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Smooth tilt a curve between two points
I am making a racetrack. The tilt radius in the middle of the curve should be 43 degrees.
The tilt on the straight is 12 degrees. Ive made a bezier curve that describes the shape that I require for the track, made a small "plank" (0.1mx8m) and used the array (fixed count till it was full) curve > bezier curve.
I am having troubles easing from the 12 degrees to 43 degrees. It does something that I do not expect with the second to last node. But I am trying the following.
Points  1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4 -- 5 -- 6
degrees 12 18,2 24,4 30,6 36,8  43

Point 1, and 6 are set, how can I get the tilt automatically interpolated between the points. I made a small recording of the situation. At first I wanted to upload it here, but it doesn't allow gifs above 50 megapixels (it is less)
https://imgur.com/a/GDmKXaN

In edit mode with a curve you can select the points you want and do Control Points -> Smooth Curve Tilt.


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can i put a time remap in video edtor blender?
Is there any way to put time remap in a blender video editor ?
I've searched a lot and the only result I got was that you can put time a remap, but only on 3d things.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Armature and rig break after exporting as FBX and importing back into Blender or any other software
The rig and armature I use work perfectly in .blend files and can be animated.
However, when I export my model as .fbx, the bones change their positions and the model becomes impossible to animate or use in any projects. How can I export my model in a way that does not break the armarure?

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


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Hair particle emitter not obeying rotation?

I'm sort of a novice at Blender, but I'm pretty sure that if I want this hair to all stand up straight I should be using the rotation tab and adjusting the Orientation Axis? Doing so hasn't been helping (the grass continues to stand at an angle based on the plane beneath it). Does anyone have any advice perhaps?


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Hair won't follow armature
Hey can anyone help me my hair does not follow my blender avatar animation.
I have tried parenting it, joining it to the bone, deleting the armature modifier and replacing it adding weight paint and nothing seems to work.
Ps. This is a premade particle system.


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I came across a tutorial I wanted to follow and while making my character I realized I couldn't find anywhere how to make a cube go rounded like this

Anyone know how to make a cube go like this. Really would appreciate any help

It's probably got a Subdiv Surface modifier on it but it's impossible to say without more details. At least add a link to the tutorial you're following and an image of the whole window via the Window > Save Screenshot menu in Blender. Then edit your question and add the details.

It's usually good to describe in detail what you're looking for. This seems to be a bad screenshot to illustrate what you want to make. And please [edit] your title as well: be descriptive but succinct. You can copy most of it to the body of your question.


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How to hide "grey smoke box" outside the simulation frames
I'm doing a smoke simulation using a quick effect in evee. Everything is fine within the frames of the simulation. But in the rest of the animation, the domain smoke cube is visible on render.
I think i should fix some shaders but no have idea what should i do.
Inside domain keyframes animation:

Outside keyframes:

It would be nice to get a shader tree to fix this, or any recommendations.

Why not simply keyframe the Density of the Principled Volume? Within the frame range of the simulation set it to the desired value, outside the range set it to 0.

That's where I stopped. Apparently there is no other option

Of course there is another option, you could animate the render visibility of the domain. Or just simulate the smoke over the complete animation time. But the last sentence of your question sounds as if you want a solution within the material shader.

Ok. Will answer myself.
The best way I've found is to reduce the density of the Principled Volume outside of the keyframes to zero.


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Will Render Animation always take this long?
I simply clicked the animation button after following an online tutorial. So all the settings are where they should be. But should the rendering really be taking hours? It finally hit frame ten after about two hours, which is PAINFULLY slow. Are there any ways to increase the speed of it? It's already using 100% CPU. Thank you in advance!
Because of the reputation system, I was only able to post one screenshot in addition to the blend file.
Blend file here:
Ethan

Welcome to BSE, it would be helpful to attach screen shots of your Render Panel, and upload your .blend file here: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

There is the blend file. The only thing I changed was the text from "Prism" to ethanpenn5.

A single frame takes me about 9 minutes to render on an i7 4790, so yes, it will probably take hours.

Holy cow! I didn't know that it was that extreme! I don't even want to know what the professional filmmakers must go through to create movies like Star Wars and other movies like that!

Actually, the proffesional filmakers have "render farms". This renders multiple scenes at the same time

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


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How do I prevent Blender from randomly duplicating items?
I am really enjoying the Blender program, but I am also having some extreme issues with it as well. It seems to "glitch out" randomly, and when I try to replicate the scenario, sometimes it will do it again, other times it will work correctly, and other times, it messes up completely differently! For instance, in the file that I attached, I am trying to create a "Firebending" effect. I have the smoke flow and domain set up, but for some reason, Blender keeps randomly duplicating the domain at different points throughout the video. I'm really not sure how else to describe it and get help because the events are so random and so confusing to me. I often follow video tutorials exactly, but if I mess up and have to undo a step, Blender loses its mind it seems. Is anyone willing to try and help me out with some of these problems? Thanks in advance!
Ethan
PS: The video tutorial I am using is this fire power video if it helps you guys out with answering my question.
EDIT: Here is the second attempt I had after removing Smoke Adaptive Domain and rotating the sphere 90 degrees.

Modifiers are in wrong order. Move Smoke modifier down in the stack so Particle system would be first. At least i think this is what you are trying to achieve.
Oh and it ain't random duplicating. You have "Smoke adaptive Domain" checked on Domain Smoke properties and because modifiers were in wrong order, it looked like there is duplicated domain as it should normally stay inside the original domain.
EDIT: Well that particle system seemed bit complicated for me to fast figure out how to make that more "firebending" style you wanted. But here is idea for you how to do it easier without using particle system. Added another domain, sphere and wind. might be more better way to do this, but this is what i would use

I ended up just removing "Smoke Adaptive Domain" because it kept struggling no matter which order I put the modifiers in. This is the new file. As you can see, I removed SAD, and I rotated the sphere 90 degrees in an attempt to get more of a "fireball" type look. I still didn't get the kind of fire that I wanted. link
I was going for something more like the link I posted in this comment.

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


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How to direct fire effect?
I am trying to create a sort of "fighting" type scene where balls of fire are around our hands. I want to get that visual effect where it is also trailing slightly behind the movement of the hands so that it looks like it's swinging through the air.
The problem is, the fire is just sort of globing up around my hand. It's also showing over top of my arm, which realistically, it should pass behind it and out of sight.
How can I secure these two effects to get a more realistic looking fire from my blend?
Thank you in advance!

Posting images/screenshots will be very helpful. Many people will answer if there are images, but not if it means downloading your file, opening it up, figuring out how you did what you did, figuring out how to do what you want... etc.

You can use masking for that, add a mask in the motion tracking editor.

Could you please edit your question and expand a little on how to achieve this. Possibly add some screenshots of the workflow.


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Performance issues with blender VSE preview during effects only
My system information:
Operating System - Windows 10 (64 bit)
CPU - i7-5930K @ 3.50GHz
RAM - 32GB DDR4 (4x8GB)
GPU - AMD R9 Fury X
Storage - PCI-e SSD OCZ Revodrive (500 MB/s writes, 900 MB/s reads)
Radeon Software Version - 16.9.1

Blender version - 2.78 (Date installed: 2016-09-26)
No add-ons or other things installed with it.

Things I've done to try and remedy this issue:

Increased Memory Cache Limit to 20GB under User Preferences > System > Sequencer/Clip Editor.
Changed Compute Device to my GPU, switched to Cycles Render engine, and setting Render > Device as GPU Compute.
Setting OpenSubdiv compute to GLSL Compute and Images Draw Method to GLSL.
Using the new DepsGraph by adding --enable-new-depsgraph to blender's launch shortcut.
Setting Threads under Render > Performance to 10.
Disabling OpenGL Preview under Scene Preview/Render.
Setting the preview properties Proxy Size to 25% and making the preview window smaller.
Setting Preview Samples under Render > Sampling > Samples to 1 (minimum).

All I'm trying to do is use Blender as a video editor. I'm not doing any 3D modeling or animation. Whenever I am previewing an effect, even if I let it cache fully, my FPS drops to 5 or less, and blender is almost unresponsive until the effect is no longer being previewed. CPU usage jumps to around 70-80%. It would only jump to around 20-30% at times before I started using the new DepsGraph.
At any other time, when just video and audio are being played (no effects, animations, or otherwise), I get a constant 30 FPS. Even if I run the preview at the scene's render resolution (so 1440p), and set Preview Samples to 0 (unlimited), I get 30 FPS.
The clips I'm handling are 2560x1440 resolution running at 30 FPS that were encoded to HEVC (x265) at a bit rate of 2500 Kb/s. The entire project is only 7 minutes and 13 seconds long (12990 frames). Even if I limit the playback segment using P, it still essentially locks up when previewing effects. The entire clip I'm editing is 228MB in size.
I'm using 3 effects. A crossfade transition, a wipe transition, and a speed control effect. All at different times, and any of them causes this behavior immediately once they start.
This may be entirely unrelated, but I'm unsure:

Before I switched to the new DepsGraph, if I set OpenGL Render Options > Anti-Aliasing on, all previews hit 14 FPS maximum. If I change said Anti-Aliasing's Samples to 5, 8, 11, or 16 (those are the options it gives), the average FPS does not change (it's around 13).
After switching to the new DepsGraph, this is no longer true. I get 30 FPS until I hit the Effects I mentioned above.

I've researched and tested things for a while from various forums, as well as reading questions asked on this stack exchange. I'm at a loss for why I'm experiencing these issues.

