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How to overcome flat look in Texture painting in 2.8
So I never actually used texture paint mode to paint texture but just maps for factors. Now when I want to paint texture when I fill it with color model have look like it's 2d because color is 100% diffuse and I can see any of crevices or wrinkles to know where I'm painting what, am I doing something wrong how to overcome this flat look?
Here is the example of sphere with 'sculpted' nose on it, in matcap and rendered mode you can clearly see polygons but when in texture paint when I look form front I have no idea where 'nose' is this is simple example but it's same when painting head when looking from front i have no idea where nose and cheeks are.

@cegaton added them

I figured It out all you need to do is to make sure that image is plugged into color input of material and then just turn down opacity for texture paint (image) Or just turn off all overlays.

And Voila!

You can begin with baking a AO as a base for your further painting. It becomes much easier to build up the texture then.

Mind explaining it little bit more? I know how to bake but I'm not sure how to use it for texture painting since it's white..?

I'm not really sure what you are asking for but sometimes it helpfull to have a AO bake on the texture first... you should then be able to see cavities etc. But now it seems like you just need to see the shading? You can enable to shading in the viewport. Is it that you want?

See my answer above. I just wanted to be able to see where I paint so it's not just flat. In blender 2.79 I would use blender render and textured shading in viewport in 2.8 it's a bit different.


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Reduce the particle size (Blender 3.3 Mantaflow fluid simulation)
I'm working on a smaller project and I need to do a fluid simulation. I'm working on a centimeter scale. The particle size is too huge and the simulation is broken (the fluid disappears). I have set the Resolution Divisions to 100 and Time scale to 0.2. The Particle Radius is 0.0001. I tried to play with this value, but it didn't do anything.
Look at the screenshot.

" I'm working on a centimeter scale. " -> i think, that is the problem. Scale everything up, increase resolution and it will be better. If not, pls provide blend file. thx.

Particle display size is not in the Physics tab but in the Particle tab > Viewport Display > Size.
(I've been looking for this for years and I found it today. It brings tears to my eyes.)

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Help with raycast node to delete overlapping faces
I would like to achieve two things:

Delete inverted faces (I have this sorted using the delete geometry node)
Delete overlapping faces that are not inverted. Using the basic mesh below, how would I go about this?

Hi guys, sorry about the lack of details!
I have a subdivided plane with an array + curve modifier, shrinkwrapped to a terrain profile (a flat plane for the examples below).
The goal is to get the distorted faces of the mesh to automatically delete (and ideally join up again) when the curve is altered and the faces start inverting and overlapping, resulting in the cleanest possible mesh profile.
Plane + array setup

Faces starting to invert and overlap as the curve is moved

Area of mesh that needs fixing

Here is a example of a section that has been manually "repaired"

Hi AJNZ, i have no idea what you mean and what the problem is. And geometry nodes questions are "normally" answered quickly by experts here. So the problem is your question. Tell us more details what you are trying to do. Show more sketches like "that what it is" and "that's what i want". We don't see any overlapping faces in your image. You can only have inverted faces if the mesh is somehow "closed". So please improve your question to get answers. thx.

Thanks for the response, Chris. Sorry about the lack of detail. I have added more info to the question now.

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


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Cycles/Optix: Flickering horizontal bands in rendered video?
I rendered this basic scene with glass BSDF object, plain texture into Principled BSDF on floor, no skybox, sun light at 9 strength, non-moving camera.
On rendered video, you can see that strange horizontal flickering effect on the glass in frames that should be identical. While rendering each frame, those darker horizontal areas appear around 400/1024 samples.
Here is a GIF from the same frame rendered twice (uncompressed, no denoising, all settings identical). I highlighted the different height of where the darker area starts with the red arrow. While carefully confronting, more than one band can be seen.

GPU Rendering on RTX A4000, i9-11900k, Blender 3.3.1, Optix, 1024 samples, Win 10 64-bit.
Flickering stays both with and without denoising. It also stays both with default and increased light paths parameters. It stays with caustics enabled and totally disabled.
Any suggestions on how to get rid of it? What could I be doing wrong?

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

Ty for your advice. Gonna add a still frame to the question as soon as possible

Ok, so using CUDA instead of Optix basically solves the problem.
Here is the same frame rendered with CUDA instead (all settings stay the same):

For some reason Optix has trouble at rendering Glass BSDF; but must be said that apart from the bands, glass reflections rendered by Optix are way more convincing and generally brighter (less light reaches the table past the glass, as you can see the shadow with Optix being darker than CUDA one).
I hope Optix technology quickly evolves correcting such issues, since it is already performing better than CUDA in other situations.
I wonder if such Optix issues with glass are already known.


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translation of nodes with 'g' key only working while it is held down
I'm using Blender 2.8 (2019-06-26 13:42)
In the node graph I used to be able to select nodes, press G then they would be 'grabbed' and move with the mouse until I left click to confirm or right click to cancel (in the same manner as the 3D view).
Now if I press G in the node graph then the nodes only move whilst G is held down. As soon as I release G the nodes are released. It applies to all node graphs, but it still works correctly in all other 2D/3D views.
How do I return to the previous functionality (ideally without having to reset to factory settings)? I think I must have pressed a keyboard shortcut that I didn't mean to.

Have you modified the keymap? The nodes in shading and compositing all keep following the cursor until left click.

I've just build the most recent master, it still has the expected behavior.

Can you check if the keymap entry for move in the node editor looks like this: https://i.sstatic.net/IkxHC.jpg

@rjg is that under Graph Editor (Global)? If so then it looks identical

No under Node editor. Did you mean Graph editor though?

Yes, (I get confused thinking it's a node graph), but with the same settings as you I still get the problem on that installation of Blender 2.8 .

I have installed the latest version of Blender 2.8 (fancy installer now :O) and don't get the problem in that new installation. So it's not a big problem until I manage to mess it up again ;)


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Decay effect/texture
Could anybody help me with achieving the same effect in blender as in the following image?

But with both ends of the the gray material as noisy as the bottom one.
It's supposed to be a tooth decay.
More details:

And this is what I have in Blender at the moment:

Current stage of the tooth after the responses:
(using another tooth)

Can you please add more? I am not quite sure what you are asking.

Edited the question with more images.

Not very clear what you are trying to achieve, is this supposed to be like a decay "wave" advancing from one end to the other? How will you be rendering it, Cycles?
If in cycles you could easily achieve this by animating a gradient texture and using it as a mask to drive a Shader Mix node using the Factor socket.
You could then make your Tooth" shader and "decay" shader to your liking and mix it with the setup above. Optionally add a noise texture to make it have a more irregular pattern as shown above.

Very nice, but I believe from Bullet93's post history and the images he displayed that he intends to use BR, not Cycles.

This was exactly what i was looking for :D. I added a picture of what i got after adding these to my nodes. The only thing i'm missing is the smooth transition between the two. Could you tell me how to do that?

Sure, all you need to do is change the interpolation method for the color ramp node from the pull-down menu. Add a few more nodes to control how tight or wide the transition gradient will be.

Idle Chit-chat
The best way I could think of doing things is to create two separate meshes: the tooth and the decay. Using my method, I created this:

Teeth Creation
I started by modeling a simple tooth. I included the mesh for this image, but deleted it later. Do not worry about it. I also set shading to Smooth in the Tools bar. I then added a material and set the Diffuse color to hex FFF2FE. I did not change anything else in the material.

After that, I added a sphere. I set the shading to smooth. I moved it down to Z: -1.4334 and scaled it so X, Y, and Z were all 1.189. This makes it so just some of the sphere is visible near the gunky area in the reference photo. I added both a Subdivision surface and Displace Object modifier. I set the settings to these:

Important! Before you can set the settings in the Displace modifier, click + New to get a new texture. Name it "Disp."
Next, I went to the Textures tab in the Properties panel. Make sure that  is selected at the top of the tab. Select Displace from the top drop down menu and Disp if it isn't already selected in the next drop down menu. If it is not already set, set the Type: to Clouds.

With the sphere still selected, go to the Materials tab and add a new material. Set the Diffuse color to hex C29F75. Change the Specular intensity: to .1.
Lighting and World setup
Move the lamp infront of the tooth. I used X: 0.0194096, Y: -4.1363487, and Z: 2.4681318. In the Object Data Properties panel tab, set Samples: to 5. Go to the World tab. Set the Horizon Color: to hex 595A66. Check Environment Lighting. Set the Energy: to .4, and in the drop down menu, select Sky Color.
Last Words
I assumed here that you were using BR. If you use Cycles, refer to Duarte Farrajota Ramos's answer. I might tweak the lighting to get a better result. Finally, here is the .blend file:

thank you for the detailed answer, but i need it to be the same object, like the surface of the object

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


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Beveling 4 edges of a cube to make a nut/bolt head
I've done this before and it worked fine, now I don't know if I've hit a key by accident and changed something but it won't work now. This is done using CTRL+B after selecting the 4 edges around the cube.
What I'm trying to do:

What I'm getting in my model:

The 1st image is a bevel of the original starting cube in a new/seperate blender program. The 2nd is when I add a cube to the model I'm working on and try to bevel the 4 side edges. The bevel options are set exactly the same (offset-type, loop-slide, etc.)
I noticed when I did the bevel in the 1st image, that if I kept dragging the bevel out (to a higher offset?) it would start to look like the 2nd image. It's almost like I don't have the first bit of fine beveling (1st image) it just goes to the extreme (2nd image)
EDIT: It does seem to have fine movement at the beginning of the drag bevel, it just doesn't "cut" the corners. Instead, it pulls the edges in towards eachother then when they meet in the centre of the face, it starts to do what my 2nd image shows. I'd post a link to what I mean by this, but I can't post more than 2 links..
Any ideas??

