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Mirror selection but maintain current selection
I'm new to blender (have previously tried older versions) and I'm loving 2.8, I'm having some difficulty with something I feel is probably user error but I have been trying to select some vertices on one side of my model and have my selection mirrored to the other side while keeping the current selection (like add mirror to current selection).
Is there an easy way for me to do this without having to create modifiers?
Thanks

This may not be the best solution, but I have found that it works. Start by going into Edit Mode, make sure you've opened the Object Data tab of the Properties Panel (1), then create a vertex group for the initial selection of vertices. Create the new group by pressing the + sign to the right (2), and include the selected vertices by clicking the "Assign" button (3).

Next, while still in Edit Mode, locate the "Select" Menu at the top left of the 3D-View, and open it to choose the "Mirror Selection" option at the bottom of that menu.

Finally, go back to the Vertex Group you created and press the "Select" button to get back your original selection.

This worked perfectly thanks, strange that there's no way to do this with regular mirror selection by holding alt or something

Silly me. When I first answered, I didn't yet know that when you first select the Mirror Selection option, the dialog box that pops up at the bottom of the screen has a checkbox in it called "Extend." If it is checked, it will keep your existing selection after you mirror it. So you can skip the vertex group step. Hurray!


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Clouds in cycles
I am looking for a way to create something similar to the attached picture. I want to create clouds in blender using cycles. I found a tutorial on octane render for creating clouds in blender (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWN3lncHQxA).
But now im asking yall, if there is another way to do it without using octane render?

This is not a great question to answer. You've linked us a 1+hr video (in Russian) and expect us to tell you, if this is possible in Cycles. This is not how it works. Try out everything the guy in the tutorial did yourself and see if it works in Cycles. If you're getting stuck at some point you're more than welcome to ask a more specific question in a new thread.

There is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPAYX8z9i8M
And some otherways as well but above should get you started quickly

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Is it possible to make a text follow an object assign to an avatar's rig?
I'm making an ID card that moves with an avatar's rig/armature. It's assigned to the avatar spine.
But I need an editable text name that can be changed by the client, and I'm out of ideas to make the text move with the avatar's spine too.
I've tried to "parent" the text to the ID card and I also tried to add the "Child of" constraint to the text, putting the ID card as the target.
But when I move the avatar, and rotate the body the text moves differently from the ID card, it does not follow the card perfectly.
Anybody knows how can I do it?
And also, can anybody explain me?

At first glance, that should work, so something additional is making it not work. I think it’s blend-exchange.com time

Select text,
select the mesh object you want to attach the text to,
hit Tab to enter edit mode,
select 3 vertices that you wish to attach the text object to
hit ctrl+p.
You should get a prompt asking if you want to make vertex parent, hit OK, obviously.

That's it - the text object is parented to the 3 vertices so now it follows them even if the geometry is deformed.
3 vertices are required so it is possible to match child's orientation to them, so you should choose some 3 vertices that form a nice triangle and not a straight line. If the triangle of the chosen vertices gets deformed into whatever orientation, that orientation will be inherited by the child objects.

I've just tried it. But when I go to the armature and rotate the spine, the text (on the bottom) rotates different from the ID card
photo:
https://imgur.com/MNXzj8e

Did you attach it to the ID card? Did you use 3 vertices as opposed to 1?

Yes.. I've uploaded the file to show you
https://www.mediafire.com/file/59u5h657ald320u/id_card_jogo_1.blend/file

Oh, yes, I see. You have used 3 vertices in a straight line. 3 vertices are required to get a rotation value. If they are in a straight line, the tiniest binary rounding errors define rotation that's why it spins unpredictably. Choose vertices that form a triangle.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeess!! It worked!! Thank you veeeery much!!! ♥ I was about to get crazy!!

Glad it helped. Consider upvoting and/or accepting answers on this platform if they are useful or answer your questions.

Ok. I still cant give the feedback! I need at least 15 reputation to cast a vote. :( But it was recorded

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


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UV image size affecting how the UV dimensions are shown
I don't know if it is a dumb question but it bothering me for some time.
I create my 3D clothes at marvelous designer and when I import it to Blender the UV map is perfect in square size.
But for me to make it work in the game that they're made for, I need to make the UV image size at 2048x4096.
When I establish the correct size, the UV stretch, and then I currently edit the scale manually.
I want to know if has some way that I can preserve the original UV size/scale from the square image when I change the image size to 2048x4096? So I don't need to change it manually, as the texture is often not perfect.
I actually using Blender 2.79

Does this answer your question? Is there a way to export a non-square UV map?

Not exactly. I've found another similar question, that does not solve it all, math is not my forte, but I can work with it. But would be great if I could just freeze the UV size not changing when I change the image size.
The one I've found: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5793/how-to-disable-the-automatic-uv-stretching-after-an-image-size-is-changed

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/66727/whats-the-meaning-of-0-to-1-space-in-uv/66732#66732


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Can you rotate bones within an IK Chain and allow the IK Target bone to move along with it?
I have a robot arm rigged with an IK and down the chain of the IK there is a joint specifically for rotating on the bone's Y Axis that allows the entire lower arm to rotate. However once I move the arm into position with the target bone and then try to manually adjust that joints rotation it locks up because the target bone is stuck in place and won't adjust itself automatically. I know this is normal but is there a way to allow the target bone to move freely if another bone is pulling against it?
For those curious or if it helps at all I am trying to make the robot wave but the only way I can get that to happen is if the lower arm rotates. And I don't mean with a pole target either. Imagine bending your elbow to 90 degrees and rotating your hand.
Thank you!

hello, some screenshots or drawings would help to understand what you can/can't/want to do

I came up with another solution. I reduced the chain on the IK by a couple and then added IK to the top part of the robot's arm just above the rotator joint. Then I made the IK chain go the rest the way up the arm to the shoulder joint. now I have 2 controllers one that controls the shoulder and top arm location and then the bottom arm can move freely with its own controller bone.


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How can I wrap a cylinder to a curved face?
I'm modelling a Warhammer Space Marine pauldron (shoulder armour), and for the life of me I can't figure out how to wrap a circle/cylinder to it's curved surface in a way that doesn't drastically warp the circular shape.

In the above, you can see the pauldron (which has a steep Y/Z axis curve, and shallow X/Y axis curve), and the shape I'm wanting to wrap.

In the next two images, you can see the shape after my attempt to wrap it. This was achieved by using a plane shrinkwrapped to the pauldron, and transfering it's effect to the cylinder via a surface deform modifier. However, as you can see, the circle is now very warped in the X axis (2nd image) - and isn't really circular at all.
Thus far, my only successful means of improving the shape is to use a lattice to adjust it into a more circular shape, but (as per the below image) you can see this leaves the X axis edges thicker.

Is there a better way to achieve a uniform wrap that I'm missing?
For context, the effect I'm trying to achieve is similar to below, where the circle is uniform in width, height and depth across the pauldron (Also, as I know Games Workshop use digital modelling to produce their plastic parts, it shows it can be done... somehow):

Seems this might help but you do have to pay for it though. If you don't want to pay, the only thing I can suggest is manually moving the vertices using the snap tool and using either the Face Project or Face Nearest setting.

Thanks Orleez - sadly, I've got that add on, but it's not playing nicely with my blender at the moment, so I was looking for a vanilla solution using Blender's core features. Appreciated nonetheless :)

A Lattice usually works in this kind of situation - one vertex high square grid (with more points for higher accuracy). Deform the “decoration” mesh based on the lattice and then simply Shrinkwrap the lattice onto the target mesh.

Does this answer your question? Why im not getting thickness with shrinkwrap modifier


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Missing surface texture on rendering
I hope someone can help me. I have a project where i have to draw some simple urban environment. I have different types of objects and surfaces.
My Problem: The surface of the grass and vegetation isn't visible on the final render (see the pic). I can see it in the viewport, the render switch is on, the normals are ok.
Can someone help me to solve this problem, what have I forgot?
Thank you! :)
MT

Ok, I've solved the problem myself. The surface mesh has particle system on it (the trees) and I've unchecked the "Show Emitter" function before. Checked it again and now it works like a charm! :)


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Apply Image as Texture / Material and cut to fit shape
Im a Fusion 360 user, and am learning blender as a program to be able to export finalized models in a format accepted by AR programs (one of Fusions big shortcomings). Im currently modelling snowboards for AR storefronts.
The board is a finalized state in Fusion but the decals (topsheet graphic and base graphic) are lost on export to fbx.  As below

Ive tried in blender to add the image as a texture with an image shader, and the image just trys to wrap itself around the sides of the board and doesn't behave like I want. Not very experienced at all at blender so I am more than likely doing something wrong.
Closest Ive got is to apply the image as a plane and add a shrinkwrap modifier which gets the result below. The problem I think is the image I am trying to apply as the top sheet graphic is a rectangular jpeg which in Fusion and photoshop you can just place over the board shape and trim it to shape. Is there a way to do this in blender or should I be trying a different software?
The topsheet graphic really needs to be exact in its placement and reflection of what the physical snowboards look like

You need to UV unwrap your model. [Royal Skies tutorial on unwrapping] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS6B5PAzlWI) is a good source


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Tileable/seamless isometric render
I would like to render out the middle image in the picture below, so the resulting rendered image is seamless/tileable.

At all I would like to model a isometric cubes pattern, to finally get at least two images: a color image and a bump map/normal map, so I can use it as texture on other objects.
Possibly already my modelling approach was wrong, so a quick guide on how to set up the model, and how to set up the camera would be very helpful for me.

related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/161701/how-to-do-uv-indexing-in-hexagonal-pattern/161799#161799

note that if you're modelling it (or other), heigth/width ratio is not 1 for this pattern... so hard to make it seamless as it is


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Geometry nodes: different instance parameters for each instance
Is there a way to control instances so each one of them has different parameters?
For example:

I have four instances of star and I want each one of them to have the amount of points

based on the index of the point in the resampled curve.
i know if we use the index values  the first would have 0 points , the second would be a point, and a second eventually would be a a line - that doesn't matter - i can remap values latter.

