text:
How do I make my character hold his face and stay that way even when the rig moves?
How do I make my character hold his face (he's covering his eyes) even when the character moves, like covering an injury? See the example picture.
I've tried child constraining the rig to the mesh, but it doesn't work. My character seems doing parkour when I tried that.

I want the hand to stay on the face, but when I move the body the hand doesn't follow. I've been using object constraint. How do I make the hand always stick to the face?

Edit: I have now solved this by using the child to select the hand bone (be sure to select the bone constraint) and selecting the mesh.

Give your hand controller a Child Of constraint with the head as target. Maybe you'll need to enable the IK Solver > iTaSC in the Object Data panel > Inverse Kinematics if you see that the elbow goes mad. Now when you'll move the body the hand will stick to the head:


text:
Subsurface Modifier on a cube versus just adding a sphere itself
Lately I've been noticing that when people need to use a spherical object, instead of going Shift A -> Mesh -> Sphere, they advise adding a cube and then applying a Subsurface Modifier to it, without any real explanation as to why. This is an especially prominent technique when the object needs to be low-poly, like for a particle system or something.
So my question is, why do people do this? What advantages does this offer over using a sphere itself? Wouldn't it be more useful to just add a spere? Even if it needs to be low-poly, just adjust the resolution, right?

Catmull-Subdividing a cube does not result in a sphere. You will need to cast to a sphere with ⇧ Shift⎇ AltS To Sphere operation or a Cast modifier. This question covers that.
The sphere and the spherized cube may look similiar, but the topology is different.

The key advantages of the subdivided, spherized cube are

Even Topology The sphere has dense topology at the top and much less dense topology at its equator. If you want to sculpt or otherwise modify the spherical shape, you want to have similiarly sized faces everywhere.
A 90° rotated sphere would also not give the same results as a sphere with no rotation.
Only Quads In organic modeling, which uses subdivision, we strive for topology which main uses quads. The sphere has many triangles at it's poles. Triangles will produce unnatural creases in combination with the subdivision surface modifier.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to enable an addon for all but one file?
How do I enable an addon for all but one file in Blender 2.7b?
A more tangible way to express my query would be that if I have 4 Blender (.blend) files, A, B, C, and D, then how do I enable an addon for A, B, and C only but then not for D?
Basically, how do I make the User-Preferences for one file different from the one in others without re-modifying them (the User-Preferences) again every single time on startup? (And no, I do not mean to "save different startup files". Explaining one last time: You know how there is a button which saves the user's prefs for all Blender files? Well, how do I save them for all but one file?)
Thanks a lot, and hope you have an amazing day!

Possible duplicate of Is there any way to save different Startup Files?

What addon are you asking about?

@TheCatalyst Any addon, it doesn't matter which one.

It is what different startup files are meant for. You technically could open that one file first, then open new Blender session, save new user prefs wit addon enabled and then open other files but that would be for one session only.

Yeah, I want for all sessions that I use in a particular file.

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


text:
Active rigid body objects fall through other passive rigid body objects
I am designing a Galton Board, so I have a group of marbles, which are active rigid bodies, and then I also have a bunch of rectangles, which the balls are supposed to hit and then veer off.
And while this does happen to most of the balls, some of them either enter one of the rectangles on impact, or make it to the very bottom and fall through the floor.
Here I have an image of one of the frames:

The small rectangles represent the things off off which the balls are supposed bounce, and the tiny congested spheres represent the marbles. The panel on the right displays the physics settings for the balls.
As you can see, some of the balls are falling through the floor; while others have entered the rectangles.
And now here I have an image of the physics for everything else:

Extra Notes/Details: All of the marbles share the same Physics, every other object shares the same physics (they are passive & different from the marbles' physics), the scale of every single object is applied, and also that all of the objects except the marbles have a solidify modifier applied to them.
Blender Version: 2.79b, although I'm sure that this problem can be reproduced in Blender 2.8 as well.
Thanks.

While all the answers point out some reasonable things, i believe that it's most likely that the Rigid Body Collision Source" needs to be set to "Final" so all modifiers are included in the calculation, as OP mentioned all but the marble have modifiers to them.
Also mentioned as try to from @Jackdaw, the Rigid Body World settings, especially the "Steps Per Second" and "Solver Iterations" do have a lot influence here, as the marbles will be in some cases too fast, before eventually hitting an object they are supposed to collide with. In that case they may pass just through as the iterations do not catch the intersection of the 2 objects. Increasing these settings should help, but will cost more calculation time.
In simple situations you can replace the small objects with thicker placeholders for the physics, sadly here it would not work so easy as there are just too many of the small /thin objects and they are very close to each other. So most probably increasing the iterations and step number mighty be the only solution here.
While you can't do it with the rectangles along the way of the marbles, you can use a placeholder bottom with more thickness invisible for render to make sure the marbles won't fall through the bottom. Just overlap a thick bottom with the current one aligned at the top and use the physics on that one, turn of visibility in render and use the original just for the visual part.

And yes, the problem should be independent of the version, especially with this close of release versions. It's more of a can blenders physics calculation catch if there is a collision problem.

Xylvier nailed it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Had this problem myself.

Try to compose the collision of simpler collision shapes like spheres and cubes. Mesh collisions are expensive and unreliable. You can also try to increase the Rigid Body World to have more Steps Per Second. Sometimes you need to remove and recreate the Rigid Body on the problematic objects.

If the passive rigid body is animated then don't forget to turn on Animated in the passive rigid body settings or else the active bodies will not collide.


text:
How to make a group of objects single-user data?
How do I make a group of objects single user-data i.e unlink them? I know that I can do this hand-by-hand, however, there are about 500 objects, and doing them hand by hand would take a lot of time.
Extra notes: Not all of them are linked together. What I mean by this is that objects if I select objects A-E, then objects A, B, and E could be linked together, and objects C & D could be linked together. Also, I want to unlink them because I want to apply all of their scales (Ctr+A: Apply Scale).
Thanks.

You can do this by running Make Single User and then select All when prompted.
Note however that this will bu default only make the Object a single user and not the mesh. You will need to use the menu or change the default in the floating Operator Panel to make the mesh to be single user.

Thanks, but now my objects, which are active rigid bodies, are falling through other passive rigid bodies. Any help would be appreciated.


text:
Render is much faster when laptop is plugged in and charging
My laptop seems to be rendering infinitely faster whilst charging then it does when it's not charging for some reason.
My setup is an i7 9th gen w/ an RTX 2060. I'm rendering using OptiX.
As can be seen in the below image, it finishes rendering in less than a minute while charging:

However, when it is plugged out, as can be seen below, even after a full minute, it hasn't even finished half of the image.

I tried rendering with the processor when my laptop was unplugged, and even that finished faster than the graphics card while it was unplugged! And this isn't just the case with rendering. It's just faster overall when charging, period.
Why is this happening and how can I stop it? Many times, I need to render while the laptop is unplugged, and so it is imperative that this issue is solved. Thanks.

Probably this depends on the operating system. You are supposed to look for the solution in the Control Panel>>Power Management or in the Graphic Card's software.

I’m voting to close this question because it is about Operating System settings.

Your issue lies in power management.
Your operating system (Windows 10) is currently instructed to limit performance of your CPU and GPU and in order to save power and extend battery life and longevity.
It sucks.
How to fix it:

Navigate your way to Control Panel
Go to System and Security
Go to Power Options
Go to Change Plan Settings
Choose Advanced Power Settings
Verify that minimum processor state and maximum processor state are set to 100% all the time
Set cooling policy to active
Disable PCI Link State Power Management

I don't have Nvidia graphics, so I can only assume there is a power management section in the NVidia Geforce Experience or something

Since you're on a laptop, you should also buff up your integrated graphics as the data from your 2060 may or may not be passed through the integrated graphics card.
Follow the BlenderGuru's advice to speeding up Cycles rendering in general.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gSyEpt4-60
Update your drivers if needed.

Thanks for your answer. For some reason, I only have five options in my advanced power settings: Desktop background settings, Sleep, Power buttons and lid, Display, and Battery, which, for the record, only has options on when to give notifications such as critical battery level and stuff. Do you know why I don't have the other options?

Are you an admin?


text:
Set Origin shortcut not working?
The shortcut for Set Origin (Shift + Ctrl + Alt + c) isn't working.
When I searched for the action in the search bar accessed by pressing f3 there were no buttons noted after the "Set origin" action, which is weird.
I don't know why and how this happened. How do i fix this?

In Blender 2.8 there isn't a shortcut assigned for this operation in the default keymap.

Robert is right, you can get the menu only through Right click, or Object > Set Origin since 2.8.

Unfortunately, the shortcut Shift-Ctr-Alt-C has been deprecated in the latest version(s) of Blender: Blender 2.8. The only way to access the Set Origin command as of now is to either through Object > Set Origin,
or via the right-click/W key menu (depending on your keymap; refer below).
Of course, you could just switch to the old Blender 2.7x keymap via the Keymap section in the Blender Preferences, which would allow you to use the Shift-Ctr-Alt-C shortcut,

although I highly doubt that the devs would consider updating it with every new release of Blender, so it would be recommended to just use the first two methods.
EDIT:
I understand your query to its full extent now. The behaviour that Blender does not offer the menu for the keyframing action along with the suggestion in the search-bar menu is not a bug; it is supposed to happen (it will pop-up once you click on the "suggestion"). However, if you still feel that it is indeed a bug, feel free to report it to the Blender Open Report Bug Tracker.

If you don't mind using pie menus, you can enable the shipped Pie Menus add-on. There's an 'Origins' pie available through that. Default shortcut CtrlAltX. It can also send the origin straight to your selection starting in Edit Mode, skipping a step.

Preferences > Keymap > 3D View > Object Non-modal > Add New.
Expand None and type in active field object.origin_set set shortcut to Shift + Ctrl + C Done!


text:
Glowing/outline effect when particle and object are colliding
How to do a glow/outline of collision effect when particles (objects with same size in a group) are entering other object?
For example when a small box particle is falling into a plane (will fall through), when a box starts touching the plane the place of collision (essentially a square on the plane, around the box particle) is being rendered?
Edit: Adding more info as requested. I don't want to share my real scene, so I mocked a simplified version of it.

