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Collision and cloth modifier don't work
I would like to use the collision and the cloth modifier to fit perfectly the shirt and the pants (created with adobe fuse) to the body of my character. I've created the character with the manuel bastioni lab 1.6.1 without IK and with muscles. After having created and finalized the character,I've imported a BVH file. So,with the character in rest position,I've added a collision modifier to the body and a cloth modifier to the pants and I've clicked on the "play animation" button but it didn't work : the pants become shorter as long as the animation goes forward. I've attached some pics to show you...
collision modifer added to the body :

collision modifier parameters :

cloth modifier added :

cloth modifier parameters :

This is what happens :

Just a quick thought.  Your pants are parented to the armature.  Are you using a "pinning" vertex group on the pants?  The armature parent will affect the pinned parts, the unpinned parts will be affected by the cloth sim.

Can you share the blend file? I suspect you may need to adjust some of the parameters of the simulation to get better accuracy, along with pinning as @risingfall mentioned.

no,I'm not using pinning vertex. you can find the blender file here : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JZ_dOj_KmWPwkfOzwK7TtIbR1b5L0b6X


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Generate Rig error: key "ORG-nose" not found'
In order to generate a bone rig I have created the metarig and adjusted it to my model/character. As I am trying to create something simple (to use it in Unity), I removed the face and ears.

Then I re-calculated the noremal ("Shift + N" and then "Y").
Once I generated the rig (Object Data Properties > Rigify Buttons > Generate Rig) I got the following error:

Generation has thrown an exception: 'bpy_prop_collection[key]: key
  "ORG-nose" not found'

And in the Layers it appears a new one named "rig" and it highlights the following:

What am I missing here?

Found the problem.
The face bones were not all removed as I saw one inside the big bone (spine.006) when I moved it.

Removing that small isolated bone named face solved the problem.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How can I stop the cloth sim from going through the mesh?
I know this is a common question, but I looked through literally every single forum and I couldn´t fix it. I tried bumping the collision quality to 200, reducing and bringing up the collision distance, maxing out the impulse clamping... I need to deliver this soon and I´m out of options.
Anyone?
Edit: the only potential solution I could think of is slowing everything down and then bringing it back to normal speed so I get better collisions, but I´d rather not if possible.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y3LUKoXsWch-g_bTBJgH8Vmw-rqYKv4X/view?usp=sharing

Another tip could be to increase the collision distance for either your cloth or the collsion object. Tried that?

Yeah, it says it right there. I tried bringing up and down both factors and it´s still clipping through. Thanks tho

Sorry, didnt see that. You kinda tried most of the usual tricks I see. What exactlly are you rendering and at what point does it clip through? Have you tried changing other factors to see if it gives other results (random factors like stiffness, bending,etc?). When I used to bake clothin I would sometimes add a subsurface modifier to the collision object for better quality. Baking takes a lot more time though.

That´s a good one. I added the subsurface to the cloth but never to the collision mesh. Lemme try that.

Make sure the collision modifier comes after the sub-modifier! Easy to forget that step.

Didn´t work. I´ll just post the blend and let sb else figure it out, cause I´m done. Thank you for your help

I looked into your file and made several changes to make it work. It's not the best result, but at least it's not clipping. I haven't spend that much time, but if you invest some more, you can get better results. I have only been able to make the hoodie work for now.

The reason why your arms clipped is because:

Your clothing mesh is way too close to your body.If the clothes are closer than the collision distance, it wil clip through.
Your armature stretches the clothing and because your cloth doesn't stretch with it, it clips through. Noticable when your character bends the arms.

How did I archieve this?

What I did at first was expand the size of your clothes so that there was enough room for the cloth to simulaye collision
Second I got rid of the hook modifiers of your cloth and instead used the rig to move the clothes.
I had to change the animation so the hands would go into the pockets without colliding with the body.
I used a shape key to expand your pocket and made it slowly shrink back to its original size so the hands would fit inside the pocket without issues.
I had to tweak several settings of your clothes to make it work.

Also: Quality steps were 20 and also 20 for collision.
Collision distance set to 0,003m for both the collision object and clothing.
I haven't used any subsurface modifiers.
Baking was pretty fast for me.
My personal opinion
It's really difficult to animate sleeves like that. I personally would archieved your goal slightly different. Cloth modifiers work perfectly when using very loose clothes, but gets complicated when trying to simulate tight clothes, especially during animations.
I hope this at least gives some hints and stuff. Here is the file.

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


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(EEVEE) The whole scene goes white when I bake indirect lighting. What could be causing this?
I´m pretty new to Blender, and I had always used Cycles to render everything up until now. I have a scene, that was previously set up for cycles, and I´m trying to bake the lighting in eevee, but when I do the whole scene becomes this white glow with infinite intensity (just inside of the probe). I tried hiding literally every object in the scene, disabling all world nodes, and even mounting the whole scene again on  another project, and I can´t get it to work out. Also, I noticed that before I baked there was a reflection of a huge light (that shouldn´t exist) on a reflective floor I had around.
Any ideas? Cause I all out.

are you sure you don't have a light that is hidden but activated for render?

Pretty sure, yeah. I´d upload the blend file but I have no idea how to.

Go here - https://blend-exchange.com/ - copy and paste in the URL of this question, upload your file, tick the boxes, copy the link they give you and paste it in to your question.

Oh, thanks! Will do.

Well... I´ve been trying to upload it for hours and it just won´t. Seems luck ain´t on my side this week.

You clicked the button that says "upload", right? Also, it wont work with files over 50mb.

Yeah, and then I left it for an hour and it was about 20% in and not even moving at all. It´s 200 mb and my internet is pretty good, so it´s pretty weird. Still, I think I´ve found the source of the issue. The grass I have on my scene seems to be the cause of the huge light blooming everywhere, somehow. It´s made from hair particles and it has a very simple material, but maybe something weird happened when I switched to eevee.

Can´t I just upload it to drive and post the link here?

Done, I think. I just deleted everything except the grass and a few lights I had around. Thanks for the help, btw :)

Oh, and by done I mean the upload, not the issue xD


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When I render the objects are in a different position then they are in camera perspective
I am guessing this is a very simple fix and apologise for my ignorance in advance.\

The Scene's camera will render every time, not the selected. To adjust the Scene's camera go to the Scene properties panel. A little cone, a sphere and a dot its icon in the right side.

Hi FFeller, Thanks for the response. When I go to the scene properties panel what is the next step. Under scene and then camera I have selected the camera which is set up to create the view above but it is rendering the same image as before. What setting do I need to change?

It looks the camera position is the same on the two pictures, but you zoomed in with the mouse scrool in the 3d view. It doesn't count for the camera so zoom out, till you can see the camera's borders, then move the camera forward to make a closer picture.


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Generating waves with fluid sim in 2.9
I would like to generate waves for my scene. But my wave generator is currently not working as I would like it to.  As You can see the water seems to be compressed somehow and no waves are generated. These are my current settings:

Thank you for your help.
Edit:
the Blend File

please provide blend file so we can check it out...

It looks like your domain isn't all the way to the bottom of the obstacle, that's why there is an air gap at the bottom. Also you could try to move the object horizontally to get more water moving.


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How to determine if lines intersects
This is more a math question than a GN one but in order to fully answered this question, I need to know how to do this. In 3D space, I have points witch supports velocity vectors, so I need to know if the straight lines witch pass by those points and have the same direction of there vectors intersects. How to do that in GN?
Thank you for your help.

Are you intersecting lines in 2D or 3D? As always open to correction..  2D can give a definite answer.. 3D very prone to floating-point error, needs some sort of margin, which in turn, needs some sort of  volume-search.... Maybe geometry proximity can do that for you, though

@RobinBetts In 3D of course. Frankly I have no idea how to use Geometry Proximity in this case, so please fell free to lead me...

I vaguely remember a @quellenform answer for 2D intersections, but couldn't find it now. There's a design task/work-in-progress patch for a new Curve Intersections node, hopefully we get that soon: https://developer.blender.org/T102050

@Kuboå I hope they patch it soon.Thanks for the info...

Also there's this very weird little trick where if you have a bunch of intersecting curve lines (but no "breaks" where they intersect) and you resample them with at least a Count—3, then use Fill Curve, it breaks the lines where they intersect so you get intersection points... but it also flattens the whole thing, making it into a 2D curve... I said it was weird: https://i.imgur.com/HailjAP.gif

@Kuboå That's may be more useful that we can see it at first...Something to review!

I haven't tested it yet but I think this solution will work if you make more rotations as I described in the last paragraph: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/283582/60486

@Markus von Broady Thanks for the input I'll give it a try for 3D adaptation, thanks again.

Looking back at my own question from some time ago:
Geometry Nodes: How the nearest face/edge is found?
One of the conclusions was the nearest edge is found without any approximations, though this was a point-to-edge comparison, not edge-to-edge. Therefore you need to subdivide an edge a lot to get a decent approximation, however that's just one edge, which is crucial (having $10'000$ comparisons might seem expensive, but it's way faster than $10'000² = 100'000'000$ comparisons; it's actually way more than 10 thousand faster because of similar logic to economies of scale but opposite effect)

Using quellenform's technique:
Viewer Node shows only the status of the connected geometry instead of the final result (Blender 3.4)

What you do with the statistic further is up to you: does $0.00001$ distance mean the edges touch? If you want to be very rigorous about it, you can compare the minimum distance with 0, and εpsilon of 0 - this, however, will be extremely unlikely with "just" 10 000 samples. You would need more like a trillion samples… It all depends on the length of the sampled edge and where they touch: in the worst case scenario you could have a very long edge, let's say a kilometer long, very near but not at the origin, with the ends positioned in such a way, that samples never quite hit the spot. The smallest float32 value is:
>>> import numpy as np
>>> np.nextafter(np.float32(0), np.float32(1))
1e-45

>>> f"{_:0.50f}"
'0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000140130'

So the number of samples for an edge of length $1$ is roughly the reciprocal of the above value, $10^{45}$ or $$1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000$$
It's actually almost irrelevant if the edge is longer than 1 unit and instead is 1000 units (1 kilometer) long, as that adds just 3 zeroes to the above behemoth.
However:
>>> log2(10**(45+3))
159.4525485545934

>>> pow(2, 160)
1.461501637330903e+48

What this means is that if you resample the curve to just 3 points, you can then remove the point with the maximum distance, and repeat the process… You would need 160 such repetitions which is a lot, but unlike the 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 samples scenario, this one is actually doable.

that's a lot of statistics ;)
I will try your method, and let you know if was able to apply it in the case of  this question: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/282887/blender-3-5-simulation-colliding-points
Thanks a lot Markus.