Also is there a way to generate in GN sequence of values (instead of random) like for example: 1,2,3..8 or 2,4,8,10 ???

Thank you!

Maybe helpful, maybe a duplicate: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/274485/

Thank you! I was looking exactly for this kind of solution that generates objects first with certain parameters -  'geometry to instances' and repeat zone should solve the problem


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Geometry nodes: face average color from image in blender 4
I have a problem finding a way to replicate averaging face color sampled from image in geometry nodes (Blender > 3.5 or Blender 4) as in the example below
All videos I found on YT are about averaging the color for instances but no one is showing how to do this if you are not using instances - for example:
You add geo nodes to a plane with material that has uv image on it.
Then in geo nodes, you add the grid, separate its edges, and scale down the elements to get islands of separated faces.
I would like to apply the average color to each one of them based on the location in relation to the original image that is in the material of original geometry (plane).

I don't understand how this Blender 2.9x example works. Are there cuts in the plane? Why is the 2nd face in the top left corner greyish? In the image there is a lot of red color in this area. The 4th face is quite dark. Why is the Vertex Color "Col" used as a UV map in the shader? How is the "average" color created? It looks like that a color is picked (from the face?) and assigned it to all face corners of that face.

Nearly the same answer as Chris, but avoids the blur effect by just changing the domain to "face" in the capture attribute node:

This is not a real average (whatever the solution is: I don't think it's possible to completely sample the texture surface), but based on vertex UV positions.

with this setup:

you will get this:

Hope that helps.


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How to mark desired vertices with python(not select)
When I'm working with high poly mesh I would like to have vertices which have less/greatter than 4 edges to be highlighted or marked. There seem to be exists a tool in blender which helps to find target vertices - Select All by Trait -> Faces by sides in Edit mode and Vertex selection mode. But the issue is that it is selecting vertices and when I do something it will unselect them and I have to start again.
Is it possible to mark desired vertices with Python/manually in Blender? Mark like e.g. Seams are marked.


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Copy pasted Body and armature not rendering
I've copy pasted a rigged mannequin and it doesn't show in the Render window.
I've checked for the Render flag in the Outliner and the Render checkbox in the Object properties.
I cant seem to find the Duplication submenu in 2.8 which seemed to cause issues in the previous versions of Blender according to my research.

Try appending or linking the newer versions of the rig into the scene instead of copying and pasting. Copying and pasting may cause naming conflicts on certain nodes, or duplication of unwanted elements.
Under the File menu at the top of the screen, you'll find both the Append and the Link option. They are similar in that they both allow you to take the content of an external source file and make that content appear in your current scene. The main difference is that with an append, the contents of what are transferred are physically copied into your scene and become new, independent versions of those contents, whereas with linking, only a reference to the original content is made present, and as such, it cannot be edited outside of the original source file.
I recommend appending for now because linking is a bit complicated in some ways, and often requires extra steps, including the creating of a proxy rig afterwards. By appending, you don't have to deal with that.
If you do decide to append, though, before you do, consider putting the rig you want copied into a new collection in your current scene first, and give the collection a unique name that you can easily identify. Make sure ONLY the rig itself and its deform mesh is in this new collection, and no lights or cameras or any other extras. This way, when you do the append, and are asked for the content to be appended, you can simply choose this collection from the list of available contents, and in this  way, easily ensure that you get copies of only what you want added to the scene.
One final thing. Save your current scene before beginning the append, but save it as a new version of the current file separately also, and append from the new version of the file only, not your current one. Blender doesn't seem to like it when you append from the same file that is open at the moment.


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How do I keep particles invisible until x seconds after they're emitted?
I'm looking for a way to disable particle visibility for a certain period of time.

Hello and welcome. I would  recommend to clear up your question a bit with more details. It always helps to give an example with numbers to allow for an easier understanding of the situation you face. As your question looks more like 2 different titles for a question, i would recommend to use the edit function and add some details of your situation instead of the one sentence. What you tried already, where you got stuck, a tutorial you may have followed. Maybe even a picture of the scene you work on. The clearer the better.

If you're using Cycles, you can accomplish this by mixing with a Transparent shader depending on the Age output of the Particle Info node:


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Baking a texture as image sequecne
I've got a procedural texture, and I have animated it by keyframing the uv co-ordinates. The animation lasts  250 frames, and I need to bake the texture for every frame so I can use it elsewhere. I had no issues baking the texture for any single frame, but can't figure out how to bake the texture for all 250 frames into an image sequence.

Add a plane.
Connect your texture to emission brdf in the plane's material
Add a camera above 2 meters the plane and make output size to equal width and height with desired resolution
Set it to orthographic and scale it to match the plane
Enable the emission pass and disable combined
In the compositor connect the emit pass to file output
Render as animation.

Repeat this for each kind of map if you have more than multiple maps.

Hey, Thanks for the reply, I just tried your approach, it seems to work, but I already wrote a script to batch bake for the full interval that doesn't require additional objects like planes cameras etc. I was just wondering if there was a more straightforward way like the single texture case. Would you know anything about that? P.S  Im marking your workaround as the answer anyway as it seems to get the job done


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Shader Turning Grey instead of White
so I was following a tutorial on making detailed eyes, I don't know why but as I was making the shader, it's colouring the eye grey even though the gradient is clearly set to white?
Here's a picture of my shader,

As you can see, it's set to white, but even if I drag the gradient to fully white, it still looks a light grey...
Any help would be appreciated, thanks!
Edit: For reference, here is the tutorial I was following, https://youtu.be/E0JyyWeptSA?t=558
You can see even though it appears my settings are the exact same, his is a consistent white in the middle, whereas mine is a dark grey...

Your gradient texture is set to Spherical, whereas the YouTube author's version is set to Linear. There may be other similar inconsistencies that are more relevant to your issue, though, so you might want to review your entire node configuration.

He said to put it on spherical, if you rewind a few seconds from the link i posted you can see it's set to spherical. I've gone over my nodes twice, even redid them from the start.

Set the Z translation to 0 instead of -0.5 in the mapping node. What you are seeing here is a cross-section along the bottom of the sphere gradient, instead of the middle cross-section.
Illustration :

Oh, that fixed it! Thank you!


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How to fix This Seam in Fork
I have this weird seam in my fork that I'm making. It wouldn't be such a big problem but it seems to interfere with the shader and causes a weird seam. I found out there was faces underneath the topology, so i tried removing them with a small amount of success. Here are the pictures,

I tried smoothing it in sculpting but it makes it much worse. I also tried merging any double vertices, no success. I cannot even select the edge loop. I think it occurred when I subdivided? But by the time I noticed, it was too late to undo the subdivision. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

have you checked the normals? maybe share your file: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

your topology has many errors:

red circle: you have 5 edges come from a single vertex
green circle: you have 3 edges come from a single vertex

You need to have only quads (A square or rectangular polygon is referred to as a quad or quadrilateral polygon, and is a four-sided polygon. It has exactly 4 vertices at the corners connected by 4 edges) for best shading results.
How to fix it?
Edit your topology to have only quads:

merge the vertex in orange circles. Select the vertices and press M (or Alt+M in version 2.79 or older)
remove the vertex in the yellow circle
continue fixing the topology to have only quads

here's a good topology for a fork (source here: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/fork-metal-3d-model-1360722)

Thank you, I was able to fix it. I'll use this info to help me in my future projects as well, thanks!

so please select my answer as "selected". thanks

My bad, I forgot to click it haha.


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How to Save Shape Key Animations
I have a couple shape key animations, but they don't seem to be saving properly. It's just a couple facial expressions, blinking, happy, angry. I can see it on the dope sheet,

But for some reason it doesn't seem to save them as an animation and I can't see any key frames on the action editor. If I press play, it plays the blinking animation, but if I click new action, and make another animation, the blinking animation seems to be overwritten? Also, when I export to fbx and import to Unity these animations are gone. I was able to export one shape key animation successfully, but upon importing again, it poofed.
Any help would be appreciated.

it looks like shapekeys have their own Shapekey Editor in the Dope Sheet: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/89421/where-are-the-keying-sets-keyframes-in-the-dope-sheet ... I do'nt know about the exportation though

Yeah, I can see/edit them in dope sheet, but they still don't save.

Oh, nevermind. I was able to find the shape key editor, but no idea on how to save them for importing to unity. I don't understand it, I successfully imported one, so it's clearly not impossible. I wish Blender was easier to work with lol

it looks like if you google Blender shape keys Unity you'll have some answers?

I've googled that, of course haha. I didn't really find anything. Weirdly enough, I just tested an import, and there's no shape key animations, but the blinking one is constantly playing, regardless of other actions. Of course, that doesn't help me with the other facial expressions lol


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Blender's "stdio.h" not found anywhere
Trying to run some OSL scripts for Blender 2.83 on mac. Never tried it before and having troubles with it.
Any script I try to run gives same error
ERROR: /Applications/Blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.83/scripts/addons/cycles/shader/stdcycles.h:31: error: error: could not find include file: stdosl.h
Error: OSL script compilation failed, see console for errors

Where "stdosl.h" is supposed to be? I can't find anywhere on my drive.
Downloaded fresh build of Blender - no such file as well in any directories.
What am I doing wrong?

Figured it out. Downloaded Win version, copied missing file, works fine. Weird.


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i cant save smoke effect(fire) of my blender animation
i made a flame animation by using smoke effect with UVSphere. everything is okey when i am in blender. but i wanna use this animation in unity3D. But when i exported the animation .fbx, I can see only UVSphere not flames. You can see the image below what i meant.
I wanna use this animation in Unity3D. Can anyone help me?