Another way to get this shape is by adding a circle or cylinder and setting the number of vertices to 8

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


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How Can I Preserve UV Maps for Multiple Objects?
I searched for an answer to this question, but I can't find an answer. I have a texture that I'm mapping onto multiple objects. I have it placed exactly where I want it on one face of one object, and now I want to copy those UV mapping coordinates for that face to a similar sized face on another object. The objects are otherwise the same shape. Any ideas?

The above link won't work for different shaped objects. But you can duplicate, separate and join the UV-mapped face in another object. Then you can either snap it in place in 3d to replace the other face or select both faces and snap the UVs in the same spot.

I think it will be easier for me to just write down the coordinates for the face's UV mapping and then place the other face's mapping at the same coordinates.

Do objects have the same vertex count ? You could try transferring UV maps.

Yes, just a rectangle shape with the same dimensions. I resolved the issue in a roundabout way, but I'd be interested in knowing if there's a better way, since I could use it in the future.

The method mentioned here - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/24136/can-i-transfer-an-already-made-uv-to-another-object. I'm not sure if it fits your needs, because e.g. - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/32976/transfer-uv-maps-not-working-properly.

No, that works when the entire mapping is transferred. I only want to transfer a single face, but not necessarily from an identical object.

You can use data transfert.
Let's take an exemple with a sphere and a icosphere.
The sphere is unwrapped. And we want to unwrap the icosphere similarly.

Place the icosphere at the same position. Select the icosphere and select also the sphere (in this order).

Now click on "data" from the "data transfer" section of the "tools panel". The choose "UVs".

You will directly obtain this :

You can also play with the severall options of the data transfer operator (if needed). Particularly, you can choose the UV map you want (the face you are talking about in your question) as source layer.

Note that finding the good parameters may take time depending of your models.

How am I supposed to place the icosphere at the same location?? That's the problem I'm asking about: How to line up the UV maps for a face on two different objects. Tell me how you get two UV maps for two different objects in the UV editor at the same time.

@AnthonyForwood, can you provide an example of the two objects and faces ?

Sure... http://www.pasteall.org/blend/42413

@AnthonyForwood. Thanks. I totally misunderstood what you want to do. Additional questions : is it a simplified version of what you want (for instance not just a quad but a more complex model) ? Do you have to do it a lot of times (not just on two objects) ?

Yes, that's just a simple version of what I have. I said they're not the same size but that was a typing error that I just fixed. They're identical faces. This isn't important any more, since I only needed to do this a few times, but it might come up again in the future.


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Appended Group Objects No Longer Work in BGE
I designed an automated garage door for the BGE that uses rigid body physics and logic bricks to open and close. I made it in one blend file and then added the objects that comprise it to an object group so I could easily append it into other files. However, when I append it and try to run it, the logic no longer has any effect.
Here is the file that I appended it to:
test-door.blend
I have checked the logic bricks and everything else in the file to assure that it's all the same as in the original file, but I can find nothing wrong.
The door is designed to open when a character with the property 'door_key' comes near to an empty placed at the door, and should close again when the character gets near other empties further away on either side of the door. The support bar for the door moves between two other empties that act as targets for the support bar to move towards when opening or closing, The door hangs from the support bar using constraints.
I'm stumped. Can someone please look at this and see if you can find the problem? Thanks in advance.

I just wanted to apologise that my answer is made up of two images, but stackechange wouldn't let me post more than two images and as you can see I wanted to post five, so as a compromise I instead posted two images of my answer containing the images that I wanted to use.

Your solution to turn on the Actor option works in the test file I uploaded, but not in the file I'm actually trying to implement this in (it's much bigger and I'm not willing to share it). Strange that I didn't see that. I have it turned on already in the big file, so that isn't the problem.
The empty nearest the door broadcasts 'door_open', not 'door_close'. You were looking at the wrong empty. They're fairly close together.

I leave 'door_key'constantly true because it only needs to be recognized (true or not) by the empties when a car carrying it comes near the door. No other objects will carry the key, so it doesn't really need the excess logic. Is there any situation where this won't work? As it is, I tried your implementation and added the extra logic, but that stopped the door from working again.
I'm sorry to say that you didn't earn the bounty. The problem remains.

I now see the empty you meant (Sorry that I didn't pay more attention) and I managed to fix it by changing the empty to static and to an actor and also changing the cube to an actor. As far as I know both objects must be actors for the near sensor to work properly. I also appended it to another file and it worked, I hope it works for you.

Funny thing is, I just created a new file and appended the original without changing anything other than to add the cube and ground plane to the group, and it worked, unlike before. But when I append it into my game (the big file I want it in), it now works as well but acts chaotic, as though the physics effects were changed. I'm going to play around with your suggestions. You DID help me solve the problem I posted about, so I'll award you the bounty.Thanks!


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Face shading differs for adjacent faces in same object
Although it may seem that there are many posts related to that, I couldn't find any tangible solution to my problem, based on the following images, I couldn't get the smooth surface for bronze arm rest curved support. I have tried followings modifications w/o success. This discrepancy also affects the light map creation.

Edge splitting,
Recalulate Normals
Change Auto smooth to 30d

AFTER THE MODIFICATIONS

Welcome to Blender.SE! Thanks for asking a well-formed and thorough question! Don't forget to take the tour! http://blender.stackexchange.com/tour

The problem is that your faces are triangles. Triangles are notoriously difficult to smooth-shade.
The short answer is that you need to convert your triangles to rectangles (quads).
To do that, you can take advantage of a built-in Blender tool: "Tris to Quads." Select all the faces that you're having trouble with. Then press space and type "tris to quads" and then select the matching command. This will automatically combine triangles into quads, where possible.
But this might not quite work the way you want it to. If it makes awkward quads, you might have to undo that and try something slightly different. Try changing to "face select mode" and then select two triangles that would make a tidy quad. Then press space to run the command again. You might have to this for each pair of triangles, but it'll make the shading much more smooth.
So, avoid triangles where you can. Use quads as often as possible.

Alt +J can do this faster when it must be repeated.

Can you elaborate? What does Alt-J do?

Hotkey for tris to quads.

Thanks in advance I just added the final images that I got after applying the tris to quads command( I don't have enough reputation to post more than 2 links so I deleteed the old ones). Regarding that I 'd like to know is this the  best that I can get in terms of smoothness from Blender, to achieve more refinement do I have to apply subdivision or am I still missing something fundamental?

Cool! I'd recommend rendering it because the real result will look better.

If you want more smoothing, you can add a subsurf modifier.

@Sonya You should probably replace one of those recent images with one of your original images with the triangles so it relates to your question.

I don't think Sonya has enough rep. I'll add it.

Although the original form of faces degenerate drastically, adding subsurface modifier yields better results, I'm afraid this the high res poly where I'm headind to. I wonder will I be exporting all this polygonal data if I want to use them in game engine. can't imagine what amount of data needs to processed by the game engine if that was the normal way of doing it.

No, you will not want to use a subsurf modifier for a game asset. You might want to add a few more splits manually, to smooth it out, but a subsurf will just be too much geo. There are some folks discussing a game in the chat lately. They might be willing to talk you through some more details. http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/8888/the-renderfarm

I still have this problem even when I am using quads (I think?): http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/70000/planes-rendered-into-two-triangles-of-different-colors


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ImportError for module installed in scripts/addons/modules
Where do I put the Python packages my addon imports so Blender can find them? (There are some questions on this topic already but I can't find what I'm doing wrong.)
It works fine on my Linux system where I can install the dependencies to a standard Python path. But I understand Blender often comes with its own Python installation, and besides I want a way to bundle all the code together for a one-click install from zip file.
First I tried making it into a single package, that is scripts/addons/my_addon/ containing my code in __init__.py and subdirectories for the dependencies. Blender finds __init__.py fine, but import fails even though the modules are right there in the same place.
So I tried putting the dependencies in scripts/addons/modules/, though I don't like that because they could clobber different versions installed by another addon, and they stay there even if the user removes my addon through User Preferences. But this still isn't working.
For example: "six" is a module that helps with python 2/3 portability; it's contained in a single file six.py. From the Blender Python console on Windows:
>>> print(sys.path[-1])
C:\Users\jwelsh\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.70\scripts\addons\modules

>>> print(imp.find_module('six')[1])
C:\Users\jwelsh\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.70\scripts\addons\modules\six.py

>>> import six
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named 'six'

This looks like it should work, debugging this remotely is near impossible, on Linux I use strace to find which paths are searched for Python module loading. you could try find an strace equivalent for Windows.

You can convert your single file based addon into to a module by creating a folder with the name of the intended module, ie six and renaming six.py to __init__.py. This folder will be now recognised as a python module and loaded as an add-on because of the bl_info in the __init__.py.
With this setup, you can use it to store and segregate your add-on dependencies from other addons that you have installed.
This also has the added benefit of keeping things as you manage the contents of this folder and should not rely/assume other dependencies exist.
Generally you will want to use ..\scripts\addons\ folder as the root directory for your add-on as the ..\scripts\addons\modules folder can be used to install shared dependencies by authors of modules, which you allured to could have conflicting versions. Also this folder may not exist if you have some custom install scripts and you will have to ensure its created.
If you have the above setup then all you need to do is zip up the folder and it should be installable via Blender's addon installer.
Edit:
Didn't realise six.py was your dependancy. In which case the above will work for your main addon. Assuming that you have your dependency stored in a modules folder the following sample code will add it to the sys path.
# Python dependencies are bundled inside the io_scene_nif/modules folder
_modules_path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "modules")
if not _modules_path in sys.path:
    sys.path.append(_modules_path)
del _modules_path


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Unpaintable streaks in Weight Paint Mode
I am new to blender and am currently trying to rig and animate a model of a simple cartoon duck. After creating an armature and assigning it to the model however, I found the automatic weights given were inappropriate, so decided to attempt to fix them using weight painting.
Once of the changes in particular that I wanted to make was to have the flat foot of the duck be fully affected by the foot bone. My problem is this: when trying to paint the foot all red, I get these strange blue streaks appearing:

I have tried painting over them with mixture/add brushes, with and without "limit selection to visible" checked, but it does not seem to make a difference.
Am I painting the weights incorrectly? Is it something to do with the way I have set up my armature or mesh? How can I solve this problem?
For reference:

Vertex view of foot

Wireframe view of foot

There are some extra vertices on those edges. It's a  hard to say what exactly is wrong and how to fix it without messing with the actual model, but I'm guessing that removing those extra verts should fix it.

