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Can we modify the code of blender and use it as a analysis software?
Can we modify the code for blender, create our own addons and use it as the analysis softwares like catia, ansys eyc.,

What do you mean "Can we"?
"Can we"  as in are we able to legally do it, or "Can we"  as in is it technically feasible?
Either way the answer is probably yes to both.
Blender is Open Source software so you are mostly free to modify it as you see fit, as long as you publish it under a compatible Open Source license if you make it publicly available.
Quoting the license:

Blender is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL, or
  “free software”).
This license grants people a number of freedoms:

You are free to use Blender, for any purpose
You are free to distribute Blender
You can study how Blender works and change it
You can distribute changed versions of Blender

The GPL strictly aims at protecting these freedoms, requiring everyone
  to share their modifications when they also share the software in
  public. That aspect is commonly referred to as Copyleft.

Technically speaking, I have no clue but Blender codebase is very adaptable, you could probably do it too if you are willing to roll up your sleeves and put some elbow grease in.
Whether it will be easy or hard is another matter, the source code may require substancial changes to support that kind of features, to the point of no longer being worth it to build on top of Blender.
That being said Blender as proved to be very flexible and versatile, and it has been adapted for many different workflows and industries, so it could probably be adapted for that too.

Agree: you can modify Blender as you wish, but if you don't have a great team and a lots or money or a looot of time, you won't be able to do anything.
Blender is very big: try downloading the source files and you'll see millions and millions of lines of code, and to change them (keeping the software stable) you need a lot of work


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Fill the volume area of a bounding box with a grouping of individual meshes
I asked how to fill a volumn area with a hexagon. over here: Fill the volume area of one mesh with another mesh
This was marked as a duplicate, and pointed to a solution.
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/80721/39530
I edited my question to reflect the original solution didn't work for me.
Proposed solution doesn't work for a hexagon. The rigidbodies never settle in the animation.

So I am asking again as the edited question that it is marked as duplicate isn't being viewed.
I would like to know if it is possible to fill a mesh, using it as a bounds area to then fill it entirely with a polygon(the shape) mesh.
The idea is I’ve blocked out a level design. But i want my level to be all hexagons(the shape) just like Vavle’s the lab archery level.

I have made various block sections of the level and now want to make it look like the section is made up of multiple individual hexagon meshes. So I want them all touching but would still like to modify them individually. For example I am wanting to add details to the outside hexagon meshes.
So if the rigidbody doesn't work, is there a rubber stamp solution? I would make a group of hexagons stamp them in a area. I would want each mesh to snap edges to a its neighbor if it's the same type of object.

Try adding a particle emitter. Start and end set to 1. Render: Object and select your hexagon.  Emit from Volume: Grid: Hexagonal Grid. Then under the Modifiers tab Convert to make particles real. You may have to fiddle with the Emitter resolution and Render Object Size, but a quick test showed it was possible.

How to use the particle emitter to create hexagonal fills.
Create a Cylinder with 6 sides as your Hexagon and define a Plane as the level shape. (I did try this with a 3D mesh but it is a bit more tricky to get everything lined up).

Add an Emitter and set the Object to be your Cylinder and the size to 0.5

Set the Emitter End to 1(so everything is done in frame 1) the Emit From to Faces and Grid, then you can check the box Hexagonal Grid. The Resolution needs to be tweaked here to get the fit of hexagons correct.

Then on the Modifiers panel click Convert to make the particles real.

and you can delete the original Plane and source Cylinder and manipulate the individual Cylinders.

One thing that I can't figure out. How to then select only a handful cylinders and modify them? in edit mode I can edit all but not only 1 (or selected a few) in object mode I can select a handful but only the 1st item is modified.  I'm trying to scale in this case. I have hit convert, is there something else to make them behave like a normal mesh not created by the emmitter.

I  am not following you. 2.8 will have multiple Mesh edit https://www.blendernation.com/2018/05/04/blender-2-8-new-features-multi-object-edit/ is that what you mean?

I guess its not supported? I thought I could select multiple objects, hit S to scale and all selected objects scale at the same time. This worked in edit mode, but it was all hexagon and I couldn't limit my selection to say 8 and just scale those 8 selected.

in Object mode you can select n objects and then scale only those selected, make sure you have the origin set to Individual Origins.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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adding vertex custom data for game engine shaders
I would like to know how you can add data to each vertices so that in unity I can access that data to perform shader calculations?
I was reading a article. https://www.alanzucconi.com/2018/09/17/shader-showcase-saturday-10/#more-10187. on how to perform the fortnite procedural building animations.
There are several data values added to each vertex in the article.

a extra bit (0 or 1) for left and right
pivots and rotation axis are stored in the vertex data
a additional integer for timing calculations

How would I add this data to a model in blender 2.7 or 2.8? Additionally what is this known as in blender? Vertex Data is blank in the blender manual. https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.79/modeling/meshes/properties/custom_data.html
So I'm not sure what topic to search for using blender.

You should better be using armory3d my friend

I was aware of using vertex colors and I have used them in the past for vertex animations.
But as there was a need for 3 different data properties I didn't know how to represent the extra detail in the vertex.
I started looking for my answer from the perspective of the shader instead of blender + custom vertex data.
fortnite procedural animation
What this developer did was use a additional UV channel instead.

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


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Node setup for a decal in blender 2.8
How can I add a second material as a decal?
I am needing to export to collada with 2 materials.  The first material is a base texture build up with the principle shader. The second texture is a decal. I need the decal to be in the 2nd material as when I export it into scenekit. I would like to swap-out material 2 with anybitmap the user chooses in the app. But I will me ensuring that user material is always at the correct UVmap.
So I have created two UVmap as per this answer.
Texture mapping with multiple UV maps
in blender 2.8 the only texture properties I am seeing is a brush. So I've made the decal a brush but I'm not able to apply it.

As you see in the image above, there are two canvas pictures. The one in the back has the "painting" material applied before creating a 2nd UVmap.
The canvase in the front has it applied but there isn't a decal.
I have seen the cycles/node editor where you use a 2nd texture and mix the color and alpha fracture into the base texture, resulting in a decal.
mixing textures, same material
But that is all in the same material. I need 2 separate materials.
I've created 2 shaders, each shader is using the appropriate UVmap.

blendfile

@cegaton Are you saying that can be applied to two materials? That's answer was showing the color mixers which I mentioned in my question I was aware of.

I've managed to get a variation working after I changed my first shader to a group and added it to my second shader and done the mix in there. I am figuring out exporting before I'm totally sure if it worked as I had hope.


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Mapping earth texture problem
I have a problem with earth texture mapping to an UV sphere as can be also seen by the photo below.

The mapping properties are as follows:

I have tried multiple combination of the properties but nothing could solve my problem. Do you have any idea why it shows like that?

Did you unwrap the sphere?

I tried it, and it seems that I had done something different from the tutorial. Thanks :)

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


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No search items in AN
I have no search items in Animation nodes ( Shift+A, S - type item name. But list is empty)
How can I fix this?
Blender version I tryed 2.83.6 LTS and 2.9 LTS. AN version 2.1.8

Please use [ctrl+a, f] instead .
Description

shift+a shows this popup :-

If f is pressed now, you will virtually press the "Search..." which show nothing.
For some unknown reasons, the button is  currently  broken.

ctrl+a shows this popup, which is what you want:-


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Topology Issue on stylized character
I'm currently working on a stylized character. The goal of the project currently was to apply/learn topology on exaggerated characters. I've run into a problem because It seems that I've used the wrong type of topology approach. I've been following Danny Mac's video (I'll put a link for it below), great tutorial, but It seems like I've interpreted vertex for vertex of what he was doing instead of understanding the whole concept and mechanics of retopology for characters.
Any suggestions on how I could go about fixing it?
Thanks
Link to Danny Mac's Retopology Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L8eZAwmG2E

yes it looks like if you didn't adapt the topology to the particular face of your character but only stretch a topology made for another face, for example we would expect the chin to be an extrusion, also, in front view, you lack topology around the mouth, and what happens around the ear need some corrections, etc... (I'm not a master in face topology, but that's what seems to me)

Thank you so much, I redid the retopology with tweaking and improvement, and it's looking a lot better


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Mathematics behind creating shapes using math nodes
I have seen people are creating various shapes using math nodes in Blender. Not just simple shapes but very complex shapes for example like a batman logo. I have learned that they extract algebraic equation (for example y- mx + c =0) of the shape and then implement the equation using nodes in Blender.
Now my problem is I don't know how to extract equations from a shape. Forget about complex shapes, I even don't know for simple shapes. Can you please help me specifying what math topics I have to learn to achieve this. And how will I achieve these result?
Thanking you.

If you're getting renderers to produce shapes, you'll find yourself dealing a lot with distance functions. I would recommend looking at the code on shaderetoy,lots of examples can be translated from GLSL to nodes. one of its creators, Inigo Quilez gives out some very lovely teaching in this area, as does The Art of Code. there's a whole bunch of shader-freaks out there, you will find places to exchange notes.

@Robin thank you. Let me read what's there in the link. Will come back once done.

