me, so I apologize if I'm not very good at explaining it, but basically what happens is that whenever I try to bake this model's texture:

It ends up doing this:

Two images! I have no idea of why it not only overwrites the active image, but the one being used in one of the object's materials as well, not to mention they're incredibly distorted, they don't look anything like they should.
When I try to load them, they end up looking like this:

I'm completely clueless as to what could be causing this, the rendered model looks perfectly fine and the UV map looks pretty decent as well.

Help would be appreciated.

triangulate your model to avoid distortions. Make sure you have the same image selected in both of your materials to bake ithe textures on the same image. You can share your file if it doesn't work

Thanks for the answer, but sadly it didn't work, the problem is that the baking process for some reason also targets an image that isn't even highlighted (aperturelogo.jpg as seen in image #3) when the whole texture should be in the one that is (Baking.001 in image #2).

can you share your file? It might be easier to see where the problem is

Yeah, sure.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vAhLhZq1xWiat4uvLsRaYhFTa1s_xYYp/view?usp=sharing

First thing, the textures are distorted because you didn't make a good unwrap of your model. You can see using a color grid texture how distorted it is, which means you forgot to put seams somewhere

here is how it looks when fixed. You can probably make an even better job than this

For the baking part, I duplicated the model and removed all the materials but the one used for the bake, then check selected to active in the baking options with a little bit of extrusion

Then select the model wiht all the materials, and finally the one that will get the texture baked onto
Here is how it looks when baked (left is baked, right is before)

I used a wood texture because you didn't save the images in the file you sent
Hope that helps

thank you very much!!!

okay, i tried doing exactly as you said, but the issue still persisted!
in the end, i just grabbed your file and tried re-baking your texture without changing anything, and surprisingly, not even that one baked correctly.
could it be a glitch with my blender client rather than me doing something wrong?
i recorded it below because i thought it'd be easier than explaining it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VIAzjNnMb4a_UfN3i21vZwUuVCXACTVO/view?usp=sharing

both models need to be at the exact same place. I moved them so you could see the result better, sorry I didn't mention that

oh, thanks for replying, i'll try that


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Batch render multiple scenes code give's me error
I am trying this script
blender -b file.blend -S Scene1 -a -S Scene2 -a in Blender's Script tab, but it says  Invalid syntax on line 1.
What I am doing wrong. I am using Blender 3.3 on a Win 11.

That's a shell command.
Blender's script tab is for writing Python scripts. The command for batch rendering should be run in a terminal or shell of some kind (The Terminal app on Mac, I'm not sure what on Windows.)


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bind horse A to horse B's skeleton
I have two different horses with their animations.I want to have horse A to use horse B's animations. So I am trying to bind horse A to horse B's skeleton and import back to UE5.
I am not familiar with Blender. In Blender I have tried deleting horse A's armature and B's mesh, Right now the mesh and armature are separate. But I try to move the armature inside the horse and do armature deform with automatic weights. Then I export using send to unreal addon, but the imported horse I got in unreal is not playing animations. The skeleton tree is gray with the prompt message " this bone exists only on the skeleton but not on the current mesh".
Could you give me some help?

Have you tried to give to armature A's bones the exact same names as aramture B's bones?

I have deleted horse A's armature. Do you suggest me to change names before deletion? The two skeletons have different number of bones. armature deform seems to have no effect. If I go to pose mode and rotate the bone, the mesh won't move accordingly. It looks like the mesh and the bones are irrelevant or not connected. I am not familiar with the terminology of blender.


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What does "snap to same target" in "face nearest" do?
I tried that setting but I don't see any difference, so when will i actually use that setting and what it does? Thanks in advance.

Did you actually read right through the Blender docs that you were pointed to in your previous question? It's under the "Target Selection" section here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/3dview/controls/snapping.html#target-selection

I did , what it does for me in blender is completely different from it said in the docs, it said it will "snap only to target that source was initially near". but in face it does nothing for me

I have to admit that the manual isn't very clear. I've never used that setting so can't really help.


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Easy answer to an install problem
I've been running Blender 2.90.1, everything is fine.
Just downloaded the Blender 3.3.0 install file (blender-3.3.0-macos-arm64.DMG) and I get this dialog box.

My mac's spec.

Any idea why I can't install it?

uhm...if you have an intel processor - shouldn't you download the intel version instead of arm version?

Hi Chris, thanks for getting back to me. This is the version Blender directs me to and states 'mac intel' in the download in the description. The only other mac option is 'Apple Silicon' so have to assume the download filename is correct.
Thanks for your comments though.

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

Since you have an Intel Processor, you should download the Intel version of Blender, not the ARM version. The filename when downloaded should be: blender-3.3.0-macos-x64.dmg

Thank you. Not sure why it was forcing the download of the ARM version.
Downloaded the OS and installed
Much appreciated.


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Can I model a character in blender, export it to maya, run xgen to create hair, then export it back into blender for animation?
Can I model a character in Blender, export it to Maya, run xgen to create hair, then export it back into Blender for animation?
I need an help to understand how can I export xgen hair to Blender and animate them.

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

Does this answer your question? .fbx export why there are no materials or textures?


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Any method to have roof tiles distribute evenly on both uniform and non uniform faces?
Any method to have roof tiles distribute evenly on both uniform and non uniform faces?

This is the method that I have used so far.

It makes an even grid of points that's raycasted down on the roof. Because it is a grid, tiles distributes evenly, on any surface.