@Nathan Where did your solution goes? iIt seam to be very interesting...

Edit: Another way to determine if lines intersect is to use normal, first see if they are co-planar with a Convex Hull, I was hopping that if the Convex Hull have just 2 faces it was co-planar.
But even if it is co-planar the Convex Hull had more than 2 faces some times. So we have to had another condition if the 2 first faces (those 2 are on the same side) have the same normal (there distance is null). And with those 2 conditions we are able to determine if it's co-planar:

Then by convert those mesh lines into curve to select and convert there last point into an instance (a grid mesh), after realizing those instances it's easy to compare there normal. If there normal are not equal they will intersect at some point. But of course we have to get rid of the case when the normal are directly opposed (lines are parallel in this case).
So if they are co-planar and if there direction is different they intersect or will intersect at some point:

This method is not fully tested and there is two consecutive approximations so it's not so precise...
The updated .blend

In order to move the end points of the line use the empties named Ctrl-1 and  Ctrl-2, if they intersect or will intersect at some point 2 planes will appear...

In your .blend file the two lines L1 and L2 don't intersect and yet the 2 planes appear (which is supposed to mean they intersect). Could you add some explanation how to use this example, e.g. the steps to move lines around to see how the setup reacts to lines starting/stopping to intersect? If this works for exact intersection tests, it will be much better than my solution; I wasn't motivated to make the mathematical solution because I don't think it's a realistic need to find an exact intersection of two lines, but since the thread got some attention I might reconsider…

@Markus von Broady : Thank you so much for your feed-back.I doubt seriously that this method is better for an exact intersection test (those 2 consecutive approximations cause me trouble). But it's another way, any way... I hope the edit is better than the first version.

I see by a line you mean a mathematical definition of a line, which is infinite? So if the lines lay on the same plane, they don't intersect only if they are parallel?

@Markus von Broady, You right in this case I consider lines as infinite, and If they are co-planar and not parallel they definitely intersect.


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Simple, easy to understand way to soften edges?
I come from Maya, I'm used to just selecting the edges or faces you want to be soft or sharp and clicking a button that says "harden edge" or "soften edge." Is there a way to do this in Blender? I can't find a reliable way of doing it online. I don't want to have to add modifiers, or only selecting faces instead of edges, or select "auto smooth" or anything like that. I just want it nice and simple: select the edges you want to look soft and soften them, in 2 clicks or less, no ifs or buts. I refuse to watch any YouTube tutorial that's longer than 30 seconds on this.
Edit: "Mark sharp" doesn't work for me, it just turns the edges cyan in edit mode and nothing else. And I don't want anyone to tell me I have to use "split edge" without explaining what that means, I don't wanna add vertices to my mesh and that shouldn't have to happen. I'm terribly confused.
Edit: Ultimately what I want is control, I want to be able to smooth and sharpen any edge I want, with no ifs or buts. The only way to do that is if Blender let's you sharpen and smooth any edge you select, but as far as I'm able to figure out on the internet and from a friend who uses Blender so far is that that's not possible. Now I want to understand why it isn't possible.

I guess Shade Smooth + Auto-Smooth + ctrl E > Mark Sharp is the fastest way, why are you not happy with it?

You can use mark sharp, but it has to be used in combination with either auto smooth or the edge split modifier. Blender is not Maya, certain aspects work differently. You can also set smooth or flat shading for individual faces by selecting them in edit mode and using Face > Shade Smooth or Face > Shade Flat.

I'd like to be able to soften edges that have been sharpened with auto-smooth, without having to soften the entire mesh. If that's not possible, I'd like to understand why, is Maya just lying to me and pretending it's possible for example? I don't mean that in an annoyed way, if I've been living a lie the past 3 years I just wanna know about it.


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How do I turn this Bezier thing into a normal mesh that I can edit?
I followed a youtube tutorial to make the handle of this watering can. I had to make a path and a "bezier" circle, I don't really know what that means.

The outliner looks like this

I can't actually select the bezier thing or the curve by clicking on them, I have to select them in the Outliner. I'd like to do away with all of that stuff, it has the right shape now, I just want the mesh that you can see in the viewport, so I can reduce the polycount and export it. How do I do this? I tried pressing alt+C a couple of times with those things selected, as I found on the internet, but that didn't work.
Edit: Here's the file:

If I do that, it just disappears and leaves only the curve

While i see the NurbsPath (not a beveled one as it seems) and the little circle on the left i believe is the BezierCircle, it is not so easy to find the solution based on just the picture and your description. Would it be possible to upload the blend file, to check it out?

@RobinBetts I shared it.

@RobinBetts the workings of a Q&A site fail if you post answers as comments. Perhaps you could frame your solution as an answer and also mention that the OP cannot select the Nurbs Path because they are still in Edit mode.

I found the same question with some more details and posted an answer there, just to make it possible to find the answer : https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/158738/if-i-convert-a-beziercircle-to-mesh-from-curve-it-just-disappears

@Merlin.. Thanks.. noted.

On suggestion from @Merlin, i deleted my answer on the duplicate and re-posted it here to avoid it eventually being deleted. I didn't use the blend file as i did the answer between asking for it and finding the other question with the more details, on which i based the answer. That said, it sure helps with solving a problem if the blend file is posted along with the question, especially if there are certain flags set like disabled selectability for items.

I'm not sure exactly why, but the handle Nurbs Curve was marked 'Unselectable'. So the first step for me was to hit the little filter funnel at the top of the Outliner, to expose the 'Selectable' toggle switches.
Then, after making it selectable, I could select the handle curve in the 3D view, in Object Mode, and use the Header > Object Menu > Convert to > Mesh.

You might want to go into the Data > Geometry panels of the both the profile and the path curves to adjust their 'Preview U' settings. Those will determine the resolution of the mesh, after conversion.. it maybe doesn't need to be as high as this, compared to the rest of your model.

Thanks! That was very helpful. Thanks for your time.

A little explanatory video to help you on your way. Explanation following right after.

The BezierCircle is only a means to the end of your object, thus converting it sure does not help, it essentially takes it out from the NurbsPath and makes that one lose the shape you want. Instead you need to convert the NurbsPath to a mesh object. As it says object, it means you find the correlating function under the "Object" menu (only in "Object Mode"), "Convert To" and then "Mesh from Curve/Meta/Surf/Text". All that is shown in the little video/gif above. Just wrote it out to make it easier to follow. The resulting details of the mesh then depend on the settings in your nurbspath, so before you convert it, it's a good idea to adjust the settings a bit for less work with the mesh afterwards.

Thank you very much you guys! That was very helpful.


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Video editing: weird transparency blending with "Alpha Over"
I'm working on a video in the sequencer, and as part of this I want to overlay a scene containing some text. The text is rendered via node-based shading, and in particular uses a "clouds" texture to define the alpha-value of the final composite.
If I render the scene by itself, or set the relevant scene-strip to render using a mode like "replace", all looks as expected. See here:

However, if I set the scene-strip to render using the "alpha-over" mode, then I get a strange artefact: in places where the scene is completely transparent, I see the colour of whatever was present there (if anything), and using what looks to be additive blending!
Here you can see the same text rendered over a simple blank "colour" strip:

And here over a video-strip; note how the areas that one might expect to be fully-transparent seem to "glow" against the background colour, as though blended additively:

I'm really stuck as to what might be causing this.
It looks almost as though, when presented with an alpha-value of zero, the "alpha-over" blending switches to blending the RGB colour additively with full alpha--but that makes little sense.
It also occurred to me that perhaps I was getting negative alpha-values due to the application of the "clouds" texture, and in particular my handling of it.
But if that were so, I would expect simple high-opacity rendering, not this odd additive-like rendering. And furthermore, the alpha-values go through a "math" node that has the "clamp" check-box ticked, so it should, presumably, only be getting values between 0 and 1.
So I'm stuck. Does anyone here know what might be the problem, and how I might fix it? :/
[edit]
Oh, I forgot to mention: this is using Blender 2.78c, I believe.
[edit 2] Amusingly, the actual additive-blending strip-mode works as expected, with fully-transparent areas being invisible.
[edit 3] I've also discovered that I can get the expected result if I place the background on top of the text-scene and set the former to use the "alpha under" mode. If called for, this might at least provide a workaround.
[edit 4] It seems that if I add a very small amount to the final alpha-value given to the "composite" node in my "compositing" node-system, the problem disappears. It really does look like there's an issue with alpha values of zero, specifically, for some reason. o_0
[edit 5] A stripped-down version of the blend-file: Test Blend-file
In this version, there's just a simple plane being rendered over a colour-strip. Note that, when the scene alone is rendered in the "Default" layout, it has transparency as expected. However, when rendered as part of the video in the "Video Editing" layout, the transparency shows the above-described issue.
Video Editing is set up in the "Video Editing" layout, and compositing in the "Default" layout.

Hmm... Which are those? The closest that I see right now is the "Use Alpha" check-box in the final "composite" node for the scene that contains the text.
I may be missing an option, but I don't see a premultiplication option in my scene-strips.

I misunderstood. Could you add a condensed version of your file?

Sure. I've edited the original post with the file.

You are manually setting the alpha channel, but you are not premultiplying the rgb channels. I'd advise you to use the builtin nodes for premultiplication.