See if any of these help: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/27007/2217, http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/27855/2217, http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/15835/2217, http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/38631/2217

Is the User Prefs>System>Sound> audio output device set to SDL? This has slowed performance for me in the past. Also did you know that the VSE only uses 1 thread anyway.

@David♦ - I tried switching the sound output device to SDL, every time I've rendered or previewed, I've had the FPS and resolution match the source material being edited (1440p30), and I've adjusted the samples in the Scene properties but even setting it to 1 doesn't affect FPS.
2nd link is about final render while my issue is preview rendering. Neither proxy resolutions or OpenGL preview affects the slow down caused by effects and Isti115's related answer is about final rendering as well.
Refresh Sequencer didn't work. The files don't appear to be corrupt upon viewing, and no fcurves,

Toggling OpenGL Preview doesn't prevent the slowdown from happening when an effect plays.
@3pointedit - No, it was set to OpenAL. That was the default because I have never changed that.
Yes, I saw that mentioned. That's regarding final render, not preview render. Preview render is multi-threaded according to a comment in one of David♦'s linked issues. My issue is the Preview Renderer's performance during effects.
When I start Video Editing, I use a setup I built from the defaults. All I change is Compute Device, Cache memory, and Dimension/Render settings.

Progress was made. I loaded Factory Settings and loaded up two clips into VSE and had a wipe effect between the two. It worked fine. Using this idea, I decided to build up to where I am at with settings from Factory Settings using Refresh Sequencer and see what causes the issue.
After going through this process, Blender begins to get unresponsive, not when settings are changed, but when there is a notable length of clips in the VSE. i.e. having the 1440p30 source in the VSE when it's 2.65GiB and around 9 minutes long, with effects, causes effects to not render and just freeze up.

I tried opening my saved project with all my 1440p30 clips in the VSE with effects. I removed them all and added a new clip that was short. Wipes and other simple effects worked fine but Speed Control always seems to give issues. If I first mess with my "large" project, then switch to a small setup to experiment, I notice Blender has issues dealing with effects again. If I open a new project and test small clips and effects (not Speed Control), it works fine, then I add the larger clips and it starts becoming unresponsive again. I sincerely don't know what would be the bottleneck in my system.


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How to remove a preset?
I have created several presets for Sapling Tree Gen add-on.
But now I want to delete some of the presets.
How can I do that?
 Here's a video about presets

What OS you use?

macOS: Big Sur and High Sierra (two machines)

On Mac you can access and manage presets from
Finder
Go (upper menu) hold Alt key to bring Library on the list
Library > Application Support > Blender > 2.93 > scripts > presets
or
Go to Folder shift+cmd+G
and paste this path directory
~/Library/Application Support/Blender/2.93/scripts/presets/

Terminal
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Blender/2.93/scripts/presets/

Notes: In all cases change the number 2.93 to your current Blender version you use. Specifically Sapling's presets are stored in sub folder operator > add_curve_sapling. Difference in path for Finder and Terminal is just in representation of space character in name of Application Support - Terminal use back slash and space.

Thank you. That is the solution. All the best to you!

You are welcome ... one day probably would be standard to have achieve this by addons UI :)

Right. I think developers of Sapling Tree can add a  "Delete Current Preset" button... with a confirmation popup, in the current UI.

@LawrenceFletcher For sure ... try to contact them. There is always space to make things better :) Thank you


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Merge objects with intersecting co-planar faces?
I would like to merge intersecting faces of 2/3 polygons:

I selected all objects with A and merged them. I tried the delete duplicate method but that did not fix it. How can I merge these 3 faces so I can apply a material to that side of the object?

Remove Doubles will only work if vertices are located not far from each other and fall under the threshold of the operator. Intersecting faces can't be treated as the case for that because technically vertices which hold those faces don't intersect. I'd suggest either using font objects and retopoing them later or modeling from scratch using techniques mentioned in the answer

Unfortunately I do not know of a boolean tool that can handle full object intersections of this type (at least not well/completely).  But it may be worth looking at "Boolean 2D Union" described in this answer.  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/60660/cut-intersect-edges  You would have to execute it separately on groups of coplanar faces (like the selected ones in your screenshot), possibly first duplicating them and  splitting into a new object.  Then you'd have to extrude or otherwise join the correctly segmented faces to your mesh.  Maybe easier just to model from scratch?

In this specific situation you can ...

Add Remesh modifier (Octree 3), Apply
Select all vertices and X Limited Disolve
W Merge by Distance
Select two vertices of hole and X Disolve Vertices

For some reason I lost two corner edges in N-gon (probably to much disolving :) ).  To fix it ...

Select all vertices Triangulate Ctrl+T
Select all vertices and X Limited Disolve again


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How to make a ball capped screw?
I am new to blender and I want to make an object that is a bulbous looking screw merged with a sphere at the top.  I can't seem to get it to work the way I want, because I am having trouble getting the screw to have an edge by which to extrude in such a way that I can then merge a semi-sphere on top of.
As you can see I do not have an ending of my screw that is perpendicular in the z-axis, not only they but it is only half a circle too (by design to get a smooth looking screw) but I believe I will need a complete circle to easily and smoothly merge into my semi-sphere (moved up in this picture, and I know it's a sphere now I left it as such for easier viewing)

Any help you can provide in achieving my goal would be really appreciated. Please let me know if you need any more information.

you could cut horizontally with a knife (K to activate, Z to cut through, C to cut orthogonally), then extrude up and give your extrusion a spherical shape. But it looks like you have inner faces, you should also fix that because it may cause problems

You can try to start with lower resolution. Like here is use Circle with 12 vertices. Screw mmodifier with 12 Steps, Screw 1.73.
Duplicate Circle and use as top sphere, just change Screw to zero.

I'm not sure how transition should looks like, but you can just use Boolean modifier > Union ...
Before boolean, Apply Screw modifier, Merge by Distance 0.04 small inaccuracy. From top view box-select all center vertices and delete. So you get clean topology. Apply Boolean modifier. Loop select inner screw and mark as Sharp ⇧ Shift+E 1. Then add Subsurface modifier, Smooth shading. Under Data properties > Normals > enable Auto Smooth.

... or probably more natural it will result with upper part of sphere and manually delete unwanted faces and reconnect.

Great this worked!  After I applied the boolean modifier and the subdivision surface modifier to smooth it out I was left with a small gap in one spot near the sphere and where it meets the spiral, but I was able to remedy this by merging a few vertices. Thanks!


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How to show Image with UV coordinates?
I have a Color Grid on my model, but I can't see it in a viewport.

You need to set viewport shading to Material Preview or Rendered

@garyyang Please, next time use more straight forward title, that is more descriptive to your issue. Thank you

UV texture can be seen also in Solid mode, just enable Texture Overlay


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Symmetric editing mode for faces
I'm trying to create a simply script which orients a face towards the other (like a mirror) using the middle point which coords are calculated between their normals positions.
I didn't find a way to do with the provided tools, the only way was manually to rotate around its normal one face (eg commands R Y 35), taking into account the rotation angle and axis, and then doing the same but with minus angle (eg commands R Y 35 -)
Reading script api i found polygons but every polygons has only its normal coords and there is no way to rotate it.
Someone could help 8maybe i missed some tool/editing mode)? Thanx in advance.

A common method for this is to only model one half and  use a mirror modifier to generate  the reflection side..  Script Example here re rotating faces https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/165705/15543  To make a mirror rotation multiply original side rotation matrix  by the scale matrix that defines the mirror. eg mirror x about 0 is Matrix.Diagonal((-1, 1, 1)) ie scaling by -1 in x to make mirror loc of (x, y, z) => (-x, y, z)

.. It's possible this is what you want, if so, sorry to interrupt.. but a rotation here will distort the edges which are along the extrusion. To maintain those edges' original radial direction, you would slide the inside edges of the top faces down them, which you could do simultaneously.


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World HDRi map - colors doesn't match?
I've created a custom environment texture (see below) and tried to apply it to the image. For some reason the texture comes out blue. The photo itself is not tinted (daylight-balanced floodlight and white walls), but when imported to blender it looks weird. I've tried a lot of things, including playing with color spaces (no difference) and adding RGBtoBW node (see below) and the environment texture still comes out blue.
What am I missing?

How exactly did you create the HDRI? Could it be that something went wrong when creating it from the different exposure levels? In what software did you check that it looks correct?

Have you checked the lights? One might have a blue emission.

Visualy screen looks like you have enabled Use Curves in sub panel of Color Management with some adjustment there.

BTW When I see missing navigation icons in your screen, there can be graphic card issue ...

OMG, I feel so stupid. Thanks! That was exactly the problem. I remember playing with that a few days ago (for whatever reason), then switched to modeling and forgot about it.

You don't have to ;-) We all know that feeling from any complex program. There is always some button we forgot to think about it.


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Bevel Shader with a Gradient Texture
I've been trying to recreate Gesy Bekeyei's clever trick (scroll below to see what I'm referring to) in using a black and white gradient texture to influence the Bevel Shader's radius to create custom bevels for each differently sized segments of the object. I've achieved a good part of that, however, the parts of the segments that make contact with the surface curve inwards, instead of outwards, as it normally would if a Bevel Modifier was used. I believe my UV unwrapping could be the reason but after unwrapping in various ways, I still haven't achieved the desired look.
Any of you good folks mind helpin' me figure this out?
By the way, unrelated - hope y'all had a great Christmas! :)

This is the look I want

This is what I'm getting

If it's curving in the wrong direction, could it just be that you've UV unwrapped your object in the wrong direction on the gradient?

I think the problem is not inverted curvature, but arises because the radii are different for shading-points on either side of the crease. You could experiment: Try making some more faces, and mapping both sides of the bevel to the same radius-value.

