text:
Understanding automatic key frames insertion
In my animation, I am using the red button to automatically insert key frames. So, it automatically saves Rot/scale and location. However, suppose that I need to just save the rotation of the object, so I click I and to choose Rotation and I expect that in the dopesheet the LocRotScale will be changed to Rot only, but it does not change. I know that I can turn off the red button and insert key frames with rotation only. However, I see a lot of tutorials that use the red button and I to insert key frames but I do not understand its utility? Any explanation will be appreciated.

Using I could be used to add additional features to the keyframe, sadly not to limit them. You will need to skip that keyframe and come back to it with auto keyframes turned off.

To the right of the red button, there are some keys. There you can choose which keys to be keyframed automatically.

Do you want to keyframe only one thing(for example only rotation), for several frames? Or is it just one place where you want this, and you need everything else (scale and loc) to be deleted?

SOLUTION: If you only want 1 key (loc, rot, or scale) and not all of them you must first record your motion and then go into graph editor and delete the keys you don't want. For example, if I want to move and rotate a hand, I can't do both at once while recording. So I start by rotating it so it waves. The auto-keyframe button records all keys and not just rotation, so if I try to record location afterwards, it's going to jump and glitch all over because its location was originally keyframed when I rotated it. So I go into graph editor and delete the XYZ location keyframes. That way I can record location without the buggyness. Hope this helps. ;)

It's a shame Blender can't just limit the keys it creates to only the property you're actually animating. If I am just animating rotation at a particular frame, then I just want a rotation keyframe there, not Loc/Rot/Scale. But then if I limit the active set to rotation only, I have to do a separate pass for rotation and then position which is not great either. You're given a choice of too many keyframes or not enough. I wonder if there's an addon for this....?

This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post; instead, provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker. - From Review


text:
Paste flip animation does not give the expected results
I am doing a walk cycle using an imported .mhx file. To do the walk cycle, I animate the legs and hand for the first frame then I paste the inverse in the frame 21 (in my case).
In the first scenario: I imported the model then I click in the red button and I made the walk cycle without problem (see fig 1 and 2)

In the second case: I moved the model in an other place without insert any key frames (I turn off the button red)

after that I turn on the red button and I apply the same process but I remark that the person flip relative to the x-axis. I did not understand why I did not get the same results? (because I did not insert any key frame when I moved the person!!!)

It is incomprehensible problem! I think that is related to makehuman

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
What is the difference between IK and FK in animation on blender
I am in the final phase of my project. I want to do animation using model imported from MakeHuman. I remark in the properties of the model there is two mode FK (forward kinematic) (default mode) and IK (inverse Kinematic) to move our model. What is the difference between both modes. I could use easily the FK mode but in the IK mode some lines are added (see figure 2)and when  I try to move it in order to move leg or arms of a person, i get nothing!!

The lines you're talking about are not controlers but targets. As you may know, elbow and knee bend only 1 side, the target allows an IK to know wich side by pointing at the target. try to make your character kneel and move the knee target to see what i mean.

With inverse kinematics (IK) the hands and feet will keep their position when the body is moved. When you switch from FK to IK you need to enable the layers for IK also.

FK and IK have different control bones (custom shapes) for both modes. With IK you control the pose with the large plate shaped widgets at the hands and feet.
The lines you see are pole targets and allow to control the position of the knee or elbow.
IK example

With forward kinematics (FK) each bone from shoulder to wrist needs to be adjusted. This is exactly how bones can be moved right after creation.
FK example

Movement with arms still set to IK but leg to FK
Rigs like Makehuman or MHX allow you to switch from IK to FK separately for the legs and arms. You can even control the influence of the FK/IK controls.

The snap buttons allow copying from the IK position to FK and vice versa.

Here Rigify

MHX

thanks, Snap is very important because i can swich between modes without lost of motion. I think that IK is very important to move a group of bones by moving the parent and to details some motion, we can use the FK, for example to move just the toe or foot, we can note use the IK but it is obligate to use FK mode.

If you get nothing that is no motion when you move the arm or leg IK .. Go to user preferences and check "Autorun Scripts". That should work.

Original Article: Overview of Inverse Kinematics
What is Forward Kinematics?
Before we can get into what Inverse Kinematics is, we need to figure out what Forward Kinematics is. The Forward Kinematics function/algorithm takes a pose as the input, and calculates the position of the end effector as the output. Forward Kinematics is the inverse function of Inverse Kinematics. With Forward Kinematics, you need to define the whole pose of an articulated body so as to provide the function/algorithm with the pose input. This means you need to define the articulation of each joint in the articulated body. This might be fine if you have a low number of joints, but with a high number of joints this tends to be tedious.
What is Inverse Kinematics?
Now, imagine if you’d like the end effector of your articulated body to reach a particular target position. This means that you know the end effector position you’d like to target, but you don’t know what the pose of the articulated body needs to be for the end effector to reach this target position. This is where Inverse Kinematics shines!
Inverse Kinematics is the inverse function/algorithm of Forward Kinematics. The Forward Kinematics function/algorithm takes a target position as the input, and calculates the pose required for the end effector to reach the target position — the pose is the output.
With Inverse Kinematics, you do not need to define the whole pose of an articulated body — this gets calculated for your by the IK algorithm. With IK, you only need to define a position as the input.
Inverse Kinematics does all the challenging computational work of calculating what the pose is. In the Before State, there is an articulated body with some known pose. It defines a target position for the end effector to try to reach. Once the IK algorithm is applied to the articulated body, we have reached the After State. The After State shows that a new pose has been computed, such that the end effector is now at the target position.

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

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text:
How to make NLA strip rotate based on previous action?
in this file http://pasteall.org/blend/34781, i would that the person turn left and continue to walk but there is a little bit problem that i could understand that canceled the turn left action. Could you help me

Your blend file link is dead, please reupload it to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/.

Instead of piling up so many actions it is way easier to control the characters movement by using curves and follow path constraints, the influence of each segment must be defined by keyframing the influence slider and the offset value controls when the curve comes into play.

This would allow you to order the actions subsequent in a single actions strip. Only one to control the curves influence is added on top.

One important thing is to start curve 1 with an influence of 1 and setting another keyframe with influence 1 before you set it to 0 when the second path should take over otherwise the values in between would be interpolated.
Also note that the number of frams for the curve can be adjusted in the curves properties:

Thanks for your suggestion. You have had just a small error about the head rotation in the BezierCurvetodoor.

I tried to do agin your work using curves. I start simply by using only the first curve. However, I remark that curve did not show in the dopesheet panel and person did not move.

@startingBlender curves don't have keyframes and therefore don't show up in the dopesheet. The character will only move in the range defined between follow path offset - curve frames.

I think that I have to key frame the Evaluation time in order to get the person moving

Don't know why, doesn't the uploaded file work for you?

It works, but i remark that you keyframed the time evaluation of the curves in order to get the person moving. It is a little bit difficult for me. It seems that you changed a lot of parameters not only offset and influence. I also remark that you have not keyframed the offset. When I play the animation, its color does not change to green or yellow it is always gray.

I think the green color indicates that this value is calculated as a driver value or something like that. I don't remember to have this keyframed.

Green - Property has Channel with Keyframes.

to correct the head rotation problem, you have to enable head inherit. Thanks

I resolve it. You have to cancel the rotation master before starting the new moving cycle. This is my new file .blender

What do you mean by cancel? removing the rotation channels from master? I think you would be better off using paths with follow path constraints, this should be easier.

@stacker   Yes, I am thinking about it. I have tried using a bezier curve but I am wondering if I could interpose different actions between extremities.

@stacker, do have any experience with MakeWalk?

No, I hadn't much luck with the additional scripts from the makehuman project.


text:
How Can I change the Alpha parameter in this Material nodes
I am doing animation using MakeHuman and blender in the Cycle Render mode. As mentioned this image, I try to fix materials for the skin of the person. I just need to know How can change the parameter value of alpha. Any help?

use the math node to modify the alpha output of the image :

I have used the search tools  but I did not find the multiply node.

@startingBlender it is called MATH node you find i in converter-->math


text:
Reduce Noise on cycles engine and CPU
I have watched a lot of tutorials about how to reduce noise and rendering time and each one suggest some tips. In this scene http://www.pasteall.org/blend/35436, I remark that there are some noise points on the floor despite of it is flat surface and not very textured. In addition the hair of the person is very blurred. First, I fixed the samples as 100 and I have the image below. Second, I fix the samples as 200 but I still had noise in the floor. I try to modify other parameters (I have used limited global illumination as light paths and in the world scene and lamp i check the Multiple importance option).
Any suggestion will be appreciated.

What is your hair material like?

@NoviceInDisguise, I applied a texture image that gives by MakeHuman software


text:
How can I edit F-curves of an action already put in the NLA editor
I am wondering if it is possible to edit curves of action already put in the NLA editor. And suppose that I have an action that extents from the frame 0 to frame 40 and in the NLA editor Strip Extents is from 1000 to 2000 (I scale the action). However, I discover that the action is not very tuned and I need to move hands or rotate  little bit the head. How can I edit this in original action not in strip. Hope that my question is clear, otherwise, I can put my file.blend

Position your cursor over the track in the NLA editor and hit TAB.  This will enable the editing mode for that NLA track (it should turn green).  If you have an F-curve editor open at the same time, the animation curve for the NLA track will appear in it a allow editing.  (Ensure that the 'Only include channels relating to selected objects and data' option is NOT selected in the F-curve toolbar).

I couldn't find the option for "Only include channels relating to selected objects and data" to confirm that it's not selected. Would you mind adding a screen shot of where this option is located? Thanks

on the screenshots in the bottom, there's a little button with a cursor icon - that's it


text:
Rendering with direct lighting takes too long
I'm using Cycles to  render a simple scene that consists of a simple house (4 cubes and 1 plane), which contains some furniture (see my file http://www.pasteall.org/blend/35552 ). Normally, using direct lighting allows me to reduce the render time considerably. So I fixed the bounce max and min to 1. I used path tracing integrator and limited global illumination as Light Paths option.