Ah, you're quite right! Thank you very much for that! :D (And I'll admit that I wasn't aware of the "alpha convert" node.)
I'll admit that the behaviour without premultiplication still feels unexpected, but I'm glad to have a solution to the problem! (And one that's less hacky than my "add a very very small amount to the alpha" solution.)
 PS: Please repeat your response in an answer, so that I can accept it! ^_^

You're combining rgb values and an alpha, without premultiplying rgb values.
You can use the builtin Alpha Convert node, to do the premultiplication.

Thank you very much for the answer! As noted in my other comment, this does indeed work, and I've marked this as answering my question. ^_^

@Thaumaturge However, I still can't quite explain the other result as well.

Yup. It's... really weird. :/ Why would an alpha of 0.000001 be treated significantly differently than an alpha of 0? o_0 I would understand if it were discarding colour-information in 0-alpha pixels for the sake of conserving resources--but that doesn't appear to be what's going on here.

As an additional “it makes sense”, associated alpha, or the horrible term premultiplied, models both occlusion and emission. That is, in your example where you say that something has zero alpha and still emits, it’s a perfectly valid case! It represents an emitting source that isn’t occluding the background, such as a candle flame, flare, glare, or glow.

Hmm, I see--and thank you for the explanation! So, am I correct in gathering then that the rendering process was automatically pre-multiplying areas with non-zero alpha, but not doing so for other areas? That would explain the behaviour, with areas of non-zero alpha being non-emissive, and areas of zero alpha being emissive--but it seems very odd to render the two so differently!


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Motion Blur keeps causing weird artifacts and making items dissapear
Enabling motion blur causes weird artifacts and making some planes disappear for a single frame.
Video Render without motion blur : https://i.sstatic.net/LKZFl.jpg |
Video Render with motion blur enabled : https://i.sstatic.net/HI5pk.jpg (I have to show how it looks rendered as a video, since that's literally what im trying to render it as, not a still frame)
Is there any possible way to properly set up motion blur so it doesn't mess up with the render?

Hello and welcome. Instead of having users go through links and external sites please use the builtin tools to embed images in your post. See How to upload an image to a post? or GIFs

Caught same issue. I assume glitch is caused by combination of subdivision modifier and auto smooth normals toggled on. Found a workaround solution, disabling auto smooth fixes the issue. There is a discussion about this bug https://developer.blender.org/T80428


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Exactly positioning and aligning objects
I'm trying to get productive with blender. Now I have this challenge I can't solve.
I imported parts of a cnc chair I'm designing. Precisely positioning the parts is my goal. How can I do this ?
So I want to go from here:

To here:

In the last screenshot the part look aligned but not exactly :(
I tried to figure out snapping but I get the impression that's not gonna cut it, I'd love something like sketchup style moving/rotating/positioning.
I've been also looking into the NP-station add on, I can't get that to work though.
Edit:
Thanks for the answers and replies. It looks like I want/need something like np-station or mesh align plus. Tiny-CAD only seems to work in edit mode (?) while I need to align and position objects. Getting into origin and the 3D cursor was useful too.
But I placing my bets on getting mesh align plus to work for now.

You will want the TinyCAD addon. It good face and vertex snapping tools.

Assuming no convenient alignment of object axes to faces, and arbitrarily skewed parts, this is one of a number of ways to align face-center to face-center... check out @moonboots' answer, too..

Here are some useful tips for precise modeling in Blender:
01) Set your units to milimeters
Properties Panel->Scene->Units->Length

02) Set snapping to Increments
and enable Absolute snapping.

03) Use orthographic view and side views
This allows you to use grid better, and align precisely
Orthographic view shortcut: Numpad 5
Viewpoint shortcut: ~ or use Numpad numbers.
Switch to orthographic view and out

Use ~ to switch views

04) Make use of Quad View

05) Learn to use 3D cursor and work with Object origin.
These are very powerful together for precise object alignment.

06) Adjust your grid scale.
The default setting is good for most situations, but sometimes you may need to adjust it.

07) Blender is no CAD, but it will get you there :).
And as @Leander said - tinyCAD addon.
Enable it in Preferences->Addons  (and Save preferences)

my advice would be that if you want that to perfectly match you should model it first as a whole piece and then separate the object. in Edit mode you can also go to Viewport Overlays and Enable some Measurements.
Edit: You can also change the pivot to active element and use the scale option to 0 align some edges, vertices or faces, locking the axis you don't want to be deformed.

Uhm yeah, but my modelling skills at this moment are rhino, sketchup solidworks and a bit 3ds max. This model came from rhino. These are my first steps in blender and I would like to test/make shure that exact positioning and aligning can be done in a efficient way


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GLTF export/import Sketchup 2017 to Blender 2.80 overrides origin and local axis orientation
I'm exporting a .glb file from Sketchup 2017 using the KhronosGroup GLTF exporter and importing it into Blender 2.80 using the KhronosGroup GLTF importer.
Once the file is imported I get the following Issues:

A root object is added to the scene and all object are now its children.
Origins for all objects are set to x:0,y:0,z:0 (same coords of the root object) individual object origins are now way outside their geometry.
Individual axes orientation for all objects are reset.
Global and local axes of the root are inconsistent (by design?)

To return to the original setup I have to
- Use Set Origin -> To Geometry
- Select individual object, enter edit mode, rotate all faces relative to the local axis
- In object mode, compensate for relative local rotation and rotate the object back to its original orientation in the main scene
I need the local origins and their rotations to remain the same when moving from Sketchup to Blender because the are used in a WebGL game this asset is being used in.
I cannot use other export formats like Collada and FBX as they tend to present other problems (for example losing naming of object groups).
Image references:

The issue may be linked to this issue with the GLTF exporter for Sketchup:
https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF/issues/1662


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Can you control material visibility using another object?
I don't have any screenshots or reference images, but I'll try my best to describe the effect I mean.
An simplified example of what I am trying to achieve is the following:
There is a target object, and there is a controlling object. Where the controlling object touches the target object, the target surface turns [...],
(this is where the mix shader comes in place, so in an optimal scenario you could insert anything here, such as the target turning transparent or starting to glow)
everywhere else it is black.
I have seen a CG Geek Tutorial on how to achieve a similar effect to what I want, but in the tutorial he uses an object to control a modifier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F13bnOCtYbA
The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a proper way to use weight paint as a factor for materials.
Edit: I figured it out, this is the result I wanted:

I decided to recreate the CG Geek Wireframe transition effect I had been using as reference. Just to avoid confusion: The wireframe look you see in the example is not a modifier but a simple shader using the wireframe node
1. The first step will be setting up the dynamic paint:
Select your target object (in this example: monkey) and set up a dynamic paint canvas in the physics tab. Set the Format to Image Sequence, surface type to "Paint", and enable the Dissolve option with a low time. You can play with the time value and the "slow" option, they basically define how fast the paint is going to disappear.

If we didn't enable dissolving at all, the paint would stay there and the target would stay visible once touched by the brush.
1.1
Next, add in a Brush object. This is the grey cuboid you can see in the example, and the goal is that everything within its volume is visible, while everything outside is invisible. You can theoretically use any mesh, but keep in mind that higher poly stuff might be more performance consuming.
Go to the physics tab and make it a dynamic paint brush object. Set the Paint color to anything, but make sure the alpha is set to 1. The Paint Source should be set to "Mesh Volume" or "Mesh Volume + Proximity", and again, you can play with all of the settings if you don't like what you see.
2. (Optional:) Keyframe/animate your object
This step is only important if you want to make an animation. If you want a still image, skip this.
3. Bake the dynamic paint
Select your canvas (target) object, go to the physics tab and set up the frame count fitting to your animation. If you are doing a single image render, set it to Start:1 End:1 so that it only bakes a single image and doesn't waste your time.
Now scroll down to "output", set up the directory where you want to have the baked paintmaps saved.
UV Unwrap your object and select the UV Map.
Now you can Bake the image Sequence.
4. Shading
Now that you have the paintmap, you can use it as a factor for a mix shader node.
Just add an image texture, select all the images and click open. If you want to have it respond live in the viewport, enable auto refresh.
Add a Texture coordinate node and plug the UV Map output into the Vector input of the image texture.
Add in a Mix Shader Node and Mix two shaders of your liking. In this Example I mixed Transparency ("Invisibility") with Emission. You can use anything else too.
Plug the paintmap into the mix shader factor, and this should be it.


text:
"CUDA culnit: Unknown error" - Win8.1 - GTX780
Many posts but all solved same way on Windows, they downloaded and install the latest drivers, reboot and it works.
Ive heard can reinstall Blender, Or they had on Linux and was a way to recompile.
Im on Win 8.1 & reinstalled & downloaded latest Nvidia Drivers.
Ive also NOT installed Blender and have it in just a folder.
I didnt compile and downloaded 2.80 from main website.
So "reinstalling" Blender seems non relevant
-Should I need to download the CUDA Toolkit?
I dont believe this issue is down to Blender, but asking here out of despiration.
Originaly was trying to get Meshroom to work but throws up following
Feature Extraction > Log
[20:42:21.221154][warning] Could not determine number of CUDA cards in this system[20:42:21.196294][warning] No CUDA-Enabled GPU.

[20:42:21.221154][error] cudaGetDeviceCount failed: unknown error
[20:42:21.221154][info] Can't find CUDA-Enabled GPU.
[20:42:21.771415][info] Extracting sift features from view 'F:/PG-Wall/20191117_150423.jpg' [cpu]

DepthMap > Log
[20:45:26.965401][warning] Could not determine number of CUDA cards in this system[20:45:26.940601][warning] No CUDA-Enabled GPU.

[20:45:26.965401][info] Can't find CUDA-Enabled GPU.
[20:45:26.965401][error] This program needs a CUDA-Enabled GPU (with at least compute capablility 2.0).