Even on N-gons:

This solves your issue, but unfortunately it has some disadvantages, that I have described here:
How to instance a roof tiles?

Nice method! I believe that your method is computationally more efficient than the method from Blender Guru: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OsgS2JpM8k


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Odd behaviour when moving mesh objects
I'm fairly new to Blender, running 2.80 and trying to learn some hotkeys so i think i may have mashed a key, turning on a feature or option in one of my scenes that's now driving me crazy.
Imagine i have a scene with a cube and a plane.  The whole cube is above the plane.  If i go to top view and try to move the cube in X or Y axis (via G >> X or Y), the cube appears to move as expected in the top view, but when i go to side or front view the cube has dropped so the the centre of the cube (which is the origin) is now at the level of the plane (i.e. half the cube is above the plane, half below).
Also, if i'm viewing the scene from an angle and try to move the cube in Z (via G >> Z), the cube actually appears to slide along the plane in X or Y before reaching the edge of the plane, and then it starts to move in Z.  Deleting the plane allows the cube to start moving in Z correctly, but as soon as i add a new plane the same thing happens.
As you can imagine, this is making it very difficult to position objects! Any ideas what i've done and how to stop it?

Maybe you have Snap (Header>Magnet)  switched on, with 'Face' as target? Holding Ctrl during a move flips it from its set state.

The Most Possible Reason is Snapping try turning it off

Sounds like you have some kind of snap setting on. Look at the snap (magnet) icon in the top,center of your 3D view. Make sure it is off.

thanks, that's fixed it.


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How to set transparent pixel in UV
In my sprite UV i set it some UV to transparent in my pixel editor.
These pixels appear black in the viewport.
When I search about it I found various answers but for old blender versions, and the menus aren't the same at all now.
view capture

You have an alpha (transparency-opacity) channel coming out of your PNG, but it isn't being used, and your Color is directed through a Toon BSDF, which I believe doesn't pass forward transparency information. Try adding a second, Transparent BSDF shader, and then mixing it with your Toon BSDF, using your Alpha channel from your PNG as the mix factor.
Also, be sure that your material's Blend Mode is set to Alpha Clip.

The fast way is to use Import Images As Planes.

Assuming you're using Eevee:
Per my comment, I think the problem is that your PNG's alpha channel (the second output in your Texture Input node) is not being used to do anything, and Toon BSDF interprets the fully Transparent pixels as black by default. Because of this, I get the same problem with this image of mine, where everything Black is actually Transparent (pixels with alpha=0):

We can fix this by setting Material->Blend Mode to Alpha clip (this assumes you have already set Context->Render Engine->Eevee), Context->Film->Transparent, and using a slightly more complicated shader, which uses our PNG's alpha channel to explicitly control the mix factor between a Transparent BSDF and the color information in our Toon BSDF:

Note that the math node could also be deleted if you switched the order of the inputs to the Mix Shader node.

Well thanks for the explanations, strangely it didn't resolve my black pixel issue as shown in this screenshot:
https://imgur.com/0Sf3lkw
But I did manage by removing the toon shader and using a normal one and combining the color and Alpha channel as in this capture:
https://imgur.com/D0Ph4QE
Thanks again :)

Oh, there's a small mistake in my second image -- the math node should be computing 1 - alpha, not 0.5 - alpha.
I don't think that explains you still seeing pure black, though. Could you upload the .png you're using? I'll try to replicate the problem on my end.

Right : with a value > 1, the black color disappeared :)
https://imgur.com/5zdQKGZ

Great! I believe what's going on is that the alpha values in the input image have been normalized to [0,1]. The math node is intended to take fully transparent pixels (alpha=0) and map them to the second mix-shader input (value=1-alpha=1), but with the math node incorrectly computing value=0.5-alpha, we instead get value=1-alpha=0.5, so transparent pixels get mapped to an even mixture of the Toon BSDF and the Transparent Shader, which is not what we had intended.


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How to change snap UV grid
I'm trying to snap UV into little units.
Even if I did mange to change the grid size and snap correctfully in Modeling window,
I cannot find a way to do the same in the UV Edit window (even by pressing Shift, the snap is too wide)

It's possible to Snap to Pixels. In the UV editor, UV menu,  open the Snap to Pixel option and choose either to snap to the Corner or the Center of a pixel.

it still doesn't match. My texture is a 64x64 pixel wide. The snap pass by 4 pixels by 4 pixels.

Oops no, @3fingeredfrog was right :
In order to snap correctly to pixels you have to choose the Snap to Pixel option but ALSO have to UNCHECK the snap magnet tool into the main toolbar, or else this will be the main snap overriding the snap pixel option.
Thanks again


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split faces for UVs
I'm starting with blender, and I'd like to know how can I move some UV vertex without messing with the others.
Under Maya there was a 'cut Uv shell' tool, that allow that, but I cannot find the same thing in blender

You can pin UV vertices from the UV menu.  Be sure to read [ask] and take the [tour].

Thanks again, it was exactly what I was looking for.


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set curent transform as default
I've made a model from a copy of another object, but now it's done I just see now that it's rotation angles weren't set to 0.
And now it causes me trouble when I mirror it.
Is there a way to "Zero-ing" the current rotation as if it's a normal one?

CTRL + A > Rotation should accomplish what you want.

