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Using Spreadsheet Sequence as an Attribute?
is there any idea to use or turn the vertices sequence in spreadsheet to attribute that can be used in geometry node ?

The input nodes can get these for you: Index node the the integer index of the vertex (0-15 there), or Position node to the the (x,y,z) coordinates.

This answer is only there so that the question can be marked as closed:.
The Node Index returns the current number of the element of a domain (Vertex, Edge, Face, Face Corner, etc.)


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How can I best combine different objects in a way that reduces vertices and edges?
New to Blender. Let's say I have a cylinder and rectangular prism that intersect each other along their long sides, like so:

I want to merge these shapes in a way that eliminates the intersecting edges but preserves their external geometry, something like this:

What is the best way to do this?

The Boolean modifier should work perfectly for this purpose.

First, split the separate parts into individual objects (P with everything selected in edit mode).

Then, add the Boolean modifier to either of the objects, set it to Union, and select the other object. You can further edit the mesh by applying the modifier (⎈ CtrlA).

After applying the modifier, you will be left with two objects: the joined mesh and the target object of the modifier.

Thank you, this is exactly what I needed!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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add curve: extra object does not have spirals
I am trying to create a flat spiral, and so I looked it up on google which I found this post:
How to make flat spirals
it is exactly what I'm trying to achieve here, so I followed up with the settings and stuff. after that, I realized that my blender (2.79) does not have the spiral option when I'm checking the curve section. does anyone know how I can fix this?

Isn't that 'Curve Sprials' in your screenshot? Or is that from another version?

it's a different version, it gives me these:
https://gyazo.com/50c23a5078cd2a89b5ab24b2cb1ff6c0,
https://gyazo.com/dfd2a24bf47b094213036a086642b55d,
https://gyazo.com/578d9873792861b2a23a4d9b21a32727,
https://gyazo.com/f58f0dd74689b68ce1ba8bdbd25760c7.

Curve Spirals > Archimedean > F9 panel > Radius Growth xxx? I don't know, I'd have to rebuild 2.79...

can you maybe make a spiral and send a .blend or .obj to me? maybe that'll work.

It would be better to fix your problem.. what shape spiral would you want? Is that screenshot your menu?

its the one in the https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/79764/how-to-make-flat-spirals. the one where the is like a tiny head thing at the middle of it, that's the one i want.

To make a spiral you need to go to Curve > Curve Spirals > Archimedean
Once you do that, you will have what it appears to be a CLOSE circle.
In order to make the spiral, you need to use the side bar to increase the radius growth and add more turns to it.

this works! thank you so much!!

got any tips for doing this in 2.83?

@JayStanley to be honest, it's the same, the menu looks different, but it's the same process

Thanks @Emir. Yeah unfortunately the menu moved and I spent an hour trying to find it in its new inobvious location.

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


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How can I build a dynamic animated stiff cable?
I´m trying for hours to animate a stiff cable for our client. So you can imagine time is running low ;). I've watched several tutorials on how to build dynamic cables, but I need a stiff one. A really good isolated stiff cable.
The objects:

Cable Mount -> Pin point Nr1 (always fixed)
Turning Point of cable -> at this object the cable will be wrapped
around (180°) and comes parallel back to the mount.
Moving object -> Pin point Nr2 (will be animated and moved, object
rotation should affect the cable.

What I´ve tried so far:
- Inverse kinetic armature: stuck at the turning point, should be a tighter curve than the bending of the rest of the cable
– Cloth Simulation: the stiffness is not the desired one, also the collision and self collision don't work as expected. Gravity and weight are off, that's fine, but if I move the Object (Pin point Nr2) back, the cable should be pushed back also. Currently it makes a small turn...
So, if anybody has a suggestion or tutorial, please let me know.
Thanks a lot!

Can you give an image example of what you mean by a stiff cable?

Hi PGmath, for example an USB Cable, or HDMI Cable.

Perhaps you failed to get the correct stiffness because you didn't change the default 1 kg weight in soft-body to something more realistic (for USB cable ~ 5 g or 0.005 kg). You may also want to increase Edges->Bending a little. Wrapping the cable: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/93623/60486

Thank you Broady, I will try this. I reduced the weight to zero and used the cloth modifier. Perhaps I should try the Soft Body Modifier


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Why is the object move arrows no longer fixated to it?
not sure what I did but when selecting the move tool the arrows around the object popup, however when I move the object the arrows themselves stay fixated. I would like the arrows to be fixed on the object itself like the default setting. Any idea how to fix this?

You assigned the 3D cursor as the Pivot Point. https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.80/scene_layout/object/editing/transform/control/pivot_point/index.html

Thank you very much!

As per @FFeller solution in the comments I assigned the 3D cursor as the pivot point.
Docs


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How can I add a 2D asset as a 3D object in the shape of the png minus the alpha?
I have a PNG sequence of an animated 2D character waving. I'd like to put it in my blender scene like a cardboard cut out (so the scene treats it as a 3D object with a very small amount of depth). Basically it would be like if you had a cardboard cutout that can move around and the shape of the cutout coincides with the character's body movement (basically the shape of the "cardboard cutout" would exclude the alpha of the current PNG on each frame). This means the shape of the 3D object would change every frame and match the shape of the 2D character. Is there a way to do this that wouldn't be a huge headache? Let me know if there are any clarifications you need to form a better picture of what I'm going for here. Thanks in advance!

Can you share the 2d animation sequence?

If you need your cutout to have thickness, and you don't have too many frames, you could probably do it manually in the following way:

Load each png into inkscape
use the fill tool on the transparent area, this will give you the contour as vector line
remove anything but the contour of the image
save as svg
load svg into blender as curve
convert to mesh
extrude
animate the visibility of each frame, so that it is shown in the appropriate moment only

Steps 5 to 8 could probably be automated with python rather easily

When using the "Import Image as planes" function (Shift A in the 3D Window), there are options for using alpha, animating an image sequence and use an emitter or shadeless shader.
The 3D shape is not affected, but the result is a cardboard cutout.
The images of the sequence have to be named with the same base name and a progressive number (Object_001, Object_002, .......).
In the shader editor you will use the image texture node to set the duration and the time offset of the animation.
If combined with grease pencil objects the material has to be set as "Alpha clip" in order to work in Eevee, to avoid uncorrect Z depth.


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Help with texturing a test model
I made an animated box with the intent of importing it into GZDoom as an MD2 for testing. The problem is that I can't get this whole UV mapping thing down. The MD2 exporter won't let me export the model, saying that it needs at least 1 skin to export. I read the Blender 2.83 documentation on this a few times (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.83/modeling/meshes/uv/applying_image.html) but the mapping window pane they are displaying doesn't seem to exist in my version of Blender!! I have a picture here of where I'm stuck at: (https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ap4KZFMds2L1hGq1cPxTVZPnft8Y?e=bQA8xP). I also have here the .blend file right where I got stuck: (https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ap4KZFMds2L1hGkboQxzDy50WN0s?e=85dXcA) .
Thank you in advance :-)

Instead of having users go through links and external sites please use the builtin tools to embed images in your post. See How to upload an image to a post?

You indicate that there may be a discrepancy between document and software versions. Yet how is anyone to confirm or disconfirm that possibility when you only present the version of the manual you are referencing, but not the version of the software you are using?

I am using Blender version 2.83 LTS. The link I posted is the one referred to by the main menubar " Help > Manual " . I didn't think that would be incorrect.

You have not assigned the image texture to the material. That's the reason why it's no shown on the cube.
In the material properties, click the yellow dot right next to Base Color and select Image Texture. Then click the image icon with a little arrow next to it that just appeared. In the popup select your image. Done.
Alternatively, go to the Shader Editor. Add an Image Texture node, select the image, and connect the color output of the Image Texture node to the Base Color input of the Principled BSDF.


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Camera Glitch movement
I am having trouble with a camera glitching around in a render, and in stills rendered at those frames. It is easier to show than tell:

As you can see, the aspect ratio seems to be jumping around or something. I also noticed that on some CPUs and GPUs that the camera seems to move away (found this from an attempt on SheepIt)
Nothing in the scene has keyframes nor animations in general apart from the particle system.
What is causing this, and how can I fix it?
I am on Blender 2.8 on Ubuntu 18.10 rendering with an i7 CPU

maybe share your file?

So the camera was not changing, the material was. It is hard to see because of the lack of other objects
The Point Density material was set to use Object Space instead of World Space, so it was trying to fit all the particles into the object, and would change the locations of other particles in the point density as needed.


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Transparent Depth and Transparent Node not working
I am trying to create a shader that renders visible when looking at it from behind another invisible object, and vice versa. However, when the object is supposed to be invisible, it renders a black artifact in it's place. Is there any way to get rid of this and simply keep it transparent?

https://i.sstatic.net/M6eRZ.jpg

I believe the issue you're having is due to a circular dependency.  You're counting the number of Transparent Shaders the ray is passing through, but what happens when the material that that number depends on is a Transparency itself?  I believe that's why Blender creates a Null shader.
You can do something similar with a Glass Transmission Shader set to IOR of 1.0 for your "transparent window" thingy.  Disable everything but Camera in the Cycles Setting:

Then instead of Transparent Depth, just use the Transmission Depth input for your object:

I have a question that I feel is a bit relevant to the discussions here. I wonder could you please take a look at my question here? I basically want to render depth maps or surface Normals by somehow ignoring the transparent materials. Do you think that's possible?