Those streaks are normal. They are caused by the way the paint display works. You are acutally painting on the vertices, not the faces. as a result, you will see unwanted blue areas on some of the surrounding faces.

The streaks that you are talking about is fine, that's just how blender shows it because you painted on the vertices the surroundings may create streaks as shown from your screenshot I wouldn't worry about it, its normal and common.
A recommendation is you could select the face itself, go to the vertices tab in properties and assign what you have selected to the amount of weight you want. This way it will be much more neater and more preferable to the display you want.


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Deforming instances
I am trying to make a node that wraps spirals along a curve. It needs to be able to work with another instance of itself as input (spirals along spirals along spirals...).
Input here is a bezier curve.

Problem is that the second level of spirals is wrapped around the first as if it was a single curve. Continuing from endpoint to starting point without terminating.
The first instance of Spirals along curve outputs three curves spiraling along the input curve. The second instance wraps six spirals along each of those three.

Here is what the spirals along curve node looks like.

X_Curve_Deform is from this answer.
I believe my problem is that I realize the instances before deforming. But X_Curve_Deform does not seem to work with instances. This is my first time using geometry nodes and I don't understand how X_Curve_Deform works well enough to make it work on instances.
I am trying to make Spirals along curve a reusable tool.
Any help is appreciated.

Edit 2.
Ok. So you need to cut the lines. I added a bunch of nodes here to increase the number of lines, because you have to use separate lines for each guide segment:

Next, you cannot relay on X coordinate. I don't know why you want to deform along the path each time, but if you want to - you should replace x coordinate by index

But after doing this, I still have some glitches.

Edit.
So the problem is that you want to wrap an object on several curves, not one.
So you could probably reverse every second curve:

Old answer:
X curve deform should be executed one time at the end, not twice, like you did. You have putted it inside a node group and use this group several times, which was led to unexpected results.

Remove X curve deform from node group and put it right before GN output like in my screenshot.

Don't know why someone downvoted this answer. I tried it and it looks like the solution in my opinion. I wish that someone would explain what he doesn't like about it. Maybe it can be edited so a downvote is not necessary.

@GordonBrinkmann I don't know why, either.. it's pretty much the answer I was about to give! Just noting... X_Deform maps  X  to the curve, Y and Z to its orthogonals.. so if the object is already off X, it will wander.

@RobinBetts Maybe just some malignant troll running around, downvoting others. I just had two of my older answers (which have no connected subjects) downvoted within a minute yesterday.

This is not the solution. There should be three of those bundles spiraling along the curve. This ignores the first instance of spirals along curve. I want to be able to do this in multiple stages with spirals along spirals etc.

@John What about adding another Spirals Along Curve node group like you have two already, just with different settings? Your question seemed as if you didn't like the connection between start and end point. This answer solved it. Simple downvoting only decreases reputation and doesn't point in the direction you want the answer to go to - so others with similar ideas won't even bother to answer because it seems they are completely wrong, and it won't encourage the one answering to help you with future questions.

@GordonBrinkmann The problem is the connection between start and end point. But this answer changes the function of Spirals along curve. Adding more instances will only create more spirals along the first input curve. What I want is for there to be three spirals along the input curve and six spirals along each of those three. I want to be able to do this in several steps. I have removed my downvote.

@John Maybe you should elaborate your question a bit further so that people who are not reading all the comments will get that information, too.

Reversing every other spiral still connects the ends. The connecting ends are just closer together.

Of course, because you have one solid set of curves distributed along more than one guide curves!

@Crantiz Exactly. It would be great if Spirals along curve would output instances rather than combining the spirals to a single curve.

I think it would be problematic to get Edit 2 to work on even more instances of spirals along curve. At the moment it only works for certain values of the count parameter. I deform along X mainly because i found that solution elsewhere. But using index instead makes it a little harder to get the pitch parameter accurate (it is already wrong since curve length gives the total length of all spirals in the curve). I appreciate your efforts.

If you want to use X coordinate to deform along the path, you should keep it unreformed along the original path and deform it at the end like in my first suggestion

does anybody know why a curve to mesh node with curve circle doesn't work here if i add this add before group output? -> i downloaded the blend file and tried it there


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After many tries, CUDA rendering still doesnt show up
Ubuntu 15.04
Nvidia GTX 650
YES, I have tried modprobe. Nothing works. I'm using the proprietary drivers (352.63). Still, when I look at the menu, all that shows up is "CPU". It really sucks to have to wait forever to render something that my graphics card could be handling. Any tips?
EDIT: I have tried running blender as superuser. I still get this:

EDIT AGAIN:
After combining everything the community has said, I was able to get it to work! Thanks a lot!
Sorry if this is a duplicate, I just couldn't find anyone else with the same problem.

Did you try running it as a superuser? It works in Xubuntu...

Could you provide all the steps used to make it work and post it as an answer bellow? It may be helpful for others in the future


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How can I add a bone constraint to multiple selected bones at once?
I want to add the same bone constraint to every bone in my armature. I could do this by manually constraining each bone, but that would be time consuming on a complex armature. Is there a way to add the same bone constraint to multiple bones at once?

Constrain one bone.  Set the parameters as desired.  Select all bones that you want the constraint on, make sure your constrained bone is the actively selected bone, and use "copy constraints to selected bones" operation.

Thanks Nate, that's got it.


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Why is my bone not attaching to the vertex group of the same name?
I have vertex groups named Hand-R and Hand-L. I have bones named Hand-R and Hand-L. The bones do not attach to the vertex groups. All the other vertex groups were attached to the matching bone, but not the hands. What am I doing wrong here, and what do I need to do to fix it?

Blend file: https://workupload.com/file/vFy37HyfmBB

Have you assigned vertices to these groups? Do you have an armature deform modifier on the mesh object?

Hello please share your file

@L0Lock The vertices are definitely assigned to the vertex groups, I can select and deselect them using the appropriate vertex group. The object is parented to the armature and all other bones and joints work as expected.

@moonboots How can I share files on StackExchange?

Use https://blend-exchange.com/ (read the instructions) or use another platform like workupload and share the link

@moonboots https://workupload.com/file/vFy37HyfmBB

You need to activate the Deform option of these bones:

@moonbots Thank you, that fixed it!


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When I am moving the left hand bone (right and left hand both moving) because I made my character using the Mirror modifier
You can see when I am moving left hand the bone right hand is also moving. But when I am moving right hand bone nothing happens. It is because I used the Mirror modifier for making this character. If any one knows how to solve the thing problem then please let me know.
Why is the right hand also moving with the left hand bone?

when i move right hand   bone the character hand  is not moving with bone but with left hand bone both right and left hand is moving  can any one know the solution please tell (i made the character using mirror modifier )

Maybe in your modifier stack put the Mirror modifier above the Armature?

THANKS FOR SUGGESTION BUT STILL NOT WORKING

could you please share your file? https://blend-exchange.com/

FILE SEND DONE PLESE CHECK

you have to copy the link you get from blend-exchange to your question

https://blend-exchange.com/b/Q8RmE8J1

I'm not sure why it doesn't work, you could apply the Mirror but it doesn't answer why it doesn't work

it is happening every time i create because of this issue i cannot rig a character properly .

but i find one temporary solution for this  first(in edit mode) delete only  those bone which are not working properly then (in object mode) select object and then press ctrl +A  and apply (scale) then select armature press ctrl+a  and apply (scale) then go to (edit mode) create those bones which are deleted previously  and then (object mode) press on object and then Armature  and(ctrl +p) apply automatic weight again  some time it works and some time it not if any one can give permanent solution then it will be very helpful  (if any one facing same issue you can try this method  for temporar)


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Is it possible to render hair in Cycles, other parts in Eevee, and then do compositing?
I try to render eyes and hair in Cycles then render face and the rest of the scene like room and light source in Eevee. After that, I try to use the compositor to connect the two render layers in mix node and alpha over but the result is not ok.
How do I make the eyes go behind the eye socket and the hair go behind the head?
There are only 3 objects (head, eyes, and hair). I heard about Cryptomatte but can't find the way to do it.

I am mostly had success with crypto mate with experimentation, and looking at the output images it gave. Seems to be a case by case basis.

I think you got the downvote because yes, this is doable, but to address what problems you ran into, we need to see how you did it, and what the inputs and outputs are: the input renders, the compositing nodes, and the output image.

There are a few questions like https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/213395/is-it-possible-to-render-part-of-the-composition-in-eevee-and-other-part-in-cycl. It's basically possible. One technique I read about is to render the models in Cycles & the Environment in Eevee. But I don't think it's a good idea to render parts of the model in different render engines. You can combine them with the Depth/Z-Layer, Math node (Greater Than), and Mix Node. But the issue is when you render the eyes and hair without the head there is no Ambient Occlusion & shadows. The composition looks horrible :-(


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Workflow automatization question (macro recorder/command playback)
I have a cube. I select a face of it, and do the following 3 steps:

Insert face
Extrude face
Resize face

Is there a way to save these 3 actions to be able to use on any other faces? Like a hotkey/macro to improve the workflow. What keywords to search for this?
Thanks for your help!

maybe with a script but, without script, you could do several faces at the same time

I use the free command recorder addon for this very thing and it works well.  It has apparently been changed to action recorder and is developed by the same author.  I haven't tried this new version yet though.  You can find details here.
Action recorder

This add-on should be shipped as standard, IMO. It's an obvious need.