Oh thanks it worked : It didn't originally because i Had a delta transform changed too, but now it's good. thanks again ! :D


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How to read vertex_indices of a hookmodifier in python
I have a BezierCurve with the handles hooked to two Empty's. After modifying the shape of the curve with the hooks, I want to apply the shape of the curve without removing the hooks from the modifierstack. So I can reshape the curve with the same hooks over and over again.
Before applying shape in HookModifiers:

After appplying shape in HookModifiers:

For each HookModifier I want to apply the shape of the curve and rehook the Empty via python. Therefore I need to know which vertices (control points and handles) were assigned to that hook.
With python, how can i get the vertices (control points and handles) that are attached to an object in the Hookmodifier?
In the blender API i found "bpy.types.HookModifier > vertex_indices" but I don't know how to use it.


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How to get rid of an additional vert that shows up during the manual bevel operation

As the screenshots suggest, I can not make a bevel without this little vert showing up, although I chose 3 edges only. How can I turn off this little annoyance?

I don't think you can, you need to rework the topology afterwards

I'm not sure if I know what you mean with "this little vert". The one building the bottom of the triangle at the end of the bevel? Well, that's how the bevel works. How do you think those two edges created by the bevel go over into a single edge? What do you want it to look like?


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How to attach a cylinder to a hexagon
How would I get a shape like in image?

Basically an hexagon with a cylinder merged but with the curve of the cylinder perfectly tangential to the two edges it is in contact with on the hexagon.
I'm coming from a SolidWorks background so maybe trying to be too exact.

Blender is definitely not made for this level of precision. You can snap meshes and stuff to various points like origins, other mesh faces & vertices, etc. Your best bet is using 2 meshes (hexagon & cylinder), snapping them together as close as possible then using a Boolean Modifier or joining them together into a single mesh.

Why not import the shape you want as an SVG first?  This will give you a more exact starting point, and then you just extrude the shape.

Will do, thanks

There are ways to do it with Blender native tools, but non will be even vaguely similar to CAD procedures.
If you want a workflow as close to Solidworks as possible using Constraint based Skektches, you can look into experimental CAD Sketcher addon.
Create a new sketch, and design an hexagon with the line tool from the toolbar.

Add equal length costraints and angle constraints until it is fully defined, then make the circle tangent to the two desired edges.


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When I try to automatic weight bone with mesh then mesh goes to another place

After joining bone with mesh, this is happening. I also provided a link to my file here -

Try applying scale and/or rotation  (Ctrl+A > Rotation & Scale) to the mesh before applying the automatic weights.

Hi. Please don't post essential information like links, file downloads or additional details in the comments section where it can be easily missed. Instead edit them into your original post with the [Edit] button above. Comments are transitory by nature, are hard to index or search for, and may be erased at any moment.


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Geometry nodes. How to Separate mesh islands by the largest island?
I'm trying to delete the smallest mesh islands to filter out the largest mesh island. All in geometry nodes.

To separate the largest contiguous area of a mesh from the rest, you can use the following solution:

Face Area here returns the surface area of a face in the form of a float value, Mesh Island returns the respective index, and Accumulate Field accumulates the values in this case for each mesh island separately. Since I process these values here in the attribute domain Faces, the highest accumulated value can then be determined with the node Attribute Statistic.
This only needs to be compared with the accumulated values per Mesh Island and you have the necessary selection to delete the other faces.
(Blender 3.2+)

wow, this is very magical.
1- to confirm, it works with 4.1
2- i wish someone also convert this to python function.

Here's a convoluted solution That I've just come up with.
Using the "Domain Size Node" "Compare Node" and a "Switch Node"
See Image for clarity.

Two possible drawbacks with this solution: it doesn't dynamically evaluate all islands, you have to add a new branch with its own index if there are more islands than available here; and second, it assumes "larger island=island with more vertices", which might not be the case if by "large" they mean face area.


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Adding new keyframe messes up object location in a timeline
I am working on an animation. When I try to add a rotation to my object it for some reasons changes other normals and animation looks like a mess.
Set up

Adding rotation

Applying it

And after I applied it changes all location data

Since you're using Location and Rotation for your anim, set a keyframe for these two. On the screenshot you provide where you insert the keyframe, select "Location and Rotation* instead of only the rotation

I have no idea what exactly is going on there, but even the "not messed up" keyframes before inserting a new one show completely different values than what is visible in the Location and Rotation fields in the viewport... was the bottle parented before or something like that? The new values at the keyframe after inserting seem to match the ones in the viewport as far as I can tell from the screenshot.

@B.Pader Since there already is a keyframe on the location (it's shown in yellow), there's absolutely no need to do this unless he changed the location. In fact, since the rotation seems to be messed up somehow because the values are not matching, he might even mess up the location as well.

@Vlad: as you can see in the comments...people are guessing around. So pls provide blend file since you didn't provide necessary informations to solve this issue. thx. Also your are using here different terms like "applying": applying a rotation is something totally different to adding a keyframe to rotation - i hope you know that. Because for your pictures you write "applying" but you show us, how you insert keyframes - so tbh your pictures do not fit to what you have written.


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Selection difficulties
I'm in edit, I've got wire frame on, I've got xray on and when I try to select the top crab claw by drawing a square over it it only selects some of it.  When I try to add faces its only adding them sometimes.I want the crab claw as a a separate object

That's a weird one... Doesn't even look like you're in edit mode, but you clearly are. There should be the vertices and face centres visible. What happens if you only select the very top vertex, the one at the tip of the claw, then hit CTRL + a few time?