Desired effect highlighted with purple colour:

Please clarify your question by placing an image in your question to illustrate your goal.  Show your current work as well as a Blender screen capture.  Please do these two things in all of your future questions as well.

@atomicbezierslinger Added the requested information. Sorry, didn't know it was required.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/46360/only-render-particles-on-silhouette-of-model/46395#46395

If you have enough permission ... you can safely remove your last comment.  22 questioners a day, new to Blender, decrease the answer rate by leaving out information.  This a common occurrence and you have corrected it.

Dynamic Paint and Freestyle

Dynamic Paint. Contrasting particle paint with a mysterious mesh object in the shape of a number moving on the z-axis.  The mysterious mesh object is not shown to emphasize the Dynamic Paint process and not mesh movement. No Compositing Nodes. Image Above

Dynamic paint. Stopping particles with collision plane to show coincident locations.

Dynamic paint with Particle System.

A dynamic paint render. A cyan plane has been colored yellow with fading where the particles have hit the plane.  Image above.  Please click on image to see a larger version in a different browser window. The images were created by dynamic paint feature and then applied as a texture.

A Blender Render Node system showing a blur node.  Please improve and customize.

Dynamic Paint Example. Canvas, Brush, Particle System. Please customize to your tastes. Image above.  One panel is pinned to show data from more than one object.  Note that using a particles system with dynamic paint may eliminate some options that the OP might find useful in a future version of Blender.  The particles above seems to be used for location of the paint effect, disregarding size and shape.  The mesh paint effect which is not a particles clearly respect the volume.  Particles can be made in meshes by make real.  Keep aware of physical forces.

Mysterious Mesh object brush with brush settings for dynamic paint.  Not a particle. Image above.

Files created by Dynamic Paint based on particle system typically used as part of a  Blender File render. 2 Images above.  The yellow blobs show where the particle hit the plane.

Dynamic paint can detect a contact point / intersection or proximity between

Particles and a surface
Two objects

and color a surface.

The Blender compositor can use a [blur node] to create a visual blur because it can recognize different objects by object id.  A blur effect can be composed onto the image.
Freestyle and the compositor.  Freestyle topic can be searched here at BSE.

Outlining again.

You may consider fire/smoke as well.

These three bullet points are high level information.  Tutorials exists for these topics on video websites or you may find smaller explanations here at BSE
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/physics/dynamic_paint/index.html
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/freestyle/index.html?highlight=freestyle

Thank you for directions :). I am quite a beginner (just a hobbyist tinkering with 3D), so I expect it will take me some time to understand all the concepts and their details. Edit: I am sorry, I can't upvote you (not enough reputation) and I don't feel comfortable with accepting the answer until I manage to make it (at least somewhat) working.

You can always change an answer vote if someone creates a new answer.  Yes Blender like a number of software programs has 1000s of check boxes and entry fields.  I probably learn/relearn something every time I use Blender ... and the brain kicks out less important features of Blender every time.  You will be learning something a year from now as well as today.  Yes this answer has a lot of information to be learned for any Blender user.  Just do not get BASE.  Blender Aggravation Shock and Exasperation.

Have you found a way to make DP respond to the shape of a particle object instance? I've got the impression its just a spherical calculation.. maybe you have to convert particles to objects?

If you set up, say, physics on real instances instead of particles, you may be able to use Dynamic Paint on its own..
Set the Cube(s) up as a Brush.

It paints white (no alpha) into what will be a black canvas
From Mesh Volume and Proximity, with the Volume Negated
And a falloff defined by a color ramp, to give more flexibility with later steps

Set a highly subdivided plane up as a Canvas

We're painting into vertex colors here. (You could bake the image sequence into a texture instead, if you wanted to work with a less subdivided plane)
(Drying) and Dissolving are set up to just a couple of frames, so the paint doesn't persist
We're using the paintmap in this case.. click the '+' to have it set up

Using the paintmap as a mask in a material for the canvas....

It's picked up by an 'Attribute' node, and used to select between two materials.
The paintmap is put through a color ramp to give us control over the width/feathering of the rim.

There is some aliasing next to the cube, due to the resolution of the vertex-color layer- So I covered it up by parenting another, slightly larger, inert cube to the smaller one actually doing the painting.
This is the sort of result...

There is an edge-case where a cube-face is exactly parallel to the plane .. then the paint fills the entire square for a frame or two. Haven't found a way round that yet.

Is Negate Volume necessary here? When I disable it the aliasing issue goes away without negatively impacting the effect. Still looks just like your final animation.

@BLayer    Ahh.. you might be on to something.. it was there for me, as a (clunky?) way to get rid of unpredictable entire-volume flash-frames which happened when brushes of various shapes were close to entry or exit. Maybe that was temporal aliasing, though ? I should just have upped the sub steps?  I'll go back and check that out.


text:
Converting particles (Render Type: Group) to objects is not working as expected
I have a Particle System with hundreds of particles. Their Render Type is set to Group. I want to convert such particles to separate objects.
I tried "Make Duplicated Real" and clicking "Convert" in the Modifiers tab. The result of both of these operations is not having hundreds of objects, but in both cases just 4 which is the count of objects in the group from which the particle are picked.
What am I doing wrong? Or don't Particle Systems support converting particles which were created from a group?

I struggle understanding what exactly you were trying to do. Are you trying this way and it's not working, or you are trying something different? Please update your question with more information and possibly screenshots

@NicolaSap Yes, exactly that. Only difference from your video is that I don't get all particles as objects, but only 4 :(. Maybe it is a bug in my Blender version (2.79b)? Please, what version are you using?

Same version! Hope you don't mind if I try to edit your question making it more clear. If you can, add some screenshot or, better, upload your file (instructions on https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/)

@NicolaSap Sure, edit away :). English is not my native language, so it's no surprise the question is a bit confused :/.

just to rule out all the minor things, when you tried to convert, were you displaying a frame in which hundreds of particles were active and visible in the viewport?

@NicolaSap Yes (I overstated hundreds, it's actually just 150). I finally got to it and have added a video showing it. I couldn't use the linked service - it refused to accept gif and mp4 formats with "You can't upload files of this type." (Linux, in both Chromium and Firefox), so I put it on imgur.


text:
Grid size missing in 2.80.75?
According to this answer, it should be located in overlays:

But I don't see it there:

Where can I change grid size?
Edit: It seems this bug (or feature?) manifests only in Quad View. In other views it works fine (any changes are only for the view on which changes are being made, so by changing it in a classic "3D viewport" does nothing in other viewports including the quad one).

It's there for me in 2.80.75. Can you check if it appears in a new project?

@rjg Nope, it's not in a freshly created project as well :(.


text:
How to move a curve without evaluating it in Sverchok?
I obviously can't use matrix apply or move nodes, because curve before evaluation isn't defined by positions of vertexes (I think it's represented as a function). I tried curve offset and cast curve, but all those are distorting the curve, not just moving it.
Edit: I am using a "Curve Mapper" to create the curve. I tried changing clipping (min Y to -1 and max Y to 0), but it doesn't let me edit the curve (all points can be only moved to Y = 0).
I am stuck, why isn't there any "Move Curve" node? From my limited perspective, it renders a lot of other nodes useless (e.g. "Concat Curve" - I want to move one curve bellow the other curve and then do the join, otherwise it results in nonsense).

You can use Apply Vector Field to Curve node. Pass a vector or a matrix to it's Field input.

I don't seem to have available the "Apply Vector Field to Curve". I tried "Apply Field to Curve" and that works (I am probably horribly misusing some of the nodes). Thank you :). Edit: oh, you are right, passing just ordinary Vector works as well ^^.

Initially pipeline was designed to create curve from mesh. When defining curve you can move it.
Is it possible?
Or you operate on some curves from beginning?

Unfortunately I was using "Curve Mapper" as a curve generator and that node doesn't seem to support moving its curve (setting negative Y limit causes the node to stop allowing for any nodes except those having Y = 0). Curve Mapper was easy to use, but it doesn't seem to be a great/universal way of generating curves (e.g. no loops allowed).


text:
running a working script from a GUI Button
I'm working on a script for creating Bravais-grids in Blender. The script works just fine when i run it from the text editor, but when I try to run it from the GUI I wrote it crashes within the grid creating process. The script creates an object wich has vertices on the grid points and parents a base, given by some base vectors, to these vertices.
Support-Class Vector:
class Vector:

    def __init__(self, coords):
        self.coords = list(coords)

    def __str__(self):
        return str(self.coords)

    def __add__(self, other):
        if len(other.coords) != len(self.coords):
            raise ValueError("NEIN")
        new = []
        for index in range(len(self.coords)):
            new.append(self.coords[index] + other.coords[index])
        return Vector(new)

    def __mul__(self, other):
        new = []
        for coord in self.coords:
            new.append(coord * other)
        return Vector(new)

    def tup(self):
        return tuple(self.coords)

    def __le__(self, other):
        return all([self.coords[i] <= other.coords[i] for i in range(3)])

Crystal generating class:
from bpy import *
import bmesh
import random

class Crystal:

    def __init__(self, prim_vecs, base_vecs, kristal_size = \
        [10, 10, 10], base_atom_sizes = [], name = "Crystal"):
        self.prim_vecs = prim_vecs
        self.kristal_size = kristal_size
        self.name = name
        self.mats = []
        self.base_vecs = base_vecs

        while len(base_atom_sizes) < len(base_vecs):
            sizes.append(0.1)
        self.base_atom_sizes = base_atom_sizes

        number_of_mats = len(data.materials)
        for i in range(len(base_vecs)):
            if i > number_of_mats - 1:
                data.materials.new(name="mat%s"%i)
                self.mats.append(data.materials.new(name="mat%s"%i))
                rgb = [0.0, 0.0, 0.0]
                index = random.randint(0,2)
                rgb[index] = float(random.randint(0,200))
                rgb = tuple(rgb)
                self.mats[-1].diffuse_color = rgb
            else:
                self.mats.append(data.materials[i])

        for index in range(len(self.base_vecs)):
            self.__create_atom_grid(index)
            self.__fill_atom_grid(index)

    def __create_atom_grid(self,index):
        mesh = data.meshes.new("mesh")
        obj = data.objects.new(self.name + "_" + \
        str(self.base_vecs[index]), mesh)

        scene=context.scene
        scene.objects.link(obj)
        scene.objects.active=obj
        obj.select=True

