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Static states blender game
I am using blender game
How can i do an action on my caracter, as a static state (without any action on the keyboard) ? In order to get an initial state to my character.
Thanks.

The BGE is event driven. The initial event is the "object is created" event.
That can be measured with an always sensor. For example you can activate an action actuator after the object was created.

To ensure the any long running actuators are deactivated after the first frame enable the [Tap] switch at the sensor.

When you use the build-in state machine I suggest to measure when the state changes to the waiting state. A sensor measures state changes when the [Level] switch is enabled. This means the always sensor triggers on state change not just on object creation but on state change too.


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Extrude or move or give length in millimeters
So I have established that I need to work in metric and have set this in scene settings I have also set the units to millimeters.

I have then specified the appropriate scaling on the properties shelf (N).

However the major increments on the grid remain 1 meter and showing "User Ortho Meters x0.001" as the legend in the top left corner of the 3D Viewer.

But when I extrude for example :
Select Face E 2 This extrudes 2m
Select Face E 0.2 This extrudes 20cm
Select Face E 0.02 This extrudes 2mm
This is not what I was expecting. How would I go about setting this up so that I am working in mm. I.e. to extrude 2m I would:
Select Face E 2000
Thank you in advance of any ideas.

In your second image, Display menu, make the Scale: 1.000

Hi 3fingeredfrog, yes I originally tried that, but doing that the grid disappears completely even when I zoom in

Hi cegaton, I did not scale my mesh at all. I was not aware that I needed to.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Basic Cell Fracture not appearing to work
I'm new to Blender, and am using Blender 2.78b, and I thought I would try cell fracturing a cube. I turned on the Cell Fracture add-on in User Preferences and subdivided the cube a  couple of times. I tried to use the Cell Fracture add-on, and it seemed to be working like it did in the tutorial I was watching, but when it was done the cube returned to its original state. Does anyone know how I can fix this?

Works fine and dandy (even without subdiv). Check Layer 2.

Maybe that's because the Fractured Cube was moved to the second layer (if you were in the first one). The Cell Fracture Addon with the default settings move the fractured object to the next layer. Anyway, I don't think using Cell Fracture Addon to Fracture Things in Blender is a good idea. It's slow and it doesn't work sometimes. Use this custom Build:
http://graphicall.org/1148
It's way Faster due to the fact that's developed in C, and you can use different tools to fracture your object instead of the Boolean one. This means less artifacts in the fractured mesh and way faster fracturing.

I am noticing on 2.77 that Cell Fracture will add the fracture cells to the outline, but they are not visible.  If I save the blend, restart Blender and load the blend, then the cells will show up.  I don't know why this behaves this way and would love to know if there is a fix.

Switch to the next layer or re-do cell fracture after unchecking "Next Layer" option. (video link)
The fractures are most likely on a new layer, because you possibly forgot to uncheck "Next Layer"

You can switch to layer 1 or undo and repeat with "Next Layer" unchecked.

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


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White background with filmic blender
When I tried rendering the scene with white background in filmic blender, I'm getting grey coloured background. But I'm able to achieve this with standard colour management options.
P.s: I have edited light source to match the filmic blender.

@cegaton thanks for the prompt response. I was able to achieve it by increasing the intensity

@pycoder I was able to achieve the desiredresults by increasing the intensity of the light source

This compositing node setup produce 100% white on transparent channel with filmic color management:

Note that in the color balance node, "Correction Formula" has to be set to "Offset/Power/Slope (ASC-CDL)" and also the grey scale faders all have to be set to 100% white.
This setup is also work:

The problem I see with this answer is that you might end up pushing the values to a point that is way beyond "white". White in filmic is at a value of 16.19 roughly, any value larger than that will be ignored or "clipped". Also, using the CDL with no regard to the numbers used for Offset Power and Slope might lead to unwanted values for the rest of the scene. To understand how to use the CDL read: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/55231/what-is-the-the-asc-cdl-node

At least he was trying to actually explain how to perform a solution to the asker. BTW, this doesn't work in Blender 2.91

For use this setup in 2.91, EVEE or Сycles, need to set in shader editor, world section background color alpha channel to zero. With render properties, film transparent checkbox, of course.

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


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Grungy photo print effect
I am trying to reproduce a grungy photo print slideshow in Blender that was originally created with After Effects. Despite much searching and experimenting, I can't make my Blender grungy photo prints to look as the example below complete with all the blemishes. There are two .mov  files used by After Effects to create the effect. Can someone please give me some ideas how to replicate this effect in Blender.
Base files
Grungy background

Can you show what you've tried?  I'm interested to know if you're making a model or if you're doing something in the compositor.  It might narrow down exactly what you're wanting help with.  You can edit your post with the button at the bottom.

I have been trying to create a video similar to this one made with After Effects. https://videohive.net/item/the-history-documentary-opener/25028339
My animation is looking great but I'm stuck on how to give the images that creased grungy beat-up look. I'm using the 3d View Port and have tried several tutorials on bump maps, transparency, chroma keying, color subtraction. There is something I'm missing. I have the grungy effect background images but I can’t combine them with my photos to get a clear sharp result. I’m hoping someone can point out a way forward for me.

It looks like the grungy .mov on the left could be mixed in with soft light or overlay, but it's kinda hard to say exactly how to set it up without seeing exactly how the textures animate. The one on the right might be a mask or something.

By following some tutorials on transparency and bump maps plus some trial and error, I found a way to set up the Blender nodes to get the results I wanted.
The photo in the frame is placed behind the border and adjusted to the shape of the frame.

Knowing that transparency is based on a black and white image helped me. I hope someone finds this information useful.

"Following some tutorials and trial and error" is not a clear answer. Just by looking at the nodes is hard to understand what they do. Can you elaborate on the logic and how to choose the values for them?

In the end, I found that I could create a better old paper grungy effect by using GIMP and following this Photoshop tutorial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKcQ7CDfwps

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


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Sound half as loud in Render as in VSE
I have been editing some videos in the Blender 3.0 VSE. I'm running this on Linux Mint. The sound comes from MP3 audio strips which sound perfect when played through the VSE. However, when rendered, the sound in the video is about half as loud as it plays in the VSE. All the volume settings I can find are set to 1.000.
Does anyone have any idea what would cause this discrepancy? In my mind, the VSE sound volume and the rendered video file sound volume should be identical.
Thanks

I rendered the project in Blender 2.8. Same problem.
Next I rendered the same video and music tracks in Shotcut video editor. Same problem.
Conclusion - the problem is with Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon not Blender. If someone knows where I can adjust the sound so the rendered sound levels are louder, please let me know. For me this is a real head scratcher.

Figured out the problem. I assumed because the volume control on my headphones changed the volume, it was the correct volume. However, my media player also has a volume control which was turned down low. Turning up the media player volume fixed the problem. To test the render, I should have played the render in the VSE.


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Airship - what is the workflow to create these parts

I am looking for ideas on how to create and attach the puffed out sections along the bottom of this airship that red arrow is pointing to. There are plenty of tutorials on airships but nothing to help add bumps like this to such an odd shape. After many hours, I can't move forward. An suggestions are most welcome.
Cheers Ivan

I am not sure what those are but you could probably make it with low poly spheres, just flatten them and try to connect them to loopcuts of your ship... Or maybe it would be logical to make it with height map and textures

You could cut a circle on a cylinder with the Knife Project tool then rearrange the topology this way:

Give an Array and Subdivision Surface modifier to your cylinder, work the topology again:

Give it a Lattice in order to deform it:

File:

Thanks moonboots . Could you please attach the blend file so I can follow your workflow?

sure, see my edit

Thanks for the Blend file. I am surprised you know the name of the airship.

thanks to Google Image  ;)


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What is the process to load 180 images in this tutorial?
I have a question about what is happening in this Blender tutorial...
AE『blender 3』 チュートリアル39 Photo Mosaic Animation in Blender EEVEE | Video Editing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8HuC9Us_l8
Could someone please someone explain how this was done?
Up to 3:24 minutes I can follow the steps to create this mosaic below.

At 3:27 minutes all of a sudden, the planes have 180 different images and I'm lost.

All I have been able to do is add the same image 180 times.
Thanks Ivan

Hmmm, that's exactly why I hate sped up tutorials wirhout voice overs... comments are also deactivated so that nobody could ask what happens there  To be honest, I might figure out a a way but I watched it on my mobile where everything is too small to see what's going on. There also seems to be a cut before the images suddenly appear, so I dont think this is done by just one click. I'll rewatch it on a larger screen to find out more.

no, in the video every plane has a different image.

@Chris Did I say something else? Or are you referring to Ivan's last sentence in the question? Ivan: I guess when you have the same image 180 times, this is because you use one material (where you select a single image) for every plane. In the tutorial they duplicated the material so that each has its own, then you can load other images for the other planes.

You can enable "Import Images as Planes" add-on, then ShiftA, I, I, select all image files of interest, and select settings (Shadeless / Emit material if you don't want to change the color of the images).
Then Run a Python script:
import bpy
from bpy import data as D

single_width = 1920
single_height = 1200
ratio = 1/1200  # the add-on automatically resizes height to 1
single_width *= ratio
single_height = 1
images_per_row = 10
images_total = 120
rows = images_total / images_per_row  # 12
margin_x = 0.1
margin_y = margin_x

for i in range (120):
    row = i // images_per_row
    col = i % images_per_row
    plane = D.objects[str(i+1)]
    x = (col - images_per_row/2 + .5) * (single_width  + margin_x)
    y = (row - rows/2           + .5) * (single_height + margin_y)
    plane.location.yz = x, y  # use default plane to avoid rotating

so you should make that tutorial....!  ;)

I'm not experienced in python, but do I understand it correctly that this creates one plane with all images on it?

@GordonBrinkmann it creates multiple planes (the behavior of Import Images as Planes add-on), and the script positions those planes. To get a single plane, probably the simplest way is to render an image.

@MarkusvonBroady Ah okay, couldn't read that script ;) For the desired effect in the tutorial multiple planes are the only way to go.

