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How can I get past the Bone Heat Weighting error on my character armature and mesh?
I know this has been discussed before, but I'm looking for fresh ideas. I created the character mesh and the armature, and get the Bone Heat Weighting error even after doing the steps many have recommended. (Re-meshing, resizing, etc.).
I made sure that the armature has all the bones for my purposes, and wonder if I'm missing some Parenting on the bones? I don't think so, but I still can't get a successful parenting action when I try to apply it. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

This looks pretty high poly for what you'd want to autoweight.  Bone parenting doesn't matter.  For any help, peeps would need a file.

UPDATE: I got the rig to parent after making sure that my mesh was fully symmetrical. I am also needing to manually weight the fingertips, but it's working out so far.


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Does bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_xyz_function_surface() modify an existing mesh or create a new one?
Does the Blender add-on script for bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_xyz_function_surface() modify an existing mesh or create a new one?
This did not work. What's missing?
import bpy
from math import *
two_pi = 2 * pi
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_xyz_function_surface(x_eq = "v", y_eq = "sin(two_pi*u)", z_eq = "cos(two_pi*u)")

The expectation that two_pi defined in your code above and passed via string to an operator is very unlikely to work.  Look in the system console most likely there is an error stating this.  Use 2 * pi in expression.  With all add primitive objects creates a new one.

You were quite correct;  2 * pi worked fine ;  Thanks so much for your able assistance!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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When I render my model it becomes transparent

In the Material Preview, it looks like this

when I go to render this weird happens

Blend file

Please add your blend file to your question.  (How to add a blend file)

Might have checked holdout

yes it looks like it's the Holdout option that is enabled for the collection, check the Outliner

@moonboots Holdout was never enabled.

weird because it works fine here

@moonboots so wait, you loaded the blend file and it renders fine?

yes no problem for me (and Holdout was not enabled as you said)

guess my blender installation is broken? I tested with the default cube and it does the same thing.

do you have an AMD graphic card? In that case try the previous driver version

@moonboots I reinstalled Blender and its working now, thanks for the help dude :)

ok so it was not an AMD + driver problem?

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


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Offset edges along a plane
How do you offset a series of edges evenly, looped or not?
Searching on line I came across
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Modeling/offset_edges which seems to be what I'm looking for but I can not get it to work using Blender v2.75.  Does something have to be done to activate this?  When I highlight an edge loop and hit Ctrl-E the pop-up menu does not include an 'Offset Edge' submenu.
I see this question has been asked before but the answers seem to refer to files that are no longer available.

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


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Aplying material to individual faces of multiple objects
OK, I am a newish user working with Blender 2.75 since August 1.
I have my first complex project modeled, time for some color.
Several objects in my model require different materials on different parts of the object. So, I picked out faces on an object and used the Node Editor to create a new material for them.  I then picked the other faces and created another new material for them. So far so good, that object now has the correct materials.
Now switching to another object I go into edit mode and pick out several faces. But when I go to materials and try to assign one of the materials to the faces it gets applied to the entire object. I try picking other faces and try applying a different material. Again the entire object is changed to that material.
Am I missing something obvious? Do I need to recreate the same NEW material for each object in order to apply it to selected faces?

Please see this answer: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/36017/giving-lettes-an-individual-node

And this: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/516/add-different-materials-to-different-parts-of-a-mesh

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


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Marked Seams not all cutting in UV Map
I am trying to UV Unwrap the lower part of a mouth.  The teeth have been outlined with seams to remove them.  I want to be able to Texture Paint them separately from the rest of the mesh.  Most of the teeth gave no problem but the front four do not want to detach from the rest of the mesh.  Removing Doubles found none and I can not find any other modeling problems.
Any suggestions on fixes that can be tried?

BLEND FILE

Weird because I've seamed the other teeth, unwraped with the first unwrap option (Unwrap), and it worked perfectly, so you must do something wrong somewhere, what option are you choosing?

Weird indeed.  When I opened the file again today it was suddenly working again using Unwrap.  Thanks for looking.


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Trouble weight painting tongue
First character and keep hitting problems.
In Blender 2.79 I am using the Rigify_Cat armature and having trouble with the tongue.  For reference this tutorial is being referenced at about the 39 minute mark.
For some reason I have not been able to figure out the tongue refuses to automatically weight to the tongue control bones.  No error message pops up but when I pick the mesh and go to Weight Mode it just shows as a black mass.

Does anyone have an idea what might be going on or suggest a better method to connect the mesh to the controllers?
BLEND FILE

could you please prepare a file with just the tongue + bones?

https://we.tl/t-69tcJosacX  Cut the file down as best I could.


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Need Help figuring out Autimatic Weight Painting
Working (slowly) on my first character rig.  In Blender 2.79 I was able to generate a rig using the Rigify Cat(Meta_Rig).  I added thumbs to each paw by copying the adjoining finger.  The wing bones were added with the basic_super.copy from the Rigify Buttons in the Metarig properties pulldown.  After a bit of trial and error Rigify generated what looks to be a usable rig for the figure.  Time to move on to weight painting.  I would like to use Automatic Weight Painting to start out, though I know a lot of hand painting will also be needed to get it all working right.  Grabbing my main mesh and then the metarig in Object Mode before hitting Ctrl-P and selecting With_Automatic_Weights generates the error Error "Bone heat weighting: failed to find solution for one or more bones".  Checking everything in the mesh I can think of I'm guessing it might have to do with the wings being outside the main mesh.  I understand it should be possible to apply Automatic Weight Paints from a few bones to the mesh at a time.  Say a leg or the spine.  After several days of reading files and watching tutorials I am only more confused than when I started and do not even have a start to a weight map.
Any help that can be offered will be much appreciated.

BLEND FILE

The problem lies in the front feets, if you separate them (P, in edit mode) the rest can be weighted automatically. As you know, there will be a lot of manual adjusting needed, and some topology seems not good for smooth deforming. In such complicated models, I generally prefer to use the "with empty groups" parenting option, then select one vertex group afther the other, and manually paint (or assign) its weight.

Anyway, it works!

Thank you.  How did you track this down?

Great. This will let me automatically weight paint most of the most of the mesh.  The mesh for the front paws can then be reattached and weight painted by hand.  The problem then is posing.  The figure can be posed by adjusting individual bones but I can not get the widgets to deform the mesh.  They only seem to move each other.  It looks like they are not parented to the bones or mesh.  How can this be fixed?

Check FK/IK sliders: if you move an IK control while the slider is on FK, you will see the widgets moving without any deforming of the mesh.

I am so new to rigging I do not know how to check this.

When you select the Rigify rig, in pose mode, in the "N" properties panel there are many buttons which control the visibility of the rigfy layers. When you select one hand or feet controller, some sliders appear to let you decide if to use FK or IK (and you can also animate it, to use both inyour scene).