Try just selecting just the vertices icon (1 on the keyboard). At the moment you have both vertex and face selection activated (both icons hilighted) and it sounds as if they're interfering with each other.

None of these solutions worked.  I went back to an earlier version of the claw before I'd merged some points together.  This time it worked.  Obviously something went wrong when I tried to simplify by merging points.

Hello maybe share your file? https://blend-exchange.com/


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Extruding from a poked face
I'm new to blender.  I poked the face in the top of the crab claw then subdivided so I could get verticies.  I have selected the verticies(see image)  and now I extrude up to make a crab claw which looks ok on the outside but on the inside I've extruded up all these faces which are difficult to delete fully because they are on the inside (see photo) How do I extrude the verticies without all the unecessary faces, I only want the outside faces

Hello, it looks like there's a problem with your topology here, could you please share your file?

You must be in 'Edge mode' insteaf of 'Vertex Mode'.
Select the edges all arround the circle and extrude.

It works !

thankyou so much

@Red Wellcome. A thank you is usually expressed here with an upvote, or by marking the answer as "Accepted Answer" if your question was answered satisfactorily. All optional, of course, but it shows other users that your question has been solved. Thank you!


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Merging verticies on different objects before boolean union
I have three objects; two claws and a cylinder like object I want to join the claws to (its meant to be a crab claw). If I do a boolean union as they are now it turns out unnatural as per the image below.
So I've gone back to before the boolean union to try and merge the verticies together to get a more natural look but the points don't seem to merge together on different objects second photo.  Nothing seems to merge.  When I try to move the verticies by hand they go all over the place.
Am I going about this in the wrong way?

The 'Merge' operation requires that geometry be of the same mesh, It's obscured by the fact you have 2 objects selected, in edit mode at once.
The equivalent 'displace to center' without actual merging would be a scale by zero  S 0
If you want to be able to merge verticies, you would need to join ctrl+J your two objects


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blender not assigning the right colour to selected faces
I selected the first material to be white.  I understand this is the base material.  Then I selected 4 faces as per the screenshot Then I created a new colour yellow and tried to assign this to the faces but it coloured the whole thing in yellow. next screenshot I have read some of the posts about this but cant find a solution.  Is there a bug in the system?

You have to add a new material slot and assign the faces to that slot. What you've done is simply change the material for the base colour slot.


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Centre blenders origin when scaling
Hi I've done something and when I scale my object the origin of the blender axis goes off to the side I want to keep it central.

Hello, could you please show more pictures and explain more in detail? Scaling should not change the origin...

I selected the object, then put the coordinates 0, 0, 0 to recenter the object.

Scaling should not change the objects origin.
If what you mean is that you would like to scale around the origin, hit object -> reset origin -> Then hit the button on the right of the blue oval and select object boundaries rather than individual origins


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Cannot open newly downloaded blender on my new chrome laptop
I just tried to download the 64 bit linux version on my new chromebook.   It allows me to download it, but says I cannot open it as it does not support his version.  Note that my chromebook has linux beta already on the laptop.  Is there an app that I need to download for it to recognize the files?

You need to have an actual desktop os like windows or ubuntu. you can download and get rid of chrome os. There are many tutorials on how to do this on youtube.


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Weird Rendering HDR
I am currently using an HDR for the first time in blender ( I am quite new).
When I render the image, I get some strange artifacts in silver materials and I additionally have small squares (as big as the tile size) which render incorrect. They are much brighter than the rest of the scene.
And they are always on the same position, even if I rotate the HDR.
I have downloaded my HDRs from hdrihaven. And when I change to an different HDR the parts which are not correct are mostly the same.
Has anyone else had this problem or has a solution? :)

Are you GPU rendering? I suspect faulty graphics card

Yes I am rendering on an Nvidia RTX 2080 Super and an GTX 1050. Before I used an studio HDR and didn't have that issue. I now tried several HDRs and it's always the same issue.

I now tried rendering on CPU (no issue), only 1050 (no issue) and only 2080 (no issue). Is it because I use 2 graphics cards which are not the exact same model? And thank you for your tip with the graphics card. I think I would have never considered that it's the graphics card without your tip :)

Heterogeneous setups should in theory be supported, in practice there may be occasional issues as you are experiencing

It's the gpu differences you can have two different instances rendering different frames on either gpu.


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Roulette Simulation Rigid Body
I am currently making an roulette simulation.
I have 4 main objects: the bowl, the sphere, the spinner in the middle and the separators which separate the numbers (I don't know the correct name for these).
I have animated the spinner to rotate on the z axis and linked the separators to it, so they rotate with it. The ball runs in the opposite direction.
I have set to origin for all objects to center of mass. All objects are declared as passive, except for the sphere.
The bowl is declared as mesh, the separators as convex hull (Base), and the spinner also as mesh. I have also increased the steps per second to 1.000 and the solver iterations to 100, but I always get the same strange behavior.
The problem now is that as the ball collisions with the separators, the ball bounces off extremely from the separators.
I have looked at several videos from youtube of an roulette wheel, and that's not the typical behavior of the ball.
I have set the bounciness on everything to 0 but it still behaves like that.
I am already going crazy about this problem, I really hope somebody has a solution for me :)

If it helps I can post the file :)

upload here https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ and [edit] the question to add the link


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Snap scaling doesn't behave like expected
For some reason I can't snap to a specific point.
I want to snap the orange line (with scaling) from the first image, to the line below it.
But as you can see in image 2 it scales way too wide.
I think I have searched every forum, but couldn't find an answer that helped.
Hope one of you can help me :)

could you please show your snap settings?