        # the following order works if executed by script
        # if executed by the panel context.object is None
        mesh=context.object.data
        # Exception were caused by the order above
        bm=bmesh.new()

        for x in range(-self.kristal_size[0],self.kristal_size[0]+1):
            for y in range(-self.kristal_size[1],self.kristal_size[1]+1):
                for z in range(-self.kristal_size[2], self.kristal_size[2]+1):
                    vec = vecs[0]*x + vecs[1]*y + vecs[2]*z
                    vec = vec + self.base_vecs[index]
                    if all([0 <= vec.coords[i] <= self.kristal_size[i] for i in range(0,3)]):
                        bm.verts.new(vec.tup())

        bm.verts.new((0, 0, 0))
        bm.to_mesh(mesh)
        bm.free()
        return True

    def __fill_atom_grid(self, index):
        master = data.objects[self.name + "_" + \
            str(self.base_vecs[index])]

        mat = self.mats[index]

        obj = self.__create_atom(Vector((0, 0, 0)),\
        self.base_atom_sizes[index],mat)

        obj.parent = master
        master.dupli_type = "VERTS"
        return True

    def __create_atom(self,vec,radius,color = False):
        ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(location = vec.tup(), size = radius)
        obj = context.active_object
        if color:
            obj.data.materials.append(color)
        return obj

executed by script:
bravis = {  "bcc": [(-1, 1, 1),(1, -1, 1),(1, 1, -1)],
            "sc":  [(1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)],
            "fcc": [(1, 1, 0), (1, 0, 1), (0, 1, 1)]}

base_vecs = [(0,0,0)]
base_vecs = [Vector(base_vec) for base_vec in base_vecs]
sizes = [0.1]

#vecs = [(-1, 1, 1),(1, -1, 1),(1, 1, -1)]
vecs = bravis["sc"]
vecs = [Vector(vec) for vec in vecs]
kristal_size = [6, 6, 6]

cryst = Crystal(vecs, base_vecs, kristal_size, sizes)

The Gui:
bl_info = {
    'name': 'Creating a Crystal-Panel'
}

import bpy
import main_2 as m2

class Create_Crystal(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = 'mesh.add_crystal'
    bl_label = 'Add Crystal'
    bl_options = {"REGISTER", "UNDO"}

    def execute(self, context):
        bravis = {  "bcc": [(-1, 1, 1),(1, -1, 1),(1, 1, -1)],
            "sc":  [(1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)],
            "fcc": [(1, 1, 0), (1, 0, 1), (0, 1, 1)]}

        base_vecs = [(0,0,0)]
        base_vecs = [m2.Vector(base_vec) for base_vec in base_vecs]
        sizes = [0.1]

        vecs = bravis["sc"]
        vecs = [m2.Vector(vec) for vec in vecs]
        kristal_size = [6, 6, 6]

        cryst = m2.Crystal(vecs, base_vecs, kristal_size, sizes)
        return {"FINISHED"}

class Panel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_idname = "panel.crystalPanel"
    bl_label = "Add Crystal"
    bl_space_type = "PROPERTIES"
    bl_region_type = "WINDOW"
    bl_context = "render"

    def draw(self, context):
        self.layout.operator("mesh.add_crystal", icon='MESH_CUBE', text="Add Crystal")

def register() :
    bpy.utils.register_class(Create_Crystal)
    bpy.utils.register_class(Panel)

def unregister() :
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(Create_Crystal)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(Panel)

if __name__ == "__main__" :
    register()
    #unregister()

The errormessage is:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "\GUI (1).py", line 27, in execute
  File "\main_2.py", line 62, in __init__
  File "\main_2.py", line 77, in __create_atom_grid
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'data'

location: <unknown location>:-1

location: <unknown location>:-1

I belive blender is swiching from object to edit mode when the order is executed by the panel.
Edit:
I found a word around by avoiding the command (in Crystal generating class):
 mesh=context.object.data

mesh was already defined by:
mesh = data.meshes.new("mesh")

futher I had a mistake in the Crystal generating class. I try to use the variable vecs while it has to be called with self.prim_vecs:
vec = vecs[0]*x + vecs[1]*y + vecs[2]*z

Correct:
vec = self.prim_vecs[0]*x + self.prim_vecs[1]*y + self.prim_vecs[2]*z


text:
Solidify modifier thinner near edges
I have a house that I'm trying to make it seem normal by attaching the solidify modifier to it. After doing this, the thickened faces seem to be thinned out when near edges. look here. In the last picture, you can see the same thing happen in the cut out hole acting as the doorspace.
If this is just how the solidify modifier works, I'm open to another alternative on making the walls not paper thin.
I will be importing these into Unity, so I just want them house to be blocky, not curved weirdly at parts.

Hi crazicrafter and welcome.
Have you checked the even thickness box in the solidifier options?

Yes, its still nearly the same here

Tha screen shot does not show a checkmark in the even thickness box

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

refresh it or open again https://imgur.com/a/RFLxCAn

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

I'm not sure what is exactly your problem as your mesh is a bit messy.
First, to clear you object a bit: In Object mode, ctrl A to apply scale. In Edit mode, select all and W > Remove Doubles, and also ctrl N to recalculate the normals.
Now, you have inner faces, it makes the Solidify a bit complicated because it will not only thicken the external walls but also the internal, and you will probably have faces crossing and overlapping each others. So if you want to use Solidify you should better create separate objects, ie separate floors form walls from roof.
I hope it will fix your problems...

Should I separate the walls from floors and the roof? So to do that would i have to select the faces of each of those 3 then press p-->selection?

yes, exactly, separate the floors from the walls


text:
Character not moving with bones
I modified a character model which I downloaded from somewhere, then added an armature so that I can animate. I started in the lower right area (the foot) , the extruded each bone from there.
When parenting the armature with the character, I did ctrl+p-->deform armature-->automatic weights.
When I go into pose-mode to rotate and move the bone, hoping that it would move my characters boot, it doesn't. I learned that I might have to manually paint weights, so I did that with the left foot. I then tried moving the bone again (pose mode), still, the boot doesnt move at all.
My character is a "santa", which has many different objects like boots, right leg, left leg, hat...
 (OLD)
NEW EDIT:
Alright I solved the bones not working. I think it was I started it in the foot and not the pelvis. I might not have selected the objects entirely that were to be children to the armature. Now, I have this:

(https://i.sstatic.net/vkdQK.jpg)
It seems that the transform of every object has reset. You can see the tiny armature in the center (not actually the armature, but a bone which is selected in blue).
What I did this time was make a new file, import my character, add armature in pelvis area, then extruded to each area. I selected all objects in Object Mode with 'a', then deselected and reselected the armature in order to make sure that it's the last selected for parenting. I did Ctrl + P --> armature deform --> with automatic weights. When doing this the last time, my computer didnt go under a load.
This time it did. My cpu went up to 95% usage and blender stopped responding. After 2 or so minutes, blender was responsive, then my scene/mesh looked like the above.

First of all, you need to join all this character's meshes into one object by selecting them all then pressing ctrl+J. This will confuse the normals, so in edit mode select all then press ctrl+N. The armature and mesh need to share the same origin point. Press ctrl+S to snap the cursor to the center. Select the mesh and press ctrl+alt+shift+C. Do the same with the armature. Meshes downloaded from the Internet or generated from a different program can have some funky reactions when they're parented to a rig. I'm not sure why that is, but to fix it, you can scale down the mesh in object mode then apply the transformation by pressing Ctrl+A. Automatic weights aren't always guaranteed to work properly, especially if it has to deform an object made of separate meshes. You'll have to manually weight it. Be sure to convert those tris to quads (ctrl+F) to make that process easier. Cut down on those vertebrae too- only two to four are really necessary. Hope this helped.


text:
How should i unwrap this mesh so the texture won't stretch at edges?
so this is supposed to be a speaker grid ( I'm using texturing instead of modeling it), the problem that it's stretching around these curved edges, I don't know how to wrap it the right way yet.
Thank you so much, your help is much appreciated

Have you tried the smart uv unwrap method? Do you require the perfection of hand unwrapped UVs ?

yes i tried that and didn't work, no I'm a beginner i used to unwrapped uvs of simpler meshes but this one is a bit more complicated for me

could you please share your file with its image packed inside? https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

You can try the smart UV unwrap if that doesn't solve the problem then you can go to the top view and unwrap the mesh by selecting the top faces and clicking project from viewand then you can unwrap the side faces seperately.

Thank you all so much for trying to help, I managed to make it finally using this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHbgQs8zkpw
I'll leave it here in case it could be useful for anybody else


text:
How to calculate object's location after rotation around a pivot?
I'm trying to create a capsule object in Blender, which consists of two half-spheres and a tube between them, and i need to be able to move it around as if it was a single object and adjust the capsule's diameter and length. I need to link sphere's transforms to the transforms of the middle tube: X\Y scale of the tube should control diameter, Z scale should control length, and of course spheres should inherit location and rotation from it.
So i create the objects:

And add a bunch of drivers to control transform attributes on top and bottom spheres. Now, base location and scale are pretty straight forward. Top sphere's origin matches the origin of the tube, so rotation on it is simple as well. But i'm having a hard time figuring out rotation, or, rather, location of the bottom sphere.
See, i'm changing the location of the bottom sphere based on the length of the tube, so it's origin does not match the origin of the other objects, and if i rotate the capsule, i need to recalculate location of the bottom sphere, as if i was rotating it around a pivot set at top\middle's origin. And i'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how to do that.
I remember writing code to draw a cube in the past, and there i used angle addition trig formulas to calculate verts locations after rotation. Say, if i was to rotate the cube around the Z axis, X coordinate would change like:
X' = cos(rz)*X - sin(rz)*Y
and so on. But here i need to apply all rotations at once, and i can't figure it out. I can get rotations working in one or two planes, but not all three. And the more i've been thinking about, the more confused i get.
Now i'm sure that Blender has some functions to calculate that stuff, but it's not like i can use them in a driver, what i need is an actual math expression. I tried searching, but my googling skills seem to fail me as well, as i haven't been able to find what i need either. Can anyone who's familiar with the math involved in such calculations help me out with this?
Edit:
Calculating dot product by this matrix seems to work. For anyone who might be wondering how to do something similar this is what i have in driver expressions right now:
botLoc[0].driver.expression = "(-len * (sin(rx)*sin(rz)+cos(rx)*sin(ry)*cos(rz)))"

botLoc[1].driver.expression = "(-len * (-sin(rx)*cos(rz)+cos(rx)*sin(ry)*sin(rz)))"

botLoc[2].driver.expression = "(-len * (cos(rx)*cos(ry)))"

where rx\ry\rz are variables containing rotations, and len is the middle section z scale.