Rig Layers lets me isolate sections of the rig but nothing there or in Rig Main Properties seems to let widgets control anything but other widgets. The IK_FK: slider has no visible effect.

Maybe you parented to the metarig. You have to select the mesh, shift select one of the widgets (the rig, not the metarig) and press Ctrl P "with automatic weights. Move the metarig object in an hidden layer.

So posing can be done using the widgets or the bones but not both at once, and not with both visible and moving?

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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Completely removing scene (including all objects/materials it contained)
I'm working on a Blender addon that will render multiple versions of a scene by altering node input parameters. To leave the scene unchanged, I want to render a copy of the current scene, which I successfully do. The problem is that when doing a full copy of a scene using ops.scene.new(type="FULL_COPY") it creates a copy of everything that existed in the original scene. When I later delete the new scene using bpy.ops.scene.delete() all those copied objects and materials still exists! How do I remove a scene and everything that was contained in it?

Maybe you can consider starting with a new blend file (empty), then you pass to addon the source blend file. The addon can link the scene/collection from the source file, render and remove linked. Then repeat the process.
Or, to follow your initial setup, you could put the whole scene in a "root" collection and then call bpy.ops.outliner.collection_delete (hierarchy = True). In theory with hierarchy = True it should delete all the objects contained.


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Programmatically getting a node input slider's max and min
I have already asked this question HERE, but it was actually not answered before it got closed as someone thought it was a duplicate. I now know that I can find a soft_max and soft_min parameter of a NodeSocket, which helps somewhat, but it does not solve it. Why? Because the soft_max and soft_min do not at all correspond to the sliders' max and min. Basically all float value sockets have a soft_max and soft_min of 10000 and -10000, but some of the sliders range between [0,10] or [0, 2] or anything. This range is what I'm interested, and wondering if it is at all possible to find it programmatically. Thank you :D

The slider range should match soft_min and soft_max, do you have an example where this isn't the case?

Rather than asking the same question again "I have already asked this question HERE"  (a self confessed dupe) recommend you edit your previous question and reveal the identity of the "certain nodesocket".   This will flag the question for re-opening. The two commenters here are the  "someones" who voted to close your question.  Happy to vote to re-open.

@RobertGützkow https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/165056/how-to-get-the-max-and-min-value-of-a-certain-nodesocket#comment279001_165061

@batFINGER I'm aware of the duplicate question, but it's not clear where this node is from. Could be from the Grove add-on?

Hi @batFINGER. Thanks for the help, but when a thread is marked as a dupe, stackexchange tells me that "If this question doesn’t resolve your question, ask a new one.", which is what I did. Anyway, I'll edit that one and give more information (y)!


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Only manipulate newly created material after creating scene copy
I'm creating an addon where I create a new scene using ops.scene.new(type="FULL_COPY"). This creates copies of all objects and materials, which is good, because I want to keep the old scene unchanged.
Let's call the new scene Scene B. The problem is that, when I check which scene is active, it is indeed Scene B, but when I try to manipulate the newly created material with context.material, it is somehow the old material (from Scene A) that is still active. The weird thing is, I swear this worked yesterday. I've checked the code, but can't find anything that's changed. So, I guess I'm wondering why the new material isn't set as the active material, and how I can find the new material and only manipulate it. Or, if there is another better solution to copying a scene and only manipulating a copy... The code in question is attached below:
@classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.material and context.scene.internal_props.nodes_loaded

    def execute(self, context):
        selected_scene = context.window.scene
        # Make a full copy of the current scene and only manipulate that one
        try:
            # Check if an old scene copy exists and delete it
            context.window.scene = bpy.data.scenes[SCENE_NAME]
            ops.object.select_all()
            ops.object.delete()
            bpy.ops.scene.delete()
        except KeyError as e:
            pass

        ops.scene.new(type="FULL_COPY")
        context.scene.name = SCENE_NAME

        objs = context.scene.objects
        material = context.material # Gets the old material :(
        render = context.scene.render
        all_props = context.scene.props
        nodes = material.node_tree.nodes

In what context are you running this? Properties panel? Shader editor?  "material" is not a member of context in all spaces.

@batFINGER I'm running this from the Node Editor. I'm able to access the list of all materials, but I just don't know which one was created due to copying the scene.


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Add Header Bars to interface
Could a script add header bars to a UI?


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Save just the Material part of a .blend file
Can you just save parts of a .blend file? And link them in later?
thanks

Hello :). Yes, you can have a .blend that only contains a material (and no geometry) if that's what you're asking.

Jachym, thanks for the reply. I was looking more to just save a Node tree from the Shader window as a stand-alone file to link in. Many times I would like to sare a node tree but not all the other data of a project. Yes, there are other ways of doing this but are awkward at best.

That's exactly what I'm talking about :). I have a library of individual nodegroups that I link/append into my projects.

so how do I save just the one node "material" data out of a .blnd file? thanks


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How do you Undo applied rotation?
I've rotated a cube on Y, Applied rotation.
Now the Origins Local rotation is the same as global.
Not knowing the cube rotation on Y how do you "Exactly" set the Origins rotation back to the object's local orientation?
Hand rotating is not the answer.

Hello :). One dirty solution: Duplicate the object and snap it to a flat surface. That will give you the precise rotation needed.

Maybe this? https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/8897/55344 It's a little old but I think it should still work.

This should be the answer to your question: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/290108/165212


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Geometry nodes: Align Instance with Face Tangent (Distribute Points on Faces)
I am dealing with issue where I wanna instance object on mesh surface with aligned not just one, but all axis. So basically I need the instances to posses the tangent of the face surface on which they are being spawned.
My friend forwarded me this partial solution, which he found on internet long time ago (author unknown). Yet the solution works only when points are created with "Mesh to Points" node. With "Distribute Points on Face" it is not working (see not correctly aligned gizmos). And "Distribute Points on Face" is exactly what I want and need to be using.
I am attaching here the blend file and I ll be super glad if someone here will be able and willing to adjust the geometry node graph, so the instances have correct tangent also when distributed with "Distribute Points on Face". I as trying myself but this is beyond my skills.
Thank you

Does this answer your question? Trying to align multiple instances of an object normal to faces using geometry nodes

Depends what you mean by 'Tangent' .. (eg in shaders it depends on UV directions) maybe longest edge ?

dose this help https://shmueldisrl.gumroad.com/l/efjnv

so I tried the propositions, where I switched the point generation from "on Mesh" to "Distribute on Faces":
MarkusvonBroady in your solution the objects were always randomly oriented
shmuel I have no idea how to use your GN to what I need
@RobinBetts in your solution it almost works. X axis kind of always follow the flow of the tube, yet the x/y axis is often flipped. See here link. Do you know how to improve/fix it so, the axis always follow one direction...you know what I mean. Thx

sorry for formating of the comment...need to learn it

Fix is to place Capture Attribute last inside Face Tangent node group

Edit:
That was my old face tangent node group that I shared, here is updated version that will let offset which face edge vector points

Thank you very much. This does the job done.


