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How to shade an object blue outside of my two decals using cycle nodes
I'm SUPER frustrated with the UVmapping in Blender.  I'm also a frustrated with working with nodes which admittedly is mostly my own ignorance.
I have an object I want to be blue except for the two decals I have placed.  But blue only appears on the faces that I've uvmapped the decals onto.  I've marked in the photo below some locations that should be blue.

Here is my node setup.

I must be missing something.
Here is my blend file...  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8ZnFrE6fxi_R29mZnBkXzF5dm8
EDIT:
I also tried this setup which produces the exact same unwanted result.  It is curious because it worked for the rear portion of my Zamboni but it isn't working here.

So it seems Blender is just really arbitrarily annoying and my nodes were right.
 Tried to replicate the solution provided below but have the front decal wrap around a bit...

I am so pissed at Blender right now.
Edit:
Ok it is working after I had the uvmap overflow the bounds of the image in the vertical direction like in the answer below and still have the decal wrap around a bit on the sides of the Zamboni.  Seems like a bug to me.

If you looked at my nodes you can see I employed the techniques in the link you provided.  Also, I'm trying to place two decals with two uvmaps and the link only deals with one.

Your troubles arise from the fact that UV mapping affects not only the color of the texture but (obiouvsly) also their Alpha channel. When you add a bizzarre (because of UV mapping) alpha with another alpha you get your strange behaviour.
To solve you can edit the "front" UV map so that nothing is overlapping the decal except the faces you want to be textured.
Then take the first texture and color combine it with your blue, so that everything is blue except the grid; then color combine this output with the second texture, so that everything is like the first combination except where you want the second decal.
To better understand nodes behaviour, enable the "node wrangler" addon, and control click over a node: it will instantly create an "emission viewer" shader to read the node's outputs (if you Ctrl click twice on a texture node you'll see its alpha channel).

So your basically saying I can't do what I want to do?  I can't have two decals that don't take up 100% of the uvmap they are projected onto?

I did as you suggested and it didn't work.  This program is so buggy.  Everytime I switch uvmaps it carries over the image from the previous uvmap.  I put screenshots in the OP edit.

Ok I got it working by having the uvmap overflow the bounds of the image in the vertical direction like you did and still have it wrap around the sides of the Zamboni like I needed.  Thanks for your help.  I still don't understand AT ALL why this works and the other didn't.


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Meshes imported to Unreal Engine do not show textures correctly, look like they are shadowed
After importing a model to Unreal Engine 5, the textures seem to be shadowed.
I have checked the normals via  the normal viewer and they all seem to be the correct way.
.blend:

If you believe you answered your own question then post the solution as an answer and mark that answer as the solution. This will remove the post from the "Unanswered Questions" tab and also help people in the future who might stumble across this post while googling a similar problem.

@Jakemoyo I am unable to accept my own answer as the correct answer for another 18 hours. I assume this is to discourage people from farming reputation.

No worries, just know that's the standard procedure.

Using Ctrl +  A and selecting Apply > Scale to reset the scale and then re-importing fixes the issue.

Just go into Unreal Engine locate the modeling mode in Upbar
scroll down click on normals and flip normals

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Cloth acting strange on thin object collision
I am trying to lay a cloth over the top of an square ring, but it behaves strangely. I enabled collision for all of the planks that make up the rim of where the cloth lands, and I have applied a subdivision modifier and a cloth modifier to the cloth, which is a plane that I have scaled up. I have tried increasing quality for both the cloth and the collision to no avail. I have also tried subdivision from 1 to 8, with no difference in result. I have also played around with the Tension/Compression/Sheer/Bending stats for the cloth. I have also reset the scale of the sheet.
The first photo is the edges consuming the cloth
The second photo is the structure under the cloth
The third photo is the mid-fall beginning to gravitate toward the boards at the edges. It doesn't fall like the rest of the cloth, but is instead sucked down onto the board. I'm sure this is a side effect of the problem I am having.
Blend file:

What is your collision setting? And would you provide the .blend file here: https://blend-exchange.com/

At what distance is your cloth falling from? Decreasing the distance would also help.

@ChaudhryYousuf - Thank you for the help! I applied some of the changes you recommended and it got a little better, but the planks are still "eating" the cloth. I have attached the blend file to the question as per your request. Could it have something to do with the normals of the planks themselves? It seems like there is something wrong with the actual surface of the planks. Thanks again!

Hmmm... Wait, let me try and see if I can fix it still.

Check my edit on my answer. It will fix the problem, it did it at my end when I tested it on your file.

Decrease the distance between the cloth and poles before simulating. Then, under collision on the cloth object, increase the quality to something like 10 or 15. Also, don't forget to enable self collisions.
The problem in mid simulation might be because it's the first part to touch the poles/there might be a problem in the vertex group you used as a pin group. On the collision settings on your poles decrease the thickness outer value to something like 0.001 to improve the quality of the simulation. On the cloth object, try increasing the quality steps on the top to something like 10. You can also try reducing the vertex mass if you want.
Edit: I think I found the solution after testing on your file. On each of the side sticks (the rectangular ones connecting the poles) disable single sided. Add a subsurface modifier above the cloth modifier with a level of 2 or 3. If you want to, you can also add a solidify modifier above the cloth modifier. Increase cloth quality steps to 20 or 25 (subsurface level 3 would be best) and collision quality to something like 40 or 50. Go even higher on all these settings if it still intersects slightly. The higher the quality steps/collision quality/subdivisions in the subsurface modifier, the more accurate your simulation will be.

Fantastic! These settings have solved the problem. Thanks for the help!

No problem! I hope you have fun with your project.

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


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Oblique object Numpad view problem
I have an oblique object that is NOT in the center of the 3D viewport. How can I have a front, side and a top view with Numpad 1, 3 and 7 like with an object in the 3D viewport center ?

(Not a period(. ) or slash(/) issue).

Pressing Alt+MMB on the object will center the view to the clicked area so the numbpad views and camera rotation use that as a reference if that's what you mean

Thanks for your response ! Alt and middle mouse button doesn't work ! @Cornivius

Can you show a picture of the object?

This view is with Numpad 3. I want it to be aligned with a z-axis and vertical

Do you mean that the object is rotated and you want the view to alight to the object's rotation? If so, with the object selected, press Shift+NumPad to alight the view to it. (Pressing 5 after to go into isometric view)

Thanks again. It doesn't work. Here is a picture of Shift and NumPad 1 (object selected):

Can you share the file?
The problem might be that the view will align first with the objects Origin. You'll have to press Shift+Drag with middle mouse button to put the geometry of it in focus.
Or, if you don't mind changing the origin, select the Object and go to the drop down menu Object->Set Origin->Origin to Geometry

Sorry, how do you attach a file ? @Cornivius

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/82963/how-do-you-share-a-blender-file

Do you want the object to be aligned with an axis (i.e. rotate the object) because in one comment you said "I want it to be aligned with a z-axis and vertical"? Or do you want the view aligned with the normals of a face? For the latter you need to select a face and then instead of using Numpad 1, 3 or 7 press Shift + Numpad 1, 3 or 7. However, it might automatically switch to Perspective view instead of Orthographic (it is displayed in the top left of the viewport which view you are in). To switch back to orthographic you have to press Numpad 5.

Thanks for your response but it doesn't work shift and Numpad 1, 3 or 7 ! Actually, I want something like the 11:28 AM 6/17/2024 in France picture without having to move the object to the World Origin like I just did !


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Why does my object file show up as a dot?
I completed a sculpt in the free open source 3d sculpting program Sculptris then exported it from Sculptris as a object.  but when I imported the object file into Blender  all I saw in the 3d view was a dot as the object. I do not know what do and have no idea what has caused this issue. I opened the mesh in windows 10 3d builder app and the mesh showed up normally but I am still unable to see it in Blender.  Does anyone know how to solve this problem?
I tried to scale the object to see if maybe the mesh was too big in the 3d view but I still saw nothing show up besides the dot.
Here is a picture of what it looks like:

The object file I am trying to export is 24.8 MIB. If you want to know how big it is.  Please let me know if you know of a solution because I am so frustrated from this issue.
Here is the link to the blend file: http://www.mediafire.com/file/jpajin1epe8bvko/myobjectfile.blend

Can you upload your .blend somewhere? You can try http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ but I am not sure whether your file is not too big for that.

Yes, I tried to upload my blend file and it said that my file was too big.

Here is the link to the blend file: http://www.mediafire.com/file/jpajin1epe8bvko/myobjectfile.blend

The "Dot" is the Origin of your Object.

The reason and the solution is actually pretty simple, your model is just way too big and placed high (Z axis).
If you set the scene units to meters, it shows your figure is 5 kilometers tall :)
Just scale it down like this:

How do you open the transform window?

Nevermind I figured it out.

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


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How do you cut off part of a mesh you don't want?
I made a clothing mesh in the program  Sculptris a open source sculpting progam and then exported the mesh to Blender 3d. When I made the mesh in Sculptris I made alot mistakes on the pant leg and I do not like the way it looks  so I want to delete the part of the pant legs and redo it. However,  I do not know how to delete parts of mesh I do not like.  I am still much a newbie to Blender, I understand most the basics of the program but I am still learning all the tools in Blender.  I am sorry this such a newbie question.  Can you please explain it to me of what is the tool to use and how to use it?

You should probably star by watching some beginner tutorials first

Switch to Edit Mode.
You can do this by going to the Tab (Don't know what to call it) near the bottom, most likely called Object Mode and clicking it followed by Edit Mode. You can also press the Tab key, which is the shortcut.
All of the vertices should be selected, which you can tell if they are orange. We don't want all of the vertices selected. Press A to deselect all the vertices, it should go from orange to black.
Now you need to select the area you would like to delete. Press B and drag over the area desired. Make sure to rotate around the model since it won't select the vertices on the other side (and I don't know how to fix that but it should work either way)
After the vertices of the desired area has been selected press X and then click 'Vertices'
Hope this helps.

B is not the only selection tool, though: see https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/meshes/selecting/introduction.html#selection-tools and deselecting the "limit selection to visible" edit mode 3d view setting will make the selection work "on the other side" too...