I think we have to exclude an XY Problem here. Can we know the final purpose of this object? (There are quite a few easier ways to do this than scripting, drivers)

I think what you are looking for is this : Rotation formalisms in three dimensions ? But as stated by Robin Betts, Blender offers far more elegant ways to achieve such results.

Agree with the others. Why are you using more than one object? It would be much easier to create your capsule object from a sphere in the first place and then set its origin to the geometry if necessary.

The purpose is to have a representation of a capsule object, the dimensions of which could be changed by adjust two values without editing the mesh.

Geometry node could do in a more simple way, maybe. Is it possible to use it in your context?

@StefLAncien Ah, thanks, taking dot product with this matrix seems to work. A bit glitchy, but works.

@lemon I'm not sure, i never really used it. Guess i'll look it up, thanks.

You could also do this with a couple of modifiers, and shape-keys, on a mesh Cylinder.

An over-the-top width Bevel, Shape 0.5, with 'Clamp Overlap'
A Weld, to get rid of the duplicate vertices at the poles
Maybe a Subdivision Surface

To bias the circumference loops towards the tips under Subdiv, to improve the interpolation of normals, you can give the edges around the caps a Crease.
Then you can give your Cylinder shape-keys; a scale in Z and a scale in XY. Those can be your keyable inputs to change the thickness and length of your capsule:

or with bones, possibly...

Great! I tried something involved Array modifier + caps + merging, but I had some artifacts and figured it's not worth it trying to make it work... In my and lemon's answers I'd still advise to start with low topo and use catmul clark subdivision to get 2nd derivative smoothness...

so finally, XY....

@MarkusvonBroady .. I guess, maybe, you'd really want round-cube caps to avoid the poles, and a nice nearby fixed loop to set up the normal interp. down the length .. that feels more like a GN thing to me.

Ha, i use shape keys all the time, often for little to no reason, and at no point did it occur to me to use them in this case. Oh well, thanks for suggestion, that may indeed be the easiest approach.

I can't stop laughing at this GIF for some reason

I don't know if that fits all your project constraints, but that can be the following using geometry nodes.

Make a sphere. Remove bottom half part.
Rotate it 180 and shift it down.
Shift again but up.
Make a cylinder.
Join and merge them all.
 (Blender 4.0)

Thanks, this does look more convenient than what i'm doing. I'll look into it.

note that you could use your own capsule models and also add materials.

An iteration on lemon's answer:

Thanks. Can't say that i need much fine-tuning for my purposes, but it's nice to have an example.


text:
How to undo dyntopo on a specific area?
I've been sculpting for the past couple days and realize as I move in for more detailed sculpting that I have a spot with dyntopo that I must have accidentally clicked. This was a couple days ago, so the undo button won't resolve it. I have attached a picture for a visual. Any help would be super helpful, and let me know if I need to supply anything else.

:)
EDIT: Heres an updated picture to pair with the answer that moonboots provided. It seems that changing the dyntopo to collapsed edges worked, and I just needed to play with the resolution and smooth brush to correct it out. Thanks Moon!

Have you tried the Dyntopo > Refine Method > Collapse Edges? It will simplify your topology. Of course you need to set the good resolution, the one you'll choose will define the triangle minimum size.

I'll try that, and I'll give ya an update in a little bit!
UPDATE: So I tried that and it kinda works? It makes it more consistent with its surrounding typography, but its still sticks out like a sore thumb due to the random triangles that it creates. I'll play with the resolution and see if that can help.

once you've simplified, use a brush that will smooth the shape, like the Smooth brush

I think it worked out alright with a close enough resolution and the smooth brush. I'll post an updated pic in the question. Thanks moon :)

Dyntopo > Refine Method > Collapse Edges > pick any Sculpt tool Strength set to 0 then apply to to your area

I just uncheck this option and it works.


text:
How do you remove the object line between two objects when joined?
I've been playing with blender for a little bit, and at the moment I'm having issues on joining two objects together in the sculpt mode. Specifically, I'm trying to get rid of the line between the objects when I joined them. If you need a visual, check out the image below. I outlined the line in black. I want to give it a more organic flow. Let me know if I need to supply anything else. I am using Blender 2.83.3 at the moment. Thanks! ^.^

Here is an update for my comment to moons. I can't select any other object for the modifier of boolean, because the objects are conjoined from the earlier ctrl + j. :S

Remesh , or   Remesh modifier? Or maybe that would screw the surface too much for you. Depends on how hi-res you're working.

so now that they are one unique object, I guess they are still 2 separate meshes, so use the method I give in my answer, i.e. the Boolean tool (not modifier)

After some rest, I tried the boolean from the faces panel, but the whole object just disappears, but its not hidden. :S

You can't sculpt 2 objects at the same time, and even joining the 2 objects won't be enough to create a weld between the 2 as they will still be 2 separate meshes. What you need to do is either keep them 2 separate objects and use the Boolean modifier, or join them and use the Boolean tool (the one I explain below). In both case make sure that the mode is Union
Boolean tool: Join the 2 objects (ctrlJ), go in Edit mode, select one of the 2 meshes, go in the header menu (or press ctrlF) > Face > Intersect (Boolean), then in the Operator box choose Union.
Now you can sculpt the way you want.

Hiya moon, the last time I reattached these objects were a while ago, so unfortunately ctrl + z 'ing won't really work. Can I still use the boolean intersect even though they are still one object or am I royally out of luck?

Yes the Intersect tool I'm talking about is for two or more meshes within the same object. But did I guess well when I said that your meshes were separated (within the same object)?

I'm still massively confused, Since the objects are now categorized as one object, How do I select the other? I'll update the main post with what I mean to clarify. I also tried the boolean union, and it made my object just disappear. :X

If you have multiple joined objects you can try selecting just one whole by using the keyboard shortcut "L" while in edit mode. Go into edit mode, deselect everything and put your mouse over one of the objects and press L. This should have selected one of the objects, now separate them by using "P"-"Selection".

Fort Ash, Thank you! This is what I was looking for. The items are now separate from the main object, and I can now use the boolean method that Moon suggested. :)

Another solution: Remesh in Sculpt Mode.
After joining 2 (ctrl+J) you can merge them to one solid (waterproof) mesh by remeshing it like this:


text:
Label points in plane and get position after transformation
As I'm a Blender greenhorn, I need your help. Here is my problem:
I have a document added as plane. Next, I want to label certain points within the document. Afterwards, I transform (fold and rotate) the document. In the end, I want to read off the new positions of my labels. Moreover, the points should not be visible when rendering the image.
I am doing the transformation by rotating bones. This works great! (see picture)

However, I am struggling with the labeling of points (see example in the attached image) and reading off the new position.
I would appreciate any help :-)
Background:
I want to generate a training data set for my Neural Network.
Cheers,
Julian

Add a screenshot or a blend file with https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

Related maybe(?) https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/882/30849

hey @Leander, unfortunately not related as it about the vertices of an object e.g. cube. However, my points are "randomly" set within the plane (see picture).

I don't see why you could t add vertices at those points.

One thing you could try is creating separate vertex groups for each point you want to label and then using the following Python code in the script editor to get the positions for each vertex.  Let me know if it works (or if it doesn't).
import bpy
import bmesh

ObjectName = "Plane"
VertexGroups = ["VGroup 1", "VGroup 2", "VGroup 3"]

obj = bpy.data.objects[ObjectName]
vGroupIndex = 0

def select_obj(obj):
    obj.select_set(True)
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = obj

def create_cube():
    bpyscene = bpy.context.scene
    mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("Vertex")
    cube = bpy.data.objects.new("Vertex", mesh)
    bpyscene.collection.objects.link(cube)
    select_obj(cube)

    bm = bmesh.new()
    bmesh.ops.create_cube(bm, size=1.0)
    bm.to_mesh(mesh)
    bm.free()

    return cube

def get_vertices_in_group(a,index):
    vlist = []
    for v in a.data.vertices:
        for g in v.groups:
            if g.group == index:
                vlist.append(v.index)
    return vlist

def create_boxes():
    boxes = [];
    for vgi in VertexGroups:
        vg = obj.vertex_groups[vgi]
        box = create_cube()
        bpy.ops.object.constraint_add(type="COPY_LOCATION")
        box.constraints["Copy Location"].target = obj
        box.constraints["Copy Location"].subtarget = vg.name
        boxes.append(box);
    return boxes

def get_locations(boxes, should_delete):
    for box in boxes:
        print(" ")
        print(box.name)
        mat = box.matrix_local
        pos = (mat[0][3], mat[1][3], mat[2][3])
        print(pos)
        if should_delete:
            bpy.ops.object.select_all(action="DESELECT")
            select_obj(box)
            bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False)

boxes = create_boxes()
get_locations(boxes, True)

You can replace ObjectName with whatever your plane is called and VertexGroups with the list of the names of the vertex groups you end up using for each vertex.
The way it works is by creating a box for each vertex group named in the VertexGroup list, and then using the copy location constraint to move the box over to wherever the vertex is.  Then it uses the box's matrix_local to find it's actual position (just checking the box's location doesn't take constrains into account and thus just returns (0,0,0))
It doesn't work to just find the vertices in the vertex groups and spit out their positions (vertex.co) because that only gives the position of the vertex relative to the object's origin as it is in edit mode (i.e. it won't account for armature poses, constraints, or even moving the mesh in object mode)
I doubt this is the fastest or best way to do this, but hopefully it will work well enough.  Hope it helps, and let me know if it works (or if it doesn't)

thanks for you answer @ElliotThomas. I also had this idea in mind. However, adding vertices in the plane (i.e. document paper) messes up the rotation with the bones (pic will follow). Maybe there is a way to fix this problem so I can follow your approach.