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Unable to move drone object after adding background image in Blender 2.80
I have added drone 3D object and trying to move it along axis after adding a background image.
I want to move drone over the background image,but image itself is moving .
I am selecting the drone and pressing i and then selecting co-ordinates.
I was able to move the drone before adding bg image.
Please find the attached screenshot.

Starting with 2.80, adding a background image actually adds an empty object that displays the image. This object can be selected and moved like any other, even if it is set to draw its image behind scene objects.
I would suggest making the empty non-selectable. In the outliner, select the empty. If the cursor is not visible in the restiction columns, you can enable it in the filter menu by clicking on the funnel in the header. You can also find the same option in the objects visibility properties.


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Background is getting blurred when i add hdri or exr files in Blender 2.8
I am trying to animate a drone in Shading Mode and also imported hdri images in World mode.
But,most of the time i see everything blurred in the background even with the original hdri images from hdrimap and hdri haven and also sometimes i convert mp4 to hdri or exr ,but in all cases background is blurred.
Please help ,also attaching screenshot.

Your camera. Is your camera set to have depth of field?


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Unable to see rendered View even after adding HDRI and exr files
I am adding hdri and exr files to Env texture but even then i am unable to see the view ( in rendered mode) .
It was wroking last week with some files ,but now its not working.
Attached is screenshot.

Please help.

you have a seconed world output somewere. you can see that because the one in your image is grey and not red.

Since the World Output node doesn't have a red header and the World Properties show that a background node is connected, you have another World Output that is active. You will have to remove the duplicate output in the node editor, that is likely somewhere outside the visible area. All nodes can be brought into the view through View > View All (Home or pos1).
The proper node setup for HDRIs is shown in the following image:

Thanks a lot Robert.


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Blender - Vector Field Animation
I am trying to create an animation of a vector field for my university Physics project. I ideally would like to create something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcQuqxYU-UY so with moving arrows / vectors and possibly also smoke. I have been experimenting with Blender for a few weeks but I am still unsure how to start, or even if this is possible in Blender. Any advice or guidance on how I can create this sort of animation would really be appreciated. Thank you.

I dindt find a way to get motion vectors from smoke sim. But if you had them you could do the arrow-part with the add-on animation nodes. Maby Houdini is also a good look for your goal or a combination of both.

Thats great, thank you I will have a look at animation nodes


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KeenTools FaceBuilder for Blender Mac
I am having trouble installing KeenTools FaceBuilder Beta for Blender on my Mac.
I am curious if anyone has been successful installing the Mac version yet?
I have installed the windows version without any issue at all and it works great.
https://keentools.io/download/facebuilder-for-blender
https://keentools.io/download/core
Thanks,
Jon

I work on Mac and this installs perfect with 2.81. Since you installed this also on a Windows-machine i assume you used the correct method of installing.

I think Blender needs either a *.py or *.zip file for add-ons. I downloaded the *.dmg, decompressed it and then I zipped it. Then i was able to install the add-on.


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best low poly workflow without decimate
I've been playing around with low poly as a design style lately and after watching a talk from GDC about low poly design I had a quick question. It was stated in the talk to avoid using the decimate modifier but I can't find many other workflow tutorials that don't use it.
What are the best techniques to start learning to avoid decimating or is decimate generally an actual acceptable practice?

Well, another option would be to use limited dissolve in edit mode. What this does is find subdivided faces that are relative to one another, and share the same position (i.e. a subdivided plane), and merge them into a single face. This would make a subdivided face a normal face once again.
Do this by going to edit mode mesh > clean up > limited dissolve. This function has been useful for me, and I hope it will help you!


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how do i model filigree details on a cylinder?
Hi guys I'm currently working on a spear model for practice learning blender. I've run into a bit of a tough spot and having a hard time figuring out the correct technique for modeling these filigree details that I've outlined in red.

I have tried using the poly build tool, making a plane that matches the design and shrinkwrapping it then adding depth, creating a whole new object and joining it, etc. In every method I can't see to either have it act nicely or conform to the shape of the cylinder. Any help would be much appreciated.

What do you mean by "act nicely"? What's wrong with your current workflow?

with the shrinkwrap method, adding the solidify modifier results in weird artifacts and it gets scaled to a crazy value even though I only slightly change the value. when i try using a completely new object, say a cube modeled into the shape of those details, i cannot get it to lay nicely against the cylinder either by hand, using the bend tool, or shrinkwrap. there is always some type of weird geometry happening

Have you tried using selective extrusion of faces? The cylinder looks to have enough resolution to work with. By cutting along the details and then selectively extruding the parts you want to have depth.

i will try this out definitely tonight, thanks for the suggestion. i didn't think of cutting along the details

By cutting the cylinder and selective extrusion of the needed faces you can get there.
The cylinder you have in the picture seems to be good enough in resolution.
I made a visual explanation to show the steps.
Essentially, cutting to define the detail areas, dissolving edges to prepare for further cuts and extrusion along normals. Later adding further cuts to achieve the harder edge look. In the video/gif i left out one more cut at the lowest part to sharpen it there as well.
That said, here the show:

The closer you go along the details the better it will look, so excuse my fast run through. Also, i would usually try to avoid triangles, but since this is no character for animation and it was only for explanation, i hope you can overlook that ;)

wow this is great, thank you so much for putting all that together! i really appreciate it a ton!

Glad it helped, consider up-voting or if it's actually what you were looking for, accept it as answered please.

I would use a normal map. You might check out this great video by blenderguru. It's a bit old, but the technique is the same.

Please don't use link only answers. If the link ever goes down, the information is gone for future users of the site. It is always better to include the relevant information as text in your answer.


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Crack-it and Modular Tree addons are not appearing blender 2.81a
Thanks for the help in advance. I am new to Blender and trying to add the Addons Crack It and Modular Tree, but I can't get them to appear on the tool bar. They seem to load fine and without warnings, and I can seem them under tools> work-space - screen shot attached. What am I missing or doing incorrectly.

Have you enabled them in the preferences and are they compatible with Blender 2.8x?

Google is suggesting that "crack it addon is now integrated with fracture cell addon" https://blenderartists.org/t/addon-crack-it-make-crack-for-tree-poop-rock-etc/673393/35  and the Modular Tree addon is found in the  List of Editors (viewports) https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=226&v=UQx0eh8z-iM&feature=emb_logo.