Now you need to select the area you would like to delete. Press B and
  drag over the area desired. Make sure to rotate around the model since
  it won't select the vertices on the other side (and I don't know how
  to fix that but it should work either way)

In regard to this issue, I would just add, that to spare yourself from rotating the object all around, go to the front view (on Numpad press 5 to change to user Ortho and press 3 for the front view).
Then pres Z that will show your mesh transparent so when you are selecting the vertices from one side using mentioned method (B than drag), the vertices are going to be selected from both sides.

You can slice mesh in sculpt mode using "Mask Slice and Fill Holes" function.

While this is a valid option, could you please add some more details to your answer how masking would be used?

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


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How to remove this "edit mode" shadow thing?
So I'm trying to render a character using cycles blender, I go to edit mode and subdivide a part and this glossy texture shows up when you render it, I'm trying to get a smooth texture.

Idk how to remove it, can anyone tell me how to smooth this thing up?

Upload your blend file so that others can see what you're doing. Use http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/.

A file would be great but it would help even more if you [edit] the question and explain on which step - subdividing in Edit mode, assigning a texture and rendering - do you get unexpected behaviour and what are you trying to achieve.

Adding a subsurface modifier to the mesh worked for me.
Before:

After:


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Circular Array Modifier places subject too far
I've been following few tutorials on how to use the Array Modifier to duplicate objects around something. I'm going mad as for some reason it places the arrayed objects ridiculously far from each other, I can't even see them but its dimension is X:38515587km ... As shown below.
The way I did it:

created a circle
placed its origin to somewhere away
set the 3D cursor to the origin of the previously created circle
created an empty
added an array modifier to the circle
set object offset and other stuff according to the screenshot

What am I doing wrong?

According to the screenshot you didn't include one sttep which is scaling object. Try applying scale for the object which is arrayed.

It's doing some random stuff, not sure how to do that. The circles are out of control, their size and location is out of control ;(

YEAH I've found out! I was scaling the circles in object mode, doing it in edit mode fixed the issue!!!!

@MrZak Now I see what you mean. Thanks, thats much simpler fix.


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How to do proportional editing and keeping wall thickness?
I've got an object to edit, figured out how to proportional edit it, but now its wall thickness is ruined. How to address this issue?
As the image shows, the inner and the outer surface of the wall of the edited hull got far away from each other (The top part of the hull is being hidden).

Hello :). Please add some images to illustrate the issue. There could be many reasons for this.

Hello! :) I have updated the question, thanks for the feedback!

Your mesh is very dense and your topology is triangles instead of quads. This will make it harder to control your mesh no matter what tool you use. If you keep it quads, you can easily select edge and face loops, to facilitate tweaking the form. Also, keeping the mesh low poly, and only adding geometry where needed to establish the vital form, will help allow you to change the overall shape without things getting out of control. Proportional editing can help get some control back over very dense forms. But it's still better to keep things as light as possible.

Just out of curiosity - why not use proportional editing on both outer and inner wall at once?

..or you might be able to delete the inner skin, and use a Solidify modifier instead, that would depend on sharp concave areas, and whether you're looking for a constant wall thickness.


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Newby Question: Meshes rotating transforming unexpectedly
I have a model that I have been working on for weeks.
Blender has now started to behave unexpectedly (to my eyes!)... and I do not know where to look for 'the' setting!
When I rotate a mesh ... some other meshes are rotating as well. This is not related to parenting (AFAIK). I have even added a new mesh to the model ... rotated this new mesh and a 'seemingly random' selection of other meshes start rotating as well. Not all of the other meshes are rotating, just 3 or 4.
As you can imagine ... frustrating since I cannot see what has changed.
Where should I look to fixing this?
Thanks.
Additional Info:
I have just selected a parent object that has always worked as expected. Now when I drag the object along an axis ... the child objects move along that same axis ... but at different rates ... thus loosing their alignment with the parent.
I am certain this is an obvious UI box somewhere :-) rather than some sort of data corruption!

From your description it seems you have coincidently activated Proportional Editing (shortcut: O). This lets you translate other objects (or vertices in Edit Mode) proportionally in distance to the selected object(s). The radius of influence can be changed with the scroll wheel.

Thank you ... my life in now restored !

@Folbo You could accept the answer to thank me ;)

There is a time limit to thanking ... and accepting (probably since I was editing my question as you replied) ... but a huge and genuine THANK YOU. :-)

There is a time limit? Didn't know that. Maybe because I get distracted and do something else before looking again into a question... :D


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Navigating from perspective to ortho pressing ALT not working anymore
So when navigating with Blender I can go from USER PERSPECTIVE to ortho view (front, back,etc) by pressing ALT, but for some reason this changed to just perspective or ortho. Meaning that if I'm in USER PERSPECTIVE by pressing ALT it just goes to perspective view (front, back, top), so I have to change to ORTHO USER to be able to use the ortho views by pressing ALT.
I want to know how I can revert this the way It used to be so that I can go from USER PERSEPCTIVE to ortho views without having to change the whole navigation view.
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM6oOt9-GWM&ab_channel=PolyCrate
thanks!

The easiest way is to use the Numpad - 1=Front, 3=Side, 7=Top, 9=Invert, 5=Toggle Ortho/User perspective.

I still don't understand why Blender changed this, when I revert to factory settings I'm able to go from USER PERSPECTIVE to ORTHO views with ALT without any issues. I don't know If it was something I might unintentionally pressed or If the program just got bugged.

Sorry, I'm just trying to understand. As far as I know, even with factory settings, Alt (on its own) does nothing to change user/ortho perspective. How exactly did it work before? What version of blender was it? Things have been this way since at least 2.80 (I can't remember 2.79 and before and no longer have a version to check).

I'm running 1.93.5, here I uploaded a video to make it clear : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM6oOt9-GWM&ab_channel=PolyCrate

Oh, I see, For me it works if I'm already in the middle of a viewport orbit (middle mouse button pressed and mouse moving), then holding Alt - it snaps to the nearest ortho. when you "scroll by" it. Is this it? If I hold Alt first and then try orbiting, I get a timeline scrub instead.

Yes, but the snapping doesn't go to ortho view but perspective, like shown in the video. The only way to make it work is to revert to factory settings, but when I restart the program the issue comes back again even If I save It as a startup file. It's driving me crazy.

Yeah, sorry. I can't seem to be able to reproduce that, so I don't think I can be much help.  It's strange that it survives a startup save.

It is, I had to go into the blender file settings and delete the folder to do a clean swipe. It was the only way I found to solve the problem, I really hope It doesn't come back.

I solved the problem by going to Preferences > Navigation > Orbit & Pan check "Auto Perspective" parameter.
And voila Alt + Middle Mouse Button goes to ortho and perspective when you move mouse navigation view normally.


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When I am trying to extrude it's creating a loop cut like thing around it, how to get rid of it?
I am new to blender and I am trying to extrude (pressed the hotkey "E") an object it is creating a cut in the middle of the object. Here are some screenshots
Can any one please tell how to get rid of that cut.

hello, where are you trying to extrude exactly?

@moonboots posted a picture that where am I trying to extrude please check

if you select the top and extrude upwards, it will leave an edge loop, its seems normal to me, it's an extrusion, if you don't want to leave an edge loop, just move the selection up. Now, if you want to get rid of this edge loop, select it and dissolve with Ctrl X

I believe you can just move top part by pressing G

@Crantisz Thank you so much, it worked for me !!!


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Object disappears when applying curve modifier
I am trying to have an object's position map to a curve. I have drawn a curve, extended it a few times using an array modifier, converted it to a mesh to apply the modifier and then back to a curve, and created a cylinder to travel along the curve.

When I apply the curve modifier, the object disappears in object mode and isn't visible in render, but is still visible, unmodified, in edit mode. Changing the deform axis makes no difference.

If I remove the modifier, the cylinder reappears. Strangely, if I open a new blank project and use the same technique, it works fine. So it seems to be an issue just in this project. Is there anyone with any idea of what is going on or why my object might be disappearing/not mapping?
Here is the file: https://pasteall.org/blend/5223d9832d2e43d1ac1ab31717a69796

hello, could you please share your file? https://pasteall.org/blend/

Just did! The link is in the question. Here it is again https://pasteall.org/blend/5223d9832d2e43d1ac1ab31717a69796 @moonboots

Open the N panel: Your curve has a X scale of 0, bring it back to 1 and rather go in Edit mode and scale 0 on X (or apply the scale of the object and bring its vertices radius back to 1). Then you just need to correctly orientate your cylinder, for example RX90 in Edit mode then in the modifier choose Deform Axis > Z then move it on Y so that it follows the curve.


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when I add a circle it comes like that?

I have encountered a problem when adding a circle in blender. the circle appears like that in the image while I in object mode. as you can see it is only for lines not a circular shape. what's the reason for this problem and how can I fix it. is the problem in the software or in my gpu.

Looks like a drawing issue. Please check that your GPU fulfills the minimum requirements and update your graphics driver.

How exactly do you add circle? Does it happen with a new file? Try go to File > Defaults > Load Factory

Edit your question and add more information on the GPU you are using.


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Is there a limit to the number of objects that one material can be applied to?
I have a file with lots of objects referring to the same image texture.
I have added a few more objects that use the same material and the new objects render black when using the Cycles engine - they also cause one of the original objects that was previously rendering fine to render black as well - if I remove the material from the new objects all of the original objects render fine.
If I apply a different material with a different image texture to the new objects they render as expected.
I am sure this is a simple newbie mistake but it's got me beaten and I have google around with no success.[

I can't seem to get the file below 40Mb to use Blend-Exchange so I have put a version in dropbox (I hope this is acceptable) https://www.dropbox.com/s/k44ny1a5xxe4x0u/ECBCutdownPACKED1.blend?dl=0

what render engine do you use? does your material have transparency? glass node?

Hello and welcome. I would recommend to attach some screenshots of the viewport showing the objects with the material applied and eventually a rendered part showing the result. This way it would be easier to see what your talking about. Generally a material should not cause a problem if applied to many objects, so a visual would help point out a problem. Best case would be a redacted blend file, with only the problem parts. You can edit your question and add that using Blend-Exchange.