If you want to make simple shapes here is a recommendation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqijDcTdfZ8 but i can explain here , if you separate the xyz of texture coordinate using  a Separate xyz node and then connecting it to a compare node(math) , you can get a black strip on a black plane , this could be used to make a square by subtracting another such white stripe from it , i really recommend watching the given tutorial. IN the future , you might want to make your own shapes  and as you have mentioned in the link , the topic used in the equation is Linear and quadratic equations you can by the way trace equation in node , like say you have a value node , assume it to be x then adding math node to divide it by 7 , then square the result , it can be done , but if you want to verify the equation , proper linear and quadratic equation knowledge is needed to interpret them

Thank you. I have already seen that video but what I am looking for is the mathematics topic that controls that. Otherwise I can't create my own shape on my own.

@Man_From_India can you give me an example of what "Simple" shape u want?

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/54506/is-this-batman-equation-for-real

I don't want an instruction like add this node and plug this to that. But I really want to know the math, to know by what logic we are puting this and not any other. I hope I am making sense :-)

@Man_From_India made the edit

Thank you, Can I get a good link of those topics where the basics are taught keeping in mind of creating shapes like these?

@Man_From_India as i can see your name MANFROMINDIA class 8 , 9 , 10 Ncert are good for basics but  i probably don't know if there is a way to specifically figure out these , but the basics from those books can still give you a kick start

I haven't checked those links but in most links I have seen they are talking about how to plot the graph from the equation and solve two equations using either graph or algebra. I am well aware of such stuffs. But I want it backward like I have a shape and want an equation to represent the graph because that is what is relevant here. Now that mechanism of formulating an equation from a given graphical shape is what I a looking for.

@Man_From_India Okay im getting this , same approach as the video of cg matter , you have a shape of cone , you need to break it into simple ones like cone = (square - 4SmallSquares) + 4Smallcircles) Overlay spherical gradient....so you can simplify it into different stages

@Man_From_India you will not get a similar graphical equation all the time and honestly no body approaches blender procedural node system this way , and i recommend you also shouldnt.

Thank you for your suggestion. I will practice more and more.

@Man_From_India if it helped , you can declare this awnsere as corect

Yes I know. Upvoted it. But will wait for few more days before doing that to see if anyone leaves their reply.


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Implement Substance Painter features in Blender
I have seen many substance painter videos on YouTube and I’m totally impressed with how much artistic freedom that software gives when it comes to texture painting.
I use Blender even for texture painting knowing fully well that it’s nowhere near Substance Painter. I use Blender because I can’t afford Substance Painter. I have seen that some Substance features like masking and layers for instance can be implemented in Blender (a workaround but same result). And it’s been very helpful.
Now I want to know if I can implement Filter (on mask and layer) that Substance Painter offers in Blender. Can I implement masking by colour ID in Blender?

You can check out the add-ons that exist to see how they fit in the workflow - BPainter for instance has a very powerful layering and masking system, and there are some others listed here https://cgcookie.com/articles/top-10-shading-and-texturing-addons-for-blender-2-8

You may also look at Layer Painter addon to see how they used their approach to using procedural textures to make the most out of masking for PBR materials https://blendermarket.com/products/layerpainter

@Craig can you please help me learn blender texture painting and procedural texturing and shading? And tutorial exclusively for this. Because I am completely at zero level at nodes and procedural texturing.

You can check out my old youtube channel, but be advised that my won add-ons don't work in 2.8+ anymore and not I'm not likely to ever pursue them again since improvements are coming that negate the need for them. https://www.youtube.com/user/artistCDMJ/videos?view_as=subscriber


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faces falling below the sculpted face when re-topologizing
I have sculpted a human head in Blender, and now I am doing re-topology. This is for the first time I am doing, and I am kind of new to Blender, and in this 3D field for that matter.
See the picture below

The portion I marked with blue marker, it shows that the retopologized grids are there but it falls below the sculpted face, though I am using "snap to grid" and "srinkwrap" modifier and I suppose it is due to less geometry.
If I give more geometry, the retopology in that portion looks messy and increases polygons.
My question is if I bake a normal map will those raised portions of my sculpt be captured in the baked image and then be transformed to my low poly retopology model?
If not, how to achieve that?

@cegaton that is true. But you see, if I add geometry using ctrl + r it would make it messy. What is the solution?

@cegaton yes that is correct. But you see my problem is, especially in case of that raised portion which is not on the boundary. If we try to add geometry it will disturb the other parts of the retopology. Can u show how to come up with the solution?

@cegaton :'( now that's is going to be painful lot of work :'(

The reason for the faces being below the surface is that the vertices and edges that make up the faces in those regions are not on the highest points of your mesh. When the faces are made, they connect in a straight line, which in this case goes through a portion of your mesh. The two ways to deal with this are to add more vertices so that the faces can follow the contour of your mesh better, or reposition your vertices so that the detail is better preserved. If your end goal is baking normals, you will want both objects to be as close as possible. Here are a few tips to make your retopology process a bit easier:
1) Instead of starting at one point and working your way around the ear, start by identifying where you want your edge loops to be, and what details you want to highlight.
2) To do this, I've always found it easiest to use snapping set to face, and then Ctrl click to extrude a single vertex and create your edge loops. If you enable automatic snapping (the little magnet icon) each new vertex will snap to the surface where you click.
3) Place your edge loops at the highest and lowest points possible. If there is a ridge or bump, place the loop so it is on the highest point. Do the same for any valleys or indents.
4) Keep in mind that you will have to connect all of these loops together eventually, so plan where each vertex will connect to the others.
5) Finally, begin connecting your edge loops to each other. You won't have enough edge loops to simply fill single faces between edges, so add more vertices where necessary. If you use some topology guides and plan your topology carefully, it shouldn't be to difficult to add in extra detail where you need it.

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


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Image Mapping vs Texturing vs Baking
What is the difference between Imaging Mapping, texturing and baking?
In sculpting workflow, I have learned that a high-poly mesh needs to re-topologize for avoiding hassle. Then the baking process starts.
My question is:
Do we UV-unwrap high-poly model and bake it to low-poly model that we get after re-topology process?
Is there any good tutorial for these?


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Sculpting details to human head
I have completed a human head using sculpting. I smoothed the face. Now I have to put details like skin pores, blemishes, acne etc on top. I decided to use alpha map in sculpt mode. (I think height map is not that helpful and I have no knowledge on that. Bump map is not helpful because I can't create details on a particular place. So rejected the idea of bump map and height map. Sticking to alpha map)
My computer can't handle multiresolution at this stage. So I am using dyntopo and set the image of skin pore as texture to a sculpt brush.
But my problem is head is created. With each stroke it creates some geometry, I have to smooth it and this way the details of pore is getting vanished.
What is the solution?

@cegaton really can a bump map affect only some portion of the mesh? How to achieve that? I'm a beginner.

@cegaton i have created uv map and normals. But How yo create bump map on parts?


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Custom Alphas in GIMP
How to create custom alphas on GIMP that we can use in Texture Painting amd Sculpting on Blender?
Today I tried a lot, but couldn't achieve expected result. Moreover my GIMP and photo editing knowledge is very less. So I want a detailed step-by-step tutorial regarding this.
Please help.

To add Alpha to GIMP layer

Right click on a layer in GIMP and select "Add Layer Mask..."
You will see a second thumbnail appear on the layer. Select the thumb.
Paint over your image where you want Alpha in Black and White.
When it is transparent you will see a checkered background in GIMP.

Note on Blender
There are a few ways alpha can be implemented, I am just sharing the simplest IMO. Implementing an image that has an alpha channel built in will depend on what render engine you are using. In Cycles you will need to use a Transparency node in addition to whatever node setup you are using to utilize Alpha. BI will need several settings changed to setup alpha (A couple in the texture properties and enabled transparency in the material if memory serves me, been many years since I last used BI). EEVEE, not officially released as of time of writing doesn't seem to be working correctly using latest build on my system so will have to update later if you need to know about that one.
Edit:
It should be mentioned, You do not have to use GIMP for painting in Blender (But it can be a nice addition afterwards for more advanced editing), you can make your texture file in Blender and then go to paint mode on your object. Blender does have some performance limitations doing this at high resolution.

To create a new texture file for painting go to your UV image editor and click "New", then type in your file name, resolution and make sure "Alpha" is checked.
Once thats done apply your new image to your material so it is seen in the viewport on the model you want to paint
Go to texture paint mode and have fun
Always remember to save your texture file outside Blender or it will be deleted!

Can you please provide screenshots of important steps you did in GIMP?

One more thing. The transparent part is turning black (value 0) in EEVEE.


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Painting over seams
Can I paint continuously on top of a sim? It seems like a problem. See the image

The black lining is unintended and seems like it is coming because of the seams that went through that line.

Perhaps try to increase the Bleed value in the Tools panel > Options > Project Paint, when you are in Texture Paint mode

@moonboots what the bleed value is? And how would it help?

the brush will paint a bit out of the UVmap island, so make sure you have a bit margin


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Draw Normal, Bump and Specular Map manually in Blender
I am going to make a rusty nut. Some portion of it is still glossy, but most of them are covered with rust.
Now for rust I have an image. I want to paint normal map, bump map and specular map manually in Blender.
Previously I used insane bump plugins in Gimp to make those maps. But I noticed that using those maps in Blender nodes doesn't look that great. No matter how much I try. So I am planning to draw everything manually in Blender. And it is justified because I might need custom adjustment.
How to draw Normal map, Specular map and bump map manually in Blender?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/77088/how-to-draw-normal-map?utm_medium=organic&utm_source=google_rich_qa&utm_campaign=google_rich_qa You may find your answer here on the 2nd post.