There might be a smart way do to this easy in Blender, but I don't know it. If you're asking how they did it in the tutorial: they made 180 materials, one for each plane.
Short explanation: the material used for the plane has no way of distributing the images over several planes.
Long explanation: I've watched the interesting parts of the tutorial a few times now, the material that's being created and how the planes suddenly have the images on them.
And when the material is created it only gets the Image Texture node, but no image is loaded. So at first this is a "blank" material without any image. There's also no mapping or anything which would help distribute images in any way.
Then there is a cut in the video, because when they switch to rendered view and all the images appear, the material suddenly has an image in the Image Texture node. But there is no number next to the material name in the Shader Editor, indicating it's a single user material. If all planes used this material there would be a "180" showing - or all planes together are one object.
But since the planes are separated so that each one is a new object, they all need to have individual materials which means, the tutorial skips the part where every plane gets his own material with a new image loaded in.

Maybe a better idea would be to use one single image and one single material) and just do a uv shifting?

@Chris Well, as I said there might be smarter ways. I just explained what happened in the tutorial. You can see that each image is separate because there is one opened in the Image Editor. And there is also no UV shifting in the tutorial.

Yeah. That’s why I don’t like that kind of tutorials. And as a beginner you shouldn’t watch sped up tutorials at all…. But even in some „slow“ tutorials „magic“ happens because tutorial maker did cut out too much of his original recording. Happens.♂

@Chris But what I meant in my answer about a smart way was to somehow import single images as a sequence and distribute them.

That’s why I followed the question. Would be nice if that’s possible…but I don’t know whether and if …how…

@Chris Yep, don't like those kind of tutorials either. Even though I'm not a beginner I always find that annoying. And most of the time I hate the music, too

And now draw the rest of the owl.

Lol. Same. And the robotic voiceovers are awful too…

What?! What owl?! What did I miss?

@MarkusvonBroady Yes, exactly

ok, found a great way. Not "his" way, but if you say "import as planes" and choose multiple images...you get: [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/pgWSS.png Tadaaaaaaa

@Chris Don't know it? Google "How to draw an owl"

wasn't the original: now draw the rest of the fucking owl!? :))))

@Chris Maybe you could give that as an answer in a way that it works the way he needs it to achieve what's visible in the tutorial. The tutorial channel seems to be not so very skilled at Blender (it's an AE channel after all), for example resetting the camera by entering every single 0 in each X, Y, Z field for location and rotation...

I don’t think that this is as he did it… of course you could adapt it. But I would be different from the tutorial. My advice (which nobody wants to hear) would be: search for better tutorials (and there are lots of amazing free tutorials out there)

If Ivan „just“ wants a solution I would. But I think he wants to follow the tutorial.


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How to multiply vector with list items
I want to draw a point on every vertex of an instanced mesh in a particle system. I put together this short script to do that. It runs without error but nothing happens. The console puts out this message:
File "C:\XXXXXX\XXXXXXX\XXXXXXXX\particle draw.blend\Draw Particle Points", line 23, in draw
TypeError: Vector multiplication: not supported between 'Vector' and 'list' types

So it's not possible to multiply a vector with a list which makes sense.
What do i have to do to multiply the vector p.location with all inst_verts_coords list items
import bpy
import gpu
from mathutils import Matrix
from gpu_extras.batch import batch_for_shader

# get the depsgraph and the evaluated object
dg = bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()
eva_obj = bpy.context.object.evaluated_get(dg)
# assume context object has a ps, use active
ps = eva_obj.particle_systems.active

#obj = bpy.context.active_object
inst_obj = ps.settings.instance_object
inst_obj_verts = inst_obj.data.vertices[0]
inst_verts_coords = [(inst_obj.matrix_world @ inst_obj_verts.co) for inst_obj_verts in inst_obj.data.vertices]

def draw():
    for p in ps.particles:
        #make a matrix for the particles
        M = p.rotation.to_matrix().to_4x4()
        M.translation = p.location

        #translate instance object vertex coords to particle coords
        part_obj_coords = [p.location @ inst_verts_coords]
        #store vertex coordinates of instance object
        shader = gpu.shader.from_builtin('3D_UNIFORM_COLOR')
        batch = batch_for_shader(shader, 'POINTS', {"pos": part_obj_coords})

        shader.bind()
        shader.uniform_float("color", (1, 1, 0, 1))
        batch.draw(shader)

bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add(draw, (), 'WINDOW', 'POST_VIEW')

In case I'm missing something else give me a heads up.

inst_verts_coords is a list of coordinates (Vectors). So you won't be able to apply a matrix to this list. Maybe you want to change the following line (assuming you want to apply matrix to each individual Vector element of the list):
part_obj_coords = [p.location @ inst_verts_coords]

to:
part_obj_coords = [M @ co for co in inst_verts_coords]


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Get particle location using python
Is it possible to get the location (world space) of every mesh particle of a particle system and following that the vertex locations of every mesh particle using python?

Use the depsgraph
Using the code suggested here https://developer.blender.org/T58792
Adds an empty, displayed as a cube, at the particle location.   Make the object with the particle system active, move to desired frame and run script.
import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix

context = bpy.context
# beware removes all empties from scene (for testing)
for mt in (o for o in context.scene.objects if o.data is None):
    bpy.data.objects.remove(mt)

# get the depsgraph and the evaluated object
dg = context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()
ob = context.object.evaluated_get(dg)
# assume context object has a ps, use active
ps = ob.particle_systems.active
# this is the instance object
po = ps.settings.instance_object

for p in ps.particles:
    # make a matrix for the particles
    M = p.rotation.to_matrix().to_4x4()
    M.translation = p.location
    # put an empty at particle
    bpy.ops.object.empty_add()
    mt = context.object
    mt.matrix_world = M
    # the scale
    mt.scale = (p.size,) * 3
    mt.empty_display_type = 'CUBE'

The global location of each vertex of the instance object of the particle system will be
mt.matrix_world @ vert.co

Thank you, that worked. Just one follow up question. When I run the script the empties are created with an offset on the Z axis. Why's that?

Getting the location of particles of a particle system isn't particularly difficult. You can simply iterate through the particles:
particle_system = bpy.context.object.particle_systems[0]
for particle in particle_system.particles:
    print(particle.location)

Note: this doesn't seem to work in the latest 2.8 builds, where it appears that both particles and child_particles are empty collections. I'm guessing this is a bug, as it works just fine in 2.79


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Project a texture onto a Mesh from a Curve
I've been looking for an answer to this for a while now. I have a mesh object, where I would like to draw lines on it, without using the texture paint tool. For instance: a mesh garment with stitch or seam lines, defined by a NURBS or Bézier Curve. So far I've been able to put texture "Decals" on an object by using an Empty, but I've not been able to draw a "line" using an arbitrary Curve. Has anyone done this, or know if this is possible?

As far as I know there is no such workflow in Blender, maybe dynamic paint or baking can be used, but it will probably be an involved workflow.

Yes, currently I'm baking all the textures on. I tried adding a texture using the Object coordinates of the curve, but it only seems to take the origin of said curve; it doesn't take the length or the contour into consideration.


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Bind an armature with animation to another armature
I have a model of a character with an armature that's already been weight-painted and functions normally. However, I now want to take a different armature with no model and somehow bind certain bones to the modeled armature to make the modeled armature inherit the blank armature's animation.
I've already tried, with the FBX import tool that I'm using, to just import the animation to the existing model and armature, but it seems to dislike the model's bone names and various other problems, so that won't work.
Here's an example of what I want to do, if it's still unclear:

Have unmodeled, animated armature
Have modeled, static armature
???
Modeled armature now inherits unmodeled armature's animation
Profit

If its just bone names you may be able import the armature into blender as an armature rather than a pose and fix the bone names and re-export. Otherwise it gets a lot trickier.

It hasn't been updated for 2.80 yet but does the Motion Capture Tools addon that I mention here help?


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How do i make this minecraft eyebrow with bendy bones?
I want to make a rectangle eyebrow for my character with specific controls, but I'm new to bendy bones and cant figure it out.
I want it to be a rectangle with 2 bones on each side that move each side of the rectangle while still keeping it straight, like this simple drawing I made.

in the drawing the two bones have moved but the cube (a line here) is still straight.
I also want to have a third bone in the middle which i can move to bend the line up or down in a nice curve.  I think bendy bones are the best way to do this, but I cant figure out how to get this nice way of controlling it.  Is this even possible?

maybe take a look at my answer here, I guess the Spline Ik is a bit painful but it's the solution that will give you the most control: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/116124/how-to-rig-a-cartoon-style-hose-limb-cartoon-arm/116128

Im trying to follow it, but for the life of me I cant figure out how to select a bone, and then select the curve to hook the bone to it.  I cant get it to work =(

Select the bone you want in Edit or Pose mode, switch to Object mode, shift select the curve, select the vertex, press Ctrl H > Hook to Selected Object Bone

Another completely different solution would be to use shape keys, much simpler that all these solutions

yeah, that would probably be better for what I want to do, but like my first picture I want it to remain straight unless I am bending it down or up and I'm not sure how to rig the two bones controlling either end when the eyebrow has loop cuts.

I hope that made sense.

figured it out, using a stretch to contstraint, will post an answer once I've got it the way I want it.


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Applying a texture, editing the texture, and exporting to Unity
I have spent many hours looking at tutorials, reading, and trying to understand the dynamic between UV maps, image textures, application of the same, exporting to Unity, and then making it look anything like I want.
In short, I have failed miserably.
For the record I am using Blender 2.79b.  Unity version is probably irrelevant, but it's 2019 with some various numbers thereafter.
With the goal of exporting to Unity in mind I would like to know three things please:
1) How do you apply an image texture to an object?
There seems to be at least a few ways of doing this, predominantly depending on (as far as I can ascertain) whether you use Blender Render or Cycles Render.  I also understand that Cycles Render is coolio for lighting which is great, but useless in Unity because the lighting from Blender doesn't carry over.  So, given my single purpose here, what use is it to me?  Should I be using solely Blender Render or does Cycles Render still carry a value?  Which should I use and why, please?  And then how?  Which of the 974 all-different tutorials on YouTube is best for today?
2) How do you edit the image to match the UV map for a sphere?
I'm specifically working with complex sphere-based shapes in my game, which have started life as cubes and had warpy things done to them.  Sphere UV mapping doesn't work.  Taking any material (which, in preview, looks like a perfectly wrapped sphere - oh, the irony gets me every time I see the little bugger) and applying it to a Lightmap Pack or Smart UV Project Pack doesn't work.   Various tutorials for applying a texture to a sphere work just fine - assuming your image is specifically designed for a sphere.  Mine isn't.  I have Gimp (why is it called Gimp when it's actually Photopad?)...what do I do with it to make this work?
3) If I manage (somehow, several years from now, probably) (1) and (2), can some kind soul please confirm to me that Unity will then behave itself?  i.e., if I spend hours upon hours editing UV maps and image textures, will Unity make it look like it does in blender, or will it take a dump on it from height?  If the latter, what should I be doing instead?
Thanks in advance for any and all advice around the above.  I'm about to invest most of my spare time (2 kids, wife, not much spare time, so it's very valuable!) into this project and I don't want to find out I've been barking up the wrong tree in 2 months time!
Sorry for long post.
A.