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Stroke Color Changed within the same Material?
I am new to Blender, and Im using it for basic 2D animations. I was drawing something while suddenly I realized that the outline stroke has changed color. The old shapes in the same object and using the same material are still the dark, fully black color that I want. In this picture, the bottom is what I want (and what was happening) and the top is what is now being drawn. Both are a part of the same object and are the same material.

Thanks for the comment, but no, this is all the same frame. Any new drawing or objects I add anywhere are now in that gray color too.


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Object disppear when i change to the render cycle view
I am new in blender. I am trying to change it to cycles render but the object I build just disappears! And I an see them when I change it to edit mode. Can anyone help?

What Blender version do you use?

Its through steam so the latest one 2.81

It's kinda tough to answer that. Have you checked in the outliner if the object is visible for rendering? Look at this:
Object appears in Object mode but not in Render

I dont know how but I fixed it after 5 hours


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Do procedural skies typically cause viewport lag?
I'm new to procedural skies and I'm trying two payware products for Blender: "Nm-8 Skies" and "Procedural Sky System", both available from Blender Market. While the results from both are beautiful, they slow my viewport to a crawl. Procedural Sky System especially makes the viewport too laggy to use when Viewport Shading is set to Material Preview or Rendered. Doesn't matter whether I'm employing Cycles or Eevee. Are procedural skies known to be laggy in Blender? A limitation I need to learn to live with? Or is there a solution or workaround? Thanks. Blender 3.2.2, Windows 11

Seems like you already answered your question

Thanks. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something fundamental about procedural skies I was not understanding.

Well, procedural basically means "made with math", so the more complex the math, the more performance heavy it becomes. A simple "cloudy sky" made with a single noise texture won't lag, but more complex clouds made from multiple noise textures added/mixed together with their vectors multiplied by a detailed musgrave texture or something similar, will start to slow down. As with any shader graph, the more nodes/mixes you add, the more "performance hungry" it becomes.

Thanks for the responses everyone. The viewport slowness appears to have resolved itself for both products. In the case of Procedural Sky System, it appears it was still compiling while I was trying to work with the scene, so that may have slowed things at first.


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How to gradually accelerate a camera dolly-out animation from extreme closeup?
I want to animate a scene where the camera slowly dollies away from an extreme closeup of subject. In this case, I'm starting with a closeup on a tree frog on a branch and dollying away until the entire tree is contained in the frame.
The issue is if the camera dolly motion is constant (linear) along its path, then the impression is that the initial camera movement appears to be quick, and then appears to slow down as it moves further away; I want the camera motion to appear more constant.
I think the solution would be to slowly accelerate the camera's motion as it dollies out so that at the start of the animation the camera is moving slowly, and by the end is moving more quickly. Smooth acceleration along the camera's path is what I want, but I can't figure out how to do this. Any suggestions? Thanks. Blender 3.3.0, Window 11

I'm no expert, but I'd have thought that you could do that easily with the Graph Editor in Blender.

You pointed me in the right direction. Thanks!

Hovering over the graph editor and pressing 'T' will give you some options which might be useful.


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Eevee sunlight leaking through entire building object
I'm working with Eevee for the first time and I'm running into an unexpected artifact: Light from the sun object is passing through an entire building object and casting a shadow on the underside of the object. Is there a fix?
Visible in the attached example is a shadow of the arches appearing on the bottom of the building.
I've researched this and have learned that Eevee light leaks are a known issue, but none of the solutions I've tried thus far have had any effect. Compounding the issue is that this is an animation where the camera travels around the building. Any suggestions? Thanks. Blender 3.3.0, Windows 11

My workaround is to turn off the sun entirely, and since the scene is already lit by a procedural HDRi, the sun isn't missed. I'm so used to Cycles that Eevee is throwing me some curves.

Try messing with the bias settings in the light properties, and also make sure you have contact shadows enabled.

Maybe my explanations on contact shadows in Eevee here: Basic Shade problem in Eevee might help you figuring out how to get rid of this.


text:
Linking objects produces weird results
I'm doing a blender course in which I'm modeling a patch of grass. I had to make several patches using a Particle System and applying a Particle system and making several variations on the same patch using all the different settings for scaling, rotation etc.
Now I want to link all the individual strands in a patch together. I click one strand, then use Shift to select them all, then press Ctrl + J . And then Boom! This mumbo-jumbo appears.
I follow every step of the tutorial exactly as described, and also other tutorials on youtube on this subject. I have not been able to find anything about this particular error.

Welcome to Blender Stack Exchange! It the hotkey ctrl+J is for joining the meshes together. It sounds correct in the context but what it does in the background is it joins them together applying all the properties of the later selected mesh which includes the particle System, which is what provides you with the "mumbo-jumbo". What you would want is to group the items together using the hotkey ctrl+G to create a group of the patches you want whilst making sure not to mess up the particle system of individual meshes.

Hope the answer helps. let me know if you have further queries.

Thank you! I now worked it out, I used a wrong setting when making the objects as a single from the object - relations menu!

You don't have to do all this as Random option is available in the particle system settings in regard to the particles' scale and rotation. Use it.


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Pulling edges up
I'm a newbie to the blender, and I'm making a drink can.

I have done this so far, and I'm trying to pull selected orange edges up like in this picture(the bottom one is an example).

I pressed the  G to grab it, and nothing worked.
I also tried pressing the  E +  Z to extrude along the Z axis and bevel (Shift + ctrl + B), but it didn't work at all.
Any good suggestion for this one?

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

Blender has many keyboard shortcuts and many different contexts you might want to use them in so you have to hover the mouse over the area you intend to send keystrokes to. That's one of few possible reasons why nothing happens if you press G. If your mouse is somewhere else then your 3d viewport the keystroke will be sent there. For example over the Text Editor it will just type letters you press because that's what you want with the Text Editor.
G is the right key for moving stuff pretty much everywhere stuff can be moved in Blender so when you hit it while hovering the mouse over 3d viewport where you have some mesh elements selected in Edit Mode, 'grab' operation will start. You can move stuff freely and hit Enter or simply click to finish the operation(Esc or rightclick to cancel), or you could constrain the movement to some axis while in operation with X,Y and Z as well as use numerical input to move stuff precisely. See the documentation for more info. Have a look at Transform Control as well.
One more possible reason why one might not be able to move stuff is if the object is scaled to 0 in some axis. In that case, when you move mesh elements, they get moved in local object's space, but in global space the object is 0 length in some direction, so nothing actually moves. Check if that's the case:

If it is the case, you could apply scale in object mode with Ctrl+A:


text:
How do I delete the other object?
I'm very new to Blender. I have downloaded a model of a pair of shoes. I want to delete the other shoe so that I can position it accordingly, but it isn't deleting.
I tried deleting this in the Edit Mode but it doesn't show up in this mode. How can I delete one shoe from the pair?

