text:
How do I create this material in cycles (2.79)?
This question is a repost: I wanted to know how I could make the material shown on the characters shown here:

(source: ibtimes.com)

Now let me explain:
I am trying to make a fan game with similar aesthetics to the ones in this game, FNAF: Sister Location, where the character screenshots were taken from. For months now, I've been trying to recreate the materials on the characters. What materials, you ask? Basically, all of them that you can see. You may be thinking that I should limit this question to one material, but the thing is, all of them are the same, despite different colors and/or normal maps. Now, you might also want more information on these materials. From my analysis, they're super reflective and metallic in little to no light. However, their specular in the brighter light makes it seem almost like a leathery material. For example, if you view the image with the snouted white-and-pink character gripping a disco ball looking microphone, you can see what I'm talking about. Around the bottom of his lower jaw, it is super reflective, but where the specular is, there is little to no reflection at all.
Keep in mind that I have researched all the videos that are relevant to this, but none provided an accurate node setup. How do I create this in cycles?

I'm not sure the materials have anything particular, it looks like normal plastic, like a Diffuse mixed with a Glossy, with various values, plus perhaps Fresnel and SSS. It seems to me that what you think comes from the material may actually comes from the work with lighting, so maybe you should dig that aspect?


text:
How to make concave disk?
(Solved) I am relatively new to blender and I am trying to make a concave disk (or really short cylinder) and I can't find any tutorials on how to do this. Could somebody please point me in the direction of a tutorial or tell me how? The shape I am trying to get is below. Thanks.

(source: ingersolltillage.com)

related, http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/28976/how-to-model-the-rounded-outline-of-a-column

Create a UV Sphere and delete the bottom half of it in Edit Mode. Go back into Object Mode, select the entire half-sphere and scale it only on the Z axis. (press "Z" while scaling is activated) That should give you a concave disk.

To have a high level of control of the shape, and thickness, you can model profile of the disc and use Spin tool to create a mesh, like this:
Don't forget to remove doubles at the end.

Add a UV sphere Smooth the shading. Go to edit mode and delete the vertex how much u need the sphere curve size, add solidify modifier and edge modifier for sharp edge. U can select and press to z axis if u need little flat.

Thanks, I think I'll use this method for now. Not too difficult. Sometimes I wish blender (an other 3D modelling programs) had a larger variety shapes.

@BenjiCollins There are addons that you can enable in the User Settings that do add a greater variety of shapes, but of course not all. But given how quick it is to create this, it's not such a big deal. (unless you're trying to be parametric / precise)

source: Stack Exchange

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

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sort: votes


text:
Ruler disagrees with vertices
I select a point in edit mode, and it gives me some reasonable xyz Vertex values in the "Transform" area (for example 955, -455, 100).
I select another point and I also get reasonable values (for example 517, -471, 76), 100s of units from the first point. When I go to Grease Pencil/ Tools/ Ruler Protractor and try to draw a ruler between these two points to get the exact distance, I get a very small value instead (like .652). Shouldn't the ruler be giving me the difference between the vertices? I thought this might have to do with some local vs. global coordinate issue but I can't make any progress on that.
First point:
Second point:
Ruler, showing unexpected value:
[Since I am prohibited from posting a comment I'm not sure how to add information to my question, aside from editing my initial post, so that is what I am doing.]
I have attached another image showing that the scale of the mesh object
appears to be 1.0. Since the mesh object scale is 1.0 I cannot understand
why this is a local vs. global scale issue (even though that's what I
suspected this problem ultimately would be related to).
Generally, even if this is a global vs. local scaling issue, how could
I get the ruler to show distances using the object's own scale? I don't see any option in the Ruler/Protractor that would tell it to
use the object's own scale for measurement.
Here is an image that I think shows that the scale of the object is 1.0:

(source: interstice.com)
Based on Carlo's suggestion I examined the object hierarchy more closely. The meshes I was looking at have a scale factor of 1.0, but the meshes are part of a 'Model', and the Model does have a scale factor of .001 associated with it, as this screenshot shows:

(source: interstice.com)
The model was imported from an Autodesk .3ds file, by the way, and that is how this scale factor was introduced into Blender during import.
So at this point I am at least comfortable that I understand what is going on, though I'm still not sure how to make Blender do what I want. I may try to figure out how to rescale the object to a factor of 1.0 so that my blender units agree with my model and the ruler will give me "real" values.
Blender v2.78

Welcome to Blender.SE. Yes, it should give you the exact distance as expected. Did you correctly snapped the ruler to the vertices? could you post a test scene proving your issue? also the images you mentioned could be useful...

Editing the question is the right way for adding more information. I see something strange going on: if the scale is 1,1,1, and the overall bounding box Dimensions have a max value of 2,985...how can a vertex location be higher than that value? currently I'm thinking about a Child relationship...so your mesh is maybe inheriting the trasformation from another mesh with altered scale. Could this be the case?

apply the scale on the 'Model' object (Ctrl + A) so the scale values will be set to 1.0, then ruler and vertex position should start to line up.

My guess is that mesh you are trying to measure is parented to the "model" making it inherit it's scaling. I would suggest setting the scale on the "model" to 1 and seeing if that helps, If not please upload a blend file with this issue or provide more information on the scene.

Ruler use the Global coordinates
As you already pointed out in your question, the difference comes from the using of Local coordinates instead of Global.
While the Global coordinate of the vertex is its "true position" in the 3D space, Local coordinates are giving you the position of the mesh component as if it would not be affected by the object's transformation.
If we consider for example a 200x200 square plane, and set the object's scale to 0.01, the Global position of the corner vertices would be something like (1;1;0)... while the Local position will stay untouched (object's scale is uneffective) resulting in something like (100;100;0).
The rulere is giving the "real" distance bewtween two points, located where they currently are in the scene, so by comparing the Global coordinates, not the Local.

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Render layer causing image "shearing" in video sequence editor
I'm having an issue where black "v" shapes or jagged lines show up in my render.  They almost look as though the image is being ripped apart and the black background underneath is showing through.

Through process of elimination I've narrowed down the source of the problem to be the Render Layer titled "text shadows".  This layer consists of duplicate text objects that I've added a blur node to in the compositor to create a shadow effect.  I've tried to troubleshoot the problem by removing nodes in the compositor, hiding or deleting my mask object in each scene, and adjusting the position of the text shadow objects in y space.  The only way I've found to remove the black shapes is to turn the "text shadows" render layer off altogether in the Render Layer panel.  After doing so the render turns out fine, but I can't achieve the look I'm going for without the shadows behind the text.  Any insight into what is causing this issue and how to prevent it would be extremely helpful.  Also, I'll include the .blend.  I'm using Blender Internal.

Please reupload the file with the images included. See this thread for more info on including textures used in your file.

Thanks for the tip!  Is there a way I can reduce the size of the .blend after "packing" the file?  The file size is too large to upload via Blend-Exchange (my file is now 34 MB and Blend-Exchange only allows up to 30 MB).

If the only heavy thing that you used in the file are images then you can only: 1) make a stripdown version, so cutting some effects in order to delete image from file completely and not use it anymore 2) use images of lower resolution and / or another formats. The most simple one is .jpeg. Note that all this is applicable only to simple version of file for uploading.

Makes sense.  I went ahead and swapped the PNG textures out with JPEG versions.  The updated .blend is now in the description :)

Could you upload the render image where you turned "Text Shadows" off?

As cegaton mentionend, the file you uploaded won't produce such problems on my side neither:
http://sendvid.com/tbu3umgk

Though I had to disable your dust layers to get another result than lots of white:

However, I suppose, it's a driver problem on your side. I already had a graphics cards driver problem with Blender. The developers helped me out to find out whether the problem is one with the driver.
You should use the opengl32.dll from http://download.blender.org/ftp/sergey/softwaregl/ and place it next to blender.exe as described by sergey to find out if the problem is your driver. Beware, that Blender might be very slow while using this wrapper dll as everything is done on CPU only without using your graphics card.

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

authors: Анатолий Погорилий


text:
Camera Clipping through Mesh Plane Causes Visible Clipping in Render
I'm animating an infinite loop with a camera zooming out from a tiled image that then forms into a whole version of the tiled image.  Here's the blend:

I'm using Blender Internal.  Though not refined yet, I have the animation done, but when I go to render a png test, this happens on frames 7 and 13, and so on throughout the loop:

Obviously this is not cool.  I'm assuming it has to do with the fact that the camera "cuts" through the mesh plane my texture is on, which is causing some clipping.  I've done this effect with other projects, however, and I've never had this issue (granted it was with other software).  I thought it might have something to do with the clipping distance on my camera, but playing with the values hasn't proved successful.  Any ideas?
EDIT: I tried just keeping the camera in place and scaling the textured plane instead, but the problem still persists.  Perhaps it's a texturing issue?

I don't think it's something related with the texture, it happens also with only the camera and a brand new plane. You can fix this by slightly rotating the Repeating plane on the Z axis by a little fraction of degree (e.g. 0.0001), but it would be interesting to know why it happens.

Hm, strange!  Maybe someday someone will have an answer, but for now, this quick fix does the trick! Thank you!

It seems to be sky seen through - on these 2 images is shown what happens if world background color changed to gray on the 1-st, and if Alpha in Render > Shanding scroll changed to Transparent - on 2-nd. I thought this is Z-fighting, but I'm pretty sure it really isn't (as I tried to make it reveal itself, to no avail). So I don't see any reasons this to happen.


text:
Unwanted UV Vertices
EDIT: Here is the link to my .blend file~

I'm new to the blender software specifically. An issue I'm having with Blender that I have never experienced with other software is the inability to remove unwanted vertices from my UV texture map.
Because the texture on my mug model is going to be a flat band of pattern and color, I want to line my vertices up in my uv map so there are no distortions in the pattern. However, whenever I weld two corresponding vertices in my map, this happens:

I noticed there is a sort of stack of faces and vertices in this one little spot. I can't delete it to remove it from my uv, so I tried just grabbing it and moving it off the uv area, but that doesn't help me when it comes to welding and tidying up my map. This little stack is made up of all of the faces I don't want to put my image texture on, so it's causing a bit of a roadblock for me.
I tried searching for a solution but I am not too good at describing this problem in search engines and generic searches didn't seem to hold any answers.  Any help is greatly appreciated!