Assigning image textures to an object somewhat depends on render engine (be it Internal, Cycles or whatnot). In Cycles it's more defined and updated. The rest of the (1) depends on the purpose of the project - realistic/cartoon.. In general both integrated engines will work with realistic and non-realistic stuff if set up correctly. (2) isn't clear, it's often done the other way around, mapping UV map to image. Generally I think you should search for information about game development sepcifically. On this site try to ask specific questions with certain problem, this will attract more answers

You can't really apply the image to the model, you export the 3D shape and the image/texture separately and combine them in Unity. You only use Blender to assign UV mapping values to your 3D model so that when you feed it the same image file in Unity it maps to the surface the right way.


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How to apply two materials+textures to the same object using UV Map
I have created a UV map and used Gimp to apply two different sets of textures on two different layers.
I've returned to Blender and created two materials, and assigned one layer of textures to each material.
I can apply them individually to the object, but I want to apply them both at the same time.  Is this possible?  How do I do so?
Ideally I'd like to be able to do it by overlayering the two I have, as they fill different parts of the mesh.  In other words, I don't want to have to select individual faces and apply the respective material, because it's a complicated shape with about 7k faces.
If relevant, ultimately I wish to be able to export the two materials into Unity for use there.  I want to be able to set different settings on them in Unity, which is why there's two of them.  i.e. I don't want to bake them in Blender.
Thanks.

Hello Altissimus
How you about to use a UV aligned B&W mask ?

Hi Ruben,  could you please point me to a good tutorial of which you speak?  I can't find anything from a search.


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Objects disconnecting when exported to Unity (FBX)
I have a number of objects parented to one another in Blender.  I want to export them to Unity.  I've used an FBX export (many times, successfully, for single objects in the past) and ensured that all the objects are selected.  I have also confirmed that all scales/rotations/locations have been reset, for each object, and checked all normals are pointing the correct way.
I export to Unity, using FBX 7.4 binary, with "selected objects" checked.
The result is the picture - all that stuff is supposed to be connected.
There are numerous objects, but they're all selected, parented, etc.  What is causing them to explode like this, and how do I get a clean export?
Thanks,
A

It seems to work ok if I switch to FBX 6.1 Ascii.  Doesn't work on 7.4.  Any idea why please?

Is ther a reason why you don't just place the blend files in the unity project and let unity export them in the backgrund how it likes? You can answer your own question here. You used some FBX version that seems to be not properly supportet by either Blender or Unity.

@J.Doe what? FBX is totally supported by Unity and has been for ages.  There's a million videos out there using FBX to import from Blender to Unity - and using 7.4.

Indeed i use it mostly happy nearyl every day. But conversion bewen file formats is a complex thing... and wierd conversion that has to be worked around happen even in things as easy as converting betwen differenc coordinate systhems. Maybe you can find a minimal example to pinpoint the wierd behavior. And then work around it or submit a bug somewere.


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Change elevations of a Slab or Rectangle using python in blender
How do you create a slab (30x40x1) with different elevations every 5'? I am not a programmer nor do I know python. I managed to write the following but I know there has to be a better simpler way to write this.
bl_info = {
    "name": "Slab",
    "author": "A O, P.E.",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 90, 1),
    "location": "View3D > Object",
    "description": "Adds a Slab Mesh Object",
    "warning": "",
    "doc_url": "",
    "category": "Object",
}

import bpy
from bpy.types import Operator
from bpy.props import FloatVectorProperty
#from bpy_extras.object_utils import AddObjectHelper, object_data_add
from mathutils import Vector
from bpy.types import (
    AddonPreferences,
    Operator,
    Panel,
    PropertyGroup,
)
from bpy.props import (IntProperty)

class OBJECT_OT_cube(Operator):
    bl_label = "Slab"
    bl_idname = "object.cube"
    #bl_description = "Adds a Slab Mesh Object"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    #bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}
    bl_catagory = "Slab"

    cubeResolution: bpy.props.IntProperty(
        name = "Cube Resolution",
        default = 6,
        min = 1,
        max = 15,
    description = "Octree Depth used in the Remesh Modifier",
)

    scale: FloatVectorProperty(
        name="scale",
        default=(1.0, 1.0, 1.0),
        subtype='TRANSLATION',
        description="scaling",
    )

        #def poll(cls, context):
        #return context.object.select_get() and context.object.type == 'CUBE' or     context.object.type == 'CURVE'

        #def invoke(self, context, event):
        #return context.window_manager.invoke_props_dialog(self)

#Distances are in 5 meters. Change distances as per your project
#Define verices,faces,edges

verts = [
(0,0,10),(0,5,10),(5,5,10),(5,0,10),(0,0,10.41),(0,5,10.33),(5,5,10.31),(5,0,10.4),(0,10,10),(5,10,10),(0,10,10.15),(5,10,10.15),(10,0,10),(10,5,10),(10,5,10.3),(10,0,10.39),
(15,0,10),(15,5,10),(15,5,10.26),(15,0,10.37),
(20,0,10),(20,5,10),(20,5,10.28),(20,0,10.39),
(0,15,10),(5,15,10),(0,15,10.06),(5,15,10.04),
(10,10,10),(10,10,10.115),(10,15,10),(10,15,10.085),
(15,10,10),(15,10,10.13),(15,15,10),(15,15,10.13),
(20,10,10),(20,10,10.17),(20,15,10),(20,15,10.18),
(0,20,10),(5,20,10),(0,20,10.01),(5,20,9.97),
(10,20,10),(10,20,9.99),(15,20,10),(15,20,10.02),
(20,20,10),(20,20,10.11),(25,0,10),(25,5,10),(25,0,10.39),(25,5,10.31),
(25,10,10),(25,10,10.21),(25,15,10),(25,15,10.21),(25,20,10),(25,20,10.13),
(0,25,10),(0,25,9.97),(5,25,10),(5,25,9.97),(10,25,10),(10,25,9.96),
(20,25,10),(20,25,10.04),(25,25,10),(25,25,10.055),
(15,25,10),(15,25,9.99)]

faces = [
(0,1,2,3),(7,6,5,4),(0,4,5,1),(1,5,6,2),(2,6,7,3),(3,7,4,0),
(1,8,9,2),(5,10,11,6),(2,6,11,9),(1,5,10,8),(8,9,11,10),
(7,15,12,3),(15,14,13,12),(6,14,13,2),(7,15,14,6),(3,12,13,2),
(12,16,17,13),(16,19,18,17),(13,17,18,14),(12,16,19,15),(15,19,18,14),
(16,17,21,20),(19,18,22,23),(23,22,21,20),(17,18,22,21),(16,19,23,20),(8,9,25,24),(11,10,26,27),(25,27,26,24),(9,11,27,25),(8,10,26,24),
(21,36,32,17),(22,37,33,18),(21,22,37,36),(17,18,33,32),(32,33,37,36),(18,14,29,33),(17,13,28,32),(13,14,29,28),(32,33,29,28),(28,29,11,9),(28,13,2,9),(29,14,6,11),(9,25,30,28),(29,11,27,31),(25,27,31,30),(28,29,31,30),(32,28,30,34),(30,31,35,34),(34,35,39,38),(36,32,34,38),
(32,33,35,34),(36,37,39,38),(37,33,35,39),(33,29,31,35),
(24,40,41,25),(25,41,44,30),(30,44,46,34),(34,46,48,38),
(24,26,42,40),(25,27,43,41),(31,45,44,30),(34,35,47,46),(38,39,49,48),
(27,26,42,43),(27,43,45,31),(35,31,45,47),(39,35,47,49),
(40,41,43,42),(41,44,45,43),(44,46,47,45),(47,46,48,49),(46,70,64,44),
(20,21,51,50),(20,23,52,50),(50,52,53,51),(21,22,53,51),(23,22,53,52),
(48,49,67,66),(58,48,66,68),(58,59,49,48),(69,67,66,68),(59,49,67,69),(59,69,68,58),(40,42,61,60),(41,43,63,62),(44,45,65,64),
(42,61,63,43),(40,60,62,41),(61,60,62,63),
(44,41,62,64),(45,43,63,65),(70,46,47,71),(47,45,65,71),(71,65,64,70),
(66,48,46,70),(49,47,71,67),
(36,37,55,54),(36,21,51,54),(38,39,57,56),(36,54,56,38),
(38,48,58,56),
(22,37,55,53),(51,53,55,54),(55,37,39,57),(54,55,57,56),
(39,49,59,57),(56,57,59,58),(67,71,70,66),(65,63,62,64)]

#Define mesh and object
mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("Cube")
object = bpy.data.objects.new("Cube",mesh)

#Set location and scene of object
object.location = bpy.context.scene.cursor.location
bpy.context.collection.objects.link(object)

#Create mesh
mesh.from_pydata(verts,[],faces)
mesh.update(calc_edges=True)

def execute(self, context):

        add_object(self, context)

        return {'FINISHED'}

def menu_func(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(OBJECT_OT_cube.bl_idname)

# Registration

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(OBJECT_OT_cube)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_object.append(menu_func)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(OBJECT_OT_cube)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_object.remove(menu_func)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

You can try using bmesh.ops.duplicate and bmesh.ops.translate.
import bpy
import bmesh

slab_dimensions = (30, 40, 1)
storeys = 10
storey_height = 5

mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("Slab")
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(mesh)
bmesh.ops.create_cube(bm, size=1)
bmesh.ops.scale(bm, vec=slab_dimensions, verts=bm.verts)
bmesh.ops.translate(bm, vec=(0.0, 0.0, slab_dimensions[2] / 2), verts=bm.verts)
slab_faces = bm.faces[:]

for i in range(storeys):
    dupe = bmesh.ops.duplicate(bm, geom=slab_faces)
    verts = [v for v in dupe["geom"] if isinstance(v, bmesh.types.BMVert)]
    bmesh.ops.translate(bm, vec=(0.0, 0.0, storey_height * i), verts=verts)

bm.to_mesh(mesh)

obj = bpy.data.objects.new("Slab", mesh)
bpy.context.collection.objects.link(obj)

Result :


text:
How do I do axis-locking + edge/face intersection snapping?
I want to move an edge of object A onto the face of object B. I want them to meet where the blue lock-axis meets the face of B. How can I do this?

