text:
How to remove backface reflections in transparent EEVEE object?
I am trying to make a glass "shell" in EEVEE for an object that is inside. In this example, I place Suzanne with an emission shader inside a should be transparent glass icosphere, which also has some roughness bump texture on it for clarity (shown later).

However, as you can see, some weird backface conflicts show up. I have enabled "show backface" in the material settings, without which the monkey cannot be seen at all. Now, I am aware of the trick to mix geometry and light path nodes in, and the result is shown below.

At the first glance, this is precisely what I needed. But when analyzed up close, it can be seen that the faces that I am observing are actually in the back:

What I would like instead, is to see the bumpy glass texture in the front and dark glass texture in the back. Answering the question "why?": because I would like to make a spin animation, and during this spin, it can be seen that the monkey is spinning in one direction, and the sphere is seemingly spinning in the other because you can only see the backfaces, not the front ones.
In a nutshell: How do I make a glass shell that is semi-transparent and bumpy in the front, and opaque-black in the back?

'backfacing' means the other side of the face, not facing away from the camera.

Try using this as your "glass" shader for the IcoSphere:

aside: that's an interesting theme you're using.  Your own?

Ya. Custom since 2.8 - lemon lime, baby.


text:
Curve modifier altering wrongly mesh
I've been using the curve modifier without problem until now. My problem is I'm trying to curve a mesh, it does curve but keep joining/connecting outside faces.
Instead of having a circle hollowed in the middle, I get a circle with flat faces covering the place normally hollowed. And simply using boolean to make hole doesn't work, because those flat faces are supposed to be on the outside of the mesh that I try to bent. So deleting/cutting them makes big holes and deformation to my mesh.
Picture on the left is the mesh, on the right what I get after curving with bezier circle. (front and top view)
Here are my files:

pls provide blend file so we can check it out

@Chris I've added them :)

thanks for the blend file. i added an answer.

The main reason for that is the bad topology of that object. As you can see it has too less vertical loop cuts so that it can bend.

Here an example: I took a default cube without any subdivisions, made it a bit flatter and tried to curve it:
It works only, if you have enough subdivision on that axis, on which you want to bend it:

Nice illustration :)

Thank you ‼❣

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to use Solidify
I'm beginer for using blender. I would like to apply the function solidify to the following object but unfortunatly the surface is not very flat. Is someone can help me ? Kind Regards. Eric

Perhaps expand this Q. to illustrate/explain your desired result.

I created a sphere shape that I cut in half (point by point...I imagine there's something simpler...?). I now want to fill the half sphere to obtain a perfectly flat solid shape (not hollow).

Thank you so much Aswin. I will try this evening ;-) Sincerely yours !

It seems to me all you want is to close the hole by adding a face? https://i.imgur.com/5IMHGvG.gif Or do you want to do it procedurally for some reason?

if you're talking about filling in the hollow part of the sphere, you don't need solidify, coz what solidify does is, it adds thickness, it doesn't fill it up.
What you need to do is,

Go to edit mode by selecting the object and pressing Tab
Then go into the edge mode by pressing "2" above alphabets
Then select the outmost loop, by left-clicking on it while holding alt

Then press the "F" key and fill it in

L'animation est top ! MERCI ! Malheureusement les paramètres de mon blender ne doivent pas être bons. En effet, le mode opératoire fonctionne parfaitement mais l'angle de la boucle la plus extrême est arrondi et n'est pas saillant comme sur votre animation. Et de plus la surface se remplie en montant légèrement vers le centre alors que sur votre animation la surface est bien plate......;-(

J'ai trouvé ! ;-) J'utilisais au préalable la fonction subdivision mon objet ! Sans cette fonction le résultat est parfait mais mon objet n'est pas lissé ;-( Un grand merci !

Votre surface dés le départ est lisse. Comment faites vous cela Aswin ? MERCI

Sorry for the late reply Eric, but yes, all you have to do is, in object mode, select your object --> right click on it --> select "Shade Smooth".

If it's too much smooth you also need to enable "Auto-smooth" option. It can be found in your Properties panel (Right Bottom side panel) --> Object Data Properties (Green upside down triangle icon) --> Normals --> Autosmooth (Check/Tick the box)

Or you could add a Bevel Modifier first, use a low bevel amount, and maybe 3 segments. You can find these options in the Bevel modifier, after you add it. Then add a subdivision surface modifier to your object. It should look good

Bonjour Aswin. Ne soyez pas désolé c'est déjà super super sympa de m'aider !!!! ;-) J'ai applique le Shade Smooth. Effectivement visuellement sur blender c'est lisse comme sur votre animation ;-), mais quand j'exporte le fichier en stl et que je visualise l'objet dans slicerforfusion 360 il y a toujours les faces et les arrêtes.....Une idée ? Par ailleurs pouvez vous me dire comment mettre une image dans mon commentaire dans ce forum ? Ainsi je vous montrerais la forme obtenue dans slicerforfusion360. Très bonne journée. Eric

I thought you were trying to render something in Blender, Eric. So the thing with shade smooth - Autosmooth method is that, it's just for blender visualization purposes only.
Meaning, you can see it in blender, but when you export it out of blender, and load it into another software, like fusion360, you won't see it there.
For that, you'll have to use the 2nd method, the one with bevel modifier and subdivision surface modifier. After you apply those and then export out of blender, you should have what you were looking for in the first place.

Un grand merci Aswin. Je vais tester ce soir. Très bonne soirée.

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How to set a constant color to an object
I am trying to make an object that renders in a constant solid color, independent on lighting or shadows. I tried setting the object surface as Emission with strenght=1. The result depends on blender version, tried in  v3.6 and v4.2 and got different results, neither looked like I expected.

For example with color set to #FF0000 this is what I got in both blender versions and the result I expect to see when rendering. (Expected image made with inkscape)

is there a way to achieve the expected color? v3.6 seems like a darker version of the same color, but v4.2 seems to be messing up the colours to make it "whiter"?
EDIT: I've just realized in v3.6 i was using strength=3, and incrementing strength will reach a similiar color and then start to look whiter, but anyways I would prefer to set a color and know it will be that exact color I set and not having to play arround with strenght value. This does not work in v4.2.

In Scene settings, Color Management, View Transform: choose “Standard”. Works for me.

is there a way to change the "view transform" in only one object? Supose I have this cube i want to render all in a single color but all the other objects keep the "filmic" view transform style.


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How to fix flashing in render?
I am new to Blender, so I tried using a template to make an intro.
When I watch it in Default mode, there is no flashing in the video. When I render it, suddenly there appears an ennoying flash during the video.
What do I need to change to fix this?
I've uploaded the render here: https://youtu.be/Yts1L_WwUdo
I've also included the .blend file here:

Hard to tell, are there overlapping objects?

I don't think so, to be sure I've added the .blend file in the question.

My initial guess is that your composition is over using the Alpha Over and this can cause some normalization issues to be seem like flickering. I will need to dig deeper trying to find alternative ways.


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How can I get a live camera feed from another scene as an image texture? (If possible)
Recently I have been figuring out ways to do virtual production with blender, and I've already got live camera tracking set up. I have the virtual world in one scene and a plane in the other. Both cameras in both scenes have linked data, so they have the same location and rotation. To make the parallax correct on my projector, I need to UV project the camera view from the active camera onto the plane in the second scene. From there, I go into the side view and put that onto the screen. Everything works perfectly, but I just can't figure out how to get the live camera view as an image texture. Because of that, I can't move the location of the camera during a shot because I could only figure out how to use the render result as a texture. Does anyone know if it is possible to use a viewport camera feed like this? If so, how can I do it?
(The purpose of this question is not just as a render, it is for real-time virtual production)

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/48132/how-can-i-view-the-camera-through-an-object-as-a-material-in-cycles https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/112586/how-to-make-working-security-cameras https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/111632/workflow-for-multi-subject-multi-angle-compositions/  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/111632/workflow-for-multi-subject-multi-angle-compositions/

I can't render an image sequence and use that for the texture because the camera location is constantly changing. It's a tracked handheld camera.

It's not possible to do that in Blender


text:
How do I convert a 2D vector into 3D?
I have a 2D mathutils vector and I want to convert it to 3D, I know there is a method called resize3D() that does this, but it output an error "Vector Object doesn't have any attribute 'resize()'". I could manually construct a 3D vector from the components of this 2D one but is slower.
import mathutils

vector = mathutils.Vector((1,2))
vector.resize3D()

So what am I doing wrong here?

If you want it to lay flat on the ground (z=0), you can simply add a 3rd value: vector = mathutils.Vector((1,2,0))

@TLousky The above example is just for demonstration, Blender gave me a 2d vector, I didn't create one, So I need to convert that 2D vector blender gave me to 3D where (z = 0).

EDITED:
Did find a quicker, easier way after all:
v2d = Vector((1,2))
v3d = v2d.to_3d()

Or if you do prefer to do it in place, rather than assign to a new variable (you were very close in your original attempts):
v = Vector((1,2))
v.resize_3d()

>>> v
Vector((1.0, 2.0, 0.0)) # Has been converted in place to 3D

Old method:
Generate a new 3D vector from your 2D one:
from mathutils import Vector
2dVec = Vector((1,2))

3dVec = Vector((2dVec.x, 2dVec.y, 0))

If you have a whole list of 2d vecs, you can simply use a list comprehension to convert 'em all:
3dVecs = [ Vector((2dVec.x, 2dVec.y, 0)) for 2dVec in 2dVecs ]

But as I stated, this method is slower. Will accept this as an answer if nobody provided a better way.

OK found a simpler solution, see revised answer.

Thanks, they should really update the documentation when they change the API.

Docs are up to date, perhaps you looked in an older version of the docs?
https://docs.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_current/mathutils.html#mathutils.Vector

Looks like it, why are those docs still up anyway?

Because people sometimes prefer to use older versions of Blender for compatibility issues (custom code, etc) - and they still need the correct documentation. It's always a good habit to check docs in the latest version if you're using it and just be aware of differences.