I have not used  any texture image for the furniture. I used just a diffuse material (diffuse BSDF node).
The rendering time is 20 s/ frame on CPU i7 dual core and 8 GB RAM. I think it is too long for direct lighting. Any comments?

For direct lighting in Cycles, you need to set bounces to 0, not 1, as done by the Direct Light preset. There is a bounce of indirect light in your render.
If you want to get performance closer to Blender Internal direct lighting, you can switch to branched path tracing, lower AA samples to e.g. 8, and increase the samples on the individual lights and world as needed to reduce noise.

thanks for you response, I have reduced the time complexity but the image is very noise. What did you mean by "and increase the samples on the individual lights and world as needed to reduce noise."

If you enable the branched path tracing integrator you can go to the light and world properties to set the number samples for each.

I read carefully the blender wiki in this link http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Render/Cycles/Integrator and I found that "Setting it to maximum 1 bounce results in direct lighting.
" So, It was an error in blender wiki or what?

Yes, it was a mistake in the wiki.


text:
script for rendering a simple scene
I am beginner in python script with blender. To start, I write a script to render a simple scene using the cycle engine and a fisheye camera. here is my script:
import bpy
from mathutils import *
from math import *
#delete the cube
bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False)
# Add a camera fish eye.
bpy.context.scene.render.engine = 'CYCLES'
bpy.ops.object.camera_add(view_align=True, location=(0, 0, 2.5), rotation=(0, 0, 0))
bpy.context.object.rotation_euler[0] = 0
bpy.context.object.rotation_euler[1] = 0
bpy.context.object.rotation_euler[2] = 0
bpy.context.object.data.type = 'PANO'
bpy.context.object.data.cycles.fisheye_lens = 2.7
bpy.context.object.data.cycles.fisheye_fov = 3.14159
bpy.context.object.data.sensor_width = 8.8
bpy.context.object.data.sensor_height = 6.6
#Add a lamp.
bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='POINT', radius=1, view_align=False, location=(0, 1.5, 2.5),
layers=(True, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))
bpy.context.object.data.shadow_soft_size = 0.01
bpy.context.object.data.cycles.cast_shadow = True
#Import the model .mhx in the scene
bpy.ops.import_scene.makehuman_mhx(filepath="/Users/xxx/Documents/MakeHuman/v1/exports/scene1/person1.mhx")
#Set the rendering parameter
bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_x = 1360
bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_y = 1024
bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_percentage = 50
bpy.context.scene.frame_start = 1
bpy.context.scene.frame_end = 2
bpy.context.scene.frame_step = 1
bpy.context.scene.render.pixel_aspect_x = 1
bpy.context.scene.render.pixel_aspect_y = 1
bpy.context.scene.render.use_file_extension = True
bpy.context.scene.render.image_settings.color_mode ='RGBA'
bpy.context.scene.render.image_settings.file_format='PNG'
bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = "/Users/xx/Desktop/pythonscript/"
bpy.context.scene.render.image_settings.compression = 90
##sampling;=path tracing
bpy.context.scene.cycles.progressive = 'PATH'
bpy.context.scene.cycles.samples = 50
bpy.context.scene.cycles.max_bounces = 1
bpy.context.scene.cycles.min_bounces = 1
bpy.context.scene.cycles.glossy_bounces = 1
bpy.context.scene.cycles.transmission_bounces = 1
bpy.context.scene.cycles.volume_bounces = 1
bpy.context.scene.cycles.transparent_max_bounces = 1
bpy.context.scene.cycles.transparent_min_bounces = 1
bpy.context.scene.cycles.use_progressive_refine = True
bpy.context.scene.render.tile_x = 64
bpy.context.scene.render.tile_y = 64
#insert the walls
#1)the floor
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_plane_add(radius=1, view_align=False, enter_editmode=False, location=(0, 0, 0), layers=(True, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))
bpy.context.object.dimensions[0] = 4
bpy.context.object.dimensions[1] = 4
bpy.context.object.dimensions[2] = 0
#1)Wall 1
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(view_align=False, enter_editmode=False, location=(0, 2, 1.25), layers=(True, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))
bpy.context.object.dimensions[0] = 4
bpy.context.object.dimensions[1] = 0.05
bpy.context.object.dimensions[2] = 2.5
bpy.context.object.location[2] = 1.25
bpy.context.object.location[1] = 2

#Render results
bpy.ops.render.render(animation=True)

I remark that the image rendered using the GUI and using the script are different.

You created a second camera, but you didn't assign it to be the camera for the scene:
--- /var/tmp/se1.py     2015-06-22 16:37:30.703514909 -0400
+++ /var/tmp/se2.py     2015-06-22 16:41:47.687236739 -0400
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
 bpy.context.object.data.cycles.fisheye_fov = 3.14159
 bpy.context.object.data.sensor_width = 8.8
 bpy.context.object.data.sensor_height = 6.6
+bpy.context.scene.camera = bpy.context.object
 #Add a lamp.
 bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='POINT', radius=1, view_align=False, location=(0, 1.5, 2.5),
 layers=(True, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))

You might also want to set your frame_end=1 instead of 2.
Another strange thing about this script is that it keeps creating new objects, so you can't run it repeatedly in the same scene without weirdness (probably some Z fighting) as objects and lamps accumulate.

@I did not understand what do you mean by "you created a second camera". Keep in mind that the script is written in .py file and executed using this command     blender --background --python script.py. I did not write the script using blender GUI.

If you leave out the --background you will get the blender UI and you can look at the outliner to see that there is a Camera and Camera.001 after running your script.  If you really want to get rid of all the starting objects (cube, lamp, camera) you might want to stick a   for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects: bpy.context.scene.objects.unlink(obj) at the start.

Sorry, I see. I have just deleted the cube and I keep the lamp and the camera

Why the cube does not have the dimensions fixed in the script?

Are you perhaps referring to the default cube that comes with the scene and is there before your script is run?   Your script does not have any code that would alter that default cube.

Is there any tutorial with examples for blender scripting?

Google comes up with several links when I search for blender python tutorial.


text:
How to generate a 3D binary matrix after applying a remesh modifier
I apply a Remesh modifier (Blocks) on a mesh and I want to generate a 3D binary matrix (voxelization) where each cell contains 0 (the cell does not belongs to the mesh) or 1 (the cells belongs to the mesh).

How is tied not s duplicate of your other recent question?

@someonewithpc, it is the same problem but I find two different solutions. It is not a duplicate

What is a binary matrix? Do you mean a separate file containing binary 3D data?

I'm not sure I understand how this is different from your other question, can you elaborate?

@ChristopherJanzon, Could you please explain how to  pointInsideMesh(point,ob) work in your code?

@startingBlender I actually got it from googling "bpy inside mesh" and found this.

suppose that the object is located on (0,0,0) and we can put it in a 3D bounding box with defined by xmin,xmax, ymin,ymax and zmin zmax.

my code:
import bpy
import numpy as np
object = bpy.data.objects['modelPerson:Body']
#radius = 2.0
#resolution = 20
xmin=-1
xmax=1
ymin=-1
ymax=1
zmin=0
zmax=1.75;
size =.02# size of voxel 2cm*2cm*2cm
matrix=np.zeros((len(np.arange(xmin,xmax,size)),len(np.arange(ymin,ymax,size)),len(np.arange(zmin,zmax,size))))
import mathutils
from mathutils import Vector
def pointInsideMesh(point,ob):
 axes = [ mathutils.Vector((1,0,0)) ]
 outside = False
 for axis in axes:
    mat = ob.matrix_world
    mat.invert()
    orig = mat*point
    count = 0
    while True:
        location,normal,index = ob.ray_cast(orig,orig+axis*10000.0)
        if index == -1: break
        count += 1
        orig = location + axis*0.00001
    if count%2 == 0:
        outside = True
        break
 return not outside

bla = 1
i=-1
for x in np.arange(xmin, xmax,size):
    i=i+1
    j=-1
    for y in np.arange(ymin, ymax,size):
        j=j+1
        k=-1
        for z in np.arange(0, zmax,size):
            k=k+1
            loc = Vector((x*bla, y*bla, z*bla))
            print(loc)
            if(pointInsideMesh(loc, object) == True):
                matrix[i,j,k]=1
            else:
                matrix[i,j,k]=0
np.savetxt('matrix.csv', matrix.reshape(1,len(np.arange(xmin,xmax,size))*len(np.arange(ymin,ymax,size))*len(np.arange(zmin,zmax,size))),delimiter=',')

Alright, if I understood your question correctly, you want a lot of ones and     zeros from a 3D mesh. Here's a script:
import bpy

object = bpy.data.objects['Suzanne']
radius = 2.0
resolution = 20
file = open("C:\\tmp\\out.txt", 'w')

import mathutils
from mathutils import Vector
def pointInsideMesh(point,ob):
 axes = [ mathutils.Vector((1,0,0)) ]
 outside = False
 for axis in axes:
    mat = ob.matrix_world
    mat.invert()
    orig = mat*point
    count = 0
    while True:
        location,normal,index = ob.ray_cast(orig,orig+axis*10000.0)
        if index == -1: break
        count += 1
        orig = location + axis*0.00001
    if count%2 == 0:
    outside = True
    break
return not outside

bla = radius/resolution

out = ""

for z in range(-resolution, resolution):
    for y in range(-resolution, resolution):
        for x in range(-resolution, resolution):
            loc = Vector((x*bla, y*bla, z*bla))
            print(loc)
            if(pointInsideMesh(loc, object) == True):
                out += '1'
            else:
                out += '0'
        out += '\n'
    out += '\n'
file.write(out)
file.close()

Again, I'm not fully sure this will answer your question, but I had fun making this script.

thanks for your answer. I need just to save the binary value in a 3D matrix like nump.zeros((dimx, dimy, dimz)) then, I save the matrix as ,csv file.

you can see my ansewer!