All the solutions mentioned here didn't work at the time because blender snapping system was broken. However, it works with the current version of blender.

You can enable Snapping by pressing the magnet at the top of the screen. If you click on the drop-down menu next to the magnet icon, you can change what Blender will snap to.
To toggle snapping via a keyboard shortcut, press Shift+Tab. Pressing Ctrl+Shift+Tab will bring up a pop-up menu for changing the snapping object.
If you don't want to toggle snapping, you can just hold Ctrl instead to enable snapping only while Ctrl is held down.

Correct me if i am wrong. It seems to me that the two edges you want to snap to eachoother are obsolete. The way it appears in the images you can remove those edgeloops, because the end result is a mesh that has the original shape of a cube, but it is broader in one end. Can you provide an image displaying the whole mesh?


text:
Why is this weird line in appearing in Glass material?
I cannot understand why this weird line in appearing in my coffee

I decreased IOR of my glass and increased density of coffee. I moved light, checked if I have two materials and nothing is working.
It's still there even though I changed the camera view.

Double-check if the coffee is intersecting the cup glass at all places. You also may want to try moving the light, as it may be the light refracting through the cup walls and reflecting off the surface of the coffee

@stphnl329 I checked it very carefully and it is intersecting it. I was moving the light to a various places and changing the light settings and nothing helped. I still have these two lines (this white one and black one a little lower). Going into the edit mode also didn't give me any clues because this line is not any of the edges so it has to be something with light or my materials. Thank you for the help!

From the images it looks as if it is either a reflection or refraction of the plate edge. Try hiding objects one by one and seeing if any affects it

@cegaton I checked it as well and changed IOR of glass-air and liquid-air accordingly but I am missing where can I find IOR for glass-liquid? My guess is that it calculates itself?
Thank you for the link!

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos when I hide the cup the lines and disappearing but I still cannot find the idea on how to remove them. They don't look natural even though it is a reflection. I don't if I should leave it now and mask it in a Photoshop or stubbornly look for a solution ;) Thank you very much for your help!

@stphnl329 My liquid is as blue as it can get! That's why it is so confusing to me why it appears like this.

It is probably just the reflection of the cup edge, and should actually be there

It just occurred to me that this is probably a case of reversed normals seeing as the entire shading of the coffee is off. A Normal is a line that comes off perpendicular to a plane. Blender uses these to calculate lighting off the various faces of a mesh, but if they're facing the wrong way (inside rather than outside), then the shading of the object will not look right.
To check if the normals are facing the correct direction, open the Viewport Overlays drop-down menu, and check Face Orientation. If the normals are facing the right way (as in facing in the direction the object is meant to be viewed), than the object will appear blue. If not, it will be red.

If this is the case, Tab into edit mode with the coffee selected, and press Shift+N to recalculate normals.


text:
Get an executable list of executed operators in python
What is it for:
I’m writing an addon for blender which will have to store operators that have been executed since a custom button has been pressed, until another button is pressed.
What do I need:
If possible I need the operators in a form like this:
bpy.ops.transform.translate(value=(0, 3.89135, 0), constraint_axis=(False, True, False), constraint_orientation=‘GLOBAL’, mirror=False, proportional=‘DISABLED’, proportional_edit_falloff=‘SMOOTH’, proportional_size=1)
In particular I need the Operator with it’s values.
Options I found:
The first option I found is bpy.context.window_manager.operators.
That gives a list of the operators, but not in a usable structure. It’s possible to convert them to the bpy.ops format, but there are around 2000 Operators in blender and I already stumbled across a lot of differences between the properties of an Operator which makes this option possible, but increadibly teadious and uneffective to implement.
The second option is the undo history, which has the problem that it’s not accessible to python.
The third option is the info space, which draws all the operators that I need, but there’s no way that I know of to access them.
It would be great if you could help me find a solution to this!

Here's a solution I found. It’s not a nice one, but the best I could come up with:
context = bpy.context.area.type
bpy.context.area.type = “INFO”
bpy.ops.info.select_all_toggle()
bpy.ops.info.report_copy()
bpy.ops.info.select_all_toggle()
bpy.context.area.type = context
clipboard = bpy.context.window_manager.clipboard
clipboard = clipboard.splitlines()

So basically I’m changing the active context to the Info Space to then select everything and then copy it. The copied text is then split into lines, so you get a list with operators, that are formatted nicely.


text:
Autosave don’t work in 2.8
About three months ago, auto save in Blender 2.8 stopped working
Since then, I downloaded 10 new builds and nothing has changed.
Blender 2.79 makes autosave fine, but 2.8 doesn’t
I checked on other computers, everything works, but on mine it doesn't, and I do not know how to fix it.
What is the problem?

In Preferences > Save and Load > Auto Save,  do you have the Auto Save Temporary Files option checked ?

Next check in Preferences > File Paths > Data > Temporary Files, left click the folder icon to see if you have any .blender files saved at this location.

This is what i have in my Temp folder:

Note that holding down the Alt key and left clicking that little folder icon will take you directly to the location on your hard drive from where you can drag one of the saved  .bland files onto your desktop and then open it again in Blender.

Also check the system console. If using an addon (maybe new in the last three months,  that runs a modal timer, will see a "cannot  autosave while modal is running" or siimilar message displayed.

It looks like in my case it is "autoload textures" addon

I'm posting this as an answer since this was added as a comment and it solved my problem.
If a modal operator is running, the autosave feature won't work.
Make sure to disable all add-ons and selectively re-enable them until the autosave feature stops working to know which one is the culprit.
I didn't get a warning about it in the console though, so it's a bit troublesome if you use a large number of addons which could potentially be full-time running a modal operator in the background.

What is a modal operator?

@aggregate1166877 it's an operator that keeps running in the background until it finishes running. see https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.Operator.html#modal-execution


text:
How to make my petals stop floating in the air
I use the particles system to make a flower, but all petals are floating, I don't know how to fix it.

It looks like the origin of your petal object is below the mesh. Move it up (into the petal mesh narrower end) and you'll have the problem solved.

..that is.. .just for complete clarity.. in Edit Mode, move the mesh down with respect to its pivot point. Or in Object Mode, snap the cursor onto the petal where you would like the attachment point to be, and use Shift-Ctrl-Alt-C > Origin to Cursor.


text:
Principled BSDF node not shading right
I'm trying to texture and shade this archway I have but its not rendering correctly. I added a basic cube mesh and set up BSDF nodes exactly how I have them on my archway and it comes out perfect.
Why isnt it working on the object I created? I've used blendergurus video on the subject to set up the nodes so you know the exact steps I have taken.
Here is the Basic cube(how I want it to show up) and then  the archway I want shaded. notice the color is one solid shade of grey with no brown specs?
Can anyone help me find the problem here?

Do you unwrap the ark?

You need to unwrap your model. In edit mode select all vertexes and press U -> Smart UV project. It will creates very basic UV for you, if you want go farther, study UV unwraping.

Thanks drove to the store after posting this question and remembered that it has to be unwrapped lol thanks anyway. hopefully this can help someone else in the future


text:
Export glTF 2.0 with shading
I have shading set up to have a glitter effect. But I need to show it in AR (arguement reality). While I'm exporting to .usd or .gltf/glb it doesn't show effect I created, only black material.

Do you know if there's a way to do that without changing extension?

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

Most Blender nodes cannot be exported from Blender. To create a material compatible with export, you'll need to 'bake' the nodes into textures, connected to inputs on the Principled BSDF material. The glTF addon documentation goes into more detail on supported materials: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/import_export/scene_gltf2.html


text:
Settings for the resolution of intersecting object outlines
after I scaled my model up by factor 100 the outlines where two objects meet appear ragged. They only get smooth when I zoom way in. Is there a setting where I can adjust this, and if yes, where do I find it? Thank you!

Usually the camera clip values

There is no camera involved though


text:
Rendered Image and preview look different
I am new to blender and I have been trying to get a render in Cycles. But the image looks nothing alike. There's a reflection the object which isn't there in the preview
Preview:

Final Render:

I used a ocean modifier here

Any idea how to get the exact thing?
Thank You

In the screenshot of your Ocean modifier you have Resolution Viewport set to 20 but Resolution Render, just below, set to 2. The Resolution settings determine how many levels of subdivision are present in the final result.
In ‘preview’ mode the resolution of 20 is giving enough detail to be able to see the ripples but in Render mode you’re effectively just seeing a flat surface.
Increase the Render resolution to match the Viewport resolution.

DAMNNNNN!, It worked. Thanks a lot good sir and have a happy new year


text:
RIGIFY ERROR: Bone 'spine': Input to rig type must be a chain of 3 or more bones. Incorrect armature for type 'chain_rigs'
I am trying to generate a rig for this dog mesh using Blenders rigify cat rig (I heard there are some bugs with Rigify's dog rig) however I ran across this error  "RIGIFY ERROR: Bone 'spine': Input to rig type must be a chain of 3 or more bones. Incorrect armature for type 'chain_rigs'" when clicking the generate rig button in Object Data Properties.
Alongside the error message an extra bone appears, labeled ORG-pelvis.C
I thought one of my bones might not be attached correctly so I checked "connected" in every bones properties but still had no luck. I also tried to snap all the children bones to their parents by using snap cursor to selection on the parent bone and then, snap selection to cursor on the child bone but I still encounter this error.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

enter image description here

Can you post a blend file with the metarig.  You don't need to include the dog.  It'll be easier to figure out why RIGIFY thinks your spine is messed up.  Meanwhile, what metarig did you start from, and have you edited anything beyond removing the face?