You can't export particles and smoke simulation, you have to create a particle system in Unity.

thank you this is the way i m going to do


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I cannot move the playhead in the Timeline with the mouse
sometimes it happens that I cannot grab the playhead and move it forward or back along the timeline.
Indeed, if I use the left click of the mouse, it will automatically zoom in into the timeline, and this is really tedious (I can move the playhead only with the keyboard arrows).
But the Blender manual says "The Playhead can be set or moved to a new position by pressing or holding LMB in scrubbing area at the top of the timeline."
Sometimes the LMB works, sometimes not.
Have anyone else had the same issue?

Never happened to me. Does it always work on startup? If so, can you try to isolate the steps that make it stop working?

the software remembers the "new button" (I mean the left click of the mouse for zooming into the timeline) even if I close and reopen Blender. So when this happen I have to go to File > Defaults > Load Factory Settings. And this is at the moment the only solution to bring the timeline to its normal functionality, where I can grab the playhead with my LMB

Honestly I don't remember what are the steps that bring me to this issue. It happens without any apparent reason. However I am referring to the timeline in Grease Pencil. Maybe I touch a few buttons that I shouldn't...


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How to get 3D points of a Mesh in world space coordinates?
I have a blender file with this scene (below) seen from the camera.
Now I need to get the 3D points of the mesh (the doughnut) in world space according to the camera perspective, pragmatically. Meaning I need a python script I can run to save a text file with the list of 3D points I need. I also need to know the camera direction vector.
I'm using Blender 2.83 and I have python 3.7 installed.
Thanks in advance.

and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/13738/how-to-calculate-the-direction-and-up-vector-of-a-camera

'In world space according to the camera perspective' is rather confusing. World space is world space, whatever the camera is looking at, maybe you want camera space, or even screen space..?

out of interest why the donut picture?

I hope this can help
import bpy
import bmesh
import json

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode="EDIT")

bm = bmesh.new()
# write the object name you want between quotes
ob = bpy.data.objects["obj_name"]
# if Camera has a different name in your scene change it here too
cam = bpy.data.objects["Camera"]
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(ob.data)

points = {}
for v in bm.verts:
    obMat = ob.matrix_world
    points["V"+str(v.index)] = list(obMat @ v.co - cam.location)

with open('data.txt', 'w') as outfile:
    json.dump(points, outfile, indent=4)

I'm getting error: "The mesh must be in editmode" on the line bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(ob.data)
How do I make it in edit mode?

Another thing, which points would I get in the end by this code? All set of point of the mesh, or only those facing the camera?

the first problem can be fixed by moving to the mesh editing mode, i added it in a pythonic way to the code.

All the mesh points of the object will be added

you would need sth like this to get the object in world coordinates
import bpy
from mathutils import Euler, Matrix, Vector

            object_rotation = obj.rotation_euler
            object_translation = obj.location
            H_m2w = Matrix.Translation(Vector(object_translation)) @ Euler(
                object_rotation, 'XYZ').to_matrix().to_4x4()

            cam_H_m2c = H_m2w.inverted()

            cam_R_m2c = cam_H_m2c.to_quaternion().to_matrix()
            cam_t_m2c = cam_H_m2c.to_translation()

How do I get the 3D points still? Which of these objects I can obtain it from?


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doing animation in one laptop and render it in another is this possible?
I had made a big animation in my laptop but now the problem is the process of rendering, I can't render in my laptop because it is 2GB RAM. So is it possible to copy it in another laptop and render it?

of course, if you use textures make sure you also copy them in a folder, or even simpler: pack them all into your blend file with File > External Data > Pack All Into Blend

Thank you so much it helped me lot

Of course, if you use image textures make sure to also copy them in a folder, or even simpler: pack them all into your blend file with File > External Data > Pack All Into Blend.


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How can I take these two meshes and properly mold them together proportionately like the reciever of a gun?

So I want to make that rectangle mesh, which is inside of the cylinder to smoothly transition almost like the cylinder mesh is just a smooth bump over the rectangle, I'm probably going at the entire wrong way as I've only just started using blender for about a week but this one has got me stumped I've tried subsurface as I have seen that used to make the transition between a hole and a flat object smooth out but that hasn't worked, would appreciate any recommendations on how to do this.

Now that I understand your goal, and I tested it, I think I found what you want.
Start with a cube scaled the way you need to have the top face be your rect. Then add a low poly cylinder on top. It's key to make sure that the cylinder is more than halfway submerged in the stretched cube, as this will create a better transition later on.

Add the boolean modifier to that cube, then select the cylinder as the object and set the operation to union. I found that it is necessary to apply this modifier after this.

After deleting or hiding the original cylinder, you might find there is an error with the polygons that make up the remaining rectangle. I found that on one side, the corner vertices were not properly connected, resulting in a u-shaped ngon. I fixed it by deleting that face, and selecting the edges I wanted, then pressing the F key to bridge them.

Add the subdivision modifier, and you get something I'm sure was not your intended shape. If it looks like this, you can rest assured we can control this.
Go into edit mode, and click button on the subdivision modifier to show the results in edit mode.
Select the edges of the top face of the box, and the vertical edges (Like a stick figure table). With all those edges selected, press Shift-E, and then pull the mouse away from it's starting point until the edges turn fully red. The result should look like this.
Creases won't help with the ends though. Creases are a less expensive way of controlling the smoothness, but the ends will require a more old-fashioned approach, known as control loops. While still in edit mode, create a loop with Ctrl-R. Click once while it is the center, then  you can drag the loop around, so drag it close to the end to tighten up the transition and click again.

I hope this is the actual result you were looking for, but if not, it was fun practice on better stack answering.

Yeah that pretty much was exactly what I was looking for. I'll definitely look into how I can  make it work on my end, appreciate all the help.

Ok so if I understand this question correctly, you might consider using a boolean modifier. Add the boolean modifier to the rectangle, then select the cylinder mesh as the object. Use the union operation.
Check Here to see the documentation for that modifier.
It might work better to extrude the rectangle into a block, so that the current rectangle is the face closest to the cylinder, then after the union, delete the unneeded sides of the block.
Good luck.

First off, thanks for that little boolean modifier thing, that really helped clean up the look, but I'm looking to smooth out the look, if you take a look at an M4A1 photo from the side view it has this very smooth look across the board and that's what I'm very unsure about trying to achieve, I'm not sure if it's something I fix now in the building phase of the model, or if it's something I do later on after I have the base model done.

Okay I getcha. I think you could still use the boolean to help with this. Make a lower poly cylinder, like eight sides, then add the boolean union. After that, a subdivide modifier will add more polys, and smooth out the transitions.


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How to make Dynamic Bone for Unity
I got a little robot I’m making for a game in Unity. I’m not too good at using physics in Blender, I understand this is probably something super simple, but how would I go about making his antenna bob back and forth while still staying attached to his head? This is what his antenna looks like, unfinished.

I kinda just want it to wave back and forth as he walks, not a baked animation, I want it to move dynamically. Would I use a soft body for the antenna? But then how do I bake the physics for Unity?
Sorry for the noob question, I'm evidently terrible at rigging...
Thanks in advance

You can't export physics. Try to rig the antenna and fake the motion with curve modifiers in the Graph Editor.

Sorry, I'm a noob at rigging, how exactly do you achieve this?

Try a clothsim rig https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/41235/how-to-make-rig-that-reacts-to-gravity-or-seem-to-behave-physically-correct


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How to Fix Weird Crease in Character Model
I've been working on this character for many hours, but just noticed there's a weird crease down her back. I've subdivided far too much to be able to just grab the edges and shrink it, does anyone know how I would fix this? I'm very new to blender, but I tried sculpting, and I can't really get rid of it without wrecking the surroundings.
As you can see in the picture, there's also some weirdness on the upper back and the butt I'd like to fix as well, but then again the character will not be naked so the butt's a nonfactor haha.

Hello :). I'd check for internal faces (Select > All by trait > Internal faces) and double vertices (Mesh > Clean up > Merge by distance).

Thanks for the response, I tried and it seems to have deleted an internal face somewhere, but no double vertices. Doesn't seem to have fixed anything

Okay :). If you're using a Mirror Modifier, make sure to enable the * merge* option. You can also share your file and I'll take a look :).

Yeah, It's enabled. Sure, that would be appreciated, where is a good place to upload it?

Any Gdrive/Dropbox will work, but if the file is small, you can use our local blend-exchange :)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eLCF6wo475dVpWcSpyj8eZ2fx1fYIeqL
Here you go, thanks!

@JachymMichal your solution worked for me!  The crease was internal faces leftover from an applied mirror.

@ChrisWingler Glad it helped, good luck with your project :)

I fixed this by ctrl+D and then smoothing it out.

Some vertices of your mesh are going over the Y axis. Just a bit, but enough to cause a crease.

Select your whole edge
Scale it to 0 along the X axis (so it's flat)
Move it precisely to the Y axis.

(This is the fast solution, you can of course move the vertices one by one.)

Oh, well I wasn't as concernered about the center crease, more the one off to the side of it. The weird crease off to the side of the the lower back. But thanks for that, I fixed that problem too haha.

But that wasn't the issue, https://imgur.com/a/tT48iKV this was the crease I was trying to fix.

Right :). Perhaps next time be more specific about the problem. You can also post your own solution, so others can learn from it.

Well, the crease down the middle is a spine, so I thought it'd be obvious haha, but I wasn't able to fix my issue yet...

What happens if you go into Sculpt Mode and use the smooth brush? Do the creases disappear?

No, I tried that :(


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Hair Sticking Through Face
I can't figure out why, but my hair is sticking through my character's face weirdly.

As you can see, it's sticking out around the eyes, but if you look in particle edit mode...

There's no obvious hair strands sticking through the mesh... I tried many times to comb it up, and then back down, but it always does the same thing. I set the collision settings to 0.5 for inner and outer... Does anyone know how to fix this?
Thanks in advance.