I changed the script so that it gets you a 3D numpy array, a 1D array, a CSV string and it writes that one to a file.
import bpy
import numpy as np
import mathutils
from mathutils import Vector

object = bpy.data.objects['Suzanne'] # Object
file = "C:\\tmp\\out.txt" # File output

resolution = 10 # Voxels per lengt unit
location = Vector((0.0,0.0,0.0)) # Center
size = Vector((1.0,1.0,1.0)) # Size

def pointInsideMesh(point,ob):
    axes = [ mathutils.Vector((1,0,0)) ]
    outside = False
    for axis in axes:
        mat = ob.matrix_world
        mat.invert()
        orig = mat*point
        count = 0
        while True:
            location,normal,index = ob.ray_cast(orig,orig+axis*10000.0)
            if index == -1: break
            count += 1
            orig = location + axis*0.00001
        if count%2 == 0:
            outside = True
            break
        return not outside

x_bla = int(size[0]/(1/resolution))
y_bla = int(size[1]/(1/resolution))
z_bla = int(size[2]/(1/resolution))

out=np.zeros((x_bla,y_bla,z_bla), dtype=np.int)

for z in range(-int(z_bla/2), int(z_bla/2)):
    for y in range(-int(y_bla/2), int(y_bla/2)):
        for x in range(-int(x_bla/2), int(x_bla/2)):
            loc = Vector((location[0]+(1/resolution)*x, location[1]+(1/resolution)*y, location[2]+(1/resolution)*z))
            if(pointInsideMesh(loc, object) == True):
                out[x][y][z] = 1

out_1D = np.empty((x_bla*y_bla*z_bla), dtype=int)
out_csv = ""

count = 0
for z in out:
    for y in z:
        for x in y:
            out_1D[count] = int(x)
            count+=1
for a in out_1D:
    out_csv += str(a)+","

print(out_csv)
out_file = open(file, "w")
out_file.write(out_csv)
out_file.close()

The way you use this script is changing 'Suzanne' in the top of the code with the name of the object you want to voxelize, change the rest of the parameters as you'd like and then do the following.
Choose screen layout Scripting, make a script and paste the script. With the script active, press Alt + P to run the script.

Your CSV file should end up where specified.


text:
How to import a .mhx file into blender using a python script
I need to write a python script in order to import .mhx file and management it. I don't if it is possible to do that or no? Any help?

Make human comes with a script to import MHX files into blender. there are tutorials at the main website http://www.makehuman.org/documentation

If this is a question about python you may better ask it on the main SO. Maybe you should edit your question to "how can I export MakeHuman files to Blender"

Download the make human blender tools from the make human website.
Open the zip. It will create a "blendertools" folder where you opened it.
Install the make human scene importer script:
blendertools\mhx_importer\import_scene_mhx.py
Once the plugin is installed, this command will become available to you via python:
bpy.ops.import_scene.makehuman_mhx(filter_glob="*.mhx", filepath="", scale=1, advanced=False, enforce=True, mesh=True, proxy=True, cage=False, clothes=True, shapekeys=True, drivers=False, diamond=False, rigify=True)

Thanks. I guess not all of these parameters are needed? Some of them must be set by default

Sure, every param there has a default value, though I'd make sure to provide a value for the filepath param :)

Have you had a look at the blender-addons repository?
There are quite a few resources available for you to dive in, like this one for example:
io_import_scene_mhx.py
The ImportMhx class at line 2958 gives you a good starting point.

For some reasons the newer version of MakeHuman (1.1.x) have removed the .mhx export option! Somebody has developed the MHX2 plugin which you can download from here or from the BitBucket repo. Then following the instructions on the README file:

copy the 9_export_mhx2 folder to the MakeHuman plugins folder. For example on macOS it is in /Applications/MakeHuman.app/Contents/Resources/plugins
copy the import_runtime_mhx2 folder to the Blender addons folder. On my macOS it is on /Users/userName/Library/Application Support/Blender/2.79/scripts/addons
The you may follow these instructions to activate the plugin on Blender

After that you can export as mhx2 and then directly import in Blender.


text:
How to generate a mesh based on MakeHuman model
I am using a makeHuman to model different body person. I am wondering if it is possible to generate a mesh by sampling this model on cube or triangle or any other geometric form. Is this suggestion make sense? it it is not. How can generate a human mesh? Thanks

did you try the import plugin? it is included but not enabled by default. It should be able to create a blender model (mesh) from a mhx file

@m.ardito, In fact, I need a mesh to import it to Matlab or mathematica to process it

@startingBlender Does the answer you posted answer your question? If not, could you explain what you want in more detail?

@someonewithpc, yes it answer my question

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not about Blender.

@someonewithpc, bravo!?

We can export the MakeHuman model as .STL file and after that , we can easily Import a 3D model from STL as a MeshRegion object in mathematica
How to import an 3D model from .STL file as meshregion on mathematica


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How to write a python script to execute a .blend file and modify it
I am doing a complicated 3D scene model. Actually, I am using the blender GUI (not python script) to do it. Once I designed the scene, I need to move randomly an object in the scene for many times. So, I am wondering, if possible to write a python script that execute the *.blend file and then in the same script, I write lines to move randomly the object. Any suggestion?

do you mean "Open" by "execute" , is your workflow like this  : 1-Open the blend file of the scene  2-move the object 3-do something 3-close without saving , and repeat

@Chebhou, I need to write a script xxx.py that include kind of execute or import of .blend file and below that a loop to move an object randomly in the scene and for example after each iteration i can save a mesh as *.stl file.

so you have the scene blend file open, then import the object from another blend file , move the object and export each time

import bpy
from random import randint

# Generate 50 cubes in random locations for i in range(50):
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location = [ randint( -10, 10 ) for axis in 'xyz' ])

Replace cube with your model and this should work.


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Why these images in mode (rendered ) previous and in mode render are not the similar?
Here is a rendering of human character, the top image is from the view3D window using "Display render preview" and the bottom image is the result of rendering. I remark that these images are not identical as expected! Normally, I want to get the top image in both cases? Any explanation ?

Try pressing the "Zero" key to look through the camera.

Related:What are the technical differences between F12 render and viewport preview?


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How to simulate an Infrared light source model
I want to simulate a real image captured by an infrared camera under an infrared light source illumination. The length  of infrared wavelength is 850nm. How does we do such experimentation on blender. Is it possible to do it?

What is the visual result you expect? Are you trying to achieve thermal imaging like effect, or one of those monochrome night-vision like images? Can you provide a few image examples of what you are trying to do? Either way that is probably best achieved in post production with some filter effects in the compositor nodes or something.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos  I did not talking about thermal imaging. I need monochrome night-vision like images.

Tristimulus models such as RGB are effectively a wide band visible spectral light emulation, making such experiments impossible.
Even spectral based renderers might have a hard time with spectral rendering when dealing with non-visible infra red or ultra violet, depending on how they have been designed.


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Rendering sharp shadow on cycle rendering
I would generate a clear shadow projected on a floor. I am wondering what is the essential node used to achieve this.
I am using these nodes

and I get this image, I remark that the shadow is blurred (a lot of penumbra). I fix the focus at the floor and I try to change the Aperture (F/stop) to fit the depth of field.

Do you mean clear as in not blurry, ie sharp?

@RayMairlot, I edit my text. I mean it is blurred

on sun, point and spot lamps, you can reduce the size to get sharp shadows

@Bithur, It is possible to reduce the penumbra?

@startingBlender Scale it down alot. The larger a light source the softer the shaodw. If your light source is tiny, you shadows will be sharp

@GiantCowFilms, you mean I scale the point light? I scale it 0.01 but it does not change the result!

@startingBlender with secondary light(s). can be set to no "cast shadow" if needed

don't scale the object but use the light property "size"

@Bithur, Thanks it works! What did this property change?

it changed the size of the emission point.

possible duplicate of Unwanted sharp shadows when using a point lamp

@Jerryno That question is very similar, and the answer to that question may solve this one, but the question itself is asking a different thing (how to get sharp shadows vs. how to get blurrier shadows with a point lamp).  See this meta post, the answers cover the same thing but the questions are different.

@PGmath then they should be just linked? ok

reduce the size property of your lamp.

Making this size smaller makes the shadow sharper:


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Texture unwrap does not appear as expected
I am trying to unwrap a cube. I know that it is very obviously. I mark the seam and so but the texture does not appears as mentioned in the image

you need to enable textured solid in properties tab and add a texture node in your material with that texture

@Denis, I enable it but it  does not work.

Textured solid works in blender internal, for cycles you need to add a texture node with that texture in your material and switch to textured viewport shading

@Denis, That is what I think about.

To show the texture in 3D View in Cycles, Texture Node should be created in the material and viewport switched to Textured Viewport Shading


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How to correct the scaling problem of the texture using UV wrap
I applied a texture on a box using the UV smart. I remark that the texture is scaled. How to correct this problem?

Did you apply the scale before unwrapping?

@Denis, What 's scale. I think, I did not do it?

@Denis, sorry, I did not understand what do you mean? How can i do it?

In object mode hit CTRL+A and select scale, then unwrap the object

@Denis, So I have to cancel What I have done and repeat?

@Denis Add that as an answer please

To avoid texture scaling on the mesh it is necessary to apply object scale before unwrapping. To apply the scale you need to be in object mode, then hit CTRL+A and select scale from the menu. Once scale is applied it is safe to unwrap the mesh without having scale distortion.


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Modeling odd shape
I want to replicate the shape of this arcade cabinet (in green). I tried to do this by drawing vertices but this leaves me with a jagged edge rather than smooth.
What is the best way to do this? I also tried the bezier curve but then I cant do the straight bits. Maybe there is something I'm missing, any help is greatly appreciated.

You are looking for theSubdivision-Surface modifier.

But will this not make the square edge round as well?