Oh I won't lie by saying "If I have a million dollar, I would literally give that to you" but I could send you $5 it is the same price of the addon subscription from which I downloaded this shoe...if you want you can leave your paypal email, I'll send it over

no it's ok...  ;)

hey I'm not just saying I can seriously send this right now, I wanna appreciate how you helped me in just minutes...cuz Im having a project going on which should be completed by tomorrow and I thought that I couldn't be able to finish this by that day but you just helped. I could even send $10 if you want...

you'll hire me when you'll need a freelance   ;)

you mean hiring you over here at Blenders exchange ?

check my youtube channel (blender moonboots) and if you ever need a freelance you can contact me

Sure bro I will deffinately do and I do respect your decision too...btw what's your name ?

Alright bro and again thank you for the help and I'll keep you in mind whenever I got a big project I'll hit you up ;)

ok good luck!  ;)

You've hidden the other shoe in Edit mode, press AltH to unhide


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Is there a way to isolate single objects for more Cycles render samples?
I'm animating a large scene, i.e., with many objects and light sources, with Cycles and struggling to solve noise issues. It's an outdoor scene with a real world twilight HDR sky and the darkness of the scene seems to make noise issues even more of an issue. I've tried a lot of noise solutions, including Blender's built-in Optix implementation and 3rd-party solutions, but it seems the only surefire way to reduce noise is via the brute force method of increasing render samples, but then that increases render time.
In many instances, only a few of the objects are exhibiting significant noise artifacts, so my question is: Is there a way to isolate single objects for more render samples?
I've been researching Blender's Render Layers as a way of separating noisy objects for more samples. If I could render those noisy object animations in isolation, then combine those renders in an external video editor, I might have a workable noise solution. However, those higher-sample renders would only be useful if the isolated noisy objects still received the lights and shadows of the larger scene. Can Render Layers do this? If not, is there another solution? Thanks. Blender 3.3.1, Windows 11

This is what adaptive sampling does.  If that produces problems I suppose you could do a separate pass and overlay it

@AllenSimpson Thank you for the response. Are you saying I could do a separate pass by moving the objects to a separate Scene with its own sample settings?

I never could determine an answer to my question, however this post-render solution is doing the job for me: https://www.neatvideo.com/


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How can I execute the uv smart project operator per polygon or face of a mesh in python?
The last state of my unsuccessful attempts has been the attached code sample.
obj = bpy.context.edit_object
me = obj.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
bm.faces.ensure_lookup_table()
for face in bm.faces:
    face.select_set(True)
    if bpy.ops.uv.smart_project.poll():
        bpy.ops.uv.smart_project()
    face.select_set(False)
    bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me, True)

This will lead to an error "ReferenceError: BMesh data of type BMFace has been removed". Replacing
face.select_set(False)

by
bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action = 'DESELECT')

leads to a Blender crash.

The last line bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me, True) is indented and thus repeatedly executed in the for loop. I don't think this is intended and might cause the error.


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How can I access and modify a boolean attribute in edit mode?
Re Manually setting custom attributes per edge / vertex / etc
TLDR : In edit mode, the regular interface to access and edit attributes, mesh.attributes["MyAttribute"].data yields an empty sequence.
Fortunately, one can access the attributes through the edit mode bmesh. layer = bm.verts.layers.float.get("MyAttribute") Unfortunately, AFAIK the only supported data types through this interface are color, deform, float, float_color, float_vector, int, shape, skin and string. Source
I'm trying to access a boolean attribute. How can I do that ?
This begs the question for other supported attributes like byte color, 2D vector, 8-bit integer, 2D integer vector and Quaternion.

Coincidentally I am developing a similar add-on. Can't I just use the temporary change to object mode?
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/269330/how-to-get-seams-as-an-edge-property-in-geometry-nodes

@mml This is indeed a solution. But for performance reason this is not possible for me. This will be queried in a panel and run several dozen times per seconds. I need to stay in edit mode. Going in and out of edit mode when your mesh is extremely dense can take several seconds up to several minutes. Cheers

I see. This is certainly not a smart way to do it. It seems that attribute editing will be available in the future, but it has not been realized yet.Cheers


text:
Mirror zoom magnification between adjacent windows?
I have two adjacent viewports, one in Front Ortho, the other in Right Ortho, so I can edit the same model from the front and side.  Is there any way to lock/mirror/match the magnification between the two, so that if I zoom in/out in one, the other zooms in/out to the same degree also?

You can use Quad View for that.
Set up those 3 views so each of them is different (top, side and front). Then turn on its Lock and Box features :

You can zoom and grab those views simultaneously:

Wonderfully helpful--even more streamlined than what I'd hoped for.  Thank you!  And for any supernoobs like myself, you get to that Display menu with the hotkey 'n'.  Thanks!


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Mesh problem when smoothing intersecting cylinder in object
Im very new to blender so sorry if i don't explain very well. I made a hole in my object with a cylinder using the boolean intersect modifier but when i smooth the figure using the sub surf modifier its makes some geometry that i don't want there.
Well here are some screenshots:
Before
After

You can also try to increase the crease

The faces with 4+ sides are called Ngons.
Ngons are not easy to handle with subdivision surfaces. They don't give predictable results, you cannot easly controle them.
You can:

Change your topology by converting all ngons and tris to quads, as they have user-easily-predictable results with subsurf, but you must do it manually and it will take lot of time.
Convert ngons to tris, by triangulating and splitting your geometry (expecially concaves faces). This can be done automatically with the given commands with good results, but in will not be subsurfaced as percfectly as it would be done with only quads and will be hard to do further modeling onto.
Don't use subsurface to smooth edges but bevel them (manually or with the modifier)


text:
Face has different shading that rest of object
This particular face  has different shading than the rest of the object and i don't know why.

If you could upload the blend file, that would help

I sort of solved the problem by deleting the faces and re smooth shading them. Thanks by the way.

In case it helps anyone, in my case it was because of duplicate points, W > Remove Doubles fixed it.

Welcome to the site :) Generally we prefer answers which explain how to do the steps mentioned; I've taken the liberty of editing your answer to include where to find the Remove Doubles operator. If you don't agree with my edits, please feel free to roll them back and/or submit more edits of your own.

Go into edit mode, select the face(s) that are shaded funny.  Click on the shading/UVs tab on the tools menu, if you don't see the toolshelf, press T.  After clicking on the shading/UVs tab in the toolshelf [NB: "Shading/UV" was in a panel on the main toolshelf through version 2.69; the buttons were moved to a tab starting with version 2.7] click "flip direction" and it will flip direction of the normals of the face(s). Alternatively you could select the whole mesh and click recalculate, however that doesn't always work.

Nope, the face flips and the side is invisible, i don't think that its a normal problem.

Do you have any materials applied to it?