You didn't pack your image into the file. From the Blender header menu: File > External Data > Pack All to .blend. This will pack all external data into your file

BTW that stick seems to not using the same material compare to other WoodPrank. It is a duplicated one which has .001 as a postfix in material name


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Part Of Mesh Becomes Inverted After Parenting To Armature
I am attempting to use Kinect V2 for motion capture in blender. After playing around with locations and rotations of bones I finally found out what was causing the unintended contortions in my mesh, but one problem still remains. The character's hip region is deformed but the rest of the character is fine, so I'm not sure what is causing this. Pictures are below:

Here is the link to the blender file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzB2Ay4lZC0ocnM5TFIyWm84cUU/view?usp=sharing .

What is your question?

My question is why does this occur and how can I fix it.

I think You must apply the trasformations of the character. The origin point is so far from the armature too. Try to make the armature and the character the same size and align both.


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Snakeskin geometry tightening
I'm trying to create a displacement map for realistic snakeskin. Have tried 'cutting' into the skin to create the creases between scales...but looking at reference photos the scales are really tight. Each scale bulges, almost overlapping the next. Would I be better to use spheres and deform them/bulge them somehow?  How might I achieve this bulging?

(edit) some way there to figuring this out. modelled a singular scale and using a particle system with very slight random variations across particle system.

(edit 2) exported rough displacement map (need to make seamless somehow while retaining randomness from particles...) added some noise and basic material

Later on I'll provide this method: https://imgur.com/U7AQPQO it's pure mesh based approach with modifiers workflow, so it's pretty non-destructible.

The osl script here makes a good scales texture.


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Animation Node 2.0 Object Instancer question
we're trying to understand how Animation Node 2.0 work.
We usually use Cinema 4d and mograph, but we would like to try blender.
I've noticed that object instancer accept only a single object, and i cannot use a group as input, neither a object list or something else.
parenting object doesn't help too.
Join is not considered, because let's say that we want to animate all sphere with their center, and keep al as parametric as possible.
I'm sure i'm doing some mistake.
Someone can help us please?
Thanks in advance.
Max.

There is no way to instance multiple objects at the same time. But of course there is a way to do what you want, would you like me to write an answer about that?

Hi Omar, thanks for reply. Well i suppose that using same node with other objects will work, or something like this.
But may be this will be a bit long and tediuos if we got a lot of object. I assume we can also use group imported as link to have just a single object.
Will be more easy maybe with Sverchok ?
Or if you have a fast alternative and you can show to us will be nice.
Thanks a lot.
Max.

Animation Nodes is a powerful system, but it is bare bones in certain aspects. The best way to make something like your scene is by using procedural methods.
Lets say you have m number of polygons, you want n number of spheres to be sticking out of each face, then you should instance a sphere m*n number of times. To position the spheres we will need the polygons centers and normals. We will repeat the list of the centers and normals n number of times to match the number of spheres. All we have to do is to set the location of the sphere to the the center plus the normal multiplied by some factor, the problem is that there will be n number of sphere at each face. So to solve this, the factor will be constant for each layer of spheres but increases by each layer. From that reasoning, we can implement this like this (Let me know if you need a more detailed explanation):

This will result in:

Thank you Omar! you gave us a lot material to work on. We will check your nodes and try something. THe real problem we will have is that we wish to replicate some parts of a spaceship. Those parts are parented and maybe will be animated too. So we need to use a group or parent tree. But this great example you made for us will help anyway to better understand AN. Thanks a lot !


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Menu disappeared
This issue seems to be specific to my OS(Win 10).On my previous laptop everything worked fine.Here the menu with the file with the 'file,render etc' options isn't available isn't visible.
And the window is as fully maximized as it could be.

In the screenshot my mouse cursor isn't visible either.
Also the text, menu and stuff in the lowest portion isn't fully visible.
Kindly help.
Thanks.
[Please forgive my ignorance if I got any term wrong, I'm a new user.]

You probably accidentally closed the "info window".
Here's what you can do:

Create a new "window" (by dragging the top-right corner of any frame down or left)

On the window view selector (on the bottom-left corner of the "window"), select "info" from the dropdown.

You can then select a new Layout and work from there

The layout is already in default.And there still seems to be a hidden window.Clicking on the info icon in the view selector doesn't seem to work unless in fullscreen.It seems glitchy.
Everything seems to work perfectly fine in fullscreen,tho.
I'll try updating the drivers, as indicated some other post then update if the issue was resolved.

Oh! I thought the problem was every time... Then, my answer does not apply.


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First attempts with SSS - where is the nose?
I am trying to make the skin for my female mesh and watched some tutorials on Skin Shaders. I tried to rebuild YanSculpts Tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktsyL2Kp5bQ&t=388s and the result looked like his ... on the sphere.
When I append the material to my mesh file and use it, it looks way more glossy strangely. Maybe the lighting? or what could it be?
What bugs me more though is that everything is so washed out. I cannot even make out the nose anymore ... why is that? Do I need to manually add some kind of Ambient Occlusion?
This is the tutorial result for me, which I like:

This is my mesh with the skin texture minus the bump - why can I not make out the features at all - I even like the solid shaded version better than this. I took out some lights. With stronger lights the nose is even less visible ...

These are the nodes, but they should be the same in both, except that the female mesh has no bump yet and a slightly different color

This is the mesh with just a plain diffuse shader and no sss, no glossy, besides it not looking like skin, at least I can make out the facial features.

The SSS BSDF ist highly scale dependant. Try changing the scale value to compensate the size difference of your two models.

@Leander Ok, will do. The hair and breasts are dynamic too though. So they might behave differently then as well, right? So maybe changing the values of the nodes is better than the scale of the female mesh (which is around 2 blender units tall). The sphere is the standard size (1 blender unit?).

Yes change the scales of the material setup.


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Blender uses CPU instead of GPU
I'm using Blender 3.5 with Cycles.
My stats are:
Processor: 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-11400 @ 2.60Ghz
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
RAM: 32GB

I've disabled my CPU in the Preferences. The CPU usage shows no more than 10%.
Sometimes I get an error when trying to render that GPU is out of memory, even though I can see, that the GPU usage rate doesn't go above 20%.
*In Render Viewport Mode, my stats show the GPU remaining untouched, and it's usage rate not moving, while the CPU usage rate jumps to 80%. It's obvious that despite all the settings Blender is NOT using my GPU but instead my CPU. Worth to mention that my CPU is overheating up to 90 degrees when in Render viewport and when rendering. *
How can I render with GPU instead of CPU?

Hi do you have a question we can answer? Blender doesn't overheat your computer, if it overheats is due to hardware problems. Either poor ventilation, poorly installed or inadequate cooling. Neither of these are on topic here, nor problems we could help you with without access to your hardware or at least knowing what is installed.

Please read carefully. It's not a hardware issue. I don't want to repeat myself again. I'm clearly stating that Blender is using my CPU instead of GPU despite all the settings. This is a software problem. @DuarteFarrajotaRamos

I have greatly condensed your post to highlight the problem. Please check, that the content still represents your problem. Otherwise just roll back the edit. =)

Make sure that you have selected a Cycles Render Device.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/179174/110840

I'm using CUDA and I've disabled CPU there. OptiX does not seem to work for me. @AlpineWorldCup

@AllenSimpson It's not the same issue, because I've disabled the CPU from all settings, and it's still using it instead of the GPU.  Updating the tile size seems useless since it's not using the GPU at all, I have no issue with the render time, my problem is that it's overheating my CPU, instead of using the GPU.

The CPU remains the brain of your machine and will be still be used while the GPU renders, even for simple tasks like handling data. It can get significantly used when your render exceeds your GPU's memory. Combine that with how Windows' task manager isn't accurately showing your GPU usage by default and it's really easy to think your CPU does the render instead of the GPU, but unless there's a massive bug, it isn't the case.

If you checked all the above, and you are sure it's not just your scene overflowing your GPU or your task manager set up incorrectly, then the only thing you can do is go to the menu Help > Report a bug and provide a sample scene in your bug report. There's nothing else we can do here for that matter.

If on the contrary it might be your scene overflowing, or another issue you have control over, we can gladly help you with that! But you will need to make those checks first, give us the result, and we'll see where we can explore from there.

How do you know the GPU is not used? Why do you trust whatever resource monitoring software you are using? GPU usage might not be reported correctly. You could test by render time. There are benchmarks for many GPU models online. I would recommend finding out if you actually have a problem. Also if you render many very fast rendering frames, GPU might not get the chance to work if the most work is loading the scene and writing files.

Oh yeah, nice to mention that. Short renders into PNGs can have this weird result of 90% of your time spent on waiting for files to write instead of rendering. Could also just be, again, a heavy scene with data to load/unload at each frame. Enabling Persistent Data when possible can save lots of troubles there.

Re: overheating CPU - https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/221732/110840

Thank you all for the help. I will definitely report a bug since the scene is really not that heavy, given I've limited the display and render size of textures too. And I will definitely try OptiX, hopefully it will reduce the problem.

You are already using the GPU for rendering(most likely). If you install latest drivers, set up the System tab in Preferences correctly choosing OptiX(preferably) or CUDA for Nvidia RTX GPUs and then select GPU Compute as Device in Render Properties tab, Properties Editor that is all you need to do.
You should not concern yourself with what statistics Windows Task Manager or Resource Monitor reports - they are incorrect. Other hardware monitoring software may also report incorrect GPU usage. That does not matter. What should matter is the time your renders take.

Sometimes I get an error when trying to render that GPU is out of
memory, even though I can see, that the GPU usage rate doesn't go
above 20%.

Again - you cannot see actual usage, it's shown incorrectly, but even if it was correct(which it isn't) this would make sense, because if the scene does not fit into memory, rendering computations will not start because the data cannot be loaded into VRAM so there is nothing the GPU can be used for in that scenario, except trying to load the scene. Also usage has nothing to do with memory, so even if usage was low, GPU can still run out of memory. But this does not matter, because once again - you cannot see GPU useage.
Here is my GPU definitely rendering a complex(in terms of lighting) archviz scene:

And here it is with Blender closed:

...CPU usage rate jumps to 80%...

