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Parenting bones to character mesh

Hi everyone ,
      I am having trouble parenting my armature to my actual character mesh. I select the mesh, shift right click on any bone in the armature and hit Ctrl P and add with automatic weights. My whole mesh is mirrored and only stretches and deforms on the mirrored side Hand but everything else is completely fine and functional. Any help would be appreciated thanks.
Blend:

do you still have the mirror modifier on the mesh? Because the rig will not work with a mirror modifier.

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

Yes I did. I deleted it then added the parent and added another mirror modifier and it had a better effect but I still have clipping and merge enabled and the mesh divides in half when I move the character around. But the hand was normal again.

How would I be able to do that Tak?

I also tried to delete the mirror, Shift D to copy my one side then S key then X key -1 to scale it across the X axis evenly and it still had the messed up finger effect to it

Please upload it through this link http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

I tried to add it not sure if it did though

It should not be necessary to delete the mirror modifier so long as it is above the armature modifier and has the vertex groups box checked. Your problem in the image looks like a combination of bad automatic weights and/or improperly setup bone constraints, but without a blend its pretty hard to say exactly what is wrong

i figured out i had to apply pose to rest pose and it fixed my problem. problem now is i tweaked around some other settings and have new problem with the tip of the fingers that i don't know what i did to it

@user34518 I've provided an answer to your initial question so if you could accept it. And I just saw that you are facing another problem, could you provide a link of the updated file?

The problem is that your rest pose is different from your pose position. To fix this:

Switch to Pose Mode
Select all Bones with A
Hit Space bar
Select Apply Pose as Rest Pose
Switch to object Mode
Select Your mesh first then select the armature using Shift+Right Mouse Click
Hit Ctrl+P then choose Automatic Weighting and this will fix your problem as shown below

Thanks Tak. Was your mesh fully functional after?

Yes it was. If you faced any other problem as you said after changing some settings then could you ask another question and provide your updated .blend file and send me a link of your new question here?

Here it is http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/71206/34518

sorry I forgot to @ you

@user34518 no worries, I've provided an answer for your problem


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Artifacts blender cycles
I did a Tutorial on YouTube.
When rendering the animation I got a diagonal line with artifacts.

This is a render of 300 samples

I am fairly new to blender so thought i was doing something wrong. Started over used the correct settings for the project but got the same result at the beginning of the tutorial. Both CPU and GPU render show artifacts.

Searched on the internet but couldn't find an answer. Any help is much appreciated.

I have a feeling it has something to do with camera clipping planes. Not sure though. Could you send the .blend file?

You're only rendering 1 sample. Cycles can need hundreds or thousands of samples to render an image cleanly. Try upping the number of samples (seen in the Sampling panel in your screenshot) to 200 and see if you still get the same result.

@Ray Mairlot
This line is from the tutorial;
"Since we gonna be using a lot of emission shaders to pull this effect off, we don't really need that much sampling so this is set to 1."
I already did increase the number of samples did one of 300 and one of 1000 samples and got a slightly better result, but still not perfect.
If i raise up the sampling the animation is not being saved in the render output folder. I still have to learn a lot about blender and i am not that technical sorry for that

@Alphisto

One sample should be enough if you are only using emissive and transparency shaders, like in this tutorial. I downloaded and rendered your file and I had the same image as your first image, but without the diagonal artifact. I rendered on the CPU, because I don't have a supported GPU on this laptop. What happens if you render with the CPU?

@FunkY In future, you should add the blend-exchange embed code into the question using the [edit] link below it, not as a comment. I have done this for you.

@lbalazscs i've tried that same result.

You have the artifacts also on the CPU...? What Blender version are you using? (I use 2.78a on Win 8.1)

@lbalazscs Yes, also on the CPU, using te latest version 2.78a windows 10. 64 bit

Very strange. In your place I would check again that I see the artifacts in the file that was uploaded here (you can download again), just to be sure, and if the artifact is there, I would report a bug in the Blender bug tracker, but also warn them that it is not easy to reproduce... There could be some small differences between our setups, for example I use the auto tile size plugin, which replaces the tile settings (I rendered with 32*32 tiles).

Downloaded the file again. Enabled the tile size plug-in. Used the same settings (32*32) same result. Tried all other tile sizes. Artifact remain. Reported a bug. Thanks for the help so far.

I did the same tutorial and got these lines when rendering with CPU but rendering with GPU got rid of them.

@NilsEisen Glad it worked for you. In my case the line shows up in both CPU and GPU render.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Why are UV mapped textures rendered as black color?
Actually, it is very weird, since the uv works on some model parts and not on others. It shows up in the materials but not in the render. The UV is mapping correctly to the wheel strut. The left wheel is fine, the right is just black.
There is a sun lamp and the world background is set to white.
I tried the attributes node and the texture coordinates method. As you can see from the screen shot, it does map correctly. It just won't render.
I also tried flipping the normals. Although I don't understand that part technically yet.
Since I can see it with the 3d view set to materials, does that mean that the mesh is bad? The file came from tf3dm.com  . I tried the .3ds import but that one was missing parts and blown apart.
Here's the screen shot of my import and attempts.

Here's the blend file: Link to mq9predator.blend file.

You should upload the blend file in order to help to understand the problem here (pack the textures with it). Use this site : http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ . The obtained link can be use editing your question or in the comments.

Thanks @lemon I have uploaded it in the question. Should have done that the first time. Sorry!

I found the answer!
After digging around and hitting random settings on just about any button and setting known to man, I discovered the Geometry Data under the Object Data (to the left of materials panel).
I hit Clear Custom Split Normals Data and the map showed up in the render! Now to figure out what the heck a custom split normal data is...

Custom split normals are a way to split normals of the faces (vectors perpendicular to them) in a custom way in order to get desired shading on the mesh surface. They could be exported from another program if you didn't alter them in Blender e.g. with Normal Edit modifier.

Thank you, @Mr Zak. I am pretty sure this model wasn't made in blender. This proves it. Ah, more research! Thanks for giving me a new search term.

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


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Curves and Booleans Woes
The Story
I am attempting to make a 3d representation of the following SUPER complicated model in a 3d-printer(.stl) friendly way. (I know it's not great quality, but it's literally the best reference image I could find!)

I've been busting my ass and learning a lot through trial and error, but here's what I have so far.

As you can see, it's curvy as heck and has lots of intersecting/overlapping geometry. I think it actually looks pretty good on screen, but unfortunately it doesn't transfer well to .stl at all.
The Problem
With a shape this complicated, I knew there was no way I could shape the curves by hand. I found some tutorials on using array and curve modifiers and I really just jump in and messed up a lot before I finally figured out how to make it at least look presentable. But now I've run into a whole new problem.
My "clever" approach was to do the whole thing with just a couple winding curves and the mirror modifier then hopefully purge all the intersecting geometry with Boolean Difference modifiers.
The issue I'm having is Boolean difference is giving me frustratingly inconsistent results. I don't know how to troubleshoot it, and I don't know of any other approach to salvage this model I've already sunk several hours of time into.
For some parts of the model, it works great, Especially ones with the curves and the spheres. In other places, specifically that big center cylinder and the curves with each other, the boolean modifier generates extra surfaces and deletes others.
Everything I'm reading now says boolean modifiers only work well with consistent, basic shapes. But how can I do what I'm trying to do without them?
Thank you so much in advance! It's my first post here, but it won't be my last!
(edited to add the .blend file)

Like all the too many Boolean modifier related questions here it all boils down to the same points: Closed Manifold meshes only, no paper thin geometry, no overlapping faces, no duplicate geometry and no touching coplanar faces. All your spheres are paper-thin domes barely touching the surface below, not only is that not gonna go well with booleans, it will not go well with 3D printing at all, since as far as I know everyting must have thickness to be printable

I have a method that may help you in this case.
This method works best if you don't have truly vertical surfaces, but there are workarounds to this if you are willing to adopt it in your meshes.
The first recommended step is to take the bottom most surfaces and scale them outward, so that you have a slight slope to your vertical walls.
The next step should solve the rest for you:
This is a fairly long step-by-step, so I chose to link to it from another post here, if this is a problem at all from the moderators, I would be glad to duplicate it here - just let me know.
After you recreate your mesh using the Z-Pass method, you should be able to easily re-scale your bottom most parts of the mesh to get it looking like you intended, if you so choose by applying the displacement modifier, and manipulating the bottom faces to be what you desire.

I just wanted to note that this is not a solve all method, but should get you really close to where you need to be (at least boolean wise), you will still have to either cap the bottom layer water-tight, or solidify (solidify may get really ugly because of vertical walls stretching too far). I believe it is worth the effort to cap the bottom. One other worthy note: the higher your resolution, and the higher your anti-aliasing samples, the higher quality you will get in the result. Also when you are done, you can do a really fine smooth pass in sculpt mode with dynotopo (Shift+F) to go light.


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Change Python Tooltip 'Body' Text Color?

I'd like to increase the contrast between the tooltip background and the Python text. Available presets don't seem to change the text color, just the background. In Preferences > Theme > User Interface > Tooltip, there is no color swatch for this.
Screenshot: I have to squint to see either the gray text on yellow or gray on black.
How do I go about either controlling the text color or increasing the contrast between it and the background?

Hi. I did remove the 'text' tag for a reason. I really don't think we need a tag like that on the site. If you would like to suggest and discuss why this new tag is needed you can do so here. The 'visibility' tag also doesn't seem related to this. The 'customization' tag is used for questions about customising blender, which is what your question is about, so I would suggest leaving it. Having the wrong tags may result in your question not being found by people who can answer it. Thanks.