FAILS
------------------------ Not the only program not using GPU - Adobe

Adobe Premier / After Effects dont have support either - maybe why was slow rendering out video

Adobe Premier > Project > Project Settings > General > Video Rendering and Playback > Renderer > NO HARDWARE OPTION
Adobe AfterEffects > Edit > Preferances > Previews > GPU info > Ra-tracing > NO HARDWARE/GPU OPTION
but ironicaly, shows under OpenGL the full GPU info/device/driver ver/RAM
Solution is supposed to be, C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CS6\cuda_supported_cards.txt -  put in gfxcard name, but doesnt work
For AfterEffects, C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS6\Support Files\raytracer_supported_cards.txt
Neither works

Went into C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\OpenCL
 - OpenCL.dll & OpenCL64.dll are date 20/1/17 ?!
 - file ver 2.0.4.0 - khronos OpenCL ICD
Have heard going into RegEdit and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Khronos\OpenCL\Vendors > set Reg_DWORD to 1, but i dont have that key.
community.adobe.com/15/video-hardware/premiere-pro-using-intergrated-and-not-dedicated-graphics-card/m-p/9522355#m9155
------------------------ Not the only program not using GPU - Blender 2.80
Blender > Edit  > Preferances > System > Cycles Render Devices

CUDA - "No compatible GPUs found for path tracing -  Cycles will render on the CPU"
OpenCL - "No compatible GPUs found for path tracing -  Cycles will render on the CPU"
Console - "CUDA culnit: Unknown error"

version: 2.80 (sub 75), branch: master, commit date: 2019-07-29 14:47, hash: f6cb5f54494e
CPU device capabilities: SSE2 SSE3 SSE41 AVX

OpenCL device capabilities:
Number of platforms: 1
Platform #0
    Platform Name: NVIDIA CUDA
    Platform Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
    Platform Version: OpenCL 1.2 CUDA 10.2.95
    Platform Profile: FULL_PROFILE
    Platform Extensions: cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics

cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_fp64 cl_khr_byte_addressable_store cl_khr_icd cl_khr_gl_sharing cl_nv_compiler_options

cl_nv_device_attribute_query cl_nv_pragma_unroll cl_nv_d3d9_sharing cl_nv_d3d10_sharing cl_khr_d3d10_sharing cl_nv_d3d11_sharing

cl_nv_copy_opts cl_nv_create_buffer cl_khr_int64_base_atomics cl_khr_int64_extended_atomics
    Number of devices: 1
        Device: #0
            Device Name: GeForce GTX 780
            Device Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
            Device OpenCL C Version: OpenCL C 1.2
            Device Profile: FULL_PROFILE
            Device Version: OpenCL 1.2 CUDA
            Device Extensions: cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics

cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_fp64 cl_khr_byte_addressable_store cl_khr_icd

cl_khr_gl_sharing cl_nv_compiler_options cl_nv_device_attribute_query cl_nv_pragma_unroll cl_nv_d3d9_sharing cl_nv_d3d10_sharing

cl_khr_d3d10_sharing cl_nv_d3d11_sharing cl_nv_copy_opts cl_nv_create_buffer cl_khr_int64_base_atomics

cl_khr_int64_extended_atomics
            Device Max clock frequency (MHz): 954
            Device Max compute units: 12
            Device Max work group size: 1024

CUDA device capabilities:
Error initializing CUDA: Unknown error

------------------------ MeshRoom compatibilty
MeshRoom needs - Nvidia CUDA enabled GPU with CUDA compute Capability 2.0
I HAVE = Geforce GTX 780 =  2304 CUDA Cores - CUDA compute Capability 3.5 - 3GB GDDR5 RAM - OpenGL 4.3
nvcc_ARCH += - gencode=arch=compute_35,code="sm_35,compute_35"
http://github.com/tpruvot/ccminer/wiki/Compatibility
http://geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-780/specifications
Solutions said to Reinstall Drivers
Downloaded Nvidia drivers: nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx
Downloaded Meshroom: alicevision.org/#meshroom
Saw this video where they give you a dll file in a google drive,... as can imagine didnt feel was a good idea.
But I searched for the file name on my PC, and stuck it in the same folders
http://Youtube.com/watch?v=g5UaOIqqFX0 - Gives download - cuda_enc_windows7_8-64bit.zip
Contails nvcuvenc.dll > Paste >  C://windows/system32/ & C://windows/syswow64/
Also found following dll in same directory so tried pasting them all in Windows folders
- I pasted nvcuvenc64.dll (20/5/2014 2.66mb ver 8.17.13.3788) from C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_919a3aaa1448b25a
to C:\Windows\SysWOW64
- I pasted nvcuda64.dll (8/11/19 16.6mb ver 26.21.14.4120) from C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_f24de40315dbef04
to C:\Windows\SysWOW64
- I pasted nvcuvenc64.dll (20/5/2014 2.66mb ver 8.17.13.3788) from C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_919a3aaa1448b25a
to C:\Windows\System

Reinstalled drivers - 436.15 - No effect
Installed new drivers -  441.20 - No effect
Also set task infinity to HIGH
Set Nvidia control pannel:

"Power management mode - Prefer maximum performance"
"OpenGL rendering GPU - GeForce GTX 780"
"CUDA - GPUs - Use these GPUs - GeForce GTX 780"

Doesnt matter if set "CUDA - GPUs" to "Global - All" or individually select the "Use these GPUs - GeForce GTX 780", always says "All"

Dxdiag > 26.21.14.3615 - 26/08/19 - Driver Model: WDDM 1.3
- NVIDIA Control Panel > System Info > Display > CUDA Cores = 2304
- NVIDIA Control Panel > System Info > Components > NVCUDA.dll = 26.21.14.3615 - NVIDIA CUDA 10.1.0 driver
Dxdiag > 26.21.14.4120 - 8/11/19 - Driver Model: WDDM 1.3
- NVIDIA Control Panel > System Info > Components > NVCUDA.dll = 26.21.14.4120 - NVIDIA CUDA 10.2.95 driver

C:\Windows\System32>"C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI\nvidia-smi.exe"
Tue Nov 19 18:25:33 2019
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 436.15       Driver Version: 436.15       CUDA Version: 10.1     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name            TCC/WDDM | Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 780    WDDM  | 00000000:01:00.0 N/A |                  N/A |
| 48%   31C    P8    N/A /  N/A |    219MiB /  3072MiB |     N/A      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |
|  GPU       PID   Type   Process name                             Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0                    Not Supported                                       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Reinstalled drivers - 436.15 - No effect
Installed new drivers -  441.20 - No Effect

C:\Windows\System32>"C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI\nvidia-smi.exe"
Wed Nov 20 11:16:12 2019
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 441.20       Driver Version: 441.20       CUDA Version: 10.2     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name            TCC/WDDM | Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 780    WDDM  | 00000000:01:00.0 N/A |                  N/A |
| 49%   45C    P0    N/A /  N/A |    341MiB /  3072MiB |     N/A      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |
|  GPU       PID   Type   Process name                             Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0                    Not Supported                                       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Unsure why no WDDM listed when DxDiag shows 1.3 which is correct and latest for Win8.1
For 2.0+ need to be on Win10


text:
Why are my vertices all disconnected?
I built a character using the mirror, skin, and surface smooth modifier, and when I was ready I applied visual geometry to mesh and deleted half the character, then re-added the mirror modifier so I could start sculpting the vertices directly.
At first each vertex moves normally, then suddenly its like all the vertices are disconnected from each other. The odd thing is that the edges and faces move normally, they warp as if they're connected, but the VERTEXES do not and this is the second character I've had this experience with.
I've tried merging vertices and this changes nothing. I wonder if perhaps they're not disconnected but I've accidentally toggled something that disconnects them when I move them?
Can anyone help? I'm also only about 3 days into using this program so I'm definitely a beginner. Thank you!

UPDATE: As of right now this isn't happening anymore. I reopened the file and everything was magically stuck back together, so I think it might be a bug of some kind. If it happens again I will upload the file. Thanks for your comments and advice.
UPDATE 2: I'm having the same problems! I'll upload the file so you can take a look at it, also uploading another image to show how every vertex seems to move independently. This seems to start when I select the whole mesh and write "merge by distance", suddenly everything is disconnected and won't merge back together again. What's happening?

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

Any vertices I move seem disconnected, beyond the mirror. I've also just re-opened the program and file, and it doesn't seem to be doing this anymore. Must be a bug

Here's the file

I notice it seems to happen right after I try and merge ANY vertices at all. Whether its by distance, at center, etc, suddenly all the vertices disconnect.

I can't reproduce your issue. Linked file has all vertices connected. Tested on 2.82 alpha. Merge by Distance removed two vertices. Nothing strange happened. Sorry, but nicely weird :) What blender version you use?

The only one issue I see are 4 flipped faces on an intimate part of body, nothing more. Try to open Blender > File > Defaults > Load Factory Setting. Append this mesh into a new file and try to reproduce issue again. Or try it with different version of blender.

I  already delete that comment, but it came to my mind again - you wrote all vertices are disconnected, but that is not corect, vertices are still connected to three others. So what can be a rule to disconnect it that direction and not another? Hmm

Are you pressing V when you manipulate with vertex? Or did you manipulated with Keymap in preferences? I found Rip function that does exactly what happens to you. So in case you don't touch V key, then I can explain it just you have assign this Rip function to another key. Since you are totally new to blender, probably you tried another Keymap set than default and there can be some conflict ...

Separation by Rip shortcut V
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/editing/vertices.html#rip-region
Rip creates a “hole” in the mesh by making a copy of selected vertices and edges, still linked to the neighboring non-selected vertices, so that the new edges are borders of the faces on one side, and the old ones, borders of the faces on the other side of the rip.

While I'm not certain what process you went through that resulted in your edges being split wierdly, you should be able to fix all wierd verts on the model by selecting all, pressing Alt+M and selecting "By Distance". This merges vertices that are X distance from other vertices.

I've tried this and it doesn't work. The mesh acts like it's connected except for when I move a vertex. I've merged many vertex pairs only to find out that they're still somehow disconnected.

@Andrew Delange: As advised in Q comments - share your simplified .blend file with problematic mesh (in best - condition before you start to fix it).