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


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Blender 3.6 is unwrapping simple meshes at an angle
The latest version of blender introduced a UV overhaul that appears to work fantastically for complex meshes, but not so well for simple meshes anymore. Cubes and planes now unwrap at an angle to use maximum space on the UV map, but this is not usable for texturing, where the unwrapping methods in 3.5 and earlier did this beautifully.
How can this rotation be corrected, or the new UV unwrapping be temporarily disabled?
Blender 3.5

And the same operation in Blender 3.6.1:

A workaround to this is to align the UV by clicking in the menu UV > Align Rotation, and then with Constrain to Image Bounds selected, scale the UV map to force it to fit.

i just tried it on 3.5 & 3.6. interesting. should this not be reported as a bug? you cannot correct it, because it is the program code that changed, but fortunately you have your workaround with UV > Align Rotation

Something odd that I've found is if I create a similar plane to the one in the images and the Generate UVs option is checked, when I go to the UV Editing workspace it is unwrapped without any rotation and fills the map. I can create a new UV map of some other size and the mapping still fills the area. If I try an unwrap method from the U menu, the only option that gives a UV like in the 3.5 image is Cube Projection. The Unwrap and Smart UV Project give the rotated map as shown above.

@HarryMcKenzie   There are (enough?) quick ways to project a simple mesh aligned to UV's straight from the top-level menu, would you really call this a bug? I'd just call it a mode of operation.. it's a  dev. choice  of priority for the default, easily overridden..?

imho as a dev myself i would consider it as a bug, i think they accidenctally broke this functionality because usually a texture would not be aligned diagonal. at least i dont see any advantage to this. it introduced more of an inconvenience and i doubt the devs intended this. of course i could be wrong, just my opinion :)

@RobinBetts They have fixed it now.


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Blender crash at startup on Ubuntu
After installing via apt, trying to run for the first time on a new Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installation with NVDIA-375 drivers, Blender crash suddenly with this crash report:
# Blender 2.76 (sub 0), Commit date: 1970-01-01 00:00, Hash unknown

# backtrace
blender(BLI_system_backtrace+0x30) [0x1361b10]
blender() [0x97a98e]
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(+0x354b0) [0x7fe5348694b0]
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(+0xaa0bd) [0x7fe5348de0bd]
blender(gpu_extensions_init+0xf3) [0xf63363]
blender(GPU_init+0x20) [0xf65a10]
blender(WM_init+0x106) [0x98b0e6]
blender(main+0xd2e) [0x95cc3e]
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xf0) [0x7fe534854830]
blender(_start+0x29) [0x97a2b9]

Ubuntu declares a crash in GPU extensions.

I suggest you to install it from the archive (you find them all here http://download.blender.org/release/), as I ususlly do - there you'll find more recent versions.

After the last sudo apt upgrade I had to restart the system, and now it is working.

For some sort of reason, after the last Ubuntu update and before installing Blender, something was changed in the GPU drivers that made the software to not startup correctly. Restarting the system fixed the problem.

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


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How can I make a mesh glow over time with keyframes?
I'm working on a project for a friend and I am trying to get something to glow over time with simple keyframes. At the moment I am placing a keyframe of nothing different, then I'm moving the timeline cursor to the place I want it, then adding an Emission Material to it and placing a keyframe down. I don't understand what the problem is so if someone can help me that would be greatly appreciated.

Only properties can be keyframed
The action of "adding an emission shader" cannot be keyframed. That in not being recorded on the timeline.
When you add a node to a nodetree, that would be there for the whole scene. You can instead keyframe the factor of a mix shader ruling the shading of an object, for example between a transparent shader (so the object will be invisible) and an emission:

An alternative could be to animate the renderability of your glowing object by keyframing the little icon in the outliner. It depends on your project needs.

Replace the Transparent BSDF with what you want the material of the object's non-glowing state to be. Additionally you can just use an Emission node by itself and keyframe the Strength value from 0 to whatever level of "glowing" you'd like.


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Textures black after importing obj file
I've been having this issue for a good day or two. Whenever I import obj files to blender the textures are black. The version of blender I'm currently using is v2.74. I was wondering if someone could assist me on this because I'm trying to finish something for Garry's Mod.

Possible duplicate of .fbx export why there are no materials or textures?

OBJ doesn't import materials, you are supposed to manually create them yourself

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos this is not a dup of that one, nor is it the same issue. Look at the properties panel he has the texture in the material. The OP's problem here is there are no light in the 3D view to illuminate the object.

Hadn't noticed, good catch

@David♦ Thank you so much for your help! This worked for me big time!

You need to add a light to see (if everything is dark you can only see black).
You simply imported the mesh, there is nothing else in your scene. You have no lights in your scene. You (kind of) need a light to see your object.
For just a simple test render, or so you can see your object, just add a few lamps. If you add just one then the side in the shadow will still be black.


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Trying to extend an edge along a curve
First, I cannot draw a straight line with a ruler.  I have NEVER been artistically inclined, however, blender seems to help me overcome SOME of my issues.  I can edit basic models and get close to what I really want.  lol
With that being said, I have a model (I am not the author of the model), that i need to extend the edges pointed at by the arrows.  That "bump" need to be smoothed out.  I want to extend it so that the "bump" is now a smooth transition from the ground plane.
My issue is that I can extend the edges, but it does NOT maintain the dimensions I need.
If I made the model, I would have created an outer and inner circle to attach those "bumps" to.  With that being said, I do NOT know how to make an inner and outer circle to attach the edges to so that the edge of the model continues to follow the dimensions of the circle.
If I select the edges and grab them, I would want the individual rectangles to shrink as they get closer to the center and expand when it gets further from the edge.
I hope my explanation and pictures are clear enough.
Once I figure that out, I SHOULD be able to cut this into 45/30/10 degree curves!
If there is a youtube video, that shows what I want, please send me the link.
Otherwise, I would need fairly complete instructions.
If I need to make a circle, I can do that, however, I have NO clue how to center it on my existing model, or make my model center on the circle. OR even size the circle so that it matches the radius on the inner and out edge of the model.
I know how to alt-click to grab edges/faces/vertices, S + axis scales, etc... but some of the more in depth stuff, I have yet to learn.
I appreciate any help on this!

If you want to move face loops according to the direction of red arrows then try scaling along normals with Alt+S with face loop selected.

Overview:
The thing you are struggling here is a Pivot center for rotating/scaling.
In your situation as you stated that model isn't yours we will need to manually place 3D Cursor at the desired spot and then switch to Pivot center: 3D Cursor and we are good to go. Normally when you are creating such shape it is (mostly) in the center of the scene so the first steps wouldn't be necessary.
Steps:

Grab two vertices on the inside of the mesh like in the gif.
Press F to make an edge and connect them.
Press W > Subdivide to create vertex in the middle of created edge.
Turn on Vertex Snapping.
Press G > Y and hover mouse over the bottom most Vertex. Repeat with X Axis.
Shift+S > Cursor to Selected to place 3D Cursor where we've moved our vertex.
Delete this vertex, it's no use now.
Select Pivot center to 3D cursor.
Select inner/outer edge loop and Extrude/Scale or both.
Optionally go to Object Mode and set Origin Point to the 3D Cursor, it should help later on. Do this by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C.


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Non-english multi-codepoint alphabets
incorrect text in 3d view.
in the picture below - black text is the correct one. this is a language called tamil(thamizh) from India. ordering of code points is the problem here as you can see.
I do not know what goes on under the hood of font parsing. Is there way to workaround this. I work with a lot of text and most of the time. Please help me


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How to convert numpy array into image and add it to images inside bpy
I have a numpy array which I'd like map onto a cube inside blender. Is there a way to make texture out of it, without writing to file? This array will change over time and writing to disk and reading it again seems very slow and also in future I might have many numpy arrays to texture the cube.
Bonus question:) Is it possible to do this without PIL in the middle?

I don't think you can change a texture applied to a mesh without saving, no. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's just not how Blender works. You could just render many textures to one very big texture as a spritesheet, and scroll through that as each new texture is needed.
If you just want to preview the texture without saving the file, however, that is possible using Sverchok. It's designed with NumPy in mind, the view is updated via OpenGL in realtime, and it doesn't save the results unless you tell it to. Most of its use is for 3D, but it has a mature texture viewer node: http://nikitron.cc.ua/sverch/html/nodes/viz/texture_viewer.html

Here is example TestImg to which we write numpy array (in this example it is all zeros). Thing to remember if image size is 100px width 100px height, and 4 channels then numpy array size must be 100*100*4. eg:
numpy.zeroes((100,100,4), dtype = float16)

Example
if "TestImg.png" not in bpy.data.images.keys():
    bpy.data.images.new("TestImg.png", width=128, height=128, alpha=True, float_buffer=False)
outputImg = bpy.data.images["TestImg.png"]
input_res = int(math.sqrt(outputImg.size[0]))
np_out_img = np.zeros((input_res,input_res,4), dtype = np.float16)
outputImg.pixels = np_out_img.ravel()  #flatten the array to 1 dimension and write it to testImg pixels


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Main window won't change
I recently downloaded blender to do some video editing. I was playing around with it and everything was going well. The next day when I opened Blender I couldn't navigate away from the starting screen. The top menu bar will change but that is pretty much it. I tried reinstalling but that didn't work. In the screen grab you can see I'm in movie clip editor (or at least I should be).

Simply change that top toolbar back to Info.  That's the default for Blender.  From there you have all the traditional menus.  From the Info bar, you can select your preferred Workspace.  You can use the Motion Tracking Workspace which is already setup with three Movie Clip Editor panes or you can create your own custom Workspace:

As far as I know, the top bar is the only one you cannot pull down down into a pane (like all the other panes):

Actually the movie clip editor they are trying to use is in the motion tracking screen.

@sambler - You're right, I shouldn't have answered this so late.  Edited.