@stphnl329 I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. Have you taken a look at the blend file? I've tried different UV configurations, but it's still curving in the wrong direction :(

@RobinBetts I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. Sorry. How do I map both sides of the bevel to the same bevel shader radius? Would you mind going through my blend file and seeing if you can help me figure out what I'm doing wrong? :(

Thanks to @stphnl329 for putting it so clearly.. BTW, you don't need an actual grey-scale gradient to do this, you can just stick a Separate XYZ node on  the input UV coordinate of the appropriate map, and use the X.

Credits to Robin Betts for this, he nailed the issue head-on in the comments. I'm just explaining it a bit more thoroughly with screenshots.
Essentially what is going on is that for all the faces on the larger objects, you've mapped it to have a large bevel. For the smaller ones, you've mapped them to have a smaller bevel.
However, when a small object meets a big object, the face of the larger object is still trying to create a large bevel, while the smaller one is trying to create a small one on the same edge- resulting in that inwards bevel effect.
As you can see in the screenshot below, I've cut additional geometry to surround your smaller objects and moved their UV mapping so that they shared the same bevel width.

Here's a comparison of before/after:

He he ... just finished writing an explanatory answer myself... and you've put it a lot better than me. Looks better too  (sound of tearing paper) :D

lol sorry about that


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Random Rotation in Opposite Direction
How do I set up random rotation in Geometry Nodes in a way that enables me to rotate the individual arrayed instance in opposite directions? Currently, the random value node only randomly rotates in the same direction.

Current custom array node graph setup

did you try set min to -1?

You mean on the Random Value node? Yeah, but that just expands the range in the opposite direction. It still rotates all of the instances in the same direction. I want to rotate the individual instances in random opposite directions, as shown in the gif.

ok pls provide blend file so we can see what we are doing, thx

Just included the file in the post. Thank you.

I essentially want to build a "smart array" that will let me place things on a shelf but allow me to rotate (on z) the instances and position (on x & y) in random directions, instead of in a single direction, so it breaks up that CGI look where it's all perfectly aligned and spaced apart.

Sorry, to help you I need to understand what you mean by saying "the same direction"... what I see in the animation above is cubes 1, 3 and 4 rotating clockwise, 2 and 5 counter-clockwise - and not the same angle. To me this is not the same direction... It only surprises me if the values shown in the screenshot do this, because they only generate positive values so it would be normal that they rotate in the same direction. Anyway, with your file I tried setting Min/Max to -Pi and Pi for more variation and they rotate in different directions, depending on the seed more or less different.

By the way, since you are generating random float values for the rotation, is there a special reason you have set the Switch node to Vector? Now you plug a float value in a vector input, get a vector output which you then plug in a float input... does not really make sense...?

If you want to guarantee some minimal rotation / angular velocity, but alternate direction:

If you want to randomize rotation axis:

as i wrote in comments, just give in min -1 and e.g. choose seed 2. Then both directions will be seen. Looks like you just tested only with seed 0.
also i would recommend using the nodes like this:

so it is clear that you switch really a vector here.

Yeah, the seed is not the best for this small group... changing it would have helped him to see it actually works. Or maybe instead of using 5 instances something like 20... more objects, more chances to get opposite directions.


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Empties not fully processing in node tree
I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the way I'm using animation nodes or of this is an actual bug.  I have a file that I am reading to instantiate a list of empties to use as falloff object controllers.  When the frame comes that creates the empties, only one is initially processed and I have to execute the node tree again to have the rest of the empties produce their falloff effect.
Does this require me to have execute always on to have all of the empties fill in their falloff information or is there something about the order in which I'm doing things.  In that regard - is there another way for me to use the distance away from an object to determine if nearby objects should be scaled that will update properly?

Right now the project I am working on is just a static viewer resulting from a file while I'm learning what I can do with animation nodes. I preferably wouldn't want to use always execute for a static viewer that should only need to update once per frame.

Example from image.

Probably not relevant to the question, but for reference this is the node tree.

I noticed some parts of animation nodes not working in 2.8. If you can recreate the problem in a minified, simplified file, you should file a bug report.

Found a workaround.  I just needed to put in an execution trigger that moved an object based on the frame. It's a little hacky but it gets the desired result.


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Distorted bakes
I'm baking an AO map (Selected to Active). The result of the bake is distorted on some parts. The model (selected) looks like this:

The other model (active) looks like this:

And the result looks like this (the problem is not only at the red arrows, but also on other parts of the bake):

The same also happens of i bake normal maps.
Normals, UVs, scaling is all OK. I never encountered this problem before and didn't find a solution on the internet.
EDIT: If i apply an Edge Split Modifier with 0% (all edges) and apply it, the bake is no longer distorted. However, i can't use this modifier.

My guess: some non planar surfaces on the lowpoly. If possible upload your file to have a look.

I'm sorry, i can't upload the .blend (work related).

OK, never mind. Simply, the bake here is done along the faces normals of the lowpoly. If these normals are not well oriented (non planar surfaces), the bake will be oriented in a non straight way.

Ah, OK, thanks for the answer. You can post it below so i can mark it (?).

Here is an example of what is happening during the bake:

Some parts of your lowpoly mesh are not planar. So, as the bake process projects rays along normals, the bake is done "as if" it has several points of view because of these non planar surfaces (so non aligned normals).
As you said in the comment, using an edge split resolve the issue in your case. So, a solution maybe (if possible for you) to temporary add this modifier, bake and remove the modifier.

Yes, i added the Edge Split Modifier, applied it, baked and then undid the modifier. Thanks for the help.


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Blender fluid simulation "with drag" (simulating a pump)
I need to do a fluid simulation, where the fluid goes through a pump.
The pump-model is build the way, that the intake is at the bottom and the output is at the top. I need a way to get the fluid all the way up through the pump. I believe there's no thing like a "drag water from here to there and also mind the obstacles" option for this, is there? Is there another way?
The only way i can think of is having a tank/reservoir that is as high (or higher) than the pump, so that the water rises up all the way through the pump.
So, basically i need to simulate the pump.
Here's a picture to help explain what i need to achieve:

Possibly use a fluid ‘Control’ object moving in the direction yuvwant to drag the fluid, set with a Velocity Force tk transfer its velocity into the fluid - but I’ve never actually trief anything like that before so can’t be sure.

never tried it with fluid sims but could you not just set the gravity negative?

No, the fluid needs to behave properly.

I elaborated on my answer.

Perhaps you could use a chain of control objects which follow a path in the center of the pipe. I have attached my blender file that generates this animation.
I have a pipe (which would be your pump) set to Obstacle under Fluids and it has Shell initialization.
I have a domain surrounding the simulation and some fluid at the bottom to be sucked up.
The most important thing is the short cylinder which is a Control fluid object. Play with "Attraction" and "Velocity" to get suction. It follows a path I made in the center of the pipe. Perhaps you could use an array of these controls to have a constant suction/drag on the water. Or you could cheat and have an "inflow" at the end of the out pipe and an "outflow" at the opening. Then if your pipe is not transparent, it will look like water is going in and coming out. I can make an example of this if you want.

Thanks for the answer. I'll try it and tell you the result. I don't want to mark this as answer right now, in case there are other people with suggestions. (I'll do it latter).

Rather than 'draw' the water up the pipe (or have a high reservoir), you could use an Inflow set with a high velocity to force the water up the pipe :

Here the selected object is the Inflow, set with X Velocity of -5 to inject the water at high speed. The fluid that seeps back out of the inflow could easily be blocked with an additional (hidden) obstacle if desired - or hidden via a Boolean modifier.
Blend file included

Thanks for the answer. The problem however is, that the pump internally is not just a pipe. Its more like chambers, roters and stuff.

@Reaper I'm not really clear on what you're trying to achieve. If you're trying to simulate the internals of the pump (rather than just producing an animations showing the operation of the pump) then I don't think Blender is the right tool for the job. Presumably, you'd need moving obstacles that 'push' the water around and the resultant pressure pushes the water through the pump - Blender fluid simulation doesn't work very well with moving obstacles so this is unlikely to work - and less likely to be realistic.

Give inflow where you want the pump to be and add an obstacle below it for the water to go up. The water goes up, falls down to the tank. Then flows in to the pipe and disappears hitting the outflow that's the rim of the tank.


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Multiple RGB values for a single black
I am very new to blender and would like to understand the mistake I am doing with the color ramp node. I am currently using color ramp to assign different textures to each object in my scene. The complete surface should have the same RGB value. I then use this rendered image and filter out objects based on the pixel values. I have created a simple scene with 2 default cubes(pass index for the bottom cube in 0 and for the upper cube is 1) and added the color ramp settings as shown in the image. But, when I render with this settings, the RGB values on the surface are not uniform. Can someone please help me with this issue. I am using Blender 2.8.

If you over expose your render you can see patern.
Render saved as PNG 8-bit. Nothing is pluged into Surface socket of Material Output node. Tested with Eevee, Cycles, Samples ... all same result. Even if compression is set to zero.

The only difference did PNG saved as 16-bit. Completely black. So I guess OpenEXR will work as well. So the issue comes from output file format.

... and just for lovers of generic graphics - JPEG

And as mentioned already - Cryptomatte seems to me as a better friend, especially for material. With this ColorRamp 0/1 option I can't imagine to work on more complex object.

If this A is correct for you, consider mark Q as Solved by click on check mark vote number, so others can see it as answered from list of Q. You can uncheck it any time.