Don’t worry, it works.
1) Enable snapping to vertex
2) When using a scale tool grab a vertex of your circle to scale it. Grabbing the scale tool ring won’t work.
3) The vertex you’re holding is now snapping to other vertices.
Enable snapping to vertex

Grab a vertex, not the scale tool ring

Moving the vertex now scales the object and snaps to other vertices

Hope this helps.
If you need any clarification, let me know.

Thank you very much :) I also found another mistake I made, I didn't press shift z, so that it won't scale on the z axis. For some reason that also helped, even though I was in top view


text:
Is it possible to make procedural low poly grass?
To preface, I'm very new to Blender and only really know the basics!
Anyhow, like the title says, I want to add some grass onto a little scene I'm making. I learned a little bit about it through tutorials like this this, but I didn't really know how to implement it onto the ground I made! The result looked nice, however, I also didn't know how to rotate the individual groups of blades better either.
Is there any way to do this procedurally so it wouldn't be too taxing? Or is there another way I could achieve the same result? I just want a little cartoony grass is all!

I see! Would it be possible to have that exact same setup on the top portion of the ground I made then rather than on planes? Or would I need to go about the same method a little differently?

How to upload an image to a post


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Running Blender Script via Console - Error
I wrote a Blender Script to create me images and Text elements (via Python Script) in a Timeline. All Works! But via Console it doesn't Work.
I know, it has something to do with the GUI and the context objects i used: But how i should change this?
Error when i try running command Line blender -b C:\Users\xxxxx\test.blend --background -P C:\Users\xxxxx\timeline.py

 bpy.ops.sequencer.effect_strip_add(type='TEXT', frame_start=frame_start, frame_end=frame_end, channel=10)
    obj1=bpy.ops.transform.seq_slide(value=(-6, 5), orient_axis_ortho='X', snap=False, view2d_edge_pan=True)

    bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].sequence_editor.sequences_all['Text'].text=text1
    textKey='Text'
    count=-1

Working Example if i execute my Python Code in Blender (GUI)

There is probably something missing in the context object (the context.scene.sequence_editor?). Here is a similar question  https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/63834/107598 with an accepted answer.

ok, found a solution:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/111446/importing-multiple-movie-clips-inside-one-directory-via-script


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Object got distorted when exported to FBX
I'm making an animation from online tutorial about opening a book. I exported it to FBX file for Unreal but then the object got distorted after exporting. What should I do to fix it?
This is the before after exporting.

Did you apply the scale (Ctrl-A > Scale in Object mode) to all the objects in your file before exporting?

it's probably what John suggested, but in case that doesn't work, could you please upload the file to https://blend-exchange.com/


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Numbers above are the same as numpad
I want to change my hotkeys for viewing different axis in blender, but I am experiencing some difficulties. When I change the "view axis" hotkey in my blender preferences to other numpad numbers it all works normally, but when I save it as a "start up file" it stops working correctly after opening a start up file.
In the new file, blender sees the normal numbers now as numpad numbers (the ones on the top row of a keyboard). This means when I try to edit the keymap and I press the normal number "1" now, it says I pressed the "numpad 1". The problem here is when I am in edit mode, the shortcut selection tool for points, edges and faces doesn't work anymore, because blender thinks I'm pressing the numpad numbers.
When I reset it and load factory settings everything works again, but I really want to change the shortcuts for viewing an axis. I hope the problem is clear and would love to hear from you.
Greetings,
Kevin Schipper

Did you try using Save Preferences (bottom-left 'hamburger' icon under Edit > Preferences) after changing the hotkeys?

It sounds like you may have turned on emulate numpad.


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How to change the field precision step?
I need to change the field precision input step (that one which is used when you press SHIFT and drag the field value) I want something like 0.001 instead of 0.1

I'm assuming that you mean existing fields as opposed to a Custom Property that you create (where you can control the step value)?
There appears to be nothing in "Edit :: Preferences :: Interface" that provides this ability.   If the number of your target fields is limited...
You could create such Custom Property (on a scene-common empty object or the object in question or ... here in World properties):

and then RMB:: Copy Field as New Driver,

and then RMB :: Paste Driver into a field you want to step at a finer rate.

But that's certainly of limited value, works with pure numeric fields (gets confusing for fields that want to deal in measurements, and is exhausting if you want such control over many, arbitrary fields.
example:


text:
Fix UV showing seams in all modes except texture paint
Was following CGBoost's tutorial on texture painting an apple until I got to a hiccup where when in any mode that isn't texture paint, my object ends up showing the seams that I marked earlier. I followed the unwrapping process pretty much all the way, but struggled a little with texture painting.
After a few tries, I liked the result but when I moved onto shading mode, the visible seams from earlier showed clearly from far away. From up close, they're not there at all. It didn't look like I missed any spots either.
I was told this might have something to do with fake users? But I didn't really understand how to fix it. I ended up deleting all the textures I made and started from scratch but it was still there.
With the knife and blade, however, I had 0 issues. It was just with the apple.
Any tips? I really wanna move forward with this tutorial.
visible blue seams from afar:
up-close:

Try to make bigger margin on your texture.

maybe pack the image (File > External Data > Pack All Into Blend) and share your file? https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

@FFeller Sure, I'll try this when I get home later and share results

@moonboots Hopefully I did this correctly!