@Julian, as I was trying to figure out what was causing the issue you were having, I realized that my script only gives the positions of the vertices without counting the deform caused by the bones.  I've figured out a way to get around it, and I'm working on the script right now.  Basically, I'm going to add boxes in object mode with the copy location modifier to copy the location of each vertex in the appropriate vertex groups.  I'll then read the box.matrix_local to find it's true location and thus location of the vertex.

@Julian I fixed my answer.  If you just create new vertex groups and add vertices to those, it shouldn't affect the armature.  I mean, if you go into edit mode, the mesh will go back to its original pose without regard to the armature, but once you go back to object mode, it will fix itself.

I'll try as soon as possible (probably by tmrw). Thank you so much already :-) I'll let you know if it works!

First I have to apologize about saying that adding vertices messes up the rotation. I just had no clue about setting the vertex groups properly. Now I know how it works :-)
About your idea ... I really like it! I think it does a quite nice job. However, it still returns (0,0,0) for the cube's position. I'll try to fix that.

As I need the position of the vertices, i.e. cubes, in the rendered pictured I just use @zeffii 's solution in https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/882/how-to-find-image-coordinates-of-the-rendered-vertex. Thanks a lot!!!

@Julian Okay, I'm glad you found something that works.  I had that same problem with it returning (0,0,0) as well, and I think it just happens when it doesn't have enough time to update.  It might even work to put a sleep command between creating the boxes and reading their positions.  I noticed that even when it returned (0,0,0), if I checked the position of the box later in the Python Console, it gives me the correct answer.  So I guess if you were to run some other part of your program and read the cubes' positions later, it might work.


text:
Create non-animated, realistic film noise w/ scratches procedurally
I know I'd probably use a combination of Noise Textures, but I have no idea how I could make it look realistic with varying combinations of random dots, scratch- and hair particles etc. I could only find some explanations on how to achieve standard film grain, nothing too detailed.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/84546 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/123139 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/68863

You could do something like this.

The graph is comprised of mainly 2 parts - the "spots" and the "lines". Similar to what you were thinking, instead of Noise Textures, I used the distance output of Voronai Textures to make the "grain dots". I used varying levels of scale and randomness in addition to clamping the values with ColorRamps and using them to add a slight mustard-like hue (to match your image). I made 2 "fields" - one slightly dimmer than the other, and combined them using a Noise texture as a mix factor, so the end result would be a "patchy" combination of the two.

For the lines, I used a series of Wave Textures, offsetting some with Mapping Nodes and subtracting their values from each other, until I was left with some randomly spaced white lines that I then further darkened with another Noise Texture (so they aren't so evenly bright).

The last step, I used a Noise texture, heavily clamped to make the small white dots that are lightly "speckled"  around the image.

Finally I put them all together. I used an Emission Shader, as it makes sense that this is being emitted from a screen, and I ran the output through a HSV node first for finer control over the color and the brightness.

I'll post the file here, so you don't have to take the time to rebuild the graph yourself if you want to play with it.
File is here -

I played around with your file and there are a lot of amazing possibilities. The reason I asked the question was because it's really hard to find free CC0 film grain overlay textures for programs like Photoshop in high resolution. To make the render look even more realistic I tried to 1) add hair/scratch particles by copying your White Dots group and 2) vertical lines by copying the Lines nodes and rotating them, but I'm new to Blender and not entirely satisfied with the result – I feel like the outcome would be perfect if you would give it a shot. Let us know, this is an amazing setup!

Yeah, I didn't go too detailed or add the vertical lines just because I was making a quick demo. However, I'm glad you found it helpful and would be happy to help you further. I'm working on a couple things right at the moment, but when I have a bit of time, I'll update the file with more detail. I'll post it here when I'm done.

I can pretty quickly get a result like this using the compositor:

You can create textures using the Texture Properties Panel.  I identified three main features of your image to reproduce: a bed of noise, larger white flecks, and horizontal bands, trying as much as I can to avoid complete continuity.
You can recreate these features with a noise texture:

A musgrave texture:

Note that musgrave returns a range of -1 to 1, so it's easier to ramp it down to small black flecks and then invert in the compositor.
And this is what I actually used for the bands, but we're going to heavily modify this in the compositor.

You can choose these textures in the compositor from a Texture node, and mix them into your final image.  Here's what my node group looks like:

Note that we're stretching and squeezing the distorted noise texture quite a lot, and then applying a pretty harsh color ramp to it.  This gives us a more pleasing banding effect that doesn't have a hard cutoff and doesn't span the entire image.
I encourage you to experiment with more layers and colors to create the exact effect you want.


text:
MPFB2 Human Export to Sketchup
I have created a character using MPFB2 and now I need to export it to something Sketchup can use (Collada). Unfortunately, the textures aren't coming with it. I have watched countless videos, but haven't found a solution. I tried to bake the textures, but when I join the pieces (CNRL+J), I get this extra geometry that shows up. It's supposed to be a Male-Asian. If someone can give me a step-by-step, I would greatly appreciate it. I'm using Blender 4.0. Thanks!

Really? A question with an answer 7 years old is a duplicate?

Have you tried packing the materials?

Not sure how to do that. Is that the same as "Pack Resources" under External Data?

Yes. Sorry, miswording on my part.

I tried that. Same results.


text:
Morph one object into another and then use same morph on another object to change it into a different shape
I know morphing between shapes has been discussed in other posts, however, I have a particular set of requirements that I'm not able to address based on the information I have found elsewhere and personal experimentation.
I want to morph between two objects and then use that exact same morph/transformation on a separate object to transform it into another shape. For instance if we used transformation x on a cube to transform it into a circle then when we apply transformation x to another object it will become more circular.
Ive tried using shapekeys, shrinkwrap, and particle physics but they all have drawbacks. When I use particle physics I don't believe I can use the same transformation on other objects and while with shape keys I may be able to do so, I'm not able to transform complex objects into others adequately due to differences in the # of vertices. Trying to create objects with equal #s of vertices (subdivision/decimate modifiers) didn't quite work out either (that may not help anyway). If anybody has any ideas for doing this with the requirements stated, even using something other than blender, please let me know.

Morph is a really broad term, so maybe clarify the sort of morph you're after, and what is not working with the methods you've listed?
Shapekeys is very literal and granular (take this sequence of vertices, move them this far in this direction,) and particles & shrinkwrap are more macro-level morphs.  Any one of these closer to what you're after?

B 2.8 has an interesting built-in morphing addon, demo here:  https://youtu.be/Ly64vezt0Go

Sure, so for instance if I have a blend object that's a truck I want to be able to turn it into a plane or any other type of object I may have. The other part of my requirement is that the mapping between truck and plane needs to be saved so that it can be applied to another object e.g. a football. You can save a mapping like that I believe using shape keys but the challenges Im running into are that the objects have different numbers of vertices which can make morphing between objects an issue when using shapekeys/shrinkwrap. I could use particles but cant save the mapping as far as I know

That add on looks very interesting. I wasn't aware of that one so thank you for sharing it. Now using that add on could I morph between two objects I've appended to a scene that have different numbers of vertices like in the example I desribed above and then save that morph/mapping for reuse (e.g. like a shape key)?

So you want truck:plane to map to football:xxx.   I'm not sure what blender would do with that, but interesting idea!
To use that addin I suggested, you'll need to convert original objects into curves first, then I think you can feed both shapes to the addon.  I haven't tried it, but I do believe you can copy shapekeys between objects, but you still might need to get the vertex count to be equal.
I'm not really sure how shapekeys are stored, however, so it might be by vertex order and you might just get noise if you feed a (truck:plane) shapekey to a football mesh.
Good luck!

Yup exactly. Oh ok interesting. Yeah most of my objects are composed mostly of meshes so I guess I can convert them into curves first and then feed them into the add on. Yeah unfortunately that's been the big limitation in blender that shapes need to have equal vertices and it's been a challenge to get them to equal. But I will definitely give the addon idea a try. Thank you very much for your assistance. Appreciate it!


text:
Why does the object in animation don't move
As you can see I have problem with this one object. I created Vertex Groups(all assigned well), joined all objects into one, added Armature modifiers and this one object don't move with the bone.
I tried to separate this element and set parent to bone, but it didn't help. Also applied Scale and rotation before joining objects

hello, could you please share your file? https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Sure. Link below screen shot.

I renamed the bone and the vertex group to "Mid" and it works. So probably this is a bug, something mismatched inside.


text:
Weird geometry on Bevel tool
I'm working on my knife model and I want to add more smooth edges on the grip. When i use bevel tool i get weird geometry, because of angles on my model.

How can I make my edges smooth just the grip?

Hello, please share your file so that we can try: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Hi. File added. Thanks!