@hawkenfox but that question doesn't address othe two maps I want to draw manually :(

This question is too vague. Generating different maps has never been the proper approach to get good results. How to achieve/paint a good texture depends totally on what kind of material you're making. Rust you could generate with Musgrave noise and color ramp that affects color, specularity, roughness and displacement for example.

@Man_From_India I can understand painting normals, as for specular and bump, I always find that it's too much effort with free and paid packages that could generate them very well. Saves time too ... I might just paint them in blender by the fraction, touching up.


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Imported object shows aligned to the wrong axis
I was doing fine with importing an obj I made in Marvelous Designer into Blender for rigging.  The dress would settle nicely on my SL avi.
Now when I import the object; it is perpendicular to my avi and I have spent a week trying to figure out what I did...  Is there a keystroke or setting that I need to make sure is correct so that my dress fits my avatar again?

Most import/export types have an option to alter the Forward and Up alignment. Try some different options to find which one matches your exported data.


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Boid Particles Loads of errors
I'm setting up a few emitters using the Boid particle system.
But almost every time I run into serious bugs.
Either the used objects start shaking or won't move at all or do not follow any of the rules set in the boid brain. Objects make sudden direction changes along an axis that should have been nullified
Two emitters on the same layer using different object are leaking variables to each other. (Which in some cases resulted in having emitters launching the same objects when they are set to different ones)
Quite often the only solution is to completely remove the emitter and start all over again. Losing a good hour of tweaking.
Am I doing something completely wrong?  Or do more people suffer from these hideous bugs?
Obviously there are loads of settings which interfere with each other, but it's driving me nuts...
Any good ideas / suggestions would be welcome

Can you share a blend file exhibiting the problems - or atleast some screenshots? This will help someone replicate the problem.

Hi,
thanks for reading it so far.
Mmmm, I better make a screencast then.. screenshot wouldn't reveal that much.
lemme see if I can get to that today or tomorrow.
Additionally, particles tend to disappear or appear.
And... the more emitters, the more issues


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Change location of the name of the object
When setting, in Python, "show_name = True" all my objects show their names as desired.
However since objects are close to each other the names get scrambled.
Hence I want to change the position of the name of the object.
Right now the name seems to be attached to the pivot-point.
Location Pivot point however may not be changed.
Any ideas?


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Make this "Bicycle Chain" follow a curve perfectly, without warping
Yesterday I asked How can I curve an array of meshes without curving the mesh?, and got a great answer from Moonboots.
My problem was how to make a mesh follow a curve without warping. They explained that I could parent to a plain of the same size.

Using that technique, I have a mesh that needs to overlap.

To do this, I need to use a relative offset of .915, or size the parent-plane to 91.5% of the width of the chain element. I've tried both.
I'm not sure why blender is flipping my mesh, but it doesn't matter (unless it's what's causing this problem.) There are no rotations or inverse scales applied to any mesh or curve.
I have a Curve, and an identically-shaped Bezier Curve, because I tried both, And no matter what I try, the links follow the curve poorly

The origins for the original chain link, parent-plane, and both curves are all in the same spot.

There are a couple of questions with working answers about how to make objects follow a curve in a snake like fashion.

@TheLabCat Thanks! I'm trying to get it to work with an array but my mesh is still warping when it wraps around the curve.


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How can I slant a mesh, while keeping it the same height?
I have a box roughly like the left box in this image.
I want to be able to make it "lean" on one axis (x), without decreasing the size along the other axis (y, z) like the right box in this image.
To do it here, I moved the top face along X and then did my subdivisions.

Proportional editing almost does this, but not quite, and probably wouldn't work well on complex shapes.

I think what you're looking for is the "Shear" tool

@Gorgious That does it, thank you

Or with a lattice.

eg https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/195675/15543


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Converting .blend to a .dxf
When I google this, I mostly get online converters. I need actual answers.
I have a mesh in blender. It's 2D. It's has 0 depth, here's a top-view of a portion of it.
To try to fix this, I tried giving it some depth by extruding it. That made no change.

(I see the small defect in the blender screenshot. I've already fixed that issue)
When I convert it to DXF,  through an online converter or the Blender addon, I get a pure wireframe. It has no "faces" or solid areas, which their automated system has a problem with.

Is there something I can do to faciliate this?
I'm trying to have something milled and they want a .dxf file. They don't accept .blend, .obj, or anything like that.

I thought .dxf was for 2D drawings (not meshes). Maybe check and see if the people doing the milling will accept an .stl file - it's a CAD format made for meshes.

Solid works let's you rotate a dxf much like you can in Blender. Top/left/right etc view

Yea, I dunno then. I know blender triangulates meshes when converting to dxf (with no option to not to), and that the exporter is reported to be touch and go at best (especially with reading line widths). I think your best bet would be to export to .fbx (which can be opened by AutoCAD software), or to export to .stl, and then convert the .stl to .dxf.

Thanks, I'll try this tomorrow.


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How can I curve an array of meshes without curving the mesh?
I have a tank-track like-design, that I want to follow a curve.
But since the track-pieces themselves will not bend in real life, I don't want my render to bend.
No subdivision is applied, the edge-marks were just to test if that would work. It had no affect.

if it has no vertical edges it won't be able to bend, this is a solution

@moonboots It needs vertical edges for teeth and holes for the teeth.

so you can array a simple plane, enable its Instancing, and parent your rail object to the arrayed plane

What you want is duplication along a curve without deformation. Since 2.8 you can't use Dupliframes anymore, but you can do it this way:
Create a plane as long as your object, give it an Array and a Curve modifier so that it follows a curve:

Keep your plane selected, open the Object panel and under Instancing, enable Faces:

Parent your object to the plane, it won't deform even though it is subdivided:

Note: Maybe you'll need to set your curve to Shape > Twist Method > Z-Up

I found another answer elsewhere that helped a bit, and this cemented it, thank you! For anyone who might have an issue, make sure your objects rotation and scale are applied. Also, this may need you to change your array modifier's axis.

Is there a way to do this and discard the plane mesh data on export so you just get a single mesh of the non-deformed objects?

@Adam apply the modifiers of the plane, for the cuboid object press Ctrl A > Make Instances Real, the instances are still linked, to unlink select them all and go into the header menu > Object > Relations > Make SIngle User > Object & Data.

@moonboots Hey thanks, this is exactly what I wanted!


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Why is my smoke in such a bad quality (cycles)?
For a university project I'm working on a 3D scene. Most of it is finished, if I render it with cycles everything is alright except the waterfall. It looks like I rendered it in a really bad quality. I made the waterfall with a smoke simulation at an extra renderlayer with an extra lamp, because in the normal scene it will look pitch black.
Thank you :)

pelase show relevant smoke simulation settings...

You simply don't have enough resolution. You have 50 base res, and 1x high res. Each high res division splits the voxel along each axis, so with 1x high res your domain container is only 100 voxels high. However, the smoke region alone is over 400 screen pixels high in the final render! Usually there's some padding in the container as well, so each voxel has to cove 4-6 screen pixels! This leads to the pixelated look. You need to just increase resolution.
Adjusting base resolution can alter the movement of the simulation, so try just cranking up high res first. Increase high-res divisions to 3 or 4, and re-bake. See if you like the result. If it looks too obviously like a smoothed low-res sim, drop back to high-res 1 (to save baking time) and do some tests with higher base res, like 70-100. Once you're happy there, bring high res back up to keep even more detail.


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What is the workflow to create animation in Blender?
I am very new to Blender, and into CGI for that matter.
I started with Sculpting, can form decent human face, and now into sculpting body structure.
It's true that there are lots of materials scattered around for learning Blender. But they are not structured for a beginner to learn from.
My question (it might be off-topic, but please bear with me, as I really have no clue about Blender) is what is the work flow to create animation in Blender?
I know a few -

Modeling - Box modeling, sculpt modeling.
Texturing
UV Wrap/Unwrap
Material
Lighting
Rigging
Animation.

But there are other topics also, like weight paint etc. I just want to know the topics for successful completion of a video file from scratch.
I'm asking this because if I know the topics, I would search for those topics and would be able to learn Blender fast.
Please help.

It depends what you are trying to do. Most of the other things you will search will fit within one of these categories. They are just specific methods to do it.

@VRM I am going a make a video. What topic I should learn?

@Man_From_India Take a look at my answer for the basic 3d model production steps: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/63246/how-do-i-make-a-3-dimensional-character-out-of-flat-picture

@Man_From_India in blender an animation can be a) keyframed b) simulated c) both. For a basic animation, you need only some object changing some of its properties: for that you just need to keyframe different values of a property. Texturing, UV, matrials, lighting are not needed but often useful to give the animation rendered result some sort of visual result or(rigging)  to help keyframing. Start here https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/animation/introduction.html

@PaulGonet Off-topic: Whoa i just checked your answer. First: nice joke :D Second: That was the most in-depth answer i ever saw arround here.

@Reaper Thanks:). Have to admit that you've done a great job with your answer too. +1 from me. BTW I doubt that my answer is the most in-depth one here :).