If the vertices exist on your mesh they will exist in your UV layout if they were selected when you UV unwrapped. I suppose it would be useful if verts could be deleted from a UV layout, but even without that ability it can be worked around without too much trouble, and you can always re-unwrap. One question: are you sure the UV islands of the mesh you are trying to weld correctly correspond with the faces on your mesh that you think they do?

Emilie, welcome to the site. It will be helpful to those of us who might want to give advice if you would upload a copy of your ~.blend file to a site like Blend-Exchange, and paste the link into your question. That way, those of us who might wish to help, but do not have enough information from your screen shot to do so, have more resources to help solve your problem.

Welcome to Blender.SE Emelie. :)  It would be a lot easier to solve your problem if you could add some screenshots of your model in edit mode or upload your .blend file so we can take a look at it.

Thank you so much everyone!  I included the .blend file in the original post as asked. When I unwrapped my mesh I only selected the faces that were inside of my seams (or rather the ones that I wanted to make a UV map of).  That strange stray vertex is made up of all of the other vertices, edges, and faces that were not selected when I made my map.  As Samuel said below, I may just have to fix my seams, but if that's the case I'm not quite sure how to properly do it. I've never dealt with seams before. I thought my UV islands were corresponding correctly, but that vertex may prove otherwise...

To get even texture pattern I think the seams on the mug indeed should be re-arranged.
That "vertice" in the original UV map actually represents all the inner faces of the mug together with mug's handle. That's why the model should be unwrapped and so the seams can be put in this way:

In this example the seams are placed on:

The outer mesh handle's loopcut; it starts on the bottom of it outside and ends on the bottom inside.
The inner mesh handle's loopcut.
The loopcut opposite the mug' handle.
The very top loopcut of the mesh (inner one, so as not to be seen from the outside).

After some UV map tweaking (scaling loopcuts so the shape to be more quad-like and without distortions) and arranging islands, it can look like this:

Note: if texture on the bottom of the mesh will be seen somehow, then topology there should be rebuilt.
Thus the texture on your mug will be placed in this way:

Blend file

I tried it out and this solved my problem!  Thank you very much for taking the time to help me with this.  I really appreciate it!

@EmelieK. I'm glad it was useful for you.

Looks to me like you haven't specified the seams correctly, there's still a vertex joining your UV islands. Make sure that they are correctly separated and unwrap again.
Also, if you want a vertex to not show up in the UV layout, unselect it from the 3D view.

That indeed was the problem!  Thank you for your response!


text:
How do I calculate how far an object has travelled in a specific time?
I can't find any reference to calculate an object travelled distance along a time range. I think it could be done by using Matrix difference from frame to frame.  I need distance travelled on each frame. I am expecting a cumulative value for each frame.
Any ideas?

Object distance between frames and total movement length can be done. Set frame_start and frame_end variables.
It calculates selected object distance.
import bpy

o = bpy.context.object
total = 0
frame_start = 0
frame_end = 10
bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame_start)

for frame in range(frame_start+1,frame_end+1):

    loc1 = o.matrix_world.to_translation()
    bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame)
    loc2 = o.matrix_world.to_translation()
    dist = (loc1-loc2).length
    print ("Frames:", frame-1,"-", frame,"distance:", dist)
    total += dist

print ("Total distance:", total)

Thank you, edited the answer.

Edited answer: replaced o.location to o.matrix_world.to_translation().

JuhaW, do you know if it would be possible to calculate the moved distance while in playback mode, and use the result in a driver? This would be useful for a wheel rotation driver.


text:
Mirror Modifier creates the other part of model far away from the original
I'm doing a girl here (the concept is not mine, I'm just training) and when I click on mirror modifier Blender creates the other part of the model far away from the first one, not close like it should

I have no idea how to change that, does someone know what is the reason it works that way?

It seems perfectly mirrored to me. The modifier will mirror along the X-axis; you can also describe this as using the YZ-plane as a mirror. Since your background image is already centred around the origin, I don't see the problem.

I don't even know..it seems that from the side it looks fine but in the middle, it should be together, that's a face in the end, like, for example in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ2ob8F3sJQ
Mine just doesn't work that way

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/353/how-can-i-make-the-mirror-modifier-work-right/354 for details about Mirror modifier. It mirrors along origin point by default which in your case is a bit to the left of the object hence there's a gap. In the vid you linked (please use timestamps if sharing) origin point is set to the center line of the cube part so mirrored part is just next to original.


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How Does AnimationNodes Create This GUI Item?
I'm attaching the image of one GUI element which Animation Nodes can produce in the Nodes window. This does not seem to be from "context.window_manager.invoke_props_dialog()" (sorry, I'm not very good at Python and Animation Nodes is complicated compared to single file examples I've seen). Is this just a customization of "invoke_props_dialog", or is this something completely custom? Is there any tutorial anyone can suggest which would describe the process of creating something like this for inclusion in the nodes editor?

I think invoke_props_dialog is only for operator UIs, not nodes. Did you try right click -> "edit source"? You should also clarify if you mean the two buttons on the top or the sockets below them, or the whole UI.

I've looked at the source, but it is complicated and I'm new to Python. I wasn't able to decipher what the code does. That's why I'm asking about tutorials...I'm looking for something to explain in more detail how to build nodes (I have no idea how nodes might differ from operator UIs).

Did you look at the custom nodes example in Blender? You can find it in the text editor, Templates -> Python -> Custom Nodes. About this question: maybe you should rewrite it, it's not clear to me what exactly you are asking. Should we explain all aspects of writing a node UI, or just some specific element in your screenshot? In the title you ask for a "GUI Item", but which of the items in the screenshot do you mean exactly?

@B.Y.O.B. I was trying to find out if these nodes used something similar to an "invoke_props_dialog" because I like how this works...I was unable to figure out a single function call to look up and read about the API definition (sorry, I don't know what to call that function). Basically, I was hoping there might be a tutorial URL someone could point out which applies to learning this, e.g., something which might annotate the templates (which I didn't know about until yesterday). Your other answer in another thread about invoke_props_dialog was perfect...it told me what topic I needed to read.


text:
How to calculate speed/detect movement per frame?
I've been looking for a way to calculate the speed of an object or bone. On this same site a couple of people have made this same question but any of the scripts I've tried in the current version of Blender don't seem to work (anymore).
What I'd like to have is a driver/drivers that says/say how much an object or bone has moved every frame, so a comparison of the location of the distance of the previous frame to the current frame. This can be a single value or in separate X, Y and Z values, either would work.
Among the scripts I've tried this one seems like a good solution but sadly it mostly returns zeroes for me:

The numbers it pops out seem right but it doesn't seem to be updating at the right rate. I've added this file to the post.
Edit: After tetii's suggestion I did some more experimenting and did get the script to work, somewhat:

The file for this I've provided also, it's the second one. What I've done is simply copy over the driver to the Z-location of the cube. Now the driver for 'dx' is updating correctly, I just don't understand why. So it looks like the script from the linked post by Rich Sedman can work, there just seems to be some issue with the way it uses variables or I misunderstood something.
import bpy

attributes = {}

def drv_calc_change(frame, attr, value):
# Used to calculate the change of a property (eg, x-coord) between one frame and the next.

    # Determine whether we already have a value for this attribute
    if attr in attributes:
        attribute = attributes[attr]
    else:
        # Not found - create a new record for it and store it
        attribute = {'frame':frame, 'value':value}
        attributes[attr] = attribute

    # Calculate the difference
    difference = value - attribute['value']

    # If new frame then store the new value to use next time.
    if frame != attribute['frame']:
        attribute['frame'] = frame
        attribute['value'] = value
        attributes[attr] = attribute

    return difference

if 'drv_calc_change' in bpy.app.driver_namespace:
    del bpy.app.driver_namespace['drv_calc_change']
bpy.app.driver_namespace['drv_calc_change'] = drv_calc_change

First file:

Second file:

I think more people may attempt to help if they knew what this all about. Could you maybe edit the question and add more context? What are you trying to do?

Thank you, I followed your advice and specified the question more. I thought keeping it short would be better somehow.

It's still not very clear to be honest. How do you imagine the output of it? What do you need it for? Do you only need to see it for the active object, or are you planning to use it somehow in a script or a driver or some other way?

if the script does return 0, please upload your blend file with script so we can run it and test it out and we see what you tried/have done. Thank you.

@MartynasŽiemys I imagine it like a number that displays the speed, doesn't have to be cm/s or km/h or anything like that. I'd like to use it to move/distort a texture and maybe add noise to a bone's movement, I roughly know how to set those things up. So I think a custom property which value is determined by a driver that I can refer to from anywhere would be best.
Edit: I've added a file that shows one of the scripts I've tried, hopefully that clears things up.

It seems like the problem is that the object itself is the target of the variable. So please try the following: Enable the self attribute and change the expression to drv_calc_change(frame, "dx", self.location.x).

Other than the solutions already presented, I would try evaluating a previous frame, getting the position of an object, and going back to current frame. Obviously you would need a guard global variable that tells you if you're in the topmost evaluation or not, to avoid infinite (hanging) recursion.

Here's a scriptless solution that doesn't require working with an alpha build, which is nonetheless dynamic, provided you are interested in the velocity only during a single action.  Starting with the file provided:

Duplicate Cube to Cube.002.  Move this duplicate to a new collection.
Open the NLA.  Push down the Cube.002 action to a new NLA track.  Set this action to reference the same action as Cube (CubeAction).
Change the driver for Cube.001 to measure the distance between Cube and Cube.002.
Move Cube.002's NLA strip one unit in the X (time) axis.
Optionally, disable your new collection in viewports and renders.