I see your point, but this post isn't about cosmetic changes or making changes simply because I have different taste than those who supplied Blender's themes. The issue is text visibility for those with poor eyesight (like me) and that's why I chose the tags I did. The tags you picked don't reflect the reasoning behind my question.
Also, I followed that link to where you say I can discuss this, but that's just telling me to defend how I framed the question and brings me no closer to an answer.

Hi. You want to change the default way blender looks. That is customisation. It doesn't matter what your motivation is. You could argue that the visibility tag could be used here as it unfortunately lacks a definition or usage guideline but it is generally used for the visibility of objects. The meta is a place where you can discuss this site, which includes asking a question which suggests a new tag (if you really feel that the 'text' tag is needed). All I can say is that as a regular user of this site I believe these are the correct tags. Thanks.

That only leaves why you're bothering to get involved with this question. You obviously don't know the answer. From your comments, you don't understand the problem, either. You aren't a moderator, and finally, I'm not finding your involvement at all helpful. So, how about you let me use the tags I feel are appropriate and go find something else to do?

All I can repeat is that having the wrong tags may impact who finds and answers this question, and again, repeat that the meta site is available to suggest tags or discuss this site.

@no-one Ray has been on this site quite longer than you, has been a tireless maintainer of our tag system and knows them quite well. The tags you have assigned to you question generally have a different meaning than what you interpreted. [Text] usually refers to 3D Text objects in a scene, and [Visibility] usually related to 3D viewport object visibility/renderability, so his tags are actually more helpful to your question than harmful.

Then perhaps one of you can tell me which tags I would use to mean 'change the visibility of text.' Being visually-impaired, I'm simply looking for a way to talk about that. FYI, when I first typed one of those tags—either 'text' or 'visilbity,' I don't remember which—I was presented with a dialog asking if I wanted to create a new tag. And if you go to the Tags page on this site and type, 'text,' it doesn't come up and that makes me wonder how that tag could generally mean what you say it means when the tag system implies it's never before been used.

My bad, will look into it.

@Robert: If you look at the screenshot, you'll see there are two distinctly different treatments for the text in a tooltip. None of the preference settings I've been able to find will affect the Python code written in the lower part of the pop-up. Thanks anyway.

The tinting is hard coded in interface_region_tooltip.c with the line rgb_tint(python_color, 0.0f, 0.0f, tone_bg, 0.5f); /* dark gray  */. The way it's currently implemented you would have to compiler Blender yourself to change this.

@RobertGützkow: I suspected as much. Thanks. You've been very helpful. I have compiled Blender in the past, so I'll take a stab at rolling my own solution.

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


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Simplify mesh by merging and filling holes
I have a rather complex planar mesh that I want to simplify (reduce number of faces) and fill the holes.
I have very little experience with Blender, but I have tried to use
- Mesh > Faces > Fill
- Modifier > Add Modifier > Decimate
- Mesh > Vertices > Merge
- Tools > Mesh Tools > Smooth Vertex
- Mesh > Clean up > Limited Dissolve
None of these helped, could someone point me in the right direction?
File can be downloaded here: http://www.horgvegen.no/barge_plane_org_0.1.blend

can you attach the file for detail investigation

Updated the post now.

I have taken a look at your Blend file, and I first noticed that your mesh is quite messy. In these cases, using operations as you have mentioned (Merge, Fill, Decimate, Dissolve) will only worsen the problem.
Due to the messiness of the object in question, if possible, I would recommend rebuilding the mesh using clean, quad-based geometry.
First, in top view (Numkey 7), add a new plane over top your existing object (Shift + A > Mesh > Plane)
Next, move the plane along the X axis to the left edge of your mesh (G then X)

In edit mode (Tab), begin to move the vertices to the shape of the mesh. To select vertices, verify that you are in Vertex Select Mode (Ctrl + Tab > Vertex).
When you have shaped a section of the mesh, you can then extrude the edge of the plane to the right to add more detail. Use Ctrl + Tab > Edge to select whole edges then use E to extrude and repeat the previous vertex shuffling procedure.

Use Ctrl + R to add new loops to existing sections of  your mesh. With these methods you can add as much or as little detail to your new mesh as you like.
Here is a low-detail example I was able to match in under a minute:

Thank you CGEffex for pointing me in the right direction how I should approach this messy mesh. I appreciate the effort you took to post descriptive images and hotkeys along with it. This file was created based on an extraction from a NawisWorks file and came out like this after importing it as .obj

Are you looking for this result

If yes then there are many overlapping faces. I have deleted some overlapping faces and edges and got the result. You have to do some cleanup. Hard to explain

-1 Your result is quite messy itself and "You have to do some cleanup. Hard to explain" is a non-answer.

@CGEffex i have mention that there are overlapping faces that to be cleanup

Deleting the overlapping faces is a good start, but you should elaborate on "cleanup".

Thank you ateks for providing a cleaned up version of my file. I would really appreciate if you could explain shortly what you did to clean it up.


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Is possible to control quantity of texture? (Python)
I have this sort of stone and I want it to have some lichens on the top but I want to control te quantity of lichens that is on the stone.
Texture:
https://i.sstatic.net/Ofi2X.jpg
For that I've already this texture overlaping twice and I'm using the mapping node to control this. Result:
https://i.sstatic.net/WjowC.jpg
Using Python I'm trying to like simulate the aging and growth (more and bigger liquens) controlling the mapping node and my question is, is there any other way that this can be accomplished? Kind of controlling Uvs and adding this texture a few times?Image processing? Thank you.

I think you have the wrong lichen texture type. You should have a large continuous texture and then animate some sort of mask to get more or less amount of lichen covering the stone. You will have a hard time getting a continuously covered surface from a non continuous texture

Thank you, but how would you do that? How do you control the quantity that you show? @DuarteFarrajotaRamos

Just use another (possibly procedural) texture as a mask in a Color Mix node as mixing factor. See if this helps https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/52344/decay-effect-texture/52347#52347 or https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/79386/image-texture-to-partially-mask-part-of-material/79397#79397


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Using Blender with wider gamut than 709 primaries (like ACES)
There is a similar old unanswered question on this site with some vague comments (ACES workflow in Blender), so I'll ask it differently:
Is it possible to work in blender 2.8 with color spaces that use a wider gamut than Rec709?
Is blender's cycles still limited to Rec709 primaries only, or can it render images with wider gamuts?
Is the information on this link: Blender & ACES 1.2 accurate?, meaning that all it takes is to have a different config.ocio and the corresponding LUTS and set a system variable for OCIO, as stated also in ACES setup for blender using OCIO?
Additionally, I've found this article on how to work with Alexa Wide Gamut color space.
Is that the only color wide gamut space that is usable today?
I hope someone (like @troy_s) can shed some light on this. Thanks.

https://www.toodee.de/?page_id=1221 wll i think since filmic came out and the several colorspace changes have been made i think blender is now flexible in this area, it comes down to tune it how you want.. (no idea how to test and verify though).

You can, but it will look like ass. The larger issue here is gamut mapping, something that ACES has never had. Give it a try! It is pretty easy to treat all of your incoming buffers from the pickers as BT.2020 primaries for example. What you’ll end up with is over saturated garbage, much like everything that comes out of ACES! Gamut mapping is a huge deal, and well worth understanding. No better way to understand than to test it out.

Thanks @troy_s will try it.  Where can I read about "gamut mapping"?

It's a bit of a dense and nuanced subject. The best advice I can give is to try and understand how the various chromaticity plots work. I've tried to lead folks down that path over at https://hg2dc.com. Once you get a firm enough handle as to how spectral light mixtures are plotted on that model, it becomes clearer as to what is happening when thinking about gamut volumes. Best advice is try Mareck's examples and look at the imagery to start. How does it look? What feels off? Etc.

@troy_s thanks for the link!

Short answer
Yes you can use ACES OCIO config in Blender, but...
@troy_s don't hesitate to correct mistakes or add infos to what follows.

Longer answer
I've just try it since 2 days, I've seen the new ACES 1.2 OCIO config pop up and decided to give it a try. At the begining I was quite enthusiastic, made some tests, more saturated, ACES config need adapting color values.
First problem
Since you can't change the colorspace of the color wheels, they are going completely crazy, click on a color of the wheel, then in HUE change the saturation, or click and drag on the wheel, it speaks for itself, if a dev read this, we really need to have color managed RGB color wheels as well as a better color picker... if we want to work with other colorspaces.
Knowing that I thought, ok I know this limitation, so I can be carefull and use only RGB channels to set my colors (a pain but I've tried it and managed to make an ACES test scene)
I was quite happy with the render result even if it looks a bit too saturated and then I realised that the glossiness looks less present, perhaps it's like Filmic that looks to desaturated at the beginning because we weren't used to it, for this part I don't know if it's something expected and normal or not.
However, today I've made tests with a chart image to see if it is correctly interpreted.
Second problem
Images aren't correctly converted. I have this sRGB chart as a base to see what a transfer from ACEScg color space to sRGB should look (sorry I never know if it's EOTF or OETF):

A screenshot of the convertion from ACEScg to sRGB, we can see is that it don't react very well:

Even in Resolve/Fusion it's not 100% correct:

Conclusion
I don't know if the color difference is a big deal for a normal scene, but it makes me doubt that it's a valid workflow inside Blender, for now. If someone see a mistake in my test let me know.
I will perhaps try a real scene to confirm all of that, but looks like for the time being, there is nothing better than this great Filmic OCIO config we already have.