Yes. I found that the up face has a lot of faces adjacent to it that shouldn't be there, i'll try deleting them and see if it solves the problem. Edit: It didn't.

It could be the material applied even though you are in solid view.  I have a mesh I've made and sharp changes in material still change the object slightly even when not rendering or in material view.

You have to press Ctrl N while all the mesh is selected in edit mode or go to the Toolshelf and under the Shading tab, under the Normal Section, click 'Recalculate'.
[NB: "Shading/UV" was in a panel on the main toolshelf through version 2.69]

It didn't work.

Does it have Smooth Shading applied?

Yes. I also have an edge split modifier applied if it helps.

If you've tried the above advice and it still hasn't helped, you really should provide a .blend so we can examine the problem in detail.


text:
How to use the transparency of the image used in a texture
While following along I was able to use UV mapping for the eyes but once it came to the eyebrows something seems wrong. The example shows eyebrows that look like hair because they have transparency to them. When I mapped the eyebrows, I can see the texture on them but it seems almost as if there's something wrong with the transparency because it's as if they have a black background.
I've watched many many videos about UV mapping and they all seem to show the way that I am doing it and I've retried with a new project and it does the same thing no matter what I do.

If you would like to see the project I have uploaded it here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qOJI7o9q1W1HOTnEInrbbkJfRjgWF8id
I appreciate any suggestions or help.
Thank you!

Thank you, I will look into what you are saying. I appreciate it!


text:
jagged render using cycles, smooth with eevee
I've checked other questions with these terms but no answers.
When I render an image with default settings in eevee, I get smooth shadows, when I render using cycles the shadows on  my snowman show some sharp edges.  What can I do to get a better render using cycles since I plan to use this mode for more in depth animations in the future.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/27982/how-to-avoid-terminator-artifacts-while-still-using-smooth-shading-and-the-new-p


text:
How can I get the velocity of a rigid body?
Is it possible to get the velocity of a rigid body?

Once a sim is baked, the global location at any frame is ob.matrix_world.translation  Velocity and Acceleration can  be "baked" from this data.  (Using numpy gradient for example) AFAIK there is no exposed velocity property.


text:
Glass material rendered as dark grey
I am trying to render a glass material on a cup. But it looks grey after rendering. Screenshot of the render. (https://i.sstatic.net/cNMEc.png)
The material details are as shown.Material details.(https://i.sstatic.net/H8Z84.png)

Make sure that the normals are facing in the right direction, screen space reflection should be enabled (Render Properties) and screen space refraction (Material Properties) as well. You should also have something in the environment that the glass can reflect, e.g. other objects or an environment map.

Your issue is with the render settings. By default, Eevee does not calculate Screen Space Reflections, effectively disabling translucent/transparent materials.
You have two options, change to the Cycles render engine, or stick with Eevee and enable Screen Space Reflections and Refraction

Enabling the screen space reflection in Several did not help. However there is no penitentiary with cycles renderer.


text:
When moving faces, some sides stay in their original place
When moving faces, some sides stay in their original place. Everything is selected, but sometimes when I go to move a face one of the sides moves, but it makes a 2D face of where it was to where it is. Images won’t upload for some reason, so hopefully someone understands my weird description. Thanks!!!

Sounds like you have 2 edges occupying the exact same place and you are only selecting one of them when you select the face .  This can happen if you Extrude but don't actually move the newly extruded vertices. To remove these "doubles" : in edit mode select everything then open the Vertex menu > Merge vertices > By Distance.


text:
Overwrite original geometry UVMap with Geometry Nodes uv_map
Is there a way of overwriting the UVMap of the object, the one used by the Texture Coordinate node, with the generated uv_map that geometry nodes produce with the primitives? I want my procedural geo node objects to have usable UV's without having to change my textures to use the generated uv_map attribute.

You can also transfer the "uv_map" from one object to another as described here and write it into the attribute "UVMap": https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/271403/145249

This is a Known Issue for now. Hopefully it will be resolved in future implementations.

You can use this script to convert UVMap attributes to a regular UVMap. Just copy it into the text editor and execute. Tested in Blender 3.2.2.
Important before doing it:

Your UVMap attribute has to be named UVMap.

You need to apply the geometry nodes modifier first.

You need to select your UVMap attribute inside the Attributes tab in the data properties of your geometry nodes object.
import bpy
 a = bpy.context.object.data.attributes
 a.active = a['UVMap']
 bpy.ops.geometry.attribute_convert(mode='UV_MAP', domain='CORNER', data_type='FLOAT2')

The original hint is by Andrey-730 and can be found here: https://devtalk.blender.org/t/attribute-transfer-to-uv-layer/23016/7


text:
Help with creating procedural aged golden material?
I'm a beginner to procedural textures and have spent the past few weeks studying it and now I'm wanting to practice making my own.
I'm trying to replicate the texture of this coffee table (shown below) but I keep running into issues creating the rust/burnt kind of gold texture (sorry, not sure how to explain with correct terms).
If someone could point me in the right direction to create this kind of rust and the different coloring I'd be very thankful.

Hello :). Please add the result you have so far. And perhaps an image of your node setup.

@JachymMichal Hi, here (https://i.imgur.com/1WWE7QV.jpeg) is what I have so far, not really where I'd like to be but I know I am missing some step somewhere just not sure where.

@bacon add information to your post by editing it, don't post it in the comments

You could do something like this. It's just 2 Noise textures, one multiplied (to transfer the darks) and the other added (to transfer the whites), both mixed with an orange basecolor, which when combined with a high metallic value gives the cooper-ish look similar to your reference image. You can change the amount of light/dark by adjusting theColorRamps. As an additional factor, I mixed the 2 Noise Textures and combined the result with black for a roughness factor, and adjusted the mix factor until it was sufficiently "shiny but grungy".

Hi Christopher, thanks for your clear advice. I appreciate the photo visual as I'm a visual learner. It looks really close to what I want it to look like especially the rusts. I will try your nodes out. I was unsure how to do the different rust/grunge parts but you explained well. I appreciate it!


text:
Basic extrude question
Just started with Blender.
I made a shape ( picture 1) Now I want to make a circle on this face and sink it into the shape.
What I do is create a circle, place it onto the original shape, press F  to give it a face, make an inset (picture 2), and then when I try to extrude (picture 3), it does not create a hole.
Probably because I have two faces on top of each other. How would you go about this?

are you looking to make a hole? try the boolean Modifier, difference, apply and remove the cilinder (and good luck with Ngons and strange things if your planes are not 100% flat).

Add a cylinder object in object mode.

Select the base mesh and goto modifier stack and select "Boolean Modifier".

Select the cylinder mesh in the boolean modifier settings. Hit Apply.

Now, delete the unwanted cylinder object.