Our duplicate uses the same action as our original, but lags by 1 frame, allowing us to measure exactly how much distance is traversed in a single frame.  Because the strips reference the exact same action data, we can continue to edit this action, and our velocities will update with our edits.
If already using the NLA to combine multiple actions, or if interested in the velocity through multiple actions (perhaps for exporting a file containing multiple actions), this is not a good solution.
There will also be complications based on dependencies.  They can be worked around, by duplicating parents/targets (and their parents/targets, and so on) and shifting NLA action strips in the same way, but that will rapidly become unworkable.  However, the technique will work perfectly fine for, say, an armature with a baked animation.

This worked very well, thank you very much! I hadn't used the NLA editor before so I'm glad to discover it this way.

About the 1st .blend file
I think the problem is that the Cube object itself is the target of its own variables. The result of dumping the values of the variable from the function,
drv_calc_change, is shown below. This gave the wrong result that var had values in other frames.

On the other hand, the API document has the following description.

use_self

Include a ‘self’ variable in the name-space, so drivers can easily reference the data being modified (object, bone, etc…)

I don't think this wording directly says the solution, but it seems to work fine when I try it.

I hope someone can provide a technical explanation.

Edit: Added an animated image
Notice how the smaller cube now moves smoothly? I printed the difference value to the console, but I seems it doesn't feel practical.

I did try your suggestion, but just like when I try your modified Blender file nothing happens after pressing play. The driver doesn't update and stays at 0 throughout... Could there be a difference in our settings?

don't press play, but use the arrow keys, then it will update. I think by pressing play UI won't get update so that fps doesn't go down too much. After you stepped a bit and press play again, you will see that the value seems to be constant then.

@Zoukeau, sorry.  If what you're looking for is to have the display of custom properties updated in real time, please ignore my answer. There was a problem with the original file that sometimes the internal "difference" value, not the display value, was incorrectly retrieved zero. I have fixed this.

Have you tried translating your script into Simulation nodes? (Blender 3.5 build).You can do the same frame by frame calculations and attribute storage and then translate that into a set of drivers.
@celestialmaze on twitter has done some experimentations in this vain.
Dissecting this thread should shed some light on his approach: https://twitter.com/cmzw_/status/1598349619058003970 (scroll for the node graph).

The way you describe it, it sounds like it would work. Is the build stable?

3.5 is still an experimental build and simulation nodes can be temperamental if you tax it too much. That said, this kind node setup shouldn't stretch the feature too much as it's only updating attribute values.

I tried to tackle this problem with Animation Nodes, I read in a different thread that it could be a potential solution. I've only started using them today but this is what I put together:  (I hope everything is clear enough, I squashed everything together to be able to make a .gif out of a it.)
What this does is subtract the cube's location data of the previous frame (Frame - 1.00) from the current frame, per axis. Then it feeds the results into the location data of another object, a sphere. I tried to feed the results into custom properties at first but when trying to use their value in other drivers they wouldn't update.


text:
Blender Crashes when Switching to Cycles Engine
I open a blank Blender project, I go to switch it to cycles. The entire program pauses for about a second, then crashes completely. This also happens to a project I have been working on.
Specifications:

Blender 2.76b
Windows 8.1
NVIDIA Geforce GTX 760m

Steps I have taken:

I have restarted Blender.
I have Reinstalled Blender from the website.
I have looked at any pages that seem to have this problem and nothing comes up.
I have tried the zip version of Blender.
My drivers are up to date.

Thanks for reading.

I needed to enable CUDA and use my NVIDIA GPU in the user settings.
 This is done by:

Opening user preferences under File/User Preferences
Going to the System tab
Scrolling down till you see the option entitled Compute Device
Selecting CUDA instead of None and selecting your GPU from there.

Apparently my CPU integrated is either not compatible, or the drivers are not installed correctly. Regardless, I wanted to use my more powerful GPU anyway.
Refer to this answer for a more in depth explanation on how this is done should you run into any problems.


text:
Does Cycles f-stop effect the brightness of the render
I was wondering if changing the f-stop in cycles effects the brightness as in the real world like this:

In some way... yes!
Cameras (real&virtual) stores the incoming light information in pixel. When you save your images to an output format you are basically saving a matrix of values.
There are file format that save lot of info (ex. HDR, RAW...) and files that store just what you'll need to see your image on a standard monitor.
One of the operation that may occour when choosing a lightweight format is bightness clamping. In order to just store the RGB values in the file matrix, pixel whose brightness is higher than 1, are just stored as full white (1,1,1)

If you examine the image above, you can make some considerations:

the first two picture of the first row are demonstrating that the
overall brighness is not affected by the F-stop amount, the light is
just "spreaded" in the first (because the background is blurry),
while when the particles are more in focus, the light is more
"concentrate".
The difference column demonstrate how the camera's F-Stop doesn't
interfere with the sensor in a way to lighten up the foreground
subject.
you can see that is almost no difference between the scene render
with F-stop=1, Strenght of the background objects = 10 and the one
with F-stop=1, Strenght=100. That's because brightness has been
clamped as stated at the beginning. Even if we would put an Emission strenght of 10000.. we would always see a bunch of white pixels.
If you now examine the corrispectives with F-stop=0.1, the lower
image result more bright. That's because the clamping has not
occoured. As said in the first consideration light intensity has been spreaded by the bokeh effect, so in none of them pixel are white. So the value didn't need to be clamped.

In the image above, emission strenght is set to 1000, so in both pics values are clamped to white. As the bokeh effect spread the light, in a certain sense the image on the left can be said brighter.

This is the right answer. f-stop affects depth of field, and therefore changes what rays are recorded. Obviously this changes brightness, even if that's not its primary purpose.

@cegaton Infact f-stop doesn't change the "quantity" of light of the scene. I would just suggest that if value clamping occurs, in some way the captured image may "looks brighter". In real life likely happens because most of light sources have an emission streght greater than 1 and clamping occours in cameras (if you are saving in jpg, png...formats). I don't think the image provided by the questioner is one of these cases, it is more probable that the exposure time has been increased to make the bokeh more visible.

You are right @cegaton, I was misleaded by the caption in this page: http://calculus-geometry.hubpages.com/hub/100-Free-Out-of-Focus-Lights-Images-Bokeh-Photography-Effects. I'll edit that part of the question. Thanks for pointing it out! I wrote this answer as a "second thought", it was not meant to be in opposite with yours which was obiuvsly the right one (Blender camera don't perfectly simulate the behaviour of a real one)


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Blender 2.91 Smoke Sims and Marmoset Toolbag
I'm sure this question has been asked many times before, but is there an easy way to "export" a smoke simulation to be used in Marmoset Toolbag 3? After a lot of googling, I know that you can't just export a smoke sim from Blender as an fbx or whatever, so I thought I would try using the volume to mesh modifier but I don't think you can bake that as an animation, at least not from what I've found. Has anyone found a method to bring simulations from Blender into Marmoset Toolbag 3?
Thanks


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Shading tab seems incomplete (Blender 2.8)
I am running blender 2.8 and am in the shading tab. On the tutorials I've seen on YouTube, the background in the top 3d viewport is a shade of light gray and there always seems to be a second texture circle next to the white one.
As is seen in the image, my background is black and I only have one of the circles. Why is this happening?

Thanks
EDIT: Here's the file

PS. There are no nodes in the image because I have the camera selected, once I select the cube I get the default ones.

Go to the shading menu, you probably have the scene World Checkbox selected
If that's not the case, share your file to take a look at it

I had both unchecked. I left a link for the file, thanks.


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How can I randomize Wave Texture's Wave Width?
I'm trying to create a Brown Dwarf / Jupiter look.

The waves / bands are all relatively evenly sized and the colors are very "black / white / black / white"
Is there a way I can randomize the width / scale of the lines and apply different colors to them within my nodes?
Current node setup:

a quick way would be to add colors to your ColorRamp

Try using a Wave Texture as the scale factor for a Noise Texture:

You can change the detail or distortion levels of the Wave Texture or the Noise Texture (or both) for interesting effects:

This is perfect, thankyou


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Cloth sim does not stay with rig during animation
I have rigged my character and I parented a cloth simmed cloak to the rig. I can move the character to a different location but as soon as I play the animation, the cloak snaps back to the origin but still animates as if it's still on the character.
I have parented the animated cloak to my rig. At this point, I can change the pose and the cloak will react properly.

Still on frame 1, I've moved the entire rig back to the position I want him to start.

Now, when I move 1 frame forward, the cloak moves to the cursor. The origin point stays with the rig.

I know it has to be something simple. Just can't figure it out. I'm still a noob.
Here's a video showing what I mean.

Hello and welcome. While files, images, and external videos or links may be helpful additions they should not be the only way to obtain information about your issue. Don't make understanding your question rely on downloading a file, watching a video or visiting an external site. Use the builtin tools to upload images or gifs, along with thoroughly explaining the problem in written form so it can be indexed and searched for thus helping future visitors with similar issues.

Ok thank you. I will add some screenshots. I'm still kind of new so it's difficult to articulate what I want to say. I will try to add more detail.

Delete the cloth sim animation cache. Animate your character. Re-bake cloth sim.


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How can I make my liquid look like tea?
I'm following the donut tutorial from Andrew/blenderguru and got to the point where he makes the liquid coffee. Since I usually drink ice tea I tried to make the liquid look like tea instead, but it keeps looking like it's made from dirt or latte macchiato.
How can I make it look more like tea?
I've tried to set the roughness lower and put the metallic a bit higher and change its density but it didn't work. I'm gonna try to move the tea out of the glass or add a 2 tone color to it. Andrew said I had to put it slightly in the glass other wise there could be a gap between the glass/liquid which wouldn't look right.

are you sure you need Metallic? Also, are you using Cycles or Eevee? With Cycles you can use the Volume Absorption node

Further reading if interested: http://blog.gregzaal.com/2013/10/19/fluid-in-a-glass/

@moonboots no i was just trying out things to make it look beter.

@AllenSimpson thanks ill look into that.

I'm following it too and also decided to make some tea instead of coffee. I did it the same way he teaches how to make the coffee, just changed the density to a lower value. First pic shows the values on the surface and second the values on volume, which is where you change things. Third is how it looks in mine :)

Yes that looks very good im gona do it this way to I only have to make it darker to make ice tea. Which orange html/Hex did you use?