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Animation slider (driver?)
Hello Blender Artists!
As said in my previous questions, I´m pretty new to Blender and 3D stuff; I made this very easy door animation you can see below a few days ago with simple keyframes for every single part, and quickly got tired of animating every single part again and again.
For a single open animation (the ~four seconds you can see below) I had to animate 42 parts with 2-10 keyframes! And now think of an animation where I have to open/close this door four or five times... no way.
So I want to ask if there is a way to "pack" all those single animations into a slider or something like that, where you have a "0" value (closed) and a "1" value (open) you can slide along. I´ve heard about drivers, but only found tutorials for SINGLE objects, so that´s why I´m asking here.
Is there any way to combine these keyframe animations into one, compact control thing?

Thank you very much beforehand for reading this through!

For a compact "control thing" you can use the dope sheet view. This will combine all object's animation data into one window for editing. In the dope sheet view you can reverse the animation data (for the door to reopen after closing) and then simply duplicate this new set of keyframes and voila 4 cycles of the door animation. Then again, it depends on what you are wanting to use this longer animation for, nevertheless, here is an excellent tutorial explaining the dope sheet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIWd0xfzxIc

Thank you! This is not exactly what I wanted, but it´ll fit as a secondary solution. Thank you for taking time to answer here!

What are you trying to achieve with these animations, just for a render?

Hm... this is part of a bigger object which I MAYBE put into an animation, but overall I just want to control this thing easily. I guess your solutions is the best thing I´ll get here.

Usually if i want to do something like that I will use a game engine like unity, unity has a slider type driver for animations which can be simply scripted to go back and forth so I am not well versed with doing this in blender. Happy Blending!


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Performance relating to Object Instances
Just a simple performance question.
When using object instances, the same vertex data is used for another object (like an exact duplicate) causing much less memory usage when building up the rendering (one dataset instead of two etc.).
But I wonder now: If I have a mesh with ~500 vertices, and I use this 50+ times in my scene, when is the point reached that I won't save any more memory because of the sheer amount of instances? I mean, every instance is yet another object, right?
So what will be better? One object with 50*500 vertices (25k vertices) OR 50 objects sharing the same 500 vertices data?

If the model has a texture, then the instance will be better.


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Object/Group Instances and Pass Index
For Post Production in the Compositor, I heavily rely on using Object/Material Index masks. Normally, I select a single object and then give it an unique number in the Pass Index/Material Index slider in the Object/Material tab. Using the ID mask node in the compositor usually gives a black/white image mask.
However, this doesn't seem to work on group instances. When grouping objects together and using the resulting instance, one can still give this object a Pass Index value. But the result isn't a black/white image, but rather a white/alpha file (but messed up), or the file is completely empty.
Giving the individual objects of an instance a Pass Index doesn't work as well when using the instance itself.
Is there a way to get the Pass Index on instances to work?

It seems to be possible with Pablo Vasquez Amaranth toolset : https://pablovazquez.art/amaranth/
(search "Object ID for Dupli Groups")

@thibsert Thank you very much, that worked like a charm! If you set this up as an answer, I could accept it as the right one.


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Repeating objects along a path without altering geometry
I'm trying to line up duplications of one and the same object using an Array Modifier and a path/curve. You can think of a line of dominos: They are repeatedly lined up behind each other with some space between them (Array Modifier).
I tried using a Curve Modifier, but the problem is that the modifier will alter the objects geometry by making it bend; that would be perfect for a road or train track, but I just want my dominos to follow the curve, not to alter their geometry.
So, is there any easy way to do this that I totally missed? I never worked with curves/paths before, so I'm pretty unaware of their options.

You probably want to be looking at dupliframes, or possibly dupliverts, if you prefer to change your curve into a mesh before using it as an arranging tool.

This question has been asked before, see Possible duplicate of Torus object stretched in array curve modifier


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Vertex Connection/Flow
I´m quite new to the modeling section, for I worked with tutorials only by now, and thought that it would be a nice training to model a building by myself.
I know that quads should be used as much as possbile, and that I should avoid tris and NGons.
I usually use smooth shading and subdiv modifier, combined with autosmooth set to 89°, and then manually select the edges that shall remain hard and mark them sharp/give them a crease of one.
Now there are sections where I have more vertices on one side than I could connect properly to quads. Like in this example I set up:

I doubt connecting the left vertices to the right ones, for this would create waaaaaay to much connections to one vertex (I read that 6 is the number you should stop connecting more vertices), and I can´t add more edge loops to the right section for this would destroy the smooting created by the subdiv (more vertices = less smooth surface interpolation), and I really want to keep that smoothing. So shall I stick to an NGon here? Or is there any other solution (like telling the suvdiv to ignore some of the "extra" vertices)?
If somebody could please explain me what to do here would be really great!

6 usually is too much as well, 5 edges sharing one vertex is maximum for good topology mesh (and even that might depend especially on the curved surfaces when 5 edges pole will create shading artifact).

To have 100% quad based mesh you can use reduction flow. From 21 > 5 faces.

And only topology view:

If you want to use Smooth Shading, use Autosmooth option:


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How do I join these two objects without causing non-manifold edges?
I am trying to design an arch shaped fan guard.
I created a long "cube" and then used the simple deform>bend to turn it into an arch shape.
Then I created a plane, removed the centre, extruded upwards and use an array to make the grid.
Then I used boolean transformations to remove the bits of grid that I don't need and joined the two objects using Ctrl + J .
However now I am trying to fix any non-manifold edges etc. so that it is 3D printable please can you advise how I fix these?

Or if there is a much easier way of producing this object that would also help.
Blend file:

In Edit mode use the Select menu -> Select All by Trait -> Non-Manifold. Then manually fix the issue.

I don't really know how to fix the issue. There is one edge, but I don't know what is actually wrong with it.

I think the issue seems to be that it has not gotten rid of the faces where the grid meets the arch. Selecting internal faces doesn't seem to select them

can you post the .blend and we can have a look https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

I have added it to the edit, This is a few saves back, before the objects are joined.

Neither of the two objects in that file have any non-manifold edges. If I use the Boolean modifier to Union them, the default options creates a lot of non-manifold edges. But, if I use the Boolean modifier with Union and set the Solver to Carve the result is manifold. Let me know if that worked for you and I will put it in an answer for others to find.

@rob thank you, that seems to work much better. No manifold edges, but I did still have a few intersecting faces and zero edges. Do they not matter as much?

I think that depends on your slicer/3D printer.


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Change scaling in the graph editor
So I want to scale these points from the 2D Cursor,

Like in the 3D view you can change  to .

Never mind I found it, in the graph editor you change this  to this  at the bottom of the graph editor.


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FBX export from 3DS Max 2017
I am trying to export a 3dsmax model to Blender and the position/orientation of some objects is completely wrong as per this screenshot.
The exported fbx looks all right in any fbx viewer I tried and I played around with the fbx import options (apply transform, use pre/post rotation) but always the same result.
It seems like only the items that were created with some sort of symmetry are affected (not the original author of the model so it's only a guess) anybody have a tip/hint as to where this is coming from?
I'm using Blender 2.78a and FBX 2014/2015 binary, not that it matters, since I tried all the other formats for the export and it's still doing the same thing.

Thanks a million in advance I ran out of hair to pull on this one.

I see there are some keframes in whatever object is currently selected. Maybe it is actually an issue with animation instead?

thanks for taking the time to look into this. i removed all animations from the export and it's still doing it... actually when i exported the model in ascii and went to check the coordinates they seem to match (as in one door would be at x,y,z and the mirror door on the other side at -x,y,z ... but the net result is one at the right place and the other way off) ... puzzling

FBX is vast and far reaching format with many variables, hidden tricks, and different implementations. Getting a full perfect export is often hard I suspect. My humble advice is that you are probably better off fixing what looks like just a few bad cases by hand, then wasting time getting it to export as intended

Again a couple years late, but I answered this over here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/299211/172273


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Single image texture is not rendering correctly
The problem is that when I render the image, the single image view texture seems like it getting scaled on the Z axis. It looks fine in the Cycles render preview. I UV unwrapped the cup and it seems to work fine up until the final render.
I am not sure what I am doing wrong.

Oh I found it! It was because I was applying a Subdivision Surface Modifier to the render, but not in the preview


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How to export several render outputs at once?
I want to know if it´s currently possible in Blender 2.78c/higher to render an image and then get the imge itself as well as the AO pass as two output files (.png) without having to switch to the compositor, change the output node connection from "Image" to "AO" and rerender the whole thing?
For I need the AO as a seperate image, but don´t want to render everything twice... (2 hours each).
If there´s a simple method/script I don´t know about please let me know!
Thanks all of you beforehand.

There's no need to rerender anything in compositor, it just has to be executed to save passes as set up with File Output node. If you really don't want to execute compositing nodes (e.g. if it can crash) then use OpenEXR multilayer (generally it is good solution regardless). Related - https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/28740/how-can-i-render-all-render-passes-to-files-in-cycles

I'm using this setup as addition to the normal path and filename for the composed image:


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How to reverse all animations, physics and simulations?
I simply want to reverse EVERY animation, physic, motion blur etc. so that the scene is EXACTLY played and rendered backwards.
Is this possible?
I don't want to render my scene forward and use the VSE to put it in reverse, because I want to use motion blur, which looks odd when being reversed obviously. So, is there any way (without scripting for hours) to reverse everything, including physics, simulations and particle systems? Reversing only the motion blur would be okay as well (but I don't think that this is included as a feature by scratch), but not as great as reversing everything.
Thanks beforehand for taking some time to read through and provide help!

Create your simulation and export all objects to alembic. Then you can reimport them. If you look into the constraints panel of your imported objects, you'll see that they came with a Transform Cache constraint.
All you need to do now is click "Override Frame" and keyframe the value to go backwards.
I tried it with cell fracture and a simple rigid body sim.
Smoke however, doesn't work that way. But at least this should get you started.
You can also export particle systems to alembic, but I haven't tried that yet.
Edit:
You might also want to try to change how the motion blur is calculated in the Render Panel under "Motion Blur" - You can change the calculation from center to end or start of frame.