This depends on your personal workflow and/or the workflow of your contractor/employer.
Basically (if we wanted to create a simple animation, with just a character) (in my experience) it's always something like this (some of the following tasks are usually - but not always - done by different artists):

Concept phase (Where rough concepts and ideas are gathered and refined - mostly 2D)
Concept models (Very rough models to proof the concepts work in 3D and in general)
Sculpting (Basically "creating" the character in 3D, with all the small details. This results in a highpoly model)
Retopologize (Highpoly models are hard to work with, so you take the model and "rebuild" it, with less polygons. Sometimes - often in games - you have a polycount budget. So your model isn't allowed to have more than x polygons/tris. This results in a lowpoly model)
UV-Unwrapping (In order to "paint" your model (e.g. put a texture on it) you need to unwrap it and create a UV-map. This UV-map is also used for baking)
Baking (You can transfer all the details from your highpoly model to your lowpoly model via a normal map (texture). This normal map and some other maps are generated by "baking")
Texturing (Basically paint your model. This is where the grey chunk gets fancy ;) )
Rigging (In order to animate your model, it need a skeleton. Rigging is basically giving your model a skeleton, which you can animate)
Animation (The skeleton - and with it the model - gets animated)
Lighting (In this stage, lighting is set up. Also arround this time, everything is put together (if that's not done via compositing))
Rendering (Everything is rendered. In small/simple scenes you can put everything in one scene and render it out. However, in more advanced and bigger scenes, the stuff to render is usually split up in several renderlayers, which are then put together in compositing)
Compositing (Like described above, this is where the different parts of the renders are put together. This is also where mat-paintings and VFX are "put in")

I hope this helps you understanding the basic workflow.
As you can see, 3D and CGI is a very complex topic.
Greetings

nods it's really complex. Low poly means the subdivide should be less, right? But even in dynamic topology, if I want to add details the poly count rises.

I just edited the post. I forgot a point (Baking). It's now added.
And i edited again, changed the order

@Man_From_India If this answers your question, could you please mark it as answer, so it's not displayed as unanswered? Thank you.

just to clarify one point. It seems tgar retopology lacks details. Should we unwrap it? Do you have any good tutorial about these workflows?


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Bridge the gap - Retopology
I am doing retopolgy on a sculpt. But while doing this I ran into a problem. Please refer to the picture below

The region I marked with blue marker contains more vertex and the region I marked with red marker contains less vertex. So how to fill the gap in between? I naturally don't want to populate the region I marked with red marker with more vertex. So how to bridge the gap?

Image. However, in a space of less than three polygons, the size shouldn't be reduced to less than 0,3. See illustration on the left.

This is one way to reduce vertex count.
enter image description here


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Material that is not affected by the color reflected from other objects?

I used blender cycles to render it. There is color reflection on the cloud from the ground. i want to make the cloud full white. could someone help me?

add a picture of the material nodes for your cloud.

This is partially answered here:
How can I avoid colored light reflections?
this will get rid of indirect lighting, and your cloud won't reflect the ground, but neither will anything else in your scene.
Another option would be to use a different render layer for your cloud, that way you can keep the indirect lighting and your cloud will still be full white.
Finally you could use an emissive material, and then fill in shadows with a world normal comparison since you are going for the flat look. Or if you prefer a silhouette look just use an emissive.

Nodes:


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Adaptive subdivision ocean modifier
I am in the process of creating a large ocean, which I would like to use the ocean modifier for. My scene currently consists of a plane being displaced by the ocean modifier, but I would like to have 5 repeats on both the x and y. With the detail I need, the amount of polygons will be absurd without adaptive subdivision.
Since I can not enable adaptive subdivision when the subsurf modifier is first in list, how can I use the ocean modifier with adaptive subdivision?

Unfortunately, adaptive subdivision (at least as it is now) works by applying the subdivision to the UV dynamically with respect to the view.  It must be dynamic.  However, the ocean modifier obviously radically changes geometry and it does so by modifying a known geometry.  With ASD, the geometry is unknown and is in flux.  For this reason, ASD must be applied last.
This is just a workaround and it may not even be applicable to your needs (and you've probably already thought of it).  It's not adaptive but you can lock the camera to plane and maybe make it appear as if your subject is moving through the ocean.
Create a plane and subdivide it in sections:

Apply Ocean mod Set Geometry to Displace.  Play with settings:

Sorry for the crummy sky hdri:


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Can I combine channels or edit them at the same time?
Using Blender VSE I have two channels, an audio channel and a movie channel.
I plan to be splitting them up and reordering the splits - nothing too complex. However, with the audio and the video in two separate channels, that's twice as much work for me to do.
Is there a way for me to merge channels together so I only have to apply these edits one, or a way for me to apply edits to both channels at the same time?
Thank you very much!

You can select the audio and video strips and then press CTRL+  G to group them together (essentially combining the channels).
Now you can make your cuts and reorganize them.
This combined strip is called a Meta Strip, and by pressing the TAB key you can dive into the Meta Strip to edit the contents inside of it.


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Changing age and size of rigged character
I have some meshes, which have the same topology, but different sizes. In my case my meshes represent the same character with different age.
When rigging such a character, I'd like to be able to change the size of the armature at the same time of the age of the character.
When just mixing both meshes together and having a shape key which represents the characters age, one of the meshes doesn't match the character anymore.
Is there some way to ensure, that both the mesh and the armature change at the same time?

Hi, a bit complex to understand as it is now, can you share some more mesh and rigging details? If you could share the file (use http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ then post the provided link in question) this could be probably easier to understand, and perhaps solve.


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How Should I refocus camera on an object while editing?
I am just a beginner in Blender, When I am editing an object on the plane, the 3D Viewport is not showing the accurate direction and path, due to which I am unable to do editing easily on that object. I tried to focus the camera on the viewport, but it wasn't helpful.How should I correct the angle of the camera?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but you can always center your view to a specific object, face, vertex, ... by selecting it and pressing , on your NumPad.
The view now orbits around that point.
If you want to aim your active camera to the same view, press ctrl+alt+NumPad 0
To look around you, hit shift+f


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Is there a way to split an object by vertex index?
I used umodel to rip models from an unreal engine game. However, it put a lot of meshes in one object. So, I have a black hole of 22k verts that all belong to like 40+ items. The good thing, is that the items can be separated by vertex index. Like, verts 0-277 are a model, verts 278-569 are a model. Is there a way I can split a model based on vertex indexes?

Try to use P -> By Loose Parts in edit mode. This operation separates vertexes that connected to each outer by edges.

That kind of works, but each gun has several parts when pieced like this, so its kind of impossible to solve this jigsaw puzzle haha


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How to apply cloth modifier/physics only on selected faces?
I completed my low-poly character modeling today (in one-piece). So my question is, how to apply cloth modifier/physics on selected faces (Given in the picture)? I need extra hanging cloth should animate like a cloth!

I actually tried adding cloth physics when these faces are selected, but it applied to the whole mesh which is turning my model into a cloth :(

Cloth physics are always applied on a per-object basis, you can't apply it to part f a mesh only as far as I know. You could try creeating a Vertex Group including all other vertex and use it for pinning, but not sure how well it would workout.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Yes, making "Vertex Group" worked! Although I wanted the collars of coat as cloth but with different cloth properties, like high "Spring" value which is not possible :(


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How to paint Weight Black to Weight Blue?
My question here is how can I get the part in black to blue. (see the images)
I don't know exactly what the weight black does but I think that it disturbing the natural weight paint.
When I paint with any value or even 0.05, the Vertex works like was painted with 1. And I think is because that are the black color on.
The Weight Tool "Clean" expands the black, and paint with Brush:Mix with Blend:Substract (and other combinations) turns black also.
Paint in the parts blue gets the good results with varied values. Diferent in the black 0.0/1.0
For any more clarification about it, ask me please.

Try switch 'Show Zero Weights' to none ...at least to get rid of the black.

I think 'Clean' might be confusing the issue...

I can't see your brush settings but I paint with auto - normalize on, and find 'Smooth' the most useful of the Weight Tools for fixing.
The manual itself is also full of good info.

Thank you man, but that was a mistake for lack of another bones.
When are no one bone weight in the mesh, turn black. And the weight just go correctly between 0 to 1 if are another bone "to hold" the part.
And I noticed too that in the middle of the bones always move at 1 value, so I've had been careful about that and I found the new ways and solutions to resolve my character and it's fine.
At least in the weight bones.


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Animation and modelling workflow
Somewhere on Internet I came across a piece of writing, where it said first sculpting is done, the retopology. Then the retopologized mesh is sent to animator.
After that it is sent back to sculptor. The new posed model is again sculpted for details.
But my question is

Is the retopologized mesh sent to animator before normal baking?
If baking can project details from sculpting to the retopologized mesh, why there is the need to sculpt it again for details after it returns from animator?
Animation is not a single pose. So how the second details is projected?

Blender has a very flexible workflow, and you can do things in virtually any order and get away with it without too much extra work. I don't think it is industry standard to sculpt twice, but that should not stop you from doing it if you have to.

This really does not matter, you can either bake the normals first or rig the model. None depends on the other.
I don't really see the need for sculpting again after a pose. The only reason I could imagine (assuming you are talking about character modeling here) going back to bake a new normal map is if you modeled in a stiff T-pose and then decide you need some more details in areas that were stretched in the unrigged model. It would thus make sense to sculpt over those areas again after the pose is changed.
Shape keys can be used to animate the shape of a model in addition to bones. These would surely be made by the sculptor. Again, in blender the order of doing the rig and adding shape keys is irrelevant. You just need a retopoed model to work with.