I guess i did something wrong i filled in all options like you have but then my liquid was pure wite. So i put the transmission to 1 and put my density to 25 and now it looks good enough. im satisfied with how it looks now thanks


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I can't edit the texture orientation
I'm new on blender and I'm making a cars track for Assetto Corsa.
I'm about to finish the track. I was finishing the walls and a problem became:
I can't see the walls texture on the UV/Image editor. I select all the face which I want to see in the UV/image editor, I press U>Reset and then U>follow active quads and I don't see anything on the V/Image editor, so I can't rotate the texture.
I looks like this, it's kinda weird:

I've seen that with U>Smart UV project it automatically rotates but only with some faces. Any suggestions?
I'd like to ask for something else: When I select a cube face from the array blender selects that face of all the cubes on the array. How can I select individual cubes of the array to delete them individually?
I leave my .blend, so anyone can check everything needed.
Thanks in advance!

please use http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ to upload the blend files. When on texture related issues, you need to pack your textures into the Blend file, otherwise they are mapped to a folder in your computer and  on ours computers, we can't see your texture. Not sure whats wrong, instead of rotating the texture, you can rotate the UVmap (under UV image editor and while in edit mode, select faces you want to rotate, Press R to rotate.

to pack external files, go to File>External Data>Pack All into blend or automatically pack

Possible duplicate of Why doesn't my unwrapped model appear in the UV Editor?

UV Map doesn't show when the Render Result is selected in the UV/Image Editor. So, please, try clicking on the X button. As shown below:

For deleting face of individual cubes you have to first Apply the Array Modifier. However, note, that it will convert all cubes to single mesh, so they won't be affected by the Curve Modifier after that.


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Can't export mesh to .fbx
I'm new to Blender and I'm making a track for Assetto Corsa. It's an ambitious project but it's very important for me.
I can't export my track to a .fbx file. This error appears:

I leave my blend file for any checking you need. I uploaded it in mega because it exceeds the 30MB limit.

That should probably be reported in the Blender bugtracker, I don't think there much anyone here can do

What do you mean with "I don't think there is much anyone can do"?. I mean, will I have to remake the project from 0 or what? I'll post it on the bugtracker anyway while I wait for your anwer. Thank you.

For starters, please explain exactly what you did when you tried to export your file (and by "exactly" I mean a screenshot of the export panel on the left side of the file selector). Which objects did you select to export? Have you applied the modifiers? Have you joined the objects? Also: Please be more careful when posting links. Yours doesn't work and sometimes it understandably annoys experienced users if people don't put much effort into their questions.

No you don't have to redo everything, by "I don't think there is much anyone can do here". I meant that a well behaving script should never through a Python error at the user; if it does it is most likely a bug on unintentional behavior, and should be reported to the tracker. There are little to no developers here and probably few people able to fix it even if they wanted to.

Oh, just found the problem. There was a nurbs path which wasn't cyclic and was tiny, also without material.  When I deleted it it exported successfully. There were also modifiers not applyed and scales and rotations not applied.
Thanks for your time :)

There was a nurbs path which wasn't cyclic and was tiny, also without material. When I deleted it everything was exported successfully.
There were also modifiers not applyed and scales and rotations not applied.

authors: วนัสนันท์ ธิสาระ


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What's the best way to rotate objects identically in their own direction?
How to rotate these sticks evenly so that they roughly stay in place. I tried to use the array modifier and make them separate objects, and also somehow rotate them in relation to the 3D cursor, but it didn't help.

(source: rozetka.ua)

hello, "rotate these sticks evenly so that they roughly stay in place", could you please elaborate?

Status quo looks like this and I want to make the result like in the picture above.

Why rotate around 3D cursor didn't work? Leave the 3D cursor at the center, rotate the stick on the X axis as much as you want, choose Transform Pivot Point > 3D Cursor, link-duplicate the stick, rotate 120° on the Z axis?

The problem is that when I use Y axis (in my case I it), the object rotates on the global one, but the direction is wrong, and it overlaps with another mesh example Transformation orientation don't help

could you please share your file? https://pasteall.org/blend/

Here it is

It seems to work fine:

Select the stick called Cylinder.002. Rotate it as much as you want on the X axis, move it until it's correctly placed:

Delete the other sticks, select 002, press AltD to link-duplicate, in the Transform Pivot Point menu choose 3D Cursor, rotate 120° on the Z axis:

Do it again.

If you need to animate the sticks, first parent the initial stick to an empty, then duplicate both the empty and the stick, move and rotate, and you'll animate each stick:

But I cannot animate those two other sticks. First can be animated simply by inserting keyframe on some frame and then rotating and inserting another keyframe, but other don't follow the direction I want it to be.

in that case parent the first one to an empty, and when you duplicate, duplicate both the stick and the empty, then animate the sticks only

I want to point out that they can be animated even without empties, just by choosing local transform orientation,

sure but it may bug during the animation, that's why it's better to use empties imho. Note that the animation will always be local, whatever you've chosen as orientation mode when you're keyframing


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Why do I have more particles in the render than the viewport?
So I've got two emitters, each has two particle systems, all throwing hearts. When I render the animation, I get maybe 3x as many hearts as I want, which makes it hard to balance it all.
Here's the viewport, with all particles baked, playhead at frame 139

Here's the render, which I stopped at frame 139 because it's choked with hearts

I've seen viewport vs render amounts in the hair section, but I can't find anything that relates to emitters.

sounds like your children settings differ between render and viewport

Properties editor > Particles > Viewport Displaly > Amount

Properties editor > Particles > Children > Display Amount

oh god wont someone think of the children.
yes. i only had kids on the first of the particle systems, which made this just that little bit harder to find.
Thankyou Vklidu and Frederik


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How to collide fluids to form vortex
I want to simulate two fluids shearing past each other, to show that they form a vortex naturally. (That is, I don't want to put an artificial vortex to make the fluids rotate. I want it to happen as a natural result of the physics simulation.) I don't need to render it, but I would like to have it show the velocity of the particles, as done in the tutorial below.
I followed the technique in Maxim Sachs' tutorial on YouTube on how to do Fluid Flow Simulations. I made an emitter of particles and set its physics to "fluid." I duplicated it, flipped it 180 degrees and aimed it at the first emitter. (So that both fluids belong to the same particle system.) But when I animate it, the fluids flow past each other as if neither was there. (That is, no collisions between the two particle systems.)
Can such a simulation be done in Blender and what's the trick to allowing the two fluids to interact?
====
Update: Since asking the question, I've tried another tack. I am using a fluid domain and created two inflow volumes. I get some mixing that way, although I haven't gotten parameters right to get a vortex yet. But even if I get the vortex, I don't see a way to color the two inflows. Blender sees the fluids one (probably related to doing it all in the domain.) I've tried coloring the inflows with red and green materials, but no difference.

Do the domains overlap?

I was under the impression (from Andrew Price) that you could only have one domain in a simulation. So I didn't even try two domains.

I think you might be right. Could you include a screenshot of the simulation as is?

Here's the screen shot so far. http://postimg.org/image/wgf2kb2d5/  I've got upflow in red, downflow in green. I think a vortex is forming at the blue. In the Advanced Fluid tutorial, we use particles and can paint their velocity. I need a way to link the liquid to particles (I think.) Then I would move the mesh to a layer and only show the particle velocity.

I'm thinking a texture for the liquid using voxel data might be the way to go (I remember seeing Andrew Price do that in his flame thrower tutorial.) But no clue how to do that. Will review his tutorial now.

@mikie the voxel texture was for smoke sim, fluid sim in blender does not support this:(

You cannot visualize vortex with fluid simulation voxel data, because there is nothing moving inside the fluid mesh, it all happens on the fluid's surface.
You would have to use 2 interacting domains and form the vortex with their interface by mixing them. This cannot be done in Blender since multiple domains cannot interact. You can simulate only 1 domain in scene, although you can playback multiple domains from baked files in single scene.
There are Trace particles for visualizing the movement of voxel liquid. Add some dummy mesh object (plane) into scene, enable fluid and set type to Particle and check Tracer. Under Domain > Fluid Particles set their count. But these particles are not always behaving nice (they stick to walls, play dead).
So you might want to use SPH Fluid Particle simulation instead and get a very nice vortex. If you mesh these particles with the CubeSurface addon you could also color the opposing streams differently so the render will be nice.

Mostly right, just a couple of corrections: the add-on is called CubeSurfer, and it won't work with fluid particles, just straight newtonian particles. However, with the add-on Molecular (made by the same guy) it is possible to get these newtonian particles to behave as a fluid.


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Is there a way for a Geometry Node to get a value from an Instancer custom property, e.g., on the object's collection instance?
I'm trying to make a Collection Instance asset that contains objects with Geometry Nodes, and be able to have parameters on the Collection Instance affect the Geometry Nodes.
For example: I have an object with Geometry Nodes. That object is in a Collection, and that Collection is then instanced multiple times in the scene. The Geometry Nodes contain a Transform node, and I want to expose the Rotation on that Transform in a way that I can have the Rotation be customizable for each Collection Instance.
By comparison, I know it's possible to do this sort of thing in Materials, by using the Attribute node with the Type set to "Instancer". This will receive Custom Properties set on Collection Instances, and can be used to drive things like per-instance colors, offsets, etc. I'd like to do something similar for a Geometry Nodes property.
I know that there are a couple ways to set properties on the individual Object: I can use the Group Input on the Geometry Node to expose and set the Rotation value (it shows as an input or parameter on the Geometry Nodes modifier), and I know I can attach a Driver to that and link it to a Custom Property, but only (as far as I know) one on the Object itself, or on a specific other object. What I can't find out, though, is how to somehow link an Instancer property (likely a Custom Property from the Collection Instance) to that Geometry Node input-- be that directly, or via something such as a Driver. (If there's something obvious in Drivers I'm missing, that may well be it. I'm not all that versed in Drivers.)
Since I want to make this a reusable asset, and the Object may appear multiple times within the Collection, ideas such as setting properties or inputs on the Object directly are a nonstarter, as is something like specifying a specific source object in the driver.
I'd prefer not to use a solution that includes Python evaluation to be enabled (for the driver, for instance), either, since I may want to redistribute this and requiring scripting to be enabled is a risky request and a tall order for a simple asset.