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


text:
Put lattice deform operation in a custom menu
I created a menu class and now filling the menu with operations,But when I tried to use the lattice deform operation it didn't show up,
Here is the script I used:
layout.operator("object.parent_set(type='LATTICE')")

But as I said,it never show up in the menu,while other operations appear normally.

To pass arguments to operators via the layout.
op = layout.operator("object.parent_set")
op.type = 'LATTICE'

can also use
layout.operator("blah.blah").prop = value

I prefer the former stylewise.

What language is this? Is it Python or Opengl?

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


text:
Save image in video clip editor?
I have a video in the video clip editor,and I want to save the current frame as a photo om my computer,is there is any fast way to save an image directly from the video clip editor?

But this is just a screen capture not saving a frame from the video


text:
Is it possible to have coordinate system with 3D cursor as origin?
I would like to do some precise vertex positionning with regard to the 3D cursor, eg put a vertex at coordinate (0.1,0.1,0.1) from 3D cursor (which I can position very easily to a convenient position). Is that possible? I am not talking about the local coordinate system, which takes the object's origin as origin.

You could snap it to the 3D cursor, then move it the desired amount.

That's a way to do it, but what if I want to have the coordinate of the point, just the coordinate?

The coordinates of the 3D cursor?

No, the coordinate of the point relative to the 3D cursor. For example, I put the 3D cursor at same spot as a vertex, and I want to have the coordinate of another point relative to that point...

Xavier, you can position a selection at a set of coordinates in the edit menu by using the 3D cursor location on the Properties menu N.
You can then move a selected point to the cursor location using the Snap menu Shift+S and selecting "Selection to Cursor"
This positions the selection using the global coordinate system.

You can also enter the coordinates of the active vertex directly using that same menu.

Beneath the coordinates, you  specify weather the location is in local or global coordinates.
You could then combine that with the cursor location.

That's what I'm doing right now, but it can be quite tiresome to copy/paste the cursor coordinates fir every point, it would be so much simpler to have the coordinates in 3Dcursor coordinate system...

Another solution that could do what I want (but with too many operations) is to place the 3D cursor, change the origin of the model, and then use the local coordinates. What I would like is to have the same, without having to move the origin.

Is there another program generating the coordinates?

No, but my mind is kind of wired to work that way. I use some softwares in my job that use the same kind of system, only in 2D instead of 3D. It can really accelrate thing to make preise move when you do all in relative coordinates...

Are you trying to enter coordinates for vertices as you create them, like inputing coordinates for a polyline in AutoCAD?

kind of, what I usually do is make a rough design and then adjust the vertices precisely.


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Prop Search Armature Bones
I want to add a prop search to my addon which allows me to search and select bones of a selected armature in the scene.
But I dont know the path where to find the bones of the armature. I want to have it like in the constraints panel where you can choose an armature target and a bone target.
I have created something like this:
import bpy

#
#CREATE ArFi LAYOUT START
#

class armatureFind(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_space_type="VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type="TOOLS"
    bl_label="Armature Find"
    bl_category="ArFi"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        box = layout.box()

        box.prop(bpy.context.scene.objects, "active", text="Armature") #Problem1
        box.prop(bpy.data.armatures, "rna_type", text="Bone 1", icon="VIEWZOOM") #Problem2
        box.prop(bpy.data.armatures, "rna_type", text="Bone 2", icon="VIEWZOOM") #Problem3

#REGISTER CLASSES

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_moduel(__name__)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

You can achieve this with two dynamic enum properties if you are fine with selecting an armature and a bone. If you want to select an armature object, things become more complicated. Below code updates the list of armature objects as the first enum property is changed - which is really ugly. Another way would be to place a button for the user to update the collection:
import bpy

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "object"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        sce = context.scene

        col = layout.column()
        col.prop(sce, "arma")
        col.prop(sce, "bone")

        col.prop_search(sce, "arma_name", bpy.data, "armatures")
        arma = bpy.data.armatures.get(sce.arma_name)
        if arma is not None:
            col.prop_search(sce, "bone_name", arma, "bones")

        col.prop_search(sce, "arma_name", sce, "arma_coll", icon='OBJECT_DATA')

def arma_items(self, context):
    obs = []
    for ob in context.scene.objects:
        if ob.type == 'ARMATURE':
            obs.append((ob.name, ob.name, ""))
    return obs

def arma_upd(self, context):
    self.arma_coll.clear()
    for ob in context.scene.objects:
        if ob.type == 'ARMATURE':
            item = self.arma_coll.add()
            item.name = ob.name

def bone_items(self, context):
    arma = context.scene.objects.get(self.arma)
    if arma is None:
        return
    return [(bone.name, bone.name, "") for bone in arma.data.bones]

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(HelloWorldPanel)
    bpy.types.Scene.arma = bpy.props.EnumProperty(items=arma_items, update=arma_upd)
    bpy.types.Scene.bone = bpy.props.EnumProperty(items=bone_items)
    bpy.types.Scene.arma_coll = bpy.props.CollectionProperty(type=bpy.types.PropertyGroup)
    bpy.types.Scene.arma_name = bpy.props.StringProperty()
    bpy.types.Scene.bone_name = bpy.props.StringProperty()

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(HelloWorldPanel)
    del bpy.types.Scene.arma
    del bpy.types.Scene.bone
    del bpy.types.Scene.arma_name
    del bpy.types.Scene.bone_name
    del bpy.types.Scene.arma_coll

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


text:
Creating image of Solar System, with intersecting orbits that need to be accurately rotated. I am new to Blender
I have 2d images for the orbits and nodes (lines if intersection) as separate planes. I need to import the images and then put each orbit (plane) intersecting at the correct angle at a specific position.
For example: two planet orbits and a nodal axis (3 image planes). The orbits are set but need to be inclined on the nodal axis (Arrow head and tail).

hello, do you have some images? it may help to understand

“2D images for the orbits as separate planes” does not clearly identify what data is in the images. Are they cross-sections of the orbit on the Z axis? Overhead shots of the planet’s in timelapse? More precision, please.

Hello and welcome. Asking for links to resources about X is considered off topic here, asking directly about X is encouraged though. If you can rephrase your question to focus on the specific difficulties you are encountering, rather that point you to some site, please [edit] your post so it can be reopened. As it stands it is not a good fit for this site.


text:
How to enlarge an object( /mesh) according to its distance from the camera?
I don't know what this feature is called in general, but my goal is to have blender dynamically expand the mesh depending on the distance from the camera.
This is a technique frequently used in Japanese anime and manga, and it allows for dynamic expression.
I know of a method that uses Lattice, but this is not very accurate and breaks down a lot when the camera is moved, so I would like to know of a more procedural method.
I thought about using a geometry node to expand the mesh directly based on the distance from the camera, but this was not feasible to my knowledge. I would like to know if there is any possible way other than this approach.
English is not my first language. I would be happy if I could get the message across. Thank you.
(option)
VRM4U, which is plug-in for Unreal engine, have this function. This image of nodes is the author’s method of this function.

(image from https://qiita.com/ruyo/items/2c11352ab6cf4fd5b551)

What would you like to be the center of scaling?  The camera, the object origin, something else?  If unsure, a video of the effect would probably make it clear enough.

I would like to set the camera as the center of scaling.

@imjustaleaf Could you also tell us which answer led to the solution, and if it's one of the ones below, also mark it as "Accepted Answer"? That would be very helpful for others and the question would show up as solved. Thanks!

didn't try Nathan's setup but here is my attempt at it... hope it adds something

Thanks! I finally got the result I have wanted !

To scale the geometry about the camera, by a factor modulated by distance from the camera:

This can be understood as shifting our coordinate system.  We move the coordinate center onto the camera, multiply our positions by a scalar, then move the object back to where it was.
Here, the scalar is a function of distance from camera-- which is just distance from the origin in our new coordinate system.  This uses a map range so that at a distance of 1 unit, the object will scale 1.0x, and at a distance of 10 units, the object will scale 4.15x.
Note that the scaling isn't actually by object-object proximity, but by vertex-object proximity, so meshes are actually deforming slightly, not just transforming.  Not that you'll be able to see that, looking through your camera, not directly.

Thanks! I finally got the result I have wanted !


text:
Simple Rigging/Armature - not separating
I'm quite new to Blender
I'm trying to make a very simple rigged item - a box with a "lid." I'd like the box lid to open and close.
However, whenever I rig it all, the lid seems to get stuck to the other side. I've split and separated each lid into its own object.. so I'm not sure what's going on.
Can anyone help explain this to me? It's like the center of the two box lids is sealed together.

here's a link to the blend file:
Box Blend File

can u provide blend file?

how did you parent the box to the armature? as Chris says, please share the file, it will help to understand your problem: https://pasteall.org/blend/

Added the blend file

The way you've done it in the blend file you provided works just fine, but it is possible to do it much more simply with a single object and armature.

i updated my answer

Thanks. Yes I get the same result in Object mode... but when I go to Pose mode, that's when I get the twisting. Should it work properly in pose mode too?

of course. but it is best to press R X so it rotates "clean" or you lock y and z axis for rotation

If you want to understand why your rig wasn't working, take a look at my answer, which explains it.  Note that the way in Chris' answer works for very simple situations like yours, but bone parenting rather than using vertex groups is very limited and you should learn how to use vertex groups.

The reason you're getting the apparent twisting is that you haven't properly parented the armatures to the two lids.  I'll discuss Armature and Cube.001, but the same thing applies to either.
If you select Cube.001 in object mode and then go into weight paint mode you'll see something like this:

This is telling you that if you zero weight on the inside seam of the cube, meaning that Bone will not move that part of the cube.  You can (and should) learn about weight painting, but for this simple example, here's a different technique:

Take the cube to edit mode.
Select all vertices.
Select Bone in Properties -> Object Data Properties.
Make sure Weight is set to 1.
Hit assign.

Now when you take Armature into pose mode and rotate it on X, it will work fine.
You can do the same thing for Armature.002 and Cube.002 and your box lid will work the way you intended.
Then you can work out how to merge the two armatures and have a simple lid with a simple armature.