Thank you for your answer! I will try to combine it partwise with the answer of Duane Dibbley. Appreciate you took yourself time to answer my problem, thanks!

As long as you have not applied anything you should be able to remove the modifiers and keyframes.
Read more on how the animations work, so you can avoid further problems that can arise, for example by the difference in rotation between 0 and 360 degrees.

I guess you got me wrong. I want to render my whole animation backwards, because I have cell fracturing and smoke simulations in it and want to get an "rebuild explosion" effect, so that the debris and smoke collect together until the object is complete again. I can't tweek the keyframe settings to achieve this, so I need to render my scene backwards.

The next time. Reverse the animation by just invert the "movie" from the render.

Ok... do you have an idea how to invert the motion blur when I invert my rendered movie/image sequence, as asked in my original question?


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How to achieve temporary Slow Motion?
I want to achieve a slow motion effect during a non-cut scene, which means that the scene (with animations, rig-animations and maybe physics) will start with normal speed, has slow motion somewhere in it and then gets to normal speed again.
The only way I found to change the speed of the scene without manipulating tons of pre-set keyframes is to use the time remapping feature (e.g. 25:100), but I'm not able to set a keyframe to it, so it is permanently. How do I get a kind of temporary slow motion without cutting footage or rendering with 120+ fps and then composite the slow motion effect?
Thanks beforehand for taking time to read through!

I want to achieve something like the time remapping, but animated, like at frame 28 slow down to 1/4 of original speed, at frame 64 speed up to original speed again. If it's easier to trigger it by an object's property, that would be fine as well. Main thing is to have control over the scene's speed including all physics/simulations/rigs (some of them don't have keyframes to be animated manually).


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Set Mist Pass Distance
I wanted to use the Mist Pass for the first time today. I have a scene [1 BE = 1 MM] which is pretty large, and I won't change the scale of single objects for the individual shaders are specified to that scale.
However, if I activate the checkbox in the camera tab to show the range (distance) of the Mist Pass, the little X-marker doesn't even exit the camera itself, thus the Mist Pass is a completely white image when rendering.
How and where can I set the distance of the Mist Pass? I didn't find any setting to change it, actually.
Thanks beforehand for your answers!

The "Mist Pass" is the properites windows under the world tab.

And only visible after Mist has been enabled in the View Layer Properties tab under Passes. This is probably the first thing most people will do, but it's worth mentioning that it's a prerequisite.


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Armature Changes Pose From Object to Edit Mode

Red Bar is to show the original positioning of where the elbow started in Object mode. Top Arm is in Object Mode, Bottom Arm is in Edit Mode. I just created a character in Adobe Fuse, took the .obj and uploaded it into mixamo.com where it was rigged and downloaded as an .fbx. Instantly import the .fbx into Blender and have this issue. I've created clothing for my NPCs, I'm trying to rig them all to the character. I just did this whole process with a male and didn't have this issue. I believe I did everything EXACTLY the same. A bit confused on how this could happen or how to fix it? I can reset one of the modes positions to Rest Position, which fixes the switching of different poses, but doesn't work trying to rig clothing to the character in Blender. Anybody ever run into this problem? Any help, guidance or anything would be greatly appreciated!

Afaik mixamo will set the default keys to a tpose. Do any of your pose bones have any rotations?

Yes actually they do

Well, if the pose bones are rotated, then a difference in edit mode and pose mode is expected, isn't it?

Oh sorry I think I might have misunderstood. Did you mean, did I pose the bones? If so no, the character is still in T pose mode but the bones are rotated when I look through the settings

If there are rotations on the pose bones, they're pose in pose mode is naturally going to be different than their pose in edit mode. In edit mode, poses are not shown, otherwise you couldn't edit the bones. Mixamo automatically poses the bones(!). If you want to have the same pose in pose mode and edit mode you have to reset the transformations and delete the transformation keyframes.


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Creating Detail From An Image
I've been creating some Helmets for my game, I wanted to add a little bit of character to the helmets, I'm going to try and design some of my own symbols / designs but I don't have any clue what the best way about using an image to create detail on an object ( protruding into the helmet ). My plan is to put a symbol around the "trim" of the helmet. I started to just use the cut tool but I quickly realized it wouldn't come out exactly how my design was, so I figured there has got to be a way quicker way to go about it. I searched around but I guess my wording isn't correct, I don't truly know how to explain in depth what I want that well. My english isn't the best.

Just to be clear, you want the emblem to be raised up on the surface of the helmet like the cheek-guard of this one:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2a/83/b6/2a83b6dad8b9f28b7b2f86992e438e2d.jpg This tutorial should help you if you want to keep the emblem separate from the helmet. https://youtu.be/rcwdLbcjUT0?t=17m53s here's the link for earlier in the video when he talks about constructing the spider:
https://youtu.be/rcwdLbcjUT0?t=2m41s

Something like this? ..

You could do it this way:

You can try to convert your picture in Illustrator, then import as a SVG, then convert curve to mesh. Give it thickness with an extrusion, then use the Remesh modifier to give it a good topology. Modifier settings: disable Remove Disconnected Pieces, Mode : Sharp, Octree Depth : 8, Scale : 0.3, Sharpness : 1  .
If the result is too messy, recreate your ornemental shape from scratch with your model as a Background Image.
Give your ornement mesh a thickness with two successive extrusions on the Z axis. The first extrusion must be thin as you'll later use a Subdivision Surface modifier.
Create a plane, subdivide it to make a grid.
Give your ornement a Surface Deform modifier, choose the grid as the Target and click Bind.
Give your grid a Shrinkwrap modifier and choose the helmet as your Target. Now your ornement should stick to the helmet. Play with the Shrinkwrap Offset if necessary.
Give your ornement a Subdivision Surface modifier to smooth the shape, also, click on Shading > Smooth on the left menu of your 3D view (activated with T).

When you have finished you can choose to Bake this helmet in order to fake the ornement in the Material with a Normal map.


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Boolean Cutouts

Hey everyone! I've been dabbling with creating shirts / clothing lately. I'm trying to cut out a hole for my string / lacing to go through. I used the Boolean Difference modifier and it cut the circle perfectly, but the topology has changed a bit. Is there a task I should be performing before the modifier to eliminate this? Or am I just going to have to take the time to even it out myself. Thank you ahead of time for any help / information provided! Have a great day!

You should never have used the Boolean modifier in the first place. Use proper topolgy instead, it will save you time in the long run

Try to select faces around the whole and press Ctrl+T to triangulate it - it reconnects newly created vertices to create correctly triangulated mesh. Hopefully it wil l help. But your topology isn't good in other areas too... so maybe try to triangulate whole model first.

Hi, see this (like many others similar) related question https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/74922/how-can-i-make-holes-on-a-wrist-strap


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Artifacts / Darkening while baking
I created this crate for a game I'm working on, I've been trying to bake my wood pallet texture I have but every time I try to do so my bake comes out having artifacts and the material itself darkens immensely. I've attached a picture, on the left hand side is my image after UV Unwrapping and on the right is after the bake. I've circled the artifacts with red circles. I'm using Cycles Render and the Bake Type is set to Diffuse. Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

That's because there are no lights in your scene so it would be dark because lighting information is saved in baked textures when baking using the combined bake type.

It was a combination of 2 things :
Not having any light in my scene & the artifacts were created by overlaping UV's


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Image Texture Resizing
I recently modeled a book, I wanted to start playing around with some textures to see what fits best. When doing so I noticed I wanted the leather bumps to look smaller and I couldn't make the UV any bigger to fit the image. Is there a way of doing this? Or is it the image I'm using?

If it is a tileable texture, then you can scale the uv outside the image boundary to greatly reduce the size of the individual details. If you then want to map decals or something else to the same surface, you can use another UV unwrap to get that mapping.

You can also change the size of the UV Map by changing the scale with a "Mapping" Node in the Shader-Editor.

This is a bit more elegant than just scaling up the UV-Map imo, it keeps the UV's a bit more tidy. It also allows to bake your texture later. With UV's scaled up and out of bounds of your image, you later can't bake parts that don't cover the image.


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vertices rotating with bone even when there is no visible weight painting

While weight painting today I ran into an issue I've never come across before. I was weight painting for the clavicle bone when I started having vertices that would rotate with the bone but had no visible weight painting. I spent over an hour hiding faces and making sure everything had no weight paint value. I also tried unassigning the specific vertices from the vertex groups. Been stuck on this for about 4 hours now. Any help or guidance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks ahead of time.

Hi, if geometry moves with bones, there are weights (remmber they could be even for other bones of the armature...) see if this helps, too: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/42020/when-ik-bone-moved-wrong-part-of-mesh-deforms/42049#42049


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Right Click selection selects everything and not just 1 thing
I'm very new to blender and I just want it to make GFXs for a multiplayer website called ROBLOX. I've successfully made some about a month ago, but when I try to use right click to select a limb, Blender decides to select everything. This is an example of what is happening:

It's so annoying that I just want to stop making GFXs now.

It's selecting everything because it's one object.  You need to go to Edit Mode and separate the limbs if you want them to be separate... by pressing "P".

Thank you, that worked. But is there any way to always make it seperated?  That's how it was when I first downloaded Blender.

Yes, you can add the objects individually in Object Mode.  Blender allows you to add meshes to an existing object when in Edit Mode.  Just make sure you're in Object mode before you add meshes.  You can tell when you're adding in Object Mode because the icons are yellow, in Edit Mode, they're white.