Don't forget to delete the (inner) faces that are on the mirror axis. Don't you want to use Subdivision Surface? If you use it it works fine, you can then sharpen the blade with additional edge loops if necessary

That's good idea. I knew that I can add this modifier, but don't know why I wanted t make this with bevel. Thanks


text:
Why can't i turn on inverse kinematics with rigify
I got a rigged 3d model and for some reason when I try to turn on inverse kinematics an error pops up saying
Traceback (most recent call last):
File  "D:\Stan\CG-assets\repromancer_slender_man_game_res\repromancer_slender_man_rigged.blend_ui.py", line 433, in execute AttributeError."Context" object has no attribute "user_preferences"

location: <unknown location>:-1"

I hope I'm not pressing the wrong button (that would be stupid)

try making your own rig

If you share you file I'd like to take a look. Just the metarig will do, no character needed.

rig tell me if you need anything else


text:
Is there a way to extrude a face while following the angles of the sides?
I tried extruding the edges along their normals but it would not follow the angle properly, so i was wondering if there was a way to extrude the face and as i pull it out, it will scale it to keep the edges co planar to their origin edges and corresponding face.

https://i.sstatic.net/4r6Hs.jpg

What you describe sounds like a regular extrude, unless I misunderstood. If that isn't happening then something is wrong, possibly duplicate geometry, overlapping faces, or inconsistent normals.

i believe you will find what you're looking for here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/7365/extrude-faces-along-local-normals :]

I tried the suggested methods, and unless i was doing them improperly, it does not seem to be the solution. Please excuse the beveling, but i went ahead and did the procedure by hand, maybe this will give more insight into exactly what i am looking to do.
http://imgur.com/a/WnJ2x

Stumbled upon this question searching how to pull a face while confining adjacent faces to their respective planes. Discovered a method to achieve what I needed, by using Edge Slide and pressing C to release Clamp, similar to: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/14892

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


text:
how to mirror a texture so that its uvs match
hi i'm new to editing models and uv maps but i'm trying to edit a model from a nintendo game, it's a simple forklift i'm editing the tire but its uvs are foreign to me http://prntscr.com/igkmgi

as you can see they go over the edge, what seems to be the case is if the texture were mirrored the uv wouldn't have a problem adjusting to it. problem, i don't know how to make it do so.
someone else asked this question and they were in a similar problem with a different nintendo model, and it was suggested to repeat it in image mapping. I've done so but it only seems to affect the preview and not the actual scene
http://prntscr.com/igknq2

the uvs are fine, i just want to mirror the texture itself. how do i do that?

Did you try separting and flipping the other side of the UVs ? Or alternatively you could edit the texture and mirror it in other external programs if you don't want to mess with the UVs.

i did try editing the texture but that just extended the uvs and there wasn't a way to fix that.
and in the case of the uvs itself i did try flipping them but that's not a desirable option as it's really only the texture that needs mirroring not the uvs going over the edge

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


text:
Everything looks great on camera, except when you turn on smooth shading
Everything looks great when modeled and looked at in flat shading, but when I get to exporting with a plugin it just look weird. What did i do wrong?
Flat shading (material preview)

Smooth shading (solid view)

your face is made of a huge ngon, if the face is not completely flat it creates artifacts like this, you need to correct the topology

look at this kind of topologies: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/139912/how-to-add-extra-loop-cuts-without-affecting-subsurf ... https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/112612/how-to-dig-an-elliptical-hole-in-blender-iphone

@moonboots sorry to ask this but I am new to Blender. In one of the links you shared there is a mention of a sub surf modifier, which one is that?

Subdivision Surface modifier, it allows you to fake additional edge loops, therefore it makes the object rounder

I think I need to get back into tutorials... I did all the holes using the boolean modifier and I thing that's why all the ugly artifacts. Just so I avoid this in the future can you please give me a bit of advice or maybe point me towards the right direction (tutorials, a rule of thumb, etc)? P.S add an answer to the post so I can mark it

there are a lot of great tutorials, maybe try Grant Abbitt's, it's a nice mix of modeling, texturing, animation...

Your face is made of a huge ngon, if the ngon is not completely flat it tends to creates artifacts like the ones we see when you smooth, because of the stretched triangles that compose it. So you need to correct the topology and work with quads as much as possible, sometimes tris... ngons are ok if they don't cause any problem.
For iphones see answers here and here for example.


text:
Donut texture painting : weird patterns appear
Im currently in "Part 3, Level 2: Texture Painting" of the donut tutorial made by Blender Guru.
As I started painting the donut in "Texture Paint", weird patterns started appearing on my donut.
You can see the patterns in the screenshots below.
It seems like they appear when I paint close to the edge of the UV image.
The UV mapping looks wrong on one part as you can see on the last image.
Any idea what I did wrong and how I can solve this ?
I am using version 2.83.1

After doing the smart unwrap it looks like this :

Did you UV unwrap it properly? If not click U and unwrap or smart UV project it

Thanks for your reply. After doing the smart UV project it looks like the picture above. It seems better but still not perfect ?

You have done it in the wrong way you should get a rectangle.This is how we can put it simply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr-UgnZLxvg. Also this will help you to unwrap a torus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNRLDPrQAJU


text:
Can't get a specific mesh to render (though everything else renders fine)
Trying to make my first 3d animation. Spent the past hour looking through fixes for similar issues but nothing has worked for me so far. This is really weird because I don't think the object is entirely invisible. Rather than describing, I'll share screenshots of 1. solid mode viewport, 2. material preview mode viewport, 3. rendered frame (note the eery black outline of meshes face, I'm certain it is the face because when I move mesh that black outline moves in render). What's weird is, I initially had this working perfectly, but after changing the keyframes for my animation (spacing them out), adding a floor and background it just stopped showing the humanoid mesh. I'm also unsure why it's completely black but that is not my primary concern right now. Things I've tried: hiding and unhiding in viewport, disabling and enabling in rendering, clear all resrict render.
Blend file (sorry, blend-exchange was taking forever so I uploaded to google drive):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_oInTQqhWHFPOl7p9XTM6LVqx6N-9wEc/view?usp=sharing

Please edit your question and share a .blend file if you want to get any meaningful answers.

Your object have Alpha is 0, you need to go to select your object, then go to the Material properties > Alpha, and change this to 1


text:
When rendering animation in Mpeg 4 with H.264 codec, the final product looks like garbage
Rendering an animation with the video sequencer and using the H.264 codec with Mpeg 4 makes my animation look ugly. I've tried a few other codecs but they compress the hell out of the image. Am I supposed to pair the Mpeg 4 container with a different codec?
Images:

I added captions to the images, but the top one is what I see in the render preview and the bottom one is what I see when I play the final Mpeg 4 file

I’m voting to close this question because it isn't about Blender, but rather VLC media player.

Just figured it out guys. Turns out that I'm just stupid and VLC media player doesn't have h.264 codec turned on by default or something.
The video plays fine when imported into lightworks so problem solved, yeah baby


text:
Texture not displaying properly in any mode except Texture Paint
I am very new to blender so apologies if there's an obvious solution I haven't tried yet.
The two images I have attached are of my current project: attempting to turn my minecraft skin into a 3D model. I was using this tutorial (which is 3 years old and outdated but I've been using google to find how to do the things) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VYWQgRvhQ4
The texture of my model is perfect in texture paint mode. Exactly how it should be. It's messed up in every other mode though for some reason and I'm unable to figure out why. I've even looked at the texture itself and it's fine, I'm not sure why it's not displaying properly in almost every mode.
Please help.

EDIT:
Here's the blender file of my project.

You might want to consider sharing your .blend file. You could share it here: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ It could help people figure out what's going on.

Just did! Thanks for the advice, hoping this helps us figure out what's wrong

you might need to share the .blend file again with the textures packed into the file since the .blend file you provided doesn't have the textures included. To pack the textures into the file click on file then go to extrernal data and click pack all into .blend file

Ah, yes, my apologies. I should have mentioned that.

Actually I think there is no need to re-upload. : ) Go to the Settings in the Material Properties tab of you material and. Under Settings you should set both Blend Mode and Shadow Mode  to Opaque. This should fix you problem.

Fjoersteller's comment:

Actually I think there is no need to re-upload. : ) Go to the Settings in the Material Properties tab of you material and. Under Settings you should set both Blend Mode and Shadow Mode  to Opaque. This should fix you problem.

Thanks Fjoersteller, that actually fixed it! I had Blend Mode on Alpha Blend, but turning it to Opaque fixed the texture completely!!!


text:
Shader displaying wrong color; blur effect in Shading workspace
Blender was running fine but in my wisdown I decided to uninstall it to reset everything to defaults. After reinstalling, the shader base color I chose was displaying incorrectly. I chose red and the shader appeared deep pink in Rendered view. Only the lighting works.
In Shading workspace, other problems occur. Using the Pan, Zoom and Transform tools cause a blur effect on the object so that it is hard to see where the actual object is. The "old" object highlighted outline (orange) remains while the newly calculated object view is dark gray. I have tried many fixes to no avail:

Uninstalled and reinstalled three times.
Used a prog like CC Cleaner to target and remove files.
Manually removed files and folders throughout the C: drive (as many as I could find, even hidden AppData)
Tried running Blender through Steam.
Used a restore point recovery, going back five days.
Deleted one Blender key in the Windows uninstall folder in the registry.

Thank you.

Please edit your question and make the images visible as part of the question, instead of havin users click on many links.

This seems like a bug with the Principle shader.  Try playing around with going into the Shading tab and deleting the Principle shader, adding a diffuse shader, rendering, unchecking "Use Nodes" in the Worlds tab of the Properties editor (and maybe in the Material settings), and then replacing the diffuse shader with the Principle shader.  Doing combinations of that sometimes worked for me, though not consistently.  Creating the materials in the shading tab rather than the layout tab worked for me once, but not the second time.