Here's the file:

I explained this above, I notice it seems to happen right after I try and merge ANY vertices at all. Whether its by distance, at center, etc, suddenly all the vertices disconnect. I uploaded a screenshot of a bunch of vertices being easily disconnected.


text:
Cutting a hole using a boolean still shows up in a 3D print
Im trying to model an RC Car rim, and I need to cut a hole in the middle of the hex joint, and I've been using a Boolean, which has been working great. But when I export it as an .stl file, and load it into Cura, its fine. But when I slice it, it acts as if the cylinder is still there.

Have you applied the boolean modifier?

I have, but I think I stuffed something else up. I think its the hexagon-it still thinks there's a face there. I'm going to remodel that inner section again and see what happens.

If you still have a problem, consider uploading the blend file to blend exchange


text:
Solid viewport shading in edit mode is transparent in places?
Limit selection to visible is on! This is driving me bonkers. I hit a button somewhere and now my mesh is like this in edit mode:

Note: it's fine in object mode.
Please help! :-(
edit: i meant limit selection to visible IS on lol

The issue was the maximum clipping value! Thanks so much! Should I delete this question if it's a duplicate or.. ?

Glad it worked :) It's not necessary, duplicates are necessarily bad. They provide more search terms (provided the questions aren't too similar, but I don't think this the case here) which lead to the answer, making it easier for others to find.

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


text:
Loop cut and slide using python script in blender
I have created a cylinder using python API of blender. This cylinder has only vertical strips. I want horizontal loop cuts in this cylinder so that it would have a perfect mesh shape of quads. How to do that using python script?

I found the answer, the way it is done is:
old_type = bpy.context.area.type
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
bpy.context.area.type = 'VIEW_3D'

bpy.ops.mesh.loopcut_slide(MESH_OT_loopcut={"number_cuts":10, "smoothness":0, "falloff":'ROOT', "edge_index":1})
bpy.ops.mesh.loopcut_slide(MESH_OT_loopcut={"number_cuts":10, "smoothness":0, "falloff":'ROOT', "edge_index":0})
bpy.context.area.type = old_type

So you should be in edit mode, and VIEW_3D context, then use the loop cut to cut the edge "edge_index"

crt-r should get you your horizontal cuts then use shift-Tab to snap the movement to grid. Doing this you can try and get your prefect quads

I want to do it by using python script

this might help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OePNW34-z4

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


text:
Lens specs of smartphones for camera tracking in Blender
I've been trying to track a footage taken by my Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 (GT-n5100) tablet. It has a good 5 mp camera and I tracked the footage well. But the problem arises at the time of solving the camera. The solve error is too high (more than 2). I don't know the width the tablet's camera sensor or the focal length or any other specifications. So my question is, has anybody been able to solve the camera on footage shot by a smartphone and if yes,  what camera and lense specs did you feed to the Blender?

Once you do have a sensor size, blender can often do a decent job of calculating the focal length and lens distortion for us.
Included in the tracking solve panel is a menu for refine options.

To help reduce the error rate try and get the markers spread out as much as possible. Have markers in the foreground as well as the background, the floor and high on the walls. Let blender track the points, don't manually move the point to the location of the next frame. Try using different motion models (affine, perspective) match to previous frame instead of keyframe, disable colour channels or use black and white to get better contrast. Use the tracking graph editor to find points that jump around.
And if you have any interest in joining the blender cloud, Sebastian does a good job of explaining the methods and options to get a good track in the first part of Track Match Blend 2 that is now available.


text:
Where is Particle Velocity and Rotation in Blender 2.7a?
I'm trying to make some Grass in Blender 2.7a but, I can't seem to find the Velocity in the Hair emitter settings, nor the Rotation, I use these to add random Velocity and rotation to my grass, can anyone help?

Velocity is a setting category for both emitter and hair types of particles. If you are using the hair type of particles, click on the advanced check mark (Under the type drop down box). If you are using the emitter type then you should see it by default.
For random looking grass, I would recommend you use Brownian under the Physics category then Newtonian type.


text:
Get position of the first solid crossing limits line of a camera
I am working on a Python script for a scene of a movie project where no Depth of Field is used by the active camera (no dof_distance neither dof_object).
However there is a character crossing the limits line of the camera and I need the character position or at least, the location of the first point which cross the line (red point on my illustration). Could someone help me find a solution ?
I give you a simple illustration of my problem :

So you want the origin of the object, or the surface coordinates / nearest vertex that a ray casted from the center of the camera would hit? I'm asking because there could be other objects closer to the camera and also within the view frame, just not at the center, so the ray would not pick them up.

Yes I understand. I need the location of the object's origin.

Just get your object's location, that should be it. If you need the 2D distance in cam space, use the code I posted to your other question.

Ignoring other object's which might be located between the mesh and the ray origin you can use the object's ray_cast method:
If there are multiple mesh objects, you might simply iterate over the objects, picking the one yielding the closest intersection point.
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

cam = bpy.data.objects['Camera']
group = bpy.data.groups['Group']

min = (cam.data.clip_end, None, None)
for obj in group.objects:
    v0 = obj.matrix_world.inverted() * \
         cam.matrix_world.translation

    v1 = obj.matrix_world.inverted() * \
         cam.matrix_world * \
         Vector((0.0, 0.0, -cam.data.clip_end))

    success, location, normal, index = obj.ray_cast(v0, v1)
    if index != -1:
        mag = (obj.matrix_world * (location - v0)).magnitude
        if mag < min[0]:
            min = (mag, obj, location)

#set the cursor to the intersection point
if min[1]:
    bpy.context.scene.cursor_location = min[1].matrix_world * min[2]

Without using python you can use drivers.
The driver has a Distance type built in already. You just input two objects and it will tell you the distance between them.

On the empty (or any object in the scene) add a custom property and increase the max value so it can store a distance above 1.00. Then add the driver to the custom property; change the var type to Distance. Change the type to Sum Values. If you need it in a script then use bpy.data.objects["objectname"]["propertyname"]


text:
Shrinkwrap modifier decal - When I join with object disappears
I have made a decal and added a shrinkwrap modifier with the following settings.

However when I apply the modifier to the decal and apply all scale, rotation, and position to both the decal and the object I want to attach the decal to and they to join them. The decal disappears. I believe it has something to do with the origin of either the object or the decal.  Since when I change it the invisible decal changes position.

How can I fix this?
file uploaded here enter link description here

Since the decal is 2d, it's not just Z fighting the surface?? Maybe you can share your .blend so we can have a look? https://pasteall.org/blend/

I uploaded the file here is the link.  https://pasteall.org/media/c/3/c3e79fe746656480dd638ba384694264.blend

I missed this when I first read your question, you say "and they to join them" Are you trying to join the 2 objects together into 1 object?

Yes I am trying to join the decal with the building.   Sorry for the miss type.

When you join them, basically the object with the decal is deleted, so it's material is removed. You would need to add the material to the building object and assign it to the appropriate faces.


text:
Rotation Animation in Blender - Making a plane flap rotate at the angle of the wing
Currently working on a jet airplane which has a titled tail fin from which I would like to make the tail rudder come out and rotate to 45 degrees but with the wing angle as the pivot point how do I do it pls.
I will include a copy of the blend file for ease of reference. The file is slightly different cause I improved the design of the flaps.

Please keep in mind that the same action will have to be mirrored  on the opposite side since the jet had 2 tail fins.
Thanks for all the help you can give me.

 Angle of the tail fin from the front.

45° in relation to what? Do you know what parenting is? Have you tried it? If it failed, then how did it fail, how does the result differ from what you want to achieve?

Tried to add a picture to explain better but it is hard. Basically the flap should open from the angled tail wing to act as rdudder.  No I do not know what parting is.

@ronin074 Just to be clear, MarkusvonBroady said parenting not parting.

Sorry was a bit in a hurry.  Yes I used parenting quite a bit.  In fact I added main wing flaps parented them to an empty and did the rotation on the empty.  Then I parented the empty to the which and it was ok.  The wing is a flat surface though but this time the tail tip is tilted and I need the flap on it to rotate at the angle as in the pics above.

Googling for "Blender parenting" gives many resources including videos teaching this technique. I think once you understand it, the problem will become trivial. Unless that's not the entire problem, hence the "need details for clarity" flags.

I think I just found the solution.  I first parented the flaps to the tail wing.  Then I set the origin point of the flaps to the line  of the flaps nearest to the same line on the tail wing,  The I set the rotation to the face of the flap and rotated.  It is not  a100% perfect rotation but quite close.   I keyframed the start and stop point.  Now all I have to do is copy and paste the keyframes on the time line when I need the rotation to take place.


text:
Rotation Animation keyframing
I would like to animate this missile with a rotation animation but starting from frame 600 of my animation and continuing to frame 1500.  I would like the rotation to be a fast one and constant from frame 600 to 1500.
Can it be done?  When I tried it the rotation was slowly advancing from 0degrees to 360 degree from the frame count above.
P.S. I tried also by typing this driver (#frame*0.03) in the y axis but the down side is that it start rotating at frame 0 and did not find a way to keyframe it a frame 600.
Thanks

so what rotation is it supposed to do between frame 600 to 1500? do you mean you don't have the result you expect? maybe describe precisely what you want and maybe share your file? https://pasteall.org/blend/

I would like for the missile to rotate (at a constant but 360 fast rotation on the y axis while in flight) starting from frame 617 to 1500.  I am working on a missile launcher animation. The missile launch animation will start at frame 617 to keep going till the end.  File uploaded.

so from what I see it rotates 360° as it is supposed to, if you want the speed to be constant select the keyframe at frame 616 and press T (Interpolation) > Linear (or in the Dope Sheet > Key > Interpolation Mode > Linear)

Can I make the rotation faster pls?

you can move the third keyframe (currently at frame 1500) to the left, or you can type more than 360° at frame 1500 and keyframe again


text:
how do I reduce the offset of the curve modifier for the following scene?

I want to make it so that the stitches (stitch object) lines up perfectly with the below mesh and kinda sticks to it, (I tried the shrinkwrap modifier but it is giving me very weird results)

As you can see there is a bit of a gap between the two mesh surfaces and I have to manually use the proportional editing tool to make it stick to the shoe surface.

Thanks in Advance!