This worked perfectly, thank you. I had done the Properties > Bone > assign thing but I hadn't selected all vertices. I believe I had only selected the face.

@Brant I suspect you had selected an edge rather than the face, probably the one you used to position the 3D cursor before you added (or moved) the bone into place.  A face would have gotten you all four vertices, usually.

An alternative to Chris' solution would be to merge the box objects in one object and also merge the armatures in one armature (change the bone names to right and left, also create a third bone, root bone, that will be the parent of right and left), then parent the box to the armature With Empty Groups, which will create empty vertex groups in the objects, that will have the same name as the bones of the armature:

Then switch the box to Edit mode, select the left lid and assign it to the group called left so that it is controlled by the left bone (also assign the right lid to the vertex group called right and the rest of the mesh to the root vertex group):

If you do this, and it is a good approach, it would also be useful to add a root bone, parent the two lid bones to it, and assign all of the non-lid vertices to the root bone, so that you can keep the box structure intact while moving the whole box.

sure, I didn't want to go into much details

The main reason I was using separate objects for each piece was because I am importing the whole thing into Roblox and that seemed to be how to have them come over as separate pieces over there (Which is what I wanted).  Thank you for the alternative though -- I have a lot to learn with blender.

UPDATE:
parent it like this:
select your plane
Shift-select your bone
Press CTRL-P and choose bone

i would recommend to lock the axis like this:

repaired file:

i would do it this way:
create a default cube, half size y, and move it like this (z = 0):

add an armature:

select the cube, shift-select the armature:

CTRL - P -> Bone

now select cube and armature in object mode:

Shift - D (press Return)
select both armatures: CTRL - J
now select armature
switch to Pose mode
R Z 180

check: in front

you can now select a bone and e.g. press R X

one step further, if you want to move both together:
Add an empty:

add this bone constraint to the left bone:

add this bone constraint to the right bone:

then by just moving the empty you will get:


text:
Colors not being showed on separated objects
I am trying to make this house front elevation and separated the objects which need granite texture and got them in a separate collection. But I am not able to apply the texture can somebody help me out. Here are the reference picture and the .blend file. Blender File
Reference photo
Here is a reference to my problem.
If you can pls send me the working model with colors within my design or completely your own. Pls, help me.

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

First thing your object has a bad topology with overlapping faces, you need to completely redo it correctly

Do you think there is no way to do it without redoing it? i need it really fast.

what about selecting your object, TAB, A, then choose your granite material, then tap assign -> is that what you want?

But how do I do it? if you can pls help me out.


text:
Hair Particle Creates Spikes Instead of Hair in Cycles Blender 3.0
I am using Blender 3.0, I need help to fix my problem. It happen when I add hair particle system to a plane and it is creates a spikes/cones instead of hairs.

I am using CPU for rendering
My device CPU is Ryzen 3 8 threads
Windows 11 Pro Operating System 64bit
GPU Radeon RX 570

It would be helpful if your screenshot showed more of the hair settings, especially the settings for Hair Shape.

Make sure you apply the plane's scale, with Ctrl + A Apply > Scale


text:
Best approach for modeling two interlocked cylinders with different number of vertices (for 3D Printing)?
I'm an absolute noob to 3D modeling but that seemed handy since I bought a 3D printer.
I followed a bunch of tutorials already and started my first project: what seemed to be a very simple cylinder for my son's marble run.

the very low resolution of the print is because I found out that making it too round required too much tinkering to get the size absolutely perfect whereas not round fit perfectly.
So it works BUT I'm not happy with the results and would love to stick to that project until I am so I'm sure to have learned a lot. (this is where I need you)
Here are the 3 different approaches that I can imagine:

Subtract: My first approach was to use cylinders to subtract one to another until I got to this shape but never got the dimensions right
Extrude: Then I tried one (no cap) cylinder + tried to extrude the top narrower part (but failed once again to get the dimensions right)
Spin: Finally, using vertices I created the edge exactly where I wanted with the right dimensions: spin + solidify + some beveling on the inside (that's the result you're seeing)

What do you think would be the best approach? knowing that I'd be entirely satisfied only if I manage to keep the top part at the same resolution and the bottom part rounder.

Hello and welcome. Please use a title that reflects the content of the question. It should be succinct, unique and identifying, and summarize what the issue is so that users can at a glance broadly understand what your post is about before opening it. Use the [edit] link below your post and avoid any emojis salutations or extraneous text not essential to the question. Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors will see, and will weight heavily on their decision to open your question, which will directly affect the number of answers you might get.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos thanks for editing the title, I tried after reading your comment but couldn't come up with something descriptive enough. I guess "bottle" is close enough :)

Inspired by Nathan's answer! this is my take on my own request:

Add > Mesh > Circle (vertices: 12 for the top low-res cylinder, radius 12mm for my project)
Edit Mode (Tab), Extrude (E), (z) to follow the z axis, move z=7mm

Add > Circle (vertices: 60 for a much rounder cylinder and is a multiple of 12 our number of vertices in the first circle, radius 13.5mm for my project)
loop select both circles - with edge-select activated, ALT + Click on the first one, SHIFT + ALT + Click on the second one. ALT + F (Faces) to fill the gap between the two (the 'bridge edge loop' method gave me different and unsatisfying results for the next step)

loop select the outer rim, Extrude (E) following Z (z). Move z=34mmm (for my project)

back to "object mode" (Tab), select the object, add Modifier > Solidify
Thickness = -1.6mm, check 'even thickness', Apply

Because it's for 3d printing, it helps not to have a surface that is not supported by anything so it requires a little of beveling on the inside: select one by one the 12 edges (not sure why loop select doesn't work here...) and CTRL+B to bevel. width=2mm

Voila! (printed and it worked)

Thanks a lot for the answers, I learned a lot!
Still not clear for me:

difference of results between "bridge edge loop" and "faces"
why I wasn't able to loop select the edge inside my object
why both beveling thickness and offset are negative

knowing that I'd be entirely satisfied only if I manage to keep the top part at the same resolution and the bottom part rounder.

The roundness is primarily a function of how many vertices you have.  To make it more round, you need more vertices.  I'll provide organized steps I'd take, usually along with how I access the operations:

Make the top part.  Add circle with 16 verts, then enter edit mode (TAB); F face; I inset; E extrude; X -> dissolve face.  Inset and extrude to eye or whatever references you have, need to move mouse then confirm:

Loop select the outer rim, SHIFT+D duplicate, move in global Z to eye or reference (G Z if orientation set to global, move mouse, confirm.)  Subdivide selection (for me, W vertex specials->S subdivide.)  SHIFT+S snap cursor to selection.  . to set pivot to cursor.  "To sphere" operation (from searchbar, SPACE for me) at 1 strength.  SHIFT+select the other loop, "bridge edge loops" operation (from searchbar):

Loop select the bottom vertices and F face.  Leave edit mode and give it a solidify modifier.  Tune the thickness of the solidify modifier to eye or reference:

Optionally, or depending on exporting/printing software, apply the solidify modifier.  Optionally, or depending, triangulate the mesh (probably via select all, ctrl t in edit.)
This isn't necessarily how I'd do it for other applications, but topology/normals don't really matter for 3D printing.  You can increase the roundness of the bottom part by using more subdivisions during that step (from operator panel, or just by subdividing multiple times in a row.)

wow, thank you for the very detailed answer. I followed your instructions and it worked, I now have to fully understand each step (still confused by the cursor changes and 'to sphere')
Thank you again!

Here is how I would produce this shape.
Start with a cylinder and remove the top face.  (Make it hollow)

Select the top loop and E Extrude + S Scale.

And then Extrude upwards.

Now use a Solidify modifier with the Even Thickness option selected.  This will maintain thickness on the inside corners.

If you need it to be rounder, you can Crease all of the round loops and use a Subdivision Surface modifier.


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Realizing Instances in Geometry nodes changes normals- how to repair?
My goal is to create an object using instances in Geometry Nodes so that I can create a lowpoly object and rip normals, etc from the GN object.
I've created a simple test setup where I'm simply distributing points on faces and then instancing on those points. I'm instancing an unwrapped mesh with a normal map.  I then realize the instances because I need to do that in order to shrinkwrap to them (for lowpoly) as well as rip normals and other information.

I've read the forums and figured out that the lost uv's can be accessed via an attribute node in the shader, so I've figured out that issue.
The latest thing is that realizing instances seems to mess with the normal information somehow.  I can't tell exactly what is happening, but the normals are showing the wrong information.

I've tried flipping faces in GN, which doesn't solve the problem.  I've tried inverting the green channel in the shader by subtracting 1, but that doesn't work either.  Although my knowledge here is spotty, so I could definitely be doing something wrong.
I'm wondering two things: Why is this happening, and is there a workaround?  Also, can others replicate this behavior? I wonder if I can use capture attribute or transfer attribute to take the original normals and reapply them somehow.  Any ideas?  Thanks so much!

How are you capturing your normals?

Robin, thanks for your reply.  I'm a little confused by the question.  Do you mean in GN?  I'm not doing any capturing of normals in there right now because I don't really know how to do it.  BTW, I liked your answer to the question about how to create stylized leaves with GN..

I should have been clearer.. how are you 'accessing the UV's', exactly? I have some questions about that part, on my own account.

@Robin Betts just by looking at the name of the uv attribute in the spreadsheet and then putting that attribute name into an attribute node in the shader editor and hooking it up the vector slot of the images that need uv's.  I just saw a question on here that related to that. https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/250690/geometry-nodes-instance-grid-with-material-parameters-for-specific-instances/250694#250694

If my problem has anything to do with yours, it's that I haven't managed to stash UV coordinates on instance Face Corners. Only on Points. So the interpolation screws everything up over UV seams. Splitting Edges cleans up the map, but, of course, would destroy your smooth normals?,.. maybe not, if you're just transferring the colors from a normal map. I may be wrong, I find it  hard to reverse-engineer this stuff. Can you come up with a baby case, to share as a file with packed / associated Normal maps?