Edit 1
In fact all of this makes me think that I understand a bit better my fist test with ACES.
I've made a simple scene only with shader colors, no textures, resulting in an oversaturated image.
What made me thought that, like Filmic at the begining we would have to adapt a bit the workflow, but now that I look at the wrong desaturation of the bars of the chart, it feels normal that I have an oversaturated image, and that it's not a workflow to adapt but that I'm fighting a wrong colorspace convertion.
The filmic scene:

And the ACEScg verions:

Edit 2
I've just understood some fundamentals things, and then read Troy's comment that confirm it.
I've made mistakes, and like he said I've learned a lot from them.
I will surely make more but perhapse all of this will help other to understand this so complicated topic.
What I've just realised is that ACES OCIO config doesn't map primaries to rec709 ones, it clamps them. So the desaturation of the top horizontal bars can't be something else, in fact I've ask someone to try with an other render engin (he tries with Guerilla render) I was shocked that it was the same.
And what we see on my test scene rendered in ACEScg is just that, clamped gamut, a bit like the clamped intensity of Blender's standard(sRGB) view transform but with gamut.
One other thing I've realised is that wider gamut isn't about having better color display on a standard monitor but having more colors to display to a wide gamut monitor and surely internals calculations. Perhaps it looks obvious but this topic has so much confusing part that I was thinking, converting from a colorspace to an other was also to match primaries from the first one to the other but it's not what ACES does.
So, can you use ACES OCIO config in Blender, yes, would I use it to have better images than with filmic, hell no. Even if Filmic isn't perfect, I think it's still better than to fight clamping gamut, unmanaged color wheels... and I don't think the cases where you would see a gain compare to Filmic worth the pain.
If you need ACES it's for other reasons.
I'll surely add more stuff here later when my knowledge grows, or perhaps add a new question on Stack Exchange, like for exemple converting rec709 values (or pointer's gamut ones) to ACEScg colorspace.

Cool, thanks for your tests @Mareck! If I would add a bounty, do you have the time creating a complete scene?

@brockmann I was planning to have a try on a prefessional preject that I'll work on, but with all of that I think it's a bit risky, so I dont know when I'll have the time to do it, in all the cases when I'll have something I'll post here. And by the way thanks for the edits.

Thanks for taking the time to test. I'm confused though, images rendered in filmic and ACES are like apples and oranges since they are using different color transforms on the way to display referred. If I understand the issue here, filmic creates desaturation in the highlights, converging to "white" or "achromatic", while there is no such transform available for ACES (or other wide gamut color spaces).

I read the answers in this page and I feel a bit discouraged. Please correct me if I'm wrong: the software seems capable of rendering "color agnostic" rendering (through OCIO), but the interface and tools are crippled by the limits of sRGB display referred. So how is one to use blender to integrate CG and images generated on a camera using ACES then?

I'm a bit like you, I'm not an expert about all of this, I've just spend hours, days, years now^^ interested by those subject but as soon as it involve internal behaviors, code, or math I'm lost. For now I think like you about the color agnostic and limitation about what's under the hood, there is too much involved here for me to spot what's really "broken"... So for now I think ACES isn't something working well enough to switch to (in Blender at least). Plus the fact that from Filmic POV we only miss the wider gamut which in most scenario we wouldn't see much of a difference.

Remember that equal values in one colour space are not the same visible light mixtures. That means to get identical chromaticities from RGB values, you need to calculate what the values are in both colour spaces. This is excellent experimentation, and I'd encourage absolutely everyone here to stumble through and make mistakes. That is invaluable learning. Specifically, yes Filmic has a (not very good) gamut mapping for intensity. Given the source and destination are BT.709, no gamut mapping is provided for saturation. ACES has neither, and results in pretty ghastly imagery by default.

In terms of starting out, use RGB values to define your surfaces. Importing input textures for albedos requires tagging them with their encodings. If you render out very saturated colours, which ACEScg (AP1) permits as it is basically BT.2020, pay attention to the regions of the image that should gracefully graduate across the surfaces, but instead have sharp and posterized results. This is gamut clipping to the sRGB destination. I'll leave it at this for now, but keep testing! It's absolutely critical for learning how the concepts lead to imagery.

As specifically for the camera question, it might be wise to phrase it in the form of a Blender question here on Stack Exchange and I'll check in to give the best answer I can if someone else doesn't answer.

Awesome! Going to add a bounty in the upcoming days (when SE allows it) and let you know. Cheers @Mareck

@troy_s here's the camera question: https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/173981/92768 thanks!

Blender uses OpenColorIO therefore it is possible to use the OCIO configuration and view transforms for ACES. This is documented in Blender's manual.

The standard Blender configuration includes support for saving and loading images in ACES (code and documentation) color spaces. However, the ACES gamut is larger than the Rec. 709 gamut, so for best results, an ACES specific configuration file should be used. OpenColorIO provides an ACES configuration file, though it may need a few more tweaks to be usable in production.

Download the OCIO configurations and extract the archive.
Open Blender's installation directory and navigate to [version]/datafiles/ ([version] is the Blender version, e.g. 2.83).
Rename the directory colormanagement to something else, e.g. colormanagement-orig. This allows you to restore the original configuration in case you want to revert the changes.
Create a directory colormanagement in [version]/datafiles/ and copy the content of the latest ACES configuration and LUTs into colormanagement. At the time of writing that is aces_1.0.3 in the archive. Copy the config.ocio and the directory luts with its content into colormanagement.

Please note that I haven't used ACES and there may be parts of Blender that don't work well with this modification, e.g. Video Sequence Editor, Compositor, color pickers or add-ons that rely on color spaces from the original OCIO configuration.

Thanks @RobertGützkow,

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


text:
Is there a way to hack blender to import .HEIF images HEVC and h.265 codec videos?
Is there a way to modify the source code, or other hacks, to import images in HEIF format or h.265 video (like pictures and movies made with iphones and other samsung phones) into Blender directly? I'm trying to avoid transcoding.

OpenImageIO v 2.2 supports such formats, and blender uses OIIO to open images, right?
There's got to be some kind of hack to import them, I would hope.
Natron uses the same library and the images open just fine.

FFmpeg version (4.3) seems to support it, there is no UI option though.

Did you find a solution?

So far no answers.


text:
Render shows no image, just a color screen

I am trying to make a wallpaper 2560x1440, but in the render result I can't see anything, just color as shown in the screenshot.
That is the .blend

please upload the .blend file to be able to help you

how can upload it. thx for care :)

http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

i did it brother :)

There were two reasons.

you had no light in the scene. (I just added a sunlight)
You had your camera aperture set to .2 ( I just disabled DOF)


text:
Weird Weight painting on a rigged character?
I've successfully rigged the armature to the whole mesh but, weight is kinda weird. It's an armored character, the problem is that the armor pieces doesn't follow the movement correctly. Even if i try to paint it in ordrer to fit the bones' movement, it's doesn't work !

... maybe you should add some more information to your question? It is very broad. Can you edit it?

Added blend file, i can't post pictures on the main post, don't have enough " reputation"

I see nothing bad in it. Can you spot a special part which causes the problem?

the torso mostly

OK... the gap between the 2 parts... They are not weighted equally. As far as I know, nothing magical can be done here (even if this is a paladin...). You can try to use a blur brush or try to weight copy the inner part of the armor to the outer part (making them two separated meshes before).

alright, how do you weight copy the part to the another ?

In short, select the 2 meshes, enter weight paint mode, and use the menu "weights" and "transfer weights" (but I have no time to provide a full answer right now)

Quick process description here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stem2OPRAyA

Well i dit it, the gap is still there


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Bone heat weighting failed to find solution for one or more bones (tried all fix, don't work)
I've modeled with guy this week and I wanted to rig it, but I got this error. I've tried all the fixes I've founded (remove doubles, deleted constraints, delete modifier, add and apply decimate modifier, etc.).
Here is the blend file:

No blend file provided

http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/b/2613

@Tak It is preferably to advise a new user how to upload blend files if a blend is required.

@RayMairlot sorry, I updated the question myself, but will do this next time, no worries :)

@MagicalPaladin the .blend file doesn't have any armatures just mesh

http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/b/2615 sorry

@MagicalPaladin you can update your question by placing the link under the "Share this file:" in the above link, can you try doing this? :)

it's done, link changed

http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/69892/bone-heat-weighting-failed-to-find-solution-for-one-or-more-bones-error-messag

already done that

So I separated all objects and parented each one by one and it seems that the belt and torso are the issue. I tried to recalculate the normals and Remove doubles, but it seems that there is something wrong with the two. Maybe try Retopo-ing the the two. Also for whatever reason there is no weight appearing in the weight paint mode which brings me to the conclusion that you will have to manually weight paint the model after fixing the two objects of course.
Additionally I looked up the issue and found a concise list of the stuff you need to check in your model on a reddit forum Here it is:

Anything that has lots of intersecting meshes seems to bork the auto weightpainting. If you separate loose parts, weight all the parts, and
then join them, you can get an approximate weight painting. Other
things worth checking
Are the rig and mesh aligned on the axis properly?
Have you applied scale and rotation on everything you're weighting?
Did you make sure to keep the x - axis mirror option on when rigging? The weight painting gets wonky when things are less
symmetrical.
Have you removed double vertices, checked your mesh for bits that don't aren't connected, and recalculated normals?
Is your mesh or armature too large? Sometimes scaling it down can help. That error message is frustrating because it gives very few
clues as to what you're doing wrong.

Here is the file:

Your Welcome Bro

I do not know why (I think it's just Blender's Automatic Weighting Algorithm), but it worked when I added a subsurface modifier then did Ctrl+P and then With Automatic Wieghts. After that, I removed the Subsurface modifier and it was all fine.
Hope this helps

Will try it and tell if it's works

Just tried it, not working, could you please share your file and tell me which blender version you use ?