You are using interpolated children. Those try to place children between hair strands. Simplest case: The hair closest to the current hair has a deformation slightly different than the original, if a child is placed half way between them, it will have a 50:50 mix between both positions and deformations. That can easily cause bad results, especially when 2 hairs are fairly close together, but combed in the opposite direction, the interpolation can look like what you're seeing. For longer hair simple children are usually the better option.

I was using Simple, but it causes some of the children to float in the air... Is there any way to fix this?

He explains the child settings and combing pretty well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpVyTc_72z0

Thank you very much, I was watching videos like crazy but most don't explain very well! Haha


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How to put an Armature in a Book
I have a very basic book I made, just two covers, the pages are all attached to the covers, and  a basic 3 part armature. I tried weight painting it so the left cover was fully painted on the left bone, the spine is only the rear, and the right was fully painted on the right bone. Went through every face, but it doesn't have the desired effect.
Here's some screenshots for reference,

I thought I removed all weight from the spine for both of the bones, but it still has a very weird effect. I'm very new to rigging, so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong but I don't know how to fix it haha.
Thanks in advance

you should better parent With Empty Groups then assign vertices to groups in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Groups, and Assign button

So, basically instead of weight painting, assign one bone to one half of the book's vertices? How do you go about doing this?

as I said, parent With Empty Groups (instead of With Automatic Weight), which means the mesh will have vertex groups but no vertices affected to these groups for the moment, select the vertices you want to assign to a bone, then go in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Groups, choose the group the vertices are supposed to be part of, and click the Assign button

For this kind of non-organic object, don't parent With Automatic Weight, parent With Empty Groups, it will avoid some bones to influence some vertices they are not supposed to influence. With Empty Groups creates as many vertex groups as bones you have, with the same names, but there are no vertices affected to these groups for the moment.
Once parented, select the vertices you want to assign to a bone, go in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Groups, choose the group the vertices are supposed to be part of (the group that has the name of the bone that is supposed to control that group), and click the Assign button.
You can affect vertices to different bones, and decrease the influence of the group on some vertices with the Weight value under the Assign button. It may be necessary to make the object more flexible.

Oh okay, I was able to get it somewhat working, I think I need to add some more loop cuts haha, thanks!

not sure my armature is correct though, it was just made for demonstration   ;)


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Applying Transform to a Huge Model
So I have a character I'm making, and I ran into a slight issue with applying transform. I heard a cube is about 2 meters, I didn't really realize this was an issue until I tried putting hair on my character haha. So, I scaled her down to less than the size of a cube, and I ran into an issue with my shader of my characters eyes. Basically, it's designed so the front of the cornea is transparent so you can see the iris through it, but as soon as I applied the scale everything went wrong haha. So, is there a way I can scale the eye down and then apply the scale without it messing with the shader? I have a gradient for transparency, and after I applied the scale, even if I dropped the gradient down to nearly nothing the eyes were translucent.
Thanks in advance!

It's not clear from your post exactly how things "went wrong", so I can't be sure what you need. Also, I'm not an expert on shaders, though my instincts tell me that the key to this likely lies in investigating the node setup itself to see how the position and scale of the shader is controlled. It may be a simple as changing the values in a texture coordinate node to be consistent with the new scale, but I don't know. Just something to consider.

Well, I said at the end, the corneas become completely translucent. I'm sure the issue has to do with the scale of the shader, but I don't know how to fix it.


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Create Giant Cloud forms in EVEE (Hurricane from space)
I would like to create giant clouds, like a Hurican on Jupiter in EVEE (don't have the computer for cycle, it's a 560 frames animation !)
I  approach this with a displace modifier but I can't get this look (deformation follow lines like the wind).
I created the scene so I have the geometry I want but not material and displace. I don't think I should create a volume material, or use the clouds modifier from 2.9. Below pics of the scene and the render i would like to achieve :


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How to create lampstreet particle in Evee?
I want to create a large city a night in Eevee. I tried to add streetlamp as a hair system, but I can't add the emitting lamp with it. Is there a way to link the emitting lamp to my object (a streetlamp) so I can create with an hair system hundreds of streetlamp with their own lights ?
Thanks in advance !!

Keep in mind that Eevee has a limitation of 128 lights in a scene

Put the streetlamp model and the light emitter into an own collection, let's say you call it "streetlight".
In the Particle Emitter settings under Render > Render As choose "Collection".
For the Instance Collection choose the created "streetlight" collection.
Check "Whole Collection" underneath. This is usually not desired if you have collections of different trees, stones or whatever because you want them to be picked randomly. But in this case this means each particle is now the streetlamp model with the light at the correct place.


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How to scatter multiple clipped 'decal' textures over a surface
I want to scatter multiple manhole textures across a road surface I’ve created using geometry nodes. I use "store named attribute" nodes to transfer the UV coordinates.
The manhole images have transparent backgrounds.
So far, this is the approach I've come up with:

I start with an asphalt material as a base using a Principled BSDF.
For the manhole textures, I also use Principled BSDFs, setting the image texture nodes to "Clip" instead of "Repeat."
I combine these Principled BSDFs with "Mix Shader" nodes.
I use mapping nodes to control the placement of the manholes.

My question is: how can I scatter several of these clipped manholes across the surface, ideally not allowing them to overlap?
The Blender file is here:


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Importing collection instances from the asset browser messes up positions of the objects
I created a collection containing both regular objects and collection instances and marked it as an asset.
When I import the asset into a new file and toggle off the 'instance' option in the pop-up at the bottom left, the regular objects reset to the world origin. Meanwhile, the collection instances stay in the position where they were dragged into the 3D viewport.
This makes sharing such collections as assets challenging because the object positions get messed up when the 'instance' option is disabled.
I tried parenting everything to an empty, but that didn’t solve the issue.
Does anyone know how to keep this together?
The .blend file:


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Hair particles (eyelashes) sticking together on a mirrored model
I'm working on the eyelashes of my mirrored character.
I drew weight paint on the left eye with mirror mod so the weight was applied to both eyes.
However, the eyelashes were only applied on the side I painted.

but then when I go to Particles Edit mode, the eyelashes go thru my face, the left eyelashes connected to the particles of the right eyelashes in the image below.

I've searched this online, and most solutions of other similar cases are about the position of the mirror mod and the particle mod but my mirror mod is already on top of the particle mod.
I'm very confused about this problem, can anybody help please?
Any suggestions will be much appreciated. Thank you so much!

Looks like a bug, better apply the mirror modifier.

Not sure if that helps but the Subdivision Surface modifier should go last for sure. Move it down to the bottom of the stack else you will get different results for the particles in the viewport and the render because of the different sub-division levels (1 and 2).


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How can I quickly join edges/vertices with face
I'm newby to Blender and computer animation. Sometimes, I join vertices one by one to manually create 3D objects. First, I create borders of an object with vertices and edges, then join them with faces. When the time comes to join opposite edges with faces, it is pretty much time consuming process which would be great to automate. Please see the video what I mean.

So, I need to click every edge one by one and press F button every time.
Is there a tool in Blender to join all opposite edges at once with faces, say if the number of edges equal from each side?
I may have explained this a bit wrong but I hope you get the idea looking at the video.

Eventually, I've found what I was looking for. Bridge Edge loops can be used. I saw it in this video on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taltUktxgPU
Note. Edge loops should be from one object. They can be connected in one object in Object mode, then select both and press Ctrl+J
Note2. I don't know why but I cannot see Bridge Edge Loops in Vertex Select mode. When I go to Edge Select mode, it appears.

On Note2: You mean you cannot see it in the context menu when you right-click in the viewport? That's because it is exactly that: a context menu. Right-clicking in Vertex Select mode brings up some general things and functions from the Vertex menu at the top. Right-clicking while in Edge Select mode shows functions from the Edge menu. If you don't use the context menu but the Edge menu at the top, Bridge Edge Loops is available there even in Vertex Select mode.

Another option is to enable the F2 add-on that comes with Blender.
Then you can select just 2 vertices (in Vertex Selection mode 1) or 1 edge in (in Edge Selection mode 2), move the mouse cursor in the direction where you want to create the faces and press the F key several times.

Because the mouse cursor is 2D on your screen, the direction can be ambiguous in 3D space and F2 can create unwanted faces. In this case, undo and try to rotate the 3D model or find a better spot for the mouse cursor.
Related question: How can I bridge these two loops?


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Custom HDRIs in Material preview
Is there a way of using custom hdris in material preview mode, whether it be by going into the program files or is there a way of doing it inside blender?

You can easily install custom HDRIs by using the file selector found in the settings under Lights > HDRIs.

The dimensions of the default ones are 1024x512, but aside from a longer loading time higher resolutions work as well.


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How to change the Blender Proxy File Location
While video editing theres this thing called proxy and basically it makes a folder where the video you put into blender is at. I have a temporary folder which holds all cached data and autosaves. And I want to change where those proxy folders are made because they are everywhere, making them difficult to organize across my computer. Is there anything I can do that will change the location of those folders?

Have you tried creating a file that's saved locally to your computer and then saving your projects in that through Blender?

@Starry-EyedDonut, yes I have I have a whole folder dedicated to my blender projects. It’s when a video is in a different location and put into the blender sequence editor it makes a folder called “BL_Proxy” and that folder is in the same location as the video that was dragged in.

Under Sequencer Editor properties (side panel N) > Proxy > Proxy Settings >

change Storage from Per Strip to Project type
set Directory to //BL_proxy/
(or use any other name folder, just start with double slash if you want to generate folder in directory of your blend file ... or set a full path if you want all proxies of any blend file to be stored at a specific directory)

If you want to have it set for any newly created blend file - go to header menu File > Defaults and Save Startup File.

Yep it works. Thanks!

Great it helped :)


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Does loading into factory settings remove installed addons?
I know when you reset blender to factory defaults it will uncheck all installed addons, but does it remove them from the files (in other words do i have to reinstall all of the addons I've installed after I factory reset.)