Your file makes my Blender version crash, I hope someone will help you

@moonboots Yikes, sorry to hear. Thank you for trying anyway!


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When glTF export in Blender2.8, an animation is not played well
When glTF export in Blender2.8, the parameter of the rotary animation of the glTF file turns into the expansion and contraction.

I make the animation which turned a simple early cube.This does 1 rotation in the y-axis.

glTF exports in this parameter

A cube does not rotation when I confirm animation of glTF in this glTF viewer and expands and contracts.

glTF viwer
This thinks that an export sentence of blender has a problem, will there be the solution?
The movement and the scale succeeded. Only a rotation becomes strange.
file
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yqbxmrg68m8evwm/AAAbvbYb_00VDH8wbs0rhicEa?dl=0

This should be fixed in the next version of Blender's glTF exporter, where the default value for Always sample animations has been changed to true (in #706).  I believe putting a checkmark on this option may be a quick fix for your problem.
Animations involving rotations are stored in glTF using quaternions (because glTF is a runtime delivery format, meant for rapid load-and-render operations with minimal pre-processing by the loader).  But quaternions have an important limitation, they can't distinguish between +180 and -180 degrees.  If you have Euler angle keyframes at 0 and 360 degrees, both of those values convert to the same identical quaternion, because the object is in the same orientation.  Interpolation between keys breaks down.
The usual solution is to place intermediate keyframes at 90 degree increments (or no larger than 120 degree increments).  One way to do this is just check Always sample animations which makes every frame a keyframe.

Thank you for an answer !
I understood a cause and felt fine.
But,When I turn Always sample animations on and export, an animation of glTF is not played.
Is there a place to set other than this?


text:
where is "View Selected" in blender 2.83?
where is "View Selected" in blender 2.83?
(i used to bind this to "Numpad ." with emulate numpad on using 2.7 style keys)
now i am disabled, i can't just centre the view on objects

With the default keymap is still Numpad Period key.
Or use the menu View>Frame Selected. If you enabled tooltips in the preferences it will show you what is the current keyboard shortcut on gray letters on the right of the command.
If you need to change the shortcut, right click on the command and select Change Shortcut.


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my obj is not centered
i've been trying to make some cc for the sims, but when i export my obj from marvelous designer to blender, the obj like this

i tried to make it fit the model manual but i just can't, i need it to go directly to the model and not move

Hi maria, welcome to Blender.SE. Could you please edit your post and explain what the object like this means! Have you looked at the transformations of all your objects/armatures?

It's probably due to Blender using Z as up in the coordinate system and the export to obj using Marvelous Designers coordinate system

The object looks like a shirt. It has it origin centered, I can tell from looking at the transforms. Technically the object is centered. The problem is that the rotations aren't matching, Blender using the Z axis up, and marvelous designer apparently uses the Y axis as up. If you rotate the object on the X axis 90  or -90 degrees it should line up.


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What does obj_now_BVHtree.overlap(obj1,obj2) return?
I am using BVHtree.overlap in a script to calculate the overlap between 2 meshes. If there is no overlap this returns None. If there is an overlap a list is returned.
For example:
[(47491, 496), (47491, 498), (47310, 498), (47309, 498), (47036, 491), (47036, 498), (47581, 496), (47581, 489), (47580, 489), (47401, 496), (47035, 491), (47307, 489), (47216, 491), (47217, 491), (47032, 491), (47399, 489), (47308, 489), (46852, 491), (47031, 491), (47134, 489), (47134, 465), (46851, 491), (47030, 467), (47030, 465), (46934, 491), (46934, 467)]

What do the values in this list represent?

mathutils.bvhtree.BVHTree.overlap returns a list of unique tuples, where each tuple represents the overlap between two elements of the two trees. The first entry of each tuple is the index from one tree and the second entry is from the other tree.

overlap(other_tree)
Find overlapping indices between 2 trees.

Parameters: other_tree(BVHTree) – Other tree to perform overlap test on.
Returns: Returns a list of unique index pairs, the first index referencing this tree, the second referencing the other_tree.
Return type: list

Is it possible to retrieve XYZ coordinates of the overlap from this list of index pairs? I sorry if this is a stupid question. I am quite new to blender.

@Bram Sorry for my late reply. The indices are for the polygons that are intersecting. Describing an intersection through XYZ coordinates is not the right approach since that would only be the case if the two polygons touch at exactly one point, usually it would be a line of the two planes intersecting (or even more complex shapes with quads and ngons that are not planar).


text:
How to round the mesh that has a little complicated form?
I tried to apply the bevel modifier to get a semicircle from the top of the rectangle but It worked only for a simple shape where the vertices between opposite corners weren't interrupted by other vertices. I can't join the 1, 2, 3 and 4 faces together either because the mesh is a little curved from the view from the top. So could you give me some advice?

Welcome. Try to select one vertice and hit G twice. Now you can drag that vertice along the edge direction.

You can use Proportional editing for this.
Use you regular Move tool to move the vertices, and check Proportional editing.
Play with the falloff profile and size.
You might also need to check Projected (2D) in your case.

I tried this advice. I also added extra edges and applied Bevel to round corners. it turned out pretty good

@GrigoryMovchan Glad to hear it helped you :). You can now mark the answer as accepted for others with a similar problem.