Like bertmoog already said in his comment, the "human" in your scene is a single object, which you have selected.
To edit the vertices, edges and faces, you have to switch into edit mode bypressing Tab or by using the menu in the bottom left corner.
If you want to seperate the single parts of your "human object", you have to enter edit mode, press P and select "By loose parts"


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Need help saving an png with an alpha map
I want render an image with a flame in cycles using volumetrics but the problem is whenever I am trying to save the image it save the image completely white(i.e. only an alpha map and no image). It doesn't happen with any other non-alpha formats like jpeg.
If anyone can figure out what the problem is then it would be a great help
Blend File:-https://pasteall.org/blend/ddcfc5cf25c441eba5832d68323f2ee3

This is just a work around using Gimp untill someone comes up with a how to do it in Blender. In Blender, Render Properties > Film > uncheck the Transparent option. Now the background is Black in render view. Render and Save as png image with the RGBA option selected.  Open image in Gimp then, Layer > Transparency > Color to Alpha > change colour to Black and then OK the Color to Alpha. You now have the transparent background for your flame.

Related questions: transparent background for volumetric smoke? Bug? and (linked in the first one) How to properly render smoke on a transparent background?


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Blender 2.9 won't open anymore
Blender 2.9 opened the first time I click on it I installed so older addons. It shut while I was installing addons, and would not open anymore, so I uninstalled and reinstalled blender many times, it still won't open. I reverted to a less recent version that still works.

Start blender from console, https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/21772/how-to-view-the-system-console-message-after-blender-crashes report any error messages in question

Locate and delete the preferences files for 2.9.
The files you need to delete are startup.blend, userpref.blend, bookmarks.txt, recent-files.txt.
Read this link to find them on your system.
Where is the startup file stored?
Re-install blender and disable all adons.  If the program runs, only then start adding addons one by one, until you find the one that is creating the problem.
Once you find the problem you can report the bug to the developer of that particular addon.
If none of this works, then run blender in debug mode and file a bug report with the info from the console.
Best place to put bug reports?

You can delete everything related to blender and then reinstall it.


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Weird Water Look?
I was trying to create a water animation and noticed this was the baked look? I hadn't experienced this before and couldn't figure out how to fix it, I did restart blender and delete all the water stuff and tried again, but came up with the same result. If this is a copy of another question please direct me to the orginal.

From the img looks like the viewport shading is set to solid. Change it to texture or material.

Also the water is floating on the obstacle by what looks like high amounts. The fluid world I changed the size of twice. Any ideas on that?

Possibly not related, but I notice from your screenshot that the fluid domain has been scaled. You should Apply Scale.


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Modelling rooms for games
I am developing a "show-room" game for HTC VIVE. For it I am modelling some enviroment, which is just a building with two rooms and a garten at the front side.
At the moment it looks like that
Outside:

Inside:

How you see there a a lot of edge loops I created to model the room/building.
My question is should I now try to delete all of them that I dont need to minimize polys or should I let it how it is? Or should I make a copy of it, useful if I want to change sth after, but the production one should be optimized having only the needed loops?
Here an example of what I mean, where I deleted all edges, that I dont need.Here I saved like 300 polys only, since I am not using any SubSurf or sth....

Worry about good topology before optimization, in other words leave them

There are some completely redundant edge loops, those can definitely be removed. Don't remove anything that could compromise your ability to easily tweak it later, though.

Why do you think you need all these little faces (now or in future)? Do you plan doors and windows? Btw. the refined model seems to have some issues: I can see two face centers at the roof and at the garden ground (not even in center). Why the garden wall still consists of three quads?

Just to let you know any answer to your question will be opinion based.


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Edge Loops "get broken"
I am learning blender and can't understand why edge loops "get broken" (May be a specific name for it).
Taking the picture below as example:
When I try to create an edge loops it stops on the top of the front face (marked edges).
I don't understand what make edge loops not being possible to be continued. I mean I expect the edgle loop to go all the way like the line I draw in red.
I could understand if there are n-gons or double vertices, but what's wrong in the mes below?
Just for info, the left object is just the "preview" of an array modifier used on the right object.


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Weird Color appearing in sculpt mode
Good Day,
I was just modeling a face in edit mode and as soon as I went into sculpting workspace to smooth by model a bit, I noticed a weird color on two of the face

On top of it, as soon as I clicked on the faces to smooth them, they changed color from pink to yellow

BLEND FILE: https://pasteall.org/blend/8b767a2e2a0945b49e96da4639fd14f7

Have you tried searching for answers here on Stack Exchange? Maybe this might help: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/183599/wacky-weird-colors-when-entering-sculpt-mode-blender-v2-83

the answer to that is "face sets", it has actually already been answered here:
part of the mesh become yellow when in sculpt mode

I get that blender created new face sets but I didn't use a boolean modifer like everyone asking this question did. Most I did on both those faces was to delete them and change their flow a bit.

Yes, that was one of the answers I found here... that's why I asked if he even did search here... the link in my comment uses almost the same words like his question.

So this yellow color is just a blender feature. Nothing is wrong with my mesh?

@MaulikSharma I don't think there'S something wrong. Well, I don't know what you did to create those face sets (I'm no sculptor most of the time), but disabling them gets rid of the weird color so face sets are the cause. Since I don't use them I'm not going to dig deeper into the functionality of it but I guess there must have been something which made your faces change the color.

Thnx bro. I'm no sculptor either, I was modeling the face using edit mode and stuff. I went to sculpt mode only to smooth stuff out. Anyhow, u were great help. Thnx again

Same problem, a polygon edges were sharp and also this specific polygon had different color.
The only thing that fixed it was setting Shade Flat and then Shade Smooth again.


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Need help trying to make a lighthouse lamp
I was trying to make a lighthouse asset for a scene I was making and ran into a little roadblock.
I need some help trying to make the lamp which goes on the top. I was imagining a beam of light which rotates 360d in the sky.
I tried using a spot light, point light , area light and even emission mixed with transparent shader but nothing seems to work..
Blend File: https://pasteall.org/blend/23a7e321432143bba254149136d1161c
Thanks in advance. I really am stuck here
My progress so far:

Lamp:

if you're talking about the beam of light, you could try with volumetrics or you can try a trick with Layer Weight, see here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/227887/how-can-i-make-cone-look-more-like-light/227889#227889 and here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/134478/how-to-get-a-lighthouse-to-shine-a-lightbeam

Thanks. I too was thinking of using volumetrics but I think this trick will be sufficient too. Will definitely try it.

made some tests with eevee and cycles, result applied https://twitter.com/begalovr/status/1405637458570645509
at freetime can give complex answer


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Objects intersecting in render but not in viewport
So I modelled this boat and made it move across the lake using a shrinkwrap modifier and copylocation constraint(Like Chris said in this question )
Now the problem is that whenever I view this boat in viewport, there is no intersection between water and boat but whenever render the scene, the boat and water interects.
Viewport:

Render:
Anyone have an idea why this is happening and how to solve it? I am at the end of my wits here.
BLEND FILE: https://pasteall.org/blend/16806ed8d94b4412b3db3799957febc5

it depends on your frame.
With starting frame 5 i see water in your boat in viewport...

it looks like you applied the boolean modifier. I wouldn't have done that.
And if you apply, you cannot change it afterwards.
And i think - if you apply, it is "just for the moment". But unapplied the boolean modifier will also work for animated objects.

I didn't use boolean at all.

Also, in frame 5 did water appear in both viewport and render? When I render frame 1 water is not visible in viewport but is visible in render

Ok, I thought you used a Boolean. My mistake. The solution with the shrinkwrap just moves the boat with the ocean. It does not (!) prevent water „flowing“ in the boat. This you have to do with a Boolean modifier.


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How do I make all selected lights in the scene share the same power value while negating color data
I have around a hundred point lights in this city scene that have variation in both light power and color. I noticed that, far into the project, the building interior room lights are not as bright as anticipated. I only want to change the light power value in the selected lights by linking object data from one light to the other lights, but that also changes the light color which is not what I wanted. How can I make the light power data the same on all selected lights without affecting color value?

just because i am curious: how many weeks takes this to render just one frame?

why not emission nodes instead of lights?

Select all your lights, go into the Object Data panel, choose the Power value you want and press AltEnter, or select all your lights, select the one with the right Power value at the end, right click on the value and Copy To Selected.


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Avoid spawning points when inside bounding box of object(s)
I have a plane that I am spawning points on. I also have a collection of objects that should be avoided when spawning points. I generally know I'll want to use the bounding box of the collection, but I don't know how to generate the booleans for "safe" areas vs. "unsafe" areas. I hope I'm explaining this okay. I'm creating grass, and I don't want it to intersect with the objects.
This is my current node setup:

The collection in the upper-left contains the objects I want to avoid.
I'm sorry if this is a common question. I tried Googling, but I couldn't find anyone else actually asking the same question.

You could enlarge your objects by the safe distance of choice, then use them to cut away from the spawning plane (you might want to solidify this plane first for proper boolean, and then delete the new faces created in solidification), then use it to boolean cut from the spawning plane, now use the cut plane to distribute points.

you can try it e.g. with geometry proximity, which has some disadvantages, e.g. you need "enough" faces so that it works:

This worked great, thank you!!


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Texture Inflating in Parts of Mesh
I'm working on a mesh and I applied a displacement node, however around the arms and legs the texture gets significantly larger. How do I make the texture the same size everywhere?

You can try using the generated or object coordinates instead of the UVs

Your texture is getting stretched. What you want to do is to go into the UV tab, go into edit mode in the other window, and select the stretched faces. Then, you want to go into the UV workspace, go to the top where it says 'New' and 'Open', and click the picture icon next to that. Click on the texture in the dropdown menu, and the texture should pop up. You should see the selected faces un the UV editor. Scale them up, and that should shrink your texture.