Hi, @SuperFLEB, and welcome. Personally, I think this question would be greatly aided by a concrete example of what you want to achieve..(you could still make it clear that it's only an example of a more general principle)

I've edited it to include some more concrete details in an example. To put it in short:
Rotation -on-> Transform Node -in-> GeoNodes -on-> Object -in-> Collection -instanced in-> Collection Instance
I want a way to be able to set the Rotation value by setting a property on the collection instance.

I may not understand the question, or there may be a structural problem here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/274485/how-can-i-instantiate-a-procedural-node-group-with-different-parameters

@SuperFLEB Let me summarize. You have a setup like this: https://i.imgur.com/YSZzlKh.png A custom prop (ROT_X) on your collection instance is controlling your GeoNodes rot value. But the problem is when you append that COLL into another file and duplicate them (like this: https://i.imgur.com/wYEwtTD.png) only the original ROT_X on COLL works. Nothing happens when you change ROT_X on COLL.001 for ex, because the driver is referring specifically to COLL, not COLL.001 or anything else. You want a custom prop that works for all coll instance copies individually?

I don't think that could work though, since all copies are referring (instancing) the same geometry, when one changes, all of them changes. If you appended the same COLL again instead of duplicating the first one, it would create a new underlying geometry so it would work then: https://i.imgur.com/FfamOq8.png If the question is "why can I have per-instance control over materials but not geometry?", that I can't answer.

I think you've hit on it, @Kuboå. I was trying something similar to what you were doing there, having multiple collection instances and-- like you said-- "have per-instance controls over geometry" in the same way I can over material nodes. It seems like that's not possible, at least not in Blender 3.4, currently.

@SuperFLEB Not really sure if it's something that would come with later versions. The whole point of instances are that they are just references to a geometry so you don't have to create it from scratch for every copy. If you could change individual ones, they would just be normal objects. If "just normal object" is fine with you (you don't need the performance advantage that comes with instances) then you can do what I mentioned: append the same COLL instance again. You can also use the Asset Browser in Append mode (not "Append (Reuse Data)"): https://i.imgur.com/gV7lEH7.png


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How and when does clipping of RGB values happen?
I was writing a tutorial on the "Object Info" node of Blender Cycles and was trying to describe what happens when a color node is fed with numbers out side the interval (0, 1). I gave up and just said "strange things happen".
I know how to map values onto or clip them to the interval (0, 1) so I can usually get the effect I'm after but I'm curious and would like to understand how the color clipping works.
The image below show a grid of cubes in the XY plane. They all have the same material as shown. The larger wire frame cube goes from (0, 0, 0) to (1, 1, 1). There are no lamps and the world surface color is set to (0.051, 0.051, 0.051) (default start up).

Outside the wire frame cube all the little cubes seem to act like emission lights. I think this is related to the answer to this question.
What I don't get is the diagonal line of black cubes. For example rgb(2, -2, 0) gets mapped to black but rgb(2, -1.75, 0) gets mapped to red. There are other lines of black cubes if we move the grid of cubes up in z.
For example all of the following cubes are black (-1, -1, 2) , (0.5, -1, 0.5), (-1, 0.5, 0.5), (0.5, 0.5, -1) , (2, -1, -1) (2.5, -3, 0.5).
Can anyone explain how this works?

This is result of Diffuse shader code implementation. Probably somewhere in the code is:
if R + G + B = 0:    # black
    renderSurfaceBlack()

To back this up I tested with this node setup:

And a cube on grey ground:

You can see red cube with red bounce light (color bleed) and red-complementary bounce light (cyan) under a anti-red (cyan) cube but which is rendered black (explained later).
When some channel is more than 1 the bounce light will look like emission (the light gets energy on bounces from the cube - energy is not preserved) and the surface will reflect redder red than it should (it will clip at 1,0,0 rendered red):

Till now all makes some sense. When the channel is below -1 actual weird stuff happens:

Try to render this, the sampling process is very wild in the start and looks like a burning fire under a piece of coal:)
When the sum of channels is not 0, all the negative values are replaced with 0 and that surface color is rendered.. You will still see the effect of negative channels in bounce light.

To sum this diffuse shader behaviour up:
When the channel sum is 0 the surface color is black.
When the channel sum is not 0, the surface color is same as with all negative channels equal to 0.

duh... I didn't see that r+g+b = 0 for the black cubes. Great explanation with the different renders. Negative values look strange but could be useful for something... Thanks.


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get object from other scene
i want to get object from other scene like this script

scene = GameLogic.getCurrentScene()
player=scene.objects['player']

for example from scene named "Hud"
how can i do it

the scene has to be loaded to have access to :
# to load the scene
bge.logic.addScene('Hud')

#find the scene and object
scenes = bge.logic.getSceneList()
for scene in scenes :
    if scene.name == 'Hud':
        player = scene.objects['player']


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Hard edged shadows?
I have a model textured and every time I put Blender into Rendered View, these weird hard edged shadows show up as if I have vertices sticking out but they are clean.

Could this be a shadow settings problem or is it likely something to do with the texturing? I'm using the cycles rendering engine.
A copy of the ~.blend file can be downloaded from https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/embedImage.png?bid=322

Looks like z-fighting to me.  Do you have another object underneath this one?

No object underneath on the same layer. Other layers shouldn't matter, right?

Right, other layers (as long as they are not visible) don't matter.  Is there any duplicated geometry at those parts of the mesh?  I am pretty sure what you are experiencing is z-fighting (the artifacts produced when two faces are occupying the exact same plane).

Would it be possible to upload your .blend to a site like Blend-Exchange so we could take a look?

Is your mesh similarly shaded across the boundary that you are identifying as "hard shadows? I can reproduce a very similar effect by setting the whole mesh to "smooth" face shading in the "shading panel" of the UV / Face tab, except for a couple of faces set to "flat".

Here it is.

Its not that. The whole thing seems to to have smooth shading


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Using rigify, Automatic weights parenting fails
I'm doing a basic human rig for practice. All of my bones are set up and the rig generates just fine, however, when I try to parent to the rig with auto weights, a majority of my mesh disappears (See pictures)

Any ideas on what's happening?

You have drivers that are disabled, try to reload trusted, maybe that will fix the problem if they used on the rig?

How do I do that?

It shows the error on the top of your screen, click reload trusted to reload the file, not sure that it is the problem though.

Oh duh didn't even see that

To make Rigify work properly you need to enable running python scripts or scripted expressions. When opening your file click on Reload Trusted button on the top of blender screen.


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Why isn't my sapling rendering?
I have set up a fairly simple scene and have gone through the process of making and animating a sapling. I left it as a curve and applied a material to it. When I hit render, the tree doesn't show at all.

Note that the 'tree' object is NOT the tree I want rendered. That's why it is unviewable and urenderable

I'm using cycles, and even if it is a material problem, the tree should still render just as a blank thing, right? Is there something special I have to do in order for curves to render?

UPDATE
The tree renders fine in rendered view port.

Here is a stripped version of the .blend:

Check if your tree object is set to unrenderable in the outliner (little camera icon). Otherwise edit your question and provide more information like screenshots your settings and object properties. Also check animation/armature settings, see if they are not interfering with the object at the current frame.

Your tree curve has a disabled rendering option. As Duarte Farrajota Ramos said you need to click the little camera icon next to the curve in the outliner to make it renderable

Possible duplicate of Why is only one object being rendered?

@PaulGonet If these screenshots were taken at the same time, you can't actually see the selected tree. That is a different tree, but the selected one is a child of "treeArm".

@Daniel Can you post a blend?

@PaulGonet I put a note underneath that particular picture stating that that is NOT the tree object I am using which is why it is unchecked.

@pycoder my file is too large.

@Daniel It may be too large as it is, but just keep stripping out pieces that aren't related to your problem until it is a reasonable size. Also make sure to not include any packed textures. Doing this alone will probably solve your problem, but if not, it'll be easy to see the issues once it is uploaded.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3tf6fnoyol30vty/AAC7dFZvCWETAp8_F3KvQOkva?dl=0    @pycoder

The problem is that the layer it is on is disabled for the active blender layer:

Enable the box the arrow is pointing at.

Of course it's something stupid easy like this! I feel like an idiot for not checking!


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Why does this model unwrap despite having no seams marked on it?
I am very new to Blender and wanted to use the program to UV unwrap a 3D Pokemon model from the games to use it as a sewing pattern. Now after watching some basic tutorials about unwrapping and marking seams I've noticed that the model itself unwraps on certain edges with no existing seams or anything and I don't know why. I haven't found any help while Googling my problem yet and am hoping I can get some help here!
This is how it looks without adding seams and no UV unwrapping, just selecting the whole thing in UV editing mode:

And this is after adding my own seams and UV unwrapping it:

This is where I got the model from

All primitive objects in Blender are unwrapped by default. So when you add your own seams and try to unwrap it, Blender discards the default UV and tries to unwrap UV according to your defined seams.
In your example, it looks like someone already unwrapped it and exported it as obj. So when you import it, you get the UVs but not the seams.

Oh that makes sense.
Is there a way to delete those UVs and replace them with my own or are they now a part of the model and there is no way to remove those?

Why would you want to delete the existing UVs? That represents someone's hard work that you now won't have to repeat. Unless there's something wrong with them, such as distorted texturing, consider leaving them alone. As Oye LKY pointed out, the seams mainly serve the purpose of assisting the unwrap process. Meaning that if the unwrap is done, the seams (for the most part) aren't needed any longer.

I understand that completely. My problem is that I want to use the unwrapped uv as a sewing pattern and therefore it needs to align with the colors of the model, which the original ones dont do

A model will always have a UV in blender, by default it would be based on the primitive (like plane, sphere, etc). You unwrap like you want, and new UV will replace any before it.