@MartyFouts I am actually new on Stack exchange so I am not sure how to upload a .Blend file on here, but I added a cat Meta Rig. Besides removing the face I also deleted all the toe bones for the paws except f_toe_R/L and r_toe.R/L.

How to add a blend file  Deleting those bones should not have caused your problem, so seeing your blend file would be very helpful.

Thank you for the link on how to exchange .blend files , by disabling "connected" alongside deleting the problematic bones, then re-adding the bones with their labels and parent child relationships, I was able to fix the errors. Unfortunately, the generated rig ended up having missing parts and being incomplete. I have uploaded a file to it here if you want to check it out. Thanks!

It sounds like you disconnected the spine chain somewhere... or maybe you connected a bone that shouldn't be connected.
The rule for the individual Rigify parts is:
All bones of one "rig type" must be parented and connected. Individual rig types can be parented but not connected.
I hope this makes sense. From what you describe, enabling "connected" parenting for all bones is definitely a mistake.
If you share the actual file, identifying the actual problem should be easy.

Thank you for the help. disabling "connected" alongside deleting the problematic bones, then re-adding the bones with their labels and parent child relationships, fixed the errors. Unfortunately, the generated rig ended up having missing parts and being incomplete. I have uploaded a file to it here if you want to check it out. Thanks!

Nice! Yes, most of your Rig Types are missing and that's why the rig doesn't generate in full. I am not sure why, there are a few ways in which Rig Types may be lost. Or maybe you never assigned them. Do you know how to set rig types?
(Startiung from scratch may be a good idea, by the way :D )

Thank you so much :). That's odd that some of the rig types are missing. Maybe I accidently deleted them when I reorganized my collection. Welp starting from scratch it is :)

It could be because of this common Blender issue tho. Understanding it may help you avoid losing work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcGM14fa6E0

Great video, I think this bug might be the case. I did use  control-z  a lot while working in rigify this time around. I also gave you a subscribe ;) (I'm listed as Lilylikesslugs on youtube). Thanks again for the help.


text:
Is there a better way to rig this sphere? Automatic weights doesn't do what I want, and trying to fix it in weight painting doesn't fix it
I'm trying to rig this sphere, and I used automatic weights. I want the bottom bone to act as a root bone that will move the whole mesh. But even with painting the entire sphere with strength 1, there is deformation. (I used automatic weights)

Sphere I want to rotate. I want the bottom bone to act as a root bone, which moves all vertices of the sphere in equal amounts.

In weight paint mode, I made sure the entire sphere is painted with a strength of 1

Results when the root bone is rotated on z-axis

can u provide blend file pls?

You're doing 2 conceptual errors:

1 Setting a weight of 1.0 it's not enough to get a vertex stuck on its bone, because the vertex shift is always calculated in relation with all the assigned weights, and a "normalization" is applied, so that if a vertex has a weight of 1.0 relative to three different bones, every weight will be treated as if it was 0.3333....: if you move the bone 1 BU the vertex will move 0.3333 BU.
In a similar way if a vertex has a weight of 0.01 related to a bone, and this is the only weight that this wertex has, it will be treated as a weight of 1.0: if you move the bone, the vertex will follow exactly.

2 Root bones are always set as "non deforming": the idea is not that a root bone moves all vertices of a mesh; instead, a root bone is parent of all the others bones of the armature, so that when you move the root bone all the armature moves and all the character follows.

To solve, select your root bone, uncheck its "Deform" option and set the bone parenting so that the root bone is parent to all the others bones. Then parent the character to the armature with automatic weights and use weight painting to adjust the deformations where needed.


text:
is blender 2.83.4 still in development?
My blender 2.8 got extremely corrupt and so I was planning on downloading the latest fully developed blender version so there are no bugs. What is the current fully developed blender version?

Also I can't reinstall 2.8 because it still gets the se error

Are you sure you fully removed it in the first place?

Yes. I did fully remove it and it still doesn't work.

You should make sure you are not sourcing your blender downloads from some corrupt source and make sure you are sourcing it from the proper site.

Yes I am sourcing it from the proper site.


text:
getting a weird raisin texture on liquid texture?
im getting a weird raisin texture on my liquid from blender guru's tutorial. I've followed it 100% through so far and I can't find a way to fix this.

Is this with the viewport denoiser active?  It looks like denoiser artifacts

do you mean is this in the viewport or rendered? if so this is rendered.

This gives context - https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/98510/how-to-properly-denoise-renderings?r=SearchResults

I added more samples and it works now! I completely forgot you could add samples


text:
How to smooth a mesh for 3D printing (subdivide introduces ugly ripples and kinks)
so I've done a few days of research and tried a bunch of things and I'm at a loss.
I'm trying to fix up this mesh for 3D printing:

In Blender, the highlighted mesh on her body looks smooth. But once exported to STL and in the slicer, the edges are sharp along the mesh edges. So I want to smooth it out. I looked up online, and people say to subdivide with (smooth: 1.0). I tried that, from subdividing once to 10 times.

Some others say to use alt-J and then subdivide the quad mesh. I did that and got similar results, except the ripples/kinks are now along quad edges.
Does anyone know how I could preserve the shape and make it smooth? When you hide the mesh in object mode, the character looks pretty smooth without these artifacts.

The effects you are describing from the subdivision surface are usually the result of imperfect initial geometry. See if you can go back and try to clean up any imperfections or non-manifold areas before you subdivide.

@person132 Hmm. I exported this from a game so it's the original mesh, and within this part it doesn't seem to have any non-manifold edges except for around the mesh (it's just a floating mesh with a non-manifold outer ring. I'm not sure what cleaning up imperfections could mean?

Ok I figured it out!

Alt-J to make your mesh Quad
Instead of using "subdivide", use the modifier "subdivision surface"!

This is pretty basic but this was really confusing to a beginner like me. Hope it helps!


text:
Why is the assigned material larger than the selected faces?
I'm a total noob and was trying to customize my plate/donut from the BlenderGuru tutorial. My goal was to add a thin gold trim around the plate. I loop cut a thin band on the surface of the plate and then assigned a gold material to it. But it didn't work how I thought it would. Why does the material show up so much wider than the faces I selected? How do I make the gold band thinner?

You experiencing this problem because of the Subdivision-Surface modifier.
When you add in a default sub-surf modifier, it just displays the modifier in the edit mode (as well as in the object mode) but won't show the change in geometry that the sub-surf modifier makes. Here is an example with respect to your model:

Notice how the geometry change when the subdivision surface is switched on.
To solve your problem just make Loop cuts with Edit Cage on.(the icon in the circle):

You are using a Subdivision Surface Modifier.
From the Docs:

The Subdivision Surface Modifier is used to split the faces of a mesh into smaller faces giving a smooth appearance.

Blender doesn't know which materials you want to use and thus assigns the materials in a 50/50 ratio to the newly generated geometry.


text:
Circle not filled right?
So I am trying to make this circle work and make it viewable but like it not showing up right. I mean I can see it but it looks as if it is stuck in wire frame mode. I'm New to blender so I don't really know my way around in it but I would like it if you could help

Select one of the loops by holding alt and clicking on it. Then, hold shift and do the same to the other (holding shift holds what you've already selected). Right click, and select "bridge edge loops".

This question is a duplicate of https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/189898/33589


text:
Mirror vertex group failed
When I try to mirror vertex group in weight paint mode, error shows up ''0 vertices mirrored 11226 failed''
I've tried:  - mirror half of the model, so everything is symmetrical,
- center everything on the X, Y than ctrl + a
- attach the armature to different model > mirror vertices worked
- attach the model to different armature > error
There is clearly something wrong with the model but I have no idea what is causing all the problems. I made the model in Maya 2016 than exported it as .obj than did the Uv mapping + textures in blender 2.8.
I don't want to do retopology, so I'm asking for help.
Here's the model in blender: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iykZkZBXoBTzXScjjGUdMEzCR_mOCCdk/view?usp=sharing

Fixed it by importing the model and armature in a new scene.


text:
Blender Cycles - Hair Edges are Gray
I've been trying to render hair in Cycles, but for some reason when I render them with transparency and what not the textures come out with grayish edges. It might be something to do with the alpha settings but I'm not entirely sure. For the sake of simplicity i omitted her other hair particles besides the ones shown. Is there a way to get rid of the white outlines?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

It might have to do with pre-multiplied alpha channels in the PNG image, though I am not sure how to solve it correctly in Blender.
I suspect the problem here is the alpha map transitions softly from hair color to transparent, but the Cycles transparency has a different color from the opaque area (in this case white).
One way to work around it that might mitigate the problem is to change the color of the transparent material to match the color of the hair.
Try plugging in the Image color output to the color input socket of the Transparent node also, to see if it helps.
Depending on how the hair color is setup (if the transparent areas of the image still have hair color) it may reduce the issue.

I tried plugging the image color output into the Transparent color socket, but that didn't quite work. But your response made me realize that the textures themselves weren't PNG files, but were dds files.
I exported the textures from Noesis as PNG files and everything works now. Thanks!

You should post that as a full answer bellow for future reference. Please include some details about what you did, why it didn't work before and how you solved it.


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Blender Cycles Hair Transparency Problem
I'm new here, but I made an account just to ask this.
Lately I've been working with an imported XPS model, but I haven't finished putting the textures on in Cycles yet. However, the hair (eyelashes and front hair) that I have textured doesn't seem to have working transparency. The hair strand indicated below seems to be 'transparent', but I don't know where the solid light blue color is coming from in the render; if I mess around with the nodes for that hair it usually ends up either turning the rendered blue part black or turning the entire strand black.
Does anyone have a fix? It would be greatly appreciated.

After scratching my head for a few days I found the problem. There's a whole duplicate hair mesh which isn't visible from the front while editing, but shows up during renders. I went behind the model and loaded the texture onto the duplicate and everything works fine. Even the lashes.


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Is there a faster process for converting splines into rigged meshes?
I wanted to have my character's arms be more akin to that of a cartoonish noodle, so I decided that the best way to accomplish this would be to create a Bezier curve, create a mesh out of that curve by duplicating and converting it, create an armature from the curve's various points, rig the mesh to that armature, and apply a Spline IK constraint. However, I think that there might be an easier way to do it than how I'm currently accomplishing it. Here's my process.

Here is a simple Bezier curve. I would then proceed to duplicate the curve three times so that I can use each one for a different purpose.