This looks promising Ray

@Acott Not if you use edge loops to hold the corners


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Mesh Repair, "Torn" Mesh with Holes, Shrinkwrap Modifier?
I am currently working on a project that requires me to convert multiple 3D meshes into voxelized models. Clean voxelization requires clean original meshes. However, the meshes I am working with are very... "corrupted." My pictures show this clearly, the meshes are composed of multiple disconnected faces and vertices, and the entire mesh has a "torn" look to it. However, the overall shape of the mesh remains.
I'd like to somehow approximate the general shape of the entire mesh, including bends/holes/etc. Basically, imagine automatically stitching together all the broken faces to create a single manifold mesh.
For one of my simpler models, I actually manually repaired the mesh through hours of selecting vertices, making faces, and moving stuff around: (Before and after)

However, this technique is very slow and tedious. I came across other solutions such as the Shrinkwrap modifier, however it doesn't work well around sharp angles/doesn't preserve the original shape well. Converting to a Convex Hull also loses all detail. I found the Point Cloud Skinner add-on, however all the random chaotic vertices in my model produce very bad skinning results.
For example, here's a mesh I want to repair, in a similar fashion to the first example.
Any tips/advice on what tools/methods to use to repair a mesh like this? Also, since my voxelization has pretty low resolution, I don't need great detail in the repair, just a clean, general shape.

Thanks!

Oh . . . that is bad! I've never seen such a bad case . . .

I don't think  any of the geomerty is usable. You are better of recreating it with that as a reference that than trying to fix that, .. whatever it is.

How about trying to retopo it? I see that mostly it is composed from easy shapes like circles, boxes and ovals, that you can easily create manually and everything else you can retopologise turning on and off snap to the surface when needed.

yea so the bad geometry should be fixed by just remaking the model in like 3 minuets and fixing all the bad geometry. then if you want to evenly space all the verts (which ive never heard someone wanting do do) you could be a bit crafty and select parts of the mesh and use the remove doubles function with the distance set to the length you want. Thats just one method though and you would need to select only specific parts of the model so that it doesnt merge things that you dont want merged. k, yea, keep at it dont give up

I figured out a simple, approximate repair method for this particular mesh (I'm hoping I can apply this to other meshes). Basically, I recognized that this mesh is composed of multiple similar parts, simple geometric shapes. The primary issue with using a convex hull tool came from the convex hull filling in all empty space between parts. However, in edit mode I individually selected each distinct region of the mesh and applied a convex hull to each portion. Therefore, I "repaired" the mesh part by part.
This was the final product:

However, there is one small problem. (Also, I'm pretty new to Stack Exchange so I'm not sure if it's fine to include this). I would like to have all my vertices of my model spaced out in .5 cm increments. Currently, all the vertices are spaced unevenly. I'm assuming I could use the retopo tool somehow for this? Or an edge loop tool? What would be the best way to approach spacing out all the vertices evenly?


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Automatic Weights Different on one side than the other
see title
Whenever I use automatic weights on my model it always has one side different than the other on legs, feet, arms, and hands. The topology is exactly the same on both sides and I've already removed doubles and recalculated normals. Please help. It's a pain to have to go back every time and manually adjust the weighting
feet example:
good

bad

and arms example:
good

bad

do you have pre-existing vertex groups?

Nope. None whatsoever. Just to be sure I deleted all the current vertex groups from my mesh and tried parenting it with the rig again. Same thing.

Have you tried applying Rotation and Scale(Object mode transformations), not doing so can introduce serious errors into several tools.

Suspect backwards normals on the model's right side.

Answer: Recalculate your normals.

This seems to related to the fact that you have multiple disconnected parts (meshes) inside a mesh object. It always gives Blender trouble to auto-weight multiple-part meshes.
Two solutions, as far as I can see it:

Separate each sub-object within the object (Edit mode - Select - Ctrl+P - By loose parts).  Then apply automating weighted-painted solution to each part separately. (Of course, before doing that, delete the armature modifier, weight painting, and the existing vertex groups on the original mesh)
Even easier - if your mesh is 100% symmetrical, simply delete half of it, apply the weight painting, THEN mirror. The mirror side will have the exact same w.p. as the other one. Of course, it will still retain the potential w.p. errors due to disconnected meshes, but at least both sides will be identical.


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How to save texture?
Ok, I have fully colored/textured a pretty decently sized hatchet I made in blender a few times now and each time I saved and closed my blender. When I reopen the blender file it is completely unpainted.... Being very frustrated what am I doing wrong? I've tried saving the image of the texture but it keeps telling me "invalid path:" and I can't see the rest of the error message. I think my problem is that I'm saving the blend but not the texture mapping thing. (sorry don't know the correct terminology for everything)

Try this: press spacebar and then type "Pack." Select "Pack all into .blend". See if that works. That will copy all the source files blender uses (in this instance: texture images) into the .blend file. I don't entirely know if it will work, but I hope it will.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/39271/69959


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How to export aimation based on IK with a non bone object as target?
I have setup a rigged character with bone chains having cylinder objects as their IK target, So far I can animate them by keyframing the cylinder transforms with I key (locRot keys). how do I export these animations?

To what format? Also, what have you tried?

fbx! I cant find the workflow on it.


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Exporting fbx animations includes Garbage (UE4)
When I export the animation as fbx for UE4 there are lot of garbage animations some of which are 2 frames long and others are same length as the required animation.
Once I made a walk cycle of 180 frames with 30 fps and the exported animation was 40MB!!!
Lot of it was garbage animation in which the mesh was just twisted and deformed like hell, but my correct animation was somewhere among them.
So can anybody tell me how to avoid it? or how to manage and export multiple animations as fbx? I don't know anything about actions or NLA nor can i find any proper tutorial on it.
what i do is make the animation using keyframing , ik and directly select the armature and mesh and export is using FBX with selected objects , baked animation ,all actions ,NLA strips checked in export.
Please understand that I'm not trying to render animation in the blender but I actually want to export it , so I am looking for how does actions and NLA editor work in relation with fbx export
Please guide me

Goddamnit this question gave me Tumbleweed batch LoL

Even without Rigify you get junk animation tracks. At least I get in my own hand made armatures. But what I do is keep an eye open in the NLA editor if there is any animation on objects I remove their tracks.
I'm gonna try and explain NLA and also FBX export to UE4 here, at least as my workflow goes.

I always create new action before I start animating to keep the "root" timeline clear. Open Dopesheet Editor, and switch to Action Editor (yellow cube icon). In this case Jump_1_End. Once done click the (F) to make a fake user and then the dubble down arrows (in NLA editor or to the right in header) This will save the Action to a NLA Track (you can rename them, something better than NLATrack.001 etcetera. I did rename my NLA Tracks to my Action Set name.)
Export to FBX, I use the default settings exporting both Action and NLA Tracks as separate Anim Tracks in FBX file.

You can check your export in Autodesk FBX viewer, I do this often to check that export from Blender and import in UE4 is correct. Somehow Unity can read .blend files and get Action animations without pushing down to NLA tracks and no junk data. How they do it, I don't know. I wish UE4 could read .blend files also :)
Anyway here you can see junk anim tracks, try and clean up in Blender by removing animations on objects etcetera and just have NLA track and Armature animations. To keep the junk animations to a minimum.

Drag and drop, or import how you want. But drag-n-drop requires you're hovering a couple of seconds with the FBX file in the Content browser. Once loaded (just went with default settings, it could find the skeleton and all) I clean up and remove the unwanted animation tracks. This works for me, in time I might find a better way. It's not super beautiful, but it gets the game done.
in the NLA Editor in blender you can stack and repeat animations this is good for checking loop points and maybe just have a overview of your animations before exporting. I use this for mock-ups sometimes. You can also blend NLA Tracks when doing longer animations, but in this scope. Game asset creation, you kinda just want to have each Action set in a separate NLA Track layer to get all animations into UE4.
To check your animations on your armature mesh, or skeleton mesh in UE4 you need to make a animation blueprint with simple blueprint logics, there are other tutorials on the internet on this and since it was not your question check unreal engines youtube channel.

Might be a bit of a late answer but it can be fixed during export.
What happens?
Most of the garbage in the FBX files are extra actions tied up to the different meshes as well as the armature as an object and not as an armature which might even duplicate content (for example having a BlendFile_Anim_ArmatureName_Animation asset and another BlendFile_Anim_Animation asset with the same keyframes). This plus materials that aren't compatible with UE4 and other objects make up the garbage.
How to Fix
The way to fix it would be to add the animations to the armature using the NLA editor and removing any animation that the meshes might have assigned. Then during export, in the animations section, uncheck "All Actions" and make sure "NLA Strips" is checked. In the main section select only "Armature" and "Mesh," leave "Empty," "Camera," "Lamp," and "Other" unselected; check "Selected Objects" if needed. Then export the file and import it to UE4.
This should import the mesh, generate a skeleton (if you didn't select one during import), generate a physicals asset, and import only the animations selected in the NLA editor.


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Problem with Bevel
I am new to Blender.
I have currently modeled a shape on which I would like to apply a "Bevel". However, when I apply it, I don't see any changes.
Do you have any idea what the problem might be?
My current model:

I want this :

My settings:

The problem is most likely in the geometry. Bevel modifier has Clamp Overlap enabled by default. This means it will stop the bevel if there is some geometry in the mesh that is too close to some other geometry and would produce overlapping messy results.
You could disable Clamp Overlap, but then you will get those messy overlaps somewhere on your model:

As you can see I have edges in the GIF that are closer to each other than the distance needed for the bevel, so bevel stops at the point where it would overlap with Clamp Overlap enabled and produces messy overlapping geometry if Clamp Overlap is disabled.
You could try selecting all in edit mode(A) and hitting M followed by B to merge vertices by distance so you fix overlapping vertices. That might fix the issue in some cases. In other cases, you might need to fix the geometry manually.
Sometimes it helps to have more control over what edges get beveled. You could limit bevel by vertex group or edge bevel weight:

And then adjust Bevel Weight for selected edges:

Or make some vertex group:

This way you could only bevel edges that do not have this problem which in some cases might be the desired result.

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


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Way to detect if a valid GPU device is available from Python
Blender allows the user to select "GPU Compute" as the rendering device even if the computer has no valid GPU device. It simply Greys out the drop down menu:

To a Python script, it then looks like a GPU compute device is in use:

I need a way to check from my Python script if an actual valid GPU device will be used for rendering or not.
Cycles will silently default to the CPU if the user selects GPU but doesn't have one, but I don't know how to detect this from a script.