I'm not sure you can reduce this sequence to a single operation, to make it available to Shift R, repeat last operation. Even taking into account that the  I inset operation has a 'Depth' setting, which can easily go unnoticed.
But as @moonboots has commented, you can execute the operation on multiple faces simultaneously:

Set Pivot to 'Individual Origins', and Orientation to 'Normal'
Set the Inset tool to 'Individual'
I inset
E extrude
S scale faces

The XY guidelines in the last move in the gif are there because I instinctively used  S Shift Z to scale, which is actually unnecessary.

.. but @Mark Grant's answer is probably more like what you're after :)


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Followed Blender Guru's Geometry Node tutorial (gumdrops), have some issues with how it looks
I followed the tutorial as closely as possible, have the exact same settings (according to my knowledge) but it does not look nearly as good. It's too transparent. Can someone tell me how to fix it?
(the first one is mine, the second one is the proper one)

In the original tutorial IOR of Fresnel is 1.330

Understand it can be a little daunting as a new user having questions closed   It is preferable that you edit new detail into original  and it will in "all likelyhood" be re-opened.  IMO It would also be preferable if we could hold off downvoting new users posts.

This is the screenshot from the tutorial.
I marked things that are wrong in your setup.


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Error turning glass into light absorbent
So I made a cup of coffee transparent:

but when I turned the liquid inside light absorption to make the coffee, the glass turned like metallic. And I don't know why. Here is the example without errors (https://youtu.be/fdWUjEMzDhg):

Thanks!

Don't make users go to links to understand your question.Please use the [edit] link at the bottom of your post
(https://i.sstatic.net/lXFuK.png) and use the tools from this site
to upload images so that they are displayed as part of your question.
See How to upload an image to a post?

If I remember right you have to scale the liquid down or up very slightly to get it to be visible through the glass.


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Making inside of glass

Both of the yellow spheres are exactly identical, but the one in the glass cube looks more bleached than the right one.
Which variables should I be looking at to make the color of the left sphere look as vivid as the right one?
Thank you all always!

Isn't this due to reflection / refraction of the glass material since the cube's face is not facing the camera?

Does this answer your question? Making glass problem

for which render engine is this (Eevee/Cycles)?

IMHO this question is not a duplicate of the 'Making glass problem' question because this one is about the shadow that the glass casts, while the other question is about refraction.

I was gonna put these 2 questions in 1 post but then I remember admin told me not to put multiple questions at once

I was talking about Cycles :)

The trick here seems to be environment reflection.
When I use World with simple white color seem to be fine.

Doesn't matter if object is solid glass volume or a shell.
Alternatively you can place black Plane behind Camera so there are not lights reflected in front surfaces.

The color of the inner sphere differs from the color of the outer sphere because the glass casts a shadow on the sphere. The light rays also bounce inside of the glass which changes the reflected light and finally the perceived color.
For the Cycles render engine, you can use the Light Path info to make the shadow transparent as shown in vklidu's answer.
For Eevee render engine, you can set the Shadow Mode to None in the material settings.


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Viewport and render result different
The emission map and the glass are visible in the viewport but not in the final render.
Do you know why?
Render:

Viewport:

why did you send the .blend1 ?

Because i tried to share also textures. Is it visible?

why did you revert my approved edit ?? "emission maps" and "glass" means nothing ?!

why had the images been removed? Messed up?

Before posting these, check your Outliner. Your Collection 1 is enabled for render but not for viewport.

thank you I didn't sleep yesterday i wasted a lot of time. Sorry for that

If this fixed your problem, please do Accept this answer to mark it solved

It might be not that obvious for new Blender users. There are objects Collection 1 that are hidden in viewport but are still rendered. The eye icon hides objects in the viewport, the camera icon hides it in the render. If you disable the collection by clicking the checkbox it will be hidden in the viewport and render as well.

Indeed. I had assumed OP is familiar enough with Blender that they could have spotted it themselves. This assumption was based on the scale and quality of the Blender file as well as the amount of non-default settings that had been set.
One more note for OP: Instead of MixRGB'ing two Principled shaders, you should instead MixRGB or lerp the settings. This should drastically improve performance.


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how to reference which particle system the current object is using?
is there a way in python to reference which particle system an object is referring to?
for example, I have a mesh named 'cube' with a particle system called 'cube_particle'. if I delete it, then I append the cube again, the second 'cube' would have a particle system called 'cube_particle.001'. if there are multiple objects, it could become quite a mess to reference which one is using which.
in python, bpy.context.active_object.particle_systems["cube_particle"] can only get object depended property such as bpy.context.object.particle_systems["cube_particle"].child_seed = 0
whereas bpy.data.particles["cube_particle.001"].child_nbr = 10, it is through bpy.data, not active_obj,
I am looking for some kind of operation to find a link between active_object.particle_systems[A] to data.particles[B].
for example, cube.001 's particle system cube_particle is currently linked to data.particles["cube_particle.002"]
thank you.

active_object.particle_systems[A].settings.name would return data.particles[B] in this case.


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what is the function of clear custom split data
I was making a model and then when I wanted to add Auto Smooth this weird thing appeared.

Searching online I could fix it by going to Geometry Data and pressing
Clear Custom Split Normals Data.

I searched online for an explanation for this problem and why Clear Custom Split Normals Data fix this but I could not get any answer.
Can someone explain to me why this happens and what is the function of Clear Custom Split Normals Data?
This may be a silly question but I hope someone can help me.
Thanks!

There are Face Normals, Split Normals, and Vertex Normals. Like the Face Normals, the Split Normals affect the shading of an object. They are important for hard-surface modeling, and can solve but also introduce problems.
Split Normals Data can exist on imported objects or can be created by the two modifiers: Normal Edit and Weighted Normal when the modifiers are applied. To get rid of this data you need to press the Clear Custom Split Normals Data button. The button removes the data layer.
There is an overlay that makes the normals visible in Edit mode:

Here are three examples of shading.

No custom split normals:

Weighted normals by the modifier:

Copied split normals from a sphere by the Normal Edit modifier:

Usually normals simply point to the direction perpendicular to the face. It tells how light should behave when hitting that surface. Smooth shading works by creating a smooth gradient between the normals. More info here.
Custom normals allow you to bend the rules, e.g. stylized look like shown here.
It is unclear to me how you got custom normals on your model, but they are typically calculated in the shadows under the hood (bad pun), so who knows what magic occurred there.


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Can't paint texture but fill color works
Here i created some poor feather and I'm trying to paint surface to give feather some color, but it won't let me  paint texture. I use cycles, so I unwrap object then switch to texture paint and choose diffuse color and click on OK then object become black as that color was choosen to start with but when I change color in palette it won't let me paint just nothing happens but if I choose fill color it will very happily fill it with choosen color.

Am I doing something wrong or?
Here is the video, note that I'm clicking or click dragging while using texture paint but I dont have cast keys plugin to show it.

@MrZak That is problem in second screenshot paint should be able to happen yet I can't paint on my object but if I choose fill brush it paints whole object as it should

It was up to settings texture mask (even tho I don't know what is this for) was set to black color/image, after removing painting works as it should.

That is because the mask being present blocked the paint because it was looking for the white space in the mask texture to deliver the paint, the black is full mask.

Clicking the little X next to the texture in that section removed the mask. It went from a black square to a checkerboard pattern. Good spot, Black Cloud!

I had the same problem. It turned out I was trying to paint on the wrong side of the plane (the normals were flipped). This is why fill worked but brush didn't.
Flip your normals by selecting the object > Edit Mode > select the Mesh drop down > Normals > Flip
Or turn the object around if it's a plane:)


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How to change edit mode display?
I somehow changed the way my meshes are displayed in edit mode :

Do you know how to return to the original display that is provided by default in Blender ? I've tryed many options in Properties panel and in User Preferences.
It happens only in "User Ortho" view.

Pressing Numkey 5 will get you out of Ortho view

Do you mean this problem.

Yes @Leander this is same problem. Do you know if as I had switched to the metric system, it could have had a negative impact on the clip end value ?
Many thanks for your response-comment, I set the clip end to 10 meter, so now I see my scene a bit cut, but the main problem is gone :)

You can also set the Near plane to a little higher value. Then maybe you can set the far plane to a  value which allows you to view your whole scene. The problem arises when the span between the near and far plane is too large.


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Wierd micro displacement
I have a strange behavior as I am trying to setup micro displacement. I use blender 2.79b. My mesh have a Subsuf modifier from the experimental feature set with the adaptative option turned on, the displacement settings in the material is set to true.

This is a part of the shamefull result. These black stripes follow the seams I used to unwrap the UVs. On top of that the micro displacement does not show up.
Do you know can cause this ?
Ps : Tell me if you need more details.
This is the material nodes setup I'm using. No displace modifier involved.

Making a normal render did not fixed the issue. The object has rougthly 100k+ vertices accross 150 blender units in x and y. (subsurf modifier unapplied)

Are you using the displacement modifier or displacement through material nodes?

You have to add a displacement node (shift+A vector/displacement) to your texture and plug it to height socket.

Can we have some more info about the scene/object?
Also, the apparent lack of adaptive subdiv may just be due to the low resolution of it in the viewport (by default about 8x less detail, I believe). Try rendering the image normally.