I'd then expand the depth of one of the curves to a suitable value ('0.07 m' in this case) and convert it into a mesh.

Hiding the mesh, I'd move onto another curve, converting it into a mesh while making sure that the depth stayed at a volume of '0 m'. With the mesh being nothing more than a curved line of vertices, I'd then add a Skin modifier. After selecting the modifier's "Create Armature" button and deleting the mesh, I'd have an armature ready for me to utilize.

Before rigging the mesh to the armature, I'd extrude another bone out of the end bone for the sake of accurate deformation.

Allowing the mesh to become visible again, I'd select the mesh and then the armature. I'd then parent the mesh to the armature with empty groups (automatic weights give messy results).

Now here comes the part where I want to rip my hair out.
Since automatic weights don't give me the results I want, I'd select the armature, go to the Object Data properties, go to the "Viewport Display" tab, and check "Names". With that out of the way, I'd select the mesh and go into edit mode. I'd then select a ring of vertices and assign it to the vertex group that properly corresponds with the appropriate bone.

And then I'd do it again.

And again, and again, and again, until I eventually run out of vertex groups to assign the model to.

Now, it's not too big of a deal when I only have 13 bones within this example armature, but if I were to deal with 30 or 50 bones here so that the mesh can look extra smooth while the arm is being deformed by the spline, things suddenly get significantly more tedious to set up than before, especially so if I'm dealing with multiple limbs. After this I'd just add a Spline IK modifier to Bone.11 and add a few fancy hooks to the Bezier curve, but I think you get my problem here.
I don't want to go and apply weights to the various vertex groups in my model so that it responds to every single bone in my armature here. Is there a script/add-on that can do this automatically, or is there a better workflow that would make this sort of thing easier to accomplish?

Skin Modifier
Using the Skin Modifier along with a Subdivision Surface Modifier you can do this rather quickly.
The skin modifier has the option to create an armature for you, so convert your curve to mesh first, and use the modifier.

The spiral in the image below is a very basic example, but you can get the point from it.

Very interesting. I'll look into it!

It works! While it may be an issue if one were to want to imitate the bevel options that the curve geometry allows, it's a quick and simple method that is just what I need for my type of character. Thanks!


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How to make a tape measure for exact measurements?
I am making an instruction video for burn victims, so that I can make their made to measure recovery garments in the exact size. I have made my person model, but now I need to show the area where the tape measure should be placed, to take the exact measurement, circumference etc. how can I do this? could I make a tape measure or just a line maybe…does any one please have a suggestion. I am new at this and am just learning…. please help…thank you so much

so your question really is "how do I wrap a tape measure around a model"

Could you please clarify what you are really trying to achieve, perhaps with some reference images or videos? What you want to do seems feasible, but as it stands it is unclear exactly what you wish to achieve

Hi, it is an instruction video to show how to take measurements of a victim of a burn tragedy(wether it be through fire, oil etc.)  I find that people who take the measurements are very inexperienced and all the measurements are impossibly incorrect. I need them to send me accurate measurements so the patient can recover quickly. video should indicate where the tape measure be placed. I will make different videos for example, face, hand, leg etc. i have used manuel bastioni lab for the model, I just  need to create a line or tape measure to indicate where to measure. thank you so much x

First, two assumptions. One is that I assume your person model is made in compliance with the usual norms as far as topology and geometry of the model. The other is that the "exact measurements" to which you refer to in the title of your question relates to the exact measurements made and communicated to you, and not necessarily to obtaining exact measurements in the model. That written, here's what I would do.

Make a duplicate of your person model and move it to a different layer.
Figure out where on the model you will need to show the measurements, likely including (but not limited to) the neck, the chest, the upper and lower arms, the waist, the hips, and upper and lower legs.
At each point where you have identified a location where you need a measurement, define a contrasting material to any that might already be present on your real person model, and make two loop cuts around the duplicate person model in that location. Space those two loop cuts you just made to be about an inch apart, or so (relative to the model), and assign the new material to the areas between the two loopcuts.
When all of the areas where you need measurements have been marked, in the material context button of the object properties window, in edit mode, choose "select" to select all of the loop cuts with the material you need, then in the select menu in the 3D viewport header, choose "inverse selection". Now delete everything from the duplicate model that is not a location of a measurement you need.
Switch the pivot point to "median point", and scale each of the locations of the tape up by about 2 percent, constraining the scale directions so as not to change the scale of the tape in the direction perpendicular to the tape. Do not change the locations of any of your measurement lines.
Move the tape lines from the layer you moved them to in step one, back to the layer where the person model is to be found.

If you choose, before doing step 6, you can make a more accurate and detailed representation of the ends of your tape measure

thank you so much, but this sounds extremely complicated. all i really need is to draw a line, even if it is grease pencil just to indicate where the tape measure should be placed…or if it is a tape measure even better, but I do not need to show any measurements, its just instructing how to measure properly. is it possible for you to link a you tube video to point me in the right direction. thank you

Sorry, I don't know of a Youtube video on this.

Dear Basshat, I am slowly but surely following your instructions….thank you so much for your input I appreciate your help so much!

@michelle, you're welcome.

If you just need to draw a line on your model, the grease pencil should do alright.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3lIX10qcPWk
8 minutes in shows how to draw on a surface.
You might need to toggle X-ray on-or-off to achieve your desired result.


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Blender already rigged and animated characters
I have 4 different characters (Person, Dog, Cat and Rabbit). I have rigged and animated all the 4 characters separately, each in different blender file. Now, i want to make a scene with all the four characters so my question is how do i get all the 4 characters (Animated and Rigged) together in one blender file to make a scene with all of them ?
Also, i want to project this onto something so i need them to be together.

Have you tried File -> Append ?
Make sure you have saved the animations you make for each file by clicking the shield icon in the animations layout

You can either try to append or you can literally open the blend file with a character, select the mesh and rig, then ctrl+c, then in the separate scene you want them in ctrl+v

@hatinacat2000 so i have tried File -> Append but the issues with that method is the PATH that i have for all of these files are different so when i play them in a loop, two out of four meshes rotates in odd angles deforming the entire mesh.

@ReynardDroste Are you suggesting that i should get all the characters in one blender file and then rig and animate them ? (that was my initial approach but for some reason when i attached the mesh and the armature for one character, it affected the mesh of other characters as well). Do you have any recommendations for that ?

@user77239 You said you rigged and animated them separately right? So I assume all 4 characters are in different blend files. If that's the case you can copy paste between open blender windows. Open a new blender window and start to copy them in one by one into the new scene, their rigs should still only affect the mesh that's weighted to them and not other meshes. So no need to rig and animate them all in the same blender file.


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Reset Normals directions to object rotation after applyed scale
I hope im not missing something easy,but i have this problem.
Was moving with gizmo by normals this object and was all right.Had to Apply Rotation and Scale,and after that the normal gizmo just reset and i can only move it like if its on "global"(Transformation Orientation bar on the top centre),wich is crazy bad in this case
How to set them back to the right value ?
I saw an answer saying to duplicate before applying,then use Data Transfer mod to set that back..Now i dont know it sounds like a workaround(maybe im wrong,it just sounds that way to me))is there any other method maybe just some option or shortcut or something like that ?
Thanks in advance,and sorry for bad english

Are you in object mode or edit mode? Either way, applying rotation resets the orientation of the object.  But what you can do (and this is better) is use the 3D cursor tool to snap the 3D cursor to the geometry, and use 3D cursor transform orientation. You can create an empty with the 3D cursor's rotation and create a custom transform orientation, too. It will create the orientation from whatever is the active selection.

Thanks i will def try that ! Your gif doesnt move unfortunately for me..I even tried to save it and open again but nothing..Is it just me or u can see it moving ?

That's because it's not an animated gif! I was just showing the menu location.


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2.8 Snapping Tool features missing?
Just started to use 2.8,but im pretty new to blender in general.I was searching on 2.8 for,as Blenders manual says,"Additional Snapping Tools",but no way i can find them.Have they been moved or something ? Thx in advance

This next pic is all i see on mine

Has became snapping options, depending of which snapping is selected. Try snap to face for instance, you'll see align rotation

Thats it thank you!


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2.82a wireframe disappears (glitch?)
This has happened to me only in 2.82a:
while im in wireframe mode,and i do "Toggle Overlay",part of the wireframe disappears,as you can see in the pictures
Is it a glitch,or am i missing some specific setting ? Never happened with previous builds

No, it is not a glitch. If you disable the overlay you are basically disabling everything under it including bringing down the value of the wireframe under overlays.

if the value of the wireframe is less than 1, then it all disappears

you can still manually disable grid, floor, Axes, etc under overlays

Thanks for the answer.Thing is,if i do the very same thing on 2.8, 2.81 this won' t happen.Disabling the overlay on previous builds just doesnt affect the wireframe,I just also tried to move that Wireframe slide inside "Viewport Overlays",the one you underlined,and while Toggle Overlays is on,sliding it doesnt even have effect on 2.82,while on previous builds it does and actually changes the "amount" of wireframe shown.Can you reproduce the problem or its just me ?


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What is this artifact and how to avoid it?
On a Sub.D cylinder(ngon "cap fill type"),i extruded the "cap" to make it round,then inset to flat it.When i apply a different color on the end part(as u see in the pic,sorry for my bad english)i found this artifact.
Only way i could fix was inset another face on it.But what it is and how to avoid it ? Thanks in advance

I think it would be useful if you could share the file.

It's likely an artefact from subdividing the cap. You will notice similar ridges when subdividing a regular cylinder. You can combat this by adding another edge loop to the area where the materials are supposed to transition.

Thank you all !

I like your ship, :)

thx:) thats actually a metal gear rex im trying to do

This is the sort of pattern that can arise in the transition between 'kite' quads and more regular quads under subdivision

If you can arrange for the transition to be inside a single-material region rather than at the boundary between materials, it doesn't show:

here, by I insetting the polar region
The Catmull-Clark subdivision algorithm drags newly-created edge-points away from the previous concentrations at one side of a face.. this shows the transition between Simple and Catmull-Clark subdivision:

Didn't know about this issue or this fix +1

Thank you very much for your answer!