A bit of ferreting around yielded this:
import bpy
import _cycles

cycles_preferences = bpy.context.preferences.addons['cycles'].preferences
cuda_devices, opencl_devices = cycles_preferences.get_devices()
for device in cuda_devices:
    if device.use == True:
        print("Device -", device.name, "is", device.use)

Basically, it will iterate through the available devices in the "cuda_devices" (you can iterate "opencl_devices" too) and "device.use" will be true if it is active. So if anything returns True you know a valid rendering device is active.
You can adapt it to suit your application.

Good solution, I think. But I've found a simpler one over on the dev forums. You can just call context.preferences.addons["cycles"].preferences.has_active_device(). It'll only return true if a GPU device is configured. False means no active device and CPU will be used. Cheers.


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Compositing Transparency / Layer Masking Problem
I have a scene with a number of Render Layers. In the screenshot I am only showing two to focus on the problem (called "main ground" and "bushes").
Each render layer has all the other layers set as a mask (I am not sure if this is correct, but it was the only way I could see to put them back together again as one image without visible parts that should have been obscured).
I am using Alpha Over nodes, but oddly I am getting strange halos around some of the layers. You can see this on the left of the image where there is a strange transparent halo around the bush, cutting through to the sky background.
It seems like Blender is cutting the wrong sized mask "hole" in the main ground layer for the bush layer, but I don't understand why. I suspect I somehow need to tell Blender to better calculate the bush layer mask, but I don't know how.

Yes I've seen that, thanks. I don't think it provides a solution for my problem. I am using Cycles


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Why can I not put an edge loop around this model?
I am unable to add an edge loop around the outer edge of this model (around the rim), and it is driving me crazy trying to work out why.

All faces in the model are quads (verified with Select Faces By Sides);
I have removed all doubles;
The relevant faces seem to be connected (verified by dragging them about).

Despite the above, you can see that any edge loop will only go through 6 faces and stop.
I made the object using mirror and array modifiers. I expect this is reason, but I cannot explain the persistent effect now that the modifiers have been applied.
I'm sure this is embarrassingly obvious, but I am clueless.

You can't perform edge loops because your model has non manifold entities (vertexes and edges). You can select non manifold edges, delect them, then fill the faces correctly. To select non-manifold edges proceed as following image, then delete them, then fill with faces. (redo this step until you got no non-manifold edges).

Bingo. I had internal faces that I had managed to miss. Stupid error. Thank you very much.

no problem. Be aware of those "artifacts", specially if you go for 3D printing or work with CNC. External software doesn't handle with this, and will produce everything but expected.

I don't know why it happens but I know how to resolve:
Every part of the mesh where there are 2 faces loops between two spokes, delete the 4 vertices inbetween (they also are not selectable as edge loop), then recreate them, extruding or bridging edge loops and then loop cutting and grabbing in the right position.
Edit: deleting and recreating just one vertex is enough.


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Understanding Displacement Maps
I am having a problem understanding displacement maps. I'm starting to think that I don't understand them at all.
Clarifying My Understanding
My understanding (which might be completely wrong), is that a displacement map is a gray-scale image whereby a value of 0.5 produces no displacement, >0.5 produces displacement in the positive direction, and <0.5 produces displacement in the negative direction. This, however, does not seem to match my actual observations in Blender.
I am using a displacement map within Cycles, plugging it into the Displacement socket on the Material Output node (I am also using the new experimental adaptive subdivision and micro-vertex displacement). I note that a value of 0.5 actually produces a displacement in the positive direction, causing the whole mesh to jump up slightly, as well as creating the peaks and valleys that you would expect for >0.5 and <0.5 values respectively.
This affects my entire understanding of displacement maps. Why is this happening? Why is a value of exactly 0.5 creating displacement? Further, how are you supposed to arrange and line up objects in your scene when, in rendered view, the displacement maps will push them out of position, even if those maps are only supposed to create displacement in specific areas.
The Problem in Practice
This is the problem I am having at the moment. I have a plane which is supposed to be a snowy field, and I am using a displacement map to give some depth to the snow. In rendered view, my plane jumps up significantly. This is what lead me to investigate my understanding of displacement maps, and to this question.
Additionally, what is the correct way to increase and decrease the strength of a displacement map? At the moment, I will run them through a Math node set to multiply, however, as you might imagine, this exaggerates the issue that I am complaining about above.
To be clear, however, I am not using a math node when experiencing the "jump up" for 0.5 values. This is not the source of my problem, but another aspect to it.

The Displacement input of the Material Output node treats 0.0 as no displacement - rather than 0.5 as you expect. If you are using a Gray-scale image for your displacement you will need to adjust the values (0.0 to 1.0) to be centred around 0.0 rather than 0.5 and youcan achieve this by simply subtracting 0.5 using a Math node. You may also want to feed the output of that through a Multiply node so that you can adjust the magnitude of the displacement.

If that's true, how can you ever have negative displacement? You would have to have a value of <1 that isn't possible....?

Not sure I understand - "<1"...? Do you mean "<0"?

Sorry, yes. My error. I mean how can you define negative displacement if 0 is no displacement. Negative displacement would then have to be <0 right? Which would not be possible. Clearly I am missing something, just trying to bottom it out.

My understanding of displacement is that it's aling the norml of the surface at that point and that 0.0 (when using the Material Output Displacement node) is for no displacement. Using an image as the source of the displacement will only range from 0.0 to 1.0 for varying shades of grey from Black to White and so if you require 0.5 to represent no displacement you'll need to pass the output of your Image Texture node through Maths nodes or similar to map them to the values that the Displacement input requires. This is purely from a point of view of Cycles Material Nodes.

Thanks. I think I understand that bit. I guess my question is, if the Cycles Material Output Displacement socket only understand 0 to 1 (i.e. 0=do nothing 1=displace maximum upwards), how can you ever displace downwards? Following what you say there, about using the Math node, all the 0.5s in my image would go to 0 (great, no displacement, just like I wanted). However, everything<0.5 in my image would go <0. Does the Material Output Node Displacement Socket understand <0?

My understanding was that it did support negative displacement - I've not got thelatest version installed so using 2.77 in "experimental" mode and apart from a bit of glitchiness (where I have to change the Displacement method to get it to refresh the displacement) it is handling negative displacement (ie less than zero) as described.

Hmmm. Let me experiment over lunch and come back to you. Cheers for the input.

For Blender 2.83
The Material Output node takes a vector as an input. This vector is best supplied by a Displacement node. The displacement map (in this case a generated 10x10 black and white checkerboard pattern) goes in Height, Midlevel sets where zero displacement occurs, it is in the texture input units. Scale sets the amount of displacement, it is in terms of Blender Units.

In the attached example image, there is a white 7x7 plane centered at the origin, and 4 red 1 unit square cubes sitting with their bases on the XY plane. The white plane has a displacement map texture whose input runs from 0 to 1, Midlevel is 0.5 and Scale is 2. This means the white square is displaced from $ ( 0 - \textrm{Midlevel} ) * \textrm{Scale} = -1 \textrm{units} $ to  $ ( 1 - \textrm{Midlevel} ) * \textrm{Scale} = +1 \textrm{units} $


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How can I make an indented cube without using a boolean operation?
As the title says, how can I make this shape without resorting to a Boolean operation?

This is obviously a very simple example, but I find myself needing to do something like this relatively often when modelling.
Despite using Blender for a couple of years, and considering myself an intermediate to possibly advanced user, I still know of no easy way to make this kind of indentation in an object.
Obviously, if you are looking to make an indentation in the middle of the surface, you can simply select a face and extrude down. As you will know, this does not work at the edge of the surface.
I can create this shape using loop cuts, deleting the faces and then using snap to edge to extrude the edges down to the same level (and then filling in the faces), but it feels cumbersome and a lot of work for what feels like it should be very simple.

The most efficient in Blender is planning ahead. Changing things always results in many many clicks. In the past Blender modeling workflow was top-notch, but it is destructive and nowadays it doesn't keep up with the industry (imho).

Still quite like blender hotkey driven workflow, I feel it is quite fluid, though I know where you are coming from. More procedural or non destructive tools are highly desirable.

While I agree with Jerryno that planning ahead is generally the best policy, I would further note that I have found that if changes do have to be made, it is preferable to have the changes be additive, rather than subtractive. However, in my view, this question is both too broad, and too much a matter of opinion to be within scope of Blender Stack Exchange, and would be best be asked in a forum such as may be found at Blender Artist.com. I'm voting to close.

@brasshat You can obviously vote to close if you wish, but i disagree with your comment. The question relates to what tools are available in Blender and the best kind of workflow. It isn't opinion based, and meets the guidelines. I see neither how that can be "too broad", nor how "you need to plan ahead" is very useful advice in this context.

We actually have quite a few of these "best way" posts. For the better or more interesting ones, I like to see them as fun challenges to see a variety of methods to go about a task, example http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/2297/12 and http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/5623/12. So this fine to me other than the specific subjective title. Feel free to bring this up on meta.

I would also like to know a faster method than this, though this is the best I could come up with.

Select All faces W > Subdivide
Select the middle edgeloop and bevel as desired
Extrude upper or frontal face and snap in position
Delete the two remaining undesired faces, then Remove Doubles

I think Duarte's solution is the best way to do it. You may do it using a Solidify modifier though, but the edge flow after applying it won't allow you to crease the mesh's edges properly.

That's a variation on what I am currently doing, but probably marginally quicker. Thank you.

The F2 addon is quite useful for operations like this.
Make sure it is enabled in user preferences, then...

Delete the faces where you want the indentation.
Select an outer corner vertex and press F to create a face.
Repeat 2 for the other corner vertex.
Select the upper (or lower) edge.
Press F twice to fill in the remaining faces.

Here is the cool addon
Download and Install its FREE
No need of deleting extra face or remove double, etc
Just make a cube sub divide the cube. Select multiple faces. Press Alt+E and select Destructive Extrude option and just push the face up or down or with the holding ctrl key we can align with the edges.