I'll check if it's fixed in 2.90α. In the meantime, just avoid the Principle shader

I am not sure what you mean by "deleting Principle shader." Do you mean the Principled BSDF? And if so, I am to change to Diffuse BSDF? I really think something is just wrong w/my computer. It doesn't make sense. Somehow, despite uninstalling and reinstalling Blender 2.8, no matter whether I use the standard version, Steam, or the portable version, the same thing keeps happening. The program opens fine, shows the standard cube. I can move it, rotate, etc., but Shading causes problems. Then the blur effect starts. Every single time. No amount of deleting files or registry keys has worked.


text:
How to remove these unnecessary connections?
I'm trying to use simple deform and I separated all sections, but there some ugly connections on wide fragments. Please help me to remove them(or say what I am doing wrong)
I'm using blender for 2 days and I'm absolute newbie. I will be glad for any help

Can you add a image of the object in edit mode? It might be due to bad topology

+1, There is definitely double geometry here that you may not see when the object is straight but that cannot bend with the modifier


text:
required amount of light is not coming inside the room
I have a bedroom scene in which there are two doors and two windows. Even Using portals doesn't give me results what is in my mind. I need illuminated inside scene. When both of the windows are open and doors are closed light should come inside the room and illuminate the scene. but, It's not happening even using the portals. in fact portal is not affecting the scene pretty much. first one is without portals
this one is with portals..

hdri I have used is having 27EV. and I have set strength of 20 and still light is not coming inside the room. Link for hdri. and I am attaching screenshot of my blender screen where you can see strength as well you can see that outside wall is totally white.
EDIT :: By mentioning that outside wall is totally white I want to say that If I increase the strength It is lighting up the room but it makes outside wall totally white. In last I am going to make an animation in which outside walls will be there so If walls are total white there will be no meaning of that. I am attaching a screenshot of original color of my walls too. This one is with the HDRI strength 1. This one is having HDRI strength 20 where outside wall is complete white.  here is the link for my blender file click here...
EDIT :: One more thing if I am increasing exposure then It makes outside walls white too. This is a base model of my bedroom. SO In reality with these window enough light is coming inside. SO i am trying to achieve the look I see everyday in my bedroom.

Hello :). This looks like a realistic result. Small room with tiny windows and dark walls will always look dark. Perhaps show the window glass material, it seems to block light.

@JachymMichal It's Actually my bedroom. All walls and windows are made with measurements of my real world bedroom. And in scene only half of window is closed where as half is empty not even a glass material. so when I see in real world that two windows are more than enough to light up my bedroom. That's why I am totally confused what to do.

Somewhat related links: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/175103/make-texture-visible-in-sunlight/175110#175110 and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/47851/how-can-i-make-a-more-realistic-glass-shader

@susu Thanks for the links... It were really helpful... The exact issue I had... I really appreciate it.

You can use whatever strength value for the environment that works for you, so if 20 is too dark, you can use 200, if 200 is too dark, you can use 2000, so if there is not enough of light, just add more light.
One thing to keep in mind is that if you have glass windows, whatever light comes through them, becomes refractive caustics, and they are terribly slow to calculate and not accurate at all in Cycles. You should consider using fake glass shader with transparent shader mixed with glossy for reflections by amount determined by Fresnel node. It might be a good idea to avoid calculating shadows from the glass at all, because they practically do not contribute to the realism of the render at all in vast majority of cases, so you can have the glass of all the windows as a separate object and disable it's visibility for all rays except camera rays:

What's important in lighting is not the numerical values, you use, but their proportions compared to each other. The light of the sun on a clear day might illuminate the ground with 120 000 lux while artificial lighting on a desk in an office is required to be(and often is) around 200 lux(at least where I am). So that's the difference between a light bulb and the sun in reality... Keep that in mind. In a dark painted room like yours the difference between the inside and the outside would be huge as well. No need to be afraid of that. If you have the values their relationships in the scene set up the way it is not convenient for you to adjust the strength of the environment and keep the ratios, you can also adjust exposure here:

... or here:

Both are OK, the first multiplies the values in the rendered result, the second multiplies the values of all the lights in the scene if I am not mistaken.
You should use portals to speed up the render - the noise clears up faster if you use portals, but they should not have any influence on the looks of the render.
Note that you definitely do not need any add-ons whatsoever to have nice light in your scene. They might make it more convenient for you to set things up, but are completely optional.

That's a really good point about glass shadows and caustics in Cycles. Fake-ish glass can help a lot in archviz :).

Hey, Thanks for answering my question and helping me. It helped me in other cases and It revised some point I forgot. But, scenario after following these steps is different. I have edited my question. I will really appreciate your help If you read scenario again and help me... Thanks..

This is how it is in reality. There can be hundreds of times more light outside than inside in reality, but our eyes adjust to that. If these scenarios are filmed, camera exposure or lens aperture must be adjusted when going inside from outside. Photos of interiors are often edited or even taken with multiple exposures so that the outside is not overexposed. I will add a file with an example of how I usually set up my interior scenes. I often have different strengths of the background for the lighting and the camera.

Hey @MartynasŽiemys Thank you so much for helping me with this issue. To write all of this with details I am grateful to you. That file is really helpful with my issue. Thanks again

@MartynasŽiemys Hello again, I gone through the file you provided. I am really amazed with the scene setup. There are lots of things that i don't know. But, I am learning so I won't ask all of that. But, still I want to ask a one question that to render one scene there was 33750 tiles. and it rendered iteratively like may be 2 or 3 times. and still it rendered in 13 mins. and generally my file with around 500 tiles require more than 15 min... how's that possible?


text:
How to make partial glossy material without roughness?
I want to make a background material like the photo below for a logo. I tried many different techniques but, none worked for me. It's like tinted glossy plastic. It is like it is having reflection of outside world but, not that much.. it is more like opacity. Reflections are partial. Not full reflective. glossy material is not working for logo either. Logo is shiny but when I create a glossy shader It reflects HDRI and looks like steel. If I increase roughness then reflectiveness goes off... I am confused what to do...
EDIT :  I tried to give metallic look of value 0.4 and roughness 0.08. But, even a small value of roughness blurs out the refelction. So, Roughness isn't the part of material. I tried to give clearcoat effect too. But, it didn't work.
This is viewport render , metallic 0.4, roughness 0.08 , clearcoat 1 but, still not working for me.

Use a Principled BSDF. Maybe try values like 0.4 for Metallic and 0.08 for Roughness (Light blue/grey basecolor).

You might also try messing with the clearcoat setting.

When using a Principled BSDF, try lowering the Specular value from its default 0.5 to much smaller values like 0.2, 0.1 or even 0.05, this should "fade" the reflection without blurring it.

After messing with different value of roughness , specular and clearcoat I was able to achive the result I wanted.
above displayed result needed very small amount of specular and clearcoat. both set to 0.001 and roughness 0 with principled shader.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant in my comment. The main factor to get the result you want is to lower the specualrity. I was just preparing some example images, but good to see you found a way.

@GordonBrinkmann Yes, Thanks alot. Your guidance was the key I figured my way. Thanks again.

By the way, you can accept your own answer as solution so everybody can see that the problem is solved.

@GordonBrinkmann I tried, But website is showing me that I can accpet my answer tomorrow.

Oh,yes of course, I see.


text:
How to render with low quality
How to change the quality of renders in python and save low quality render output?
Low quality, small size (not default size)

Not sure what you mean by "Quality rendering". The quality of the render could mean multiple things like render samples, render resolution, render bounces and individual settings for properties like shadow samples, SSR, SSS, etc. You need to mention which specific properties you need to change. Your question is very vague ATM.

thx for edit my english

bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.image_settings.file_format = 'JPEG'
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.filepath = './'
bpy.ops.render.render(animation = False)
img = bpy.data.images[0]
img.save_render('wynik.jpg')


text:
Normal Map Seam Problem
When i add normal map it creates seam in the mesh how can i fix this ?
I generate normal map from the diffuse with some maps generator program.

Is your mirror modifier on? Try Applying it, then select whole mesh, then press M - > by distance. Also, if your seam is on the middle it will probably always be seen. Try to avoid places for seam where you can see it. Instead, put it "under" that monster - around legs, around neck and so on

the seam completely split the mesh in half there is seam above and below can you dowload the file and look of it please ?

i try the mirror modifier and m-by distance result is same

You need to switch the normal Image Texure to Non-Color:

Other than that, check your UV Editor, the UV maps of the right and left sides of your objects are overlapping, it makes the texture mirror on the surface of your object.

hey thanks for your answer but the result is not good as i want, also i need to export as fbx and reimport to unreal engine 4 so non-color method not work for unreal engine 4 i suppose ?

I'm talking about the Image Texture that is plugged into the Normal Map node, it improves the result. Other than that, check your UV Editor, the UV maps of the right and left sides of your objects are overlapping, that's why there's a mirror effect on the surface of your object

ohh okay thanks


text:
Smooth shading disappears in render view
I'm making this object :

And as you can see, it has smooth shading. However, when I go to render view :

The smooth shading disappears. The only modifier I'm using is a Bevel modifier and I have Auto Smooth on, but I tried disabling both and none seem to have an effect on the issue. The smooth shading is applied on all faces. When I switch to Eevee, the smooth shading is applied. This is very weird. Please tell me if you think you have an idea what could cause this. Thanks by advance !

it looks smooth to me, why do you say that it disappears?

There is something up with the central curved spar, which the reflections are amplifying... could youshare your file on https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ ?

@moonboots look closer on the middle part, it is not smooth. The picture does not show it very well, but it's like that eveywhere.

As Robin says, please share your file

File uploaded !

Worked it out ! It had to do with the material that I had copied from elsewhere, it had a normal map and that somehow messed up the display. I still have a problem with the bevel modifier but I can live with that.


text:
Scale edges inward evenly

I don't know which title suit my question the best. But essentially what I'm trying to do is to create an indentation inward for each piece of wood that encircle my barrel. The only solution I find so far is to manually edit every single edge, but there must be another way to do this for all the edges at the same time.
So the first image is what I need the edges to look like:

Here you can see how the edges look like without my manual scaling:

So as you can see from the first image, I need to scale the edges inwards themselves(?) Is essential for me to create this kind of indentation but each edge has a different angle so when I scale them I get a crazy result.
Also, I should apply this for each edge that encircles the barrel.
The barrel is like this:

And this is the shape of the edges:

I hope I was able to explain the problem I have.
I really hope that you can help me find the solution, I don't use Blender often, I'm a beginner and sometimes I feel overwhelmed.
Thank you in advance for your help.
EDIT: I'm doing this operation while using the mirror modifier on the Z-axis

what does it give if you switch Transform Pivot Point to Individual Origins, then scale? Also if you don't want to scale too much on Z, then first scale only on X and Y with the shift Z constraint while you scale?

With the individual origins it makes a weird thing inside the barrel. link

The solution I found so far is to scale first the edges along the X and Y as you said and than to pick manually the top vertex that is not been touched and bring it down. This works good but I was looking for a faster solution.