Hope that helped!


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Motion Tracking. Why is my solve error so high?
When i track my points (Black dots on white paper) it looks pretty good yet my solve error comes out to about 12.5. Please help me out

Check the curves of the tracks, maybe upload a sceenshot. You'll see the failing trackingpoints there. (spikes)

Have you set your camera information like focal length and sensor size correctly?


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Pixelated screen look
I want something to have this look (the eyes)
But i do not know how to get this look. I looked it up multiple times and it shows how to fix grainy and pixelated pictures. Please help! It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Have you tried manually drawing a texture like that in an external image editing application, like Photoshop, GIMP, Inkscape or Illustrator? You can also manually model it with small circle shaped objecs

Possible duplicate of https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/39508/how-to-give-an-image-or-video-a-tv-screen-effect

Possible duplicate of How to give an image or video a TV screen effect?


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Why is my model see through when I render?
When I render my 3D motion Tracked Scene It is See Through and I can see an outline. Please tell me why this is happening. It would be greatly apprieciated.

Could you post your compositing node setup?


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Why are my renders of glass turning out strange?
When i render glass it keeps showing up black, i have turn on and off ambient lighting (both kinds) and also have added a sun lamp but it still shows up black. Any solutions? Any help is greatly appreciated thanks!

id be happy to tell you my settings if needed. Also i have transparent checked and tried it on/off it didnt work

ok here is the link https://i.imgur.com/NgNYjdD.png the white/black is the glass

@cegaton heres the link https://i.imgur.com/NgNYjdD.png

Are you using Blender Internal or Cycles engine?

I had this problem for a while; what I eventually figured out was going on was that I needed to increase the number of transmission samples in the Light Paths tab in the Render panel.  This dictates how many transparent surfaces the light can pass through.  For example, if you are rendering something through a window, it should show through.  But if you then add another window in front of that one, and then another one, and so on, you'll reach a point where the glass suddenly starts showing up black.  That's because the transmission samples aren't high enough, so the light isn't able to travel through so many transparent surfaces.  The solution is to just increase the number of transmission samples.
Hope that helps!

It didnt work but thanks :/ :)


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How can I create a script that can turn pictures into 2D low poly images?
Before:
http://cdn1.digitalartsonline.co.uk/cmsdata/slideshow/3513552/DAT_004.jpg
After:

https://m1.behance.net/rendition/modules/113025095/disp/9db2282a74ec5c6e7f48aeb0f9421e3f.jpg
Does anyone have ideas on how I would do this?

If this is possible its way outside the scope of something that could be answered here.  In the image you provided it looks like each triangle was positioned by hand.  The details around the nose and ears are more detailed than the hair or cheeks as an example.  That isn't something that could be automated without some really advanced image recognition.  However if you simply are looking to automatically color an existing mesh thats probably doable.

You'll still have to place the geometry by hand, but I've put together a simple material that will automatically set the colors for you.  For this example I've used a triangulated, subdivided plane.  Its not a bad result, but it does look a bit dry and grid like.

In order for this to work each triangle should be its own object with its its origin at its center.  To do this quickly you could create your triangles as a single mesh object and then in edit mode press crtl+e and choose "edge split".  You would then need to press p -> "separate by loose parts", after which you would exit edit mode and do a ctrlaltshiftc -> "set origin to geometry".
Input image:

Output:

Update: Here's what my sample looks like after applying @3pointedit's suggestion

In addition to this I would drive a displacement of the geometry (vertically) with the source image then unsubdivide based on angle.

@3pointedit Thats a really clever idea

Yeah I accidentally did it a while ago, have a look https://twitter.com/3pointedit/status/733176875804057600


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Is There a Way to "Render" the sound itself in Blender?
I know this sounds like a ridiculous/newbie question, and I know it's been asked before (and yes, I am currently aware that there's no 'official' method for doing this), but is it theoretically possible to obtain data (from, say for example, the collision of objects) and through some elaborate scripting, be able to actually simulate what it would physically "sound" like? And if it were possible, how could it be done?
I can imagine that the adjustment of objects' positions relative to the active camera would be a fairly simple and straightforward place to start out (rapid oscillations based on the locations of each object could simulate sound wave pressures and be delivered straight to headphones), but other sounds appear a bit more complicated because of the way the physics system is already set up, with an emphasis on speed & efficiency rather than complete and total accuracy.
Anyways, I guess my primary question is: how would one go about beginning to script such a thing? Have there been attempts to do this already? Has anyone considered implementing an idea like this to create physically accurate sounds? (rather than taking a sound effect that has no relation to the physical qualities of the object it's ascribed to and using it for that purpose)

I am sure I have seen some siggrpah papers about this kind of research. It is not a trivial job to accomplish this.

Somebody just needs to write a render engine for audio acoustics. Blender can provide the geometry. This would of course be a massive project, although really cool. Alternatively, if you're not looking for acoustic realism but just looking to to get interesting effects, you could experiment with converting render result color data into audio frequencies.

I've asked myself the same question and I think I even saw a similar question on here somewhere. I think it would be very difficult or maybe even another program altogether. Making objects break (for example) in Blender is already hard enough (compared to, say, Houdini)... also meshes are usually empty - would they sound different depending on material? What should a material which is 50% glass and glossy behave/sound like?

@MicroMachine Similar to 3D printing, each mesh would need to have a volume in order to be calculated correctly. As for materials, shaders would be irrelevant. there would need to be new material properties coded within the engine for handling sound - like shaders, but for audio. These would tell the render engine, for example, "this object is made of steel" and "this other object is made of wood". Similar to how with IOR each kind of material has its own refraction value, acoustic materials would need to have their own values that define their density and how they resonate.

@Mentalist sounds good! I'm definitely interested. However Blender does some things realistically and can also produce abstract forms and materials. Most 3d art I see is abstract. So what are abstract sounds? There isn't "one" sound that is right for one given scene. You would have to design microphones too, air density, scattering, echo... dimensions would have to be true to life. But say you make something blow up in space, you wouldn't hear it. If you make an abstract video you should hire sound designers and composers because there wouldn't be a "true" approach to abstraction

I just came across a very relevant and interesting video on this subject so I thought I'd share it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzsZ2qMtEUE

I cannot say how you could do it in blender but perhaps if there was a sound that could be played when 2 objects collide but if at different speeds it could maybe adjust the pitch,treble,bass to simulate sounds of objects hitting each other or maybe explosion and fire crackling sounds could be simulated for particle effects. a basic built in audio editor could be put into blender if anything to help with stuff like this.

There is active research happening in this field currently and Stanford is in the forefront of this research. They presented their work at SIGGRAPH, 2018. I hope soon it can be integrated to Blenderv2.8. Check out their work on the same -
Paper - https://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/wavesolver/
Video Explanation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mjPxcE8UDg
Articles - https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/crash-bam-plop-new-system-brings-sounds-animation-life