That's right. CPU is used no matter what during rendering. It needs to be used for preparing and loading the scene and for managing the render process. That is to be expected.

...my CPU is overheating up to 90 degrees when in Render viewport and
when rendering.

It's not a hardware issue.

This temperature is an issue for hardware whether you like it or not. It is possible it might eventually lead to hardware problems. Although from my experience hardware is not that easy to damage, and it will more likely lead to unexpected unexplained crashes in the middle of the night on weekend in an office computer left to render visualisations for a meeting with a client 10 am on Monday... because of course it will. Computers are sometimes not built with rendering in mind and it is not uncommon for CPU coolers not to be adequate for rendering especially if the PC is not meant to be a "workstation" computer. You might want to address that. If you are lucky, simply adjusting cooling settings in the UEFI might be enough to fix it.

Thanks, Martynas, that makes sense. I wasn't using Task Manager to track the heat and usage, but a different software.
I understand there isn't much to do, I'm just generally confused since as I said I haven't had such issues on older Blender versions, even when using a laptop. I've made some a lot more complex scenes on a laptop than the one that's causing me problems right now. I will still report a bug issue, but will definitely try to work on the cooling system and see what I can do about it.

The other answer is true in most cases (and it seems this case), sometimes people did not configure it properly, so I will go through the steps on how to set it all up. Keep in mind that I am using Linux, so if anything looks odd that is why.

go to Edit > Preferences
go to System
make sure that Cuda is checked (for nVidia devices) and choose your GPU

It should look like this

Then make sure that you have the device set to GPU Compute in the Render tab.
Note that it will sometimes reset it after closing Blender.

now start rendering and check your gpu usage.
for windows go to task manager and for linux go to terminal and type nvidia-smi

Note that according to "GPU not rendering in Cycles" -

Windows Task Manager doesn't show CUDA utilization by default (which is what Cycles uses). To have that show up, click on the "3D" above the graph and choose "Cuda" or "Compute_0" in the drop down that pops up. It will then show correct utilization.


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Texture not visible behind glass in Eevee?
Textures don't show up behind glass in Eevee, I can see the object but it's missing the textures. I guess it should work so I must do something wrong...
An example:

This is general setup https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/189727/2214 just missing texture but object visible is weird, can you attach screen to your Q or material node tree? Or simplified blend file via https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

Worth reading: 15 limitations of real time rendering

I'm aware of these limitations, mostly, but this issue is not listed. And I'm pretty sure I saw textures behind refractive materials in video games before...

I figured it out - I edited my answer to reflect the changes. Notice that in the new graph I used, I mixed a Glass BSDF with the Glossy instead of a Diffuse like in my first example.

EDIT - Solved
You had the blend mode on the textured cube set to Alpha Blend, this stopped the refraction. You still need to use Alpha Blend on the Transparent cube however, as well as using more than a plain Glass BSDF node.
Alpha Blend:

Opaque:

Thanks! I can see the textures but there is no refraction...

Great, that was it, thank you!

Why just don't change Texture Cube to Alpha Opaque? Simple Glass works for me ...


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Texture painting freeze lag
I've started to learn texture painting in blender today, and unfortunately i'm coming across some type of issue.  here's an example of what it looks like: https://i.sstatic.net/fyMxo.jpg
It looks like some kind of lag, but i've never had any slowdown problems in blender.  The texture size is 2014, but this happens with any texture size or brush settings.  I've tried multiple Blender versions and they all give me the same issue.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.
just some more info: i have latest gpu drivers, using 1080, and use various other programs without any issues.  so i'm not sure what the cause of this problem is


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Camera view shows transparent object
This is how my imported stl looks inside the view port in Blender 2.92:

When I view it through the camera it looks like this:

The object seems to be transparent which is not what I want. Any suggestions on how I can make it look like in the view port?
Edit:
Please note that I want to create a svg from the front view of the object. This is why I set the camera far away from the object and increased the focal length, to obtain straight object lines:

It seems to help when I switch from perspective to orthographic:

I am still not sure which camera settings I should choos for my use case (create svg in Blender's Freestyle addon). I thought of having a tele camera and therefore choose the perspective view with a high focal length. Which settings do you suggest?

This is just because you are viewing it from the front. Move the camera a bit in any direction, and it should look better. You could also give the text a different color in rendering. It isn't transparent, just hard to see

Thank you for your help, I need to have the camera look straight at the object because I want to use Freestyle to obtain a svg. I should have added, that I am not really concerned about the text. What bugs me are the openings (especially the right hole) which seem to shine through the object.

Go to your camera properties and turn the clip start down to get rid of the hole. If you need more elaborate instructions let me know.

Thank you this was also one issue I initially had. I have added more images showing the settings. And I think using the orthographic view seems to help in my case. But I though using a perspective camera with high focal length would suite my needs.

Do you know why the perspective camera creates a transparent object?

If you want to look at the inside an object, you just get close to it until you pass though the mesh. This is why it clips though. Though it may not seem like it, your object is too close to your camera, and your camera is clipping though it. However, in orthographic, you cant look inside an object, which is why the problem is removed. Reducing the clip start means that you have to get closer to the object to see through it. The fact that orthographic fixes it is just because of the rule that you can't look inside objects while in that mode. It isn't the best solution, but it works.


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Images as planes (Video texture) not working with cycles
I am coming from Maya, and this is my first project in Blender (Maya  is too expensive).
I was using images as texture to use an mp4 file. So I got my node setup, it would refresh the texture when I am previewing it in the viewport(by dragging the timeline) but while rendering it out, It won't update the texture. Perhaps it works fine with eevee, its just cycles, but then again, eevee renders bad and cycles doesn't update .
If anyone knows how to make these work with cycles, Please let me know.
Evee renderer

Here is my node setup (I don't think rest of the node setup is related to this problem, so I didn't include it as there is no space to include that).

From what I see on screens and tested even with binding cameras, it works all fine, so if no one here, please attach your blend just with screen object ( if the issue persists) via https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

@vklidu I have embedded the blend file. Note how it renders just fine while using evee renderer but it does not update while using cycles renderer

Attached file works for me (Cycles or Eevee). I had to attach my anim.mp4, but I don't think it can be issue, more of that when it works for Eevee for you. Did you try the file you attached? Issue is there for you?

I actually did try rendering it out, it did not work, and I even created a new file, Made a plane, attached the video file and it still won't work with cycles.

Since I cant reproduce the issue hard to help. You can try to pack the video texture if it is not big, but seems to me weird it can be the case. Does it happen with another video texture as well or only with this specific?

Let me try it with another video, and Let me also try rendering it on my 2nd pc, if it does not work I will send you the whole project file. I will get back to you asap

Try open a new blend and go to File > Defaults > Load Factory probably some add-on cause the issue, still cant believe it works for one engine and not for more proved cycles? Or try my video to avoid some codec issue you use with other your videos https://www.dropbox.com/s/41cno0s8310bm37/test.mp4?dl=0

so here is an update
I had only one addon, that was for maya controls(Blender controls are too hard for me)
I restored the factory defaults, and imported your video file this time, I rendered with eeve, it works, but when I switch it up to cycles, It would render the first frame only(like before).

Try different build 2.9x ... I'm quit, I don't have more advices :) Graphic card bug??? Sorry

https://youtu.be/nPq3-6SsC7o here is whats actually happening i am using blender 2.83.5

maybe I will swtich to octane build :/

Here it is https://developer.blender.org/T79952 bug in 2.83 LTS (works in 2.9x). Since it is LTS version, should be fixed. It has high priority, confirmed, but not fixed yet.

yeah, I switched to octane edition and cycles works fine in that, anyway thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

It is a bug (any version newer than 2.83.4), This is fixed in 2.90 beta and 2.91 alpha.
Thanks @vklidu for helping me out.
developer.blender.org/T79952


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Transparent Background in render result but not in exported image
As the title said, when I view the rendered result it looks fine and it shows the transparent background :
Meanwhile, when i try to export it as a png it has a black background:
I have already tried to change the rgb thing with rgba but it exports as a white circle in a white background :

I do not know what caused this since im fairly new to blender but here are the picture of the nodes in case i did something wrong :
In case this is helpful, ill post the blender file here : https://drive.google.com/file/d/11VMxSpttG-cvmPSFXbfLteBW3Jh2ED0k/view?usp=sharing
EDIT: By exporting the image, I meant saving the image in my computer. When I save as RGBA it shows the sphere but no glare effect in what appears to be a white/transparent? background.

While when I save as only RGB it saves as the sphere with the glare effect, but with a black background.

How are you viewing the saved PNG? Some viewing applications automatically show transparent pixels as black (i.e., essentially ignore the alpha channel)

it works fine for me, as NeverConvex says, it may be because of your image editor app?

Your Alpha is set to 0 in the Composite node, try setting it to 1, as per default.

Try to connect the Render Layers's Alpha with the Composite's Alpha socket.

same here, works fine. Maybe you can explain us what you mean with "when i try to export it"?

In Compositing, connect Alpha socket of Render Layers node to Alpha socket of Composite node.


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Animation moves clothes on torso even though only leg bones are rotated
Fairly new using blender. I am trying to place a jacket mesh on a model. I have added the armature modifier from the model and transferred the weight from the rig/model to the mesh, however when I try to add a simple animation to the hip/thigh bone, the jacket is following that animation and is "ripped" back exposing the skin. Anybody know what is going on here?

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

The problem is that the jacket mesh is moving when leg/hip bones are rotated, which is unexpected, since the jacket should not be influenced by those bones or at least was not intended. I am asking how to prevent the jacket mesh from being moved when the leg/hip is rotated.

When the body mesh moves correctly and the jacket is a separate mesh you can try to transfer the weights from the body to the jacket with the Data Transfer modifier.