@Yuki Keep in mind, an object can have multiple different UV maps to choose from :). So you can keep the original one and also add your own.

Once you are done marking seams manually, just go to UV mapping tab, go into Edit mode and press 'U' on your keyboard. In the resulting menu, select 'Unwrap'.
The seams in the first image are perfect if you ask me.

you can change uvs any number of times as you want. But they won't align with the original texture that was painted.

the second image is what I got from unwrapping it in edit mode. I dont mind that it doesnt align with the original texture, but the original uv lines dont vanish after unwraping it again


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What does the torn sheet of paper icon in outliner mean?
What does torn sheet of paper mean? And how repair it?

It means file missing or broken link. In this case it might mean that the linked file that contains the object (or collection) cannot be found in the disk. Did you move, rename or delete any files?.
To find the error, switch the outliner display the blender file mode and look for missing libraries.

Or display API data, navigate to the missing collection and find what is it that is linked to. You can re-link it to the original file by manually typing the correct path.

When you get an error like this,you can also check the terminal output. It should report something like:

But this is not linked object. It's appended object.

If you think this is not the case please upload your file and make it available as part of the question so that users can help you determine the error.

Thank you very much for a such detailed answer.) I have actually moved the linked file.
But now I don't understand why link or append is needed?
So if I want to save my collection/object in the new file forever, I just need to open the library(.blend file) and copy/paste the collection/object I need. And then I don't have to worry about moving or deleting the the linked file accidentally.

I just know that broken link is that icon. Maybe you didn't append and just linked.


text:
Change default parameters
I want to change the default parameter from '0.010' to '0.0001' of the select similar by area box. The parameter can be found here:
Edit > Face Select > Select Similar (Shift+G) > Area

Currently, there isn't a way to set the default parameters permanently.

The values are stored in the Startup-File if you change them after launching Blender you can set the values and save the default-scene as Startup File Ctrl-U.
You can also restore the Factory Settings from the Menu: File / Load Factory Settings.


text:
How can I get the shading from Solid shading mode into Rendered shading mode?

I was trying to do some hard surface modelling, but when I finished, and started to set materials in the material preview mode, I noticed that solid mode has a much better look than my materials, which is clearly because of the shading which appears in solid mode but not in the material preview. So is there a way to get this type of shading in the rendered view?

The quick way to do it would be to go in the header menu > View > Viewport Render Image but I guess you're limited and you'd better try to find a similar shader than the one you see in Solid mode

tq moonboots , i got the desired result , thank you , i also got to know how to make an animation in this way

in the same menu > Viewport Render Animation, I guess you need to setup the output folder in the Output panel

You can also use regular rendering if you switch the render engine to "Workbench" in the render properties tab. note you will have to tweak the render settings there too


text:
How can I move things without having to select the move tool?
I'm a complete newbie to Blender and I am going through the most recent tutorials on youtube.
Just got to the object and edit mode tutorial.
At 0:37 the instructor picks the four top points on a box, then moves it round while still in the box select mode.
How does he do that?
I am only able to do the same thing after clicking on the "move" button. How does he do it without clicking on the move button?

Press G with the vertices selected and you can move them around. G is the hotkey for movement / translation.

Thank you!!! :)


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Why is Blender recording keyframes any time I transform an object?

What have I done that makes it record every movement as an animation??
It is so annoying to have to go back and 'Clear Animation Data' on each and every object every time I tweak it this way or that.
I know I must have turned something on or off while trying to find something else but I don't know what it is.
Here are my specifics...
Blender:
version: 2.83.3, branch: master, commit date: 2020-07-22 06:01, hash: 353e5bd7493e, type: Release
build date: 2020-07-22, 04:04:56
platform: Windows
binary path: 'C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\blender.exe'
build cflags: /W3 /w34062 /w34115 /w34189 /wd4018 /wd4146 /wd4065 /wd4127 /wd4181 /wd4200 /wd4244 /wd4267 /wd4305 /wd4800 /wd4828 /wd4996 /wd4661 /we4013 /we4133 /we4431 /w35038 /DWIN32 /D_WINDOWS /W3 /nologo /J /Gd /MP /bigobj -openmp
build cxxflags: /W3 /w34062 /w34115 /w34189 /wd4018 /wd4146 /wd4065 /wd4127 /wd4181 /wd4200 /wd4244 /wd4267 /wd4305 /wd4800 /wd4828 /wd4996 /wd4661 /we4013 /we4133 /we4431 /w35038 /DWIN32 /D_WINDOWS /W3 /GR /EHsc /nologo /J /Gd /MP /EHsc /bigobj /permissive- /Zc:twoPhase- -openmp
build linkflags: /MACHINE:X64  /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE /STACK:2097152,70656 /INCREMENTAL:NO  /ignore:4049 /ignore:4217 /ignore:4221
build system: CMake
Python:
version: 3.7.4 (default, Feb 17 2020, 16:23:28) [MSC v.1916 64 bit (AMD64)]
file system encoding: utf-8:surrogatepass
paths:

have you turned on the Auto Keying option in the Timeline? (red dot button)

Well, it looks like the button is activated but how do I deactivate it??

Nevermind...just click it.

I guess you have turned on the auto keying on top of the timeline. Click on it again to switch it off
If you have used it recently on one or two objects just press ctrl+z to undo everything.Otherwise pressA  to select everything , hover your pointer over the timeline pressA again to select all keyframes and press x to delete all keyframes .Now you can reposition or rescale each object.ta-dah!!


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How can I restore the scripts/addons folder after accidentally deleting it?
I accidentally deleted the scripts/addons folder. I don't want to reinstall Blender as I don't want to mess up the installation. Is there a way to just download the add ons? I'm using Blender 2.83 and I'm on a Mac.

From the repo https://github.com/blender/blender-addons  (and addons-contrib)

You messed up the installation already, so reinstalling should not be the issue. Just keep your startup.blend and user prefs.blend.

Download the Windows Portable .Zip package from the Blender website (instead of the installer). Open the Zip file and extract just the missing folder. The files are all scripts/add-ons so it should be the same for all versions (so shouldn't be a problem for Mac).


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Why do my rigid body objects have gaps in between them?
I have tried to make a rigid body simulation to make apples look more realistic but when I start the simulation, apples are not touching each other they have a lot of space between them and when I tried to apply rigid body simulation it didn't applied.

In the object's properties collision section, there is a subsection called sensitivity. In there is the 'Margin' parameter, this might be too big. Try setting it to different values to see if that makes a difference.

here is the problem: I dont have collision section in my object properties part

I have also tried to change margin in sensivity from rigid body physic but still same nothing is changing

Sorry I meant collision section in the physics :)

Wait I am not using collision physic in my apple I am using rigid body. Should I?

Sorry I meant physics>Rigid Body >Collision. I'm old and senile. I had a problem in a tutorial that was solved by changing the 'Margin' parameter. By the way, possibly its coincidence, but the gap between the surface of the apples looks like 2x the length of the stalk protrusion

If the last comment doesn't work try increasing the solves per second.

I`m also facing same issue, with sensitivity went down all the way to 0.005M.
I feel blender doc about physics isnt complete and could talk more about the dependencies it have with the scene.
the mesh collision mode causes some weird behaviors


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Black Dots and Lines on Sculpt
I am at the moment in the middle of sculpting a Wyvern. I have gotten very far and I have a lot of progress. But my progression has been hindered because there are weird black lines and dots showing up on the sculpt. I can't remove it and it's a massive nuisance. And it still shows up when rendered. How do I remove these because I have spent a lot of time and I am reall proud of it.

Is there a hair particle system enabled?

Looks like you have particle system enabled for hair?


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Blender python - edit custom property of a specific object
I am new to python. I would like to get a custom property of an object (not context.object) in a scene, for example "Object" (where my custom properties are assigned) and edit them via my custom addon - without the nessesity of selecting that object.
In other words, I would like to change a value via an operator in my addon, and such that the value would change in the Object's custom property.
My link to an object in the code:
obj = bpy.data.objects["Object"]
row.prop(obj, "custom_property_name")

Hello, could you elaborate on what exactly is your question and where you are stuck ?

Hi, the operator does not display at all, there's just a label I created, but not the operator. Sometimes I get error: KeyError: 'bpy_prop_collection[key]: key "Object" not found' I wonder whether the code I wrote is right and it's a proper link to a custom property...

Are ou sure the name of your object is exactly Object ? The error indicates that no object with that name exists in the data

Also the correct syntax would be row.prop(obj, '["custom_property_name"]')

I used general naming. I fixed the line with square brackets row.prop(obj, '["2) Path animation"]')  and it works! Thanks a lot, that's what I've been after!

You need to :
Make sure your object is actually named "Object" (case sensitive)
And the correct syntax to display a custom property would be :
row.prop(obj, '["custom_property_name"]')


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Can't animate the scale of objects changing
I'm trying to make a sphere go from size 0.001 to 2.000 over a course of 20 frames. When I scale it in one frame however, it stays that way for all the other frames. I can rotate it, move it, but I cant scale it
When I press i it doesn't do anything except say on the top say "successfully added 3 keyframes for keying set 'LocRot'" but that doesn't help at all.

You and Nave have extremely similar gravatars. Are you the same person? I added Naves answer as an edit to your post. Tell me if it was wrong.

You need to insert keyframes for changes to values.
Go to frame one, scale the object to 0.001 and with the mouse cursor in the 3d view press I > Scale. Now all frames will have this value.
If you change to frame 20 and scale it to 200, you will notice the scale property being orange. Orange means that this value is different than the keyframed one and will be lost after changing frames.
Press I > Scale again to insert another keyframe for this value.

You are likely inserting the wrong kind of keyframe.

Go to frame 1. Press I to insert keyframe. Select anything with Scale in it. LocRotScale, Scale, RotScale.
Go to frame 20. Scale object. Press I to insert keyframe. Again, select something with Scale in it.