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Blender Cloud textures for commercial purposes
I have noticed there is a blender cloud service that offers textures, hdris etc...can I use them later in a project with commercial purposes?

All textures are licensed as CC-0. Free to use anywhere, for any purpose.

From: https://cloud.blender.org/p/textures/

The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.
You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for
commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

From: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en


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close hole in rounded shape
I have a very easy (maybe silly) question, but I cant get it done....
How can I close hole like above (or bigger) mantaining the round shape?

Use a Grid Fill option. Select the edge loop around the hole, then press Spacebar and type Grid Fill. Play with its settings in a Tool Shelf's operator panel (T).

You are the men @Paul Gonet! Thank you! How do you do this cool gif?

go here to see how to create gifs: https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/963/what-is-the-process-for-creating-gifs-for-questions-and-answers


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Holes in Mesh, when using Subdivision Surface Modifier
I'm currently tinkering around with some Blender tutorials.
I created a lowpoly body, but when I apply a subdivision surface modifier, I get those weird artifacts/holes in my mesh.
Any idea what could be the reason for this?

Select All, press W > Remove Doubles. Also get rid of ngons, Subsurf doesn't work well with them.

it's difficult to say exactly what, without having the model (you could upload it to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ then post the provided link editing your Q), only general guesses may be made: your geometry has some part wrong ...

Try selecting all in Edit mode and recalculating normals (Ctrl+N)

Looks like you have a loop cut right next to another.  In Edit Mode select all press W and Remove Doubles as LukeD suggested.
With your mouse cursor in the viewport hit Ctrl + Tab on your keyboard and click Vertex Select Mode.  Select loose geometry by clicking Select at the bottom of your viewport then Select all by Trait > Loose Geometry.
You may be able to see it on the inside of your mesh. That will need to be deleted. You'll have to put close up some holes most likely but that should fix it.  You also have some n-gons on the legs that should be turned into quads.
Hope this helped.

Go into Vertex- or Edge Select Mode, have nothing selected and hit CTRLALTSHIFTM. That will select all edges that do not have exactly 2 faces attached to it and I bet you have a few of those.
Do you have any creases where you don't want them to be? They also cause the subsurf to create problems.

There's also an ngon that ideally should turn into quads.

Try adding some loop cuts to smooth out the jagged parts. So go into edit mode and hit ctrl+r. A purple circle will show up. Click and then Move the circle around and see what smooths the mesh. My guess is the problem relates to awkward geometry (so maybe flipped normals or double faces). If you accidentally misplace a loop cut just select it and hit G twice to move it. Hope that helps :).

maybe double verts, select everything in edit, press W, and click remove doubles, if that doesn't work i'm not sure.


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How can I select top and bottom vertices at the same time in top view?
I start with a cube, then go into top view. I'd like to change its shape into something else but when I press G, only the top vertex is grabbed, and it changes my square into some weird triangle. I'd like to know if there is a way, without leaving top view, to grab both the top and bottom vertices of the square. It seems like a common problem and I can't figure it out. Should I instead be starting with a plane then adding thickness later?

Either you go into wireframe mode Z or you click this little button:

This will set the limit selection to invisible too. Then select your vertices with B and drag. But: Be aware of these methods will select ALL vertices inside your selection (e.g. if you´ve a more complex mesh).


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Representing data with textures
I'm looking for ways to illustrate a set of simulated swarm data in Blender. I am particularly interested in using the data to drive uv mappings of very many (about 10k) texture "particles". I also considered using an actual particle system, but as far as I can tell it seems you cannot explicitly control individual particles with python script. I'm also interested in the texture-based approach so I can try this visualization on arbitrary geometric surfaces.

You can generate images in blender, and use them as textures mapped to a plane. You can also use a frame handler to update the texture every frame, and for instance read data from an external source with your simulation data. You can use the image pixel location and RGBA color + transparency to represent 6 dimensional data (3D location + 3 other variables. You can also control the actual vertices of the plane, or the location of multiple simple objects representing your swarm. If you have sample data representing l10-20 frames (or time units) it shouldn't be too hard to use any of these.

@cegaton I am trying to visualize data from a client, not generate the simulation itself.


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How to activate a node only on certain frames?
My video clip is 60 frames long and I want a node to be active only on the last 50 frames.
How can I do that?

Possible duplicate of How can I animate object properties in Blender?

Just found this:
One needs to use the Right click/keyframe property on a node and set a serie of keyframes, to activate, deactivate, modulate the property.


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Can I manually adjust a Plane Track?
I use 4 points to create a plane track.
It works for half of the clip but at a point the movements are difficult to track and the plane starts to wobble.
I would like to manually correct the plane movement, on a frame by frame basis, a bit like it works for masking.
Unfortunately, anytime I move a corner of the plane, on a specific frame, it readjust the position of the plane for the whole clip.
Is there a way to take manual control over the plane track ?

@cegaton yes but that doesn't readjust the plane immediately. I would like to see the plane edges adjusted in real time.

@cegaton Is there another way to create and move a plane, frame by frame? There must be something in the 3D tools, but I don't know where and what to search for.

In Blender 2.9+ there is an option for Auto Keyframing plane track corners.
If you press N while in the tracking scene and open the Track tab, there is a dropdown for the Plane Track which allows you to set Auto Keyframes for plane track corners.
You can make manual adjustments without having to export the trackers to empties and hook them.


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Mesh in not straight any more, when I render it becomes rounded
Trying to make a simple cylinder

It looks fine in the object view, but then when I render it turns out weird, like this:

What do I do?

Remove the subsurf modifier

I want it to be a normal cylinder.. not look like a fennel seed


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Filling/hollowing between two solid objects
I have two objects (with solid modifiers applied) one is a shirt, the other a body.
These will ultimately be 3D printed in various forms. The below image is a temporary intersection Boolean across both objects (just for explanation in this post). There are holes internally, lots of wasted polygons. How do you 'fill these gaps'? Essentially remove the faces that are internal and therefore redundant.
Essentially, consider a hand in a fingerless glove, the hand is a solid closed object, the glove a solid wrapper. With the hand in the glove the polygons of the hand inside the glove is redundant, the internal surface of the glove is equally redundant as the glove is watertight between the fingers and the wrist.
The internal empty volume is enclosed, no gaps, in 2D they would be considered as islands inside a polygon. I've tried boolean operators, union, merging [CTRL+J], remove internal faces [seems to be only for internal divisions?]
What procedure would I have to follow to achieve the desired result?


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Use particle location as driver variable
I wanted to animate this hexgrid I made with particle systems using drivers, but I can't find any way to use the particle x location (or y or any particle-specific data) as a variable for a driver, and using the hexagonal object I use as render for the particles' location makes the particles not update seperately; they all update according to the x location of the original object.
Is there any way to use drivers on particles and make them use variables from the particles.

I think there is no way to access that property. You could resort to the animation nodes addon. You can access particle proprerties with that addon.

That does allow for using the particles as a variable, but I can't find a way to use particles as an output on that.

Nvm I found a way - using object instancing in animation nodes

If you have an acceptable solution, please post it as an answer.

working on that :)

The easiest option is the one Leander suggested; installing the animation nodes addon, then using a node setup that looks like this (the highlighted part makes it so you can animate particles seperately):

This didn't work for me, but I can't imagine what I'm doing wrong. You wouldn't happen to have a .blend you could post, would you?

no, sorry. I switched computers since I made that answer and have not transferred all my files. Maybe you could send your defect file so I can take a look?


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How do you use your system's Python with Blender?
As the title sais; I'd like to use my system's Python with Blender, instead of the internal one, but after searching for ~30 minutes I still couldn't find a way how, or at least not in words I understood.

Possible duplicate of Using 3rd party Python modules

that one is about using modules from your system python, and though the most upvoted answer does have a method for using system Python, it doesn't work - it just makes it so Blender won't start.

oh I think I migth have a different version of Python. Lemme check.

As mentioned there, for it to work you must use the same Python version (which changes depending on Blender's version, and the correct bit version - 32 / 64) as that one used by Blender. Most likely that's why it doesn't work in your case.

I just checked - I seem to have a slightly newer version of Python.

alot newer version*

It didn't work. It still gives the same error, even after setting the compatible version of Python as default.

Are you sure the compatible version is set as the active default python on your system?

Pretty sure. I installed the compatible version, then renamed the commands that start Python (so the default command would start the compatible version). I even tried temporarily deleting the uncompatible version.

$ blender --python-use-system-env
Allow Python to use system environment variables such as 'PYTHONPATH' and the user site-packages directory.


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How to export .anm files?
I've been trying to mod a game that uses .anm files for animations, and I can't seem to find any way to export .anm files in blender or convert COLLADA files to .anm
Does anyone know how to do this?
PS there was a similar question on this site regarding importing .anm files, but it was not answered and did not answer my question*

Those are most likely proprietary engine specific files that can only be exported by some sort of dedicated editing studio or deveoplment software for that game.

They don't seem to be game-specific file types. When looking it up, I found that appearently many older games use this filetype.

I believe if you use Blender 2.55b you can export as .anm
https://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.55beta/
Any version after that had a complete API overhaul and export as .anm likely got lost for some reason or another.

The anm version I'm trying to export is more recent than 2010

Maybe try ArchEcho's LOLBie addon, it's supposed to import/export files like .skl, .skn and .anm between Blender and League of Legends.