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How do I make the camera move towards, then disappear into a hole in the ground that I motion-tracked into a video?
I want to shoot some video of a road and some buildings and then use Blender's motion tracking to put a hole in the road. The hole will have a 'lid' and its top will match the road texture exactly so that it's hidden. I'll then make the lid revolve 180° to reveal the hole in the ground.
After I make the motion tracking bit (which I'm fine with) and I've got the ground to open up, I then want it to appear as if the camera is moving towards, then disappearing down, the hole. I'll then transition by means of a few black frames and some fades into a separate tunnel animation that I've already made.
Does anyone know how I might get the camera to do this?

Not sure what the problem is. Position your camera start, make a keyframe, position it where you want it to end, repeat. Then refine the transition. If the camera is stuck by your tracker, create a new one, copy its transforms, make it the active camera on frame x (last frame of your track I presume) and continue from there.

What have you tried so far that is not working?

If you are going to shoot the video, then just set a mark on the ground and execute the camera move as if the hole was there. Then create the hole and the lid in 3D.

Thank you both Frederik and susu.


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Eevee live action over text
Has anyone got an Eevee tutorial on how to put moving images over part of a text word created in 2.8?
I have a video of a person walking across the screen and I want to put a huge word behind the person. I found this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILFo9YDHGa8 but it's from an older version of Blender and I want a step-by-step Eevee version. The effect that the guy got is exactly what I want (he even leans over and puts his arm behind the text - but that's for another time).
Is there an Eevee tutorial out there?

The tutorial you've found doesn't need a Eevee specific version, because the method doesn't depend on the render engine in the first place. The important parts are the masking of the original footage which is done in the movie clip editor which hasn't changed in the 2.8 versions (except the color theme) and doesn't interact with the render engine. The only Eevee thing you need to know is how to make a basic material for your text and make a render, which is nothing fancy and can be found on any beginner tutorial for Eevee.

Thanks for your reply LOLock.


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Can we make Multiple Objects Display to "Bounds (in Context)" in one Click?
Trying to display multiple Linked objects to Bounds (Context Properties) in one click, can we do that in Blender 2.8?
Currently, we have to do it one by one.
Thanks in advance.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/58771/transforming-multiple-objects-to-have-equal-dimensions/58773#58773 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/104461/bevel-and-resolution-multiple-selected-curves/104470#104470 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/87230/how-to-unset-multiple-values-from-bezier-objects/87237#87237

This is the way :) https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/3366/display-bounding-box-around-objects


text:
Desaturated/Washed/Pale colors out of the box
On a 2019 5k iMac, Blender displays vibrant colors. But after rendering and viewing it on macOS preview, the colors are off.
I tried this with a MacBook, and the colors are displayed as they were intended. As well as on a PC (and using boot camp on the *iMac).
I'm guessing this has to do with the iMac's built in display correct? Are there any solutions?
*Another thing too, after uploading a render (that has intended colors) to a site (insta) the colors look off on other devices. Mind you I'm using regular settings...

The good news is that you have an awesome display. The bad news is that Blender by default does not support any type of display beyond sRGB.
So before I give you the solution, it’s probably wise to wrap one’s mind around what is happening.
Your iMac uses a different set of RGB lights to emit colour. When you render something using Blender using the default configuration, it assumes your display is sRGB. That is, it doesn’t know what kind of display you have. That means that an RGB triplet sent to the display that has no compliments such as 0.0, 0.2, 0.0 will project out a different colour light on sRGB as compared to your iMac. Of course that means by extension, every single mix of lights is totally wrong. You are seeing the lights projected out though they were connected to sRGB coloured lights as opposed to your iMac’s much more saturated and different coloured lights!
The good news is that I’ve included the Display P3 colorimetry in the official Filmic Blender repository at GitHub. Change your display to it, and your rendering should appear correctly on your iMac. Just don’t save it with that display type chosen! Any issues, feel free to post.
https://github.com/sobotka/filmic-blender
The bad news is that Blender is still pretty woefully lame regarding pixels. That means that to properly encode an sRGB image, you would need to flip your display to sRGB and save the file, as well as ideally attach the sRGB ICC tag. It’s totally wrong looking at your display, but Blender is horribly broken and it is where we are at. Another option is to leave your render set to Display P3, save it, and assign the Display P3 ICC. Painful, but works!
Hope this helps...

Ah thank you for being very kind to not only tell me the solution but also explaining what's happening. So concise!

Solved it! I just opened the image I saved (with the display to P3) with ColorSync utility and assigned the P3 profile and voila! I even uploaded it on other platforms to test the colors and they are all great! THANK YOU!!

Let me know how the Filmic configuration works for you. In theory, the Display P3 display setting should work rather well. If it is properly displayed, it should not appear as saturated as the limits of your display.

I guess it works well, even though it's such a process to make the final image how it should look like, it works. Do you have any advice about animating with said outcome? Do I have to manually assign each frame?

Blender’s pixel management is crap. Basically, proof your work using the Display P3 display and view of your choosing, then for rendering, set it to sRGB if you are saving as a TIFF for example. The result will be sRGB. If you save as EXR, you’d have to bake the transforms out separately. TL;DR: Change the display to sRGB and save and the animation will be sRGB. macOS should detect untagged images as sRGB. You can also batch tag still frames.


text:
Is there a way to identify colours in a mesh
So, I've imported an image as a plane. It's a simple logo, just black with a company's name in white font.
Is there a way I can identify the white font as a separate material, so as to remove the font and make a cut-out plaque?