Select the base mesh and goto Edit Mode TAB

Select the vertices of the formed circle and E and Hit Z to Extrude the vertices in Z-Axis.

It would be best to plan nice topology from the beginning. You can form the 'pill' shape with a circle, splitting(Y) it's half, moving it and filling everything(F), if you then inset(i) the resulting face, you get the geometry that you can use to re-form a circle by snapping half of it back to place(hold Ctrl down while in transform operation to temporarily enable snapping, be sure to use vertex snapping). You need to merge the overlapping vertices with merge by distance(Alt+M) and then you can extrude your hole.

There are obviously plenty of other ways to do this and none of them is 'the right one', my main point is that it is best to plan from the start while modelling and have nice topology. You will find it a lot more convenient than using booleans and having a mess in the long run. If this seems a bit overwhelming, because you are just beginning don't worry too much, just keep in mind that planning and keeping in mind what other operations you are going to need while modelling is a good idea. You need to get used to all the modelling functions in order to put all the pieces together in your mind for a specific shape.

Woah! this is great!

I think the 2 triangles will not fare well with subdivision surface, I wouldn't call it "nice topology"

would it be a good topology if we subdivide an edge of triangle, as it would then have four vertices? @Gorgious

That's a very good point - don't use subsurf everywhere blindly. In many cases, especially when modelling inorganic 'hard surface' objects, subsurf is a bad idea, it makes the forms more organic - smooth across all the surface instead of bevels only and adds loads of extra geometry that is very often not needed. It's a huge mistake to just use it everywhere and assume it is always going to be used no matter the circumstances. Nice topology in this case means it is easy to select and manipulate using various loop tools and it does not have concave n-gons.

But sure, there are plenty of other ways to do this, one could use Circle function from Loop Tools add-on for example instead of merging by distance to preserve quads.


text:
Generation has thrown an exception: list index out of range
whenever I press the GENERATE RIG option in blender.....this error shows up....I really cant find its solution.....So much time wasted on it but really cant find a single clue about it....someone please tell the solution.

Following error at the bottom of the blender

     "Generation has thrown an exception: list index out of range".

I'm having the same issue, any hint for solving that?


text:
Crash when selecting GPU or clicking System in settings with RX5700XT
Blender was working fine for me recently, but now I'm observing a problem.
Blender 2.81a and 2.79 seem to have the same issue. using cycles I get a crash as soon as I select GPU from the list of rendering devices. I don't even start rendering, it crashes just by selecting GPU. I went to check settings (do not recall if its set to GPU or GPU+CPU) only to find that clicking the System tab in settings also causes an instant crash. The computer is updated regularly, but I don't know when the issue showed up. How can I troubleshoot this?
on the console the only piece of information it seems to give me is "segmentation fault"
OS is Ubuntu 18.04LTS

Maybe the GPU is not supported.

This exact configuration was working previously, it just suddenly started to crash.

when adding the -d switch to print debug options, the crash shows this:
: CommandLine Error: Option 'help-list' registered more than once!
LLVM ERROR: inconsistency in registered CommandLine options
Writing: MyFile.crash.txt
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
googling that command line issue and LLVM error, that sounds like openCL related stuff.
I noticed something else that's more troublesome, if I open a file that was saved with the compute device set to GPU it will crash when going to the system tab in settings, clicking the output options button, or attempting to render.

In the event that it helps someone else out, I think the issue was an incompatibility with a kernel update. It's unfortunate but it appears that AMDGPU lags behind Ubuntu in kernel compatibility.
The machine recently updated to Kernel version 5.3. reverted it to 5.0 which was the previous version, reinstalled amdgpu and everything is fine again.
I installed amdgpu (pro version this time) 19.50, which is the latest version as of Jan 2020.


text:
GLTF import animation problem
I'm trying to import a GLTF with one animation track:
https://pastebin.com/raw/LxMeuJ32
it displays correctly on several GLTF viewers, e.g. BabylonJS Sandbox, three.js GLTF viewer, i.e. the cube should fall on the floor and bounce.
When imported in Blender, all the objects move together.
I also don't understand the content of the non linear animation tracks, as it shows 3 tracks for each object, whereas there are only two channels (position and rotation) animating each object.


text:
Clip Start and Clip end not showing in blender 2.81 for sun light
I am doing lighting in eevee by watching a tutorial. So in tutorial it shows that clip start and clip end for shadows in object data properties but mine is not showing. If there is any other way to do it please help.
the above image is of my pc and the below one is from the tutorial.

Sun light shadow bounds are now automatically calculated, so manually adjusting clipping values is no longer necessary.
The properties have been removed and the UI adjusted accordingly.


text:
Viewport / Rendered Cycles problem Blender 2.8
I have a strange problem with cycles
in the rendered viewport everything looks fine but when i render the scene
suddenly it doesn't look good specially on the walls
anyone has any idea why is it that happening?

I guess either modifiers are disabled for rendering (screen icon) or there is any additional object probably hidden for viewport rendering (overlapping geometry). It would help to solve your issue, if you would add a screenshot providing information about your scene settings or upload the file preferably using https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Thank you for the respond... the geometry is ok and there are no overlapping faces and the normals are ok and facing the camera ..... and there are no modifiers ...that's why i find this strange

and with eevee everything is allright ....I'm trying it again using the Luxcore renderer to see if the problem is only with cycles


text:
Reversing a 3d model
I want to know how to reverse a 3d model,for example some guys develop scripts and tools to extract 3d models from video games and then convert them to obj and stuff.I have no knowledge in these things apart from making edits using blender.
So i wanna know where do i start to learn 3d model reversing.

i'm not sure I understand the question yet. Do you want to learn to code so as to be able to extract models, or do you want to learn how to accurately recreate models purely from references using modelling skills? You can improve modeling skills by going through our list of Blender resources

and I don't read the word blender anywhere... so I vote to close the question.

@m.ardito but Blender is mentioned in the second last sentence. I agree with the sentiment to close or put on hold...

Your question is a bit broad. You would need to know the file format, and create an importer for this format in Blender. As an example: Starting with a documentation of the .mx format I created a script to import the models of an old game called forsaken. The source and links to the documentation are linked here:
Is there a way to import .mx or .mxa files?


text:
I need help with Clone(FClone) Brush
I need help with Clone(FClone) Brush in Blender,for some strange reason it doesn't appear,i tried to paint a new face texture onto the original texture.
What might i be doing wrong?I have attached a video showing what i'm doing.
Could some one please shed some light?
https://youtu.be/v-RCfvBaBWk

I'm not sure how the Clone Brush is tied here. There are some faces of the model which don't get the texture others do. You could select them (or all faces of the head) and assign them once again the desired material. This could be caused by deleting and filling these faces after materials' setup was done.


text:
The UV Map is correct, but the texture does not appear correctly
I applied textures on the mesh in blender. The UV Map of the mesh is correct. However, when the textures are applied, the textures shows on the mesh as triangles. Please help

hello, maybe you forgot to shade smooth when you baked?