Back around 2005, fresh out of college with a physics and neuroscience degree, I was actually working on a project similar to this, which would take a synthesized sound and construct a rough model of the physical instrument necessary to create it. I learned a few things back then about the digital construction of sounds from sculpted materials to be able to add a little to this question.
PHYSICS
The first thing you would need to concern yourself with is how precise you would want the sound to be, as there are a lot of factors involved. What kind of medium (precisely) is the event occurring in? What are the active elements made of? Are they consistently made of the same material, or is there buffering internally? How flexible is this material? Has it been scored or warped in any way? What temperature and phase is it at?
I could go on; but all of these things have a significant effect on acoustics (as anyone who has ever had to refurbish a broken musical instrument knows). The good news is, if we're assuming simple and consistent materials, mechanical engineers have mapped out just about all of them, which will reasonably easily fit into an inline table on the LTS of most modern machines.
After that, you have the precision of the sound. We're talking about something that ultimately involves every molecule of the material, and if it isn't a perfectly crystalline material (which just doesn't happen in the real world), then each molecule is going to behave a little differently. I sincerely doubt that you're going to need an exact match, but my point is that you will need a "good enough" level to stop at. Think of it as a number of samples, but for safety's sake, throw it to around 100,000 or more. Sounds audible to a human being are generally between 20 Hz and 20 KHz, which means by the Nyquist theorem you would need about double that to render them at all, and quite a few times more if you don't want significant amplitude distortion.
HISTORY
But, I have more good news. Most of the work has been done by electronic musicians, going back to Lev Sergeyevich Termen in 1930. You're familiar, I'm sure, with square, triangle, saw, and sine waves? They are in common usage because they closely emulate the acoustic behavior of orchestral instruments. Take any dirt-cheap 80s keyboard (and even the expensive ones) and you'll find that every MIDI program on it consists of a combination of these waves, providing us with expansive muscial versatility; particularly when you apply the same principles on modern hardware.
Additionally, Homer Dudley applied his knowledge of the physical structure and deformation of human vocal cords and created a device in 1937 capable of constructing detailed human-like speech from carrier waves. He called it a "Vocal Decoder", or "Vocoder", and it was effectively a complicated organ the size of a small barn, but produced recognizable sentences in the hands of a trained operator. It debuted at the World's Fair. I'm sure he was thinking very much about the 1930s equivalent of this notion of building sounds from modeled objects. Today, of course, the technology is still around; but it's embedded in microprocessors or purely digital DAWs.
(Note that I am not referring to vocoders as you'll find as synthesizers in any good DAW; nor am I referring to those used in cell phone towers; though the technologies are tightly related.)
The down side is that, human-like or not, look up a recording of Dudley's vocoder and you'll immediately feel the artificiality of it. (Be fair, it was one of the world's first synthesizers.)
You might look up acoustic work by both of them to get started.
APPLICATION
So, knowing what we do of the Fourier decomposition of one sound into a collection of component sounds, and the usage of carrier waves to establish complicated (but known) physical distortions; and assuming you're willing to cut corners here and there don't exactly have the time or money for a personal Google Deep Mind, I would say that your best bet is this.
Take known rigidbody (or softbody) shapes, and map their momentum and tensile strength to an octree space partition. Fill the void with the tensile properties of the medium they're immersed in (say, air, at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, unless you're looking for something interesting). For boundaries, assume an infinite expanse of a select physical property. During your animation (which should be high FPS!) trace the compression and restoration of each material, at a bare minimum of 80KHz or higher for recognizable sound. (That's 80,000 FPS.) Ray cast to the listener (probably your camera), and consider power loss with distance, and any distortions that the medium might put on it. Lastly, if it still doesn't sound precise enough, up the number of partitions in the octree, or fit it to the actual shape of your objects a little better.
You have your basic framework for forming sound, which can easily be done with Python. However, you shouldn't be surprised if you break 1,000,000 FPS for the audio before it sounds "right" to you. If we're being exact, this is not computationally cheap. (You will almost certainly need to rent time on a server farm.)
Another established approach is from Google, with their WaveNet spin off of Deep Mind. You might take a look at it; it isn't precisely related to 3D modeling, but they use a technique where a voice is established by considering each sample frame's most likely effect on adjacent sample frames and feeding them through a neural network. It's sort of the next step beyond Concatenative or Parametric Voice Synthesis. Unfortunately, like waiting on a Cycles bake of an extraordinarily complicated scene, it can take months to complete and isn't short on computing power needs; it also considers sound independently from what's creating it.
It may inspire you, though; as a scaled down method could combine the pre-recorded sounds of similar objects to your manifolds in a rational way to create a new one that best fits the bill. It would be much less demanding on computing power, but potentially might require a larger and more flexible library of data.


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Project Video onto Sphere in Video Editor
I have a specific request where I want to project a video onto a sphere, or simply put: warp a video so that it seems like the camera is inside a sphere.
The goal is to emulate a VR experience for a concept video, where I want the actions (menus and interactions and such) to be "sphere-projected"/warped and overlayed on to the camera where the actor interacts accordingly.
Here is an example of what I mean with spherical projection:

Can this be  done with some sort of simple effect and inside of Blender so everything stays in one piece ?

I think that you can use the UV Projector modifier to make that happen. You will just have to specify a material with a video as texture. As far as that happening in the VSE, not so certain.

Yeah UV unwrap a sphere, then in the compositor use the UV coordinates to retroject your movie. This will save rendering time. Or you could just distort a plane in 3D view onto  a sphere allowing you to reposition it but no option is possible in VSE alone sorry. There just aren't any distortion effects there.

In this example I have created a simple UV sphere in 3D and subdivided it a lot to make it smooth.
Then I used the addon "Import Images As Planes" to make a plane with the picture. I rotated that 90 degrees to vertical then oriented and placed it at the surface of the sphere.
I apply 2 modifiers of "simple" subdivision set to 3. This will make the plane smooth when it deforms to the sphere. Then I applied the Shrinkwrap modifier set target object to sphere.
I created an Empty object at the centre of the sphere to do the rotation work, then I parent the plane to it (remember to select the parent object last then press CTRL+P). To move the image plane simply rotate and keyframe the Empty object. In the scene properties make sure that it is set to Transparent.
In the VSE I add the prerecorded video of the actor or scene, then I add a "Scene Strip" on top. I set the strip to Alpha over and change the blend amount to approximately 0.5.
If you want the wrapped plane to go behind the actor you will have to shoot them on green screen and key them via the compositor or use a mask to draw around them and hold out the 3D imagery.


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Exporting trouble. Bone tail and head positions change quaternion rotation
I managed to program a cute script to export animated models for Play Station Portable.
If all the bones are aligned with Y pointing up, It works perfect, But animating the models that way is a bit strange:

So I want to export models with bones not aligned like this:

But the bones rotated in edit mode, like the ones for the arms, are now rotating along their rotated Y axis, the exported quaternions are wrong when loaded in PSP and they rotate in flipped axis.
So... Is there a way to export the quaternions without the rotation added by the head-tail axis?. Like, multiply the quaternion by the head-tail vector... or something like that?
Thanks a lot!

Short Answer: No.
Long answer: it likely isn't worth it.
You can do things like this by shifting the rotational axis of the animations once you have adjusted your bones as described by this question/comment set:
Rotate a particular bone in edit mode without offsetting animation?
But, from experience, you should not make adjustments to your armature once animations are created.

Thanks. I just wanted to do the math when exporting the bones. PSP just needs the position of the head and the quaternion.It will help

Sorry I posted wrong... I was thinking it would also help drawing the bones as just balls at head position in blender, and keep them aligned in edit mode. But I could not find any settings to do this.

This is actually fairly easy. In your case, you will want to multiply your quat by the inverse of the rest pose. So you would do something like:
quat_key.cross(bone.matrix_local.transposed().inverted().to_quaternion())

You may have to swap the rest bone and your quaternion key (try both, one should work), and perhaps also first bring the rest bone into "parent space", which you can do by multiplying its matrix with its parent bone's matrix, inverted:
bone_in_parent_space = bone.matrix_local.transposed() * bone.parent.matrix_local.transposed()).inverted()

But the latter is probably not required for your case, since your script worked with your initial approach.


text:
Render model in specific scale
I have a model in real world scale and now I need render it in specific scale. Is there some way to set camera in specific distance from the model or any other way to get specific scale of render?

The scale of an object is only relative to any surrounding objects, so it's size when it's the only object in an image bears no reflection of it's scale. Is your image going to be real scale? Printed on what size poster and DPI? The object and camera positions can be set if you calculate the real world distance you want between the two.

Yes, image will be in real scale.

There is no such thing as "scale" in renders, rendered output of Blender (or any other rendering software for that matter) is in raster graphics format, with pixels as only output unit.
You can adjust the DPI of said image in any external image editing software (like GIMP or Photoshop) but that is only used as reference and mostly for printing.
The perspective view also forbids any type scale relationship between the virtual scene and output format, since object size is always dependent on distance from camera.
Only if you use an orthographic camera can there be any sense of direct correspondence of scene units and image output unmits.
Roughly speaking Blender uses the largest of the two output render dimensions as 1 unit for an orthographic camera. See my answer here for more details about it


text:
Is there a way to use Subdivision Surface Modifier with text model without deformations of model?
Is there a way to use Subdivision Surface Modifier with text model without deformations of model? CRTL+R and adding new edge to model does not work. As you can see on image C, S, Z letters are deformate.

Most likely adding loopcut doesn't do anything because after converting topology of the letters consists of all tris which Loopcut will skip for cutting. So if you want text letter suitable for subsurfing change its topology which is called retopology. Easiest way would be to add Remesh modifier above Subsurf (note - this is a lazy way)

Text objects have really horrible topology.  Subsurf requires good topology to look good.  You will have to retopologize the text, either with a remesh modifier or manually.

Change to simple still cause deformations but less and with bad visibility effect. How I should use remesh modifier?

@user40098 Here's how to use the Remesh Modifier on text.


text:
How to close view windows in blender?
How i will able to close these windows at right. please give me a answer.

Drag the signs at the corner of each window in following directions.It will help you close all the windows.


text:
KeyFrame object
I'm doing an assignment on a 20 second animation. so far I have a car that's driving for the first 10 seconds and then I have built a rocket (Which I am stuck on). The way I want it to be done is that the car drives for the ten seconds and then the rocket lifts on just as the car stops. Is there any way I can set a specific keyframe for when the rocket can follow the path it it supposed to go?

Keyframes connect a value with a frame, if the keyframe locates the rocket on the ground at frame 100 and in the stars at frame 200 then it will stay on the ground until frame 100 then start moving at from 101 until it reaches the location given at frame 200.
The steps for animating are - move to the desired frame, position object, add a keyframe. The dopesheet and the graph editor can be used to alter the keyframes after they have been created. The dopesheet allows you to adjust the timing by only altering the frame that a value is keyframed on while the dopesheet also lets you alter the way values are calculated between keyframes as well as adding modifiers and drivers to calculate the keyframed values.
If you are making a child object follow a path, you can keyframe the evaluation time property of the path to define when the object is at the beginning and end of the path. The follow path constraint also has an offset property that can be animated for the same result.

What.. thanks mate, this might take me a while to process and understand but thank you.

Right, first.. my car and my rocker are on ground at frame 1. how do I set the frame for rocket to start at frame 200?

and my rocket followed a Bezier curve path so do I select the rocket or the path?