Going over your response, you probably involuntarily inserted a keying set. This will automatically set keyframes for predefined parameters, Scale not being part of that Set in your case.
To fix it, you can delete it by opening the keying dropdown on your timeline and pressing the right Key button with the x.

I had the same issue, no answer did fit... until I realized that I experimented a bit with keyframes and I turned them off here:


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Why does editing leaves behind the previous mesh?

I don't know what exactly to ask for but every time I try to edit this mesh, it leaves behind the old mesh; occasionally with a connection to the edit. Please help. I can't find a way around this issue.

You have another copy of your mesh in your scene.

There is a active Mirror Modifier on your Object. However the mirrored Object is not a half Object but a full Object already. You can see this also by the mirrored vertex transformations on the other leg. So either cut your mesh in half and still use the mirror modifier, or delete the mirror modifier

Holy heck that makes sense. Thanks, my guy!


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Blender is creating weird artefacts when using a subdivision surface modifier
I was working on a helmet model in Blender. I applied a subdivision surface modifier and I get weird spaces. What can I do to get rid of those spaces without deleting the subdivision surface modifier?
I attached some photos for reference.

Hi. Please upload any images using the built-in uploader. See: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/75491/how-to-upload-an-image-to-a-post

maybe try select all and W > Remove Doubles?

i'm sorry for the photos,I am new to this platform.Also the W > Remove Doubles works, thank you very much.


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Why isn't my script inverting all poses from all keyframes?
the code works great placing all poses at same position but for some reason it doesn't paste flipped. Any ideas?
import bpy
import math

ctx = bpy.context
ops = bpy.ops
obj = ctx.object

ctx.scene.frame_start = 0
ctx.scene.frame_end = 1229
ctx.scene.frame_current = 0

for i in range(400):
    ctx.scene.frame_current = i
    obj.location.x = 0
    obj.location.y = 0
    ops.pose.loc_clear()
    ops.pose.copy()
    ops.pose.paste(flipped=True)
    ops.anim.keyframe_insert_menu(type='LocRotScale')

Use scene.frame_set(frame) to change frames.  What error message are you recieving?

it doesn't throw an error, it copies the first frame for all the next ones without inverting the pose.

At the risk of repeating myself, have you changed scene.frame_current = i to scene.frame_set(i)?

I did, it didn't make any difference


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Why isn't light working?
I'm new to Blender. I've got a scene, I downloaded from an Internet forum about a year ago, but light isn't working.
If I create a new file, add a mesh and shine a light on it I get light.
When I follow the same process in the scene I want to light the spotlight has no effect.
Any ideas?

Thanks to @Timaroberts it appears the scene is upside down or something.
When I move the lamp underneath the plane and rotate it the scene lights as expected.

Can you show a screenshot of the lamp's settings panel?

@PGmath thanks for taking a look. I updated my answer with a screenshot. https://i.sstatic.net/0aYVt.png

If it is on layer one you need to turn layer one on  or move the light to layer one. The layers are represented by the grids at the bottom of the window. If a square is greyed out it is off.

Are the layers your light and mesh live on, both being rendered in the 'Render Layers' under the 'Scene Tab' in the 'Properties Panel'?

Did you create the light in Blender internal, or game? If so, it may not work in cycles. The same goes for materials.

thanks for the suggestions. I noticed if I move the lamp below my plane and rotate it to shine up it works as expected. It seems my scene is upside down or inverted or something...

It looks to me like the energy settings of the lamp, in wireframe you won't see the lighting, and your rendered viewport looks normal for a single spot at default values. Change the lamp's strength to a higher value, or you may use a plane with an emission material and you will see your scene much more clearly.

thanks for the detailed answer. I added the emission plane and I got the same result until I moved it below my plane. Then I noticed if I move the lamp below my plane and rotate it to shine up it works as expected. It seems my scene is upside down or inverted or something...


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Graph Editor - Moving only one side of a tangent for multiple keyframes
This is a question from a Maya user.
I can't find this in the manuals, and I feel really dumb. They all take it for granted.
I have a lot of animated properties in the graph editor. They all do the same. I'm moving them around together. But I want to change them to Free Tangents, which I did, and change their animation by moving the handles on both sides of the point.
But I can't do it. I changed to Maya preset in the settings, so I could do it the same way I do it there. But there is NO WAY to move the tangents by selecting and moving them using the handles...
EDIT:
Moving one tangent is possible by using Middle Mouse Button, BUT this doesn't work at all for several tangents. I want to move all of them at the same time.
How do you do it?

Nope. I said i changed it to Free tangents. So I already did that.
In fact I'm going to update the info, because i found out something else.

Do you want to select only one part of several FCurve handles and move them together ? Then I think you should select all the points with A, then use C to turn on Circle Select and deselect parts of handles you don't want to move (assuming V -> Free was selected before).

@poor you edited my question, but changed drastically the meaning of the title. I mean, moving a tangent independently, not independent handles. Moving one handle, independently.

Oops, sorry darkgaze :) Only wanted to clear up things, roll it back. sorry!

@poor Nah, i made it even better :D

To scale only one side of a group with free tangents:

Select the set of keys
Press C and hold Shift to deselect the tangents you do not want to scale
Right click to confirm the operation
Press S then X to scale along the horizontal axis as required

This is not the answer to my question. Scaling doesn't work for one side of the tangents but both.

@SamirRahamtalla You can use http://gfycat.com/ to encode your screen capture to a .gif, which is supported here. For the key markup see this meta: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/524/what-case-should-letters-inside-kbd-tags-be.


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Fire and Smoke Attributes
Where do I find the attributes available for the fire rendering at Cycles (flame, color, density...). Where is the list? or at least, how do I find which ones are available? They are not listed in the custom variables (says it's blender's programming api? are they hidden?).
Everybody talks about them but I'm not able to find them, even on the official guide at blender.org. In fact, the help pages are outdated and contain nothing about the fire and smoke and fire modes for smoke dynamics and the parameters.
This question is, in fact, a general question:
Where do I find the attributes available?.
For reference:
http://www.blender.org/manual/physics/smoke/flow_object.html
There you can see it is always referencing a particle system. But in the volumes you have the smoke and fire AND fire options. Why doesn't it talk about it?
I'm using blender 2.74

see this http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/14262/what-can-you-call-from-the-attribute-node

Nope, Chebhou. I saw it already. But gandalf3 says it. But i don't want him to tell me. I want an official guide or at least a place I can see the attributes available. My question talks about it. I want to know why, and where.

I understand, there should be something official ( i had a link to old doc but it keeps redirecting to the new empty one ) it is for getattribute()

There must be official documentation about this. There are some parameters i just don't understand. For example, flame Rate in flows.

@darkgaze AFAIK there isn't, at least beyond the few out of date mentions on the wiki and manual. The flame rate is a simulation setting, and has nothing to do with rendering/cycles..?

As to the manual page linked in your question, the manual was just imported from the old mess of a wiki, and there are a lot of outdated pages on it. That appears to be one of them, likely part of a wiki page last updated before 2.65 :/ We need all the help we can get to fix the manual up ;) Note that those simulation settings are entirely unrelated from the attribute node.

Oh. Great. :-) So... can we do something?. Being a wiki helps a lot. But as you said, it is imported... so what should we expect from now on? where should i go?. Thanks!

@darkgaze I've finally gotten around to updating that bit of the manual, so it should be clearer now (I hope.. :P). If by some chance you'd like to help out with the manual project, see this meta post.

Might be worth a Try: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.77/More_Features#OpenVDB_caching

You can find that Attributes on the official Page for the Attribute Node:
Attribute Node - Blender Manual
Or on the Stack Exchange Thread: All Possible Attributes - Stack Exchange


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Backface culling as a mesh property
Is there a way to mark a mesh (or a face in a mesh) in Blender as not visible from the backside, regardless of the view settings?
I'm creating meshes via the Python API, but if you know how to do it from the UI, let me know too.
This has to do with implementing the "solid" flag from the X3D standard.

Related:http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/2082/how-can-i-make-a-material-only-apply-to-a-side-of-a-plane


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Blender rendering just one frame when percentage scale is >50% (Cycles)
I have a scene where I just move the camera on a path.
It lasts 96 frames but when I try to render the animation with 100% percentage scale it stops at the first frame as it is a single image.
I've tried changing it at 50% and in that case it works and I have as output the correctly animated video.
I've also tried to render all the 96 single frames as images and then put them in the video sequence editor to create the final video, but it didn't work: it still renders just the first frame and then it stops.
These are my settings:

Edit:
This is the blender file (just the camera and the path with the cube). I don't know why but by appending camera and path in a this new file, the camera moves just a bit along the path (while if I add the entire scene it works)

Try to disable compositing and sequencer from the post processing and render again.and see if that works.

I saw that question before posting this and the settings I had (and that are in the image) are ok. I also tried by deleting unnecessary objects but the problem remains.

Do you click "render" or "animation" button?

@parameciostudio I clicked "animation".

@cegaton the file is too big, is there another way to upload it?

@cegaton the same, it renders the first frame and then it stops

could you upload the file with only the camera and the path and a cube?

it might help if you could post the render, just to analyze the scene.

@cegaton I didn'thave anything... anyway I tried it but the result is the same :\ now I'll try to post the file just with the camera and the path

It seems that you missed to append the path. Here's the console wanring: Read library:  '/Users/lorenzo/Downloads/TreeWithWallPond.blend', '//TreeWithWallPond.blend', parent ''
Unable to open '/Users/lorenzo/Downloads/TreeWithWallPond.blend': No such file or directory
Cannot find lib '/Users/lorenzo/Downloads/TreeWithWallPond.blend'
LIB ERROR: Curve: 'NurbsPath' unread lib block missing from '/Users/lorenzo/Downloads/TreeWithWallPond.blend', parent

If the animation works at 50%, you could try doubling the resolution and rendering at 50%.
Maybe the .blend file has some issue.
First you could append the scene to a new file.
If the animation doesn't work yet, you could start from a new file with the default cube and light, and append only camera and path.
Add the other objects until the animation stop at the first frame and check the very last object you've added.