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/77390/why-is-shrinkwrap-making-the-tube-flat

Not strictly an answer, here.. but it can be a bit of a pain aligning separate curves and modifying, for stitched seams. Maybe some variation of this GN group would be good enough.

It takes as input a vertex-group marking seams on the base-mesh to be stitched, and a stitch object.
It aligns stitch X to the tangent of the seam, and stitch Z to the normal of the underlying surface.
It doesn't deform stitches to the curve, but for small stitches, that should be OK
The output is the stitched mesh,and an attribute on mesh-points: 'Distance from Stitches', which a mesh material might use for bump-mapping a groove or mound around the seam.

This sort of result:

hi, how to do you rotate the stitch object such that it follows the curve direction and not normal to the curve points

In the sample file, the stitch-object (X) is following the curve direction.. to use this tool, you would just mark an edge-loop on the entire shoe to be stitched and save it as a vertex group.. no need for a separate curve. I'll get to demonstrating on your file, for you, later today.

I tried to mark the vertex group, but since I have solidify modifier on, the nodes modifier is showing irratic results, only by duplicating the edges and making it a curve is helping at this point

Hi, @AtharvaDeodhar   Here's an example. You would have to mark the vertex group on the base mesh, or a copy of it, with the modifiers applied. That may be a disadvantage for your workflow. The advantages are: you can quickly assign multiple seams, and adjust the stitches themselves very easily. I've reoriented your stitch object in Edit Mode, to comply. I've added a switch to the group so it can output only stitches.

The offset depends on the position of the object relative to the curve:

One easy way to match positions would be to  have the origin of the curve object at one end of some spline  and the origin of the object at one end as well and then just place the object at the position of the origin of the curve:

i am not totally sure, but don't you want just to apply the rotation of your curve to get this?

It is the relative rotation that's out of whack. But when that's fixed there are other things to fix, too.


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How do I make bunch of collection instances follow along a curve?

I have these certain collection instances, and I want them to make a perfect arc in my frame,
although I tried to manually position them in the scene, it is not giving me the desired results, how do I create a curve and then make these instances follow it perfectly...

The red line is what I don't want the curve to be like, while the blue line is how I'd like it to be.....

To me this looks like you have to tweak the curve which the objects follow until it fits the desired outcome. Or do you have any values to calculate to get the result? What is a "perfect arc"?

I just want to have a curve that looks perfect and has good curvature

do they need to be collection instances?

Not necessarily, they can also be seperate objects but having them as instances makes m y file lightweight and not laggy

Given a curve, and a collection of instances at the origin, Z up, X across, this little GN group will spread the collection along the curve:

.. with adjustments for spread start, end, back/front offset, and swivel, all of which can be keyed, if you need that, too:

Wow Robin, this is amazing to see, can you distill what's happening inside Geo nodes?

All it's doing is sampling the curve ( and its directions) with Curve to Points, and instancing the members of your collection onto the points.  The rest is tweaks of rotation, translation, which you can expand on, if you like. The Max and Min prevent the curve from being trimmed to 0 length, because then you lose all the direction information.

can you help me out here mate, thanks a lot: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/298733/why-is-this-geometry-node-setup-not-rotating-around-a-central-pivot-point-but-ar


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How do I make my array objects follow the curve?
For reference, I want to make the following animation:

with the objects rotating around the center like a ferris wheel.
I am currently stuck here:

I want to make the objects stick to each segment of the path and then rotate around it like the one in the above image, I am unable to find a method to do so..
pls help

Do you need all the phones to be different colors, as in your reference? (BTW, small point ... it really helps people to answer, if you cut your file  down to isolate the specific problem you're asking about. It just  makes it easier for them to find their way around.)

Right now, I just want them to rotate around my circle curve so they look like the reference above... @RobinBetts

ok, your question is pretty vague, because you wrote "I want to make the following animation", but you posted just one picture.
So we don't really know how the animation should look like.

if you want to make this animation, you have to do this:

add an empty, name it controller, with this location + rotation keyframes

 on frame 1

on frame 49 add these location + rotation keyframes to your controller

on your iphone object, apply scale + rotation

if you press "T" in graph editor and choose linear, you will get this:

change your array modifier to this:

--- update
in edit mode, select all vertices of your iphone, then press R X 180.
You have to adapt the controller location to your liking.

Thanks Chris! I am sorry I couldn't find a way to upload the video on the forum... I'll try to add in a link for that...
How do I make the it such that the bottom of the phone is the origin for the rotation, not the top of the phone.

I've Added the Video

i updated my answer. Please click on the checkmark left to my answer, if it helped you. thx

sorry, i will not update my answer to make now the animation as you posted it. please open another question for that. You may open as many questions as you want. But it is a "good manner" here to NOT enhance your question by new tasks. sorry.


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How to fix overlapping mesh vertices(improper vertex placements after modifiers apply)?

Hi guys I am working on a model when I applied the solidify and the subdiv modifier together, I dunno how but I got this weird mesh that I am trying to correct, although I worked with similar issue before, I am not able to understand a workaround for this particular problem.

Thanks in Advance!

Before applying the modifiers, always make sure that you keep the non-destructive version (a version of your object with modifiers non-applied)

Agree with @moonboots. Can't really help now that the modifiers are applied.

Before applying the modifiers, always make sure that you keep the non-destructive version (a version of your object with modifiers non-applied). From you version you could select all the front faces with a ShiftG, and use the Threshold value to extend the selection (unselect the faces that are behind though):

Remove these faces, also remove these edges:

Dissolve these edges at the bottom:

Fill these faces with multiple F:

Create the 2 edge loops if necessary:

hey @moonbots, how do you repeat a action multiple times, like constantly pressing F to fill, I am trying it but  unable to do so

You need to select one edge, then press F and F again

I think you need the built-in F2 addon enabled for that. Most people have that enabled and forgot they enabled it ! :^)

Not in the latest versions but yes, if he has a previous version, he needs to enable the F2 addon

Ah ok. I enabled it in 2.8 and forgot about it! :^)


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Armature out of place in object mode but not in edit mode...or almost
for some reason that I don't understand my armature seems to be out of place in object mode,but not in edit mode and I don't know how to fix it. Can someone helps me ? I've attached 2 pictures to show you.

could you please provide your .blend file to be able to help you?

Have you accidentally moved the armature or bones in pose mode? You could try switching to pose mode

⎇ AltR to reset all rotation,
⎇ AltG to reset all translation,
⎇ AltS to reset all scale.


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Why is not enough to copy the node configuration from an object to another to texture the object A the same as the object B?
Let's say that I have two meshes (of two heads) that have a slightly different topology. What I want to do is to texture the head B (the head on the right) the same as it is the head A (on the left). So I have selected the head B and I've gone under the material tab and I have created the same number of slots that I have used for the head A. After this I've gone under the node editor and I have copied the same node configuration that I have for each texture used on the head A on the head B,but surprise,the head B became textured bad and it is not like the head A. Do you know what's the mistake ? Can you give me a suggestion ? thanks.

Head B has different UV map then the head A. That's why you can't use the same texture and expect to get the same result. To fix this problem, you should bake head A texture to head B. If material of Head A consists of few different textures (f.ex. color, normal, glossy etc.) you should each of this textures in head A material, (one by one-different texture for each bake) connect to Diffuse BSDF and straight to Material Output and bake Diffuse Color on new texture for head B. From the node setup, that you have on the images uploaded, it's obvious though, that you are using only Color texture (the rest of the nodes is useless in your setup), so you need to bake only one texture. Your head B need to have only one material added. If there will be more materials, you would have to add Image Texture node with the new texture added to each of the materials. Otherwise you'll get an error and bake will fail.


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Smooth transition between 2 joined animations
First animation try.
I have finally managed to find a way to join 2 sperate animations taken from Miximo into Blender by copying the keyframes of the first one in the second one.
However, as you can see the transition between them is quite rough and visible.  Is there a  way to make the transition between one animation and another more smooth?
video of animation

your animation is baked (one keyframe per frame) which doesn't make the things easy. But what you can do first is selecting all the the X and Y position from frame 212 to the end in order to bring it back at the same position as 211. Also what you could consider is selecting frame 212 and beyond to move them further in the timeline in order to make a gap between 211 and 212, and create all the intermediate images. But maybe share your file so that we can give a try?

Try to smooth the curves in the Graph Editor.

I did not understand the x and y position from frame 212 part sorry but this is still my first attempt at animation and I do not know how to eventually do it.  I tried to leave a gap as you told me and it work but I believe it still could be better, even the position between one animation ant the other is not that right.  I have uploaded the file if you want to have a look.  Thanks.


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rigging - partial success need help
My first rigging.  I have tried following a lot of the suggestions given here to try and rig this golem.
It consists of an inner lava model and an outer rock model which was obtained with a fracture quick effect and joining its results.
The rig is made from a human-modified rig.
Both models have been checked for - Removed Doubles, Recalculated Normals, Removed Subsurface Modifier, Ensured Positioning for the Mesh and Bones are all set to Zero and Scale to 1.
I partially succeeded in rigging the inner lava but I absolutely cannot manage to rig the full inner lava and rock models to the rig.
I am uploading the file.  If someone can give it a look and tell me what is wrong I would greatly appreciate it.  Thanks

it looks like you have some double vertices on the big character, remove them and it works

I removed all the doubles using - Clean up /merge by distance in edit mode.  Is there another way to do it, please.?

yes, you need to increase the threshold a bit in the Operator box (bottom left of your 3D view once you've merged by distance

I managed to rig it after I cleaned it up as you said but some parts are not following the rig this time.  Any Idea why pls.  I posted a photo above too.

you often need to make some corrections, either in Weight Paint mode, or go in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Groups and assign the vertices to the group they are supposed to be part of

Wanted to nonetheless say THANKS.  I am managing to correct all the non-moving parts with weight painting even if it took me quite a while to figure out how to do it.  Total noob on it bu having fun learning.