Yeah, I think I sort stumbled upon that in my quest to fix this, the mesh stays in place now the weight is 0 on all the lower extremities. However I discovered it may also be due to the fact that the mesh is not properly attached to the rig. When I move an arm the armor does not follow (which may be the initial underlying issue, the weights are just  dealing with a symptom not the root cause).

I think I figured it out through some intense fiddling. I selected my jacket mesh and went into edit mode, clicked x-ray and selected the entire mesh, clicked on the green triangle button to display the vertex groups, for each of the bones in the legs I set the weight down to 0 and clicked apply (I had to go into pose mode to figure out what they were all called). After that my the mesh stayed in place. I am sure I will have a lot of "fun" with all the other meshes I plan to make...  There are likely better solution for this since it seems quite elaborate, that you would need to do this every time you make a new mesh.


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Importing blender file into unity and adding as UMA recipe seriously deforms model
New to blender and Unity. I've skinned and rigged a jacket onto a base UMA male model with simple animations that seems to work in blender 2.93.4.

After I saved as a regular blender file and imported it into Unity I created a slot from the mesh in the blender file using UMA_Diffuse_Normal_Metallic material, checked overlay, create receipe, binary, calculate tangents and add to global library. I added the materials to the overlay file created. Added human male and human male DCS to race in the recipe file as well as dragged the overlay into it, specified chest, and hides male torso, I also dragged the recipe into the global library. After I added the recipe to the default wardrobe in the Avatar object, the new mesh is shown, however it is all twisted and weird.
Anybody know why and how to fix this?

The mesh of the jacket has duplicated vertices and unconnected vertices, especially on the model's right side.
Back view (after the removal of the duplicated verts the unconnected verts had been still there)

Front view (with Face Orientation overlay)

Merge these vertices in Edit mode by selecting all vertices and then M > Merge By Distance. In the Adjust Last Operation popup (bottom left at the screen) increases the distance to 0.004. (The default value only removes 24 verts but keeps the unconnected verts on the right side.)

Thanks a bunch for your answer, I will try this.


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Scale - X to 0 then mirror X Axis, some vertices still off
I was done with sculpting the detail in Mulitres lvel 5 on my humanoid when I noticed that some edgeloops on the thinghs are bad for animation.
I cut the model in half and adjusted the edge loops, then added a mirror modifier.
The merging vertices were not all aligned so I thought I can just scale the x to 0 to have them all on one plane and then add the mirror modifier.
But when I adjust the merge limit on the mirror modifier it shows that some vert merge together faster than others - so they are still not all on the same x Value.
Anyone know why?
PS: The holes do not show on level 0 of the humanoid, but If I up the level of Multires the holes (or the messy structure if the merge limit was too high) are visible.
Edit: Gif to illustrate it

I think it has to do with the order of the Multires and the Mirror Modifier - but I cannot move the mirror modifier over the Multires Modifier. So I suppose I have to use Symmetrize instead of the Mirror Modifier?

Perhaps you have to apply the rotation of your object? But I'm not sure I've understood properly... maybe make some screenshots?

When having issues with the Mirror Modifier I often add an Empty and set that as the Mirror Object. You can also increase the Merge Limit and turn on Clipping

The Scaling to X 0 actually worked. They all have the exact same value. It seems to be the Multires modifier (with the previously sculpted information) that is problematic. They are all on one line on multires level 0 (in edit mode) but not on level 1, 2, 3 ...


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Normal Map has seams when applied in Cycles
I baked it with bake type normal, space tangent in blender cycles. The map itself seems to look fine, but when applied to the normal slot it looks broken at the seams.

I had to set the image texture to Non-Color-Data.
Now it works.


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Animation: How to bake physics to export to Sketchfab
Following this tutorial
How to make rig that reacts to gravity or seem to behave physically correct?
I made this animation

I am having trouble to bake it/export it so I can display the animated chains in Sketchfab or so. I tried exporting the mesh as alembic and then baking the action to keyframes but that did not seem work.
Here is the file (Blender 2.8):
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=51625

Select the toruses and the rig then export it to fbx. In the fbx exporter "Main" tab (lower left corner) check in "Selected objects". In the "Animation" tab disable "All actions" and "NLA Strips".

That works. Thank you! So if I leave "All actions" and "NLA Strips" checked they override the armature animation or why is that?

If you disable this options you will export what you see. The aramture movement made by two components: 1. A LocRotScale information, what you save in the actions with keyframes 2. The Constraints which also affects the bones. If you leave checked these options you will export only the LocRotScale values, the constraints won't do anything.


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2 issues with Multires Modifier
I have two problems. They are both visible in the gif.
1.) The Sculpt level 0 shape/silhouette hardly resembles the Sculpt level 1 silhouette. I doubt I can bake a good normal map to level 0 if the silhouette is so different. Is that supposed to be that way or can it be avoided?
2.) After I did some sculpting on different multires levels I begin to have stray vertices coming out from the mesh in some places, only visible on certain multires levels. If I smooth them back in then it messes up the other levels (then the other multires level show strange vertices too), if I smooth them back in then I get the same issue on the other multires level again. Anyone know why that is?

Edit: Q1  was solved by MrZaks tip to click "apply base" and the stray vertices Q2 were gone when I cleaned up the topology inside the mouth.

Well what works a bit is that I can duplicate the model, delete the multires modifier,  add a shrink wrap modifier. That makes the low res mesh kinda have the shape that I want. Still weird.

Do you have an actual question or is this just a rant?

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Those are meant as questions. Why is the silhouette so different - did I do something wrong? What is the reason for those sharp points coming out from the mesh?

You should probably edit your question and rephrase it so it matches this comment, removing any extraneous text

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos ok, I did that

This is probably some kind of mismatch in sculpting levels of Multires; try pressing Apply Base in Multires settings (but shape of the lowpoly mesh may not be the same anymore). Other than that you can transmit Multires data to another (copy) object with Multires added to it - make a copy of the sculpted object, remove modifier, add modifier, subdivide as many times as in original one, select both objects (new one last) and click Reshape.

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/38307/retopo-can-we-apply-shrink-wrap-to-multires-subdivisions

@MrZak I tried the second part of your answer first and was not getting the result on level 0 (maybe I did it wrong), but the easier part of your answer (pressing apply base mesh) did exactly that and also helped with a new problem I was getting with recurring pinching when switching levels after using the move brush too much in some areas.

I'd suggest you leaving an answer in the Answer box below with details about how you solved your problem (screenshots, description etc) and clearing the question if you still have something unsolved.

Kudos to MrZak:
Q1 is solved if you just press "Apply Base" in the Multires Modifier.
Q2 I am not 100% sure but the stray vertices stemmed from a messy quad structure inside the mouth. After I cleaned that up they were gone.


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How can I parent a mesh to a vertex group?
I want my eyelashes to follow a strip on the lid but I can only parent it to 3 vertices of that polystrip. I tried the "child of constraint" and selected the vertex group that I want to constraint/parent it to but then the eyelashes are all of a sudden not in the place anymore where I wanted them ... what is a normal or working way to do that? Must be a pretty common issue I suppose.

Edit: I added a screenshot. I moved the lashes a bit away from the place that it should be to show it better. I basically just want to stick it to its place and have it move with the lid in sculpt and edit mode.

Hi, maybe add a screenshot to clarify your example...

@m.ardito did that

Well I figured that I could instead also just spawn the hair directly on those faces, but I would still like to know how to parent or constraint or "stick" them instead (could be useful for other stuff too).

Add a Surface Deform modifier to the eye lashes object. Then set the modifier target to the head. Click the 'Bind' button.
Now any shapekeys or armatures that affect verts in the head mesh, will also affect the eyebrow mesh.

If you make any edits to the amount of vertices in either mesh, you need to re-bind in the modifier.
It should be noted that the modifier doesn't use vertex groups like you asked for specifically. Instead, it maps the vertices of its parent mesh, to the closes points of the target mesh. Those points may not exactly align with vertices.
However, in your specific use case it seems like the eyelash mesh, and the eye lid mesh match almost exactly. So, this shouldn't cause any noticeable render issues.

Thanks man! That seems to be a good and easy way. Also probably useful for buttons on clothes and stuff like that.


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Can IK constraint be setup so it respects constraints of affected bones
I'm trying to rig a robot arm where every bone can rotate only around one axis. It works fine when i position them one by one, but if I put an IK bone to control the whole arm, the limit rotation constraints on all bones are ignored. I understand that the whole IK task changes dramatically when there are other constraints but was wondering whether there might be some solution to this.

When you have an bone set to use an IK constraint, every bone in that chain enables the Inverse Kinematics tab, found in the bone properties (almost down the bottom)
Here you can set limits on the XYZ axis of each bone. the X and Z axis limits show up in the display as a red and blue circle. Y doesnt show up as Y is rotation along the axis of the bone.
using axis limits does cause some popping, so you will want to use a Pole target for the IK constraint to allow better control.

When there's an IK chain, in the bone section of the properties panel you can limit the rotation and set the amount of stiffness and stretch of every bone involved in the chain.

sorry for delay. this sounds like exactly what i need. i'll try it later tonight

well i guess that's how this is supposed to be done. i did run into another issue but that's for a different question ... eventually.


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Align selected face parallel to a specific axis
Does anybody know
how i can align a face to a specific axis?
Like the guy in this video does it.
Video (link starts at 2:30 rotating happens at 2:35)
All he says is "I rotate it so, that it is parallel to the y-axis."
Already tried google & co for an answer but hadn't any success.
Thanks in advance :)

All he does is translate a bit on the Z axis and then flattens the bottom of the cylinder with S + Z + 0.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/140/599

Holding Ctrl while rotating snaps in 5° steps.
RYCtrlMouse-Movement
Enabling Snap during transformation has the same effect

Another way would be to scale the vertices of a face, with all vertices of the face selected:

SZ0Enter

Related:

Is there an easy way to align two objects on a specific axis?
Snap_to_Mesh

I knew about the first part, but the way he did it, it was instantaneous and without mouse. Your 2nd solution is probably the way he did it. Thank you very much!