I use Blender 2.78a and here I've tried it multiple times with the file you provided. Make sure you don't Apply the modifier.

Never mind, when I do that Blender doesn't give the error message, but doesn't add the wights.

Alternatively you could use the Mesh Deform method to rig your character:
First create a lowpoly model of the character and make sure the lowpoly is around the highpoly.
Then go to the original mesh and add a Mesh Deform modifier. Set the lowpoly mesh as the object in the object box and then parent the lowpoly to the armature.
NOTE: Make sure that you DO NOT parent the original mesh to the armature. Also make sure the low poly model has a black shader attached to volume instead of surface.
Blend File:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B6P9xP7owZILY2ZKUk1pQTNfQUk?usp=sharing

Hope this helps

Update: Extended the "NOTE".

Tell me if it works

Added blend file

works i just need to correct weight

Please vote or accept as answer if it worked


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Importing Shape Key Animation using Evaluation Time into Unity
I have been trying to get an animation imported into Unity that is using shape keys. Specifically I am using an Evaluation Time animation, so absolute shape keys. If I am using Relative animation I can follow this guys, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvjwTnS6vhA, steps and they work perfectly. If I follow the same steps but just uncheck that Relative box to go to Absolute Shape Keys I am unable to get the animation exported to unity. Things I am noticing are that the shape keys don't show up in the dope editor in absolute mode the way they do in relative. I am also not able to see or click the F key, similar to this guys issue, "F" Button in Shape Key Editor Not Showing Up - Why Not?, even after clicking the plus symbol. If I click the plus symbol to make new shape key data, I see the F key for a second, but right when I move my mouse, it disappears! Seems like a bug to me?
So, has anyone gotten absolute (evaluation time) shape key animations into Unity?


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Delete All Internal Geometry
I generated a bunch of random cubes from MATLAB as .STL and imported into Blender. All cubes intersect so there's a bunch of internal geometry. I did ctrl-F -> intersect to create edges between cubes, but now how do I remove all the vertices/edges/faces inside the cubes?
I checked out Simplify mesh by cutting out inside parts and tried to remeshing modifier, which did absolutely nothing possibly b/c I'm noob with this software, and tried the code which failed on line 4.
I'm used to using CAD, so could I possibly make an enclosure, boolean subtract from said enclosure, then fill the enclosure up with a second solid that doesn't have internals? Can Blender do that? Help!

Edit: Figured it out. Bool tool solved all my problems. Regular boolean would take forever to implement for something like this I think.

Check this out http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/71687/2517

Works, though it only cuts the edges for one cube b/w that and another. Also, how would you do this for all cubes? I tried selecting all edges and it says no intersections found.

have you tried selecting all visible faces, then invert selection and delete?

Thanks for the advice. How do I select all external faces since there are many cubes inside that I can't see? box select + select>more? Would take a while.

I think I got all the visible faces using above method, but why is it that if I select sharp edges, the intersecting edges formed from ctrl+F don't get highlighted?

Possible duplicate of Removing internal geometry

Bool Tool Addon (fast enabled)
⎈ Ctrl⇧ Shift+ after separating cubes using P> by loose parts in edit mode.

This is the easiest method I have found in my brief search and testing to date. If you continue to struggle with internal faces showing up, there is a more robust method that I have found in this answer here that uses the Booltron add-on "Slice" feature with a cube object as a container: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5752/simplify-mesh-by-cutting-out-inside-parts/78111#78111


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Game Engine: Can I load objects and scenes into memory?
Is there an option to load objects/scenes I want to memory to prevent lags? I don't want to let all objects spawn to buffer them or other tricks. How can I do this? And is it possible to remove them from memory?
Thanks for every answer!

You want to prevent lag when changing scenes? Add them all in the first frame (so you get a massive lag spike), and have each scene pause itself. Then you can resume them as needed.
To remove it from memory, end the scene.
I don't feel that I actually understand what problem you are having.

This doesnt work because you need a camera for each scene which flies through the world to buffer all objects. Just adding the scene is useless. Objects are just loaded to memory if they're on the screen.

I have not come across that issue. How big is your scene (both in blender units and in MB)

980 objects. But that's not important. I just want to know how I can load things to memory.

BGE tries to avoid you having to manually load things in and out of memory to make your life simpler. You can do it with libload, (loading an external blend file into the current one) but 99.999% of the time you shouldn't have to.

The BGE loads the COMPLETE scene into memory when switching to a scene (including start up). It does not matter where the camera is.

To load objects and scene into memory you need LibLoad
usage:
from bge import logic

logic.LibLoad('file.blend','scene', load_actions = False, load_scripts = True, async = False)

Thanks! But does this work internal? In case if I have this blend as an exported exe file. There I want to load objects to memory? Is this possible?

you can only load .blend files. or you mind your game is exe and want to load from there? if that. you can load blend files.

The purpose of LibLoad is to load objects on-demand. LibFree removes the data from buffer. It does not sound this is what the question is aiming for.


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How can I replace an instance on an object with that of its corresponding numerical index value using geometry nodes?
I can place an instance of an object at each index but how can I replace each instance with it's corresponding numerical index value?

My goal is to show the numerical index value and where it's located at/on an object (for faces/edges/vertices) using geometry nodes.
Example:
Instead of showing cylinders have it display the corresponding index value.

My thought process was to:

Convert each numerical index to a string and
Place that string at it's corresponding index location.  But ran into an issue at the start with converting the index value to a string.

Note: The goal is to do this in Geometry Nodes.  Is this even possible without using a loop (which GN doesn't have yet)?
I'm using GN 3.1

i think it is not possible because [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/Aikdu.png both won't take fields, but just constants. :(

although i think it is not possible with geometry nodes (ok it is, if you make all the text-meshes by hand) ...BUT...you can do it very easy with animation nodes and geometry nodes.
Idea: let animation nodes make the collection of texts. Let GN use it and show it.
GN setup:

AN setup:

result:

Thanks...I guess it's one more thing to hope for...
https://devtalk.blender.org/t/loops-in-geometry-nodes-proposal/21357
At least the person who wrote Animation nodes proposed loops in geometry nodes..  (Jacques Lucke)

loops are necessary. I really hope it will come

I do not want to "steal" an accepted answer here in any way, I just want to give a proof:
Yes, the task can be solved wonderfully with Geometry Nodes!

Just in a nutshell, here is the node tree as an overview:

...please excuse this short post, I will go into more detail soon when I have more time.

Hehe.. I made one of these too.. I got interested in Ginymbi's Attribute Viewer .. (did you introduce me to it?).. and stripped it back into what seemed to me to be more resuable modules :)

Was told about a great tool call index-viewer for blender which helps with this.  Yes it's free.
https://artofriaz3d.gumroad.com/l/indexviewerfields

The node groups is wild!!!!!

I had the same problem, at first I thought hey cool there's a value to string node,that should work. But nah. ;)
My solution is to have one instance on point node for the single digits, one for the tens and one for the hundreds.
And a some math nodes to fix the positions of the digits.
I uploaded some of my tests to twitter:
https://twitter.com/DaBo_de/status/1507702609993416712?s=20&t=z7y5o8JqgCGg86JQEye8og

Can't really see the image/animation/node network (to fuzzy/small).  Maybe if you posted the node network here we can see how it looks / works.


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Fluid amount in simulation
I am trying to work through some Blender Tutorials and then try my own scene using that feature. I have a problem with a scene containing camera, lamp, cube set as fluid domain and a uv sphere set as fluid inflow.
My problem is that it just drips.
I am simply trying water from a tap, or a soda machine.
I have not allocated a inflow velocity in any direction assuming gravity would do that. When I tried a force in Z axis I just got a drip hitting the domain box harder.
I did try scaling the inflow sphere but that did not help.
I also tried subdivision 2 in fluid boundary and Generate 1 in Fluid Particles.
I have set inflow velocity 1 in the sphere settings.
nothing seems to change.
What setting do I look at for more fluid. ?
(edit for spelling and some attempted changes)

You need to set the Inflow Velocity. On its own (with no velocity) the Inflow only adds fluid to the domain within the Inflow volume if there is actually space to place it - ie, if the fluid has moved away to make space for some more fluid. Gravity does not act on the fluid in the Inflow and since you have no Inflow Velocity the liquid stays where it is and only those drops that break away from the surface tension will fall. Simply give it a velocity (eg, Z = -1) to allow it to flow away from the Inflow.

thanks for that. It is now working fairly well.  I obviously confused the tutorial which had a velocity x = value , and I had tried a z= 1 , it never occured to me to try a negative number. Now I can try adding a sink and keep building teh scene.  Thanks again for the help.

No problem - glad to help. Don't forget to mark the answer as 'Accepted' so others can more easily find it.


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why Imported fbx tga from UE4 look black?
why Imported fbx tga from UE4 look black? I'm a novice, and New to texturing and materials, so Please help me finding what am I doing wrong.
I exported a static mesh from ue4 then the textures as tga. I replaced one of the placeholder textures for the tgs, but everything looks gray or black.
Can somebody teach me how to apply tga textures properly in this case?

Blender file attachment

Also see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures

You are having this issue because texture parameters in the materials are set wrong, instead of using the texture as diffuse color it is used as normal value.
To fix that, in each texture enable Color influence and disable Normal influence on the Geometry

This fixed my issue. Thanks a lot. It can be difficult to find good answers to questions that are extremely basic. But those questions can be the most frustrating.