If you have the rocket follow a path, then animate the evaluation time in the curve properties.  The timeline is the easiest place to alter the current frame.


text:
How do I apply a skeleton rig to multiple objects?
I have 15 total parts and I thought that the rig skeleton fits with the multiple objects. So I tried to look up information online. No luck. So this might be a nooby question and may be closed as too broad but, how do you apply a rig to multiple parts? Please be nice.

It's a valid question.
If you mean your model is made of multiple meshes, select all of the meshes, then lastly, select the bone, and press ctrl+p and choose your favorite option. Maybe with automatic weights.
You can have any number of meshes paired to a bone, but you must select the bone last, before pairing. I actually prefer this method when working with meshes that should not be distorted by bone movement, like a mechanical robot. Each piece that should only twist and move, not bend, I parent to an individual bone separately. It works to parent them one by one as well.
Tip: You can also select all of the meshes and press ctrl+j to join them, if that is the desired result. You may want to apply modifiers before joining though.
If you mean that you have multiple different models that can all use the same bones and animations, then pair the first object, then the second, then the third, all in the same way.

First, pair one of the objects you would like paired. Most likely this will be using ctrl+p and choose your favorite option. Maybe with automatic weights.
Now select the second object, then the bone. Repeat the process of pairing by pressing ctrl+p and choose your favorite option.

Now if you select the skeleton and go to pose mode, you will find that both meshes will move along with the bone.
Tip: To make things simpler, you may wish to move your skeleton to one layer, and each model to another layer. That way you can pose the skeleton on one layer, and view the results on each layer with the different models.


text:
CUDA Compute Device says "(dislplay)" beside it. What does that mean?
When I choose CUDA under Cycles Compute Device in user preferences, it gives me the option to use my GPU, but it also says "(Display)" beside it.
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Display)
Does this mean that my CPU will still be rendering my scene while my GPU just simply keeps the rest of my program updated visually? Or is this all in my head?
It seems to me like I'm going to need another GPU so that I can run both display AND rendering, which is very strange to me. Is this true? Because I really don't want to have to buy another one if I don't have to.


text:
Issue with Cycles rendering regarding my GPU
Using Cycles render with either my CPU (intel i5-4690k) and my GPU (GTX 750ti) yeilds the same result. When I go into user preferences and select my GPU under CUDA, it displays it as: "GeForce GTX 750 Ti (Display)"
Does the (Display) mean that only my CPU is rendering, and it lets my GPU then process the other UI in Blender?

The "(Display)" in system preferences means that GPU will work to process all elements in viewport, not on rendering. You just make it available. If you really wanna have GPU rendering acceleration, you have to select in Render section

I've been using that option too. Was more wondering if there was a standard way to select the GPU under CUDA. That being said, maybe my CPU is just better than my GPU at rendering in cycles? Does that make sense given which respective models they are?

It's a possibility... It's a entry-level grapphics card. And the architecture is old too. But I'm not sure... Just having some tests... I'll tell some results I've got here.
My CPU It's a Core i5 7400 and my GPU its a GTX 1060 3GB
Test 1: I created I simple scene with a cube, and applied 4 subdividions surface on it, making a total of 1536 faces. I applied a glass shader on it. The CPU rendered on an average 10.6 seconds. The GPU rendered in 6.6 seconds (I ran around three times) it's a 40% speed up

Test 2: The same object, but now I applied 5x subdivision surface making 6144 faces. The CPU now has took about 12.1 seconds to render and the GPU took around 6.9 seconds... Almost 50% speed up now
Test 3: Now I put 6x subdvision and duplicated the the sphere making a total of 49,156 faces on scene. The CPU now took around 17.3 seconds. The GPU took about 10.05 seconds. A 40% speed up again
Test 4: One single cube, with standard material... The CPU took about 5.3 seconds and the GPU 2.6 seconds, about 50% of speed up again

Depends a lot how many objects there's on scene, polygons to calculate, textures, lightning, particles effects, pyshics... The Intel 4th generation is sitll a good processor but the 750ti I have my doubts... If the processing power difference between these chips is small, maybe you only see this little difference on specifics tasks that GPU was designed for (like physics, effects, a huge amount of polygons to calculate)

My hardware got about 40-50% percent of speed up, yours maybe can get only 5-15% (just picking a random range), but a high end grapphics card like GTX 1080 can get even more than you and me, like 70-80% (depending of the scene, of course) of speed up... It's relative... There's no way to predict this. Only testing and benchmarking... And depends a lot of the complexity of scene... Try  put hundreds of thousands of polygons on scene, each one with a differente texture, UV map, lightning and shadows and maybe you'll see better results


text:
Background in Motion Tracking isnt shown when rendered
https://i.sstatic.net/syegg.jpg
When i render my video, i cant see the movie clip in the background, but in the camera. How can i render the video?
Thanks in advance.

Please don't post the same question multiple times

The solution for the last question doesnt work for this one. Now its switched.


text:
Background Video is shown in Rendered mode but not when szene is rendered
i have a 3D Object and want to add a background image( if possible even a movie) to this 3D Object. I use Cycles to render and tried a plane with the
image as texture. When i go into render mode, it looks like this(picture with background) and when rendered, it has no background. The key also looks into
a different direction.
Should i even use Cycles for this or use motion tracking? i tried to use that but had several problems.
https://i.sstatic.net/huDsX.jpg
Rendered mode

When scene is rendered

Duplicate as said above. The only thing I would add is that if you want to have a video instead of a static image, you need to use motion tracking without a doubt.

Try any of these node setups in the compositor:
Movie as background:

Image as background:

Source:
cycles not rendering movie clip used as background

Of course, sorry!


text:
AMD RYZEN Particles and Physics Simulations optimization needed
teddiursa here.
I bought AMD RYZEN 1700 and it helps a lot with cutting down rendering and compositing time. But it becoming more apparent that Blender's Particles and Physics Simulation does not harness the greater number of cores and threads that R7 1700 provided. Is there any way to improve blender's particles and physics simulations cpu utilization. I'm thinking about specifically donating towards blender's particles and physics simulations, does such option exist?

Physics calculations are extremely hard to thread and there is, as far as I know, no magic setting to change this. Think of it this way. Rendering you can do frame one and frame ten at the same time. Frame ten doesn't depend on the result of frame one. In physics simulations core two can't start work till core one finishes since it needs its data. Their is some performance improvements as some of the calculations can be threaded, but overall processor speed is the far more important factor.


text:
Material won't apply to mesh with UV map
I'm tryning to apply a Texture Image to an object, but it don't work. I unwrapped the object and created the image in the UV/Image Editor. If i try to assign any other simple materials with just color, it won't work either. In the material preview it's showing nicely. As you can see
Thanks!


text:
Mesh opens up its inside after applying Boolean modifier
I have two jaw bone STL files. Both were treated with boolean modifier but one results in non-closed mesh and the other appears to be ok. The two STL files are from two different sources so maybe that makes a difference. But please educate me on why it happens and how to avoid this in the future.
Thank you!
/// BAD ////

/// Good ///

It could be that the jaw mesh is too complex for Boolean to solve; some unexpected things like openings in the mesh, inverted normals in multiple places etc. show that the cut mesh had some problems before boolean like non-manifold or too complex geometry. If using Blender 2.78+ you can choose Solver method in the Boolean mod options which might help a bit.

Thanks. I fixed non-manifold, made sure no openings in mesh, and flipped normal to same direction and it works much better now.


text:
Is there a way to modify python scripts without constantly restarting Blender?
I am currently modifying an existing addons. My workflow is to change something in the python code then restart Blender to see the effect.
Is there a way to update the script without restarting Blender to check result? That would make my development process faster.
Thanks!

Try opening said script in the builtin text editor and pressing the Run Script button with the Register box ticked

F8 reloads all addons.

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/28505/3292 if your addon has multiple files.


text:
Not able to fill in a face between an open space
I am starting to model a small character and from a tutorial I was watching and some research I from what I found, selecting the faces and or edges and hitting F would connect them with a face, however, none of that worked. I cannot connect this face right here with F or anything else. Any idea why it wouldn't be working? Thank you in advance for the help. :)

check in user preferences to see if it is set to fill by the "f" key.  In 2.8, it's in the keymap settings (in 2.79 it's under Input), and the command is called "Make Edge/Face"

Oh ok thank you, I'll take a look
EDIT: It is set to F and is still not letting me create a face

Is the object under a Mirror modifier? If so, one of the edges you are trying to fill between doesn't exist, to be a target during editing. Instead, with 'merge' and optionally 'clipping' checked in the modifier, move/scale the side which does exist to the mirror plane.

By the looks of your screenshot, you do not have at least 3 vertices selected. With only two vertices selected, F will only create an edge. To create the face, try Shift+Click-ing on each of the four faces and then pressing F to fill.
Other ways of creating a bridging face:

Alt+Click, then Shift+Alt+Click on the edges to select the "Edge Loop" on each side of the gap. This will select the two connected vertices. Once all four vertices are selected, press F.
Select all four vertices with Shift+Click. Press F3 and search for "Bridge Edge Loops" and press Enter.
Press B to box select and drag a box over all four vertices, selecting them. Press F to fill.
Change to "Edge Mode" ('2' on the number row) select both edges with Shift+Click and press F to fill. You can get back to "Vertex Mode" with '1' on the number row.