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Vertex count appears incorrect after removing doubles
I've only just started studying the Blender Python API. I'm writing a script (see below) to automate something I've done by hand : joining two adjacent cubes and cleaning up the resulting mesh.
After joining and removing doubles, I expect to have 12 vertices instead of 16 in the resulting object. In the Info header, this seems to be the case, but when I print to the windows terminal I still see 16. Also I do see the output from remove_double(), here's a screenshot :

So what's wrong here ? What is the right way to access an object's mesh, and count its vertices ?
Joao
import bpy

# Create two adjacent cubes and join them
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=(1,0,0))
ob = bpy.context.object
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=(3,0,0))
ob.select = True
bpy.ops.object.join()

# Expect 16 vertices, 24 edges, 12 faces
result = bpy.context.object
print(str(len(result.data.vertices)))

# Go to edit mode, remove double vertices
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')
bpy.ops.mesh.remove_doubles()

# Expect 12 vertices, 20 edges, 11 faces
result = bpy.context.object
print(str(len(result.data.vertices)))

This is the correct way, however blender is not updating the data.  Exit edit mode, (bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')) and the correct result appears.
Oddly enough, blender displays the correct number of vertices in the header, I'm not sure why the python api doesn't.

With the standard API (bpy), the editmesh is flushed to mesh when you change mode. What you access is the mesh, which is still in the old state as it was when you entered editmode. What you want is the editmesh's vertex count, but you can't directly access it with bpy.
You could change mode to flush changes, but there's actually a better way in recent Blender versions:
# Load the objects edit-mode data into the object data
bpy.context.object.update_from_editmode()

If you work with the BMesh Module (bmesh) and a wrapped bmesh, the number of vertices will be immediately updated - but you may still need to flush changes from bmesh to mesh after adding/removing geometry or Blender will crash:
import bpy
import bmesh

me = bpy.context.object.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

print(len(bm.verts)) # 8 (in case of cube)

bm.verts.remove(bm.verts[0])

print(len(bm.verts)) # 7

bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)


text:
Export as .fbx with uv-mapped texture
I want to export my blender model as a .fbx file.
The model (eg. a cube) has a material and a uv-mapped texture attatched to it.
I can see the reference to the texture (.png file located seperately from the .fbx) in the .fbx file when I open the file in a text editor:
[...]Material: "Material::Material_002__uvlayout_png_png", "" {
    Version: 102
    ShadingModel: "lambert"
    MultiLayer: 0
    Properties60:  {
        Property: "ShadingModel", "KString", "", "Lambert"
        Property: "MultiLayer", "bool", "",0
        Property: "EmissiveColor", "ColorRGB", "",0.8000,0.8000,0.8000
        Property: "EmissiveFactor", "double", "",0.0000
        Property: "AmbientColor", "ColorRGB", "",1.0000,1.0000,1.0000
        Property: "AmbientFactor", "double", "",1.0000
        Property: "DiffuseColor", "ColorRGB", "",0.8000,0.8000,0.8000
        Property: "DiffuseFactor", "double", "",0.8000
        Property: "Bump", "Vector3D", "",0,0,0
        Property: "TransparentColor", "ColorRGB", "",1,1,1
        Property: "TransparencyFactor", "double", "",0.0000
        Property: "SpecularColor", "ColorRGB", "",1.0000,1.0000,1.0000
        Property: "SpecularFactor", "double", "",0.5000
        Property: "ShininessExponent", "double", "",12.3
        Property: "ReflectionColor", "ColorRGB", "",0,0,0
        Property: "ReflectionFactor", "double", "",1
        Property: "Emissive", "ColorRGB", "",0,0,0
        Property: "Ambient", "ColorRGB", "",1.0,1.0,1.0
        Property: "Diffuse", "ColorRGB", "",0.8,0.8,0.8
        Property: "Specular", "ColorRGB", "",1.0,1.0,1.0
        Property: "Shininess", "double", "",12.3
        Property: "Opacity", "double", "",1.0
        Property: "Reflectivity", "double", "",0
    }
}
Video: "Video::uvlayout_png_png", "Clip" {
    Type: "Clip"
    Properties60:  {
        Property: "FrameRate", "double", "",0
        Property: "LastFrame", "int", "",0
        Property: "Width", "int", "",0
        Property: "Height", "int", "",0
        Property: "Path", "charptr", "", "uvlayout.png.png"
        Property: "StartFrame", "int", "",0
        Property: "StopFrame", "int", "",0
        Property: "PlaySpeed", "double", "",1
        Property: "Offset", "KTime", "",0
        Property: "InterlaceMode", "enum", "",0
        Property: "FreeRunning", "bool", "",0
        Property: "Loop", "bool", "",0
        Property: "AccessMode", "enum", "",0
    }
    UseMipMap: 0
    Filename: "uvlayout.png.png"
    RelativeFilename: "uvlayout.png.png"
}
Texture: "Texture::uvlayout_png_png", "TextureVideoClip" {
    Type: "TextureVideoClip"
    Version: 202
    TextureName: "Texture::uvlayout_png_png"
    Properties60:  {
        Property: "Translation", "Vector", "A+",0,0,0
        Property: "Rotation", "Vector", "A+",0,0,0
        Property: "Scaling", "Vector", "A+",1,1,1
        Property: "Texture alpha", "Number", "A+",0
        Property: "TextureTypeUse", "enum", "",0
        Property: "CurrentTextureBlendMode", "enum", "",1
        Property: "UseMaterial", "bool", "",0
        Property: "UseMipMap", "bool", "",0
        Property: "CurrentMappingType", "enum", "",0
        Property: "UVSwap", "bool", "",0
        Property: "WrapModeU", "enum", "",0
        Property: "WrapModeV", "enum", "",0
        Property: "TextureRotationPivot", "Vector3D", "",0,0,0
        Property: "TextureScalingPivot", "Vector3D", "",0,0,0
        Property: "VideoProperty", "object", ""
    }
    Media: "Video::uvlayout_png_png"
    FileName: "uvlayout.png.png"
    RelativeFilename: "uvlayout.png.png"
    ModelUVTranslation: 0,0
    ModelUVScaling: 1,1
    Texture_Alpha_Source: "None"
    Cropping: 0,0,0,0
}
[...]

The Model needs the texture reference when I want to display it out of blender and thats just fine. It also gets displayed in the right way.
The problem is that I followed a tutorial and even with looking the tutorial about uv-mapping again, following each step, i cannot reproduce the same kind of cube.
In blender, the uv-mapped texture gets displayed right but as I export it to .fbx, the whole texture reference is missing in the file:
[...]Material: "Material::TexturedMaterial_cubetexture", "" {
    Version: 102
    ShadingModel: "lambert"
    MultiLayer: 0
    Properties60:  {
        Property: "ShadingModel", "KString", "", "Lambert"
        Property: "MultiLayer", "bool", "",0
        Property: "EmissiveColor", "ColorRGB", "",0.8000,0.8000,0.8000
        Property: "EmissiveFactor", "double", "",0.0000
        Property: "AmbientColor", "ColorRGB", "",1.0000,1.0000,1.0000
        Property: "AmbientFactor", "double", "",1.0000
        Property: "DiffuseColor", "ColorRGB", "",0.8000,0.8000,0.8000
        Property: "DiffuseFactor", "double", "",0.8000
        Property: "Bump", "Vector3D", "",0,0,0
        Property: "TransparentColor", "ColorRGB", "",1,1,1
        Property: "TransparencyFactor", "double", "",0.0000
        Property: "SpecularColor", "ColorRGB", "",1.0000,1.0000,1.0000
        Property: "SpecularFactor", "double", "",0.5000
        Property: "ShininessExponent", "double", "",12.3
        Property: "ReflectionColor", "ColorRGB", "",0,0,0
        Property: "ReflectionFactor", "double", "",1
        Property: "Emissive", "ColorRGB", "",0,0,0
        Property: "Ambient", "ColorRGB", "",1.0,1.0,1.0
        Property: "Diffuse", "ColorRGB", "",0.8,0.8,0.8
        Property: "Specular", "ColorRGB", "",1.0,1.0,1.0
        Property: "Shininess", "double", "",12.3
        Property: "Opacity", "double", "",1.0
        Property: "Reflectivity", "double", "",0
    }
}
Pose: "Pose::BIND_POSES", "BindPose" {
    Type: "BindPose"
    Version: 100
    Properties60:  {
    }
    NbPoseNodes: 1
    PoseNode:  {
        Node: "Model::Cube"
        Matrix: 0.000000075497901,0.000000000000000,-1.000000000000000,0.000000000000000,-1.000000000000000,0.000000000000000,-0.000000075497901,0.000000000000000,0.000000000000000,1.000000000000000,0.000000000000000,0.000000000000000,0.000000000000000,0.000000000000000,0.000000000000000,1.000000000000000
    }
}
GlobalSettings:  {
    Version: 1000
    Properties60:  {
        Property: "UpAxis", "int", "",1
        Property: "UpAxisSign", "int", "",1
        Property: "FrontAxis", "int", "",2
        Property: "FrontAxisSign", "int", "",1
        Property: "CoordAxis", "int", "",0
        Property: "CoordAxisSign", "int", "",1
        Property: "UnitScaleFactor", "double", "",1
    }
}
[...]

The UV coordinates are exported correcty.. only the texture reference is missing.

Are you using "Cycles Render"? I had trouble getting textures to work with it. Worked fine with "Blender Render" though. Not really a solution, but maybe this helps.
Also, you will likely want to use a relative path for your texture image: File->External Data->Make All Paths Relative

This question is somehow really old and I found a workaround. My Blender version was somehow messed up and after using relative paths and clicking on different buttons to map the texture fixed it. I remember that I had to leave the UV-Map windows selected when exporting the models.. but i guessed this is fixed with later versions of blender because the re-downloaded factory version worked out of the box. Still thanks for your reply!


text:
i can't render my project
I've created my first 3d object (a donut) and when I tried to render it, it worked, took me like 20 mins and then I've added a "image as background" and tried rendering and I couldn't render it at all, it just gets stuck at a point and I can't even use my mouse, only way I can use my pc is to force restart.
please help
PC specifications
AMD Ryzen 3 1300x quad core processor
Nvidia GTX 1050ti 4 gb
24 gb ram ddr4 1600MHz
windows 10 pro N latest build
Blender version 2.83.5
no ssd
and any tips to make my blender run smoothly?