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Creating a mesh object problem
Hi everybody I am a newbie! While I was working on Blender I added a uv sphere object and since I know it should be created in its default form ( I mean eg: adding a uv sphere segments:32 size:1 etc etc) but when I clicked on it to add it, it was added in a form that I last added a uv sphere. How can I revert my original uv sphere addition form back? I don"t know maybe I accidentally clicked on smt.. but I don"t really know. And Now I checked that this problem occurs in every blender file I am working..

In theory, if you close and restart Blender all operator presets should be reset to default values, but if you don't want to do that you can reset them one by one by hand.
Just add a new UV Sphere or invoke any other operator, and from the 3D View Tool Shelf (T key) you can reset any property to default value by right-clicking it and choosing Reset to Default Value

Hello there! Thank you for your help, I really appreciate it.  I tried your 2nd way and it worked' but after that I restarted my pc and operated blender again I created a mesh object and changed its segments size etc at the beginning and after that I created a second one (expecting a default one) no again the same thing (it duplicated the previous one), your way saves the day but before that it never happened and I dont know how to get rid of this :(

This has always been the default behavior, Blender always saves the last used operator settings for the current session, until you restart Blender or open a new instance.

omg was it default? Please check me if I really understood once you add a mesh  object you change its size segments scale initially while adding and add it. After this stage if you want to add another mesh from the same group, once you created it, it always carries the previously created objects initially added properties.

Yes, that's right, this has always been the default behavior of Blender. If you add some object then add another of the same type afterwards, it will initially carry the same properties. This is also true for all other operators, if you execute a certain command, by default the second try will have the previous values pre-filled.


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Bone Heat Weigthing failed to find solution for one or more bones
I am trying to do automatic weighting on this object, but I am getting a "Automatic Heat Weighting: Failed to find a solution for one or more bones".
I have tried alot of different thing
Removing doubles
Removing all modifiers
Subsurface
Decimate
Removing Non Mainfold Vertices
Here is my .blend file:

Hi, welcome: it would be better if you could use this other service (http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/) because it helps this QA site to keep a durable link to .blend files, for future readers. Thanks!

To solve this:

I first removed doubles. This is caused because of non-manifold
geometry in your model as shown in here.
I then switched into Edit Mode
Then hit Ctrl+AltShift+M to find non manifold geometry in the model
I then unchecked all the list except the Boundaries as shown below:

I then hit Space Bar and type Dissolve Vertices as shown below:

After that I did automatic weighting and it worked perfect as shown below:

Updated .blend file can be found here:

Hmm, I get this error though when i try to dissolve them: Invalid Boundry to join faces. Also, it doesn't say Mesh: Dissolve Vertices. It's just Dissolve Vertices if that has anything to do with it.

@Olaf not sure what you did for this to happen? If you followed the exact steps mentioned in my answer it should work without any problems, I've added the updated file as well. If you still can't make it work then send me a link of your current file which is not the same as the one you uploaded in your question, right?

I deleted the doubles, selected only boundries and typed in dissolve vertices. Problem i have with the updated file is that the materials are gone and i have no clue how to get them back :). And here is the latest version https://www.dropbox.com/s/xwvla0eaisn74dq/daemon.blend?dl=0

@Olaf I followed the steps I told you on the file and it worked. I updated my answer and included the updated file which has the materials as well.

Probably me and my rookie knowledge then, thanks though!


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Weird strectching
For some unknown reason I seem to be having a problem with my model. This is how it looks like in the game which I'm trying to make it for.

As you can see the quad seems to be inside the thigh somehow. Also the arms are bugged. I had to weight paint this manually to make it work and since I'm basically still a beginner I probably messed up somewhere.
My .blend file can be found here:

That can be a scale problem on the 'dark apostle' mesh which is not handled correctly at export or in the game engine you are using. Scales are 0.826. So select the mesh, and apply the scale (ctrl+A then scale)

In which format here you exporting the mesh and armature?

.smd is the format i believe

Does that have any thing to do with it? i can't really change the format

I don't know smd... try to check if there is some interesting options in the bottom left panel when exporting from Blender

I decompile this way https://gyazo.com/55de2ccc561b0395ac60dd48eec1df2a

So there is no one who can help me?


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Bone Heat Weighting: Failed to find solution for one or more bones?
Whenever i try adding automatic weights to my model i get that error. i recently had this problem with another model, however that didn't help me with this one. I have tried various things like dissolving vertices in Non Magnifold mode with only boundries ticked. I've removed all doubles and i have no clue anymore. Here's the blend file

One of the problems that the automatic algorithm is not good at is dealing with characters maden of spare parts and not an unique closed manifold mesh.
You can separate all spare parts and rig them one by one: it works but you'll have to tweak  the automatic weights manually, because the algorithm doesn't know which part should be moved by which bone.
As your beautiful character is so complex, I would absolutely go with manual weighting, which is less complex than it seems, see this answer for some weighting tips: Rigify : skin overlapping clothes


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How do I unwrap a cylindrical object?
Can anyone help me? I'm doing this lightsaber tutorial (CG Geek) and while unwrapping, mine looks weird:

Here's what it's supposed to look like:

I marked the same seams as him, but it produced different results. I know it's incredibly vague, but any kind of help is appreciated. Thanks!

Have you tried to unwrap following active quad? Related http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/61146/how-to-make-a-square-grid-for-uv-maps

@lemon Yes I have. It gives a cleaner result, yeah, but not the desired one.

Looking at your image, it looks like your seams aren't marked correctly. You should have an unbroken seem (red line in edit mode) running up the whole of the side of the mesh. This line should connect to a ring seam (a full red ring around the mesh) on each end, that separates the ends from the sides.
As lemon mentioned in the comments, you may also need to follow the instructions in How to make a square grid for UV maps to get even quads in the unwrap.
It may be worth looking at some basic uv unwrapping tutorials.

Try to install TUBE UV UNWRAP plugin. (Follow active quads unwrap method might also work)
http://blenderaddonlist.blogspot.lt/2014/06/addon-tube-uv-unwrap.html

Select all mesh and after that a vertex on an edge where seam should be then pres "U" and chose tube uv unwrap.
This plugin will work only on uniform tube shaped objects. Afterwards you can subdivide faces you want.


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Multiple GTX 10xx No GPU devices in Cycles Compute Device
I have 4 Geforce GTX 1080.
Nvidia 378.66 driver
Windows 10 64bit.
Blender v2.78b
Blender User Preferences -> System -> Cycles Compute Device -> None
Cycles render does not recognize my 4 Geforce GPU boards. I worked in previous Nvidia and Blender versions.
Therefore the GPU Compute under render settings is also grayed out.

I see that my original post has been marked as a duplicate but the solution to post GPU compute grayed out is not applicable to mine.
I have no CUDA option in User Preferences -> System -> Cycles Compute Device
It says "None" there

Solutions?

Probably since it worked in previous versions and nowbody has come up with a solution. I will to try to report it in even though I´ve never reported a bug before.

The problem is now analyzed. This problem accrues with the latest Nvidia 378.66 drivers for 64 bits, Windows 10 and Geforce 10 series. If I roll back to Nvidia 376.33 it works.
I don´t know who to report to. Nvidia or Blender or both?

Maybe the reason is that Blender doesn't sopport the card when it's in SLI Mode?


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Animated FBX Export Glitch - Foot Bones Jerking
I've come across a troubling issue that I have not been able to solve. When trying to export an animated FBX file from Blender, the resulting file produces weird glitches in the foot bones of the character rig, despite the animation playing perfectly fine inside Blender initially.
I have included a link to a video of the rig with a ultra-simplified box-type mesh for an example. You can see the animation plays fine in Blender, but when you export the FBX and then re-import the FBX file you will see the feet glitching wildly. This behavior was first discovered inside UE4, but it is identical inside Blender after you import the FBX and watch the animation.
Thanks so much for your time in looking into this. If this behavior in the FBX can somehow be avoided by modifying the rig, please let me know. I have tried exporting over 30 times with different settings in both the FBX exporter and the rig itself, but have not been able to fix this.
-Adam

is it possible that i have the same problem: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/122689/weird-bone-axis-rotation-problems-from-blender-to-ue4/122690#122690 ?

I thank God for showing me the solution! All you have to do is add a "false foot" bone that is NOT a deform bone to each leg. I named this bone FootParent.
Connect this bone to the Lower_Leg bone (which has an IK constraint).  Set FootParent's Inherit Rotation and Inherit Scale to off, and add a Copy Rotation constraint which copies your Foot_IK bone (X + Y invert, Target: Local With Parent, Owner: Local).
Now duplicate this FootParent bone (or add a new one in the exact same location and orientation) and name it Foot. This will be your deform bone, and is NOT connected to anything.
Finally add 3 constraints to your Foot bone: Copy Location of the FootParent bone (Target: Local With Parent, Owner: Local); Copy Rotation of your Foot_IK bone (X + Y invert, Target: Local With Parent, Owner: Local), and optionally Copy Scale of your Foot_IK bone (Target: Local, Owner: Local). Now all your animations will export to FBX the way you created them in Blender!

EDIT: SOLUTION FOUND (SEE OTHER POST)
After further investigation, I believe my issue is directly related to this issue. Apparently, when exporting to FBX, you cannot both scale and rotate the parent bone, even if the child has Inherit Scale and Inherit Rotation turned off. It would be great to see a fix for this present limitation somehow. Further examples here.


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Is it possible to add a new window type using the Python API?
It seems that it is possible to add new panels and regions but not new window types (editors) using the Python API.
Is this true? And if so, is it possible that this could be added in the future?

Currently it's not possible, though it's been discussed a few times. Having custom PySpaces would be convenient, but I don't think it's officially on any roadmap.

There's the PyButtons patch to allow custom widgets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRiTfLpRlRU
Gives some freedom, but we lack an empty window type for it...
Note that you can also overlay many editors with draw handlers.