The first thing I noticed is that you're plugging the Color Ramp directly into the material output without running that first through a shader node like "diffuse" or "Principled BSDF". Not sure if that would fix your problem. Although, Considering your end goal of filtering out objects by the color value, you should look into the Cryptomatte feature. That is basically its purpose and it's a super-powerful feature that many 3d apps and compositing programs support. You might give it a try instead of your current method.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/compositing/types/matte/cryptomatte.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBJQM-gIob8
edit:
Just a little info also on why you're seeing different colors across the object. The color your pushing is still being effected the lighting in the scene. If you add the color ramp to an emission shader the color should be even across the object. As a side hint, you don't need to open your render in another image editor to check the color values. Just right-click hold on the image in the rendered window and you'll see a black footer show up with all the color info an more.

Pluging ColorRamp directly is the best way to avoid any other influence of light in a scene. And YES Cryptomatte is probably the best option (thanks to antialiased edges), but less comfortable for compositing (so many connections) and also produce edge issue for overlaping pixels.

You might be right on plugging the color ramp directly, I've always thought it was more efficient to run something through a shader, that way the output was receiving the right type of data. Can't find any info on this though. As for Cryptomatte, I've never had issues with overlapping pixels. I've been using it for years on different apps. I do know that the quality of the matte is based on the amount of samples in the render.


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Cutting an Object with a Plane Using Boolean Modifier
I'm a complete novice at Blender 2.8x, and I'm trying to create an object whose surface is defined by a deformed plane. Basically, I'm trying to recreate this effect. When I try to perform the boolean, however, it seems to only sometimes work depending on the position and rotation of the plane. An example of the broken effect, where both sides of the object disappear:

While at a slightly different rotation it works as expected:

I know that the boolean modifier works best with manifold objects, but I've seen several sources online that say you can use the boolean modifier in this way. Is it simply undefined behavior to use it with planes instead of another manifold object?
I also found many posts online whose problems were caused by coincident vertices or messed up normals. But I don't see how this could be the problem since the issue is replicated with a simple default cube and a plane.

Since Blender 2.91, you can boolean with manifold objects like a Plane.
There are two methods now. The Exact method should solve your issue.
old 2.9x Fast (2.8 method)

new 2.9x Exact

It is cut out in inside normal direction (red color when Face Orientation overlay enabled).

If you still need to work in 2.8 you would have to use Solidify modifier or other tech to create non-manifold object as you mentioned.

Thanks for the info! I've been trying to avoid using 2.9 since I've found a lot more tutorials for 2.8x, and I figured it would have less bugs than the newest version. But, looks like learning the new interface won't be too bad, since it seems to be fairly similar to 2.8.

How do you get it to remove the part inside the normal direction? I can get it to cut through the object but both parts remain.

@Bas ... I would like to help you, but how could be your Q answered with given info you gave us? It still works for me with manifold objects in blender 4.+ ... so you would have to share your objects ... there are of course cases for complex shapes it can fails, but if you try Cube and Plane (as seen in my answer) I guess you can see it is working. So if it is not working for your objects, she issue lays there. Since I don't have a clue how they look like I can't help. Sorry


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Why I can't see hdri preview?
I have added a HDR environment image. In the 3d View it's visible, but not in World Properties Preview.

With my small scene i added another hdri. I turn off the ray visibility -> camera off. The scene turn black.

I created a glass cabine. I cant see the glass edge. Here i have a top area light. And same no hdri preview seen. Just complete black.

Any suggestion how the hdri can be visible and why the glass edge not visible. Thanks

Preview issue - check answer. Others - It is not clear what are you asking for. When you turn off Camera visibility for World 3D view is black off course, do you expect something different? For the Glass Q, you can try add Bevel modifier, so light can catch on rounded edges, or post simplified blend to let us see.

Why i cant see preview in the properties view?
Your view shows just grey part of texture. Preview doesn't display whole HDR texture, just view angle. If you go to World node three and change Rotation in Mapping node you can see difference.


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How do I apply different normal maps in different areas inside a material?
As the title and picture explains...

Hello :). No complex node setup is needed. Just create a different UV map for each Normal map.

Hi I appreciate the help! :) However I am afraid I still don't understand what to do, I am sorry :( Could you put it into layman's terms by chance? :)

Alright thanks so much!

You'll need to do three things :).
1. Create a separate UV map for each texture (3 in total).
Only faces you put inside UV bounds will be used. Faces outside bounds will be ignored.

2. Connect a different UV map to each texture (use the UV Map node).
Set textures to Clip, so they don't repeat.
3. Combine the textures using Mix RGB nodes set to Add, fac=1.
And plug the result into a Normal Map node.

My Goodness! I appreciate this beautiful tutorial :) I am going to dig my teeth into it. Thank you again! I'll let you know if I have further questions XD and if not i'll let you know also :D Thanks so much! Is there anyway I can give you a good rep or something? Not sure how this site entirely works XD

Thanks again I am stuck for sure, I am not sure how to assign different uv maps for different sections for one object that is only using one material.

In regards to the first image you showed me, I don't know how to save different uv maps separate on one object, so I am unable to get to the node part. Thanks so much for the help again.

Thanks appreciate all the help :) I already have normal maps baked for each section I just need to be able to apply them individually in sections as one material, that is why I posted this, just wanted to make sure there were no misunderstandings :)

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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Right angle chamfer where only the outer edge is an arc
I'm trying to recreate the chamfer on the picture below. I've spent hours searching here and youtube but I can't find an option that allows me to get to the same result. Any idea?
Thanks in advance.

Not possible in Blender! Edges can't be curved lines.

It appears the software pictured is using some virtual geometry to create the additional faces needed to correctly shade that corner.  In Blender you will more than likely have to deal with the real geometry

from my experience you actually don't want a right angle like that - you want a normal arc, but on the outer side you want it to be big (like on the picture), and on the inner side you want it to be very small. This will produce 'good' shading and work well with other parts of Blender workflow like subdivision surface. But I understand: there are various use-cases e.g. video games.

You can achieve such bevel with bezier curve objects.
You must first fillet the vertex to get a rounded corner like say using the Extension Curve Tools using the Fillet function, or a dedicated extension like Bezier Curve Fillet.
The fillet corner radius must have exactly the same dimension as de desired chamfer size .
Then under the bezier curve object Object Data properties, use the Geometry > Extrude to add thickness, then the Bevel > Depth to make the chamfer.
Reduce the Resolution to 0. You may optionally want to add an Edge Split modifier for best shading results.


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Anyone know how to render cycles animations faster?
So i've been using blender for a couple months now and i'm starting to get into using cycles for my renders. As fun as it is, it's taking a long time to render and I was hoping someone could help me figure out why and a way to make the render process shorter. Below is what I have been using to render cycles. Please let me know if theres anything I can do


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Why i am getting weird squares in my meshes?

I keep getting weird squares in my meshes. Usually only happen this to a piece of my scene and not to my full scene for example, in this case the head.
As you can see in the image the head have weird squares in it when rendered. It dont happen when i am in the default mode.
How can i avoid this bug and cure my meshes from it?.
It happens a lot.
I am using 2.79.

Hello and welcome. Rather than take photos of your monitor post actual screenshots instead, see How to take a screenshot. Photos are harder to read because we have to look past external interferences (like reflections, smudges or Moiré patterns) and guess if we are looking at hardware issues such as a malfunctioning display or connections, a software level issue like driver malfunction or glitch, or actual artifacts or issues with the model itself.


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Face Project is not working
I'm sculpting the donut icing. I turned on Snapping > Face Project, and I applied subdivision.
However, the icing still looks like this. I wonder if there's anything I've done wrong?

You show your snapping options, but not what you do with them. What exactly isn't working?

Hello! I am making the icing of a donut, but once I move one vertex, the other vertices also disapear into the donut (not snapping to the donut surface). So I am confused about why"Snapping Face Project" isn't working~

This snapping system is an option applied to operators such as move, rotate or scale. They are not available in Sculpt mode.
And there is no need to apply subdivision for snapping to work (in fact, it makes it harder to use since you have more vertices to work with). You should leave the modifier at the end of your modifiers pile.
For what you try to do, I would advise the following:

Select your icing object and ↹ Tab into Edit mode to edit its mesh.
In the Proportional Editing, enable "Connected Only". You can either enable proportional editing right there too, or toggle it on/off while using tools by holding down O. This will allow you to  smoothly and proportionally edit multiple vertices in one go without having to manually edit all of them one by one. You can change the radius of effect with the mousewheel.

Similarly for snapping, you can enable it by default, but also toggle it on/off by holding down ⎈ Ctrl while using a tool.
You can use the move tool to place the vertices on the target surface:

As you can see, it snaps the vertices on the surface, but the mesh doesn't magically appear on top of the surface to look like an icing. But it's simply doing what you ask. To circumvent that, you could add a Displace modifier before the subdivision:

You will probably need to adapt the strength. I also advise toggling on all visibility toggles of the displace modifier, while the subdivision modifier have only its cage disabled. This way, you can netter see and control what you are doing in edit mode.

wow! Thank you so much! Sorry for replying so late.

you helped me alot!

My pleasure. While thank comments are always appreciated, it really helps the website and the users to upvote the post that helped you. If you feel it completely solved your issue, consider marking it as accepted.


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Cloth physics not falling
I want the selected plane to fall down but it wouldn't.
I made sure gravity is 1 and it is subdivided and everything seems to be right just like the tutorial.I am very confused

Please don't take photos of your computer screen. It makes it difficult to see the settings with the screen reflections. Use Blender's built-in Window > Save Screenshot menu and edit the image that it produces into your question.