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Texture painting - "Soften" brush doesn't work as expected in the Viewport
I can texture paint in Blender just fine, but the "soften" brush doesn't work as expected in the Viewport, it just blurs the color in an extremely subtle way. Meanwhile, when I use the "soften" brush in the UV editor, it blurs out the color nicely.
I've looked into this a little bit, and apparently there's a setting that is exclusive to the UV editor called "kernel radius", under Advanced brush settings. It's set to "2" in the UV editor, and reducing the radius to "1" produces a similar effect to the Viewport version of the "soften" brush, which is very subtle.
Phew, I hope that made sense. Since there's no option to increase "kernel radius" in the Viewport, I'm wondering how I can make the "soften" brush actually soften/blur the color out efficiently, without having to paint on the UV editor without X mirror. Thanks in advance!

Would you mind share your screenshot with UV and model so we can see the clear picture.

@TergTurry Sure, I just added it! Left side is smoothed out nicely using the UV editor, right side is smoothed out using the Viewport. The issue isn't the very inner portion of the mouth, (There are no faces there so its normal that there are artifacts there on the Viewport), the issue is the whole right side. As you can see the right bottom lip is still patchy, while the left bottom lip has evened out, for example.

As I know we only have 2 options.

Zoom out and paint. When zoom out you will get stronger effect.

Paint after zoom in (Left) and zoom out (Right)

Decrease Spacing or switch Stroke Mothod to Dot

Compare Spacing 1% (Left) and zoom out (Right)

Change Blur Mode from Gaussian to Box might also help.

Zooming out gave me the result I wanted. Thanks a lot!

@def you can accept the answer and mark it with a checkmark to show future readers that it's a correct answer and solved the problem.


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Are Custom Python Geometry Nodes Possible? 3.0.1
Right now, I have a little template that makes it pretty easy to make custom shader and compositor nodes, but it does not work with geometry nodes. The error happens when I register the custom geometry node class with bpy.utils.register_class and the python error says TypeError: expected Node, GeoNodeTest class "poll" attribute to be a static/class method, not a bpy_func I'm not sure how to interpret this. Is it saying that the parameter for bpy.utils.register_class expects a "Node" ?
Here's the template that helps create a node:
# Helps create a node and set up its io
class NodeHelper():
    def __path_resolve__(self, obj, path):
        if "." in path:
            extrapath, path= path.rsplit(".", 1)
            obj = obj.path_resolve(extrapath)
        return obj, path

    def value_set(self, obj, path, val):
        obj, path=self.__path_resolve__(obj, path)
        setattr(obj, path, val)

    def addNodes(self, nodes):
        for nodeitem in nodes:
            node=self.node_tree.nodes.new(nodeitem[0])
            for attr in nodeitem[1]:
                self.value_set(node, attr, nodeitem[1][attr])

    def addLinks(self, links):
        for link in links:
            if isinstance(link[0], str):
                if link[0].startswith('inputs'):
                    socketFrom=self.node_tree.path_resolve('nodes["Group Input"].outputs' + link[0][link[0].rindex('['):])
                else:
                    socketFrom=self.node_tree.path_resolve(link[0])
            else:
                socketFrom=link[0]
            if isinstance(link[1], str):
                if link[1].startswith('outputs'):
                    socketTo=self.node_tree.path_resolve('nodes["Group Output"].inputs' + link[1][link[1].rindex('['):])
                else:
                    socketTo=self.node_tree.path_resolve(link[1])
            else:
                socketTo=link[1]
            self.node_tree.links.new(socketFrom, socketTo)

    def addInputs(self, inputs):
        for inputitem in inputs:
            name = inputitem[1].pop('name')
            socketInterface=self.node_tree.inputs.new(inputitem[0], name)
            socket=self.path_resolve(socketInterface.path_from_id())
            for attr in inputitem[1]:
                if attr in ['default_value', 'hide', 'hide_value', 'enabled']:
                    self.value_set(socket, attr, inputitem[1][attr])
                else:
                    self.value_set(socketInterface, attr, inputitem[1][attr])

    def addOutputs(self, outputs):
        for outputitem in outputs:
            name = outputitem[1].pop('name')
            socketInterface=self.node_tree.outputs.new(outputitem[0], name)
            socket=self.path_resolve(socketInterface.path_from_id())
            for attr in outputitem[1]:
                if attr in ['default_value', 'hide', 'hide_value', 'enabled']:
                    self.value_set(socket, attr, outputitem[1][attr])
                else:
                    self.value_set(socketInterface, attr, outputitem[1][attr])

And here's me using it to make a simple shader node and attempt to do the same thing with a geometry node:
import bpy
# Basic node that makes a color from 3 floats and multiplies the result with some value
class TestShaderNode(bpy.types.ShaderNodeCustomGroup, NodeHelper):

    bl_name='TestShaderNode'
    bl_label='Make Color'
    bl_description = "Testing node with shared nodetree"

    def _set_node_tree(self):
        nt_name= '.' + self.bl_name + '_nodetree'
        if bpy.data.node_groups.find(nt_name)>-1:
            self.node_tree=bpy.data.node_groups[nt_name]
        else:
            self.node_tree=bpy.data.node_groups.new(nt_name, 'ShaderNodeTree')

            # Add the nodes to be used in this node
            self.addNodes([
            ('NodeGroupInput', {'name':'Group Input'}),
            ('NodeGroupOutput', {'name':'Group Output'}),
            ('ShaderNodeMixRGB', {'name':'MultRGB', 'blend_type':'MULTIPLY'}),
            ('ShaderNodeCombineXYZ', {'name':'CombineXYZ'})
            ])

            # Add node inputs
            self.addInputs([('NodeSocketFloat', {'name':'Red', 'default_value':0.0, 'min_value':0.0, 'max_value':1.0}),])
            self.addInputs([('NodeSocketFloat', {'name':'Green', 'default_value':0.0, 'min_value':0.0, 'max_value':1.0}),])
            self.addInputs([('NodeSocketFloat', {'name':'Blue', 'default_value':0.0, 'min_value':0.0, 'max_value':1.0}),])
            self.addInputs([('NodeSocketFloat', {'name':'Strength', 'default_value':1.0, 'min_value':0.0, 'max_value':100.0}),])

            # Add node Outputs
            self.addOutputs([('NodeSocketColor', {'name':'Color out'})])

            # link inputs and outputs
            self.addLinks([('inputs[0]', 'nodes["CombineXYZ"].inputs[0]')]) # Red input to CombineXYZ input 0
            self.addLinks([('inputs[1]', 'nodes["CombineXYZ"].inputs[1]')]) # Green input to CombineXYZ input 1
            self.addLinks([('inputs[2]', 'nodes["CombineXYZ"].inputs[2]')]) # Blue input to CombineXYZ input 2
            self.addLinks([('nodes["CombineXYZ"].outputs[0]', 'nodes["MultRGB"].inputs[1]')]) # CombineXYZ output (vector) to MixRGB(multiply) input 1
            self.addLinks([('inputs[3]', 'nodes["MultRGB"].inputs[2]')]) # Strength input to MixRGB(multiply) input 2

            self.addLinks([('nodes["MultRGB"].outputs[0]', 'outputs[0]')]) # MixRGB output to our node's output

    def init(self, context):
        self._set_node_tree()

    def copy(self, node):
        if not node.node_tree:
            self._new_node_tree()

    def free(self):
        nt = self.node_tree
        if (nt.users <= 1):
            bpy.data.node_groups.remove(nt, do_unlink=True)

# Test geometry node
class GeoNodeTest(bpy.types.GeometryNodeCustomGroup, NodeHelper):

    bl_name='GeoNodeTest'
    bl_label='New Geometry node!'
    bl_description = "Testing node with shared nodetree"

    def _set_node_tree(self):
        nt_name= '.' + self.bl_name + '_nodetree'
        if bpy.data.node_groups.find(nt_name)>-1:
            self.node_tree=bpy.data.node_groups[nt_name]
        else:
            self.node_tree=bpy.data.node_groups.new(nt_name, 'GeometryNodeTree')
            self.addNodes([('NodeGroupInput', {'name':'Group Input'}), ('NodeGroupOutput', {'name':'Group Output'})])

            self.addInputs([('NodeSocketFloat', {'name':'Value In', 'default_value':0.500}),])

            self.addOutputs([('NodeSocketFloat', {'name':'Value Out'})])

            self.addLinks([('inputs[0]', 'outputs[0]')])

    def init(self, context):
        self._set_node_tree()

    def copy(self, node):
        if not node.node_tree:
            self._new_node_tree()

    def free(self):
        nt = self.node_tree
        if (nt.users <= 1):
            bpy.data.node_groups.remove(nt, do_unlink=True)

from nodeitems_utils import NodeItem, register_node_categories, unregister_node_categories
from nodeitems_builtins import ShaderNodeCategory, GeometryNodeCategory

# Register the node classes
def register():

    # Register Shader nodes
    bpy.utils.register_class(TestShaderNode)

    # Register Geometry nodes
    #bpy.utils.register_class(GeoNodeTest)

    # Shader nodes
    shcat = [ShaderNodeCategory("SH_TESTING_NODES", "Testing Nodes Shader", items=[NodeItem("TestShaderNode")]),]

    # Geometry nodes
    geocat = [GeometryNodeCategory("GEO_TESTING_NODES", "Testing Nodes Geometry", items=[NodeItem("GeoNodeTest")]),]

    # Shader nodes
    register_node_categories("SH_TESTING_NODES", shcat)

    # Geometry nodes
    #register_node_categories("GEO_TESTING_NODES", geocat)

def unregister():
    unregister_node_categories("SH_TESTING_NODES")
    unregister_node_categories("GEO_TESTING_NODES")

    # Shader nodes
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(TestShaderNode)

    # Geometry nodes
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(GeoNodeTest)

try :
    unregister()
except:
    pass
register()

Honestly, I don't really understand the purpose of making nodes this way. It seems you can do the exact same thing with node groups in blender. There must be more to the process of custom nodes that I'm missing. I was hoping to be able to do all the math and stuff in code but it looks like you have to use the existing math node? Is there more than one way to do this?
I've been looking around for general answers about scripting custom nodes and there just isn't much out there currently so any good resources would be appreciated (blender docs helped but not as much as I'd hoped.) Also, what exactly are Pynodes? Is that what I'm creating with the script?
Thank you in advance :)


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Weight Paint destroys Design and unable to weight paint certain areas to all blue
So I tried to weight paint my character and it completely destroyed it and I can't reverse it because I ran out of undos..
Also, when I try to weight paint certain areas on my model, it doesn't let me weight paint specific areas at the bottom, but everywhere else I can weight paint which makes no sense.
Why am I unable to weight paint some areas, but other areas it works?
Below I target the leg, yet that neon blue green area above won't let me weight paint it to 0 or dark blue, however every other areas around the character it was working fine

For this one, it destroyed my mesh from weight painting and I can't recover it because I ran out of undos..
UPDATE:
So I made a new file with a basic draft of my character and now all of a sudden the body is gray and the arms weight paint works perfectly.
However, I am confused why is the body gray in my new file, yet in the first one the entire body is colored blue?