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"Can only make proxy for a referenced object to group". This message appears when trying to move any object using the 3D Transform Widget
I get this message whenever I try to move any object in Object Mode when using the 3D Transform Widget... "Can only make proxy for a referenced object to group". The "G" key works but not the 3D Transform Widget. The arrows do work in Edit Mode. What can I do to fix this? How did I cause it? I reinstalled Blender but to no avail.
I just created a new file and I can't even move the cube using the arrows!!!

It happens in a new file with the standard cube, as well...

How did you create geometry shown on the screenshot? I suppose it's not part of default Blender scene, so you somehow added it? What Blender version do you use? This message could be caused by the fact that objects shown in the scene are linked in the scene and are actually stored in another file, try to go to Properties editor and see if Object, Mesh and Modifiers tabs are grey.

Thanks for responding, Mr Zak. I think it must be a setting as its happening with a new file with the standard cube. This started out of the blue this afternoon. And it happens with default and linked objects

I just reloaded factory settings and it's fine now. Thanks


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Blender to trigger sound when objects touch each other
I am outlining a tooth from a dental model and my vertices are offset from the model. Is it possible to sound an alarm when the line hits the other model? In the photo you can see my line intersect the model, If I could get an alarm to go off?

Out of interest of the 23 answers to your 27 questions you have accepted none and voted only once?  It seems a very small "price to pay" for asking questions on bse.  As usual this question shows very little research effort.

I'm not sure where to vote, I will be happy to do so. Accepted none, not sure what you mean? I find it very difficult to research python script, especially in what I need it to do. You've been a great help, as others and this site is amazing. I have tried contacting you, however you can't message people her privately for paid work.


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Mesh moves to the incorrect location once parented
I'm working on a stylized model of Prototype Po for a project and each time I parent any finger segment to the rig, it moves away.
The way I rig is by simply selecting my meshes, the rig with the correct bone selected, control + p, and then clicking bone in object mode. Finally, please keep in mind I'm nowhere near a blender expert, so more detailed explanations would be appreciated.
Link to a model which uses the exact same base, which has the same issue.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WxMQ5QVBu9KuyW_91GDQD-cm7nrxJHSd/view?usp=share_link

Hint: if you asked a question and nobody even wrote a comment in 6 hours: the reason because of this is in 99% the way you wrote the question. It is absolutely no problem, that you are a beginner, but we cannot help you if you don't know the details. e.g. we have no idea whether you applied scale/rotation etc. So i think it is a good idea if you provide your blend file

@Chris I can do that. I'll edit the question to add a link to the issue with the model. Though it's a different model which uses the exact same base as I sent the one shown to a friend to be fixed. But I'm hoping providing a link will allow for an answer so I can fix it myself.

This kind of depends on what you were doing before, but you might try ctrl+p -> Object (Keep Transform) Parent

@AllenSimpson It seems that fixed the problem. Thank you for your help.

Your finger objects were probably parented to another object before you parented them to the armature, so they simply went back to their location before the first parenting, so first thing unparent with Alt P > Clear And Keep Transformation, then parent to the armature


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Issue with mirrored uv seam from blender to unreal
I have cut half of the model and made UV layout and then mirrored the model in blender. The UVs of mirrored model are overlapped and then I baked the normal map. My issue is when I exported this model to unreal engine I am able to see the seem where I have mirrored.
  How can I fix this issue?

Hi! Could you please give more context to this question? editing and adding screenshots can be a huge help at diagnosing the issue and will help you get a better answer faster! As is there isn't really any way we can help you :)

Hello and welcome. As it stands this question is unanswerable and was put on hold for lack of essential details to understand the issue. Risking stating the obvious, only you have access to your scene, so unless you describe it thoroughly you alone know your exact setup, settings and what steps you took to arrive where your are now. Describe the issue in detail, add images of relevant settings and user interface, with the [edit] button above. Don't post comments or ask a new question, editing will automatically queue it for reopening review.

There are 2 standard formats of normal maps, DirectX and OpenGL. Both have the same capability, only their green channel (RGB map) is inverted to each another.

Here you can see which software uses formats of normal maps:

Software
DirectX
OpenGL

3DS Max
✓

Arnold

✓

Blender

✓

Cinema 4D

✓

Corona
✓

CryEngine
✓

Houdini

✓

Marmoset Toolbag

✓

Maya

✓

Octane

✓

Redshift

✓

Substance Painter
✓

Unity

✓

Unreal Engine
✓

VRay

✓

Zbrush

✓

As you see, Unreal and Blender uses different formats, so that you have to convert it. In order to convert from one system to another, just invert Green channel in 2D editor like Photoshop or Gimp


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how do i get hair to show up in the final render? and not just the view port render?

Im using the particle hair system and i noticed that in the final render (not viewport render) that the hair wouldn't show up at all... :/
Is it impossible at this point in time to have hair using the particle system to show up in F12 render? i cant seem to find any fix on the internet... i would like to render cycle animations with hair physics, blender please fix.

When asking about the particle system, would you mind at least showing a screenshot of the settings of the particle system? And maybe the scene setup in general? On the right I see just a completey black sphere without any light / shading whatsoever...

It is definitely possible and as Gordon said, you have to show us your file or at least your settings. No one can help you like this

@JiříHonzák  any other thing i need to show you? just ask please and direct me. I would like to render out a cycles animation but i sadly still cant get hairs to show up in final render...

It could that your particles render icon is off. Look for the particle system name (above your settings) and see if the camera icon is on, it's like icon on your outliner

So... found a weird way of fixing the issue and i don't like it...
so what did i do to fix it...
literally deleted all bakes (the button on the right side of the screen) then tried the final render again... hair now shows for some reason in final render.
personally i feel it shouldn't take deleting the bake just to have the final render to show hair from the old particle system (Blender please fix your old hair system a little).

I've had that occur before but I can usually see the insanity in the 3D Viewport -- hair goes from okay to stretched extremely downward, for example.  Only rendered with your same procedure.  My bug report was ignored "hair system about to be re-written": so much for LTS.


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Need Solution for Train following curve (Bone Rigging & Constraints)
i am trying to make a simple scene of a train moving along a curve. I'm using this particular youtube video as a guide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4a6XPYfWIM&t=190s
however, i cant seem to make it work.
Here's how my initial setup looks like. Bone laid out according to the number of cars, and the mesh is parented to each bone. The Empty on the front is the object to which the first car will track to along the curve.

I then duplicate and offset the empty as many as there is traincars.
However as soon as i try to add "track to" constraints for each bone, the whole setup goes erratic

i tried many things from changing the up and forward axis, moving the object both in pose and object mode, untul i think i get it right, but all hell break loose when i start the animation

been tweaking this issue for the last 4 days and still no solution. I really have no clue on what is wrong. been trying to set up all the mesh, bone, curve and whatnot in a single origin point, applying transofrmation, etc. doent seem to work.
as a note, the empty is actually following the curve just fine.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13sqoJ16Pck44iFICamC-nsQD8N48iYWN/view?usp=sharing
Here's my blend files attached. All the mesh and curves i try to animate are under "Trains 2" Collection

have you taken a look at this question? it may help: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/133012/line-of-bones-to-travel-and-conform-to-curve-train-or-snake-following-path

Also https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/81872/does-anyone-know-how-to-rig-a-truck-trailer-so-that-the-trailer-follows-the-truc


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How this scaling is done
I am following this tutorial on character modelling but I am stuck at 2:43 how he scale it on y axis.

But when I scale the same edges my edges become straight unlike his moving inside. How he is doing that scaling ?

you can enable the Transformation manipulator > Scale mode, on the horizontal menu bar on the bottom, that's how he does it, he just grabs the green handle to scale on the Y axis. But you could also press S and Y to constraint your scale on the Y axis.

Make sure your Pivot Point is set to "Median Point". I suspect yours is set to "Individual Origins". https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/3dview/object/editing/transform/control/pivot_point/index.html

Note: The Z axis is colored Blue; the X axis is colored Red; the Y axis is colored Green. The way you're showing in the pictures you're really scaling the Y axis (see the big green line while you're scaling it). If your intention is to make it smaller in front view, you have to scale it in X axis. S then X.

Thank you @thibsert

Very simple, press s to engage scaling mode and then press y to choose the y axis, when you move your mouse it will only scale on the y axis. You can do this with x and z also! Make sure with that character, you choose both the back and front or else if you choose one edge only, it will straighten or curve it depending on how you scale it!


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I want to model guns, but how do I model stuff like THIS?

On a lot of handguns, there are grooves on the slide to improve your grip when charging the handle. (racking the slide back to load a bullet into the chamber)
But how do I recreate these grooves? Do you just spam loop cuts?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/121295/adding-detail-extruding-a-grill-type-part-at-top-to-a-box-mesh-without-affecti

That doesn't help. There wasn't a clear answer on how to model it. All there was   is the guy explaining what "slides" were. How do you model this? Loop cuts?

This is just a comment, given the good answers you've had already.. unless this model has to be manifold for 3D-printing or something, or you've got to reduce polys.... in RL, the slide is a separate part... so, IMO, there's no shame in modeling it as a separate part. There might be no need to compromise your topology by 'tying off' the edges to reduce edge-loops. The edge loops in a separate part won't propagate through the rest of your model.

You can do it with Bevel and Array modifiers:

Or, as suggested by Lukasz-40sth, you can do it with an arrayed cube, and at the end, same, use tris to finish the topology:

I did variate from your solution a little bit by using an array & boolean after I've subdivided the model, rather than using all those bevels to smoothen it. Bevels seem like a pretty nice alternative to subdivision but they'd take a while for me to get used to them. Your solution, did, however, make me come up with that idea. THANKS!!

please check out, I've added the solution suggested by Lukasz-40sth

Very smart approach. However, Lukasz's solution seems to be flawed because it does not take account for the rest of the model. Unlike the boolean array approach, it doesn't look like you can just smack this into whatever you're working on. Interesting nonetheless

about the Bevels (and also Booleans): I've used the Speedflow addon, if you're interested in hardsurface topology, you should like, it speeds up the workflow very fast!