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"Toggle Window Fullscreen" Hotkey missing in 2.8?
On 2.79 i used to click alt+F11 if i remember correctly.On 2.8 i cannot find,even on Preferences/Keymap tab,a way to check or assign a key to this specific command..
Only way to toggle it is from Window topbar,as in picture

I even tried to search on keymap the word "full",and this is the result,that specific command is missing it seems...Is it even possible ?Is there another way i can manually assign it ?Cant find anything online about this specific command

You are looking at it: Ctrl Spacebar will maximize a window. Ctrl+Alt+Spacebar will show the window with no menus.

In the Window menu, right click on "Toggle Window Fullscreen", then select "Assign Shortcut". Press the shortcut you want, and it's done.
Of course, this works with every menu element.


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How to get particles emit as trails on an object?
im trying to have an object emit defined lines of trails like this but that consist of particles. Ive seen it done once but cannot figure it out myself and have lost my reference. Can someone help?

You could make an object follow a curve with a Follow Path constraint, then give it a particle system with Emission > Number > as many as the amount of frames you need for your animation, Source > Emit From > Vertices, Velocity > Normals > 0, Field Weights > Gravity > 0, Vertex Groups > Density > Group (with a single vertex as vertex group so that the particles are aligned). Here is what it gives:


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Emit object based particles orthogonal to faces on a grid / without overlap
I'd like to emit these hexagon reference objects from the faces of another object in the same way that I can for this plane. Specifically, with the orientation of the hexagons relative to the normal of the face that emits it and on a grid, or at least without any overlap.

I found that I can emit object based particles from a non-trivially shaped object's faces with rotation set to normal when I set the emission distribution to jittered or random. However, I don't seem to be able to make it work for the grid distribution.

Does someone know a way to get the grid distribution to work, which alternative approach to take to distribute and sequentially modify (e.g. scale or rotate) a reference object covering a target object, or if there is a way to prevent overlapping particles when using the random distribution?

emit from vertices instead of faces? maybe play with the randomness settings and also make sure that the emitted object's longest dimension is shorter than the distance between vertices.

Thanks. So generalizing beyond the sphere example above, my impression for the workflow would then be to first prepare the underlying mesh to have vertices in the desired grid structure and then use the particle system to emit from that. Sounds like a workable approach :)
Though, one does get overlapping particles then it seems due to the emission number being quite high if one wants to ensure that something is emitted from all vertices. Is there a way to disable these overlaps i.e. emission from the same point twice?

alas, there may be such a way, but I don't know what it is if it exists.


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v3.0 python api for setting the scale of InstanceOnPoints
I'm relatively new to blender and scripting in blender so I am missing some basic concepts. I'm working with Blender 3.0.
I'm trying to import some position and radius information for many particles (~18k). After a bit of stumbling around I've found that importing a vertex cloud and creating sphere instances on the vertices is a very fast way to load my geometry.
My problem is that I can't figure out how to scale the instances - I know from playing around with geometry nodes in the gui that a 'random value' node can output per-instance scaling vectors. However I want to input a list of scaling vectors to my InstanceOnPoints geometry node.
When I naively try to do this by giving my node's input['Scale'] a numpy array, it throws an error (seemingly it wants just a length 3 list to turn into a single vector).
I'm having a lot of trouble searching for this information in the docs or elsewhere, so any help is appreciated.
My script:
import bpy
import bmesh
import numpy as np
import mathutils

# load some data with each row [x,y,z,radius,type]
fdir = '/Users/bryan/Downloads/frame_0.npy'
pdata = np.load(fdir)
scale = 0.1
box = np.array([200, 200, 600])*scale

# for each particle type
for typ in [0,1]:
    # select some subset of particles
    cond = (pdata[:,2]<10)*(pdata[:,4]==typ)
    pos = pdata[cond,0:3]*scale + np.array([[0,0,box[2]/2]])

    # these are the scale vectors I want to apply
    scales = pdata[cond,3].reshape(-1,1)*scale*np.ones((len(pos),3))

    # make vertex cloud
    obj_name = "points_t{t}".format(t=typ)
    mesh_data = bpy.data.meshes.new(obj_name+"_data")
    pos_obj = bpy.data.objects.new(obj_name, mesh_data)
    bpy.context.collection.objects.link(pos_obj)
    mesh_data.from_pydata(pos, [], [])

    # add the geometry nodes
    gm = pos_obj.modifiers.new('GN', 'NODES')
    geom_in = gm.node_group.nodes.get('Group Input')
    geom_out = gm.node_group.nodes.get('Group Output')
    points = gm.node_group.nodes.new('GeometryNodeMeshToPoints')
    sphere = gm.node_group.nodes.new('GeometryNodeMeshIcoSphere')
    instances = gm.node_group.nodes.new('GeometryNodeInstanceOnPoints')

    sphere.inputs['Subdivisions'].default_value = 2

    gm.node_group.links.new(geom_in.outputs['Geometry'], points.inputs['Mesh'])
    gm.node_group.links.new(points.outputs['Points'], instances.inputs['Points'])
    gm.node_group.links.new(sphere.outputs['Mesh'], instances.inputs['Instance'])
    gm.node_group.links.new(instances.outputs['Instances'], geom_out.inputs['Geometry'])

    instances.inputs['Scale'].default_value = scales # this causes an error

What does print(scales) print? As you noted yourself, the default value of the Scale input expects a vector, or something it's able to convert to the vector (an iterable of 3 numbers).

@MarkusvonBroady scales is an Nx3 numpy array, where N is the number of points in the object pos_obj. The intent is to apply a length-3 scale vector to each instance generated by InstanceOnPoints (in a manner analogous to how linking a random value node into the Scale input of the instances on points geometry node in the gui yields per-instance scaling)

That's not how nodes work, a default value is a value that is the same for the entire evaluation of the node tree. To have different values for different points, you need to link another node to this input that is evaluated multiple times, for example an image texture node (where the 3 values would be pixels, and the coordinates on the image texture could be calculated based on a point coordinate or index...

Per-instance scaling on a point cloud can be accomplished by setting the radius attribute of the point cloud, and adding a InputRadius node. The following lines need to be added to the original script:
pos_obj.data.attributes.new(name='radius', type='FLOAT', domain='POINT')
pos_obj.data.attributes['radius'].data.foreach_set('value', radii) # where radii is a list of radii of the same length as the number of points

rnode = gm.node_group.nodes.new('GeometryNodeInputRadius')

gm.node_group.links.new(rnode.outputs['Radius'], instances.inputs['Scale'])


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How do I place a hat over hair?
I have created a character in Makehuman and imported it into Blender 3.0. I would like to add a hat to the character's head with Blender. How do I setup the hair & hat so the hair does not protrude through the hat?
Another thing, is it possible to edit the hair and clothes in Blender? When in edit mode there is no mesh for the hair.

Cheers Ivan

just a hint: do only ask ONE question. If you ask more than one...your question might get closed quickly....(these are the rules here, i didn't make them, some of then are ridiculous...but you will see...)

If your hair is still hair, you can edit it in Particle Edit mode. When you want it to be converted to mesh you go into the Modifiers panel and press Convert

Thanks again moonboots. As you suggested, I converted the hair to a mesh. Then added a cube over the hat down to the rim and applied a boolean to the hair to get the difference between the cube. Hair all gone. For some reason, the hat could not be used with the boolean modifier in Cycles - although the hair was gone, the holes from the hair remained in the hat. The hat and boolean modifier worked fine with Eevee.


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How do I modify the shape of an aircraft wing?
I have imported an aircraft from Sketchfab into Blender 3.0 and I would like to change the shape of the wing ends to the shape on the drawing. What methods should I use to move the vertices so that the wing remains smooth and even? I tried dragging and pushing the edge vertices in proportional edit mode and it kind of works but the result does not look great.
Any suggestions how to modify the wing would be most welcome. The wing has a curve when looking at the end profile ie a wing shape.
Thanks

Why doesn't it work? Proportional Editing should work fine, you could also deform the object with a Lattice modifier or Mesh Deform modifier

did you try proportional editing?

@moonboots: you must have been 4 secs quicker :) actually 2... ;)

@Chris, i can always answer before you, thanks to my DeLorean

@Ivan Fet, I see, actually it may not work well for the front of the wing, the topology is a bit too dense, can't you simply redo the wing?

Thanks Moonboots. You are correct about the front of the wings being the problem. Proportional editing works okay for stretching the wing in place but pushing the wing into a curve does not work well. I was hoping there was an easy way to modify the existing wings and not recreate them.


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How do I set influence radius to a specific size?
When doing proportional edits in Blender is there a way to set the radius of influence to a specific size (e.g. 23) or do I have to use my mouse wheel and just try to get close?

Use the operator panel (generally f9 or f6 depending on installation choices) after completing a proportional edit operation.  It will allow to enter a specific radius.  The next proportional editing operation you use will use the same radius.

As with most operations in blender, the redo panel (F9 in 2.8+ keymap, or  F6 for 2.7 keymap) provides the ability to adjust the operator immediately after it is run. Keep in mind, if you use another operator (scale, translate, etc before adjusting prop edit), then the ability to adjust is gone.
See the gif below:


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Wavy Artifact in Viewport Rendered Mode

My rendered preview has these really weird artifacts. I found them inside of the actual render too. I don't remember changing any settings that could have made it this way. I tried turning denoising off which fixed the issue, but I need the denoising on. What can I do to fix this? The problem happens very consistently at 70 or 80 samples. I am using the OpenImage denoiser with albedo and normal passes, with a 1070 with updated studio drivers.

instead of using OpenImage Denoiser, try using a denoise node in the compositor. Maybe that would help?

Found the answer: The denoise setting was too high at .1 instead of .01


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Curve resolution limited
The curve resolution is limited, and I would like it to be higher. Usually, you can manually increase this, but in this case, it just resets. Is there any way to remove this limitation?

If you're talking about the Resolution Render U, it is limited at 64 with the mouse cursor but you can type a higher value

@moonboots no - I tried that already. For some reason it didn't work and simply reset.

Have you got a special reason not to use an Object bevel profile?

I've tried to watch a tutorial on this, and this is exactly what the tutorial did. However, I had a LOT of trouble getting this to work, and eventually gave up. No matter how I scaled or rotated in object mod,e, nothing happned. I could not apply any transform in edit mode.

@Sid I'll add more detail, tomorrow.. whatever's not working for you, I'm sure it's one of those 'very simple' things that are somehow easy to miss .