Not sure why you are asking this instead of just testing. It's very easy to see this for yourself.

@MartynasŽiemys I just want to make sure they don’t get removed or I will have to take an extra hour scrolling on the internet just to find the addons I need.

That's reasonable. When you load factory settings, they are not saved automatically. You have to go to Preferences and hit Save Preferences to override your preferences. If you are worried about loosing your preferences for any reason, you can make a backup of your preferences folder. It's in %appdata%\Blender Foundation\Blender if you are on Windows. Just copy the folder with the version number somewhere safe so you can restore it if needed. That's where add-ons are stored as well.

You can paste %appdata%\Blender Foundation\Blender into windows run menu(winlogo+r) or file explorer's address bar to go to the actual folder which is usually C:\Users\[Your user name]\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender.

@MartynasŽiemys Thank you!

No. They remain installed and you can enable them in the Prefrences( Ctrl  +  , ), Add-ons tab.


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Lens distortion in compositor doesn’t support transparency
When rendering out an image and compositing it with lens distortion it puts on a black background which I don’t want because I want the image to have a transparent background. Is there a workaround this like a button or more compositing setup I need to do?

Did you try a Set Alpha node ? Quick testing on a duplicate of Lens Distorsion on alpha channel seems to work.

@Lutzi could you show me an example mode setup? I’m still new to the compositor

Lens distortion with alpha
I can't guarantee it's the best way to achieve that. Visually, it seems to match the expected behavior. So I would say, it's good enough until you run into some issue.

Have Render tab > Film > Transparent enabled
Repeat the Lens Distortion node for the alpha input
Set Alpha will change the alpha channel to what is connected to it
For ease of use, I would suggest connecting both parameters of Lens Disortion to a Value node. So that you tweak both nodes the same.

If you're confused about the alpha channel, you can think of it as a black and white image representing the transparency. Black = 0 = transparent, white = 1 = non-transparent, with any shade of gray for semi-transparency. Alpha channel is an universal denomination (not Blender-only).

The only thing worth mentioning is maybe that the color of the Dispersion is dependent on the colors of the image, object as well as background. So the resulting colors will always look as if you had a black background, unless you use an Alpha Over node before plugging the image into the Lens Distortion to give it a different tint.

@GordonBrinkmann That's interesting. It should be visually correct if background gets the same Lens Distortion, right ? Or do you think Lens Distortion should be applied to subject and background altogether ?

I don't know what the OP needs the lens distortion with a transparent background for, if it should be composited over varying backgrounds, it would be incorrect dispersion if it would look the same on different backgrounds since it changes dependent on color. If  the OP knows which background to place it on before (and would apply the same dispersion to it), then having it on a transparent background is useless, the layers could be merged before using lens distortion. If it should later be composited over something (maybe in PS), then I thought it should be noted that the color might be wrong.

@GordonBrinkmann I would use a different software like PS but I just wannna just do it in like one software instead of many, making the most use of blender as possible because it can take up the ram on my pc and it’s also time consuming. The reason why I want lens dispersion with a transparent background is because I don’t usually like backgrounds mostly. I also need it to import to animation software and other stuff.

@Bludus Photoshop was just one possible example of many for not using the Blender Compositor. I just wanted to give you the additional information that dispersion is a color-relative effect and if it matters to you to have "correct" dispersion no matter what you put below it, this does not work with the transparent background. Just as info. If that's fine for you that's okay.

@GordonBrinkmann thanks for the info anyways. I see lens dispersion as an effect rather than a correction considering the name ‘chromatic abberation’ which is what I’m mainly rooting for when I use lens dispersion. I know it’s used to emulate camera like effects but I use it as a more dramatic effect.

@Bludus Well, it is not a correction, it is more like intentional degradation in Blender. In real cameras lens distortion and chromatic aberration are flaws, imperfections of lenses, especially of lower quality which some photographers correct by removing it with software. So I would adding it in Blender rather not call a correction  But when you just it for some dramatic effect, I guess the colors should not matter - however, if you sometimes want to get a different color for the dispersion, you can do this by underlaying different backgrounds before the lens distortion.

@GordonBrinkmann thanks a lot though. I did do it and it worked how I wanted to expect it. I’m not a expert in effects but I am into effects a lot so I try my best to learn about it as much as possible


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Blender starting up slow
Blender used to start up fast to me on the default start up file
Now it starts up and it takes about 30 seconds to a minute. My computer is fast and relatively new. Is there anything I should do to cut down this start up time?
Edit: if you’re wondering what version I’m on I’m on 3.6.4.
And no my computer cannot run beyond 4.0 because of some driver issue I cannot fix

Try turning off any external addons you have loaded one at a time until the startup speed improves.


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Can I use composting in the video editor?
I use blender for some video editing and I’m wondering if I can take my effects further by using the compositor in blender. Will the compositor work if I just use a image sequence and add effects?

In the Compositor you can add an Input > Image and load the series of images or the movie you've created, it won't read in real time though

Wouldn't be faster to just try it? :) Place Image Sequence and add effect? Or is there something specific that didnt work for you?


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How can I fill the face just between the vertices and not the inner circle?

So, as the title suggests, I want to fill JUST inbetween the inner and outer circles, but whenever I fill them in, it'll fill in that inner circle, something I don't want, I've tried different selections of vertices and edges, but it still fills everything in. Any help is appreciated

What you want is "Bridge Edge Loops". Select the two "rings" you want to connect, right-click, and select it. Do this for both sides. See below:


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Blender crashes upon opening
I installed Blender (2.83) for the first time on my new Custom Built PC.
Windows 10, Intel i7, x 64bit and opened double clicking the .exe file, a grey screen appears as well as a black dialogue box that closes shortly after.
I tried to open it using the Powershell window and got this as my error message.
PS C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83> ./blender.exe
GPUTexture: create : TEXTURE_1D, RGBA8, w : 1, h : 0, d : 0, comp : 4, size : 0.00 MiB
GPUTexture: texture alloc failed. Likely not enough Video Memory.
Current texture memory usage : 0.00 MiB.
GPUTexture: create : TEXTURE_2D, RGBA8, w : 1, h : 1, d : 0, comp : 4, size : 0.00 MiB
GPUTexture: texture alloc failed. Likely not enough Video Memory.
Current texture memory usage : 0.00 MiB.
GPUTexture: create : TEXTURE_3D, RGBA8, w : 1, h : 1, d : 1, comp : 4, size : 0.00 MiB
GPUTexture: texture alloc failed. Likely not enough Video Memory.
Current texture memory usage : 0.00 MiB.
found bundled python: C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\python
GPUTexture: create : TEXTURE_2D, RGBA8, w : 1515, h : 26, d : 0, comp : 4, size : 0.15 MiB
GPUTexture: texture alloc failed. Likely not enough Video Memory.
Current texture memory usage : 0.15 MiB.
GPUTexture: create : TEXTURE_1D_ARRAY, R8, w : 16384, h : 1, d : 0, comp : 1, size : 0.02 MiB
GPUTexture: texture alloc failed. Likely not enough Video Memory.
Current texture memory usage : 0.02 MiB.
Error   : EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION
Address : 0x00007FF7F5A90CC0
Module  : C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\blender.exe
PS C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83>
I've made sure that my graphics card drivers and windows PC drivers are all up to date. Running Blender as an Administrator doesn't work either. I have searched through forum posts for solutions but haven't found any that fix my issue yet.
Hoping to get some light shed on the problem.
Thanks

What kind of GPU do you have?

I have Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER

Yeah, that's weird. Definitely supported - but it seems like blender can't access your video ram for some reason.

There seems to have been others with this issue and it has been reported. Some users found success by changing windows power saving settings (or doing otherwise) in order to "force" windows to use an integrated intel gpu to open blender. Full post is here, I'm still combing through it - https://developer.blender.org/T72098

Filtering through the post, I saw the advice of changing the dialog box for Blender from 'System Default' to 'Power Saving' in Graphic Settings and it worked! I am not sure why though.. But blender is up and running for the first time yet!

Yeah, I saw that too. Glad you got it working.

yeah me too! Thanks so much for your help brother![


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how should i do, to get output file name in order?
when render animation with frame end 20 and step 4,
will get  5 output file name like this:
0001.png,0005.png,0009.png,0013.png,0017.png

it possible to get output name like this ?.
0001.png,0002.png,0003.png,0004.png,0005.png

Thinking ahead, this doesn't make much sense since you would loose the original filenames, which is a pain to re-construct or figure out what frames you have rendered, later in the process. I'd suggest copy the folder and use something like mucommander to rename the copies to be on the save side.

After render.
If you have set the render file path such that it only contains the rendered images with that file extension, can run this script, from within the blender text editor,  after rendering.
import bpy
from pathlib import Path

op = 'RENAME' # to rename
#op = 'CLEAN' # to remove

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
render = scene.render
ext = render.file_extension

rfp = Path(render.filepath)
fldr = rfp if rfp.is_dir() else rfp.parent

for f in sorted(fldr.glob(f"*{ext}")):
    if op == 'CLEAN':
        f.unlink()
    elif op == 'RENAME':
        print(f.name, end=" -> ")
        num = int(f.stem) // scene.frame_step + 1
        f2 = fldr / f"{num : 05d}{ext}"
        if not f2.exists():
            f.rename(f2)
        print(f2.name)

Output after rename.
0001.png ->  0001.png
0005.png ->  0002.png
0009.png ->  0003.png
0013.png ->  0004.png
0017.png ->  0005.png


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Is Applying Transforms Necessary?
Is it necessary to apply all transforms? Everything in my character breaks the second I apply transforms... My shader for my character's eyes, the hair, even the rotation of the eyelids ceases to function properly. I am making a character for a game, but what does applying transforms do? The scale is like 0.1, I had thought I applied it before  making the hair, but turns out I didn't , so I applied it and the hair grew out all over the place. I don't even understand why my eyelids fail to rotate properly after applying rotation.
Can anyone tell me how to apply transforms without having everything break, or is this to be expected? And what does applying transforms do?