Hi. https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/ should help with taking clearer screenshots. The current ones are quite hard to see. Thanks.

Hey, while rendering i can't use my PC, i have to restart my pc to use it, so, i can't take screenshots

How many times did you subdivide the donut?

Hey, i added 2 subdivision surface to the donut and 1 to the icing, btw i added the screenshot.

Maybe try rendering using only your GPU (uncheck the CPU in the preferences). I made the experience that, when Blender uses the CPU and does heavy work, the PC can freeze (because it has a CPU usage of 100%).

hey thanks, i fixed the issue by adding a decimate modifier to donut and icing, now i can render about 20 frames in 20 mins lol


text:
3ds max to blender, rotations and locations are all wrong
Everytime I upload my fbx of a car that I had modified in 3ds max (free trial expired, so now I'm using blender), all the rotations and locations for the children get screwed up. All the wheels, doors, etc should be in place, but this is the result in blender:

If I upload the same fbx into the ue4 engine, everything is fine. Are there any import settings I could try, or anything else? Thanks.

Hello, when using File>Import>Fbx you have a bunch of settings on the right of the new window. You might have to expand the settings panel with N shortcut or click on the little arrow on the top right

Yes then what? I'm going to update my post to show what settings I used (default).

Have you tried modifying some of the Transform settings ? Without the source file it is hard to fix your problem for you

Sorry for not responding, but here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bFB_6n9Q-zTYTLCHLEI8FNVelmg1TnSd/view?usp=sharing

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


text:
Beveling edge problem
How i can fix this beveling problem. i am using a bevel modifier in my object:

Wire Frame:

Hello, it's a bit hard to understand what is the problem and what your trying to do, maybe show more pictures, show the wireframe, and explain more in detail  ;)

for example bevel won't work if it meets ngons or edge that is shared by more than 2 faces, it may be the case here?

i added wire frame view

So what is the problem exactly? Maybe you just want to right click > Shade Smooth ?

In "bevel modifier" under "Geometry" try changing "Miter Outer" and "Inner" settings. "Patch" or "Arc" usually gives better results. Changing "Inner" settings will blow up your mesh but you can dial it down from "Spread".


text:
rigidbodies not working with a lot of objects
i have added a lot of objects with rigidbodies but some rigidbody objects are not working. i think its happening because there are a lot of objects : /. i have tried searching on web but i didnt found any answer.
Video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16or602_RENpfHsaVclrzY5TM0nCAwBl4/view?usp=sharing
FIle link:

hello please share your file: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

i have added the file now

This last cube is not part of the same Rigid Body World collection, so remove the second collection, add a new one, and choose RigidBodyWorld instead of RigidBodyWorld.011:

RigidBodyWorld is a kind of ghost collection that is created and selected by default in the Scene panel > Rigid Body World when you create a rigid body object, more explanations give here by Blender Frenzy. You can also put your rigid body objects in a real outliner collection if you want, in this case, select it in the Scene panel:


text:
The Raycast node not working as intended

I want to make some random splines that start from an object and end on another (in this case start from plane and end on the surface of Suzanne).
Most of them follow geometry nodes setup but some choose to rotate in direction of world origin and end exactly on world origin. I set a density value for the point distribution node to have only one wrong spline in viewport which is outlined.
Also, there is data in the spreadsheet tab of raycast hit position output in which no value is zero vector and still it's not working. Am I missing something?
Blend_File

would you mind providing blend file? wo we don't have to rebuild everything to test that...

@Chris yeah sure, Blend_File

is this what you want to have? [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/ZsK5F.png

or this? [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/CrDn1.png

@Chris second one, how did you do that? please tell my friend how did you eliminate all unexpected splines?

Here is the node tree:

unmute these two nodes to toggle

and of course here is the blend file, because you provided yours too...thanks for that! so i had less time effort!

it is pretty hard to explain but i try:
i just added these 3 selected nodes here:

by this additional "and" node ...

... i restrict the changing position (set position) not only to every 2nd line (modulo 2) but also only if they are hits.
by the delete geometry node ...

i delete all geometry which are not hits by the first raycasts.

if my answer helped you, please click on the checkmark left of my answer. Thank you!

can you please give a little explanation?

got it! Thanks a lot, my friend.

glad i could help


text:
World Background Changes From Eevee to Cycles
I have a SkyGradient Node as follows, made initially in Eevee:

The background in eevee looks like so:

But when I switched to cycles, the background gradient disappeared and turned into a solid color:

I want the gradient to stay in cycles too, but couldn't find online why this happens, or how to fix it. Any help would be appreciated.

You’ve shown the nodes within the SkyGradient node group but not how that group connects to the World output. I can kind of make out what’s there but not enough to be sure. Please update your question to include an image of the rest of the nodes.

I have added it now. The final node just connected to the world surface output so I didn't think it necessary to include.

In cycles, objects are affected by world lighting the way they would be in real life- they respond to bounced light from the environment and get colored accordingly. EEVEE fakes this by simply reflecting the world background  (encumbered only by the "roughness" of the object) - you will still see this reflection even if the object is "inside" and the world environment has no direct light path to it.

The problem is due to how the Camera Data 'View Vector' is handled between the two render engines - on Eevee it's a vector specific to that ray but under Cycles it seems to be effectively the camera direction, as far as I can tell with some basic investigation.
The two render engines (Eevee and Cycles) use completely different methods to render the scene (Cycles is a raytracer while Eevee is a rasteriser). This means that the "rays" are handled differently and so the results are different.
To retain the 'gradient' you need use a different quantity - one that's more consistent between engines. For example, you can get a similar effect using the 'Generated' coordinates and this seems to produce very similar results. In fact, the Texture Coordinates seems to produce results quite similar to the View Vector in Eevee and is also consistent in Cycles.


text:
How to create and access global variable which is defined on the preferences tab to another windows?
I'm working on a plugin modification which is a tool for exporting gltf.
On the export windows, we have a choice to put "Copyright" & "Default Texture Location" parameters as you can see here :

I wanted to add some input into the preferences tab of the addon by adding two input :

Default Texture Location
Default Copyright Name

That way, we could just set this one time and no need to make some operator presets etc..

My code is for the preference part is :
## class to add the preference settings
class addSettingsPanel(bpy.types.AddonPreferences):
    bl_idname = __package__

    settings_default_texture_location: bpy.props.StringProperty (
        name = "Default Texture Location",
        description = "Default Texture Location",
        default = "../texture"

    )

    settings_default_copyright: bpy.props.StringProperty (
        name = "Default Copyright Name",
        description = "Default Copyright Name",
        default = ""

    )

    ##bpy.types.Scene.toto = settings_default_copyright

   ## bpy.types.Scene.my_sel_value = bpy.props.StringProperty(name="Sel")

    ## draw the panel in the addon preferences
    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        box = layout.box()

        ##row = layout.row()
        col = box.column(align = True)

        ## texture default location
        col.prop(self, 'settings_default_texture_location', expand=True)

        ## default copyright
        col.prop(self, 'settings_default_copyright', expand=True)

The question is :
How to access to these values in the export windows, which is on another file to show it in the first image instead of the blank label "Textures" and "Copyright" ?
EDIT :
As @brockmann Suggested in the comments,
I modified the code to :
preferences = bpy.context.preferences
addon_prefs = preferences.addons[__package__].preferences

export_copyright: StringProperty(
    name='Copyright',
    description='Legal rights and conditions for the model',
    default=addon_prefs.settings_default_texture_location
)

But I've got the error " KeyError: ... key "Blender2MSFS.exporter" not found.
So I tried to manually put "Blender2MSFS" instead of package and it is not working too.
The code is here :
https://github.com/btronquo/Blender2MSFS2
exporter/init.py (line 96,97 and then 129 / 151)

Hello, could you also post the code that's responsible for drawing the UI showed in the 1st screenshot ?

Open up __init__.py in the export folder, declare your preferences there and assign the new properties to the default parm of e.g. export_copyright (line 122).

@Gorgious I guess the OP is talking about this add-on and wants to modify it. I guess... :)

@brockmann, I don't understand
How i'm supposed to retrive the value and put it in the default="" place ?
    export_copyright: StringProperty(         name='Copyright',         description='Legal rights and conditions for the model',         default=''     )
It would be : default=settings_default_copyright.default or something ?

Pretty straight forward, see the demo in the docs. You can get a reference to the prefs via addon_prefs = preferences.addons[__name__].preferences and then just assign it (default=addon_prefs.default_texture_location) as mentioned.

It may be a bit too involved for your current python level, but if you don't want to change the other addon code you can add an update callback to your preferences that will dynamically unregister and re-register the addon properties with the new default. See https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/195977/86891 or https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/161529/is-there-any-way-to-override-uilayout-prop-tooltip/161533#161533

Thank you @Gorgious, I prefer to understand the concept first and then I'll try to add the callback for dynamics register and unregister :)

@brockmann , it's not really straight forward for me since I use python in a beginner / intermediate level and in blender it's totally different that I use to work with :/
I have made a lot of trials and can't see how to made this works..
I have context is not defined (tried with bpy.context, same error)
Could you tell me where to add theses lines exactly ?

In the menu.
Could simply set these values in the menu function, which is how most users will invoke the operator (filebrowser). This will "fill in" the exporter properties with those set in the addon prefs.
Note have simply named same as exporter prop, eg export_texture_dir rather than the "long winded" settings_default_texture_location
exporter/__init__.py circa line 962
def menu_func_export(self, context):
    # get the addon name
    name = __name__.split(".")[0]
    preferences = context.preferences.addons.get(name)
    op = self.layout.operator(ExportExtendedGLTF2.bl_idname, text='extended glTF 2.0 (.glb/.gltf) for MSFS')
    if preferences:
        addon_prefs = preferences.preferences
        op.export_copyright = addon_prefs.export_copyright
        op.export_texture_dir = addon_prefs.export_texture_dir

How do I change the default settings of export operators?
Alternatively could do same  in the operators invoke method.