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Retarding the start of an animation. How?
I have been working on this low poly dragon awakening animation and all is going fine.
However, due to camera movement in the final render, I would like the animation of the dragon to start at around frame 100 and not at frame one in the final render where I have the Background ready.  I tried to move the whole dragon animation in the final render to 100 but it still starts at 1.

in the dopesheet move the keyframes for the animation you want to delay.

I just tried it but it is not working

Are you sure you move all keyframes?

I am pretty sure to have done it as you can see from the 3rd picture I uploaded.

I bet it is not working because the keyframe marked in red is not moving with the other keyframes.


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Joining animated model to a quick fire effect
I have been trying to join a quickfire effect sphere in evee with a model I finally found a way to animate but each time the model moves the flame does not follow it.
Is there a way to join the sphere (which is the fire mesh) and the smoke domain to the main model and make them follow the animation?
Also, will the fire domain box still keep showing when I render?

have you tried copy location constraint?

No.  Never heard of it.  Can you tell me how it is done pls?

select fire object

go to object constraints in properties panel

add copy location constraint

select target object

Thanks for the help.  I tried as you suggested and met partial success.  The fire constrains itself to the golem but not in its body but above it.  I had to constrain it to a spine bone of the armature as well to obtain this result.  I also tried inverting the z-axis but it went 2 down.     Added photos in the main question. Any way I can center the flame pls?

@ronin074 you need to have object origins in the right place, they seem off to me :)

Control a / transform all should do it then.   I will try as soon as I have a chance and let you know. ty


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Vertices alignment in a straight line
Currently working on a project where I am sculpting a statue of a dead king holding a sword.  The statue was composed of many objects which I now successfully remeshed together.
Remesh went very well except for the sword blade which totally lost its edge.

Bearing in mind that this statue is being done for 3D printing and till now the mesh is totally manifold.
Is there a way I can align the vertice (edges) of the blade in a straight line without having to try and do it one by one?
Should I have marked the edges of the blade as SHARP maybe that would have helped in the remesh?
Your answer worked thanks very much.  It's not perfect but much better than before.

Now my only problem is the sword tip which was quite thin and seems to have corroded during the remesh.

To align the vertices, just scale them to zero along the perpendicular axis.
To scale multiple lines at once, set Pivot to Individual Origins.


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How do I remove this weird geometry from my lens
so here is the issue guys:

is there any way I can remove that geometry effect from it, making it clear?

that is caused by your subdivision modifier, you need to correct you topology in those lenses to be "subdiv friendly"

You need to correct so topology so that the central ngon is coplanar with its adjacent faces, otherwise the shading will be bad:


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Why is my Mantaflow render stuck at Updating Lights?

Hey guys, I am currently following this tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNb8I4v53-A&t=962s
For some reason, even though I have a gaming pc (specs below), my render is taking too damn long for some reason and is stuck at updating lights, I don't know much about fluids but even normal renders don't take this long to appear on the render screen..
Is there any setting I've missed or a more efficient way of making fluid animations render faster?
Specs:
12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-12500H
8GBx2 DDR4 3200MHz RAM
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 GDDR6 4GB
1TB NVMe PCIe Gen4x4 SSD

First off wanted to let you know that the file you attached does not have the packed materials! You can easily pack them here when sharing files:

Secondly, it looks like your render is failing when it's trying to update the light tree, this is an awesome new feature in 3.5 that makes rendering scenes with multiple light sources more efficient, however since your scene only has 1 light in it, it might not be the best for your render, you can switch off the light tree setting from here:

As always, make sure that you are always rendering on GPU not CPU (Make use of that 3050!) and that you have the GPU enabled correctly in your preferences, in case you don't know how to enable the GPU you can do it from here:

Let me know if this helped you at all!

Hey @Zarbio, thanks for the help, turning off light tree really did the trick for me!
Also I will remember to pack the materials for future questioning in this forum, thanks!


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How to make object chase another in blender? (Not parenting)
I want to make objects track another sort of like how battleships track each other. Its not really parenting, as one objects direction would always point towards the other. For a 2D demonstration, its like the gifs in https://mathworld.wolfram.com/PursuitCurve.html. I do not know a lot of python coding, but I would not mind learning how to do it. I have tried to use geometry nodes, however, I could not figure out how to get it working...

if you agree to use constraint, you can use a Track To or a Damped Track to make the object point towards the other one

I would say this question can possibly be answered with Geometry Nodes if we know the exact setup. There is the possibility to realize this intention, if the path of the object to follow is predefined and somehow detectable as a curve. Please complete your question with your blend file: https://blend-exchange.com/. Thank you!

would you mind using a animation nodes solution? (it's a free great add-on)

Related

I hope a solution with animation nodes (is a free and amazing add-on and still can do a lot more than geometry nodes) is ok, so with this node setup:

with this node:

you can change the speed of the "follower".
you get this (slow speed):

moderate speed:

fast:

I use the compare node to reset the animation. In combination with the switch node AN sets the start point for the cone to 0,-1,0 so that it restarts always at the same point.
This only happens on frame 1, on every other frame the "normal" "follow object calculation" will be executed.
You can try out yourself what happens if you just plug in the vector math output node of "add" to the location of "object transform output". You will see, that the starting point of cone is "on" the cube (at least if you have set execution "always" in the node tree). That's because AN executes the nodetree permanently and not per frame. Of course you can change that behaviour.
Now to "your" blend file:
i am not totally sure why this happens. But...that's why i moved my object on the curve via AN too, then it works.
Just delete your follow path constraint and use the same nodes i did: Time info, map range, evaluate spline and transform output. These four nodes replace the follow path constraint.

This is perfect! I tried using this setup, but I removed the curve and simply used my mouse to control the position of the cube. However, I realized that when the cube is stationary the cone's movement starts to look jumpy and is not smooth. Also, when I try to constrain the cube's motion to a curve by using the "follow path" constraint, the cone stays at the origin and does not move. Lastly, can you please explain why we are comparing the # of frames to 1, and why we need a "switch" node? THANK YOU SO MUCH! THIS HAS BEEN EXTREMELY USEFUL!

I have included the blender file for your convenience.


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Why does Eevee use 100% GPU and Cycles 100% CPU only?
Why does Eevee use 100% GPU and Cycles 100% CPU only when rendering in Blender?
When I select CPU in Cycles, the Device field stays white for valid?

And when I select GPU, the field is grayed out even though it is selected?

I did set the CUDA and other stuff in System settings and my card is a GTX 1070Ti.
Edit: System settings.

Can you please show us your preference setting regarding your system ?

Cycles uses 100% of all GPUs and CPUs you have if you set it up to do so and if you render something complex enough to take some time. It is possible to set it up to use CPU rendering only and that is great if you have a powerful multicore CPU and huge scenes that do not fit into VRAM of your GPU, but you certainly do not have to use only CPU and most people use GPUs for rendering with Cycles.
Hit F4 followed by p and go to System tab to set up Cycles Render Devices:

You need to have a supported GPU(s) for Cycles to use it with up to date drivers installed. Nvidia GPUs are generally better for this.
If you render really simple fast small frames, the bottleneck might not be actual rendering on your render devices but preparing, loading and processing the scene and/or compositing and saving the renders so there are cases where GPU might not get the chance to work hard.
As for EEVEE it's a GPU renderer, so it will always use GPU for rendering.


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Best way to make a complex shape on head character or apply material to part of a mesh
I am a beginner with Blender and try to create a robot for a personnal project.
Which looks like this :

As you can see, there is two part on the head of my character. The face (the white part) and the hair (the black part). I search the best way to put my black material on the head of my robot. But I don't know the best way to make this complex shape on my mesh.
My mesh :

I tried to make it with the knife tool, but the subdivision modifier deform my mesh.
What is the best way to do this without deforming my mesh ? Did I need to separate my head in two meshs (the face and the hair) [I tried but it also deform my mesh] ? Is there a better way to apply material to a specific part of a mesh ?
Thanks in advance for your time :)
My blend file :

Have you thought about an image texture? You could keep your mesh as it is...

So the best way will be to paint a texture directly on my mesh ? For now, I apply materials to my mesh with select faces in edit mode.

I'm not saying that it's the best way, it may be a solution

Have you considered using the Project from View unwrap? In that case you could prepare your front an back image and put the UVs over it:

You could also cut the topology with a knife and give different materials to the faces, use a Shrinkwrap modifier to make the sphere stick to another one underneath:

To fix your current file, put the Subdivision Surface under the Shrinkwrap, and in the Shrinkwrap choose Wrap Method > Nearest Surface Point, and a bit of Offset. You could add a Solidify modifier under the Shrinkwrap to give it thickness but you'll need to change the topology a bit:

Thanks for your help moonboots :)
I tried with the second option but the shrinkwrap modifier give me a weird result, the hair mesh is below/inside of my head mesh. I changed parameters of shrinwrap modifier, but it doesn't work.

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

I edited my first post to add the blend file

I see 2 objects, one for the head, of the hair, didn't you want to use the same mesh for both the head and hair?

When i used the knife tool on the head mesh it deform it with bumps (due to the new vertices). So i tried on an other way. But if i can have the same object for the head and the hair it will be great.

Here is my file:  You need to use a Shrinkwrap to make sure that your sphere keeps its shape when you add vertices

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

I've opened you file and made some changes, please check my edit


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2D Stabilization with Autoscaling: Where can I read out the resulting resolution?
I am rock-solidly stabilizing a jittery movie clip and am interested to export as much from the cropped movie clip as comes out of it after Autoscaling, in whatever weird resolution that might be. (Put differently, I am not aiming for any specific output resolution, which I would scale towards in the compositor normally, before exporting)
So where or how I can read out this information? (e.g. something like 1234 x 987 px)

If there is a workflow to get the video exported in the post-autoscale resolution without even having to know about this resulting resolution, that would be a valid answer for me as well, but I'd suggest posting it as a new Q&A item then, providing the answer to the rephrased question right away.

Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df3TAZ-VNso&index=4&list=PLtuvwW4VAp5tu2RdbRHThM6FVFfvFur1g
Don't you just need to disable the Autoscale option or reduce the Maximun Scale to 1.0?