Sorry, but without seeing all your settings or even better having the file, it is really hard to tell what is wrong. "Everything seems to be right just like the tutorial" - obviously it's not, otherwise it should work like in the tutorial. But you didn't tell us which and even if we would not know where you made a mistake. Usually the best solution would be to start the tutorial again and make sure you follow it tthoroughly and pay close attention to the steps shown there.

one reason could be duplicated vertices. Select all verts in Edit mode and press key M > Merge by Distance. In the status bar, you should see whether there were duplicate vertices that are now merged.


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Why Shrinkwrap doesn't work
can someone explain me why the Shrinkwrap modifier didn't work normaly in my situation

Are you sure your scale and rotation are applied? Ctrl + A > Scale/Rotation

Give it a direction to project, in your case it should be the Y direction, assuming you've applied rotation. Also play with the Positive and Negative buttons to see what works better


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Material Preview Shader Issue
I am using Blender for basic architectural visualization. I have been using it form 2.8 version. There is a strange problem with 4.2.1, I see strange patterns in all the materials, even simple materials. I have attached the screenshot of it. In rendering there is no issue, it renders perfectly. The issue is only in the viewport, in Material Preview Shader. I have been using the same PC for last 2 years. In the earlier versions i did not have this issue. This PC has a inbuilt graphics card - Ryzen 5 5600G Processer, Windows 11. I tried in another PC also with Ryzen 5 5600G Processer. I would be very thankful if any one can help me understand and solve the issue.

Update your graphics drivers

One of the files which I randomly adjusted some settings do not have the problem. I could find what worked. Some settings from 4.1 to 4.2 is giving this issue.


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Is it possible to create a PBR cell shader in post-processing
I have been interested in cell shading recently and specifically trying to find something a little more in depth than the 5 minute youtube videos which just add a color ramp and call it a day.
I was blown away by this video: https://youtu.be/eBS3BOI5KnM (which i highly recommend). The only issue being that the project is created in the unreal engine, and I haven't had any luck trying to recycle the concepts in blender.
The advantages seem overwhelming: out of the box functionality to cell shade imported materials, support for colored light and bounce light without complicated work-arounds,  support for shading some textured materials, and high editability which carries over to the entire scene, instead of just one material.
I started researching similar approaches in blender and was surprised to find nothing on youtube or any forums.
Is this something that is possible in blender? are there other approaches that yield similar results? I'm trying to figure out if there are so many youtube videos on the basic color ramp material because it truly is the best method, or just because its the simplest method.

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

If you showed us some of your attempts to recreate it and why you believe they went wrong then we should be able to show you how to fix it if it is possible. Looking at that video it doesn't look extremely different than what you would do in Blender, aside from some minor node/render pass naming differences.


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I purchased a 3D model online, need to get rid of duplicate geometry and replace with instances?
I recently purchased a 3D model online and there are A LOT of duplicate meshes. They are exactly the same, but are duplicates and not instances, this resulted in enormous file sizes and lag. I was wondering if someone could guide me as to how to approach this problem, however it is becoming apparent that scripting is likely the only efficient solution. In essence I would need to have write a script that would detect duplicate geometry (not sure how) find all duplicates in the environment and replace them with an instance in the exact same position and rotation.
I am someone with zero programming experience but I did ask Claude to write a script but it didn't work, for any of you coders out there perhaps it would be nice for you to figure out where the code went wrong:
import bpy
from collections import defaultdict

def find_duplicate_meshes(selected_obj):
    # Create a dictionary to store mesh data and their corresponding objects
    mesh_dict = defaultdict(list)

    # Get the mesh data of the selected object
    selected_mesh = selected_obj.data

    # Iterate through all objects in the scene
    for obj in bpy.data.objects:
        if obj.type == 'MESH' and obj.data == selected_mesh:
            # Store the object in the dictionary based on its mesh data
            mesh_dict[selected_mesh].append(obj)

    # Find duplicate meshes
    duplicate_meshes = [objs for objs in mesh_dict.values() if len(objs) > 1]

    return duplicate_meshes

def replace_with_instances(duplicate_meshes):
    for objs in duplicate_meshes:
        # Select the first object as the original
        original_obj = objs[0]

        # Replace other objects with instances of the original
        for obj in objs[1:]:
            # Create an instance of the original object
            instance_obj = bpy.data.objects.new(original_obj.name + "_instance", original_obj.data)
            instance_obj.matrix_world = obj.matrix_world

            # Link the instance to the scene
            bpy.context.collection.objects.link(instance_obj)

            # Unlink the duplicate object from the scene
            bpy.data.objects.remove(obj, do_unlink=True)

# Run the script
selected_obj = bpy.context.active_object

if selected_obj and selected_obj.type == 'MESH':
    duplicate_meshes = find_duplicate_meshes(selected_obj)
    replace_with_instances(duplicate_meshes)
else:
    print("Please select a mesh object.")

As context, I have told Claude to ensure that transformations are applied (because the imported model is from Sketchup and resulted in a lot of odd behavior. I also told Claude to only detect meshes of the selected object in the scene.
Would appreciate if I could get some guidance on this, thanks :)

I think there was a similar question before, with an answer... I don't remember what it was, but you could for example generate a hash for something like a list of vertex coordinates. Then you could compare hashes and maybe make sure the meshes really are the same. Then you don't need instancing, you can just make objects reuse this mesh data. Instancing you can use to further decrease memory usage, but IMHO that's another problem: convert all objects sharing a mesh into instances.


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Creating an operator that dinamically updates the viewport a certain number of times per second
I want to create an operator to preview a physic animation in real time.
I have this set of object and I wanted to move them for example using a basic equation like this:
locx = locx - 0.1

a certain number of times a frame. (The number depends on a subframes Variable.).
and then using bpy.context.scene.frame_set() move to the next frame and subframe, and while I execute operations the viewport should update (so 10 times per frame, in this case).
The problem is that to keep a velocity that's pertinent to scene fps, the time elapsing from x*y operation should be 1 second, or in case blender couldn't keep up, more. (Where x is subframes and y is scene fps.)
(I wanted to state that moving objects isn't the only thing I'd like to do, I should also create objects and delete them, which isn't exactly a fast operation as moving objects can be.)
So, in other words I would like the operator to behave a bit like the 3d view animation when set to No-Sync as scene sync setting, infact, if the scene fps are 60 it will not proceed for more than 60 frames in a time of a second.
I know not so much about real-time operators, I know you could use modal but I've never found anything useful on how tu use them.

I don't get it, why moving the objects in between frames? Notice that you can pass subframes to frame_set(frame=3, subframe=0.01), that should force the scene to update automatically.

My fault, I made some errors, now should be ok.

And... the values of your physics animation coming in from a text file or something?

no, real time. It's like particles, I ceate a particle each frame and then animate it's location on x axis using this equation: "locx = locx-(0.5g(t^2))"**, where locx is the current location, g is 9.81 and t is (1/fps)

calculated in real-time*

You're right I just found out that Playback speed isn't consistend during time. I modified the Operator MOdal Timer to use (1/(fps*(subframes+1))) in timer_add in the execute function to use the right interval and even with that it plays at inconsistent speed. So I gouess I have to stay with that.


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Add a Custom c++ Class to Blender and drawing it in the viewport using an Addon
Ok, what I'm asking could not be so mainstream. I'm writing an addon for blender that will add a better particle system, and I am in the process of reating an operator that spawns particles and animates them during time.
Untill now I've used this procedure to create a particle object:

I created a plane,
Merged it at the center
removed doubles

So That I would have only a vertex. And then to add datas like particle age, the frame it was born, etc, I used object Custom Properties.
the problem is that Blender struggles to keep upp with thousands of different objects to the point where it doesn't even play the animation at all or just crashes.
But I noticed that it could hold more than 20000 particles at a time without any problem. I want to state that I know python but not so much C++ or C, so excuse me if the following argument is wrong, but I think that blender cannot hold so many object cause they have much more to them than a single particle, for example an objects has Material Slot, Particle Systems, Location, And Much More and It's also treated in a completely different way than a particle which on the other side only has few properties.
given the Argument is true (Escuse me if it isn't) could I create a simple class in a c++ file like this:
class better_particle{
    public;
    int age;
    vector Location;
    }

And create instead of a normal object a better_particle object to represent each particle, and also important draw that better_particle Class into the viewport using for example a Rectagle (Like For Example blender's Default Particle)?
I think this is possible modifying the Blender source code to fit my needs, but I want to keep it a Blender addon and not just a custom Build.
So is this possible?
EDIT:
I Cannot use Animation Nodes as it hasn't the flexibility of an addon, and The Tree as long as I know it's executed each frame, so particle will not be able to spawn or move in subframes and this would lead to lagging streaks of particles. The same problem that there's in blender by default.
WHAT I'm TRYING TO ACHIEVE:
I've Written this simple Python Code:
class particle:
pass

created_particles = []
for f in range(0,40): #For each of 40 Frames
    for i in range(0, 30): # Create 30 Particle
        pp = particle() ##Create New Particle Object
        pp.location = (0,0,0) #Add location variable
        pp.spawn_frame = f
        created_particles.extend([pp]),

As you can see it just creates some particle object ad assign them some variables.
Now I need to Create the particle class in c++ with something like the lines up above and then in Python do something like:
p = bpy.ops.add_particle()
p.location = (0,0,0)
etc

and the Last Thing I need to do it's to create a drawing function in c++ do display these particle objects.

Are you by any chance using operators to create plane, merge vertices and remove doubles?

I'm using a function that does the creating, merging and removing doubles. And that function is inserted into a modal operator run every frame.