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Curve Modifier Gives Unexpected Effects
I am having problems understating the curve modifier. I can usually get it to do what I want, but only after a lot of trial and error and often I plain do not understand why it seems to work in the way it does.
I attach a blend file. I am trying to make a bridge by having a segment of the bridge, a curve for it to follow and using the array and curve modifiers replicate it along the path. I have applied scale and rotation, and made sure both the bridge segment and the curve share an origin. Still it seems to give bizarre results.
In the attached file, when I turn on the curve modifier, the bridge segment flips on its side. I am completely stumped by this. Why is this happening?
Example Blend File

you can fix it by changing the tilt angle or limiting it  see this http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/16523/keeping-bezier-spiral-curve-handle-tilt-perpendicular-to-a-specific-axis

Bingo. Thank you. I'm not very good with curves yet, the tilt angle is a new concept to me. Thanks for the answer.

The tilt of individual (or all) points on a curve can be adjusted by highlighting the relevant control points and pressing Ctrl+T followed by making the adjustment.
When you are using another object with a curve modifier this will adjust the orientation of that object as it follows the curve.


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UV Unwrap - follow active quads
I am currently struggling with the concept of UV unwrapping in Blender. I have recently come across the method "follow active quads" and, while I have used it successfully, I do not fully understand how it works. I am unable to find an explanation for how this unwrap method works online.
Can anyone offer a good way to visualise this?

Follow Active Quads will extend the selected mesh UVs depends on the angle of the edges of active Quad.

Unwraping a mesh that doesn't have a UV map will set the active face mapped to the full size of the UV window and extent the rest of the faces accordingly.

authors: Ильсур Гареев


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Constraints not behaving as expected
Background
I am modelling a car. I am trying to create a simple rig whereby rotating an empty (the "Tyres Rotator Empty") will rotate the tyres and the steering wheel. This would allow me to easily "pose" the car as it goes round a corner (for example).
I would like to do this using constraints. The obvious choice would be Copy Rotation on both the tyres and the steering wheel, and Limit Rotation on the Tyres Rotator Empty.
I managed to rig this perfectly, until I came to parenting all the various objects that make up the car to a single container empty (the "Container Empty"). Doing this broke all my constraints in very odd ways I didn't understand. I had objects jumping about all over the place and nothing behaved as expected.
I am now trying to rebuild my constraints. While I have managed to do this for the tyres, I cannot get this to work for the steering wheel. The steering wheel needs to rotate on its local Z axis when the Tyres Rotator Empty rotates on its global Z axis.
While this should be simple enough to create with either Copy Rotation or Transformation constraints, I just cannot get the desired behavior.
Question
The steering wheel (see attached file) consistently seems to rotate along the local y axis instead of its local Z axis, even when I set it to be evaluated in local space. I cannot seem to get it to rotate on its local z axis.
My constraints seem to be correct, but I am not getting the behavior I intuitively expect. I suspect that I don't properly understand how World Space and Local Space works.
Please note that I have included two constraints on the steering wheel in the attached which I think should work (Copy Rotation and Transformation), but one is disabled. This is just for illustration. I am not trying to enable both at the same time, but I feel that either one should work and yet neither do.
What am I doing wrong? What do I not understand?

The question might be better explained with: Remove the parent from the steering with ALT  P and you will see it works. Why does the parenting disrupt the pivot point?
Update: If you add a child of constraint to the steering (uncheck the scaling) it adds the parent and behaves as expected without problems.

Thank you for this, I appreciate the answer, but as you say you have removed the parent child relationship. This isn't what I am after. As stated in my original question, I am able to rig this perfectly myself without anything being parented. What I want to do, however, is parent the entire car (steering wheel included) to the container empty like in my example file. I want to understand why exactly is isn't working in my example file even though it looks like it should be.

Think I understand that now. Updated with work around...

...and updated the file with work around. Friendly suggestion - 18MB is pretty big - would be handy for testing to have simplified geometry & smaller size.

Thanks. I had considered that as a workaround, but it seems like there must be a cleaner way and I was also really looking to understand the reason behind the initial behavior, not work around it. Having experimented more I think the issue is that once an object is parented "Local Space" means using the axis of the parent object. The axis of the child object itself is no longer available, which seems undesirable, but apparently that is how it works... thanks anyway.

Update: If you add a child of constraint to the steering (uncheck the scaling) it adds the parent and behaves as expected without problems.


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What is srgb bt.709?
I am the author of an add-on for Blender 2.8.
I have one user that is experiencing an error. I understand what is causing it, but I don't understand why.
My add-on is selecting the "Standard" option from this list:

The user, however, does not have that option. Hist list looks like this (note also the different Display Device):

We are both using clean installs of the latest Blender 2.8 beta (11 July 2019 build).
What exactly is "sRGB / BT.709"? Why does he have this option, whereas I do not?

He might either have replaced his color management configuration entirely when installing filmic, or has the OCIO environment variable set. See Leanders link for further reference.

Where is that one from? In my configuration, the display type is clearly listed as sRGB. BT.709 when listed as a display type, would be conflicting with the “sRGB” label, hence it seems odd.

BT.709 is an HDTV color standard, hence different options list. The user mentioned may use such a device. It'd be good if his device had a VGA input either. See color.org site for more info on the subject.


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How to get the name of the render result image from a script
When you render anything in Blender, the output is sent to an image that is called (by default) "Render Result".
However, the user can change the name of that image, and any subsequent renders are then sent to that renamed image.
So, for a script that is doing some rendering, and then wants to get the result, it cannot be assumed that such result will be in an image called "Render Result".
How can I determine (from a script) the name of the image where the results from a render will reside?

Since the next step in a script would probably be saving the image, you could do both immediately: bpy.ops.render.render(animation=False, write_still=True). That way the image is saved in the filepath location and you can read it from the filesystem whenever you need it.

@Leander Yeah, thank you, but I am aware of that. Later in the script I will want to save externally, and already have the code to do exactly that. Before that happens, however, I want to take an internal copy of the image for other purposes. I can't copy it if I can't "find" it, and I can't find it without knowing the name (at least as far as I am aware).

Maybe I wasnt very clear. I am suggesting that you immediately load it again, now that it is stored on your hard disk. bpy.data.images.new(... what other purposes do you want. Could you describe what you need the image for, before saving it?

@Leander Oh, I misunderstood what you meant. That is a good idea. It seems a bit overkill (as the image is already internal, I would prefer a way to simply "find" it internally rather than writing it out to the fs and reading it back in) but that is definitely a potential solution that I can experiment with. Thank you.
Also, I want to render a number of images and keep them internal. The user may or may not save the images externally, but they should always exist internally. This is why I was looking to take a copy of the "Render Result" image after each render (if that makes sense).


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Image with alpha looks different when saved externally
I have an image of some fire with an alpha background.

When rendered in Blender, and viewed in the UV Editor, this looks good (as above).
When I save it externally, it looks awful (both in Gimp and when re-imported back to Blender). I have tried various image formats (PNG, TGA, EXR).
PNG is terrible:

EXR has given me the best results. I've used the maximum depth that Blender gives me the option for, and turned off compression. Sometimes this makes a difference, but mostly it looks the same.
This is the most faithful version that I was able to achieve, but it's still pretty rubbish compared to the original.

I am aware of this answer. I suspect that this might be my problem, however, if it is, I would have expected the problem to only be present when the image is viewed in an external program.
I actually want to use this image back in Blender (in a different Blend file).
How can I save this image in a way that I can re-import it back into Blender (different .blend file) and have it look the same?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/72793/how-do-you-apply-colormanagement-settings-to-exr-files https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/173932/exr-color-difference-to-png

Use exr multilayer for further comp inside of blender. It skips the view transform, therefore appears different. Once back in blender it can use proper color management.

Perfect, I understand now - thank you. PNGs aren't capable of what I want. EXRs can store the information externally, but are saved without colour management - so you need to apply some wherever you are using it (be that Blender or elsewhere). Just tested it and it works. Thank you!

Only thing i will mention is that Multilayer EXR didn't work, I had to select simply OpenEXR. Multilayer saved OK, and I could see the image in the UV Editor when re-importing, however, it would not display when used in a material. Not sure why, but doesn't seem to matter.

@Timaroberts You seem more skilled than me about PNG / EXR / transparency issues. This question made me discover odd behaviour: in 2.91, rendering fire over transparent background and adding Glow, the render looks good in _Image Editor. Saving as PNG looks poor, but that's what I expected. Saving EXR and importing it back again looks good. However, the backdrop in the Compositor looks poor as the PNG. So you can't preview what the EXR image output would look like - is there a way to change the backdrop preview? In 2.83.5 Compositor Backdrop and Image Editor both looked the same (poor).

Use a black background to evaluate the image. Supposedly the issue with associated alpha on the rendered image viewport was fixed in 2.91.

@Lewis bringing an exr back into blender would normally be done in the compositor for further work in comp. Do I misunderstand that you want to further work on the image?

@Gordon multilayer is useful for working with the renderlayers directly as otherwise will collapse to the combined pass. png is just a bad format in general and should be avoided for this kind of thing altogether.

@Timaroberts I know that PNG is a bad format for this, I was just wondering if there is no way to preview in Compositor how the render would look like. Even just viewing the EXR in the Image Editor shows a different image then the Render Result. Why can't Blender display an EXR  like it displays the EXR when it's connected to the render composite output?

@susu Yes, using the EXR with an Alpha Over node on a non-transparent background is what I usually do or viewing as RGB instead of RGBA. It just bothers me that Blender doesn't seem to be capable of displaying an EXR the same way as in the render composite.

@Timaroberts I actually want to use it as a static image on a plane. No compositor involved. So I want a fire for my fireplace. I can create it using blender physics engine, but I can't export that and upload to Sketchfab. So I am basically creating a picture of fire. What you suggested works. When used in a material, the imported EXR is adjusted by the colour management settings and looks correct.


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Blender VSE track/clip increase waveform height
I want to create an animation based on audio, so seeing the waveform is helpful.
How can I increase the vertical size of an audio clip in the timeline without increasing the size of the timeline itself?
I get this:

I want this (without having to fullscreen the VSE):

Also you can place markers on the beat without needing to see the waveform. Just set the sync mode to AV (in the timeline window), this will force Blender to play the sound back at full frame rate. As you play tap the M key to add markers.