The body and the arms may be separated objects, that's why only the arms are in weight paint mode. Also, there are a lot of reasons why you can't paint a certain face in weight paint, it could be occluded by other areas, it could be inverted normals or something else, we can't tell without having more details about what you did.

well the first pic I had to join all my characters parts together, then added bones and  armature. Then that's when it started to deform. On the new character I haven't joined them yet, so that's why it is separate but eventually i will and dont want that same mistake to occur

hello please share your first version so that we can try: https://pasteall.org/blend/

@makerbaker You can only weight/texture/vertex paint one object at a time as far as I know, that's why you can't paint on the center cylinder on the last screenshot.


text:
Remove extra particles on side of object with weight paint not working properly?
So I am trying to add these pieces onto my cylinder shape donut object by using hair particles, then rendering the sprinkle piece as an object so it shows on my donut shape.
Project file here https://pasteall.org/blend/c0527c98b90947ad812ea810a7412eb1
So here is my problem, some pieces fall over the edge and I don't know how to get rid of them because after I cut some hair particles on particle mode, it doesn't allow me to edit it anymore.

So you can see all the hair particles are perfectly on top only. After I switched to particle mode and cut some loose hairs on the sides, the final image 4 above switches the UI to this and doesn't allow me to change the number of hairs or do any further editing.
So I don't know what else to do to get rid of these pieces on the side without restarting the entire process from scratch and guessing which areas to not weight paint

if you provide your blend file, i will have a look

@Chris how do i do that without sending the entire project? only the necessary files?

just make a copy of your original blend file, open the copy and delete every object which isn't necessary to reproduce your problem. Then upload to dropbox or whatever cloud service you want.

@Chris  https://pasteall.org/blend/c0527c98b90947ad812ea810a7412eb1 I added it here


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Object missing from collection after joining?
So I just joined my character together and it clearly shows on my 3d viewport + when I render an image it shows fine.
However, it literally doesn't show up on my collections tab so I have no idea what happened.
You can see I have it selected, yet nothing shows in my scene collection.
I have no idea how to make it show again???

Hover your mouse over the Outliner and press the Period (.) key on the numpad. That should expand the outliner and hilight your object.

I don't understand what you mean? it shows multiple options yet it's physically not showing under the collections

You really need to show an image of your whole screen (via the Window > Screenshot menu) and upload the Blend file so that we can see exactly what's going on. At the moment it appears that you have your object selected in the 3D view but the Camera is hilighted in the Outliner.

I added the full pic, but the camera wasn't selected or else it would've been blue. I only noticed my object disappeared after I tried to join them

Ok. The Collection icon is hilighted in the outliner and there appears to be at least one more entry out of view at the bottom of the outliner. What happens if you scroll it down with the mouse wheel?

oh it was hidden in the armature... is that good practice or should I drag it out?

No. Leave well alone now you've found it! :^)


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How to Make Simple Windows Repeat Around Rectangle Building Randomly Per Side?
Is it possible to make this type of building design without having to manually add and paste each window square on the building?

I want to create multiple types of this building and would be tedious to manually add each square then copy to the next building etc.
Is there an add on or method for making this repeating window without manually adding each one?
Note the only method I'm aware of is adding a ton of loop cuts like this
Is this the correct method for this type of design?

Update windows look like this using brick texture

Hi :). There was an almost identical question like a week ago. Try searching this site ;)

do you have a link to that question? because I only found ones about a detailed city or extruding windows, which isn't the same thing

Does this answer your question? Randomized colors on texture tiles?

only the random part, but I also want to make sure the correct method for actually making the windows as well because I'm not sure if adding a ton of loop cuts is correct or not

Here is the Brick texture, that I've assigned to specific faces:

Top and bottom faces have solid color, middle ones has a Brick texture.
This is a node setup for sharing one material between window section and solid section:

Walls material is in the node group.
How to: https://youtu.be/jGWatXzxHb4
You can use correct face attributes for quick resizing:

could you show the wireframe for making the actual windows? or is it just like I showed above with a ton of loop cuts? or that is just a literally texture that comes with blender that looks like windows?

Updated in the answer body. Brick texture looks like you need, if you adjust some values.

my top windows are cut off? How did you get yours to perfectly align with each other? I added my image in my question and I tried updating the numbers but they didn't match perfectly

Set offset to 0, and check other settings

okay I think I got that, but the only issue is unless I use black for the building, the brick texture section won't match my actual building color because that 3rd color option called mortar isn't the exact color of the principal bsdf. Did you manage to match the mortar color with the building using a different color besides black? even using the exact hex code it still is slightly darker

Updated the post

one issue I just realized why my windows aren't aligned is because when I increase the brick width, it moves along the z axis and not x??? why is that? basically width option makes my windows taller instead of wider

I had to cube project them from the uv tab to make them work along the correct axis


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Replace Image with Another Image While Maintaining Same Position On Object?
Is it possible to replace an image that is set on an object with another image in that exact same location and scale?
Basically, I have this picture on my wall of my room. I want to recreate the same room multiple times, except replace the image on the wall with another image while maintaining the same exact position and scale.
Can you do that in blender without having to manually import/add/scale an image?
This is what I mean where I have this object with the image. When I duplicate it, is there a way to replace that image (the rectangle outline) faster without having to readd/scale it to the same size every time.

you could open your 2 images (the former and the new one) into an image editor and make sure that they align perfectly, this way when you'll import the new one it will match

well right now I am adding the image to my room using image as planes addon, so is there an option where I can simply just add it again with the same scale?

if you select your first image as plane, open the Shader Editor, you'll see an Image Texture plugged into a Principled BSDF, you can just replace the image that is loaded in this Image Texture by the new one. If you've made sure, in an image editor, that these 2 images align perfectly, then the new one will replace the former one as you wish

so when I change the image on the image editor, it changes the previous room picture too since I just duplicated the room.

mmh not sure what you mean, when I was talking about an image editor I meant an app like Krita or Photoshop, sorry for not being clear. So in this editor, put the new image on a layer above the former one, move the new one so that it aligns with the former one, then save. In Blender open the image in the Image Texture of your Image as Plane and it should replace the former one and match perfectly

oh well in blender I'm making this huge animation, so basically I have to copy each object with my image, then right click on the image location, select my new image from my downloads, then scale the image to the correct size. So far it's working, just is quite slow, so was trying to figure out a more efficient process for duplicating and adding my images to the new objects without having to rescale them each time

I added an image to my question to give a visual.

if it's a new material with a new image, just duplicate the current material and replace the image with the new one? If you've made sure that the new image has the same size as the previous one it will replace it correctly

when I replace the image on the shader tab, it ends up changing the previous duplicate image too and makes both images pink

You need to create a new material before changing the image: https://zupimages.net/up/22/15/3q5q.jpg

hmm i guess that works, but seems like just deleting and adding the image manually is almost faster if not the same amount of time


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How to join two armatures with separate meshes?
So I created two different rigs, one for my body and one for my eyes.
When I try to join the eye rig to the body rig, my eyes get moved and I tried setting the origin but each option results in the same outcome.
Here's my eye rig. Pink bone control eye movements and yellow controls eyelids

Here's my body rig

Now when I click on the eye rig then the body and press cltr + j, the eyes get pushed down like this

When I joined the meshes then parent the eyes, the eyelids still don't move

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

https://pasteall.org/blend/767a38c088db4fe684011dfcd0ee78fd

Apply the scale of the armature Body Rig:

my only issue is now the eye lids don't move with the body and if I try to parent them to the eye rig, when I move my body rig the eye lids don't move. Im referring to in pose mode btw when I move the body rig, the eyelids don't move or the eye rig

you need to correctly parent the bones to each other and parent the lid and eyes to the good bones

I parented the eyes to the armature bone and it works fine, but for some reason when I do the same thing to the eyelids it doesn't move. Where do I parent the eyelids to? I only have the armature option or my eyes, but so far "bone" doesn't work

also after I joined the two armatures, when I move the body rig, the eye armature doesn't even move which makes no sense since they're joined together?

it really depends on how you plan to parent the mesh to the armature, do you want your meshes to be separate objects or to be all parts of the same object, etc?

the eye bones don't move because they are not parented to any bone in your armature, parent them to Ctrl_Spine

I want both rigs to be combined into one so I can edit eye movement and body movement together. Also, how can I parent the eye bones if I already combined them together?

in Edit mode, select Eye.l, shift select Ctrl_Spine, then Ctrl P > (Make Parent) Keep Offset

the problem is my eyelid contains a driver with a constraint, so no matter where I move my rig, that constraint keeps it still

the discussion is getting too complicated for BlenderStackExchange  ^^  maybe you should watch some tutorials on how people rig heads etc (there are several solutions of course, it's a bit complicated to understand what you're trying to achieve through BSE)

I added one last pic at the bottom of my question. Everything looks fine except the eyelids which is my only thing not moving with the rest of my rig

How do you want to parent the eyes and eyelids to the bones? What you can do is unparent the eyes, remove their Armature modifier, put their origin to geometry, remove the drivers of the eyelids, put origin to geometry as well, select one eye, shift select the armature, switch to pose mode, select the bone to which you need parent and Ctrl P (Parent) > Bone, same thing for the other eye and for the eyelids. Another way would be to join all the meshes together and parent With Empty Groups and assign the right vertex group to the eyes and eyelids

I made a new question showing my new issue, I got the general parent almost right yet it still has some issues when moving in pose mode. I'll accept ur current answer here since i fixed the basic issue


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Animating Image Texture Change in Cycles?
I have a cube scene for the sake of example, but in my production, I use textures for the facial expressions of my character. The problem is, I don't know of an efficient way to animate the changing of a texture.