If at any time, you select the wrong vertices, double tap A (dbl-A) to deselect all.

Hey, @Austin Martin, just to let you know, I don't think A is set to deselect by default in 2.8rc.  It doesn't for me, anyway.  If I'm wrong, correct me.

@RBlong2us you're correct. A only selects all by default. The dbl-A (double tap A) keypress is the default way to deselect all. It can be changed back to the 2.79 behavior in Edit > Preferences > Keymap > Preferences > Select All Toggles

Ah, thank you.  I had noticed in 2.8 that the dbl-A didn't work for deselecting.  That's why I left the first comment.  Should've worded it differently.  Thank you for telling me how to change it back to 2.79 behavior.  I wanted to change it!

No problem. I've edited the original answer to clear up any confusion.

Just to let you know, I was saying I should've worded my comment differently.  I wasn't saying anything was wrong with your answer.  Now problem with making your answer even clearer, though :)


text:
How to add different Gravity velocity for different objects?
I am trying to make an animation on Cycles render and this is what I have on my scene:
I have a ball that rolls from a high platform until it goes down and hits 11 dominos and make them fall, I want the dominos to have a higher value of gravity than the ball so they can fall on the floor a little faster than they currently do, how can I do this?
I'm using Physics, Both the dominos and the ball are active "rigid body objects". I even tried to increase the gravity value on the "scene" control panel > "rigid body field weights" which it does increase the speed of gravity and makes the dominos fall faster (what I want) but it also changes the gravity of the ball and makes the ball roll too fast and looks unnatural, not what I want.

That doesn't makes a lot of sense, even in real world contexts. How about increasing the mass of objects like in real life?

if you wish them to fall faster you could perhaps try to increment the scene's gravity value, form the standard (-9.81) eg: try -99.0 but this would make the ball roll a bit faster, too, imho.

@Duarte Farrajota Ramos I tried setting 0.001 end 1000 as mass for two identical cubes... they fall freely together, at same speed, apparently... but when hit by a rolling ball with higher mass they seem less stiff...

@Duarte Farrajota Ramos Yes, I increased the mass of the ball being higher than the dominos', I did this while increasing the translation sampling as Edgel3D suggested, thanks.

@m.ardito That's right, if I change the gravity value it will affect all the objects but what I did was to increase the gravity and then I increased the translation dampling to the ball only and it helped to reduce its velocity.

Yes, you are right, my mistake. Increasing the mass doesn't work, just like in real life too. But increasing the Damping factor for Translation seems to do the job well

I've not used Cycles but the "Damping" setting in the physics properties (see pic) will slow down a particular object where it's used and leave the others alone.   The cube has damping applied (bottom right in the settings) and the cylinder doesn't.  You can see that they're falling at different rates.
The view is from underneath the grid -

It does work on cycles! certainly this allowed me to have more control on the translation speed on objects, I got the result I wanted, thank you!

@Luisiana you're welcome.  I did forget to mention that you can also keyframe that translation setting should it become necessary to adjust the effect at any time.

While Edgel3d's answer seems to produce the desired effect, it's not physically accurate (although, admitedly, having two separate groups of objects experiencing different gravity wouldn't be physically accurate anyway!!) - it's more like adding 'drag' or 'air resistance' to the objects so as to slow them. If you run the simulation for longer you'll find that the 'slowed' objects will reach a terminal velocity where they no longer accelerate as they would if the force was purely gravity.
To achieve a physically accurate different force of gravity you can disable the 'world' gravity and implement the equivalent force using a Force field. Since Fields only affect objects on the same render layer you can easily control which objects are affected by which force.
Firstly, disable gravity by either disabling it on the Gravity properties panel or by changing the Gravity Field Weight to zero.

To mimic the gravity, add a Force field (Add, Force Field, Force). The Force pushes any objects away from wherever you place it - position the Force above all objects so that it acts to push objects 'down' (as would have occurred with 'normal' gravity). In the Physics properties panel set the force Shape to 'Plane', set the Strength to '225' (this seems to mimic the standard gravity of 9.82) and ensure the Falloff Power is set to 0 (this will result in no falloff - so the force acts the same regardless of distance). Since the Shape is a Plane rather than a Point, the force will always act in the Z direction of the Field (ie, 'down').

Duplicate the Force (Shift-D) and right-click to leave it in the same place as the original. Press M to move it to another render layer and select the render layer to use for the altered gravity. Amend the Strength of the Force on the second render layer to whatever 'altered' gravity you desire. Move all objects that want to have the adjusted gravity onto the second render layer. Select both render layers by holding Shift and clicking the render layers in the toolbar.

You should now find that the objects obey the differing gravity depending on which render layer they are placed.

Blend file attached

Realised this doesn't actually work for objects with differing masses since the force applied doesn't take mass into effect - so lighter objects respond to the 'fake' gravity more than heavier ones. This means you'll need to ensure everything on a layer has the same mass and adjust the force appropriately. The original question refers to rolling objects rather than free-falling so the damping might be more appropriate (consider a ball rolling across a sloped carpet - it's effectively drag that slows it, not different gravity). This solution still stands for free-falling objects though.

@Richard I tried this way since your explanation made sense and it kind of work too if I keep same masses for the objects and change their forces separately; However I found that the damping is more effective for rolling objects, in my case the rolling ball and the dominos, but your solution stands more accurate for falling objects, I will definitely take this explanation into account in the future, thank you for taking the time to reply!

Some problems I'm having with the solution (v2.91): 1) "M" does not move to another Render Layer but to another Collection.   2) Your blend file contains no render layers, both objects move at the same rate, not different.  The render is also showing both objects moving at the same rate.  3) "Select both render layers by holding Shift and clicking the render layers in the toolbar." is where?

@james_t This answer was written a long time ago and render layers are handled differently with Blender version 2.80 and later. Collections are the new equivalent to how the render layers were handled.

@james_t I've re-tested this at later Blender versions and I do think there's a potential bug in there as there doesn't seem to be a way to restrict forces just to specific collections - like was possible prior to Blender 2.8. I've raised a ticket on the developer site to try and get an answer on this : https://developer.blender.org/T87458


text:
I don't know what is wrong with my python script
I am trying to generate a bunch of points from a bezier curve. I am converting my curve to mesh then gather vertices then delete the mesh as discussed by helpful contributors in the past.
But the points I generated do not match the curve 3D location. Please see attached screenshot, blender file, and code.
To recreate my problem:
1. create a bezier curve
2. manually move bezier curve on all 3 axies
3. run the python script
4. see points generated do not correspond to the new 3D locations of the curve but rather match its original position only (when it was created at origin).
Thank you!
    #https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/34145/calculate-points-on-a-nurbs-curve-without-converting-to-mesh
    import bpy
    obj = bpy.context.object
    scene = bpy.context.scene
    obj_mesh = obj.to_mesh(scene, True, 'PREVIEW')
    verts = [v.co for v in obj_mesh.vertices]
    print("total numbers of vertices generated = %d"%len(verts))
    for i in verts:
        bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(size=0.05, location=i)
    bpy.data.meshes.remove(obj_mesh)

Try Apply Location/Rotation/Scale immediately before running the script.

Hi Rich, could you elaborate a little bit? I manually moved the bezier curve immediately before running the python script and that was the result.

There is a way to convert current mesh-space to world space. See link

For global coordinates, multiply local coordinates by world matrix of object.
Data (obj.data) coordinates are in local space.  The global scene coordinates have an origin at (0, 0, 0) with no rotation or scale. An object's origin is its local coordinate (0, 0, 0).  An object's location is the location of its origin.
Latitude and longitude on earth could be considered a local coordinate system, with origin (0, 0) ... It's just some arbitrary point on the equator.. It tells us nothing about where we are in the universe, that the axis is tilted towards the sun...
Can calculate a global coordinate from any local coordinate by pre-multiplying the vector by the object's matrix world (obj.matrix_world) This accounts for any translation, rotation and scale on the object in global space.
When an object has no transformation, no rotation and unity scale, its world matrix is the Identity matrix.  Multiplying by the identity matrix is the scalar equivalent of multiplying by one.  In this case, and only this case, all global and local coordinates will be the same.  Will find a number of answers on here that don't take this into account.
Applying location, rotation and scale has the effect of making an objects matrix world identity, by converting all local coordinates to their global equivalent.
import bpy
obj = bpy.context.object
mw = obj.matrix_world
scene = bpy.context.scene
obj_mesh = obj.to_mesh(scene, True, 'PREVIEW')
local_coords = [v.co for v in obj_mesh.vertices]
print("total numbers of vertices generated = %d" % len(local_coords))
for local_coord in local_coords:
    global_coord = mw * local_coord
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(size=0.05,
            location=global_coord)
bpy.data.meshes.remove(obj_mesh)

In case you missed it, the link provided by @tet_li in comments provides a detailed explanation of coordinates in blender.

See http://pasteall.org/660404/python for only using add primitive operator once.  Even for small number of spheres, there is an appreciable speed difference.

Nice answer @batFINGER (as usual! :-) ) Does multiplying by the ‘matrix world’ include the translation? I would expect it to just handle the scale and rotation. I’ve not tried it (yet) but my understanding of the maths (from many years gone) would imply you need to add in the translation separately.

@RichSedman all three.  obj.matrix_world * Vector((0, 0, 0)) will give location of origin.