Not sure you don't say that yourself in the question, but what if you encode your own objects class (in Python) inside a single Blender object (you can also do it with Animation Nodes, though)

what do you mean by encoding my own class inside a single blender Object?

I mean, if all is inside a blender object, finally, you need only one blender object. So, your code can associate (create) verts/polys you want inside of it and follow the particles age/location. In other words, your code can maintain a link between each particle and corresponding verts/polys.

I prefer not to use verts of an unique objects due to the fact that I wouldn't be able to customize size and color for each particle.

you could save the size color etc in vertexgroups and vertexcolors. It would be comparably easy to implement. If you later decide to replace the vertices with cube you can do so with the duplication feature I think as long as you dont want rotating particles (could make trouble in subframes I didn't try)

AFAIK you can't use C# at all without custom build unless you hook into external executable somehow. Not trying to be smart but how is this a better particle? What are you trying to achieve that you can't do by python scripting the existing particle system? You definitely don't want to create an object per particle. Make a single mesh and store particles as vertices. You can store surprisingly lot of data per vertex natively and what you can't (like velocity) you could store as custom data array built in vertex order. But it won't perform better than native C# particles, probably worse.

I suggest writing your code in Python first to keep it simple and get results quickly (especially when you have little experience with where are the bottlenecks).
Then you need to benchmark it and find where the bottlenecks are.

if they are on Blender's side, porting your code to c/c++ will have little to no effect. Building your own Blender is the solution.
if they are on your code's side consider using Numpy module rather than writing custom C/C++ code first. If you want speedup on arrays or math, it is often enough. Threading can also help.
For most use cases when you need to wrap C/C++ classes the ctypes module is all you need.
You can also use Cython to expose parts of C/C++ library to Python.
For another solution for Python binding to C/C++ code look into Boost.Python:

The Boost Python Library is a framework for interfacing Python and C++. It allows you to quickly and seamlessly expose C++ classes, functions and objects to Python, and vice-versa, using no special tools

Last thing to consider is that Blender 2.8 version is behind corner and a lot of things will change including the particle system. Some coding time on an addon this big might be wasted when it will release and you will have to re-work it or it becomes redundant by the new native system.

Hi Jaroslav, are you able to help with wrapping C++ calls in blender?

@Denis Yes, when you write your question just link it here or ping me in chat, I'll take a look.

I added some info here https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/83603/wrapping-c-api-calls-with-python


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Spotlight cone has a black frame in all views
I'm using Blender 2.8, using the Eevee render.  I have added a spotlight.  The cone and the 'light bulb' show as black lines in any view, it's a bit like a wireframe.  Any idea how to get rid of these lines?

Welcome to Blender's StackExchange! The spotlight shows the light cone by default. Do you want to hide it or are you referring to something else? It may help if you add a screenshot and mark what particular lines you mean.

I want the light cone to show, but I don't want the black outline of the cone, there is also a black line down the middle of the cone.  Also the 'light bulb' is black.  Sorry I'm new on here and don't know how to add a screenshot.

You can add an image to your question by clicking edit underneath it and then on the little image icon next to the curly braces. Do you mean the black lines that are shown in this image: https://i.sstatic.net/nwTal.jpg ?

Thank you for the adding image instructions.  Yes those are the black lines, as shown in your image.

I don't know if you can get rid, but you can select the light in the viewport and you can scale down the cone with S, it won't affect its effect on the scene

These lines are just to indicate the light's position, direction and light cone. They won't appear in the actual rendered image, in case that wasn't clear.

Thanks for the info, I've added the screenshot.  I've tried to find a setting to make the black lines go away, but I can't find anything.  Even in render view, they're still there?

To get rid of all overlays in preview render:

Disable "show cone" in the light settings

Disable "show overlays" in 3D View

Disable "show Gizmo" also in 3D View

Ahh OK, I thought the cone was a renderable function in itself!!  Thank you


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Non-manifold face
I recently resolved a non-manifold issue as detailed in my answer here, but I have now made another issue for myself which I cannot seem to resolve.
I have been trying to reduce the amount of extraneous loopcut sections by removing parts I don't need and joining them up like in this tutorial but I failed and I decided I would try and use the knife to connect back up my loopcuts like before.
Everything was mostly ok, but then this face for some reason does not accept the knife tool. I can join the vertices following the knife tool but then these vertices are then highlighted under select> Select all by trait>non-manifold (where they can be selected only as 'vertices' within the option checkboxes).
Here are some screenshots of me trying to use the knife over it:
Drawing with knife

Result

edit:
As requested the file I am working on

I've had this issue before, I'm not sure what causes it. :(

Mind uploading?

Try to select all and remove doubles (in 2.8 now it's Merge by distance). Another possibility is that the vertex cutting is started from probably isn't part of the edge which is above it; then technically no doubles present but cutting won't work. Check if there's anything non-manifold before cutting. If you'd like to upload the file use https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ and paste link here

Just added the file, see the edit

I don't see anything special about that mesh. It happens that Knife tool won't cut some faces, in this case it might be due to faces being too distorted (non-concave) although not necessarily. You can use Loopcut tool and then join new loop with the window using Vertex Connect Path (shortcut J) like in example

I appreciate the advice, I'm still learning so knowing [ctrl + J] is useful, but it didn't resolve my issue unfortunately. The wierd thing is that even though I technically have n-gons I do not get any-non-manifold geometry via 'Select all by Trait' scratches head


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What is a non-manifold vertex?
I am experiencing a lot of issues with the topology of a specific object I am modelling. Currently I have an issue with 'non-manifold vertices on it as shown by the screen shot below:

The mesh issue I have highlighted is found by operating Select>Select all by Trait>non-manifold and checking only the 'vertices' option in options menu as pictured in the bottom left of my screenshot.
I would specifically like to be able to identify what the tool Select all by Trait looks for when the 'vertices' option is selected, so I can better address my topology problem
I have read a fair bit about what can cause non-manifold geometry but simply non-manifold 'vertices' doesn't really mean a whole lot to me, can anyone shed any light
Here is the blend file:
N.B: I have recalculated internal and external normals as well as 'merged by distance' multiple times which doesn't seem to do anything

For anyone else with this problem the detailing of this is actually outlined in the blender docs here
The docs say:

Vertices:
Selects vertices that belong to wire and multiple face edges, isolated vertices, and vertices that belong to non-adjoining faces.

In the attempt not to repeat the good descriptions that exist elsewhere on this stack:

Wire edges: What are wire edges?
Multiple face edges:

Isolated vertices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertex_(graph_theory)#Types_of_vertices
Vertices which share non-adjoining faces:

N.B: if you hover over each option in the Select all by Trait menu you get a tooltip about each option:

This is all my best answer as to each scenario, if edits are required please go ahead


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compositor rerender layer
This is my preview render in the 3D Viewport.

When I hit F12, I get this  render result:

I achieved the render result in the compositor before I changed some things in Layer 1.
This is the compositor node setup. Of course I reconnected to the composite node,
twice at least

Does anyone know what is going on here? Thanks in advance.
As for the question if I changed anything in 3DView or render layer. Both. First
in 3DView, of course, than I deleted all render layers - still same render result.

You can now upload that third picture. It would also help if you Packed External Data and uploaded your .blend to here.

Did you change things in 3D view layer, or in render layer?

Also the compositor screen shot is too small to read.

it's not really to read - I tried so many things after the problem above, and before taking a screen shot. The point is: the render layer node has one render layer in its drop down menu selected and still doesn't show the thumbnail


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Hard edges during smoothing

I am trying to model a Lamorghini which has some sharp edges.
The problem is when I create a mesh for the bonnet and use smooth in a left window all hard edges are gone (red in first picture).
I am watching lots of tutorials all over the internet but so far I haven't found the answer for my specific question. When I smooth the bonnet in the left menu (smooth faces) all my hard edges are gone and I have no idea how to bring them back.
Additionally there should be a sharp edge where is the clipping edge with the mirror part of the car (in the middle). There is always some stupid shading on it, I tried to get rid of it by pressing ctrl + m and it worked a bit but I need sharp edge there also. I simply want to model exactly the shape which is in the reference photo of the red lambo. And I want to have it smooth without seeing the faces.
Your kind advice would be really appreciated. (The rendered picture I provided has the lines and smoothness as I want it but the bonnet is created from 3 different parts separately and when i put them together with ctrl + j those nice edges will dissappear again)


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The Rotation Axes are Messed Up!
I'm in a hurry because I have a client waiting on me for this project, but I've run into an issue with rigging my character.  By the way, instead of attaching the curve controls to the joints, I've attached them to the objects of the character because there are no joints.  Why?  Because the character is a robot and doesn't need any weight-paints.  Anyways, so for some reason, when I rotate certain curves that control parts of the body, the object doesn't rotate on that axis.  I will provide 2 examples, please read them both to get a good understanding of my problem.
Example 1: The thumb.  When I rotate the base thumb curve control on the Z axis (in global mode), it rotates the object on the X axis instead.  Not to mention that when I use local mode (which because the thumb has been turned 45 degrees as a thumb should be and obviously I applied the transforms to delta to clear them), and when I rotate the thumb on the Y axis it rotates I think on the Z axis.
Example 2: The right hand.  The right hand was duplicated from the left hand but I applied the transforms to delta to clear their transforms... and I did the same thing with the curve that controls that hand.  So I don't see why there would be any issues with the rotation but yet, there is.  When I try to rotate the right hand's curve control on the Y axis (in global mode), although it rotates on the Y axis, it rotates in the opposite direction that I'm moving my mouse to rotate the curve.  So, when I rotate the curve control clockwise (when looking at the front of the character), the curve rotates counterclockwise.
So, I would like to fix this issue so that the objects rotate on the correct axes and also could someone show me how to make a custom rotation axis?  What if, for example, an object is turned a certain way and is suppose to only rotate on the Y in a very specific direction but the global and local modes don't provide that axis as the direction I'd like to rotate the object, how do I create a custom axis to match the direction I want to rotate the object so I don't have to grab the middle to rotate it (which can be difficult)?
So, 2 things.. how to fix my issue and how to create custom rotation axes.
I really need to know as soon as possible so any help is very much appreciated!  Thanks!