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Smoke Domains in Blender
When doing the fire simulation within Blender Render can the smoke domain be anything other than a cube, such as sphere or other mesh?

You could always try it and see.. ;)

You can use a mesh besides the cube as a smoke domain. I would however always stick to a boxes because Blender smoke simulators uses voxels (small cubes). And  other meshes can cause unpredictable behaviors, although I believe this has improved in recent GSOC. When using other meshes, depending on the smoke simulation's resolution the smoke might b outside of the domain.

you can use the collision mesh inside domain cube
and the smoke mesh inside the collision mesh than play with settings
it will give you nice result


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Particle systems with lamps as the object emitted
I'm currently using Blender 2.69. I was reading up on particle systems in Blender's wiki user manual and I noticed that according to the documentation that in addition to having other object primitives emitted as particles that lamps could be used as well. I tried this out using a simple point light. When I tested the particle animation in wireframe mode I could see that my emitter was emitting the lamps, but the nothing would show up in a render. Could anyone tell what I was doing wrong or is this a bug?

Works for me in both BI and cycles. Could you upload your .blend?

Did you have anything in your scene to light? You won't notice a change unless there are objects for the lights to effect.

I'm feeling that you are trying to emit lamps as they are halos. But they are not, actually. Lamp objects, by itself, cannot be seen in render, unless you use objects with emit shading. This is nothing about particles. If this is what puzzles you.

Once I put a plane in the scene they did show up. The particles acted as expected dying after a period of time and the light in the scene faded. It was interesting experiment and I hope to do something with it :)

@LeonCheung Perhaps you could add an answer?

It is nothing about particle system actually.
As you see, there are some non-mesh type of objects cannot be rendered, such as lamps/bones/cameras/lattices/empties, etc, since they don't have any solid face to render. However, you can still see their effects around the scene as ususal.
Anyway, other options here would be:
For BI:

Instead of lamp, use mesh object with Emit shading enabled;
Group lamp with mesh object, set mesh material type to Halo, emit the whole group as particle unit.

For Cycles:

Use mesh object as particle unit, use Emission shader for material setting. (recommended)


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Making n-sided polygons in Blender 2.69
Is there anyway to create n-sided polygons in Blender without having to set the user preferences to 'enter edit mode' when adding a mesh. I'm asking this because there are times when I want add a cylinder mesh with n-gons on the top or to initialize a mesh previous to adding it to a scene.

Yes This is possible.
For a cylinder:

Press ShiftA> Add mesh > Cylinder
Press F6 and set the Cap Fill Type to Ngon.

If you are looking to do this from python:
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(radius=1, depth=2, end_fill_type='NGON', view_align=False, enter_editmode=False, location=(-2.06615, -0.413393, 3.45981), layers=(True, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))

Or have a look at the bmesh api.
For doing this in the interface, usually one uses Edit mode (perhaps you could elaborate on why this doesn't work for you?). To create an ngon in edit mode, select the faces you wish to convert to a single face and press F.

Either F6 or the Redo panel in the lower left corner of the 3D View sidebar should do the job.


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"Bake" all Particle systems into their object
I have a blender project setup, it is simply a building and a pond that are sitting on a sculpted ground plane. The ground plane has several particle systems setup on it: big and little trees (for a forest), two kinds of grass, some reeds around the edge of the pond.
Then I have a camera that does a dolly move around the bank of the pond, while facing the building. The way the particle systems are setup is: a few parents and very many children that are generated at the time of render. All of the particles are static, (they don't change in any way through the extent of the dolly move).
So when rendering the ground plane particles have to be generated for EVERY frame of the animation even though the particles don't move or anything.
My question is this: is there a way for the children particles to be generated for the first frame and used again and again for the full duration of the animation?
I've done a lot of searching for baking in Blender, but that only has to do with textures (from what I've read). I've searched for "precompiling particles" but that didn't yield anything along the lines of what I was wanting. As you can tell, I'm not even sure what terminology I should be using. Any advice would be appreciated!
Here's a low frame-rate and "rough draft" of my animation: enter link description here

What makes you think that they are being regenerated every frame? I don't have any evidence either way, but I always assumed that this is not the case.

@gandalf3 Well, across the top of the render pane, there is a row of text that tells what blender is doing... Before every frame, it flies through a bunch of different items, then gets to one that says "Synchronizing Object | Ground Plane" it stays there for 20-30 seconds before going on to finish the rest of the objects and begin sampling. I probably don't understand it properly, but I assumed that's why it stay on the synching the ground plane for so long.

I guess we need a developer.. I always thought that was just because there were so many particles (you'll notice it does the same thing on very dense meshes).

Is Physics set to 'No' for the particles? If they are all static as you described, it should help somewhat.

I'll check on that....

You can turn particles into real objects with the convert button in the particles modifier panel.
In this case I think what you may be looking for is BVH caching. Under Render Properties there is a Performance panel. There you will find an option to cache BVH. Blender internal has some different options.
From the 2.62 Release notes -

For renders where only the camera or materials are changing, while meshes stay fixed, it is now possible to skip the sometimes slow BVH step, by enabling BVH Cache in the Performance panel. This will store the BVH on disk for subsequent (animation) renders of the same scene. Note that if the scene does change in the animation, enabling this option will make rendering somewhat slower.

From your sample animation this may not help as the mesh objects in the scene appears to be changing, unless you are making the materials transparent. If you do have this enabled then maybe disabling it will help.
One possibility may be to render the background animation and then composite the shed animation onto it. Another is to animate material transparency instead of object visibility.

I'll try the BVH caching... As far as the object visibility, I'm doing that with a restrict render keyframe, so do you think that makes my animation fall in the category of the "scene changing"?

I'm not sure of the specific workings but I think the render visibility would alter what mesh data gets sent to the renderer, I would expect that to effect the bvh caching.

Well, I tried BVH caching and it increased render times from 20min to 2.5hr. :-(


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How can I get textures from Blender Render into Cycles?
If I made a model with lots of textures in Blender Render and then wanted to use the model in Cycles with all the textures in place, is there a way to export it from Blender Render with the texture data and then import it into Cycles?

You will need to manually re-create the materials. :( I think

:( I wish there was some format that had texture data in it.

@ThomBlairIII obj does, I believe (it's stored in a separate .mtl file)..

well fbx and obj (obj to some extent) can export basic materials from blender internal


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How can I select something if the Gimbal is in the way?
When I'm modeling with the gimbal in view, I frequently cannot select something if the gimbal is in the way:

Is there a way to select through the gimbal, rather than having to move so the gimbal isn't in the way?

Hide the transform manipulators (click the left icon):

You can also use CtrlSpacebar.

Thanks! I knew about that, but I was hoping for a hotkey or something because I keep wanting to quickly use the gimbal when I'm modeling & don't want to have to keep hiding & unhiding it. However, if all else fails, maybe I can use the CTRL SPACEBAR. Actually, I'd love it if somehow you could just select through the gimbal, like if it weren't so sensitive, but I don't know how that'd effect selecting it on purpose.
:\

I think it is fairly common to hide the manipulators and use G,S,R.

It seems that you are using LMB for selection, which is not default setting, and can cause such problem, since dragging with LMB is also a gesture for transforming objects.
As CoDEmanX said, you can either temporally hide the manipulator display, or go to User Preferences > Input, to change the selection button from Left to default Right.

Edit:
If you don't think the LMB dragging gesture is commonly used for you, you can also consider to disable it manually:

Go to User Preferences > Input, uncheck the 3D Manipulator input;
Click Save User Settings.

Well, I had changed the default L & R MBs in my Preferences because my brain wouldn't adapt quickly enough otherwise...that's why I'm using what looks like the wrong MB.

Well, answer updated. Hope it can help some.


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How to show the panel with Geometry - Modification - Offset / Extrude
In this question:
How to make a bevel on text
... the screenshot:

... shows Geometry panel, with Modification: section, with Offset and Extrude inside - how can I show this panel?

It isn't the panel, those are options of the selected object in the Properties editor. They will be shown for any object of the curves type. If you [edit] your question with some context may be it could be easier to answer it.

ah found it, partially through here:
https://spolearninglab.com/curriculum/software/3d_modeling/blender/blender_02.html

You simply have to click on that icon with two white dots connected with a curved line (have no idea how its called, when I do a mouseover over it, I get:
Type of active data to display and edit
Data: Object data
Python: SpaceProperties.context
bpy.Data.screens("Default") ... context

... which tells me absolutely nothing - but by the icon image, I'd guess this submenu is called "Curves"); and then you get Geometry panel...

The tab is called 'object data'. It is the same name the tab would have for meshes, where there is a triangle instead of a curve


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Why are my glass reflections so far apart?
I'm playing round with a fairly common Cycles node setup for glass that gives the reflections of glass but without the darkness that you get with the default glass shader:

The left panel uses a custom 'fast glass' material (node setup below), and the right one uses just the default glass shader. While I'm expecting the double reflections on the left panel - since that's what happens with glass IRL - they seem really far apart depth wise. The glass is only 12mm thick, so I was expecting those two reflections to be almost on top of each other. Also, one of the reflections is noticeably larger than the other, which I imagine is also due to the exaggeration of depth. I'm stumped as to why.
Setup:

Both glass panels have had scale applied.
Both glass panels are closed meshes at 12mm thick.
Both glass panels are flat shaded, with normals facing outwards.
The default glass is using the default glass shader with an IOR of 1.450 degrees.
The 'fast glass' uses the following material:

Edit:
File uploaded here (swapped out the floor so I could drop the texture, but otherwise the nothing else changed):

Tinkering some more, I noticed that if I use the Shadow Ray and Diffuse Ray as my factor I get just the one reflection, so it looks very similar to the standard glass shader, minus the shadow. Interestingly if I use the glossy ray I get a lot of refraction going on, which doesn't seem right given the thickness of the material, but I can't begin to figure out why.