They already changed the file system of League of Legends to a signed file system, so custom skins are no longer possible either way ^^


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Control of movement of 3D Avatar in Blender with python
I am a beginner in Blender, but I need to control the movements of a 3d avatar in blender using python. The idea is to detect the movements of a person through a camera and play them in real time in the avatar through a graphic interface. For now I created the avatars and generated motion using blender but I need to control using python, an example of what I need implement is located at the following link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbz-l3HlmKM

Controlling your Avatar's rig is simple (access rig.pose.bones, then pbone.location or pbone.rotation, use control bones, constraints and any other trick you want). The hard part is translating your motion data into the the commands to apply on the rig. No simple solution here, you need to write your algorithm according to your specific rig and specific data.

I am working on a similar project, did you find how to link python with the avatar?


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Best topology-remesh tool
I have geometries around 80k-90k faces and A need them to be max 10k faces.
They are coming from different software like CAD so there are lots of unnecessary meshes.
I can correct them manually but it will take around 4-5 hours for me.
I tried some software but they are changing the total shape of the object not dealing with the unnecessary parts.
Which softwares are good for reducing the total number of faces?
I will use the object in the Blender again.

I am retopologing CAD files way too often in my current work and what always helps is just select every 3rd or so loop (if it is not triangulated) and rebuild it from scratch... Merge by distance is also very good help as it will get rid of all those way too dense bevels CAD files are producing... If it is triangulated however... That's totally different story, (Tris to quads may help a bit) ... If there is software that makes this automatically with precision I want to know as well

https://github.com/wjakob/instant-meshes (free) and https://exoside.com/quadremesher/ (paid, free trial) (@MikoCG)

instant meshes did not work, it also collapses the geometry

This looks more like a request, than a question

There is a free addon called Machin3tools, you can get it from Blendermarket or gumroad. It has a number of handy features for helping to reduce polygon count, such as Quick Geometry Cleanup. Search youtube for Machin3tools tutorials to see what it can do.
There are also paid solutions such as Boxcutter/Hardops that have tools to help retopologize. I use both and they are really great. There is also Retopoflow I've heard good things about it, but never used it myself.


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Solidify a voronoi object with a defined thickness for 3d printing
I would like to 3d print a voronoi rock as a flower pot but I am struggling to  find a way to remove the surface (for placing plants etc) outlined in black in such a way that the object is still a manifold. Any ideas?

Have you tried with booleans?

Hmmm… could work… create a cutter object that has a similar contour to the inside walls of the rock?


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Blender (2.93.1) - surface flicker - totally stuck
I am working on a Blender project (2.93.1) and when my camera moves, I get flickering surfaces all over my ISS space station. I'm usually rendering my sequences as dpx files and then work on them in DaVinci Resolve.
I have checked with the face orientation view option and there seems to be some conflict, but my Blender skill isn't sufficient to identify and solve the issue. When going into edit mode there seems to be no overlap of faces, the panels are thin but it seems that faces are clean and separated. I tried all kinds of fixes, like appending the entire scene into a new project or de-activating the auto-smooth function. Could not find a solution.
Blend the file

are you sure you don't have overlapping faces?

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.

@Duarte Farrajota Ramos - noted, will prepare the question in a better way next time. Thanks.

I cannot see any surface flicker and I rendered one frame using your file perfectly fine with no issues, so from my experience I can think of 2 possible scenarios here:

There is something wrong with your GPU drivers and it glitches while rendering. In this case update the drivers or try CPU rendering. I don't think this is a very likely scenario.

You are actually observing the noise in the images that is caused by not enough samples set in the render settings. You could use denoising to clean this noise, but it may also flicker a bit, if there is still not enough samples, so you might need to increase the amount of samples even if you are using denoising. You may also just increase the amount of samples until the image has no more noise without using denoising. This will increase render time even more, but will give you most precise result.

Thanks a lot for the advise Martynas. Indeed cranking up the render samples to 512 or even 1024 has fixed the issue. My original render samples setting was at 128. I'm not quite clear why - I have done numerous animations with different models on 128 or 256 and while there was noise, I didn't see the effect that entire segments were flickering. Thanks again for the guidance, much appreciated!

Every scene with different lighting scenario is a bit different so rendering might require different settings as well. I, for example, can only dream about rendering my interior visualisations clean with only 1000 samples. Without denoising it might take 15 000 samples for the render to clear up fully.  I used to render like that on sheepit render farm before AI denoising. You mostly have direct lighting, so 1000 works well in this case.


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Can't See anything
Typically learning by following the common donut tutorial.
have no idea what key(s) I pressed whilst working my own thing, but i switched to rendered view and then back to solid view and nothing is showing, even in wireframe.
managed to get my plate showing and only my plate.

i can see everything in other tabs (shading/UV/Sculpting)

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.

these are clipping border, press Alt B to remove


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Cycles - Material - Toon BSDF
Is it possible to remove this effect from the Toon BSDF, Diffuse?

Can you describe "the effect" with words, just to be sure we understand correctly what you mean? The two circle seems to highlight different things. Also, why are you using cycles if you don't want path tracing features?

It looks like you want to remove the influence of the object on the lighting of the scene. To do this, mix the material of your object with a Transparent Shader, using a combination of the "Is Reflection Ray" and "Is Shadow Ray" outputs of a Light Path node as a Mix Factor. (Shadow Ray removes the shadow, Reflection Ray removes the light bounce - we want both, so we add them):
With Shadows and Light Bounces:

Shadows and Light Bounces removed:

ok thanks, no cycles and a light Area. No more influence of the objects. I solved the problem!
thank you all


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How can I map/drape an image onto an object/grid using Blender?
I sincerely apologize for any and all ignorance. I am a developer with almost no 3D modeling experience :) Thank you all in advance for your help; you all are wonderful.
I currently use a third-party service called LiquidPixels to map an image onto a grid. LiquidPixels provides a Photoshop tool that enables creation of a 3D grid onto which an image may be mapped in order to produce a rendered object. There is a simple demo on their web site here. LiquidPixels refers to this grid + image mapping as "draping."
This has worked great. However, I want to in-house this functionality and use Blender, instead.
What steps should be taken in order to make this happen? Based on my very limited knowledge of things, I'm guessing it may look something like this?

Create a grid/mesh in blender.
Bend the grid as needed to be in the exact shape of the desired object.
Wrap an image around the grid.
Render the final image.

I might be misunderstanding you, but I think you are looking for uv unwrapping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scPSP_U858k

Couldn't see your demo link, but I suspect it sounds trivial to do. From a workflow point of view you may want to "wrap your image around the grid" before deforming it. See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57420/confused-about-unwrap-vs-modifier-unwrap

If you turn on the add-on Import Images as Planes that comes bundled with Blender, you will be able to bring your image as a mesh plane into Blender, already UV mapped. In edit mode, you can then subdivide the plane to the density you need, and then can go about sculpting the shape you want. If using the alpha, you can render just the distorted plane as an image through camera and then composite with the image of your desired object. Let me know if you need further explanation, and give me more data if this isn't the direction you are going.


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Bones don't appear in vertex groups
I have this model with bone what are already weighted. but now I need to add the tail model so I  went to edit mode and extruded more from the but bone to the end of the tail. for some reason the bones do not appear in the vertex groups… I'm sure i'm doing something wrong but I don't know what.... is it possible to add these bone without ruining my model?

You're on the right track.
For the bones to deform an object, correspondingly named vertex groups must exist on the mesh. However, not all bones have to deform the mesh. There are often more bones which are just for the mechanics of the rig.
But that's no problem, you can just add another vertex group with the + symbol. You have to name it exactly like the bone. If the mesh and the armature are connected via an armature modifier, renaming the bone will rename the vertex group from now on.
Another option is to simply select the mesh and go into weight paint mode, with the armature in pose mode. Clicking on a bone, which doesn't have a corresponding vertex group yet, will color the mesh in purple. When starting to weight paint on the mesh, a vertex group for the bone will be created automatically.
For this to work in 2.8, first select the Armature and then ⇧ Shift Select the Mesh and go into weightpaint mode. If the armature isn't selected you can't select the bones in weightpaint mode.


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Model refuses to move in pose mode
I'm working on a model for the VR game for school. But for some reason it refuses to move. Before it was working fine then I had to fix the tail and now it refuses to do anything. the weight painting is ok. noting is locked. the model works but it just refuses to turn the bones in pose mode... is there a fix?

I tested a bit longer my hole rotation tool doesn't seem to work?

Foun the problem myself with the help of a teacher


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How to undo applied subsurf?
I applied the subdivision modifier a while ago.
But Blender can't take it anymore I really need to undo it!
I already start over a bit with the project but I really do not feel like making the wings all over again and the hair....can someone help me?

CTRL+Z is your friend. Always test to check performance issues before applying, especially with the subdivision surface modifier, as it can really mess up your mesh. As far as directly UNDOING it, I don't know.

see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/21082/is-there-an-unsubdivide-function-in-blender

Never apply modifiers or convert curves to meshes unless strictly necessary, if you do make it as late as possible, and always keep a safe copy of the original

There is an option that could help you to "undo" an applied subdivision surface modifier, although the best options are already said in comments (ie: a real undo before closing the file or keeping an unapplied copy of the object):

here is how it works on a simple cube


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How can I make an existing mesh appear to be drawn in animation?
I have a mesh of a football field that I want to render so that it seems to be drawn onto another plane in an animation. The basic idea, in the end, is that I want to make an animation that shows a football field being created on a barren piece of land, but I first want to figure out how to do this first step of drawing the lines.
Here's my mesh:
I'd like for it to either start smack in the middle or on one of the corners, from nothing to the mesh here.
Thanks in advance.

You can use animate the size of another object (e.g. the radius of a cylinder) using keyframes, and then apply a boolean intersect modifier to your mesh.