That helps, but I still wonder about all these issues that are caused from applying scale,

The issue is that you have gone too far in your project before applying the transformations. Now you likely have parts of your project that are depending on transform data that was not zeroed out when setting up your connections, causing things to break when you apply them. Start with applied transforms before adding modifiers or constraints.

Actually, I found a great solution that wasn't on that previous post, apply transform to deltas instead of applying all transforms, posting this for anyone who finds this thread.

Please add your solution as an answer in the linked post so that other users with the same problem can learn from your experience.

Well, I tried, and they deleted my post saying to not use the answer section for feedback... ? The mods are weird here.


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Baking Shaders For Unity
I’m still fairly new to Blender, but I have a simple model with some shaders that I want to bake onto it, but I’m finding difficulty baking it properly. For one, it seems to be baking the current lighting onto it, is there a way to set it to not bake the lighting settings?
Also, upon importing it into my game, it has a weird yellow shade to it. I was able to make it look slightly less weird by putting the texture in the emission section, but it still looks quite off. Also, the windows have no transparency. I’m not sure if there’s a way to fix this?

This is the house in cycles, the door looks a little dark, and I’m not 100% sure how to add emission to it as it’s a diffuse shader. Here is what it looks like in eevee, which is more what I’m going for

And here’s what it ends up looking like…

It's not highlighted because of the selection or anything. At first I thought it might’ve been receiving too much light, as my light is orange in the game, but even if I take the light away completely it looks like this.
Thanks in advance, sorry if this topic is all over the place haha

Change your bake setting from "combine" to "diffuse". If you're doing a full PBR material, you will have to bake the different maps separately (ex: one for diffuse, one for roughness, one for normal, one for emission, etc...) One of tutorial the videos I always go back to for reference when doing something like this is this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9airvjDaVh4

I watched that video, but here is what it looks like after a diffuse bake.
https://imgur.com/a/jvjEH47
I tried with a transmission bake as well, but it didn't change anything. Also, I don't have any normals, it's all texture, but for some reason the wall texture is not baking properly...

Is the image on the left the proper one? It looks like it has a noise texture applied as a displacement map. Can you confirm if this is or is not the case?

Ahh, I forgot haha, I have a voronoi on the displacement

Then you have to bake a separate displacement map. I think you can use the "roughness" bake setting as it just outputs a black and white (non-color space) image. Just remember to name it right (I've confused myself in the past).

Oh okay, While my computer is taking forever to bake that, is there any way to get the transmission on the windows working? I tried baking  with transmission, but no luck

You mean the bake result was empty?

It baked pure black windows.

That's strange. I just tested myself. I made a plane and inset it by half so I had basically a square within a square. I gave them each separate materials, both with the same color brick texture, the only difference being that the inner square's material had it's transmission set to 1. I removed any lights from the scene and baked. The result was a black texture with an inner square showing (a slightly darkened) version of the texture. I don't know if it changed anything, but I enabled both "use alpha" and "32 bit float" on my bake image.

Oh, okay. Well I got a weird thing going on, I totally don't understand this lol. I can't bake it properly anymore, it just turns out like this
https://imgur.com/a/NtbWCFO
I've tried remapping it, switching to a new image, baking it a million different ways...


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Particles don't auto refresh using paint maps
So I was following CG Geek's tutorial on how to animate rain and splash effects and I was able to follow successfully until I had to animate the splash effects. The splash effect's density is controlled by an image sequence of paintmaps which is supposed to cycle through. But even during the render it doesn't.
frame 70:

frame 71:

I've set it to cyclic and auto refresh too:

Is the image sequence used in a ImageTexture node, too? Just asking because this node has also a Auto Refresh checkbox.

It's a bug. See this question for a solution: https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/240694/107598


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Blender modeling a mallet / T-joint with variable cylindrical dia
Unlike regular T-Joint, mallet has shruken cylindrical component forged with a big cylindrical component.
Please guide correct mesh flow.

At the beginning you could duplicate your cylinder and use the copy as the Target of a Shrinkwrap modifier so that you're sure that the circular hole you'll dig will stick to the cylinder profile. Then apply the Shrinkwrap and extrude to make the handle.

Also, you could use much less polygons:

Create a hole in the cylinder.
Extrude and make a circle with LoopTools > Circle.
In side view check that the circle's vertices are aligned with the cylinder profile (or use the shrinkwrap method if you think it's easier).
Extrude again to make the handle.

Awesome @moonboots ! shrinkwrap helped greatly esp. the 24+12 vertices setup. tried box modeling with subd but shrinkwrap gave what wanted.

Here's a great video tutorial that shows the Shrinkwrap process that @moonboots describes.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci1jBOm_5NY&t=1s


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Particle scaling changing randomly throughout animation render
Just getting started in Blender and eager to learn so tried following the famous donut tutorial.
After the tutorial I wanted to generate steam raising from the coffee glass so set up a fluid simulation. When trying to render the clip i noticed that the scaling of the previous "Sprinkle" particle system was actively changing after every frame. I had not noticed this problem before as a still frame was used for the final 2 seconds of the rendered animation.
Below is a video of the problem experienced. I have tried setting the scale randomness back to 0 (alas to no effect) and a user suggested "Baking" the icing which resulted in nothing on my end.
Any help or guidance would be deeply appriciated!
https://i.sstatic.net/nnkDK.jpg


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How do I "bake" the displacement of an procedural material (with the right orientation) to the mesh?
I have a question for you guys!
Recently I was searching for a way to better present my digital sketches and bought the realistic clay shaders by jama jurabaev. https://gumroad.com/l/KqHnv
Here are some of my first render tests. I was thinking about actually 3D printing this piece, do you know how to bake the displacement of this procedural clay shader to the mesh?

I guess you need to display the black & white picture, bake it, then use it in a Displace modifier so that it moves the mesh for real, it will need a mesh that is enough subdivided though

Thank you. You are right, but it is quite hard to bake it with the same displacement location. The material is procedural and the mesh does not have any UV's.

you need first to unwrap your object, Smart UV Project should be ok


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Mesh displaces when parenting to armature
I´m trying to parent a cloth to an armature with automatic weights, but the cloth mesh offsets vertically when I do the parenting. The armature works correctly and the cloth deforms as it should, but it´s displaced vertically. I´ve already tried to reset/apply all transforms, and the result is the same.
Where could be the problem? The character and armature comes from Character Creator 3, I don´t know if the issue could be related to the armature.

maybe deparent the cloth before parenting?

I´ve already tried it. No effect.

please share your file: https://pasteall.org/blend/

Here it goes.
https://pasteall.org/blend/14715884acdf43b7b64c447160146048

You have a couple of issues.  You have unapplied transforms on the armature object, and your armature is not in rest pose.  Your clothing is built around the posed model.
Basically, you're using a bunch of different techniques to place things-- object transforms, edit mode changes, bone posing-- when you should just be using one.  Each of these techniques works kind of differently from the others.
Start by unparenting all objects (alt-p -> clear and keep transforms).  Next, find the armature modifier on your body and apply it from its drop-down menu.  Repeat for the eye object, the eye occlusion object, the teeth, tongue, and conjunctiva objects.
Now, select your armature and enter pose mode.  Select all bones and ctrl a (apply) -> apply pose as rest pose.
Return to object mode.  Select all objects and apply rotation and scale (ctrl a -> apply rotation & scale).  Parent objects to the armature as desired.  You will have to reparent objects that were parented before (but you don't have to redo your weights if you don't want, just parent with armature deform or empty groups.)

I don't understand the whole problem but it comes from the fact that the scale of the armature is not 1 and it seems to create a gap between the bone positions in Edit mode and Pose mode. So, to fix that:
In Edit mode, select the head of the bone called Pelvis (or the head of Hip), put the 3D cursor to selected, switch to Pose mode, select both Pelvis and Hip, and put the selection to cursor. Then back to Object mode, apply the scale, also apply the scale of the body. Parent the cloth.
Also I'm not completely sure about the cloth modifier stack order but it's another question.

I had a similar problem with my eyelids and was caused by a lattice, because my eyelids were parented to this lattice and when I tried to parent my eyelids to the armature they changed the parenting making this weird displacement, working well but with an offset. So the solution was to first clear de lattice parent of the eyelids, making sure it stays in the same position after disparenting, then parenting to the armature. Hope this help anyone.


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Applying real life measurements to a digital sculpture
While sculpting a human body I found myself needing to make sure that the main body points are set apart a certain amount of cm to match the measurements of an existing person. Is there a tool like calipers in Zbrush or a way to measure a part of a body, change the units accordingly to real life example and then be able to measure other parts relatively to the first measurement made?
For example I know that the distance between clavicles and pubic bone of a model is 57 cm. I need to make sure that everything else in the body of my sculpt will be relative to my model's measurements. How can I achieve it?
Huge thanks to anyone reaching out to help!

Sounds like MeasureIt can help with what you want to do. It ships with Blender and can show the distance between to vertices of your choice.

It worked out for me with Measureit, thanks! Though I had to resize the whole sculpture to fit the measurements I think it's even better now cause it matches real life size now


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Eevee shadows not the same as Cycles; is there a fix?
Looks like generating accurate shadows is not something EEVEE can do. Or is there a fix I'm not aware of? I researched enough to learn that I had to turn "contact shadows" on, but that just corrected one problem while introducing another.
The example scene is pretty simple, a colored box on the corner of a desk (not the main subject) with two bulb lights, one left and one right. The EEVEE shadow problems show up in the viewport view as well as the renders.
Cycles

EEVEE, contact shadows off

EEVEE, contact shadows on

So, with contact shadows turned off, the error occurs in the front of the cube where the shadows don't appear close to where the cube makes contact with the desktop, but with contact shadows on, the overall size of the shadows on either side is wrong (they're too large).
Is there some other setting I should turn on that I don't know about?