Sounds good! I did eventually fix this by simply rotating in object mode, and then applying rotation. Don't know why this didn't work, but I tried in a blank file and it worked fine, so I really don't know what changed.

Your screen capture implies that you're talking about the Bevel Resolution:

rather than the Render U Resolution mentioned in the comments.
The hard limit for Bevel Resolution is 32 and you would have to modify and recompile Blender to change it, as the limit is related to data structures in the C code.

Thanks for the info! I definitely was talking about the bevel resolution. Any Idea how I should go about changing the source code/where it would be?

The Blender foundation has Getting Started Advice for Developers as an introduction to how to go about changing the code.  You can find a copy of the code on their github account. curve_bevel.c is probably a good place to start looking.


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Realistic Friction in Blender Rigid Bodies
I'm trying to do a simple rigid body simulation with a ball rolling down a slope. It works properly, however, I want the friction to be realistic. If I set the friction too low, the ball simply slides without rolling, and if I set friction too high, the ball slows down a lot, unlike what would happen in the real world. I think this is because the vector for friction is acting on the ball directly instead of tangent to the contact point. What should I  do?

I can't recreate this. Can you upload your .blend file to https://blend-exchange.com/ ?

@Benus https://blend-exchange.com/b/N6k9eWzS/

Press Ctrl+A, to Apply Scale to the Rigid Bodies in the scene that you would like to be affected.

Thank you! So many problems can be fixed by applying scale.


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Simulating Sand in Blender
I'm trying to make an hourglass in blender using the Molecular add-on, but I can't seem to get the settings right. Either the particles go through the hole without building up as it would in a normal hourglass, or they have a spring effect. What would be some good settings to use for sand simulation? Additionally, I'm having trouble actually simulating with a 3700x and 16GB. The memory usage goes very high and the time per frame seems to exponentially grow. Can someone please recommend some good settings to simulate sand?
Please remember that I'm just a beginner, and have only been using Blender and Molecular very recently.

Havent done it in  quite a while but emulating sand is heavy computational, molecular is computational. If you dont want to waste time mabe try other areas of blender.
If you still want to go on take a good video tut first like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYjLh1M78eA

In Blender 3.1 Cycles can now render point clouds with geometry nodes. The mantaflow liquid simulation can be used to create sand as shown here: https://youtu.be/MjM16FUMOKM


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Create strip around floor area
I have a floor tile which is basically a square, but isn't quite.  I want to add a small strip around the side to be able to paint/texture this strip separately from the floor.
I've used some maths and the location of the other vertices to calculate the width of the strip.  I've then manually added extra vertices to the edge of the square floor, and manually connected them to "next edge" and run them straight along the x/y axis until the intersect with the opposite edge, to form a straight line.
Problem: doesn't create a face; without a face, can't select in Texture Painting.
So I took the 4 vertices I'd created and hit F to form a new Face.
Problem: have new face (one edge of the outer strip of my square) directly overlapping the square that was there before.
I'm guessing they haven't auto merged some how?
How do I tidy this up while ensuring I maintain my outer strip?
I have checked for doubles etc.
Thanks,
A

The face created is exactly the one  you asked for.. you need to miter the frame to make individual faces around the rim. Delete the big face. You can use F with vertices selected to create the diagonal edges, and then F again with edges selected, to fill the segments.

But it may be easier to start with the whole tile, and I inset it with Offset Even checked, working from the outside in.

Perfect, thanks.  Easy when someone gives you the answer ;)

@Altissimus If an answer helped you don't post thanks in the comments, upvote it instead; and if it completely solved your problem, consider upvoting it.

I did upvote it, but I don’t have enough rep for it to count, so I did the old-fashioned thing of saying thank you.

you can also accept the answer, by hitting the check mark under the upvote option.  It let's people know that that person's answer fixed their problem


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Blender 2.8 Texture Paint Nodes - supported in Unity?
I know node-based mats are not supported in unity.
However, texture painted mats are supported in unity.
Now, 2.8 blurs the lines because it allows node-based mats to be created in texture painting.  Is the result of this maintained if you export to Unity please?
Thanks,
A

In general, node logic is specific to Blender and will not be supported in other software. Material and texture creating in far from standardised across technologies, and thus trying to match and support it is just about impossible. In certain cases, certain exporters may detect similar nodes and try and recreate them in the target format/application (for example in the case of fbx export, 2.8 uses the principled shader for basic material settings), however this is the exception, not the rule.
The solution for exporting generated textures to any other program is to bake them to an image file.

So Unity takes a height map, bump (normal) map, diffuse (albedo) map and roughness (smooth) map.  All of this can be created in 2.8.  The question isn't whether or not an image file needs to be created (it does), but whether the workflow will transfer.
If it does transfer, then does (for example) the bump node that allows joint creation of diffuse (albedo) and bump (normal) also transfer?  Because if so, that's a major step forward.


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Animation moves armature
I've spent a frustrating two hours trying to animate and running into the same problem.
When I move a specific object in object mode, the armature doesn't move.  When I put it into pose and move that object, the armature doesn't move.  When I record an animation and move that object, the armature moves all over the shop, messing up everything attached to it.
I've cleared parent (I think) between the object and the armature, and between the armature and the object.  (There should never have been a parent there).
Unless the problem is somewhere else, I think it might still be a parenting issue.  How can I see what the parent is - other than with the very-un-clear dotted parent lines (of which there are too many in the scene anyway)?
Thanks,
A

Look in the outline. If they're parented, objects appear "inside" the tree of their parent

With an object selected, go into the Object sub-panel of the Properties Editor. Under the Relations section is a Parent field where you can click an x to get rid of a parent or use the eyedropper to choose a parent.
Select the armature's root bone then go to the Constraints sub-panel to see if there is a constraint that could be causing the problem.
The Constraint sub-panel is (in blender 2.79) in the Properties Editor, 6th icon along. See picture:

Sorry...where is the Constraints sub panel?

Just answered your question by editing the answer - see the end bit.


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Basic question: how to use Transform Median?

So I set the 3d cursor to 0,0,0 and move the object's origin to the 3d cursor.  Then I select an edge and G, X to move, then type -2 into the Z median.  Object snaps to -2....which isn't aligned to the grid (see picture).
Why doesn't specifying a position of -2 move the edge to the grid line, and how do I achieve this?  I can't turn on snapping/increment because it moves 1 unit from where it is, not to the nearest 1 unit grid line.

Moving selection to -2 units won't make selection stick to place with coordinates -2, 0, 0. Instead it will move selection 2 units from the current position. And if current position was shifted from the grid so that's what will be the result

Ok....so how do I set an object to -2, 0, 0 then?

@MrZak I tested this and it does not seem to be the case.  I moved an object to one position, changed its coordinates to -2, 0, 0 and moved it to another position entirely, changed it again to -2, 0, 0 and lo and behold it went to the same place again.  So your claim that "it will move selection 2 units from the current position" is incorrect.

Transforming in Blender is relatve.  I don't have any idea what you are doing in your case with "I moved an object to one position" as it is very important in which mode the transform is taking place, what origin and pivot points are so I can't tell what you base your judgement on; my statement is correct in regard to situation on the screenshot.

In 2.79, typing GZ2 will move your selection by 2 units in the Z of world space, GZZ2, in the Transform Orientation set in the header. Adjustments to the operation can be made in the Tool Region, bottom left in your screen grab.
If the Median location in the top right is set to 'Global' then any entry you make in the X.Y and Z fields will move the median point of your selection to that point in World space, while leaving the relative positions of the elements to each other the same as they were.
If the Median location is set to 'Local' then the coordinates displayed are in the space of the object to which the elements belong: scaled, rotated, and measured from the object's origin. Once again, modifications are absolute, in the object's coordinate system. Mostly, that's very intuitive, but if the object (rather than its mesh) has been scaled at some point, then so have its local coordinates.
If an object has been scaled by 2 in Z, then setting the local median Z of a selection to 1 will send the selection to 2 units away from the object's origin in its local Z.
Try applying the scale of your cylinder.


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Cannot add image texture to UV unwrap?
New to Blender, trying to load an image texture into the Diffuse channel instead of a colour to learn to UV unwrap. Quite simply I do not have the button needed to the right of the colour bar in materials to open the drop down menu with the image texture option in it, why is that? Using 2.79
thanks

I was in Blender Render and not Cycles


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Why is light being reflected off of one side?
I'm trying to set up a scene with lighting. But, for some reason, the lights seem to be reflecting off of one side. It does this for both eevee renders and cycles renders. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Flipped normals, maybe? It's kinda hard to tell from the photo.

what should the light do? (also flipped normals is probably not it)

I tried flipping normals, but it still doesn't work. I'm trying to get the light to reflect off of both walls. Not just one.


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Why do baked textures turn out checkered or blocky?
I've been having issues with baking textures recently and I have no clue how this happened and how to fix this. If anyone has suggestions or solutions I'll gladly accept them. Thanks]1

Try to increase/decrease that parameter before baking:
Render - Baking - Ray Distance.
Begin with small ray amount - 0.1 or around it.
Also, some information from this video also can help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r-cGjVKvGw
P.S. As i can judge by shape - you unwrapped your mesh properly? Re-check it, just to be sure.

I tried that, but I keep getting an error saying "No valid selected objects". Also I did check my unwrapped uv and I did fix it up just in case, but I still keep getting the checkered effect.

@Poke129 , let's try this:

Increase resolution value in UV/Image editor when creating and empty image for Normal Map, for example - 2048x2048;

Make sure that you've got your Low Poly mesh (on wich you are baking details) and High Poly one shares the same location;

That you selected low poly mesh LAST;

If it still doesn't help...
Open UV/Image editor, create new image for future Normal Map.
Node editor - create Image Texture node, don't connect it to anything, just select Normal Map image for it.
Switch off Select to Active and then Bake it. Try switching Tangent-Object.

Did you use a cage? My solution was to recreate from the low poly mesh and it worked perfectly. I've applied the transforms, recalculated the normals and set the faces.  Btw, cage extrusion and max ray distance were set to zero.


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Maya FBX and TGA to Blender 2.8
I have some models that were created in Maya 2016/2017 and exported into FBX format with .tga files. I'm using Blender 2.8 and can't figure out how to display the textures correctly.

Hi Jerry. You can try: File > External Data > Find Missing Files.