I currently lack time to try this out, but feel free to confirm your idea and propose it an answer if it works! :) Thanks

It seems that with Blender 2.8 and Autoscale it will scale to the original resolution (the active Viewer Node output in Compositing can be seen in the Image Editor where the size is available in the Image properties. Without Autoscale (refresh the frame in Compositing after unchecking), the original resolution is kept, but the image stabilization causes "gaps" (unfilled areas).


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Weird results using Solidify tool
I am in the process of creating an asset for a character model, and when I try to use the Solidify tool to thicken the surface, I get a strange result where some faces thicken in the opposite direction, which messes up all the geometry. I've already looked at several tutorials and threads regarding similar topics, but nothing I am doing seems to be working. I've attached a couple screenshots and (will attach) the .blend file. I'm also fairly new to Blender, so I don't quite understand what I can do to fix these issues.

This is what the model looks like before the modifier.

This is what it looks like after.
My only theory as to why this is happening is that maybe the normals of those specific edges aren't aligned with everything else.
And here is the .blend:

You can investigate further in edit mode (be sure the "Display modifier in Edit mode" is turned on (button next to solidify Name), and in Overlays, you can enable Normals indicators for each face/edge, and enable Geometry >> Face Orientation.

Did you look at the object with Face Orientation checked on the View Overlays dropdown and have you selected All in Edit mode and used Shift-N to recalculate the normals?

0.23m is 9 in, which seems like a lot !  If I add the "Monkey" to my view and use a 9" thckness, it certainly looks very odd.   What is the overall dimension of your mesh?

Thanks everyone, I didn't know that I could display normals in the veiwport, and after turning that on I was able to see that those face groups were turned opposite everything else. Using Shift+N worked perfectly.

Try recalculating your normals
In Edit Mode go to the menu Mesh > Normals > Recalculate Outside .

As suggested above, disable the modifier in the viewport, turn on Viewport Overlays and check Face Orientation which shows this result:

Go into Edit mode, select All then ⇧ Shift N to recalculate the normals. That gives this result:


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Blender issue after importing fspy file
UPDATE: Issue was solved by reinstalling the driver.
I have a problem with importing fspy file into Blender which never happen to me before. It looks like Blender crushed after importing the file....I have tried to update to the latest version Blender and reinstall the fspy plug in. But none of them solved the problem. I would be really appreciated if someone can help me with the issue :)

The fspy addon appears to have last been updated over two years ago so it's possible that it isn't compatible with the current Blender versions. It's an external addon, not part of Blender anyway so you'll need to contact the author if he's still around.

Thank you so much!! I reinstalled the driver and it works again!

Glad to hear it!


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How to create a shape animation with seamless textures
Hi I'm trying to create an animation where shapes rise out of the floor and are seamlessly textured even though they move together.
However when placing my shapes side by side you can always see the join and i can't figure out a way to eliminate this. The below is what i'm trying to achieve:
And this is an example of how the joins are clearly visible in my version so far:

I'm using cycles and can animate the shapes fine but they don't have the seamless look of the shapes in the ref. which actually grow out of the floor to form the staircase in the image.
Any help would be great, thanks

I think you should merge the vertices then apply the boolean. Can you elaborate a bit on your setup (base mesh ,animation, modifiers ?)

Hi, yeah sure thing. So the animation style is similar to what https://raggededge.com/ have on their home page. I'm really just trying to recreate something like this.
I'm currently using basic shapes so the default cube andcylinders and i've used a bevel modifier to soften them. The animation is just the shapes rising up as per the homepage video to form staircases or other forms. It's that seamless texture that makes them look like one shape that's almost covered by a single texture i can't work out.
Thanks for trying to help, i really appreciate it.

Alright, I can't say for sure how they achieve this effect, but what I'm almost certain is that the bevel operation should be the last thing you do to the mesh, otherwise you won't be able to remove the seam between your objects. I have a feeling they're using shader bevel and not geometry bevel though so that would help

Ok great i'll check out the bevel shader and see if i can create a similar effect. Thanks


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Make blender unaware of user/system installed add-ons
I am running a customized, local install of blender from and with a script:
./blender --background --python generator-blender.py --
My customized local install of blender is prepared with add-ons that might also be present in the user/system add-on locations, which currently leads me to (e.g.) blend4web being found once as a locally installed add-on and once more as a user-installed add-on:
multiple addons with the same name:
'/home/simonrepp/AXIOM/elmyra/lib/linux/blender-2.76b-linux-glibc211-x86_6/2.76/scripts/addons/blend4web/__init__.py'
'/home/simonrepp/.config/blender/2.76/scripts/addons/blend4web/__init__.py'

How can I tell blender to ignore the user/system installed add-ons and rely solely on what is present in the local install i have set up?

In my customized, local install I needed to create an empty config/ folder inside the 2.XX/ folder (the one that contains datafiles/, python/, scripts/ already - in my case 2.67/). As soon as blender sees this folder it completely ignores any user/system add-ons (and everything else too I suppose - startup files, configuration, etc.)
I found the answer here: Need guidance for creating no dependancies between two installs of Blender

Thanks for the solution! This will be useful for other B4W users too.


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Driver constraint addon error when it is applied : property has not been found
I used the driver constraint addon to connect the shapekeys to the bones. The shapekeys come from the manuel bastioni lab and the bones from rigify. I've used two armatures and I have connected them into one only armature called rig. Now I'm trying to use the addon to constraint the bones because I want that when I use the shapekeys also the bones move. The final goal is to convert the shapekeys library into a pose library faster. The problem is that when I go on a shapekey and I do "copy data path",the value copied is not good and it can't be used with the driver contraint addon. It sounds like this : active_shape_key_index ; instead this value should return the name of the shakepey. Anyway,when I use this value the error given is : "bpy_structdriver_add() properly "active_shape_key_index" not animatable". Instead,If i use the name of the shapekeys,the error is "property has not been found".
You can watch what happens going here : (also the blender file is there)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1E4mUhKuKBTZQoIwfnWIGcV6xp8NSgqxb

you made a little mistake in the process of setting up the driver.
You need to copy the datapath of the value. Not the shapekey name. You need to rightclick on the digits and then copy the datapath.
That should do the trick. Then the addon should recognize that you want to key the shapekey value.

Howdy ndee. Can you elaborate a little on this?, particularly on the data_path.

The correct data path is my case is on the value field,not on the shapekey name field. But it seems that in your tutorial you have taken this value from the shapekey name field. watch at 29s of your tutorial :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV0gcfXQgAQ&t=29s

this is the reply that manuel bastioni gave to me :
After finalization,the characters of the lab become standard models, so (apart from the use of the "after creation tools") they are no longer linked to the lab and usually the generic problems depend on Blender or the other addons. To be sure I did this test: starting from an empty scene I created a cube and added a shapekey: also in this case the copy data path always gives me the same "active_shape_key_index", so it would seem to be a generalized behavior of Blender.

@batFINGER
The DriverConstraint Addon takes a data_path of an object value and that way it can create a driver for that particular value. The addon supports almost any property. By having a dual selection of object and for example a bone, the addon sets everything up for you.

@Marietto
In the video I rightclick on the value. It should work with any rig. You can even use other objects transormations as driver for values.
Did you get it to work?

@ndee : I need to talk privately to you about your addon. I'm trying to contact you in a lot of ways but you rarely answer. That's because it does not work properly for me,at least for what I need to do,even if it remains indispensable.

no. it does not work for me.

Looks like another cool addon. comment  twas more a prod to edit your answer with some more details, eg a before / after screenshot

check these pics and you will see that you have clicked on the shapekey name,not on his value : https://ibb.co/fyB9Xd ; https://ibb.co/ng2SJJ

I have also need to modify the addon to make it work also for this situation : https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/109869/how-to-convert-the-shapekey-movement-to-a-pose-movement-with-the-driver-costrai ; I want that the shapekey drives the bone,I don’t want that the bone drives the shapekey.

@Marietto do you have a working example of driving bone with shapekey?  If the bone is also from the rig that modifies the mesh via armature modifier this could create one hell of a cyclic redundancy.

I created this and it works good : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qQsRtv4WTD5wUkHHNhgXyFwyMlSjLpVg


text:
How to recalculate the automatic weights for single bones in blender 2.8
I'm trying to weight paint correctly and quickly a 3D character in Blender 2.8. I have rigged it with auto-rig-pro and then I used the addon "Voxel and Surface Heat Diffuse Skinning" for the weight painting. It did a good job,except for the teeth. Infact when I open it,this is what happens :

Since I've switched to blender 2.8 recently,I still have to learn it. I would like to recalculate the automatic weights only for the bones which have a wrong weight. So,I pressed the W key,but I don't see the entry "Assign automatic from bones". Where is it ?

You will find it in the Weights menu. Upper left corner of the 3D view.


text:
I want to smooth only the outer faces of a circle
I am currently working on a medal where I want a smooth the extreme outer part of it but without touching the rest especially the upper face.  However even when I add one subdivision modifier, I get the result I want but the upper face grove lines emitting from the central circle are ruined.  A you can see in the photos.
I  have marked the edges as sharp (Edit mode/mesh/shading/sharp) but without a result.

How important is clean topology (quads only) to you, because I can think of a hack to achieve that.

I am working to 3d print it.

Hi. Please try to use existing tags instead of creating new ones.

OK, for 3d Print this should work fine:

Add 2 edge loops along the sides.
Press CRTL num plus to extend your selection, so it covers the entire rim
W -> subdivide
Choose these options (lower left at your VP imediately after hitting subdivide)

You might need to tweak the rim, bc. it may become concave. Easiest would probably to delete the new edge loops around the "coin" again.

THANKS for the help. After 2 hours of tweakings, I used your suggestion but subdivided it a lot more and above you can see the result.  Thanks

You're welcome, glad I could help

One way would be to separate into 2 different objects and apply the subdivision just to the outer object?

might be a good one but I would need to reunite them in the end since I am working to 3d print it.

Adding smoothness to parts of your mesh and joining it back together is bound to create holes.

OK I did'nt realise that you needed to print it. Joining will be no good.