Blender 4.0.1 running on MacOS 14.1.1.

You have a number of setting you can control under the Light that affect how the shadows are calculated. In particular, under Contact Shadows, you have more settings specific to them. I suggest to decrease the Distance. It seems that your scene is small, and the default value is just too high.

To improve the quality of the shadows, there are more settings under the Render tab. I suggest to look at them as well. I suggest to increase Cube Size and Cascade Size, and to enable Soft Shadows.

Thanks for the advice. The trick that worked, though, was reducing both the thickness and distance settings by a little more than half what they were. Reducing just the distance reverted the shadows to how they appeared with contact shadows turned off.  There was no need to fiddle with the render settings. (Note: Soft shadows had already been turned on.) When I did fiddle with them, it made no difference that I could discern. But thanks for steering me in the right direction.

You're welcome! I am glad I was able to help.


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How to apply random noise texture to instances?
What I had in mind was to use Geometry Nodes to take a sphere and apply a noise texture to distort the surface into an odd shape, then distribute that sphere as many instances on a surface. (Distribute points on faces [Poisson]; Instances on points). Only, I wanted each instance to use a different noise pattern, so they would all look a little different from one another. So far I haven't figured out how to do that; the instances all look exactly the same.
I suppose I could create 2 or 3 or 4 or however many different noise-distorted spheres into a collection and then use the collection as the source of the instances, applying random rotation and scale to disguise the fact that they were all just replicas of the same limited number of shapes. But anyone looking close would be able to see the replications.
Is there a way to apply a different distortion to each instance? So far I haven't been able to figure out a way to do that.

Create your noise nodes.  Right click to make a group.

Then create your objects and distribute them on another object.  At the end of the distribution realize the instances, (you don't want instances, you want realized objects so they can all be different.)

Plug them into the noise nodes to add distortion.  You can do this more than once, and add subdivisions so that you're getting more levels of detail.  Here is the result.

I'm summarizing and simplifying, as there are other entries on this problem.  I'll link to some research:
Self-generating random shapes with Geometry Nodes in 3.0
How can I get a new random seed for every object using the same geometry nodes?
Geometry Nodes - Generating geometry per instance
How can I instantiate a procedural node group with different parameters?


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Principled volume does not work in eevee
I used a principled volume on a cube for testing and the cube just turns invisible. I’ve switched to cycles and it does show the volume. So I played with the volumetric settings and it shows a tiny bit for a split second, like a triangle and it disappeared. Is there any way to fix this?

You need to go into the Render panel, increase the Sampling and under Volumetrics decrease the Tile Size and increase the Samples:

It sadly didn’t work. But I can tell it’s trying to work because how slow blender is being

Please show a screenshot of your blender interface or even share your file?


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How to change indirect lighting cache to somewhere else
Is is possible that I can store indirect lighting cache somewhere else besides from my Ram? Blender takes up most of my ram when I use indirect lighting so is there a way to bring it to a folder to be stored temporarily?


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Turning bump off entirely temporarily in eevee
Is there a way of turning off bump entirely for a temporary time then turn it back on in Eevee? When I use bump nodes and noise detail things gets a bit laggy in material preview.

In the Shading editor you can mute a noodle (connecting line) by dragging across it with Ctrl-Alt-RMB. Re-enable it in the same way. I'm not sure whether you need the Node Wrangler addon enabled to use that hotkey combination. - I always have it enabled here.

@JohnEason it’s not CTRL+ALT+RMB that’s the knife tool to disconnect. it’s the M key while selecting the node. And I want to mute all the bump like a button instead of muting each node.

CTRL-RMB is the combination to cut a noodle but CTRL+ALT+RMB (which seems to be undocumented) does mute a noodle without disconnecting it. See this short YT video! The M key just mutes a node and lets the input straight through to the output. I just gave the mute noodle option in case it might help. I doubt you can mute all bump nodes without using python.

True, the reason why it maybe undocumented is because it’s in the node wrangler article in the blender manual as most node tricks/shortcuts come with node wrangler. I just tried out CTRL+ALT+RMB and it worked. I thought it was knife tool though- I guess I can try that out! Thanks for the tip!

@Bludus As I understood your question, you want to mute multiple bump nodes instead of each node separately... all in one material or in different materials at the same time? Because I do not see how Ctrl+Alt+RMB helps with multiple materials... and if it is just one material, why was using M to mute the nodes not an option?

@GordonBrinkmann I wanted different material have bump off at the same time, kind of like a collection in the oultliner

@Bludus So that shortcut was not yet the solution? Then I misread your comment, sorry.

No not yet. I could always find another way basically but thanks for helping me anyways


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Denoising in compositing better than original denoising?
Is the denoising in the compositor better than the cycles denoising?
I’ve heard it is but just to make sure I want some opinions. I’m looking for faster render basically anyways.

Different denoisers, different drawbacks. Just test it. OIDN and OPTIX are also different.


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How to save images to a external folder at the same time
I usually have a lot of images due to texture baking and stuff and I need to save them to a folder just in case I lose them due to a crash but I hate doing it one at a time. Is there a way of saving multiple/all images to a folder at once?

This should do the trick:

Note, though: This will save all images to a default folder (did not test, but it's probably the one that you specify in Edit -> Preferences -> Filepaths -> Textures).
Mine is // (default) which means all images that were created inside Blender will be in the same folder as the .blend
fill in //Textures to save them in a subdir named Textures

Definitely works. But There’s a small issue. When I moved the files to my desired directory and save the blend file and has an issue with autopack saying: “cannot pack file. Source path [FILE DIRECTORY] not found. Should I just turn off auto pack?

If you move a .blend, it's directories don't get updated, so if they are absolute (C:\Blender\myblend\textures\diffuse.png) will still work.
If the path is '//textures\diffuse.png', moving the .blend and the textures folder at the same time should not break anything, but if you move the .blend, but not the textures folder, the error occurs.
turning off autopack should solve the issue, but make sure the images still open in the image editor


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Clear Recent file history
I’ve moved a lot of files and blender doesn’t know the path for them now. Is there anyway to clear the recent list so I won’t get bothered by it saying file path is missing?

Depending on which OS you are using, go to the folder where Blender stores your startup .blend file. In that folder there is a recent-files.txt file. You can edit, or delete that file as you like.

@curious_1 thanks. Found it in Appdata/Roaming/BlenderFoundation/Blender/3.6/config


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How to clear out the asset libray entirely
How do i clear out the asset library, I know i can go to Edit > preferences and turn off the selected library but when i add another its gonna keep the categories and the files assigned to those. is there a way to clear all of that data without going into every single Blend file and clearing out their asset data?


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Video seems Jittery when i use a image strip
When i import a image sequence strip in video editing the animation is very jittery and bouncy, same thing happens when rendered.
I have an example video right here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NbusUyhlhb3KkQHtEHGI6SZnsLPvRmdE/view?usp=sharing
The Cube is supposed to rise up, rotate, and scale up at the same time in linear easing.
Edit: Im using Blender 3.6.4

Well, that's not how it's supposed to be I guess... have never experienced something like that before, but since it should not look like this it is either a bug which we cannot do anything about here and you should rather report it or, we would need your blend file to check the settings and also the image sequence to check why this happens. Just seeing the result does not give us any information where the issue might be located.

are u sure that you imported your images in the right order? it would be much better to provide a blend file than just a video, so we can be sure what's going on.

Hello, Blundus.. @Chris might be on to this one.. Sequence import does not automatically order the files alphanumerically.. it depends on the sort-order in the file explorer.. can you check that out first, and report back? If not the problem, please share as suggested on https://blend-exchange.com/

@RobinBetts Thats really weird because every one is number in the 0001 format

Since you did not provide any source material or any information how you imported your image sequence (maybe the images are named incorrectly so that they are sorted wrong after import?), so I can only tell in which order they should have been give the animation you describe in the question.
The mp4 has 30 frames, to make the (video) frames 1 to 30 show the correct motion the order has to be:
2-1-4-3-6-5-8-7-10-9-13-12-11-15-14-18-17-16-20-19-23-22-21-25-24-28-27-26-30-29
So you have at first a few pairs of two in reverse order, then sometimes inbetween triplets in reverse order.


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how do you fix the blender 4.1 open gl problem

i understand this issue but i do not know how to resolve this issue. can someone tell me how to do this? this happens during startup and then closes when i click OK.

Could you specify what graphics card you are using?

Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) 690 GPU. Ive never seen such display adapter and its been having problems with openGL since a windows update. i need to look in more to this graphics card. (EDIT: i just found out this is used for Phones rather of computers. which makes since because my computer BIOS is a Samsung but at the same time its really messed up. it works on 3.0 versions but i dont know why i doesnt want to work on 4.1)

i tried updating my driver but windows says its at the latest version for some reason

It appears that you might have tried to update your drivers from the Windows Control Panel Device Manager. Nothing wrong with that, but have you looked on your device manufacturer's website for drivers? Sometimes they will have various drivers and other updates that the other method doesn't catch.

Sorry, i dont know my device's manufacture. is it Samsung because thats the BIOS or is it AT&T because thats where it got shipped from according from the package

Blender changed the minimum OpenGL requirement for the 4.x versions: https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/ I don't know if anything on this page applies to your device, but here is a link to a Qualcomm software drivers site that I got from an Internet search: https://www.qualcomm.com/products/mobile/snapdragon/pcs-and-tablets/snapdragon-mobile-compute-platforms/snapdragon-8cx-gen-3-compute-platform#Software

well, i ran what seems to be a exe file. then i opened up 4.1, and the error is still there

@curious_1 so right now im about to contact the manufacture support, see if i can get some info off of it. i will keep you updated later


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How to resize a video in video editing to a certain resolution
I know where the scale tab is at in blender video editor, but there’s no scaling by pixels option. Is there something I can use to match a certain resolution?

do you mean, to show a video at a different resolution than the render size set in the Blender render settings tab? like, to have a video playing without filling the screen for example?