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Subsurf modifier deforming mesh after boolean modifier
I have a mesh created from a UV sphere through extruding. Before I cut out the spherical part on the top (boolean modifier), the mesh was nicely smooth. I'm using the subsurf modifier (4-6 subdivisions). As can be seen on the picture below, after applying the boolean modifier, there are a lot of clearly visible edges and the edge of the "cut out" is not nicely rounded as I would like it to be.
I also have deformation at the sides of the spheres. I'd like this to be nicely rounded/smoothed, but I see lots of edges and similar deformation.
Any help to get the mesh nicely smooth is very much welcomed.

I don't think Boolean is a good solution for this case because (although it should work but with some tweaking), faster solution - http://topology-guides.tumblr.com/post/152907366360/cutting-circular-holes-in-curved-surfaces.  ANd your mesh has too many edge loops which will smoothen as shown in the image.

The many edge loops are the result of trying to get to an "all quad" mesh again after applying the boolean operator. But I agree there are way too much loops. The solution you suggest should allow cutting a circular hole in my mesh, but that is not really what I need. I need this hole to be filled with part of sphere. That is why I opted for the boolean operator with a sphere. Would you know of a solution to fill a hole with part of a sphere?

It should be simple, instead of shrinkwrapped circle in link above add a sphere and either cut it manually or with some kind of boolean (modifier or Ctrl+F>Intersect). Also the mesh isn't all-quad as of now (at least the end of the arms), and these loopcuts will create problems anyway. Try modeling with less geometry, like here.


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Construct a cuboid as a minimum bounding box with native dimensions that work in a mathutils analysis
I am implementing a visibility problem between a point and the sun, which I have described in my previous question. I am using the function mathutils.geometry.intersect_ray_tri() to test if there is an object between the point and the sun. However, these objects that are potential obstructions have many triangles (which are iterated and the function is run for each), so to speed up the computations I need to create a bounding box for each object, and test it first.
I have found some solutions, for instance this one, which involves creating the basic cube at the origin with the edge length of 2, and then translating it, rotating it and rescaling it with the following functions:
bound_box.dimensions = obj.dimensions
bound_box.location = obj.location
bound_box.rotation_euler = obj.rotation_euler

The box perfectly encompasses the object, but the problem is that its dimensions are not native because the cube is deformed into a cuboid to fit the object, so the function mathutils.geometry.intersect_ray_tri() still considers it to be a cube at the origin with the dimensions (2,2,2), and the results are very wrong (or I am doing something wrong in the process).
Other solutions seem to be similar, and the mathutils intersection function doesn't work. Is there a way to create a cuboid that serves as a minimum bounding box, and that it'd work in such analysis?
Perhaps another solution would be to fix the above described distorted cube, so that it works in mathutils.geometry.intersect_ray_tri() but I don't know how to do that.

Try applying the transformations to the mesh with bpy.ops.object.transform_apply(location=False, rotation=True, scale=True). The object should be active.

I implemented a minimum bounding box algorithm as an addon that simply attempts to fit a box from many different directions.  It is not exact, however it is robust :-)
https://github.com/patmo141/object_bounding_box


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Smoke sim extremely pixely/blocky
I'm trying to make this simple smoke sim, but I just can't figure out what is going on. It feels like I have tried to change every setting from Domain resolution, high resolution, applying scale etc and nothing works. I'm rendering in Eevee (I tried cycles and get the same problem though). Also in Blender 2.81.

Can you please share your material nodes?

The Domain Resolution is the key here since it defines how large the cells of the fluid simulation are - and it is those cells that you are seeing as the ‘blockiness’.
Is is important to Apply Scale to ensure the dimensions of the cells are regular (otherwise the simulation will be skewed) but then the size of the cells it determined simply by dividing the longest dimension (width, height, depth) of the domain by the Resolution - so, for example, doubling the Resolution will result in twice as many cells in each dimension.
If your previous simulation was Baked the you’ll need to Free Bake to allow the simulation to be re-baked with the new settings.
Note that doubling the resolution will result in 2x2x2 = 8 times the number of cells in the simulation (so 8x the cpu effort to simulate and 8 times the memory overhead) but a more accurate and detailed simulation.


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Hold/Freeze Transformation Orientation
I was wondering if there is a way of briefly locking a transformation orientation (TO)
Most often when editing shapes, I find myself using the normal mode for TO when I want to move something along the direction of an edge or plane. But because the TO depends on the selection, what I have to do is:

Select edge/plane that I need for my TO.
Create a custom TO from the current one.
Select the thing I actually want to move/scale/rotate and my custom TO.
Perform the action.
Remove the custom TO.

So each time I do this I create a custom TO that I most likely will delete shortly afterwards. Is there a way of "holding" or "freezing" the TO? Something like a toggle button or shortcut? This way I could stay in normal mode all the time and just need to:

Select my edge|plane to get my desired TO & hit the TO-freeze button.
Select my action target and perform the action.


text:
Linked Duplicates vs Collection Instances
I'm pretty new to Blender, and am trying to wrap my head around some basic workflow stuff. I have been modeling a small truck which has several reused components (tires, suspension, windshield wipers). What I'm trying to figure out is whether I should be using Linked Duplicates or Collection Instances for all of these components.
Linked Duplicates
Linked Duplicates seem like the preferred / standard way of dealing with this but it's been hard to understand what is linked from the Outliner. I know that in the Object Data properties tab there will be some info about how many linked objects exist, but otherwise it's pretty opaque how these behave.
Collection Instances
Collections and Collection Instances seem more straightforward to organize in the Outliner, but also come with some pretty annoying drawbacks. From what I can tell, the original collection has to live at the world origin so that the new instances are easier to work with. But if you do that, you end up with a bunch of disabled collections of stuff modeled at the world origin.
Are Collection Instances even supposed to be used this way?

I would primarily use linked-duplications, much easier to manage in my opinion, you can edit any of the instances and it will edit all the other ones, whereas with group instances none of the instances are editable (unless you make them real but in that case they are not instances any more)

I have come to the conclusion that collection instances are better for certain things like what you're trying to do because everything points to a single "assembly" (engineer speak).
Linked duplicates seem like the way to go if you want to modify anything about the object. Like, as soon as you do a linked duplicate, you can go around and start playing with the material properties and diverge from the original instantiation. Whereas, with the collection instance, everything seems immutable from the instance except for basic transformations. It also updates from the collection instanced once something changes.


text:
How to link a segment to a bone to get a better result?
I'm making a rig in blender, pretty simple one, the only problem right now is this:

You can see it's pretty messed up.
I want to get to this result:

So I think I need to rotate the loop cut in the middle of the arm, or something like that, but I want it to be automatic when I rotate the bone. Could anyone help me please? I've been stuck on this for 5 days. (No joke, I'm still a begginer, and everywhere I look, it's either for v2.7 and below, or they use a more complex rig and thus blender works fine.)

please share your file: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Maybe simply shearing the edge loop at the elbow?

You can improve the weight painting a bit and enable the Armature modifier's Preserve Volume option, but it won't improve the thing a lot. What you can do though is create a new shape key and move up the arm fold's edge loop so that the arm bends the way you want, and if you don't want to manipulate the shape keys everytime you bend the forearm, I guess you need to create a driver.

Wow. Hum, that's a bit complicated for me, but as you said, I'd need to do that everytime I bend the arm. What is a driver though?

you can give the forearm bone a driver that will command the shapekey to activate each time you rotate it, so the only operation you'll have to do is rotate the forearm, watch some tutorials on youtube, I think it has been simplified: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WouPZqB4fo


text:
How to keep texture mapping after applying modifiers
I've created a street by adding a street texture on a plane. I created a curve and added an array modifier and curve modifier on the plane. I made it let the plane follow the curve.
It looks like this:

I need to export this now. For this (I guess) I need to apply the modifiers. Unfortunately the texture mapping is changing.
Is there a way to keep the texture mapping but after applying the modifiers?
Edit:
Here the versions with applied modifiers:

It seems that applying the array modifier removes the texture repeat and applying the curve modifier removes the texture... distortion.
And here my blend file.

I assume it is the Curve modifier that is the issue, not the array (try applying the array without a fit type and use the curve modifier to curve it).

What does it look like with the mapping broken

@GiantCowFilms Added some images.

@fedab what texture coordinates you are  using for mapping ?

You should post the .blend to PasteAll.org.  I used the same setup that you show in the images and it works fine for me.  It looks like something else that you are doing is affecting the results.

@MarcClintDion Okay, I added my blend file. I tried to recreate it in a new blend file... I basically only add a texture (no changes in settings like mapping, etc.), add the existing material (from the new cube when you create a new project), add curve, scale it, add modifiers. Same problem

@Chebhou The mapping settings of the texture: Coordinates: Generated and Projection: Flat. Offsets to 0, Sizes to 1, no From Dupli, X, Y, Z. This is the default setting.
Image mapping: Extension: Repeat, Repeat values are 1, crop minimum: 0, crop maximum: 1.
I've added a blend file too.

ah, generated coordinates.  On a side note, what's with the 2-point poly's(lines with no faces)?  They supposed to be rails?

@MarcClintDion Those "lines with no faces" at the sides are faces :) They only have a 100% transparent texture. I had the idea to use them as collision borders for a car for a game.

weird, I couldn't select them.  Transparency shouldn't affect that.

@MarcClintDion Huh, I checked the file. I can see these border things and i can select the faces in edit mode. When you switch to solid viewport shading, you should see them non-transparent. I am using Blender v2.74, maybe its because version?

One way to handle this is to use UV Mapping right from the start.  For this, you can press Numpad_7 for top view.   Now if you press Numpad_4 several times, the view will rotate along the z-axis.  Once the positioning matches the texture orientation press Numpad_5 to set the view to Orthographic.  Now press u and select "Project From View (Bounds)"
You could just use Unwrap or Reset but there is no guarantee that you will have the mapping aligned to the texture's direction.  If it's not then you'd have to rotate the UV's and/or scale by -1.0 along one of the axis(that can be confusing, it's best to avoid).

Now you should be able to apply the modifiers and have the following result.