Hold the Ctrl Key and middle mouse button and move the mouse up to zoom in.

Much better than the method of dragging something in the left scroll bar (I'm still not sure which element in that bar exactly needs to be dragged. So flaky.) Thanks!

Amazing it still works in 2.92 ;-) thanks

Click and drag the left side bar to change vertical size / height of clips/strips/tracks.

Then middle-mouse-button-drag to reposition your view.

The Vertical Scrollbar where you can zoom in/out of clips/strips/tracks has moved to the right hand side of timeline by Blender 2.90


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Object texture 1 pixel lines on some sides of model
I want to add textures to a model (which is mostly cube-shaped) without the use of UV maps.
I use object mapping which looks good on the bottom of the cube but on the sides, it seems like a 1px border of the texture is used and stretched upwards along the sides. Moving a node makes the texture projection even stranger.

It is as if the texture's colors were 3d-printed and the 3d model is being cut out of the texture "block".

How can I make the textures be "printed" on the surfaces, so it doesn't matter which way they are facing, without using UV maps.

I'd appreciate the reason for downvoting of course.

I've no idea who downvoted, but you could try to use Cube mapping in the texture Mapping rollout if you'd like to avoid unwrapping. However this may be not the best way.

As mentioned by Mr Zak Cube mapping is the correct way, have in mind however that Blender's OpenGL rendering engine does not support displaying of automatic cube mapped generated texture coordinates directly in the viewport or game engine, it always displays as a 2D mapped texture stretched on the sides.
When you render your images however, it will display correctly.
If you plan on using the OpenGL render or the game engine you will have to unwrap as generated or automatic cube texture coordinates are not currently supported.
For cycles render engine you can use object or generated texture coordinates, but again there is no support for previewing on the viewport, except for basic UV Mapped textures


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Rotational Values with Constraints
Is there any way to have the rotational values updating "live" on an object with a contraint? I would like to access the y axis rotation to use it with a driver but with the contraint acting on the object the value doesn't update at all.

as you can see in the overwhelming comments and answers....the reason might be how you asked your question: without any information what you did exactly. So pls provide blend file to attract more people. Also a sketch/image/link to animation what you want to have to make it clear would help to improve your question.

I have to agree with Chris.. this question would be much improved by illustrating the general problem with your particular case.

If you're doing something like "Limit Rotation":

Then you can enable "Affect Transform" option:

Sometimes there is no such option, for example with "Copy Rotation" - here the middle object copies the rotation of the left object, and the right object has a driver based on the middle object (the driver fails):

In such cases you can modify your driver to read the value after the constraint has been applied, so rather than reading the property, you read from the Transform Channel:


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API Structure and Data
I stumbled upon this expression whilst writting a script:

and I strugle to explain it in programming terms. What I mean is that you access the "Armature" object (which seams to be in a list or dictioanary thus the []) and then you "apply" a pose ("mode" method? of "Object" class) to it, and after, you specify another dictionary (or list) on top of it. What I am trying to say is that obviously I don't seem to grasp the API's "structure". Is there a place other than the API reference where I can find a complete overview of that structure. I am fairly knowledgable in Python programming but I keep getting lost in all that intelocked reference page. I'd greatly appreciate any help pointing in the right way.

bpy.data.objects is indeed a disctionary like structure that holds references to objects you can access by name. Each armature hase a pose member, which in turns holds a dictionary like structure that holds a reference to all its bones that you can access by name. Every Bone can hold what is called a custom property, essentially making itself into a dictionary regarding the python API, where the keys are the custom property names and the values are the values of the properties. This is fairly common python practices, I respectfully suggest you take more courses about python ^^ Cheers

@Gorgious thank you very much for you explanation, seems like I have some studying to do! I would like a simple clarification on what you mean by "dictionary like structure". Thanks again for your help!

@Gorgious this should be posted as an answer ;) along with more explanations for the above comments if you can.

bpy.data.objects["Armature"].pose.bones["Bone"]["prop"]

bpy — the API entry.

bpy.data — ID data blocks collections.

bpy.data.objects — bpy.types.BlendDataObjects or bpy_prop_collection of bpy.types.Object, __getitem__ supports an index: objects[0], a name: objects['Object Name'] or an object name and library path tuple: objects['Object Name', r'D:\Desktop\library.blend'] or objects.__getitem__(('Object Name', r'D:\Desktop\library.blend')), the library path can be None.

bpy.data.objects["Armature"] — bpy.types.Object.

bpy.data.objects["Armature"].pose or bpy.types.Object.pose — bpy.types.Pose if the object's data is bpy.types.Armature or None if not.

bpy.data.objects["Armature"].pose.bones or bpy.types.Pose.bones — bpy_prop_collection of bpy.types.PoseBone.

bpy.data.objects["Armature"].pose.bones["Bone"] — bpy.types.PoseBone.

bpy.data.objects["Armature"].pose.bones["Bone"]["prop"] or bpy.types.bpy_struct["prop"] or bpy.types.bpy_struct.__getitem__("prop") or bpy.types.bpy_struct.get("prop") — getting a value of a custom property of bpy.types.PoseBone which is a bpy.types.bpy_struct subclass.


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Reseting the bone roll value to 0
I have an armature and i have aligned some of the bones to specific axes and now these bones have a roll value different from zero. I know that is supposed to happen but is there a way to reset to roll values to 0 as if you would do when applying the scale or rotation of an object? I know there was the option "clear bone roll" (shortcut ctrl-n ) in older versions but it seems that the developers removed it for some reason.

This is indeed a limitation in Blender, committed clear-roll operator: http://developer.blender.org/rB2177f645855c242399f3d3324f4d8e0357c3601c

@ideasman42 It looks that that commit is from today, so it's not in master yet. Although, OP actually wants something like Applying transformations.

AFAIK this is not possible and, in my opinion, unnecessary. The orientation of the bone in the Edit Mode is not important at all, that transformations will count as cleared in Pose Mode. Why do you want to be cleared in Edit Mode?

@AntonioBuch the roll of the bone defines the axis orientation, when rotating using the local bone axis the roll changes which way the bone rotates.

@sambler Yes, but any orientation could be good depending on your needs. Until the Alt R feature is implemented, use the Ctrl N operator. If you could post an image of what you got and what you want, it could be good to help you up.

I couldn't find which version of Blender had the option to clear when calculating roll, however this seems like it is something Blender should be able to do.
Added http://developer.blender.org/rB2177f645855c242399f3d3324f4d8e0357c3601c
Access from the armature roll menu, or by pressing Alt-R.

Being added during the release cycle I don't expect this to be included with the 2.77 release. If anyone wants to use this feature before this change is included in a release you can find an addon here to perform the same action.

ALT+R causes the bones to rotate -- this is different from applying the roll.

In Blender 3.0 to Recalculate Roll is with the keys Shift + N

Thanks, that is exactly what I was looking for! :-)

In Blender 2.81a to enter the Recalculate Roll menu choose the rolled bone and press Ctrl + N

Recalculate Roll causes the bones to be rotated -- it is different from applying the roll. -- And it certainly does not set the roll to 0 for any of the bones. -- As for CTRL + N, that's strange, for me it just gives me a new file prompt. -- I don't think that hotkey is universal.

The hotkey is Shift-N I believe.

The hotkey is Shift-N I believe.


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Path Animation Evaluation Time
I want to animate a bone along a curve and I'm mising some information about evaluation time, I 'd like to have the bone move at a range of 0.32m/50frames and I want help with the curve's generator modifier. I would assume that the y-axis in this case is in meters but I'm wrong. Can anyone help me with that?

So maybe create a curve that is 10 units long and in the Generator choose x^1 = 0.66 which will bring the object at 3.2 units?

Thank you! If it;s not much trouble could you explain how you ended up with that value?

I just tweaked the value until the Path Animation > Evaluation Time value reached 32 (with Frames being 100)

Create a curve that is 10 units long, in the Generator modifier choose x^1 = 0.66 which will bring the object at 3.2 units at frame 50:


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Enabling a constraint based on the state of another constraint with drivers
I am trying to "enable" a contraint by the state of another constraint using drivers. I want to be able to check if a contraint is enabled or not and then set the state of another constraint. For example I have a "Shrinkwrap" and a "Child of" constraint and I want to set up a driver to the "Child of" constraint using a scripted expression. In the expression I want to chech if the other ("Shrinkwrap") constraint is enabled or not and then set the "Child of" constraint accordingly. I am attempting to do that by setting a scripted expression as follows:
Expression:
False if pose.bones["Bone.003"].constraints["Shrinkwrap"].enabled ==True else True
The problem is that I get an error saying:
'''NameError: name 'pose' is not defined'''
which should not be the case as "pose" is a module loaded with blender at start up.Is there a way to make this work, or am I approaching this the wrong way?

If you want to enable a constraint when another one is disabled, you can just put not followed by the path to the constraint's state. Since this is a boolean, it will return the opposite value.
So instead of
False if pose.bones["Bone.003"].constraints["Shrinkwrap"].enabled ==True else True

Use:
not pose.bones["Bone"].constraints["Shrinkwrap"].enabled`


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Export rigged model (with drivers) to maya
I want to export my rigged model in fbx format but it wont include my drivers and constraints. Is there a format which will "keep" my settings? I want it to be able to be opened in maya or other 3d programs


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How to grab both front and back faces in sculpt mode
I am making a sculpture and i want to manipulate a cylinder to make an arm... Im trying to bend it a certain way but the grab tool wont grab the back faces. Is there a function to enable so i can grab the mesh as a whole and not only the front faces?

You could increase brush size way higher or zoom out from the model. Brush will affect on the model much stronger and grab everything even not visible from the current point. However I think rough work like grabbing big parts of mesh usually are done in Edit mode.

It's best to do this in edit mode but Blender can't usually handle that many polygons in edit mode. You might want to switch to some different app for sculpting than Blender. For example Zbrush - there is 90 days unlimited trial.