The only thing that I could think about of for doing this based on the image you posted is using the loop cuts, I tried to recreate a quick similar situation on the images below:
1) create a number of loop cuts (CTRL+R and mouse wheel to select how many cuts you want) equal to the double of the amount of that stuff you want.

2)select the edges alternately (where you want the lower part of that stuff) and move them backwards.

3) select the other edges that you avoided before and move them to the right, so that in ortho view they are exactly above or in front of the edges youmoved backwards.

4) Dissolve any unwanted additional geometry (like the edges above that split the triangle faces in two for example)
I hope this helps you :)

Thanks! However, is this the only way I can really do this? I don't want too much artifacting going on around the whole model, and if you subdivided your example a little bit you'll see it has a bit of a weird pinching effect.

And this gun doesn't have grooves going along the entire side, halfway up there's no grooves. How should I make this effect?

Sorry, from the picture I thought it was something like that ahahahha. Another way I could think of is with loop cuts and extrude, or you could try with the boolean modifier, but this last one could give you weird topology.

No problem at all! I've found my solution. Combining yours and Moonboot's solution, I've decided to just boolean it after I subdivide it. That way subdivision doesn't freak out and I get a very nice shape afterwards. Thanks for your help!

No problem, glad I could help :)

What if I told you it's a sheared cuboid, multiplied with Array modifier and fitted in with Snap to the nearest edge? As the finishing touch use Ctrl+J.


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Constraint's target problem
I have two objects, human and fridge. I want open the door of the fridge with my human's hand. So... I need to do two different animations, one for the human and one for the fridge. But i got a problem.
My right hand have a "child of" constraint and it's target is my fridge door. But in my game I need separate the fridge and the human. But when I delete the fridge from my scene in the Blender, I lose the target.
How can I keep target even it doesn't exists? Or how can I set target in Unity for Blender's constraints?

Solution it's a use the bake action. Just select your action, press spacebar and type "Bake animation" and then select "visual keying" and "clear constraints" parameters.


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Is it possible to use the Extrude or Spin tool to get something to rotationally extrude along a curved path?
I'm trying to model a bow and would like to create the upper limb in 2D, then extrude it to make it 3D and lastly mirror it to make a bottom limb. Can I rotationally extrude the outer edges around the inside edges of the bow in Blender? In other words, can I extrude along and around a local edge instead of global?
I'd like to rotate the outside edges locally around the selected edges in order to make the object 3 dimensional. is this possible?
Reference image:

Could you illustrate what you mean with an example image?

sorry about that. uploaded it now.

I am not sure I understand what you mean, is this the shape you wish to achieve?

The way I see it you can do it in several distinct ways

Either extrude your whole shape at once and bevel the outer edges of the result afterwards. You can use a mirror modifier in two axis so you only have to model half of it.
Draw the quarter circle shape section as a mesh and extrude it up step by step along those selected edges. You may use snapping to guide your shape all the way up, or
Draw both your section (semi circle) and the path (curved shape) of the bow as a bezier curve, use the section as a bevel object on the bow shape bezier curve. Use the curve radius on a per vertex basis to control the thickness of the bow along the path. (Option I used in the image above and bellow)

Yes I am planning to achieve a shape such as that, except not as pristine and curvy. It's still the same idea though. The bevel step wouldn't work for my case since I need the edges to be distinct in Edit mode rather than the mesh being quasi-edged. The last two I am not familiar with. I am still pretty new to Blender. I'll let you know if I figure things out haha.

I decided to just go with a cylinder and extrude it upwards along the 2D as a reference. If there is a better of doing that within my limits please explain how so. Sorry I'm still pretty new so I don't know how to exactly do some of the things you mentioned previously.

That's probably the safest bet right now. I am sure you'll slowly learn more and eventually get comfortable with the other suggestions. Feel free to post other questions if you find any more specific problems.


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Draft angle and undercut analyses
Is Blender capable of producing draft angle analysis and undercut analysis with STL files? I see that it can produce a heat map for wall thickness, find overhang faces, etc., but I can't seem to find anything for draft angle and undercut.
Any help appreciated.

No, I  don't think Blender has anything specifically for that purpose as far as I know, but being a generalist 3d application maybe some of the existing tools can help in what you want. What exactly are you looking for?  Have you looked into the 3d printing mesh analysis tools? Maybe those can help. Other than that maybe some normals based Cycles procedural shader can display the information you want.

I'm hoping to assess a collection parts to see if they satisfy the draft and undercut requirements. The parts are to be injection moulded rather than 3D printing, which is why draft angles and undercuts could cause issues.

In the 3D printing game it would be called the 'self-support angle'.
This setup assumes that the upside of your STL/mesh is oriented in the +Z direction.

The example is targeted at a 3D printer which behaves as follows:

prints perfectly up to 30 degree angle (white colour)
in most cases manages to print in angles between 30 and 45 degrees (yellow colour)
anything over 45 degrees will collapse

The ColorRamp can hold values from 0 to 1 while the Normal is 0 to 90 degrees.

Value 0 = 0 degrees
Value 1 = 90 degrees

As a result for this example:

Value 0.333 = 30 degrees
Value 0.5 = 45 degrees

See a nice comparison of how the self-support angle affects the 3D print (note that it is measured from horizontal surface rather than vertical direction in this photograph :/).

That is more of a CAD type of workflow. CAD creates models using constraints, While blender is exclusively for aesthetic modeling.
Although, you may be looking for the "Bevel" modifier, which should be able to produce the desired effect.
DOCS:
https://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/meshes/editing/subdividing/bevel.html
EDIT: I should also point out that since blender is purely for aesthetic purposes, you really dont need precision in your models to the extent that i sense you are looking for. If you truly believe that you must have a level of precision that you find difficult to achieve in blender, it is most likely that you should be using something like FreeCAD or one of AutoDesk's products

I'm just hoping to analyse a collection injection moulded parts for draft angles and undercuts. I'm only running analyses on existing models created elsewhere, so I won't be adding/changing the draft angles. Even if the input models are precisely made, does Blender somehow lose precision in the process? For instance, could Blender's mesh be too coarse?

no, no precision is lost,or even spared in the standard use of the software. However, since things dont need to be absolutly perfect for visual purposes you can aproximate in many areas. precision requires the time to be precise. that was all i meant when i said "difficult"

As mentioned previously in my comment I am not entirely sure what Draft and Undercut mean in term of geometric properties, or what you wish to analyze about them. Could you provide some more insight or more details about what you want to achieve?
Is it some sort of color map with tolerances or angles? Perhaps hilight parts of the geometry that don't fall into some threshold?
For most people here this is probably an unknown area. Maybe show some pictures or post an example of what you wish to achieve.
From a quick google search I got the rough impression they are related to angles parts for injection molding must have so they can be easily removed from their molds.
As stated by Konner Rasmussen these things are probably ore suited for CAD applications with NURBS or solid modeling based geometry. Blender's meshes are probably more than precise enough for most requirements, however it's polygon based mesh geometry may be less adequate for such type of analysis.
That being said, Mesh Analysis tools doesn't seem to cover what you are looking for, so I am wondering if somehow a cycles procedural shader could do what you are looking for.
Combining the Normal Output of a Geometry Node in cycles your could through trigonometry calculate angles using a Math node.
Would this serve your purpose?

Indeed, drafts and undercuts are only pertinent to injection moulding. Drafts are needed to eject the part. Typically, draft analysis highlights the faces that don't have the satisfactory draft angle, like this. I wonder if Mesh Analysis is good enough for measuring draft angles / undercuts?

That looks like the kind of thing a procedural shader with a some trigonometry as illustrated in the image above could achieve. Mesh analysis doesn't seem to have the tools you need.

not sure about undercut either, but draft angle: https://www.google.com/search?q=draft+angle&oq=draft+angle&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i60j0l4.2127j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8


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High poly from low poly with normal maps
I have some low poly models with nice normal maps. Is it possible to create high poly model based on low poly model and normal map?
Subdivision surface doesn't work  in this case, as it will create high poly model from low poly, but it will not take normal map into account.

This is possible if you convert the normal map into a height map in a program like CrazyBump or AwesomeBump. What this will do is add bump to the low poly model and enable you to give a slightly more high poly look. This however, may not give the best results.


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Slicing object in several pieces
So lets say I have a cube with length of 6 and I would like to slice it in 4 pieces, leaving me with 4 cubes with length of 1.5 each. I am aware that I can do that with knife tool, but how to slice cube in exact 4 pieces?
Is that possible with Blender?
UPDATE:
Slicing with Loop Cut and Slide as will work on normal cube, but in case geometry is a bit complex, it will not work.

Please go to the edit mode
Hit the Loop Cut and Slide as shown in the picture below
Hover over on cube and wait for the line appear, move pointer to switch between, horizontal and vertical edges,
scroll your mouse wheel two times to increase the number of cuts to 3, hit enter or double click to finalized it.
You will get your required result.
As shown in the image below:

Here is the solution based on your updates

Add a plane on the top of your cube, slightly bigger than your cube, go to the edit mode and add 3 loop cuts on the plane
Hit A to select all faces of the plane, hit x and delete only face, so that we have only a grid of edges, as shown below:

Select the plane and then your cube (in order), enter edit mode, go to top view (numpad 7), make sure you are in orthographic mode
Hit "knife project" and check the box "Cut Through"

Go to object view and select your cube and edit mode you will get the same loop cuts as you did in your plane, delete the plane for the clean up

I hope it worked for you :)

As per your updates

These edges are not seems to be required.

Thank you, it works with cube, but can you see my updated question? On a picture attached unfortunately it will not work

I will try to give alternatives based on your updates, Thank you

Please take a look of updated solution, if worked please accept the answer!