Blender insists that I cannot keyframe the changing of an image.

Previously I have been naming all my files sequentially and animating the sequence, but that is severely impractical. Is there a better way to animate the changing of textures in cycles?
Thanks!

If OSL is an option (it does mean you can’t use GPU rendering) then this answer may be of use : https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/104474/29586


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Transparent object showing up in render layer mask?
I have this transparent plane which is the texture face of my character. It's attached to my character which I render on Render Layer 2. On Render Layer 1 I render the background, and on Render Layer 3 I render the shadows (using the "Shadow Catcher"). I have Layer 2 set as a mask for Layer 3 so the shadows have cutouts in them.

However, when I render and composite these, the shadow has a weird cutout in it where the face plane is. The face plane is transparent, though.

How can I resolve this? This shouldn't be cutting out the shadow because it's invisible, yet it is. Is there a fix?
Thanks!


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Armature Rig Legs Scale and Move Strange when using Master Bone?
So I made this simple rig and when I try to scale or move it using a master bone, I notice my legs don't move properly.
Here's my blender file
https://pasteall.org/blend/5d716f5e7b424fdb9d03e02578af1a44
Here's the original position

Then I try a simple Scale and notice the hips move in an outwards direction? instead of straight up

Then if I try to use G to move it this happens. Why are the legs bending and not maintaining the straight position?

Update: Realized my IK Bones aren't moving with my master bone, however, I don't know what parent mode I have to set for the IK bones to move with the master bone?

for your second problem: the lowerlegs have IKs that make them stick to their controller. For your first problem please share your file: https://pasteall.org/blend/

my files in the question

The lowerlegs have IKs that make them stick to their controller, you're supposed to parent the controller to the master bone if you want to avoid that, and that's the goal of a master bone.
When you'll have parented the first problem won't happen anymore. It currently happens because the controllers are not parented and therefore they don't inherit the scale of the master bone.

do I inherit rotation and location when parenting to master bone as well?

yes by default but you can disable in the Bone panel > Relations


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How to stop a Rigid Body link from automatically re-aligning
I am simulating the action of a toy horse front right leg using Rigid Body Physics in Blender 3.2.2.  Once completing the full horse, the simulation will interact with other objects in the environment as it walks around.
The simulation is working well, but the last link (the horse hoof) is rotating to a new position when the simulation starts.  The hoof should not rotate to a new position.  The movement of the hoof should be controlled by the action of the link it is attached to.
Even at steady-state with no driving actions, the hoof link rotates to the undesired location.  See the  and the  below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13DPyouxNCXGhhiFNaK1yqtj4GJHoB0qd/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hWQxXox_vjOoDQ8DSsnL_bEjtNYEkpGW/view?usp=sharing
Here is the blend file https://drive.google.com/file/d/19hAv_MwNOwqg4qfhjCXZqH9-j93K4KZP/view?usp=sharing
UPDATE: 8/25 10AM
The toy horse leg functions as shown in this gif.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DOZpdmkFS93WfzZCgsZt2-2OUMwXOmJn/view?usp=sharing
This image further explains the issue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11jHJ20c9JI85BpasiC2-_y8MmZNsdPuw/view?usp=sharing
Here is a video explaining the error:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P17H1Z7WDRRJcUW68UbQIeeRx6igKdQA/view?usp=sharing
Here is an example of the mech. in Solidworks.  The motion should look similar to this:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vYDCoE3jZPb2Jc4rVCTCB45Z4zSieC9i/view?usp=sharing

maybe you should explain us how the movement should be and how your 7 hinges should work together....

Thanks Chris.  I've updated the original post to further explain the issue.
In short, there is a parallel mechanism joining the top and middle leg parts, this accounts for four joints.  Next, a cross-parallel link joins the middle and bottom leg parts, this accounts for four joints, but one of the joints is shared so it accounts for the remaining three.

Your rigid body objects start in collision.  Consider making a manual convex hull for each object (which can be done with GN's convex hull node) to see the intersecting hulls.  The rigid bodies are pushed out of collision on frame 1, which then transmits forces via the constraints to the hoof.

Good point.  However, I am not using the actual horse parts.  I am using very low complexity lines (edges) to create the hinge joints.  If I disable one of the conflicting hinge joints, the mechanism is smooth and the movement looks nice (not including the disabled joint).  I have removed any obvious collisions.  I will up date the original message with a desired motion demonstration using Solidworks.


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Python script to check Blender version and block file saving
I am working in a company where a dedicated 3D team uses Blender to create assets and backgrounds. For internal reasons, we are currently stuck with using Blender 2.93 in our pipeline, and we are planning to upgrade only when the next LTS release (Blender 3.3) comes out.
Meanwhile, there are some PCs on the floor that have different versions of Blender installed, from 2.83 to 3.1. So I would like to have a python code which would run every time we open a project file, check if the Blender version currently running is 2.93.x, and if not, it should either give an error and exit the file, or popup box that the user would have to acknowledge by clicking on some button (something similar to the Save / Don't Save dialog box we get while quitting an unsaved file)
What I have in mind :

Another required feature is to have the ability to block the saving of the current file, maybe with some error or warning popup. This is just because we are making a Asset Library using the new Asset Browser feature in Blender 3.1. As mentioned above, we cannot use the updated version directly in the project, but it will be used only for preview purposes. I do not want anyone to mistakenly open the Asset Library file in Blender 2.93, and save it over the 3.1 file, as it causes some compatibility issues. So combining two codes, one to check blender version, and other to block the saving option, will be a good safe guard for our purpose.
Thanks in advance!

What have you tried so far and what are you stuck on?

Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to try much of it myself. But I have to present in front of my team tomorrow, and for now, I would at least like to know if something like this is even possible?  If it's not possible I will scrap the idea, but if it is possible then I will tell them that this is the future plan.

Though I did check the  Operator.report() method
But I couldn't get it to work for my purpose. Also, the Error message using this method can be easily missed or ignored. I need something that would have to be consciously acknowledged, if possible.

It's trivial to check the version and run a popup.  It's not so easy to inhibit writing out the blend file, but it might be possible.

https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.app.html#bpy.app.version


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How to load Addons on Blender older versions
Hello Blender communitie! So i recently updated to 3.0 but i was using the fast carve addon on 2.8. Since it doesn't work on 3.0 I decided to download an older version and work from that folder whenever I need to use the addon, but for some reason in the 2.8 version, the addon is already there, and it gives me the same out of date message, "upgrade to 2.8x required". This gives me the idea that this version's addon folder is connected to the original 3.0. Is there any way that I can change this?

Expanded version:

Thanks in advance,
Tiago Baptista.

Expand the add-on's panel to review add-on version

I updated the post with the expanded version

Isn't there supposed to be two separate blender folders for each of the versions?
Like My Computer -> Program Files -> Blender Foundation -> Blender 2.8 and Blender 3.0
That's how it looks whenever I install a new version.

What i find very strange is that when i download an older version, i get a ziped folder and to open the program e dont need to instal anything.


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No textures showed In Material Preview and Render Preview Models but pure black color
After in Shader Edior plugging a image texture into the charactor's Face, i went to Sculpt Mode to adjust the charactor's Body. But when i selected the Face again and turned Display in Solid Mode into Material Preview and Render Preview Models, i had nothing but pure black color.
My Blender version is 3.0

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

Did you create an image texture set to black color? Unfortunately your screenshot doesn't show your full material setup, but since there is no color showing next to Base Color in the Principled BSDF I would suspect there is an image texture plugged in... and since the default "New Image" dialogue creates a blank, black image I suppose that's what you plugged in there. I mean, you literally wrote you added a texture in the Shader Editor, so maybe you should find out how this texture looks like.


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Baked displacement map doesn't look like sculpt
Blend file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ay1pb6eu9s0fw20/Anvil.zip?dl=0
I sculpted some details on the model using a multires modifier and baked it with "bake from multires" enabled and the bake type set to displacement. I then fed the image into a displacement node on the original, low poly model (with a 6x subsurface modifier). The result is... odd? It looks like the displacement is wrapping around the edge instead of actually deforming it.
Sculpt:

Base mesh with displacement map:

Relevant nodes (There's no bump map or normal map on the shader itself):

Messing with the mid level doesn't help. I also tried baking the normals and running it through a normal map node into the shader to approximately the same end result. I also tried baking to an 8k file instead of a 4k file to see if there wasn't enough detail, also to no effect. I know I could apply the multires and bake the normals to the original and get a normal map that way, but could someone explain why this method isn't working?

hello, could you please share this object? https://pasteall.org/blend/

@moonboots I added a link to the top of the post. The file is quite large due to the density of the sculpt mesh.

Finally found an answer here: Multires Normal Baking Not Baking Normal Data
Along with not applying the subdivision surface modifier before adding the multires causing issues, the primary issue was that I didn't have the viewport level on the modifier set to 0.


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Lowpoly model painted with a color palette has wrong colors when imported into Unreal Engine!
EDIT: SOLVED. The issue was with my color palette. I don't know why but the 16x16 size was causing problems (I assume). Switching to a 512x512 palette fixed the color issues!
I am fairly new to Blender and have been modeling some simple lowpoly characters. I "texture" them using a color palette and UV mapping. However, when I import them into UE4, their colors change. I cannot figure out why this happens, and I'd appreciate support on this matter!
My character(s) in Blender:

and when imported into UE4:

As I stated above, I did the coloring in Blender using a 256 color palette, and my material looks like this:

And the material in UE4:

Finally my FBX export settings:

Thanks for the help.