Can't really see the problem to be honest. If you loop select each edge by holding Shift-Alt and clicking the edges, then set the transform pivot point to Individual Origins it scales exactly as you show in your first image!

The shrink/fatten tool is exactly what you need! Select the middle loop of each of the barrel's sides (the one you want to make slightly smaller) and press Alt S. This will shrink the edge loop equally in all directions, giving you the shape you're after.

OMG YES! YES! THANK YOU !!!!


text:
Animation automatically created by Rigify in Blender 2.8
After generating a rig with Rigify in Blender 2.83.3 an animation tab is added under the rig.
I'm quite new to blender, and I'm asking this question just to have more understanding of what I'm seeing and why it is there.

So as you can see from the image above, on the right side, I get an animation menu, below there is what is called Drivers which I have no idea about them ( if you can give me a hint on what they are I'll be eternally grateful ) and below it, there are Squirrel and Squirrel_ui.py.

Which are the functions of these things?
What are they?

Last but not least, there is that damn thing on the action editor that is created automatically. Is like a clone of the track above. I just can get rid of it, can not delete it. Why is this?
Guys thank you so much for your time.
UPDATE

About the action editor question: that extra tab, seems like a copy of the one above it. Also, I noticed that if I click on the button on the menu on top ( see screenshot ) which says "Include missing NLA", that block ( the one below ) just disappear, leaving visible only the one with the action inside. So from this test/result, I guess that this damn block is an animation data-block with no NLA data. How this block is created, why is created and why I can't delete it, well still a mystery. This may help you if you are looking into this as well.
About the drivers, I think they are part of the Rigify's code-structure, I think that they are needed in order for Rigfy to work. Still, I would love to know more details about it.


text:
Fbx import armature problem
Best regards.
When importing fbx with default settings in Blender - spins the bone of the character, Max and C4D import that fbx correctly
An intermediate solution has been found - re-export via C4D (through Max it is also possible)
But when I import the animation, it’s still spinning, wrongly animated.
Since the characters differents, and the animations for everyone are also in fbx, this solution is not suitable.
Please help solve.

Yeah, the bone rotation is all over the place. Can you check the bone orientation in C4D or Max and paste  a screenshot?

here the same bone that incorrectly in Blender https://ibb.co/8xKTHJJ

and here in Blender https://ibb.co/k6nrMh5

Added Images in description

That looks like the bone is set to move in World space, not armature space. That's something I would try to avoid at all cost. There seems to be no animation on that bone, try selecting it and pressing ALT R.

Thank you
it help to fix the initial pose.
but the animation imported from others fbx still doesn't work properly. it was exported from some game engine, maybe UE
so for dont waste time, I set up a test scene in 3ds Max from which I export the characters to Blender.

I think, that I solve this problem - the solution at 1:12 https://youtu.be/x2A4SQTVDBI

An important issue to understand when working with FBX, is Blender always points the bone primary axis in a +Y direction, while Maya and FBX support unique bone orientation per-bone. You can set joint orientations in the Maya "Orient Joint Options" dialog.
Maya Joint Orientation in a Minute - YouTube
The Blender FBX Import setting "automatic bone orientation" is a one-way fix that tries to reorient the bones in the parent->child direction, but this does not always work, and creates a new skeleton which does not match the original FBX skeleton.
IMO, when using Blender in an FBX import/export workflow with other tools and game engines, "automatic bone orientation" should always be turned off, because it merely hides problems in bone orientations. With this setting off, Blender should no longer break FBX rigs and animations when importing. If the bones are pointing in the wrong directions, you can turn on the bone-axis display, and you will see which primary axis each bone was authored for.
The two solutions I'm aware of to have Blender FBX rigs and animations to interoperate with other tools are...

To standardize on a skeleton with all bones pointing in +Y direction. One way to do this is to create the original skeleton/rig in blender, and export it to other tools to use for work.

If you have an existing skeleton built elsewhere with non-uniform bone orientation, you can import just the skeleton into Blender, use Automatic bone-orientation and/or editing to reorient the bones, then export this new "+Y bones" skeleton into your game engine as a new Skeleton/Avatar. You can use this skeleton to build animations in Blender, export them onto that Skeleton in the game engine, and then use the game-engine retargetting tools to convert them to the other skeleton with non-uniform bone orientations.

For more, see this bug...
⚓ T53620 FBX Import - Armatures are incorrect


text:
Straightening Lines without Straightening Iron

Thanks for looking this over in advance.
Hopefully pictures describe this somewhat well- but I'm looking to take the guess out of my guesswork here and have lines which are "perfectly straight". Here, that means for Vertex A, B, C all on the same plane and collectively forming an Edge, with Vertex B at some point between the two others- the interior/exterior angles at Point/Vertex B are equal to 180 degrees.
Any thoughts on how to go about doing this?
In case there's a mixup, the second picture is simulating what I want to do, but that's going about it in the eyeballing way/guessing where co-linearity occurs.
Additionally I should mention that similar questions suggest scaling on an axis around a median point, which works great for lines which are perceptively straight up/down or left/right, but with this angled business the method does not appear to work as described.

You can do this with a custom orientation.

Select the A and C vertices and choose a Normal Orientation
Click the + button to save this new orientation
Select vertices A + B + C (order matters) and set pivot point to Active element
Scale the selection to 0

Making a custom orientation

Scaling to 0, active vertex as pivot point.

Works like a gem. Thank you.

I'm glad it works for you :). Good luck with your project.


text:
Scene renders image, but not animation
I have an animation which generates the expected image using Render/Render Image, but generates no image(s) when using Render/Render Animation. Any ideas? Fyi, I do have the Sequencer enabled, and PNG image output selected, and I've reviewed all of the similar questions. Thanks.

Do you need the sequencer?  Can you try again with it disabled?

I do not need it, but disabling it had no effect.

I found the problem. By selecting Output/Overwrite, it began rendering properly. I assumed with Overwrite not selected, it would simply generate the images with a new file name.


text:
Use of gizmo exits Lock Camera to View
Whenever I Lock Camera to View and then attempt to navigate using the 3D gizmo, the view is immediately no longer locked to the camera.
Is there a way to allow the use of the gizmo while keeping the view locked to the camera?
Sorry if, as usual, I am unclear...
In response to Answer 1 below:
The first image shows that in Lock Camera to View mode, I can see the gizmo.
The second image shows the view after clicking the gizmo, which reflects the view no longer being locked to camera view.
If I am able to manipulate the view "inside the camera view", why can't I use the gizmo to do so?
Also, I am not trying to navigate the camera. I am trying to use the gizmo to navigate the model view, while maintaining the Locked Camera to View.

What exactly do you mean? You can't navigate the camera with gizmos if you are viewing through that camera. The Gizmo wouldn't even be visible. Could you show us a screenshot?
Update: You must be hitting the heads or the axis. You are supposed to grab around them. Clicking on the axes will send you to that view and out of camera mode
If you want to use those with the camera you would have to move the camera each time to those new locations. There is a shortcut where the camera moves to see what you are seeing in the viewport. Hold CTRL and ALT and Zero on the number pad.

With the camera locked to the view, I am free to manually move my view around, and were I end up as viewed by the camera is the camera view. Why does it make a difference whether I move the view around with the mouse or the gizmo? I'm familiar with the CTRL-ALT-ZERO, which is how I'm setting up the camera view. Why, when I select the gizmo to look in the Y direction (for example), does the camera view not show the Y direction view? Instead it exits, and returns to the workspace. To view directly along an axis requires selection of the "dot" on the gizmo. That's what I'm doing. Thanks.

Let's try this from a different approach: with the camera locked to the view, how is one supposed to achieve a view looking normal to an axis, if one is unable to select the gizmo? That is my requirement.

@Rocket Hello :). One way is to get the desired view, and then align active camera to view.

@RocketSurgeon I am not sure what you mean. If you are aware of how to snap the camera to view then what exactly is your problem? Unless you are saying that you want to view with the same perspective. If that's what you mean, press 5 on your number pad when you click on an axis and it will throw you back in orthographic view, which is what the gizmo sets you in. This is mean to be so that you can line things up from the sides


text:
Cant unlink a curve created from an instanced collection
Once I click on "Make Instances Real", It unlinks the geometry from the copy and it makes it unique.
Now for the curves, once I try to edit the new "real" curves, I am unnable to unlink them. I have created them from instancing a collection. I have tried everything from
1- Unparenting
2- Setting it to single user
3- Applying all the transforms
4- Tried to click on "unlink object data" but such option only exists for meshes.
Image 1. The right side of the curves is a copied collection made real

Image 1. The right side of the curves is a copied collection made real

Image 2. The right side is selected in object mode

Image 3. In edit mode, the right side gets selected and all changes to the right side will affect the other one as well. I would like to make them individual of each other.
Any help or advice is welcome. I found that linking meshes to curves to be a great technique for applying hair cards and it is working really well for a ghillie camo outfit that I am creating for a game.

I have read this page from the manual https://docs.blender.org/manual/fr/dev/scene_layout/object/editing/duplicate_linked.html but it doesnt say anything about curves. The only thing that seemed to work in the sense of editing only one of the two sides was to press ctrl+L and click on link object data but that messed up the position and transform of my meshes. I tried to apply the transforms but to no avail. In other words, I have no solution :(

Found this unanswered question as I was facing the exact same problem -- I solved it with this:
In Object Mode, select all objects that you want to be separated. When I "made instances real" I was able to select them individually in Object Mode, but they would all edit together in Edit Mode.
Use the Object dropdown menu > Relations > Make Single User > Object & Data.
I did not unlink my textures, as I wanted them to remain uniform for the time being. This will make every selected object an individual editable object. This was enough for my own problem.
If you want to regroup objects -- perhaps all the objects on the right side -- Select them in Object Mode, Object dropdown > Relations > Make Local > Selected Objects and Data. This somehow relinks them, but not vertex to vertex as they were before. I haven't been able to find the solution to this second half of the problem.
For further clarification on what this is doing, look up "Make Single User" and "Data Blocks". I'd explain it here if I fully understood it myself.
Hope this helps some!