It's really not straightforward, but if you know the original resolution you can do it like this:

With the video strip selected go to the Strip properties tab and open the Transform panel.

In front of Scale click and hold to select both X and Y fields.

Enter the desired pixel size divided by the original size (height or width doesn't matter):
ie: 480/1080


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How to make non constant bevel

Hello everyone:
here's my problem, I need a bevel that will blend the right block and left block together but the right block is hexagonal shaped, and the left one square based. So to summarize the bevel should reach the edges of the left block in a smooth way. I come from SolidWorks and have no idea how to do that in Blender. The supposed look:
Thanks for the help :)

I would suggest to bridge between the hexagonal and the rounded square shaped part. You should though make sure to have equally amounts of vertices on each loop of the shapes, so the bridging works best.


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Can't export transmission map
I'm trying to export a ring that has some transparent parts, but when i open the file that i exported, my transmission map is not there anymore, so the ruby becomes opaque. (No matter the format .fbx , .gltf ...)

You plugged your Transmission map into Alpha input.
Alpha input considers white color as opaque.

Thats's the problem, it's not me that plugged it, but it is automatic when i export it, that's what i don't understand. Why every map is supported excepted the transmission map ?

Hey :). Exporting materials is tricky, and often not fully supported. Even the newest gITF doesn't support everything. Related answer: No materials on .fbx import

I already read this that's why i tried to bake maps, and use .GLTF but it solves nothing. There surely should be a solution, how is there so many glass objects on CGtrader made with blender ?

Exporting transmission textures to glTF is supported by recent versions of Blender (see https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Blender-IO/pull/1094), but note that it's a newer feature in glTF and not all viewers support it yet. A good glTF viewer to test such files is https://sandbox.babylonjs.com/.


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I want to close gaps in a model to make it printable
I'm trying to learn Blender through a project: preparing a model for 3d printing.
This particular model has a big problem: it's non-manifold. In a big way!:

As you can see, as the model was created to be seen from a front view, it didn't need to have a body under the longcoat. It's up to me to close that big gap so it prints, melding the legs together with that in the process.
I tried creating a plane, intersecting at the height I calculated it would touch both legs and the coat.

I made a boolean modifier, with union. My reasoning was, once the boolean is complete, I'll be able to select the exterior section of the plane, that will be cleanly cut by the exterior silhouette of the model...

However, that is not the case. The plane kind of becomes bugged out, and the area of the plane that sits right where I want it is not really separate from the rest.
How would you solve this particular problem?

The problem seems to be that you have way too many vertices it would be expected that the plane makes many triangle faces and looks very buggy.
A way to approach this is by not using a plane at all. Try hiding everything that is not the underside of the long coat (bottom of the torso if you will). Then you can switch to bottom view by pressing Ctrl + Numpad 7 and box selecting (B) all the faces you see. Afterwards you can extrude these faces down and flatten them on the Z axis with S + Z + 0. This should create a flat surface that you can drag to a desired height.
P.S. If you don't have vertex groups and are finding hiding everything difficult, you can also circle select (C) the underside faces manually.

Worked like a charm, thank you! I also figured out that I could separate the mesh in different vertex groups from your comment. That simplified the selection process a lot.

Glad to help :), didn't even know if my easy solution would work.


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How Can I Quickly Create Embossed Text in the Style of a Label Maker
Some background:

I'm working on a big project, modelling a car, and I'm currently creating the cockpit
The car is a race-car, and the instruments and switches on the dashboard are all labeled blue and white embossed labels, a picture for reference:

What I need Help With

I need help finding a quick and resource friendly way to create all of the labels

I'd like the textures on a flat object that looks like it has texture using normal maps

My Current Workflow

Create text, convert to a mesh, planar dissolve unnecessary vertices, extrude the text, bevel the edges, joining it with a plane, use some mask tools to add dust and damage, the bake the diffuse, normal, and roughness maps to a flat plane.

Currently I feel like there should be a simpler way to do this, specifically the baking. If I only had to do this for one object it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but there are like 25 labels on this dashboard, all with different text.

If you don't need extra geometry, just use an image as a bump map to fake the relief. This will allow you to keep the vertex count low, as all you need is a simple plane.

Or you can use the image as displacement if you need real geometry.

Note that, in order to get good results, you need a lot of subdivisions.
Of course you will need the correct dymo font to create the texture:
https://www.fonts4free.net/dymo-font.html#:~:text=Dymo's%20embossing%20font%20is%20now,Type%20Studio%2C%20exclusively%20for%20Dymo.&text=Dymo%20font%20contains%20230%20defined%20characters%20and%20116%20unique%20glyphs.

What a great result.. Waves of nostalgia :) I got a Mini-Dymo for my 10th birthday in 1970. My grandfather took it apart, because he wanted to figure out how it worked. He never managed to put it back together. Runs in the family.

This is perfect, thank you so much for your help!


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How does Mirror work in Edit Mode?
I am stumped. I cannot figure out how to get this thing to work. I saw one answer here that said something about moving the mesh off the object's center point, but it looks to me like the mesh is nowhere near the object's origin when I try to use the Mirror function.
Steps: (1) Open new general file, with basic cube already formed. (2) Tab into Edit mode. (3) Use the Move/Grab tool to shift the cube's mesh off the global origin in X and Y directions. It looks to me like the object's origin (orange dot) remains at the global origin. (3) Select Mesh -- Mirror -- X Global (or Y Global or X Local or Interactive Mode or ANY of the possible subselections for the Mirror function). Result: Nothing. Nothing. And more nothing. Nothing happens. How does this thing work?
I read the online manual. No help there, as usual.
Oh, and when I change the pivot point to 3D cursor and then try the Mirror command, instead of creating a duplicate or copy of the cube mesh in the mirror position, it simply MOVES the cube mesh to the mirror position.
I don't get it.

Hello, it's not clear what you're trying to do, what mirror are you refering to? Mirror is a modifier, maybe you're talking about the symmetry options? please show a screenshot

Yes, there is a Mirror Modifier, one that operates in Object Mode and, unless I misunderstand, affects an entire mesh object. But there is also a Mirror command, available under the Mesh menu in Edit Mode that -- I have reason to believe -- operates only on selected parts of a mesh. That's the one I can't get to work.

The Mirror you're talking about allow you to flip the mesh, same as SX-1, it won't mirror as the Mirror modifier or as the Symmetrize operation

OK, I understand now. I was mistaken about the purpose of the Edit Mode/Mesh/Mirror function.
I've reread the section of the book I'm trying to learn from ("Blender 3D by Example") and I now see that the instructions actually did intend for the mesh object I was trying to mirror be a separate mesh object from the rest of the object I was modeling, and that it did intend for the mirroring to be accomplished using a Mirror Modifier. I was under the mistaken idea that I was supposed to do the mirroring some other way without leaving Edit Mode.
I also reread the online manual about the Mirror command section again and I finally understand. I actually did get it to function as intended: its purpose is to transform a selected mesh into its mirror image. It is not intended to create a mirrored COPY of the mesh. I was able to get it to work; I just didn't know that that was "all" it did.

Open new general scene.
Select the Cube, go to Modifier panel, click on Mirror modifier. Click on axis want to mirror, say X axis.
Click on Cube and switch to Edit Mode.
Using Face Section, click on face on right side of cube and press  G for grab, pull to the right or  E for extrude and pull to right. The left side of cube will copy your actions. Switch to Y or Z axis to do the same on those axis's.
To mirror another way with Mirror Modifier. Select on cube in Object Mode and move to the right of center lines/ Origin intersection. Place cursor at origin, ⇧ Shift +  S. Then with the cube selected. ⇧ Shift +  S again to place cube's Origin to Cursor. Now you got two separate cubes and whatever you do to original cube will be mirror on second cube.

Granted, but I'm trying to do mirroring on just a part of the mesh object, not the entire thing, which is what the Mirror Modifier will do. There is a command under the Mesh menu in Edit Mode (a Mirror Modifier is applied in Object Mode) that is labeled "Mirror." I am under the impression that it does similar functions as a Mirror Modifier, but only to a selected portion of the mesh. I could be wrong about that. I can't get it to do much of anything.

@Smith_USA_MD the edit mode Mirror operator is essentially the same as selecting all the geometry you want to run it on and then pressing "S> {axis x,y,z} > -1" to flip the geo. It will only work with the geometry you have selected.

As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.


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Viewport (3d-view) problems in macOS 18.1?
Has anyone else experienced problems in the Blender viewport after upgrading to macos 18.1?
I have been working for several weeks on a sailing ship model without incident. However, when I opened up the model after upgrading to macos 18.1, I immediately started seeing objects appear and disappear in the viewport upon slight rotations of the viewing angle or sideways motions.
I took some screen captures to illustrate what I mean. In the first, the mainsail is visible. In the second, as a result of only slightly rotating the view, the mainsail vanishes. In the third, another slight rotation makes the mainsail "battens" also disappear.
Is this something that can be corrected in Blender? Or is this a bug that should be reported to Apple? Does anyone know?
Or am I the only person who has experienced this? I don't THINK there's a problem with my file, since I never saw this until I upgraded my os, but I suppose I could be wrong.

I'm not a Mac user so I'm not sure how it all works, but that looks like a GPU driver issue to me. Most times (on Windows) when I experience weird viewport bugs like this, updating the GPU driver fixes it for me. But yeah, idk; if you just updated OS then the drivers should be up to date as well. Maybe see if you can force it to update to the latest version or maybe manually downgrade to the last driver version if you are up to date and see if that fixes it. Then you can at least know where the issue lies.