To me this sounds like something that's easier to accomplish in a photo editing program to create a picture of the logo on a transparent background, then using that  on your model as an image texture to influence your material.

yeah I guess you're right hehe :) thanks bro!

Sure thing.
Just use the black and white image as a mask for transparency.
Connect your material nodes like this.
And use the Transparent BSDF node.

If you're using Evee, don't forget to enable Alpha Blend

You can also combine different colors the same way.
All of these planes were created using the same bw image.


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Time Node in Blender 2.81?
I'm trying to make a Rorschach effect material. What I want to do is have the distortion on a Wave Texture node change over time. It seems to me that in earlier versions of Blender, there was a Time Node. Is there a way to do this in Blender now?

The time node is still there, but only in the compositor as far as I can tell.

This is the super-quick-and-dirty way to do it:
Simply double click the value of the distortion and type #frame into  instead of a number.

Then press Enter.
This automagically creates a frame based driver.
The box will turn purple, indicating that it is being driven.

If you want to modify it, just double-click the value box and edit as desired.    Note that the hash disappears, in the driver editor as it is no longer required.

Yes, you can use simple mathematical expressions too e.g. frame/10
You can also right-click the purple box and select Edit Driver from the context menu.
Just remember if you want to make it a driver add the # symbol to the front.

You can insert a keyframe directly on the node's distortion value. Just:

hover your mouse over it, click 'I' (it should turn yellow)
move to a later frame in your Timeline
change the distortion's value in the node
hover your mouse over the distortion socket and click 'I' again

If you hit play, that should result in the distortion value animating over time.
You can also achieve the same effect by controlling the distortion with a Driver tied to the current frame number:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/animation/drivers/index.html


text:
Animation Nodes, how to add additional outputs? Missing outputs
I am following some basic tutorials on animation nodes with latest Blender 2.81.
Tutorial
He is using older version of blender,
but right at the beginning he adds a Grid Mesh node with a very different output than what I find in mine.

For example, the same node "Grid Mesh" only has one output "Mesh" in my latest version, while in tutorial he has 3: Vertices, Edge Indices, Polygon Indices.
I am wondering if there is a way to add additional, missing, outputs in Grid Mesh node, or if there has been some change I am not aware about?1

You can use 'Mesh Info' node (Add -> Mesh -> Mesh info).

Actually, you cannot add additional inputs or outputs in any node (e.g., Grid Mesh in your case). However, there is a Group-Node in Subprogrames category in Animation Nodes:

which allows creating any kind of inputs and/or outputs and arrange them as you like. You can also combine multiple nodes similar to the shader group-node. Here, I have made a simple example:

Thank you, this is very helpful for me to dig deeper. Recently, seeing all the insane #nodevember,  I was wondering how do they dig so deep and dynamic with just the nodes.

Does working like that expands into any node system? I did notice Shader editor has script node, but nothing like invoke subprogram.

Animation Nodes also has a Script Node in Subprogrames category. Sorry, "Does working like that expands into any node system?" do you want to know about the general workflow or something else?

yes please, i want to understand how these node systems are unified through general workflow. For example what’s the equivalent of invoke subprogram in shaders nodes ?

Do you mean Invoke Subprogram of the Animation Nodes in Shader Nodes or Invoke Subprogram of the Shader Nodes?

the latter one, Invoke Subprogram of the Shader Nodes.

There is no Invoke Subprogram of the Shader Nodes. However, there is OSL Programming Nodes addon: https://blendermarket.com/products/osl-programming-nodes to create custom shaders with nodes.


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How to spin in circle instances of metaballs?

I am working on this loop. Here I have instances of metaballs wiggling location randomly, I duplicated this node tree twice more. Sub-question is how to think about making the random wiggle loop smoother and not so obvious when it restarts.

Now, I am wondering how to approach 3 bundles of wiggling metaballs to rotate around the center. Do I work with an empty? How does one take metaball node tree (shown above) and use it as an input to rotate around empty or something similar.

My approach is to use metaballs as dupliverts

This subprogram (bluish) creates user defined amount of pointclouds.
To loop animation I used a couple of identical vector Wiggle nodes, but one with subtracted evaluation to make a smooth transition back to initial position.
Another subprogram (green) is mixing every point between pointclouds from both Wiggle nodes.

This part of a tree controls central point rotation (same trick with looping of two Wiggle nodes was used previously) and location (for location I used Empty).
First node from left named as Animation Duration controls animation length before looping.
Distribute Matrices node produces locations for pointclouds. Right now it replicates along the circle, but could be any mesh if needed.
Two Animate nodes are mixing start/end positions and use sinusoidal interpolation to give smoother looping.

Parent Metaball to freshly created pointcloud mesh - Target and enable duplivert instancing in mesh's object properties. To hide original metaball use shader mask:

Thank you for example and solution. I spent some time tinkering cause invoking subprogram is new to me. For the most part I was able to replicate the example, but have a few question.
I couldn't find few nodes and had to copy paste it from your .blend
Vector List Node from AN
Ceil Node from Shader

Also, I am not sure what I am doing wrong applying Shader to original Metaball, but it doesn't hide like in your file, just stays flat black.

Unfortunately, some nodes are available only from the search bar. "Vector List Node" was found, when I searched for "vector". As for the shader, I think you might forget to set  alpha mode from opaque to alpha blend inside material tab (Eevee). In Cycles this should work fine though.