Nice. It works! Thank you for your detailed answer.

I would like to notice that step 1 can be done also with subdividing the surface by selecting the opposite edges x2. You could add that to your answer.

I am glad it worked, Please take a look of updated answer, about subdividing.


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Callback handlers for animation range changes and action changes from Python
I am creating a simple addon for Blender that handles easy animation changes between different actions. Everything works, but I am unable to find out properly how to catch if the user changes Start, Current, and End frame on Timeline, the same applies if the user changes Action in Action Editor (Dope Sheet).

I succeeded temporarily by using the poll function, but that is not an elegant solution at all. Moreover, it turned out that I cannot change some global vars I have added.
My second try was to add modal operator and catch all mouse clicks to refresh some data and that works to some degree, but I am still not satisfied with it.
Currently, I handle list view changes, so when it user clicks on other entry, say on Idle from Spawn I save states to Spawn (frame start, frame end, and current Action), then switch to Idle, check if the animation has Action assigned, and if not I create one then assign it (or saved one). So I have all states saved up to the current selection. If the user changes current_frame I can handle it with bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post as @Gorgious stated, but I can't update frame_start, frame_end & dope sheet Action until the user clicks again on some other element.
I'm using Blender 2.79.
What are my options here?

The frame_change_post and frame_change_pre handler can be used to execute a method when the frame changes. See : https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.app.handlers.html For the Actions I don't think that you can unless you link a method to the depsgraph_update_post or depsgraph_update_pre and loop over all actions to see which one is selected. (Not really optimized though)

@Gorgious that's pretty awesome. Actually, I encountered this solution but discarded it because I thought it was a game engine related. Any idea for handling the start & end frame change?

If you copy/paste the 1st example in the documentation, you can catch every time the user changes the frame using the timeline. Replace the print statement by your logic. Do you need more help on the subject ?

Yes, I know. But that handles frame_change. There is no frame_start_pre and frame_end_pre handler. I have updated my question also.

a modal timer? or (but in 2.8+) message bus.

bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_pre (and post) are the pre 2.8 versions of handlers that get run a squizzilion times to catch events in.

@lemon drawback of running a  constant modal timer is it restricts auto-save.  A draw callback for relevant spaces eg https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/113912/is-automatic-reload-from-disk-confirmation-in-text-editor-possible  and  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/160909/handle-vertex-property-changes-with-msgbus-subscribe-rna  could offer another way to look for changes.

@batFINGER I tried that one also. Can be a solution but running something in a constant loop didn't seem like the best idea.


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How to simulate a controlled, steady flow of water, and then disrupt it with object collisions to get some "gentle" turbulence?
I essentially want to recreate the same thing this program does, but in blender:  https://github.com/blackoffee/Shizuku
It doesn't need to be physically accurate, realtime or even 3D (shader editor magic would be great too). All I need is some detailed animations of turbulence in water in a gradient map type of look - pretty much exactly this:
I've tried particle simulations and mantaflow fluid simulations - neither give me the desired results. The main problem is that fluid and particle simulations, to my knowledge and testing, can't create a steady stream of water with no turbulence in it (apart from the colliders I'll put in there). The sims always create some sort of turbulence due to the inflow, or the collisions with the domain object. I'd essentially need a "slice" of a river that moves at a constant speed with no turbulence other than from the intentionally placed colliders (some cubes in the middle of the scene)
Any kind of help would be incredibly appreciated!

Why not just use “geometry“ instead of “inflow“ to fill a tub or something instantly with a block of water?

are these obstacles moving in the "river" or are they static?

@Blunder they can be static, but the river should moving at a slow and constant pace


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Help me with texturing a room (UV unwrapping/stretched textures)
I've added some textures to my models and they keep looking stretched out no matter what I tried.
When I try to edit the models in other texture programs it still is the same.
And it's like this for every part of my models.

Hello, please show your UVs in the UV Editor, the unwrap must be incorrect

Hello and welcome. Please use a title that reflects the content of the question. It should be succinct, unique and identifying, and summarize what the issue is so that users can at a glance broadly understand what your post is about before opening it. Use the [edit] link below your post and avoid any emojis salutations or extraneous text not essential to the question. Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors will see, and will weight heavily on their decision to open your question, which will directly affect the number of answers you might get.

Did you unwrap your model? I guess you didn't, try to select one of the faces of the mesh, hit U on your keyboard and select unwrap, you will see that it should go back to normal

please paste the file so I can take a look at it

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/38651/what-does-unwrapping-a-model-do-and-why-is-it-important

@Ribbit12
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1esu0m006ofPZ2z24vKjluWcViBwr0saw/view?usp=sharing
Here is the file.you can text me on discord : IcyHot#2018

@yesmehello: if you want help, you should not make the helpers have to request for viewing for blend file...and by the way, the "official" side to provide blend file is this:https://blend-exchange.com/ because everybody can access it

Hi!
Please follow these steps to achieve this final result

I just added a simple checker texture to the mesh so that we can see the UVs of the object(right now the UVs are terrible)

Now I went to the UV editor tab, selected all the faces of the object, pressed 'U' on the keyboard and selected the 'Cube projection' option. Then I selected all the UVs by pressing 'A' and scaled them by pressing 'S' to check out the final result.


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How to merge eyelash into face mesh and shape key?
I made face shape keys, then I copied a new separate eyelash from someone else. It is made from a curve. I want to merge the eyelash into the face shape key, how? As the shape key must be for one mesh, so I tried to join the eyelash into the face mesh. But it says can not join mesh with a curve.

So I guess to either shapekey the eyelash as a different object or convert it to mesh and then join it to the face

Select your eyelash curve object in the 3d viewport in OBJECT MODE.
Go to to the top menu in the 3d viewport > Object>convert>mesh.
In the outliner you can see the curve object icon changed to a "mesh" icon.
You can now merge the eyelash, but since it doesn't have any blend shape it will mess up your base mesh blink shape from the face. It will not do anything.
Go to edit mode and adjust the eyelash mesh according to the blend shape at 1 and at 0.


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Texture not showing in object but visible in UV editor when I draw
So, I unwrapped my object. Then I created an image file with a certain color. In Principled BSDF node I added the option image texture and loaded the image.
In UV editor, I loaded the saved image. The base color of the image showed. But now I painted the object in Texture Paint mode it doesn't show up in object but shows up in the image in the UV Editor.
Can anyone please tell me what can be gone wrong??

Here’s what I think is going on:
Although the two image data blocks are from the same file, they are not the same data block, so the only way to get them in sync right now is to save to the image file and then reload everything.
What you need to do is go back to the shader and select the same image data block that is open in the image editor, by clicking the little pull down on the Image Texture node:

I tried reloading at first it was not responding but i got texture after sometime. Anyways  Thank you for ur answer


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How can I make these marble textures?
So I play a game called Astroneer. There are marbles in the game that I would really like to make.
Here are some images

The white parts are emission and the constellation texture has an image that I already can use.
Is there a way I can make these? I would like a detailed tutorial as I am not the best at Blender. This is in Cycles.
Thank You! :)

And I can answer how to make the second material, pretty much.  Assuming that “the constellation texture has an image that I already can use” means you want to use that image texture, this uses some Math nodes as the Factor for a Mix Shader masking between that texture (using a placeholder ColorGrid in this example) and an Emission node:

This requires a Default Cube's UV map with the cube made spherical (Subdivision & Cast modifiers) to get the spots where they are, so it's not very flexible:

Got the idea to use Ping-Pong math nodes for this from this youtube vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DThWrWYJMNg
And here's the blend file:

I can at least answer how to make the first material. You'd have to first use a radial gradient with modified coordinates to give it a twist. Then use a musgrave texture to add the smudges and plug it into the Factor of a Shader Mix node between an emission and a glossy (or any other shader)

Copy the nodetree and tweak settings to taste.


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How to Change the BG of the Timeline
I'm trying to change the color of the timeline BG in Blender to be more visible than the dark color it is now in the current theme I'm using. I can't find the setting to change it. Thank you.

In User Preferences under Themes > Dope Sheet > Theme Space > Window Background:

That doesn't seem to work. I change the color of it, but the timeline BG doesn't change at all. I'm using the latest Blender version.

Sorry, do it for "Dope Sheet" - I don't know where I got it in my head you were talking about the graph editor. I'll fix the screenshot.

That doesn't change the color of the Timeline BG in Blender either.

Strange... it does for me (see second image). I can't explain why it doesn't change on yours.

Welp, after trying a few more times, and restarting, it worked. Thank you!

However, when I switch to the Motion Tracking Tab, it goes back to dark grey. Not sure why that is.


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Geometry Nodes: Random Array Using Curves
Trying to make a all purpose Curve (Rotation - Scale - Random objects - etc)...
Issue - When Instancing on points i don't know how to make Sure the Stacks Stick Together
When Using a Random Scale Value.
Things to keep in consideration:

Must Work by Using a Spline
Must Follow the Spline, Total Length, Position and Distance
Must Respect The Rotation Value
Preferably Working on 3 Axis instead of 2 Axis (XYZ instead of "Length" and "Height").

Currently all of this is Still a WIP so some things might Change...
Example of the Gap.

End Product How i wanted it to Look

Reason why i don't use the Cube:

Don't know How to make it work with "Object Info"
Uses 2 Axis and Needed it to work on 3 Axis.

A good direction for solution is: Set the origin of your book instance - Bottom/Center. Instead of resampling the curve use the accumulated random Book scale values to position the instancer's points on the Curve using the Spline Factor value. Imagine the following scenario: Stack the books in a line. Find their positions on the line. Map the positions from the line to the Curve. Reposition the books and align their rotations with the Spline normal.