I'm not experienced with rigging, but do your bones have the correct axis?  (meaning that when you display the axis of the bones, are they oriented correctly)

Millard, remember, I said I did not use joints (aka bones). I parented the curves directly to the objects because it's a robot and there's no need for weight-paints with my particular robot model.

please show some screenshots, it's very hard to understand without any, also, I don't know how you use curve control, why don't you use bones? It would simplify your animations a lot


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Total length of a complex curve
I have a complex curve which is a series of vertices and I would like to find the total length of all the vertices. MeasureIT can show me the length of each segment in the curve but does not seem to offer a total length. Is there any tool that can do this?

MeasureIt addon also gives the total sum of values.
It's displayed under the measurements list.

Select all the edges you want to measure
Select a "measure group" like 'A' (or it won't work)
Click the Segment button to calculate

You can do this with Sverchok addon
https://github.com/nortikin/sverchok

or even use object in + path length (sum) + sthetoscope


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Geometry nodes curve constant offset
I am using Geometry nodes - from a given 2D input curve.
How can I produce a new curve with a fixed offset (relative to the original curve)?
I'm trying this node setup:

... but result is not constant (left), I'm looking for the result seen in the right screen.

Edit
I tried quellenform's node tree, but it doesn't work for my curve ...

The result is a non constant offset:

Thanks for the reply - the updated node setup in the question shows the solution you suggested but for some reason I don't get the same result as you... Your curve is constant offset, mine is not constant... Is there something wrong with my node setup?

OK I see your updated comment below... "resample curve" fixed it and it's working perfectly... thank you

This can be solved like this:

Use the node Normal as input. This node returns the normals of the individual points.
These vectors can then be scaled with the (Vector Math) node Scale according to the desired distance.
With the node Set Position you can finally offset the individual points to a new position.

If this does not work well (What can sometimes be the case with Bezier curves), or the curve has idiosyncratic normals, then use the node Resample Curve beforehand, this would smooth the curve.

Shouldn't the normal already be normalized ? ><

@Gorgious ...Shame on me, you are of course absolutely right :D

wow that was the fastest edit I've ever seen ! Cheers :)

This looks like a really good answer. I'm unable to recreate the same result. It looks like you are using blender 3.1.2 - I'm using blender 3.2 but that shouldn't make a difference. I recreated the node diagram using Set Position, Scale, and Normal but the offset is not constant in my result. Did you do anything special to your input curve? I updated the original question node diagram and result to show what I have now.

This solution address the correction exactly: "relative to the original curve". But as an alternative solution is there any way to make the second curve offset a fixed value rather than a scale percentage?

@stackzz No, it makes no difference if you use version 3.1.2 or 3.2, ...give me a few minutes, the solution is very simple.

@stackzz btw: The scaling of the vector is not a percentage, even if the node is called "Scale", but always absolute. Since you are scaling a normalized vector here, the length always corresponds exactly to the value you specified for the scaling, so it is always "fixed", because, for example, 1*1=1.

@quellenform - you are a genius!


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Pink, no texture, indicator when noise/voronoi or other textures are input into bump map height
I've been following a number of youtube tutorials (old and new) on the topic of making cement, stone, and plaster.
Like this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCJa97F9ReM&t=239s.
However when it comes to inputting a noise, voronoi or musgrave texture into the bump map height i get the pink no texture indicator.
Is there something i am doing wrong? Here are some pics.

Even node tree is weird for me, I can't reproduce your issue with today experimental build 2.91 https://imgur.com/W1xtLaB

Do you confirm all is ok just before connecting the bump to PBSDF normal?

Yes all is ok (to my limited understanding) before i input the texture to the bump height.

OK. So if this became pink just after the bump link, I think this is not a Voronoi issue and more likely gpu issue. What is you graphics card?

I has a NVIDIA Geforce GTX 960M

This card is supported I think. But could you check the cuda kernel version: should be 3.0 or above. (maybe wrong but procedural texture should not involve this pink color, imho).

I got a Cuda 11.1.70 driver

Don't know about the driver version, but you need to check the Cuda version (3.0 or above). https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cycles/gpu_rendering.html#cuda

The unexpected had happened. Somehow (i think when i restored factory settings) my Geforce driver update became uninstalled. It appears the bump is working again after a new driver installation. Thanks all!


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Face rotation results with deformation in modifier stack
I try to rotate a face, but the original form is deformed. Please view attached blend file for more details.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuAcyL2kNiCPg7l0Vk7C-Vl4Bo0FKg?e=LdeKBM

Your issue comes from Scale transformation that is set to x=5 y=3 z=1 now.

To fix the issue go to Object > Apply and choose Scale...

... scale transformation become to x=1 y=1 z=1 ... issue is gone. For more info see Manual.

Quite important is to understand transformation hierarchy. Modifiers are calculated first, object transforms after that. It means your Solidify modifier extrudes a thickness and after that is calculated Scale transformation on object. Since your object is scaled x=5 y=3 z=1, result is squeezed object.
It's always recommended to Apply Transformations to an object before using modifiers and armatures to avoid strange behaviour.
If you will have a default plane (dimension 2x2), you scaled to 2 (= dimension 4x4), than you add Solidify modifier with Thickness set to 1m ... object appears in a scene with "Dimension" 4x4x2 and not 1, because modifier is calculated before object transformation (like Scale) setup.

if the answer solved your issue, consider click a check mark next to the answer, so others with similar issue can see it was solved (easier from a list of Question).

i first time try Blender. can you give me step by step.

I adjust my answer. Object transform info (like Scale) you can find in 3D editor > Properties (Side) panel (N) or in Properties editor > Object label.

Thank. I did it. Happy weekend vklidu


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How to colour faces produced by a Boolean modifier
I have produced an indent in a cube using a UV sphere and a Boolean modifier. The cubes white and the sphere is black. But when I try to colour the indent it colours the whole cube. Has anyone got any ideas please

related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/516/add-different-materials-to-different-parts-of-a-mesh. Same principle in 2.8, property tabs are just vertically disposed.

You need to have both materials on the Object with the boolean modifier (but of course only one of those is assigned to that mesh). Here the blue cube (the cube with the boolean modifier) has both materials: the blue and the red material. The red cube only has the red material.

maybe reformulate because "Boolean Object" could be the object that cuts, actually you're talking about the "booleaned" object

Thanks moonboots! I now edited my answer to be less unclear.

one thing easier - you don't have to set material to red cube, just place red material of blue cube above (at first place) in material list. Can you add it to your answer? This Q is duplication of this https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/101451/add-colour-to-a-cut-meshface-in-animation?answertab=votes#tab-top but its easier to follow for me here :)


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Shadeless option missing in cycles
when I press 'N' I'm supposed to find a 'shadeless' option under shading, but I cant seem to make it appear. I've tried hard to find a solution but there doesn't seem to be one.
Here's how it's supposed to look like

and here's how mine looks like

Thank you in advance.

I'm using version 2.69. I believe my issue is solved by using emission shader in Material shading.

I actually found it as an answer here https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/10942/is-there-a-textured-but-unlit-full-bright-viewport-mode I had missed what was said at the bottom earlier.


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Is there a way to automatically add faces in proper places to this mesh?
I have this mesh (.blend below):

I want to add faces so that the object is a solid, but with holes (marked with red O's):

I know how to manually add faces by selecting vertices and hitting F. Is there a way to do this automatically, so I can tell Blender to turn this mesh into a solid object with holes in specific areas?

As far I understood the OP looking for a way to fill the space between the boundaries, like this @MrZak.

@Carlo my bad, misunderstood the question. However I don't see any easy way to do that (if using mesh modeling) except for using Knife Project for cutting those borders automatically and then joining them. It will create horrible topology though.

You don't have to excuse @MrZak, I was not sure too. Knife Project can also be a good answer to this question.

If you are using a mirror modifier, you will need edges exactly at the mirror boundary. If you have Clipping enabled on the modifier, you can quickly duplicate any edge or vertex and move it towards the boundary, each vertex will get stopped exactly there. Lock movement to an axis if needed. If you use extruding, later you will have to deselect edges before filling.

The part to be filled has to be closed. Close it by making more edges (F or Mesh > Edges > Make Edge/Face).

Looking at the side of the mesh in orthographic projection, border-select one column of vertices (B or Select > Border Select). This should be done in wireframe view, to select vertices behind faces. Then fill the area with triangles (Alt+F or Mesh > Faces > Fill).

If this filled more than needed, you will have to retry on a smaller region. Undo the fill and make some internal edges, then try again.

It looks promising, but I was not able to achieve such result for the figure in the provided blendfile. Were you?

Use Curves
Mesh tools are not quite good at performing this task compared to curve counterparts: they are not capable of recoginzing the "holes". Starting from a planar profile placed on the XY plane, convert the Mesh to a Curve (Alt+C).

Switch to 2D and then enable Cyclyc U for all the several curves composing the figure.