Hello and welcome to BSE! What format do you export from Blender that you import into UE4? Can you please include this info in your post.

@HarryMcKenzie Hi! Thank you :) I am exporting as FBX, I will update the post with my export settings for further clarification.

Try this  quick tutorial. - Watch the export setting he uses near the end...

@JohnEason tried it, thanks! sadly no difference though... I think maybe it has to do with the texture interpolation setting on the image texture node in Blender..?


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Problems with Materials on imported mantaflow object
When I import a baked mesh object using the mantaflow simulation, and applying a material to it, it doesn't appear to hold the same "material properties" as any other object imported or created in blender. It seems like the object doesn't let light pass through it normally. All materials appear to be much darker.
Applying a glass shader to the object is ecxeptionally noticeable.
The object on the left is the simulation, the one to the right is the imported object.
They both have the exact same shader applied. Can anyone help me in fixing this issue?
Or help me understand why it does this?

This is the imported mesh:

This is the material both objects share (basic glass shader, nothing changed):

First of all, a screenshot of the material would be helpful as well - and apart from that it's hard to tell from just seeing two objects next to each other. At first glance it simply looks like they are using materials. If you say they are the same, then the question is how the meshes of the two objects differ from each other. Hard to tell in this view either. What is all this glittering? Is the object full of bubbles or other particles?

Well the actual simulation does'nt have much of a mesh until it is baked. it is just a cube when you enter edit mode (The object to the left). The object to the right, however, is the baked mesh imported back into blender. I Had to re-bake the simulation so its a bit different but ill post a pic of the imported objects mesh and the shader both are using.

Sooo... is it full of bubbles? Maybe the Max Bounce settings under Light Paths are not high enough. I guess your simulation results in a very dense mesh when baked and you should check the bounce settings for Transmission, Glossy (and they are also limited by the Total value) and maybe Transparent.

The only thing i messed with in the fluid simulation is the resolution divisions. I changed it from 32 to 160. checked the "mesh" box and assigned the cache folder. bubbles, spray and foam are not active. I don't know why the mesh doesn't hold shaders correctly.

increasing the max bounces and increasing the glossy, transmission and transparent has very little effect on the imported mesh.

Ok! So I figured it out! It was simply the mesh. I just applied a simple remesh to the object and it worked like a charm!

Great you could get it to work. I just wanted to comment above, without the file I could ask a lot more questions and it would all be wild speculation. For example there could be issues with the mesh that are not visible in the screenshot. Inverted normals, duplicate faces or vertices and more... Remesh does solve some of these issues, but in case of inverted normals it shouldn't be necessary, there are other ways to "repair" the mesh.

Thank you! Yeah I didn't really good a good look at the mesh, but when I zoomed in, I could see all the nasty imperfections mataflow gives you after the bake. Which is unfortunate if you're planning on using multiple objects straight from the bake. Luckily, I'll only be needing one. Thank you for the advice!


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I want gave random rotation each cube on 3 dimention
I want gave random rotation each cube on 3 dimention following image. How do I ?

upload my file

I do it in another way.Because usually data is a list,that means it looks like 2D, so it's a little difficult to creat a real 3D data structure.I try to turn 3D into 2D, I just make a line with 1000dots,and place them as a cube.Down-left is the calculation to get each number of a three-digit number,a simple math.

I tried it. but  can't rotation each all cube as Independence.

pls upload your file.

I uploaded on other answer.

Sorry, deleted answer. but link guestion.

I managed to understand it.
I couldn't have come up with this on my own, so thank you so much.


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How can I recreate these tire treads from scratch by just using normal map?
How may I recreate these tire treads by just using normal map? The height factor is not very important. It can look like the example in the second picture.

you can model a series of cubes with the Array modifier, then bake and use the result on your tire?

Hello and welcome. Please don't write in all caps, it is the online equivalent of shouting, is harder to read and may be considered rude. You can use the [edit] button below to change you text into regular case.


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Blender sculpting is not working
I’ve been struggling to make Inflate work. Have no idea why it doesn’t do anything.
Have found no solution so far. Can you help me please to fix and make it work?
Only grab tool works.
Project file link

hello could you please share the file that has the problem? https://pasteall.org/blend/

In addition to moonboots' comment, consider posting screenshots too to help elaborate the problem. :)

@moonboots, i've added the project link

@Onyx, the screenshot won't show anything. That's why I haven't uploaded it.

You need to reset your brush settings (you've tweaked the Stroke parameters):

Increase its Strength:

Also in Edit mode select all and Merge by Distance with a 0.001 Merge Distance:

It works fine:

For the icing you need to deactivate the Shrinkwrap modifier, otherwise it will continue to stick to its Target:

This hasn't changed anything.

See my edit, I've alos merged by distance as you had overlapping vertices that caused bad shading. What do you mean by it hasn't changed anything? Please do the changes I recommend and share your file again

Yeah. Thank you very much. For the bottom this works. But for the icing not.
Well, I’ve spent the whole day to understand that the sculpting is not possible with low amount of polygons. I applied Subdivision to multiply vertices for the icing and everything works as expected.

have you disabled the Shrinkwrap modifier before? As long as you don't it will continue to stick to its target


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Where is “stretch” (UV) in Blender 2.8?
Where is “stretch” (UV) in the last version of Blender 2.8? In earlier version Stretch was in Display, but now Stretch is absent:

In Blender 2.9 it is on the overlays menu:

It's in Display > Overlays > Stretching.

Ow, thank you!!

For future reference, this appears to have been removed. I assume this was to consolidate tool options so they were not in multiple places. It is only in the Overlays drop down menu in the UV window as specified in the other reply.

@ChrisLee That is correct. This answer was written for a 2.8x version.


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Why is my 2D arm mesh twisting wierd?
So I imported a PNG of Peppa Pig as plane and edited it as a 2D mesh directly. Being a newbie, of course, I fxxked up hard.

You can tell by both the weight map and render view how screwed I was. The weight distribution was going coco and the texture went wild. I assume that this is because my mesh was simply just bad, but I can hardly find any suggestion on making a proper 2D mesh, so any suggestion about this messy situation of mine will be really appreciated.

Here is my .blend file.
BTW, just in case if you are wondering why can't I just seperate the forearm and upperarm and hand: my boss asked me to deal with it as a whole, hence I have to deal with it.

Hi :), can you upload the .blend file again but with your textures packed? The way you can pack textures is by doing File > External Data > Pack Resources. Right now I can't see any of your images

@Gunt.r Thank you for your suggestion! I have updated my file with texture packed,and now you should see the peppa pig within the .blend file.

Right - bad topology ... what you see in your first image is z-fighting (overlapping two faces).

Find this whole hand face

And delete. It should be OK.

Since your triangulated hands has no UV, select hands vertices go to front view and Unwrap from View (U). Switch to UV Editing layout and reposition uv on image.

... or you can go an opposite way - delete triangulated hands and keep the one-face version and search for Triangulate Faces (Ctrl/Cmd+F) operator. Since this is unwrapped and weight painted you don't have to do do noting more.

Thank you for your answer! Your way works for rigging and weight painting, but by deleting one of the whole face, I also deleted the texture on it. I didn't pack the texture in the previous .blend file (because that's what newbies do), but I have updated it now. Guess I'll have to cut the arm manually with knife-tool then, right?

See edit in bottom part ...

Thank you! I think Triangulate Faces is just what I wanted! For the record tho, it was Ctrl + T instead of F, but still, you just saved my day!

The reason your arm is twisting wierd really comes down to two things:

your mesh is not dense enough (it needs more detail to be able to deform well. You can most often accomplish this by adding a modifier > subdivision surface.

You have attempted to apply a human rig (To my understanding) to peppa. In this rig are multiple bones which are redundant and are highly likely to cause errors. You will need create a custom rig for peppa to deform correctly.

I did attempt to fix peppa, but encountered a crazy amount of problems. I won't go into it, but heres sort of where I got up to:

So, what is the next step for you? I highly recommend you learn how use blender to an intermediate level in 3D before attempting to use Blender's 3D tool to work with 2D artwork. Learning 3D first will fill in a huge amount of unknowns about how the software works and allow you to work without error in 2D from that point on.

Really appreciate your time and answer. Just for the record tho, I did manually create the rig myself, bone by bone. Though the current version looks odd, sadly, the structure is really not my call. My first version of the rig is much simpler, yet it didn't survive... As for the 3D tool stuff, I will try to catch up, yet I'm afraid I don't have too much time for slow study for now. Thank you for your advice tho, it sure does open my eyes and mind about how to deal with Blender in the future.


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What does the "View as render" option in the background image settings do?
What does the View as render option in the 3D view background image settings do?  The Blender wiki does not mention it, and I have not been able to find anything about it.

It does nothing for the background image in the 3D view. However View as render is a setting for the entire image datablock.
What View as render does do in the compositer and image viewer is toggle on or off the Color Management settings in the properties window.
With View as render off   click for full size

With View as render on    click for full size

Hm.. So it seems that the setting isn't supposed to be visible (and using valuable space) in the background image section? (Sounds like this is a bug)

@gandalf3 yes I don't see any reason for it to be there.


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Access body of Message actuactor through logic bricks
Is there any way to get to the body of a message using just logic bricks?
It is possible to set the body using the Message actuator; yet I see no way to access the body when using the Message sensor.
I know you can get to it using python, and it is quite useful, but is there any way to get that same data using the logic bricks?

I've never tried it, but I suspect that, in the undocumentedness of the expression controller, there exists a method to read it. But you sound familiar with python, so why not just use that?

Accessing the body of the message is specific to python.

No, there is no way.
The reason is simple: what should happen when there are two or more messages?
There are way too much options to process a body (and several bodies). The information you could get is if an message with a certain content was received. The filter by subject already does that.
I agree the API looks inconsistent, as you can set a body without any use (without using Python). I see it as simplification, when you have a lot of simple message senders, but just a few  (more complex) listeners. I usually use the body when I have more information than the pure existence of a message (subject) can express.

such as sending the value of a property to an object in another scene...