Step by step

Create a cylinder with the middle in the point where you want the "drawing" to start. Make sure that it's thick enough to cover all the mesh on the Z direction

Scale it down on the X and Y directions hitting S then Shift+Z

Set a keyframe to the current size using I > Scaling. Then move to the end frame, scale it up (again only along X-Y with S and Shift+Z), and set another keyframe (I > Scaling).

Optionally, you can avoid the visualization of a solid cylinder by setting its maximum draw type to wire

Last, select your mesh and add a Boolean modifier, using the Intersect method and your cylinder as the reference object

Ah, thank you, that's very helpful! I think I understand.

I've added a step-by-step tutorial. Hope it helps.


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Cloth Simulator Acting Strange
This flag seems to be pulling into itself for some reason. I've been successful in creating a flag along with wind physics before, but that was with only the flag in the project.
Now, following the same steps I had done before, the below is the result when I play the animation. The only difference is that there are quite a few objects in this scene. For one, the rocks are part of a particle system.
My guess is that the flag is influenced by something else in the scene, maybe?

is your flag a plane? that means no solidify. Try turning off self collision and see if it acts up


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In Node Editor, why is the RGB Curve Node different?
My RGB Curve node looks like this:

But on most of the tutorials it looks like this:

They have the black and white channels.  I upgraded from blender 2.77 to 2.78, and I tried toggling between cycles render and blender render.  How do I get the node they are looking at?

You are totally right, when I go to compositing view (instead of expanding new windows in default view), I get the second node.  Thank you!

@3pointedit You need to '@' people, e.g. '@Cegaton'.

@Cegatron I think that you should make this reply an answer for others with the same confusion ;-) Thanks ray-maillot for the tip although I can't @ you in same reply


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If Blender API document doesn't provide enough information of a function or class, what should we do?
I ran into a fundamental problem in blender scripting. That is how to use the API document.
When I ran into a function I don't know, basically, I will check the document to understand what that is.
For example, some code employ
layers = tree.nodes.new('CompositorNodeRLayers')

Then what is that layer used for?
Ok, let's check the API doc. However, it only gives what members are in that class but never introduces what this class is used for eventually or give any examples.
https://docs.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_78_1/bpy.types.CompositorNodeRLayers.html
After reading this doc, I still have no idea what is that or how to use that.
What is the input of that node and what will be the output?
So in such situation, what should we do? How to learn blender scripting by refering this API document?
Thanks.

IMO, you won't learn any language by reading the dictionary.  Better to have a task in mind and work out how to code it, with guidance from the blender UI and the API.  Look for  context from the scripts where you have seen this one line of code "employed".

The API is for the programmatic options and things.  What is happening in that line of code is a new node is being created of the type 'R_LAYERS' in the Compositor. In short, it just makes a Render Layers node. To know more about the node, you would need to look in the manual, not the API. Render Layers Node

I think you are right. Checking Blender manual first do help in scripting.
They can help me to better understand those concepts used in blender instead of  API docs.

What helps for me: try to do your thing in Blender first, then see how you can reproduce that with Python. You can activate python tooltips to see how to convert each action into code. Go to Edit > Preferences > Interface > and check Python Tooltips. Then in Blender hover your cursor over an icon, and you will see the corresponding python code.


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Setting values of material from geometry nodes
Sorry if this is something really obvious, I'm sort of new to geometry nodes. I have a simple geometry nodes setup that distributes picture frames on a mesh. These picture frames also have a procedural slashing effect with different values that control the effect. I can't for the life of me figure out how to control the material with geonodes... For the geonodes setup, I have the modifier applied to a cube. It uses "distribute points on faces," "instance on points," and "rotate instances" to place the portraits. For the shader, there are 5 values I want to be able to control, all floats (unless there's an easier way to randomize the images? My current idea is to input a random float, and then determine the image based on the value).

I've been trying to figure this out for a while with no luck, so any help is appreciated ^^'

Using geometry nodes, you can set attributes on shaders for any value type, including floats.
First, add an output to your Geometry Nodes group.

Second, in the Geometry Node settings, create a new attribute for the output.

Third, capture the attribute in the shader.

Profit.
Here's a demo of it working:

I'm not sure why, but this didn't work for me. This is my blend file. If you could check it out and tell me what I'm missing, it would be very very very appreciated

NVM, I got it! The solution was surprisingly easy, I just had to use object info in the shading editor


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Manipulating a Pre-existing Rigg
I wanted to know if it's possible to take an pre-existing 3D rigged model, specifically this one... https://gumroad.com/l/JJuKG and have the model reworked to look more stylized, like this... https://www.artstation.com/artwork/LEme0 and have the rig expanded to give the model more cartoony exaggerations, squashing and screeching capabilities like this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esYak0NuEP0?

hello, yes you can, you can make any change to the mesh, it will still be controlable by the armature the way it is currently. As for more cartoony expressions, it depends on how it is set right now, but you can make the changes you want later.

Thank you for the clarification.


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bpy.data.textures.new(...) error to create new textures
In one discussion, they provide a way to creat textures in blender
Creating a new particle texture using python scripting
I listed the key part here
mat = bpy.data.materials['Material']
tex = bpy.data.textures.new("SomeName", 'IMAGE')
slot = mat.texture_slots.add()
slot.texture = tex

However, when I ran the command
 tex = bpy.data.textures.new("SomeName", 'IMAGE')

What I get is error

TypeError: Calling operator "bpy.ops.texture.new" error, expected a
  string enum in ('INVOKE_DEFAULT', 'INVOKE_REGION_WIN',
  'INVOKE_REGION_CHANNELS', 'INVOKE_REGION_PREVIEW', 'INVOKE_AREA',
  'INVOKE_SCREEN', 'EXEC_DEFAULT', 'EXEC_REGION_WIN',
  'EXEC_REGION_CHANNELS', 'EXEC_REGION_PREVIEW', 'EXEC_AREA',
  'EXEC_SCREEN')

It seems that there are multiple overloaded versions of function
 bpy.data.textures.new() and bpy.data.textures.new(...)
How can we use them correctly?

The error message is from incorrectly calling the operator bpy.ops.texture.new()  not the API method bpy.data.textures.new().

You have to select manually or by script object on which this texture will be applied. If the model is selected it should be highlighted or press 'R' the model should be able to rotate.


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Blender opens but is strangely unresponsive
I am using Win 7 home 64bit. I have multiple versions of blender portable installed (just an unzip), after not using it for a couple months I went to open 2.77a and it just gives me a big black screen covers everything. The computer did not freeze, other programs are still running. I can alt tab to other programs but they dont appear, like they are still hidden behind the black screen.
I restart, and I now I can get the splash screen to appear, but like before it doesn't respond and I can even click things behind it, like desktop icons, but it covers everything and nothing makes it go away short of ending the task.
Taskmanager will open in front but no other programs can. I open spotify, firefox, and windows explorer, but they remain covered by the blender splash screen when I try to switch to them by clicking the taskbar or alt tabbing. So I tried opening a different version, 2.78c, the program opens but I still see the splash screen for 2.77a, I can even see the correct program preview by hovering over the icon on the task bar. and I can see that 2.78c is running, but the 2.77a splash screen remains covering everything.
I deleted all blender installations and deleted my user data, user prefs everything I could find, downloaded a fresh zip of 2.78c unpacked it, opened and there's the same unresponsive 2.77a splash screen.
I scanned for a virus and came up empty. Any other suggestions?

What are your system specs and graphics card? Update your graphics drivers

I remembered I updated my graphics card drivers for Skyrim Special Edition. I rolled back my drivers and that fixed the problem. Blender functions normally now. I will try re-installing the newest drivers and see what happens. Thanks for the suggestions.

There have been several issues with 2.78 being slow but I think it was only win10. Maybe the solution there can help.


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Importing the height of a Waveform as geometry
i'm currently creating an audio visualizer animation and i'd really like to have the waveform sitting in the background in the form of columns that represent the shape of the actual waveform of the song.
I know that it is possible to animate anything with a waveform through the f-curve, however that only allows for animating parameters in the dimension of time and I can't find a way to use that feature for my needs, as i want the waveform to be static in space in the form of an object if that makes sense.
The only solution i could think of as of now would be to import the waveform as a picture and then manually scale the columns to match the height of the waveform, however that is way too much work for my procedural-workflow-loving brain ;)
If you have any idea on how to maybe have geometry nodes automatically scale the columns in response to the f-curve, to automatically have the columns match a generated picture of the outline of the waveform or have any other concept on how to solve this, i'd love to hear it :)

There's probably some add-on that makes this easier, but sure, it's possible with GN, using simulation nodes:

Here, I'm extruding my single vertex base geometry to make a line made up of 24 points per second (my framerate), each of which takes its height from the sound-animated empty.
This is a live mesh as shown, but if you want a static mesh, just play it until you reach the duration you're interested in, then apply the GN modifier.
You can use this technique to turn any graph in time into a graph in space.  It's not limited to sound f-curves, but it works with them.
Obviously, you can do anything you want with that waveform where time is expressed as space--  you can use any kind of mesh editing tools you want.


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Any way to hide an object while keeping its form?
I wanted to rotate within a room but rotating causes me to see the outside walls
So i wanted to hide the walls but still get the way the light is shaped by the holes in the wall (Light placed outside)
to cast onto the interior while i am working in Eevee
So far the moment I hide the geo, the light shape the holes in wall makes, will be gone too

Mix with transparency on the basis of light paths/is shadow ray, and you can make the wall invisible to the camera, but visible to your lights:

Is it possible to copy paste this material onto multiple meshes to make it Quick if applying on multiple meshes?
Also is there a way to toggle this on/off with ease like visibility can?

@jin098 absolutely, look into the use of "node groups" to easily paste this into other materials.  Exact usage (animated, or based off some other characteristic) can be built into it; this is just the basic idea.

Thank you so much Nathan you absolute god!!