Awesome,
I was so focused on the field them self that I have missed the menu function
A BIG THANK YOU !


text:
Weight painting in Blender 2.8
I am just starting to learn about rigging, animating and the like.
In Blender 2.8 I have a problem with a file that I cannot recreate but can not solve also.
When I am in weight paint mode while the armature is not in the rest pose it adds the weights as if it was in rest pose.
Meaning, if the fingers are bent I cannot paint weight on the bent fingers, but it adds the weight only if I paint at the (invisible) position where the resting armature would be. I hope that makes sense. Here is the file:

In the image you see me try tp paint weight on the pinky when it is bent, but it does not work. It only works when it is straight.

If I try it again with a blank file, it works fine. I suppose it must be one setting that I checked that is causing this.

it looks like if you deactivate the display of the multires modifier it works, I don't know why though

@moonboots Interesting, thank you. It actually seems to work when the Sculpt Setting of the Multires Modifier is set to zero. I don't know why either ...

It may be a bug because it works in 2.79

I also see many problems in 2.8 about weight painting, which are working well in 2.79.

Weight paint doesn't allow you to paint on vertices that were generated with the multiresolution modifier; it only interpolates the weights for each point based on its neighbors (same as the subsurface modifier). It also won't let you modify the mesh with any modifier besides the armature modifier while you're in the weight painting mode.
A simple solution would be to simply apply the multiresolution modifier. If you'd like to retain the original (low poly) mesh, you could create a duplicate of that mesh, hide it, and apply the multiresolution modifier on the duplicate mesh.


text:
Image Texture Node, Clip Image
I would like to make a decal in Cycles.
When I use Clip in the Image Texture Node then the background is black. I would like it to be transparent.
The manual (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/cycles/nodes/types/textures/image.html) says: Clip
"Clip to the original image size and set all the exterior pixels values to transparent black."
What the hell is transparent black? Is it black or is it transparent? How do I get the background image to show through the "transparent" black?
This is my setting:

Maxx, like this? That makes the Logo Black. The Image has no alpha information.

related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1842/how-can-i-setup-a-material-in-cycles-for-z-transparency

A color has for components : red, green, blue, and alpha.
Transparent black would be 0,0,0,0.
The image texture node outputs red, green, blue in the first (yellow) output and the alpha in the second (gray) output.
If you want your surface in cycles to be transparent where alpha is less than 1, combine a transparent shader with your current shader with a mix shader node, and use alpha as the factor. (current shader in the second input, transparent shader in the first input).

But it is just a square logo. It has no alpha and it should not need one. I just do not want to tile it and have the background be visible behind it.

The alpha outside of the image is generated by the Clip option : "set all the exterior pixels values to transparent black".

That's why your last try works ! You replaced the transparent shader with your background image, and the mix shader with mix RGB but it is kind of the same solution :-) I thought your background image was on a seperate object behind.

I did not get it to work with the transparency shader but it seems to work when I just attach the Alpha of the Logo (although it has no alpha channel, I believe - it is just a jpg) to the Fac of the Color Mix Node.


text:
Bake a image appearing in a mirror
is It possible to bake a image appearing in a mirror from a certain angle of camera? What is the possible ways to do that? Can I do from OSL?

Absolutely, but it depends on neither light nor the camera changing (but you can get around this problem by animating the texture). Just bake your rendered result from the angle you want, and apply the texture to that plane.


text:
How to position light source so it reflects off gold Celtic knot on the sword guard, into the camera?
How do I find the perfect position for the light so that it will reflect off the Celtic knot? There are 3 light sources I can't find the sweet spot. I've tried moving them around of course. I've tried spot, point, sun at an angle about = to the camera angle to sword face. I either bleach out the scene or it just has no effect if I play with size and brightness. I need that sweet spot angle, and I just can't find it. Here is blender 2.79 file, https://www.dropbox.com/s/evlsqvdtpet39ml/anvil2blend.blend?dl=0
Thank you:)

I realized after exploring that if I placed a point light close to the object I wanted to light up, (gold Celtic Knot) that it would light up nicely. What I couldn't wrap my head around is that the light source itself never shows up in a render so it can be placed in the visual field of the camera. Duh! This way it can be relatively small and of low intensity, which for some reason I think is better that having some light source a mile away at 100,000 intensity and sized at 1000. I found that I could place the light source right on the object for instance and it worked well.


text:
Can color management (e.g. filmic) be disabled for specific file output nodes for raw data?
I know for Blender sets the color management setting globally for the project. As far as I am aware every data that is saved as image, will pass through the color management of Blender.
Now the problem is, I have data that I want to store as an image format (e.g. png not OpenEXR or HDR), that shouldn't be passed through color management. For instance I have an ID-mask in compositing, that I would like to store. This isn't an image, like a render, were the transformation through the LUT makes sense (or does it?).
If my understanding is correct, the color management used by the file output node treats the values like pixels, mapping each value to the corresponding value in the LUT. However with such data like the ID-mask the function should either be
1) the identity, if the output format allows to store floating point ([0.0, 1.0] -> [0.0, 1.0], f(x)=x) or
2) only scale to the range of output format (e.g. [0.0, 1.0] -> [0, 255], f(x) = (int) x * 255.0).
The latter of course introduces inaccuracies due to different ranges of values, but still does what is expected.
How can this be achieved or is my understanding of color management fundamentally flawed?

@cegaton that is true, I already knew that. Problem is, I want to use the files in another software that doesn't support OpenEXR. I assume blender has that limitation because .exr and .hdr are the only formats that allow to save the scene referred value unaltered.

As per @cegaton, change your colour space to non-data for data. That should keep all transforms off, including on save. If it doesn't, Blender is broken.

You can get non-color managed non-linear files from image viewer: save with save as render option disabled (in 2.79 it is disabled by default). Maybe there's possibility to use bpy.ops.image.save_as in script to save images frame by frame for animation, but I'm not into python to help on this.

@cegaton Apologies, I thought it was not!

@cegaton I just commented for but I'm not into python to help on this .


text:
Python script to texture paint across active viewport
Can't wrap my head around the python API docs for texture painting, I've got the brush and UV mapping setup, just need to automate the brush painting across the active viewport, it doesn't need to be precise at all. Any code snippet would be of huge help.
For example, this is a crudely applied texture painting that I've done manually.

I want to be able to automate the process, all I really need is for the brush stroke to go through everything in the active viewport. I can automate the switch between front,left,right and back ortho views to cover the whole face.
If that isn't possible, alternatively I could split the head into different vertex groups and just apply the paint per vertex group.

Please add more detail and a reference image showing what you're trying to achieve

Added more detail.

How do you handle the boundaries where the image textures don't match when automating the projection? Texture baking isn't a better method here? How are you preparing the source images - are they each loaded with separate UV maps?

Each source image is for a separate UV map, yes. The source image lightning is somewhat normalized to avoid very obvious seams between the different source images. I'm going to be switching the source images while using the same UV map and model and then saving the resulting "base" texture. That's why I need to automate it this way.


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Projection texture painting, is it possible to swap images after applying brush?
I'm trying to use the same uv mapping and brush texture painting with a few near identical human face photos.
Is that possible? I know with F clone you can just swap out a different image and use the same uv map as the source clone uv map, but that resets all of the brush work(sorry, meant you have to draw all over again with the brush, doesn't replace the original brush work with the new source clone image).

So IMG is the original source clone image that was used to create the "front" uv mapping, i'm asking if it's possible to have the same brush work applied with a different source clone image, but same uv mapping, without having to redraw on top(so it would essentially replace the original source clone image texture exactly as it was drawn).

Can you include a few screen shots of what you mean here? If the target is being painted, the target should retain the pixels painted regardless of the source changing.

Sorry, I worded that incorrectly, I meant you have to redraw with the new source clone image, as opposed to it replacing the already existing texture. Elaborated in the original question as you suggested.

Still don't understand the question: are you asking if the new source image will replace the pixels already cloned into the target image from the previous source image?

Yes, exactly that! I'm asking if it's possible to do that.

I would suggest using 3 uv maps, on for front projection, one for side projection, and one for regular unwrap with seams to avoid stretch. Here each texture is set to a different slot, and a black image is set as stencil and intensity between them, and that one is painted with white to reveal the image below. In this case, you can then replace the texture use for the front view or the side view and the stencil will affect it the same way.


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Animating growth
So let's say I want the make a low-poly 3d character that has a beard. He is a hero for a game concept and uses his beard the travel and fight the bad guys.  My question is, how do I properly build my character so I am able to animate his beard growth? How do I properly animate it? Finally, how would that process effect the texture?
Thanks
Brandon H

Maybe post images with shortest beard and with the longest. Also tell us if you want to export it to some game engine if yes - where? And lastly if it will be using image based texture, then yes changed shape will affect it.

I do plan on exporting this character to Unity.  Other than image based textures, what kind of texture can I use that would be good for a growing asset like my characters beard?  I added a quick sketch of what I want to achieve with the beard growth.  Thank you for helping me out :)


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Normal map baking is not working, missig any details
I have one high poly mesh and one low poly mesh

I have checked "selected to active" option but when i select first high poly object and then low poly object and click on bake, normal map is flat and without any details. I tryed the same method to create normal map on any other object with this high poly mesh and it works perfectly.
Can anyone please help?

maybe check the face orientation? or share your file: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

You need a UV map for your target mesh (Where the normal map have to be placed). Do you have a UV map created?

Thanks for help Christoph, i didn´t create UV map. Now It works fine. Thanks


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Add icon to the Outliner editor?
Can an addon insert a new icon for every object, collection, etc, to the Outliner editor? If so, what is the required python code?
I also want to bind this to a custom property.
Edit: To extend... I would like for the addon to manage a state property for the object and visualize that state in the scene tree that Blender presents.  In the same way that the "eye" icon is used to hide/show objects. But for my use-case, to define what object should be exported outside Blender.

Hello shumy, I have a very hard time understanding your question. Would you mind elaborating a little further?

AFAIK, No it is currently not possible from python.