Hard to tell, could be a shading issue. Are your glass objects flat shaded or smooth shaded. Smoothing could be messing up with your normals, leading to unexpected reflection results

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Both are flat shaded, with normals pointing outwards.

Might be nothing to do with the issue, but I'm suspicious of the Math node performing the operation "maximum" (i.e. picking the greater of the two inputs). I would have expected Add.

Could you upload the file for an easier understanding? You can use this link http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ (if some textures, please pack them in)

@Lewis Changing it to Add doesn't appear to make a difference. My - admittedly limited - understanding was that it makes no difference as the factor clamps it down to 1 anyway, so it doesn't matter if 1 or 2 is passed into it.

Well it is definitely related to the Maximum changing it to Add or Subtract* eliminates de double reflection at least.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Odd: I see no difference changing to Add. However, Round or Subtract do remove the double reflection. In lieu of a better solution I might use that for the time being. Would still be great if someone could explain why this is happening: trying to wrap my head around how some of this works is a brain melter!

Eliminating variables all together and removing the Light Path and Math nodes from the equation I think it may be something related to the Shader Mix or the Transparency shader and how they work internally. If you gradually increase it's value by hand you can actually see the reflections gradually growing apart

Maximum is exactly what is giving the reflection, which is a natural occurrence in double pane glass. In reality it is usually barely noticeable, but is there. Adding another source of light will likely alleviate the effect.

@Timaroberts The issue is not that the reflections are there, that is expected and wanted, the issue is that the reflections of each pane look unnaturally apart. Which doesn't happen with the pure glass shader. It is probably an expected side effect of the "cheating" we are introducing into an otherwise physically correct system.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos You're onto something: setting the mix of glass and transparent to 0.5 -- or anything between 0 and 1 --  seems to increase the refraction, which is in turn affecting the reflections. I'm guessing that somehow the mixing the two shaders together messes up how Cycles calculates IOR? Baffling.

It seems to be specifically the inclusion of Reflection Ray into that calculation that breaks the IOR. If you plug just the Shadow Ray input into the mix node directly (bypass the Math node) the results are what you would expect. If you plug Reflection Ray into the mix node directly, you get the odd double reflection. Not sure why, but including Reflection Ray in that calculation breaks it.

Well, someone post the answer... ;-)  And, sounds like a bug perhaps...

I think this should probably be using the 'is Glossy Ray' socket rather than 'is Reflection Ray' for the reflection off the back pane of glass (internal reflection - ie, Glossy on the inside surface) and then mix in a Glossy shader for the reflection of the front surface.

After playing around with it some more, I believe mixing based on the 'is Reflection Ray' is the problem as it is interfering with the natural refraction. Normally a refracted ray must travel both into and out of the solid and the refraction into the solid would refract one way while the refraction out of the solid would refract the opposite way. Using the is Reflected Ray is allowing the ray to refract on entry to the glass but is preventing it from refracting on exiting the glass - so it's as if it's a non-manifold refractive surface which produces strange effects....

The problem is that the Mix node using the 'is Reflection Ray' is causing the glass to behave as a single refractive surface - which doesn't exist in the 'real' world. Normally the refraction would bend the light one way on entering a solid and the other way on exiting the solid, effectively cancelling each other out.
However, I believe the Mix node is resulting in rays entering the glass and being refracted as normal, reflecting off the back surface of the glass, and then passing out of the front surface of the glass without refracting back the other way.
In order to demonstrate this, change the color of the Glass Shader to give the light that passes through it a tint to make it identifiable to that reflected off the surface. Also, increase the IOR to make its effect more pronounced. You should get something like the following :

As you can see, the 'untinted' reflection is the same as that on the surface of the other pane. This is not passing through the glass and is not refracting - it is simply the reflection off the surface of the glass.
The 'tinted' reflection is entering the glass and reflecting off the back surface. However, it is not being refracted at both surfaces - only one since the Mix is causing the surface to behave as Transparent on one transition - and this is causing it to act as a lens.


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Skirt collision with body
Been working with Blender for about 2+ weeks.
I know this sort of question has been asked a lot but I've been struggling for a week now, trying different things to the point where I don't know what I'm doing anymore.
What I want to do is make the skirt collide with the body. Collide and move around the body like how a flag would ripple in the wind if that makes sense to you. A natural movement basically.
I have an armature for the body. A "cage" for the skirt + mesh deform modifier for the skirt. It sways naturally, but that's it. The skirt has automatic weights, by the way. That's why it stretches like so when the foot is lifted (see the screen at the bottom).
I've been trying to follow some tutorial series - Complete Character Rigging Guide (w/ Hair Physics) - Blender Tutorial (by Daniel Kreuter) but it gets too complicated with duplicate armatures and stuff...
I also saw this video:
blender Quick Tips - Cloth Simulation for Animations
I can do the first and last method but I don't understand the second. Not even sure if it would allow me to get that natural flow I'm after.
So, what would be a good approach?
I plan on using all this for a game eventually, I hope.

Quick note:
I can make swinging polygons with armature and empties. Now I have to figure out how to bind this to a mesh. It has to do something with vertex groups.

EDIT:
I don't think the armature and empties will help with achieving natural skirt flow. So I did something else. I moved the armature modifiers on top. Cloth simulation - last. It's a bit better but still not good enough. Have a look:

I've added some polygons on the legs (visible on the right leg), attached them to the corresponding bones and added collision (with default settings). Why? For faster and easier collision detection. The body has a lot of vertices and lags when testing.
The skirt-deformer is a low-poly mesh which is parented to the armature. The skirt is outside the rig with mesh deform bind to the skirt-deformer.
skirt-deformer has cloth simulation so that when it moves, the skirt inside it moves. But something gets messed up. And there's still clipping.
Here's the blend file:

And here's a quick test following  SVAFnemesis' advice:

Result:

The animation is wonky, still getting the hang of it. But still. All this works and is easy. Something with the other file is messed up. Perhaps it's that this skirt has a top cover while the other skirt has a cut out top? My guess is that there's something wrong with the mesh. I'll have to check.
EDIT 2:
I removed the mesh deformer, tweaked cloth simulation values, did some testing and the final result is rather pleasing. I realized I had to run the simulation first, so that when the cloth starts to "sit in" I can move the legs and the collision occurs. I was expecting all this without the simulation running. Just in Pose or Object mode.

from what I have observed from your images, I sense that you might have got your cloth settings wrong. I've done a few successful dress sim before, but I can't advice you anything unless I can get to see your blend file and trouble shoot from there. Try uploading your blend file.

http://i.imgur.com/iky7wpb.gif ; http://i.imgur.com/kX8xhtf.gif ; http://i.imgur.com/1HS1oBa.jpg I hope these three demonstrations can help you understand the basic workflow of simulating dresses. Cloth sim is a very tricky thing, it might take a while before you can get the hang of it. Pay attention to how I stack modifiers of the dress and how I set up the cloth parameters. I've marked them red for you.

@SVAFnemesis, thank you for replying! That's exactly the effect I'm after. I think my workflow is similar but clearly I'm missing a few crucial details. I realized the importance of the stack modifier 2 days ago. I'll upload the blend file tonight, when I get home.

I have looked through your files and I found the following problems. It takes too many words to explain and this comment box won't fit so I have to put them in pictures. Plus for some reason I can't upload my blend file so if you need it we can use email. Explanation - [http://i.imgur.com/0qseE82.png]; End Result - [i.imgur.com/VmqgkNO.gif]; Break Down - [http://i.imgur.com/kf7roI1.jpg]

Oh, my! So many problems!? And how did you find out I scaled the armature? I don't remember that anymore. But I don't see how scaling would cause problems.
You can post and answer and edit it eventually. Even if it doesn't end up being the answer it would still be an answer. As for the blend file, when the link is generated, just change http to https and paste it (if that's the problem you're having. I did.). If not, we can use emails. Let me know what suits you best.

Topology of your dress has to be even - try keeping all polygon in square shape and similar sizes.
Always use collide boxes to collide with your dress.
Don't use mesh cage on your dress unless your dress model is complicated.
Rig your dress to the armature first, and then pin the upper part of the dress, leaving the lower part to be sim. That's about 30% or more that needs to be pinned (half way up the thigh and anything above).
In cloth sim, Set structural to 5 and mass to 1, and start tweaking from there. These two are the crucial factors, Others only serve to improve its behavior. Also, in blender, a large step number doesn't necessarily mean it's better. A lot of times larger step number gives you worse result.
When you are ready to sim it, always start baking from a rest position!
When something's off, free your bake first before fixing it. If you don't free your bake first, your changes will not be applied.

I've updated my post with another file. I didn't do an animation since I don't quite know how to do it. Inserting keyframes for location/rotation with a few connected meshes. Anyway, I'll get there eventually. I tweaked the cloth settings, following your suggested values, of course. I'd say it's a lot better now. An important step was the distance option both for the cloth collision and self collision. Too high values twist and break the mesh. Have a look at the file, if you like, and let me know if it's ok. I think I can safely mark this question as answered.

Two minor problems remained:1. more needs to be pinned. try pinning anything above mid thigh; 2. keep your dress's polygon in near square even size for better result.