From here you can extrude, or re-convert the curve to mesh with the same command seen before.
Note: you'll always get a worse topology than the one achievable by hand modeling

Use a boolean modifier

Add a Cube scaled to flat in the desired location without hole. You may not even need to be precise because your edges may be intended to be hidden in frame. Or use F as you mentioned above. Assume name window01.
Create a sphere named  Sphere01.  Sphere01 will be the hole cutter.
Add a boolean modifier [difference]  to window01.  Sphere01 is target of modifier .
Position Sphere01 where the desired hole should be.  You may hide the sphere to view easily ,  or view in wireframe mode.  You can use multiple spheres or other deformations of the sphere.  You determine placement.
Press apply button for the boolean modifier.
Reshape hole produced by the boolean modifier on window01. You might enjoy proportional editing in edit mode for this.
Duplicate window01 to new locations or repeat process for each new window.


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How to make an object appear to be buried in sand?

My first thought was to use a fluid simulation, but that would act too much like liquid and too little like sand, unless there's some way to configure it differently.
Ideally, I want it to look like the object was dropped in the sand a long time ago, and wind has slowly buried it.

if you want to simulate this check the Molecular addon

Consider a particle system. Compose in the Compositor.

The particle system would probably be the best thing to use to get the results you want. Just watch out since it can slow your computer and possibly crash blender and or the entire pc depending on your computer.

A result like this can be obtained using the particle system (without physics) and vertex weighting in cycles.

Steps

Create a sand surface object and a watch object. You can partially cover the watch in sand. Adding modifiers to the sand to displace with a rough texture can simplify creating this surface. If you render them, you should get something like this:

Add an icosphere to act as a grain of sand. Move it out of the camera view. Add a shader to the grain of sand which changes colors and transparency depending on the particle number. The idea is to use the particle number to set the color and transparency of each sand grain, so the result is varied. The shader is shown below:

Add a particle system to the sand surface. Set physics to 'No'. Set all particles to emit at time 1. The example image was generated with about 250K particles. Since physics isn't used, this runs reasonably fast.

If this is rendered, the results should look something like this, looking like it was dropped on the sand.

To partially cover the watch with sand, use vertex weights. This requires going into 'weight paint' and using the brush to indicate where you want the sand grains to overlay the watch. For the image above, this weight painting was used. The red color indicates where sand grains will be dense and deep blue indicates where the sand will be absent.

Set up the sand particle system on the watch. However, to control where the grains go, use the vertext groups and specify the 'group' vertext group. This will refer to the vertext weights generated in step 4.

Render the image! Since no physics simulation is required, the rendering should occur relatively fast. On a 2 core, 1.5 GHz machine, 4Gb ram, with >250K sand particles, the image rendered in less than a minute.

Download the blend file here:

Nice result! Good thinking with the randomization of grain color. I was just thinking that if an animation zooming from far to near were needed, a texture and a bump map (from z-depth) could even be derived from the same particle system system and it would cut down on render time immensely by reducing the number of required particles to only those touching the immersed object. The rest could be a texture that looks just like the particles.

It might be possible to render the particles as in image using transparency, then use as a texture on the immersed object. That is an interesting suggestion.

If you don't mind lag, you can use a particle system to create a sand emitter(see Figure 1), make the ground and the model have collision(see Figure 2), then let the animation run and drop the sand on the model and the ground. Then pause the animation at the right spot and render from there.(Make sure that the particles have a lifetime as long as the animation)


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Can I wrap skin around a frame?
I am creating a monster, with a body made of thin skin stretched tightly over a skeletal frame. The skin should look something like this:

(source: telegraph.co.uk)
One way I thought of to do this is to use meta objects that "attract" to the clamps of the frame, but I don't actually know how to do that. I also thought that perhaps I could a plane of skin-texture, solidify it and wrap it using some kind of physics or constraints.
Is there any add-on or tool to properly wrap skin around a frame?

This is one of those cases where the best approach may vary depending on what you want it to look like and do. Without seeing a sketch of your monster it's hard to guess, but I want to ask - will this be animated? Does the skin need to slide over the frame? First possibilities that come to mind are the Shrinkwrap Modifier, weight painting for the stretch, and rigging the skin to the frame in a way that they move together and interact. Then Solidify, like you mentioned. If your monster is as simple as the reference though, all you need to do is subdivide a plane, stretch, and Solidify.

It won't be animated, and it won't be sliding around. The actual monster is quite complicated, so just a plane won't work. Shrinkwrap sounds like a good idea, though. Thanks!


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Why won't Difference subtract the geometry of this mesh?
I am trying to subtract the big ring (highlighted in light orange) from the smaller ring (highlighted in dark orange) so that there is a slot down the middle of the smaller ring.

I have tried every combination of Boolean modifiers, and they do not work. In the past, Difference sometimes worked to subtract geometry, but not always.
This is what happens when I apply a Difference modifier to the smaller ring and target the larger ring:

As you can see, almost all of the ring is removed, except for a few tiny bits on the sides. I have no idea why this happens.
This is not the first time Difference has failed me, for seemingly-indecipherable reasons. Is there a way to force Difference to work logically, or, failing that, to subtract geometry another way?

it looks like you have quite a lot of self-intersection geometry on the upper and lower parts of the pitchring. if you view it using Z to see through the mesh you'll see some parts much darker than the rest.

probably difficult to see, but also there's a small shell / thickness going on in the pitchring, which seems also to cause self intersection.. -- zoom in real close

Please consider

Adding loop rings to the circular form.
Select the middle faces.  Extrude -  No Movement Accept. Shrink Fatten. You may Shrink Fatten to create a cut out slot.

authors: Александр Невдашенко


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Should I fill these holes or start over?

I've extracted this complex mesh from a 3D model, but as you can see there are some holes that I am struggling to fill.
What can I do? But also, is it better try to fix this mesh or should I take this mesh as ref and create it from zero?

I guess it will be easier to redo it from scratch, you will have a better topology and less vertices

Probably, it's the best solution to avoid being stuck on this mesh for too long. At first, I thought that fixing it could help me learn something new and complex about meshes... but you're right :)


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Cloth simulation keeps merging with itself or other cloth and start flying away
I am creating a simple bowl of noodles. My constant problem is that the noodles keeps getting sucked in by itself or when i have a more than one noodle it gets sucked into that. I have increase the collision distance and self collision But i really have no idea how to fix it.
I do apologies for my terrible english.

Hello please share your file (make it as simple as possible)

Have you checked the normals? If they are inverted, this effect can occur.


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Models have a weird dotted-like texture when viewing in Material Preview & Rendered, how do I fix this issue?
I recently got Blender v4.2.1 and already I'm starting to have a render issue when viewing in Material Preview and Rendered on EEVEE Render engine but when I go into Cycles Engine, it looks normal only in Rendered viewport. I decided to check if it was something with the nodes I use by loading a new  General and turns out it has nothing to do with the nodes I use as the white dot texture issue still persisted, even for a model that doesn't have nodes. And it's definitely not any textures I give models as the cube doesn't have any textures added either.
Is there a way I could fix this issue so I could see the renders without any weird texture bug?

That's almost certainly an issue with your graphics drivers. Check that you have the latest version of the drivers installed and that your machine is compatible with Blender 4. Requirements & Compatibility.


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Im trying to help my young son try and save his 3d model with materials intact!
My young son is very much into Roblox and is now trying to learn blender.
He has watched tutorials and has made his object for the game, added the material etc... but when (he saves the file) tries to pack his model, all he gets is this message:
X Unable to pack file, source pathC\Users\XXXX\OneDrive\Desktop\game model saves\ not found
If he imports the model, it is there minus the materials.
So basically a purple model minus the details.
Sorry if this doesn't make sense, Im just trying to help him and dont use blender myself, and he is only very young.
Any help would be very much appreciated.

I assume you're trying to pack your external data via Blender's File > External Data > Pack Resources before saving the Blend file? It sounds as if Blender can't find the file path to the material files. Maybe something to do with having 'Onedrive' in the file path, but without knowing your setup it's difficult to say.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5368/why-are-all-the-textures-in-my-file-pink/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures


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Why can I no longer "direct" select an object in OBJECT MODE? I can no longer select the object I am trying to select with my cursor. Blender 4.0.2
I am new here.
Recently (a few days ago), if I want to select an object, the object I am trying to select is NOT selected. However, the largest object in line with the cursor is selected. NOTE: All objects are separate objects. I noticed that if I have multiple objects in line with my cursor and try to click on the smallest object, the largest object is selected. If I click again (without moving my cursor), the object next smaller object is selected. When I click again, the next smaller object is selected, and so on. As if each click is selecting from largest to smallest.
Did I hit a hot key by accident and change the way I make selections? The only way I can select the wanted object, I will need to keep clicking until my object is selected, or I will need to Alt-Click, and select the object from the drop-down list.

The only thing that you can change here is GPU Depth Picking in Selection section of Viewport settings in user preferences.


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time at the corner of the animation node editor?
What is the significance of the time displayed at the corner of the animation node editor? Is it the time period of the loop the node editor is executing?

What is the Blender version and do you use any addons?

The blender version is 2.78c and I am seeing this while using the animation nodes addons.

The time at the corner is the total execution time of the node tree. It is usually measured in milliseconds.
Increase the number of divisions in your grid node and you will notice that the time increases because more processing is required.


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Following a rigging Tutorial and got this error (bone heat weighting: failed to find solution for one or more bones)
I have been working on a model as a learning tool and by following a tutorial. It seems like I can't set automatic weights for my rig. I tried removing doubles, also removing and resetting my rig, but still nothing helped. Can someone point out what I missed?
I'm still trying to figure out how to upload my file for test cases.

File upload at http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

Here is my model I'm working on hope this helps