Did you check this option in sculpt mode? ![front_faces_only][1] [1]:http://www.pasteall.org/pic/100775

I also wish there was a way to make things easier, because you can’t always use edit mode. You can in fact manipulate back facing vertices if you zoom in inside the model.


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Simple Deform modifier bend axis
I am trying to use the simple deform modifier in combination with an array modifier and i want to have a circular object with its symmetry axis at the grid's center. In order to do that i add an empty at the center and set the origin point of the simple deform modifier to be controlled by that empty. As a result i get an eccentric circular object like the one shown in the picture.

Instead i would like to get that "circle" centered at the empty without applying the modifier and centering the object manually.( Something tells me that choosing the empty as the origin of the deformation should do what i want right away but it doesn't).
Below is an example of what i am trying to achieve without applying the modifier though.

In this case, you might find it more convenient to use the Curve modifier deforming to a Curve>Circle? Then the centers would be where you expect them to be.

First, select the object, and click object > transform > origin to geometry.
then go to object > clear > location. this should first set the origin to the center of the geometry, and then clear it's location, setting the entire object to the center.

Thank you for your answer.  I already know how to do this that way. I was hoping there was a way to center it using the modifier itself. (Kind of automatically)

oh, ok then, I wouldn't know how to do that. but why would that be usefull?

The empty sets the location that the deformation originates from. At the moment, your empty is at an offset to your object, so the 360 degree bend originates up the Y axis from your object.
If you move your empty down the Y axis so that it matches origin of the object that you are deforming (which will be the origin of the single object that you are replicating with the array), then it should form the tightest 360 degree circle it can based on the shape of your object.
You may then get a "fatter" circle than you wanted, and you will have to change the size of your object (in edit mode) to alter this. For example, scale on the Y and Z axis (but not X) and your circle will thin out.
I'd by lying if I said that I thought this was intuitive. I just had to fire up Blender to check what your issue was, as I agree it doesn't seem like it should behave like that...

The farther away the anchor object (empty in your case) is from the modified object the closer it will be to the center of the arrayed objects. In the attached file the plane is first modified to have 0 height (Y dimension) in edit mode then positioned very far away from the empty (1000 units along Y). Then the top edge was moved up in edit mode again to restore the height. The view is scaled down greatly. As you can see, the dimensions along the Y axis can be modified in edit mode without impacting the center position of the empty. You can also move the empty around and it stays at the center of the arrayed objects.
Not sure if this would be use but thought of sharing my findings.


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Rotating a bone along one of its local axes
I am doing a complex mechanical hand rig and i want to rotate one of the bones along its x axis but Blender doesnt allow me to do that. Is there a way to do that or this type of rotation isnt supported by the program?

Have you tried hitting X one extra time? eg. R >> X >> X". Maybe you have to do two Y's OR two Z's but one of these options should get you there.
Here are bones rotating in their local axis.

If you are in Edit Mode, X May be close to equal (global vs. local).
Instead try Y & Z:

I know of that way to rotate along local axes but it wont rotate at its local axis( i just tried that). The only way i found for it to work is to create custom orientations and then rotate the bone the way you want. Normally hitting the axis letter twice should work but with objects only, not bones

Are you in Edit Mode trying to do this? If you are, it's probably because of your weights on the hand mesh.

Actually in Edit Mode, It may be considering Local & Global X The same thing. Try Y & Z.

Thanks guys for your answers and time. I figured it out. There were not any weights because i'm doing a mechanical rig...


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Loop Tools Circle deformation
My problem is that when im trying to create a circle on a surface with loop tools' circle tool i end up with tis deformation.
To create the circle i subdivide the surface, delete the inner faces that i dont need and select the loop thats going to be my circle. Then i hit the circle tool and the deformation appears. If i create a seperate object no matter the "scales" or any transformation i apply to it the prosess above will be successfull. Clearly i am missing something but i cant find it. Thanks for your time.
ps. im relatively new to blender so anything at all would help

I assume scale is applied?  (Ctrl+A > Scale)

Can i ask why i should apply a scale? and what is the purpose of that? no i didnt apply a scale to answer your question

Applying scale makes all transforms relative to the object the same as if done relative to the world scale. If you scaled your object and did not apply scale, it could cause this.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your help. I have one last question. How often should i use the Apply function (Apply scale or rotation)? I must use it every time i scale or rotate my mesh?

@Nikos Makris, about applying transforms it is already explained here - https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/7298/why-is-it-important-to-apply-transformation. Shortly, you may want apply transforms if you made them in Object Mode. If in Edit Mode, then you don't need to do that.


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Applying scale on armature changes parented objects location
I have an armature with parented objects related to it and I want to resize it and apply its scale so it would be at the default 1.000 instead of around  1.8 which it is currently. But , when I apply the scale the parented objects relative location to their respective bones change. Is there a way to avoid it?

maybe my question here will help? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/196995/applying-armature-scale-messes-up-the-action


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Shrinking tube or bending a cone
I would like to make curved cone (I'm making 3D model of this dialog bubbles and I want to use curved cones to make line between the bubble and speaker.
During my research I found, that I can either make cone and then curve it according to a bezier curve, or I can make path, use circle as its bevel object and then shrink it using taper object as described in this video.
Both approaches have problems. With the first approach it is extremely hard to bend the cone the way I want and I can't get proper results. The other approach is works well, when the path is straight. If the path is curved, then after the taper object the tube disappears.
What would be the good way to do that? I would very much prefer the path and bevel objects approach, because it does almost exactly what I need.

use another curve circle as a taper object and it should be enough, for precise control use a straight  curve and move the points on the Y axis

I tried it and it doesn't seem to work (the circle as taper object). It is probably because I'm beginner and I don't know precisely what to do. If you are in the mood, feel free to write that again as a more detailed answer :).


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Diffuse material that doesn't throw shades in cycles engine
I have an object, that has diffuse shader and looks great. Unfortunately it throws some shades on the objects behind it and it looks terrible. Is there any way to make the light to be fully reflected and passed through the object in the same time?

in cycles : in the object tab --> ray visibility -->shadow   ,uncheck this option

@Chebhou Post that as an answer please :)

To prevent an object from casting shadows uncheck the shadow option in  Object_Tab--> Ray_Visibility--> Shadow :


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Blender 2.74 (x64 Linux): Application of Hair Dynamics produces unexpected results
I've ran into an interesting little problem with one of my models.
Following an online tutorial where a model was created completely by extrusions and mirroring from a cube, I made my own in a similar fashion. All is going well up to this point.
I then applied hair to the model in places. Using a density and length from a weight paint, I got to the position below. All seems good and there are no issues

However, I wanted to apply gravity to the hair using "Hair dynamics", something I've used before but not had this result. When applying the standard dynamics to this particular mesh, the hair roots seem to become detached from the mesh and continued to behave in a rather unexpected manner.

Further to this, in an animation, the hair particles behave in a seemingly sporadic and unpredictable fashion; crossing through the model on occasions and sometimes flying off the screen entirely.
I've not had this happen to any other model prior or since; nor have I had any success in trying to recreate the issue. The standard cube works fine, subdividing and grabbing nodes, nor does the extrusion of the cube cause the problem. I have a copy of the un-mirrored object on the scene, but that behaves in the same way.
My forensic search for answers on Google turned nothing up and I'm now at a loss. I'm eager to know what could be causing this, if anyone else has experienced it, and moreover if it can be resolved.
Thank you.

Don't worry! I've found my solution.
Convinced that the problem was due to the mesh, I continued to look into things regarding its construction. Whence, I looked at the scale. The X, Y, and Z scales were all uneven, and more importantly not 1.0.
For reasons best known to Blender, if a shape is not scaled "normally" i.e. 1x1x1, it seems to upset the physics engine in this respect.
The solution was to change all the scales to 1 again and using the scale function (S followed by X, Y, or Z) resize the mesh to fit. Since I had an armature, it was unaffected so I un-parent-ed it and made it fit before reparenting.
The physics engine has been happy since.

i think  "apply scale" is what you did ?

I faced the same problem today. In my case, it was triggered by the collisions  on the mesh which I am adding hair and the other mesh. I removed the collisions from the mesh and the hair dynamics now work.


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How to remove jitter on cloth simulation?
Scene: A cloth (plane) falls on top of a stool (cylinder). Then the stool rotates 180degrees, and stops. The cloth continues to simulate after the stool rotation is complete. This is fine, but what is not fine is that instead of the cloth finding a state of rest, it just continues to jitter (oscillating around a rest state).
Question: How do I fix/remove this jitter in the cloth simulation?

I ended up increasing the "Cloth > Quality > Steps" from 5 to 10 and the "Cloth Collision > Quality" from 2 to 5. This helped with some of the jitter, but I can still see it at the end subtly.

I also tried changing Spring Damping from "5.0" to "10.0", but that didn't do much at all -- if anything.


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View Colors outside of render
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/36447
Is there a way to make me see the look of the mesh outside of rendering like in blender render? Id be cool with vertex paint or UV.
Side note: If I want to view most all my effects while editing, Which has more available to view BR or CR?

Unfortunately, it's not possible to realize shading effects from Cycles BSDF node trees in the viewport via OpenGL. You must use the Viewport render mode or do a full render to the frame buffer to realize the shader effects that you've set up.
At this point, you're pretty much limited to image textures, ambient occlusion, DOF, and shadeless mode for viewport view when not in render mode. I suppose you could technically bake your cycles shaders to a texture image, and then apply it to the mesh for viewing in the viewport, but that seems counterproductive.

Dang, how about with vertex pain, with a color ramp for toon effect? Could i see that?

I don't think so, you can use Vertex Colour paint as an input into a Cycles nodetree, but you can't route the output of a Cycles shader back to the Vertex Paint map.

@ToddMcIntosh I think the OP just wants to see the vertex colors in the 3D view.

@gandalf3 In the OP's blend file, you can see that the model has toon shading along with a strong edge effect. I'm not sure there's a way to replicate that with a Vertex Colour map is there?

@ToddMcIntosh The rendered colors originate from vertex colors though. I read the OP's question as asking if the colors could be seen in the 3D view without rendering, not necessarily if the shading could be seen. That said, in BI you can have toon shading in the 3D view ;)