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How can I make holes on a wrist strap?
beginner here.
I'm currently modeling my wristwatch and I'm running into some issues making the holes in the strap. I attempted to use the boolean modifier with a cylinder to get the holes out, and while the holes came out great in edit mode, the object itself is looking messed up, probably due to the subsurf:

I've tried edge loops, making a crease, hell, even bevels and nothing is fixing it. Does anyone have an idea as to what could be done to get this working?
Thanks so much!

Slightly corrected file.. Don't create horrible ngons like this.

@Leander thanks for the file, I see what I did wrong in my original.

Using booleans for holes is an easy temptation, but often brings horrible results, due to horrible topology. I would try something simpler like this:

and then let subsurf make the rounding:

Thanks so much! Definitely won't be using the Boolean modifier for holes anymore, such a headache!

Note: in this case, since it was simple, I suggested to avoid booleans, but there are cases where you can't avoid them, or they can help immensely (see other answers like http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/71947/artifacts-with-boolean-modifier/72029#72029 or http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/64567/partial-shape-subtracting-only/64696#64696). Booleans can create easily very complex holes shapes, but since good topology is always your friend, if you MUST use boolean holes, take some time to clean topology after (ie: retopology, a task that is also often needed after sculpting).

I guess my solution is the same as m.ardito .....


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How to fix Mixamo Rootbaker error message in Blender?
While trying to use the "Convert Single" option of the Mixamo Rootbaker addon in Blender to bake root motion from a single existing action in my .blend file (NOT using "Batch Convert"), I kept getting the following message: "Error: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'frame_range'". However, I want to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for showing me a great solution for this issue, which I will share below, along with some helpful tips to fix another major error you might encounter when baking root motion for export to Unreal Engine!

Not sure why someone down-voted this, but there's a lot of useful info in this Question and Answer-style post for Blender users who are exporting Mixamo root-motion animation to Unreal Engine.

Prerequisite Step 1:
First, if you are using Blender 3.1 - 3.3 or newer, make sure you are using the NEW fork of Mixamo Converter by "brkeejp" on Github (available here),  otherwise the addon will give you a different error message: "NLA_OT_bake.frame_start expected an int type, not float". However, the older Mixamo converter by "enziop" will still work fine up to Blender 3.0.1 only (01-26-2022 release).
Prerequisite Step 2:
(If you are NOT using a dual-rig system, you can ignore Prerequisite Step 2.)
If you are working with a dual rig system (control rig and a game rig as described in CG Dive's YouTube tutorials) keep in mind that Mixamo Rootbaker addon will clear your constraints, which is NOT desirable for this setup.
To avoid this, be sure to do all your root motion conversion in a COPY of your main .blend file. Then you can "Append" the newly created actions later into your main .blend file which still has the constraints active.
Steps to fix:

The 'frame_range' error is caused by trying to bake rootmotion on a NLA strip, instead of a raw Action. First, deselect all NLA strips on your armature from the Non-Linear Animation editor.

Next, open the Dope Sheet and switch to the Action Editor. Click on the "Browse Action to be linked" button (beside the "+ New" button) and select your action containing root motion (if you have lots of Actions, you can start typing its name into the search field to find it quicker).

VERY IMPORTANT: Hit the number shown beside your action's name in the Action Editor to make a single user copy. We do NOT want to override our existing action! Rename this new action to something like "RootMotion-SOURCE".

Now open the Mixamo Rootbaker properties (hit "N" in the 3D view and select the "Mixamo" tab). Deselect "Use Z" and "Transfer Rotation" (unless your particular animation requires this, such as for curved walking or jumping).

Click "Advanced Properties" and if you want to preserve your existing bone names, uncheck "Remove Namespaces". Also uncheck "Fix Bind" and "Apply Rotation". TIP: If the root motion only occurs in one axis (such as moving forward), you can use the "Limit X" or "Limit Y" options to constrain motion to that one axis only.

Now scroll back up and click "Convert Single". After a few seconds your action will be converted to have true root motion. Note that your armature will be renamed to "root" with a small "r".

Now you can "Push Down" that new action to the NLA editor. Compare it to the original animation (before conversion) on a track below it.

BONUS STEPS: You may notice a slight shift in one of the axes, where the armature's location in the new converted action does not match the original. You can verify this by selecting your armature in Object Mode and viewing the Transform properties. If it does not show 0,0,0 for X,Y,Z then an incorrect offset was added. You can fix it like this:

Make sure only the original, non-converted action's NLA strip is active. Now in Object Mode, select your armature, and hit "Alt-G" to clear its location (its Object coordinates were messed up when we toggled on/off the converted action Mixamo Rootbaker created, but it will now reset to 0,0,0 in X,y,Z).

Again, make sure only the original, non-converted action's NLA strip is active. Now enter Pose mode and select the Hips bone, and hit Shift-S > Cursor to Selected. VERY IMPORTANT: Be careful to NOT accidentally move the cursor from this point on, or you will have to go back and redo steps 8 and 9 again.

Now mute that original NLA strip and activate the new "RootMotion-SOURCE" strip.

Finally, click "New" in the Action Editor and name this action something like RootMotion-FIX.

Select the temporary track for this new Action at the top of your NLA editor (it is highlighted in orange). Hit "N" to bring up the properties panel in the NLA editor and in the "Blending" drop-down, select, "Combine".

Now we need to apply a two-fold correction. First, in Object mode, select your armature and hit Alt-G to clear its location. Now hit "I" to insert a keyframe and choose "Location". This fixes the object-level shift.

Next, enter Pose Mode, select the Hips bone and hit Shift-S > Selection to Cursor, and hit "I" to insert a keyframe and choose "Location". This fixes the pose-level shift.

"Push Down" this new Action and make sure the track is above the track containing your converted root motion action (use the Page Down/Up keys to reposition the track).

Since this "RootMotion-FIX" strip is only 1 frame long, in the properties panel, under "Action Clip", set the End to match the end frame of your "RootMotion-SOURCE" strip.

If you toggle the track with this new "RootMotion-FIX" NLA strip on/off, you can see that it appears to shift the origin point while keeping all the bones stationary. (CAUTION: Do not toggle other tracks on/off because you may mess up all the resets you did up to this point and have to start from Step 8 again.) We now want to bake both these actions into ONE action again for exporting to Unreal Engine.

With BOTH the "RootMotion-SOURCE" NLA strip AND the "RootMotion-FIX" NLA strip active in the NLA editor, enter Pose Mode on your armature.

19.Hit "A" to select all bones (it's not necessary to select non-deforming bones unless you have those bones driving custom shapekeys in this particular action). Now hit "F3" to bring up the search field and type "bake". Select "Pose > Animation > Bake Action".

Make sure your Start and End frames are correct, your Frame Step is 1, and select "Only Selected Bones" and "Visual Keying". Leave everything else unselected. VERY IMPORTANT: Under "Bake Data", select "Pose" and Shift-select "Object" so BOTH are selected. (We need to make sure that "Object" is also selected, otherwise the root motion data (along with our object-level fix) will not transfer to the new baked action). Now press "OK".

A new action will be created in the Action Editor. Name this new action something like, "RootMotion-EXPORT". "Push Down" this action and compare it to your Original source action. They should now match perfectly in terms of location-- but now you can see the difference between root motion and no root motion! (With root motion, the armature's origin will move WITH the character's motion, but without root motion, the origin will remain at 0,0,0 while the character continues to move beyond it.)

Now with only this new "RootMotion-EXPORT" strip active, you can export it to Unreal Engine using the following recommended Blender to Unreal Engine export settings.
PLEASE NOTE: If the "RootMotion-SOURCE" OR the "RootMotion-FIX" strips are active at any time, they will affect the Object coordinates of your armature, even in unrelated actions. It is very important to double-check that your armature's Object coordinates are at 0,0,0 before attempting to export any other NLA strips to Unreal Engine. (If they're not, just hit Alt-G to clear the armature's location and reset its coordinates to the world origin. It's also probably wise to mute or delete these two pesky NLA strips once you have baked them, so you don't accidentally mess up the origin point of any of your other animations.) I hope this info helps!


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Radial Symmetry in Sculpt Mode does NOT work on Asymmetrical Mesh
I'm wondering if this is a bug or a limitation of the current sculpting tools.
I have a slightly asymmetrical mesh and I am trying to sculpt lines on the bottom of it in a fan-like pattern (shown below).

Unfortunately, the pattern comes out like this, where only a few lines are drawn (instead of the full 360 degree radial symmetry). I have the falloff mode set to "Sphere":

Now, if I set the falloff mode to "Projected", then it "appears" to draw the lines, however, they are drawn horribly wrong (the lines reverse their sculpt direction while passing over the mesh's normals, with some pointing up, some pointing down, but mostly just skewed sideways in a weird way.
"Sculpt Plane" is set to "Area Plane" and "Front Faces Only" is checked, but I have also tried a plethora of different combinations and nothing seems to work, so this is why I thought it is either a bug or a limitation. What are your thoughts? Thanks so much!

I thank God for showing me what was causing this issue. This is due to the mesh being both convex (pointing outward) and concave (pointing inward) at the same time. In this case, the mesh is convex in the Y-axis and is concave in the X-Axis. I have filed a bug report HERE and will update this answer with more details.
UPDATE: As Philipp Oeser observed, the radial strokes are distributed on a "flat" plane around the specified access which results in strokes missing areas that are non-flat. However, the effect can be mostly mitigated by switching the Brush Falloff from "Sphere" to "Projected" and checking the box for "Original Normal" under Advanced Brush Settings. However, you will still get flattening wherever the surface normal becomes perpendicular to the orthographic view, and the sculpt will actually invert wherever the surface normal changes completely (from concave to convex, or from convex to concave), which may be a current limitation of how the tool works.