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How to make a "reflective tape" material in cycles?
How can I make a cycles material that gets very bright when a light is shown on it, yet still has normal colors?
I'm talking about the "Retroreflective sheeting" that can be seen on road signs, the tape on big trucks (like in the image below), traffic barricades and clothing.

Image by TollGroup on  wikimedia commons
This reflective stuff has a interesting property where the colors show up perfectly well, but when exposed to a light source they seem to reflect much more light the normal. This site has lots of good reference images.
I have tried different combinations of glossy and diffuse shaders, but none work as I have yet to get the super bright reflections.
How can cycles make a material that reflects so much light, and keeps the colors correct?

The angle of reflection should be directed back to the source of light at each point where the light hits the surface.

I'm not at my computer, but I had a thought. If you have the time to experiment, try this: duplicate the mesh that you desire to have reflect like this and move it ever so slightly in front of the original. Treat the original as your color backdrop, and for the duplicate, subdivide the heck out of it, and parent a grain sized cycles glass material low poly icosphere to its origin, then for duplication, set it to verts (subdivide until it looks like you took a handful of glass sand and threw it at wet paint). In reality this will give that kind of reflective property.

Such a material works by reflecting the incoming light back towards the direction it originated - since your car headlights are very close to your own line of sight, you see a strong reflection of your own lights. You can replicate this behaviour in a material by simply manipulating the surface Normal in a Glossy shader that can then be mixed into any other shaders on the material - as shown :

The key here is to connect the Geometry Incoming socket to the Normal of the Glossy shader so that any reflections occur back towards the source. You can manipulate the Roughness to control how sharp the reflection is (ie, roughness of zero would reflect all light direct back to the source but a slight roughness will spread it out, to allow it to be visible (but fainter) at wider viewing angles) - and so how close to the light souce line of sight the viewer must be to allow them to see its reflection.
Any light source close to the line of sight of the camera will now strongly reflect back and make the material appear to 'glow' with respect to other (non-reflective) materials. You can vary the Color of the Glossy node to affect the color of the reflection.
Example showing one reflective cube and one 'normal' cube :

I wish I could +10. This adaptive normal technique is smart af!

authors: Светлана Мельникова


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Particle speed and density
I am using a Particle system to simulate falling dust / debris. The particle start and end fairly quickly. They should look like a short burst of falling dust.
I cant figure out how to get the particles to fall at slightly different speeds.
The particles should be falling downwards with very little Brownian motion.
The fact that the particles are falling at the same speed makes them look odd / too uniform (almost like a static image of some particles which is moving down rather than individual particles.
Also the particles end at a set frame so I get a uniform trailing edge (as below).

A bit of air drag helps a bit but not much.
Question 1. how to vary the downward speed of the particles?
Question2. Can the density of particles be animated so I can brake up the distribution?
Thanks
Oliver

How about adding a noise texture to the emitter and use Time(default) in the Influence panel?

you could add a second particle system that starts towards the end of the first to subtlety fill in that empty space.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/3560/599

Use texture for particle system which influences on Time and Lifetime. Depending on amount of textures and their influence you can achieve a lot of effects.

Yesterday I found out how to control the particle's speed.
You can do this from "Timestep"!

You can find it in the "Particles" tab in the "Properties" window. Then go to "Physics" menu. Over there is the "Timestep" slide, which by default is on "0.040" which is quite fast. So if you want slower the particles you can change this to "0.005" or even for very slow motion you can set it to "0.0005".
And most of all!!! You can keyframe the particles "Timestep", so you can do nice and cool animations. I have made a quick demo in which you can see that. It's here: Particles speed test in Blender .
I hope I was helpful!
P.S.
I want to apologize about my bad english (it's not perfect).

Gravity would be the biggest factor that determines the speed of particles falling. You can change the amount that gravity effects the particles and you can also increasing the damping to slow down their movement.
The biggest thing that would get the effect you want would be to use more than one particle system. As an extreme, you could add 100 particle systems to an emitter and have 100 emitters in a scene. Each of these particle systems can have different gravity and damp settings so will be moving at different speeds.
With a different number of particles from each emitter you can have 80% of your dust settle in 3 seconds, another 10% in 5 seconds and the last 10% take 10 seconds to settle.
This also helps with the "all ending on the same frame". With multiple particle systems you can have the emitters with higher particle counts finish on frame 200 then have an emitter sending two particles a frame finish on frame 250, with some varying amounts being emitted in between. With multiple emitters or broken geometry emitters you can have these particles emitted in different places instead of being concentrated to one small area.
You can also use multiple layers to your advantage, with an emitter on a different layer you can have a force field effect the one emitter's particles so they move differently to give a separate appearance.

This may be overkill for just a small puff of dust, but for a good looking effect I would use smoke particles.
You can read more about the smoke simulator here.  The documentation is kind of old and uses BI, so here is here is a video on using it in cycles.

Cool. yes I have used some smoke for some of my stuff. But for this I wanted slightly larger more defined debris particles.

I have and image example using rigid body large chunks, particle dust and smoke fine dust, but I cant post it here.


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Can the areas of an object in shadow be accessed in Cycles
In Cycles can I use the amount of shadow cast onto an object as a Fac. input of a mix shader?
This would be useful for setting up a Frost / snow material that is visible in shadowed areas but has melted in lit areas.
I know I could do it by baking shadow maps for the various objects, but I wondered if there was a procedural way to do it.
Maybe if I could create a vertex paint layer using the shadow info this could be used and would save the texturing (my scene is already quite complex - several hours per frame)
Any thoughts?

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/5845/599 and http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/701/599

No, this is not possible in cycles.
As a workaound, you could render a diffuse pass in a different renderlayer and then use that as the mix factor, see Is it possible to use the output of a Renderlayer in the material nodes of another RenderLayer?


text:
Is there any difference between selecting knife tool in the tool menu and pressing hotkey "K"?
So I have been trying to use the knife tool, and I want to start my cut on an exsisting vertex.
I noticed that if I click knife tool in the tool menu, I get a knife cursor, and I cannot start cutting on an exsisting vertex -- I will always creat a new vertex no matter how hard I try to place my first cut near an exsisting one.
On the other hand, if I just press K, I magically get a knife with a tiny block beneath it, and I can select an exisiting vertex for a start now. How come that the hot key functions differently from the toolmenu option itself? I must have missed some feature of knife, right?

Hi :). Probably an oversight from developers. Hotkeys should give you the exact same behaviors as the toolbar.

Yeah, exactly what I was thinking. Wouldn't it be easier to just, idk, use the same api for these two operations?

True. There are some lingering inconsistencies... a price for the rapid development i guess :))

It is difference between you use shortcut and call it in menu.
In the Preferences, You can see there has two same operator mesh.knife_tool
K and shift K which has difference settings. That will have difference behaviors. Also you can add more shortcut to this operator and do difference behaviors.

The knife tool in Tool menu and the shortcut K is two difference operator
knife tool:
wm.tool_set_by_id

Thank you for your kindness, that was something new to me. Yet still I am confused. Say, if I want to call knife tool from toolmenu instead of  pressing "K", and I want to start my cut from an exsisting vertex, what do I do?

Today, you cannot change the Toolmenu default setting except you modify the source code

Alright, I guess that's as far as I can go now. I'll look into it and see what I can get. Thank you for your time!

To use the tool to snap to a vertex, simply hover near the vertex and left click to select that vertex as a starting point.


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How to Create a 3D Earth Relief Model in Blender?
I'm trying to create a realistic 3D Earth globe with an exagerated and detailed terrain relief (like mountains, valleys, etc.) in Blender, similar to the one in the reference images. The goal is to have the surface show elevation differences, but I'm struggling to make the terrain look smooth rather than overly sharp or pointy. I'm using a topographic displacement map to apply the elevation data.
Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
Applied a Subdivision Surface Modifier to increase geometry.
Used a Displacement node connected to the material, with a PNG topographic map as the texture.
Adjusted the displacement strength, but the terrain still ends up looking too "spiky" in places.
I’m aiming for a softer, more realistic look for the terrain. Then I am aiming to make an animation where the Continents appear slowly. Could anyone recommend techniques or settings to smooth out the displacement or suggest a better approach for achieving a smooth, detailed Earth relief model in Blender?
Thanks in advance!
This is what i have so far

The terrain looks to pounty and pixelated, I want to make it look smoother, like in the image below

This is the Result I am aiming to achieve:

This is how my material displacement setup. I am using a topographic texture from nasa.

Finally here is an effect I want to achieve later, where the continents appear slowly. I want the borders of the continents to connect smoothly with the oceans as they come out

Have you tried adding more subdivisions? Looks to me like you just need more geo

I've tried this, but the terrain becomes too 'pointy.' While it adds more detail, the elevation points are sharp and exaggerated. What I'm aiming for is a smooth, more natural relief, similar to what you can see in the third image.

First of all: what you see in your reference image is not a height map of Earth, as you can see the ridges etc. there do not correspond to real mountains on Earth. This looks more like someone took a bed sheet in the shape of the continents and pulled here and there to get some folds and wrinkles as if there were mountains. But that does not mean you cannot get something smoother from a height map.
What you need is either a smoother map which has less harsh transitions from one pixel to the other, eventually by blurring it in an image editor (but then you lose detail) or you have to manipulate the values a bit. The mountain ranges partly have a lot of peaks with deep valleys, and if you exaggerate the scale then the height difference between peak and valley will be exaggerated too and everything will become a bit pointy, this is nothing you can avoid completely.
However, if you do not need exactly real-world ratios between higher and lower values, you can use a Float Curve node to smoothen out everything by having a curved interpolation instead of linear interpolation. The highest peaks will still be pointy, but less extreme:

To smoothen the borders between oceans and continents more, you probably really have to blur the edges in an image editor. But also your animation of the appearing continents looks very sharp, how did you do it? Simply by scaling the displacement or differently?

Hi Gordon, Thank you for your response. I will try to follow your advice. As for the animation. I used a color ramp between the heightmap and the displacement. Then I tweaked the values of the color ramp to make the continents appear and dissapear