Maybe helpful: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/271450/how-to-string-objects-of-a-collection-along-an-axis-depending-on-their-size-app

Here is a Geometry Node set up for arranging an array of randomized by scale blocks on a Curve:
Restrictions:
*- works best on 2D curve in XY plane.

works best on convex open and closed shapes.
requires manual adjustments on some parameters.*

You need the following Objects:
1. An Instance object. The Instance object must be oriented along the +Y axis with origin at its base (see the screenshot) In this case a "Book":

2. A Curve object - along which the randomly scaled instances will be placed. It should reside in the XY plane. I am starting with a default Bezier Circle.
3. A Plane Object to hold the Geometry Nodes Modifier with the following set up:

Short description of the nodes
The Instance >> Rescale X Dimension to 1
Rescales the Instance object so its X dimension (thickness) is equal to 1.
The Transform Geometry Node could be used additionally for translation and rotation of the original object if needed.
The Points >> Randomize Size
Generates points based on the Count number in the Curve to Points node, initially equally spaced on the Curve. A Random Value node generates random size value for each point using the Min and Max parameters, the Seed can be used for variation.
Reposition the Points along the curve based on size
The radii are turned into diameters and summed up sequentially using the Accumulate Field node, Leading values are then subtracted by the radius of each point to get the distance along the curve where the points are supposed to be placed. Plugging these values into the Sample Curve node returns the Position and the Normal vectors, which are then used to set the new position of the points and their rotation.
Instance on Points + Scale Tweak (optional)
The Instance object is duplicated on each point with additional settings for Scale in case a gap between the instances is required.
Note! The number of instances and shape of the Curves should be adjusted manually. Adding extra amount of points will overlap at the end of the Curve. In case the the objects are pointing inwards instead out - try Curve Edit - Segment > Switch Direction.
Here is an example with an open Curve:


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Why does deleting armature of model causes it to change size and orientation?
A character that I got from Mixamo, the Y-bot, gets deformed and scales into a very large model when I want to delete its armature. I want to transfer one animation from one model to this one by simply just aligning their armature. For some reason, when I try delete the Y-bot's armature, it gets deformed. Anyone wonder why? Is it because of modifiers or vertex groups (I never really understood vertex groups)?

Once it is not parented to the armature anymore, the mesh comes back to its default shape, maybe it's your problem here? Try to unparent Alt P > Clear and Keep Transformation, or please share your file? https://blend-exchange.com/

The original mesh must have been modeled at a different size and orientation / rotation. Then it was parented to a standard armature that Mixamo uses. It appears that Mixamo uses a standard armature for all its characters in order to be able to use the same animations for all its characters.
To remove and keep the transform I used Moonboots's suggestion.
Select the mesh groups inside the armature import.

Alt+P > Clear and Keep Transformation.

Select the Armature group that is now separated from the mesh groups.

Delete the Armature group.

Remove any lingering armature modifiers. Click the mesh group, look at modifier properties. Click the x next to the Armature in the modifier properties.

Great, thank you! I pretty much found this answer by chance when I scrolled through stack overflow.


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Can't save as gltf
I am making the call to
bpy.ops.export_scene.gltf(filepath=output_file, use_selection=True, export_format='GLTF_SEPARATE')
I tried the workaround here Script to export gltf fails with 'Context' object has no attribute 'active_object'

AttributeError: 'Context' object has no attribute 'active_object'

Passing the context to the gltf function looks to be deprecated and I don't see how to override the context using temp_override.
I assume I am not setting up the context correctly as I tried to export as fbx and also got an exception.
Anyone have any suggestions?
EDIT: Added a minimalistic script:
Clear the scene
#bpy.ops.wm.read_homefile(use_empty=True)
#bpy.ops.wm.read_factory_settings(use_empty=True)
Load the GLTF file into an empty scene
bpy.ops.import_scene.gltf(filepath=GLTF_PATH)
out_path = utils.create_output_folder("xxxxx")
OUTPUT_FILE = out_path + "out.gltf"
bpy.ops.export_scene.gltf(filepath=OUTPUT_FILE, use_selection=True, export_format='GLTF_SEPARATE')
If I include either of the lines to clear the scene I get the error. Wondering if there is a more correct way to clear Blender down to a state where it has no loaded data.

What Blender version are you using? Can you post a simple minimalistic script that reproduces the problem?

I'm using Blender 3.5.0. I have since noticed that I don't get this error if I don't use either one of these lines at the start of my script (will update the question with minimalistic version):
#bpy.ops.wm.read_homefile(use_empty=True)
#bpy.ops.wm.read_factory_settings(use_empty=True)

I went with:
def clear_scene():
    # Remove all objects
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:
        obj.select_set(True)
    bpy.ops.object.delete()

    # Remove all materials
    for mat in bpy.data.materials:
        bpy.data.materials.remove(mat)

    # Remove all textures from the data blocks
    for tex in bpy.data.textures:
        bpy.data.textures.remove(tex)

    # Remove all images from the data blocks
    for img in bpy.data.images:
        bpy.data.images.remove(img)


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Render of fire with a transperent background
I have a problem with rendering fire with a transparent background. The preview is different from the saved image. How do I render a fire with a transparent background?

Domain shader

Blender file:

I haven't seen set fire like that, but can be correct. Can you share your simplified blend? We need to know more about your setup ... your shader is one thing, rendering emissive pixels above transparency another (https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/164940/2214) ... Output file format and setup another. Use https://blend-exchange.com ... your result looks like a combination of several of them.

@vklidu I added a link to the blend file at the bottom of the post.

Under my 3.31 LTS version it works fine ...

Also in Compositor it works now better, than mentioned in my link in my comment above - Viewport was improved again, great :)

Now I'm just guessing ...

Your right image is not seen from blender's Render > Result window.
(It is viewed in some other app were you added black background.)
So explanation is that -  PNG as output file format can't handle emissive data, so what you can see in your right image is a smoke part ... here the right side is over exposed to see smoke better in your screen. BTW in my compositor screen the Render Layer node can§t display emissive data as well :)

In this case is solution easy - save render as OpenEXR (Multilayered if needed), that is only one format that can handle all data needed for proper compositing later out of blender (sure in apps that can handle emissive data).

If your right image comes from blender - try to exclude GPU from rendering, so you can be sure issue is not based on your graphic card (but I would say in that case the result would be different).

Or in a case you are using some experimental build, try to use some official release.

Oh thank you! I needed to save images in order to combine them later in the composer. The OpenEXR format is well suited for this.


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How can I make a butterfly textured with nanostructured structural paint which looks like embroidery or a painted rocky foil texture?
Picture of reference:

I already have the basic shape down:

I am just having trouble with the textures and details at the edge (i.e connecting the squares to form a smooth edge and little bits that stick out). Do I have to do it manually or is there a procedural way?

Simon Thommes released a node group called Knittr that can be picked up for free, it is for procedural yarn/fabric texture.

Hi Please use a title that reflects the content of the question. It should be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the issue so that users can at a glance understand what your post is about. Use the [edit] link below your post and avoid anything not strictly essential to the post. Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors will see, and makes your question findable for future users. See "What is the problem with posting an image or link and asking “How do I do this?""

Is the butterfly printed with paint or embroidered? Can't you do the edge smoothing in a paint program?

The 'procedural route' might be via a shader, rather than geometry. This one depends on an 'Offset Grid' group, which divivides a 2D texture space into rectangular cells. It allows changing the relative X and Y scales, and an adjustable offset for each row:

The group returns UV coordinates per-cell, and 'Cell Idx'.. the position of  (0,0) in each cell. It would typically be used for bricks, and weaves.
It can be used to divide UV space into with square cells, each row offset by half a cell:

The whole space is noise-distorted to prevent the weave from being to regular, and produce little fuzzy threads
A weave-bump is produced from the distance-to-cell-center, which also darkens the color in the cracks
The effect of threads is left to 'Roughness' alone, but you could add another layer of Bump.
The image is pixellated by using the cell-center as the lookup into it.

This is really only an example..

So far, it's looking OK close-up:

It could, I'm sure, be tweaked to your needs, should this be a way to go for you.

A good use of float curve


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Render yellow colored object as blue (design oriented question)
So I've got this dune I want to make in 3D. I made it a yellow/orange albedo simple material. The thing is that I want to find a lighting that renders is as  dark blue/purple color as if I was watching the sand at night. But whatever configuration I try, the best color I can get close to it is somewhat of a dark red (wine) color. Is there something I'm missing or must I do some clever tricks with textures to make this happen?

So this is the "sun" (everything is default now except the color)

And this is the material of the sand. (same here: default except for what you see)
These are the last changes I landed on after trying a bunch of things.

Welcome to Blender.SE. Could you show your materials, lighting and world settings?

Edited the text to show the images. Also thanks for the welcome.

When using colored light, you have to remember that it affects the color of objects.  If you use a blue light in real life, most colors will not appear correctly.  If you look at the color chart on this page:
http://www.d.umn.edu/~mharvey/handbook5607.html
...you can see that under blue light, red, green, and yellow pigments will appear black.  Orange pigment appears dark brown.  Others just appear blue or darker blue.  It's just the science of light.
Here's a scene in Blender with pure white light:

The same scene with blue light:

and green:

and red:

If you must use a blue light, I'd make your dunes white or a shade of gray instead of yellowish-orange.
However, most scenes aren't lit with a single light source.  What you could do is add a touch of "moonlight" by adding a second light.  Here I made the blue light a "hemi" light, and then added a "sun" light that is light gray:

It's still blue and dark, but you can see the different colors again.

You're welcome!

Don't do anything with the light, leave it white. In Cycles, apply Invert node to your object's material color (you can make adjustments with the slider). Don't forget to change the world's color, too, as appropriate. Dale's method doesn't change the tint. Although it's darker, yellow is still yellow and you want blue