Actually its a 3d model that i exported from a game.

Is there a way to somehow fix this ?

I think if you use the Clear Custom Split Normals option it will solve your problem, but I suggest you turn off the Auto Smooth option as well and clear the sharp edges (Select mesh edges > RMB > Clear Sharp).

Thank You For your assistance, but auto smooth was turned off by default and then i tried to clear sharp edge. It didnt work sadly.

I have attached my blend file and textures
https://www71.zippyshare.com/v/TnDoWoLD/file.html

I checked your blend file and I assume something went wrong with the exporting process, you should try it again. In my opinion, the problem is clearly with the UV map.
If you couldn't move forward with the exporting and couldn't get a better result you can create a new UV map for the mesh and snap the vertices onto the original UV map, but it'll take a lot of time to do this with all of your meshes, Unfortunately, I couldn't find a faster workflow to do this other than manually, I tried to transfer the UV but then I got back the original result.


text:
Use tracking information from video to make a 2d panorama
I am proficient in computers, but a relative noob to blender.  My video is H.264 with 1080p@60. I have loaded a video in and did the whole tracking system and collected the movement data.  I slowly panned left and right and up and down and have about 700 frames.
I followed a tutorial on stabilizing videos, but the exercise got me thinking.  If blender knows exactly how far frame 1 is off from frame 2,3,4, and etc it should be able to make an excellent panorama from it.
You start with the 1st frame as your base.  Lets say the tracking data says your picture moved up 10 pixels and right 10 pixels.  So you take the top 10 (rows) pixels and right 10(columns) pixels and you add them to the top and right of frame 1 and do this for the rest of the 700 frames.  If it offers no new pixels ignore that frame.  Then you have a panorama.  It would be nice to be able to overlay certain frames if a few are blurry or otherwise defective.
Is this possible, and of course how?
I was in the Node Editor and linked the video and tracking data, but then what?

700^2 =490,000 loops for hugin.sourceforge.net it make blender look like a NASCAR.  It is horribly inefficient.  If it is not done by morning it will be cancelled, and I have a fast system.

A blender script would kill the performance of hugin, and probably even be able to correct for camera rotating.  Someone needs to write one.

I don't know the entire answer, here, but you should look into dupliframes. It might help with what you're going for.

The only way to achieve this in Blender I think is with Dynamic Paint. But the vertex paint can be poor quality. You'll have to bake an image sequence. Of course you only need the last frame.

Track the image with 1 marker. Use "offset" if marker leaves frame.

Solve the track for Tripod.
In Geometry tab of the MCE link an empty to the track.
Go to the 3D view and create a plane for the canvas, subdivide it
lots. The more you subdivide it the sharper the image later.
Give it a Copy location Constraint (new empty)and a copy rotation
constraint (camera rotation).
Press 0 to look through the camera and scale the canvas so that it
covers the camera view from first frame to last.
Then add another plane using the Images as Planes addon. This will
be the brush.
Give it a constraint to copy the camera location but in edit mode,
scale it to fill the field of view and move it towards the canvas
object.
Add a Solidify modifier so that the image plane goes through the
canvas plane.

Go to the physics tab and activate Dynamic paint > brush. Set
 material to the movie image material.
Now select the canvas and in the physics tab activate the Dynamic
 paint > canvas. Turn down Drying time to 1 frame.

The canvas should move below the camera in sync with the original camera move. The source movie should be projected onto the canvas from the camera point of view.
To reduce the processing you would use fewer frames from the source pan. Blender won't drop frames in Texture mode so you would have to preprocess them in the VSE, by applying a speed effect which will drop frames. In this way a pan that could use 100 frames could be created with just 10 frames. Tracking would be a bit more challenging.

Just an additional thought but I think that the distortion could be resolved (sort of) by projecting onto the inside of a sphere instead of the plane. In which case you would have to animate the camera with a tripod solve. Then parent the paint object to the camera view.

Problems arise from the masks you need and the amount of overlap between the pictures. As long as the panoramic movie was recorded on a electric turntable, than there's a chance the masking can be scripted.
Otherwise:
First grab about 35 overlapping keyframes out of your 700 sequence. Let than hugin or MS Image Composition Editor (ICE) do the stitching work for you.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/ice/
Both are free and each has its advantages. Give them a try :)
Yet another idea when using Hugin (or similar apps): Try to stitch blocks of images i.e. 10 to 15 as 'sub-panoramas' but remember to always integrate some overlapping pictures to each side. Stitching the subs together will lead you to your final all-in-panorama.
Lots of work, though.

If you want to create a panorama out of a video, split the video in single pictures and stitch them together with Hugin.

I have tried Hugin, but after loading in around 700 images, and waiting a considerable amount of time the results were not good.  I may try it again on another sequence to see if that helps.

You should try to select as few frames as possible that still contain the whole panorama. The pictures should overlap on the edges for about a 4th of the image.


text:
How to make this script compatible with Blender 2.8 API?
The error I'm getting is:
TypeError: Converting py args to operator properties: : keyword "constraint_orientation" unrecognized

I've been told that it's due to API differences since 2.8, particularly "constraint_orientation".
The code in question:
import bpy

def reset_shape_keys ():
    for name, shape_key in get_active_block().items():
        shape_key.value = 0

def get_active_block ():
    block_id = bpy.context.object.active_shape_key.id_data.name
    return bpy.data.shape_keys[block_id].key_blocks

def select (selection):
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    selection.select = True
    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = selection

def select_last_shape_key ():
    shape_key_count = len(get_active_block().items())
    bpy.context.object.active_shape_key_index = shape_key_count - 1

def remove_shape_keys (object):
    selection = bpy.context.object
    select(object)
    shape_key_count = len(get_active_block().items())
    select_last_shape_key()
    for i in range(0, shape_key_count):
        bpy.ops.object.shape_key_remove(all=False)
    select(selection)

def apply_modifiers (object):
    selection = bpy.context.object
    select(object)

    for key, modifier in object.modifiers.items():
        if key != 'Armature':
            bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(apply_as='DATA', modifier=key)

    select(selection)

def super_apply_modifiers ():
    original = bpy.context.object
    bpy.ops.object.duplicate_move(OBJECT_OT_duplicate={"linked":False, "mode":'TRANSLATION'}, TRANSFORM_OT_translate={"value":(0, 0, 0), "constraint_axis":(False, False, False), "constraint_orientation":'GLOBAL', "mirror":False, "proportional":'DISABLED', "proportional_edit_falloff":'SMOOTH', "proportional_size":1, "snap":False, "snap_target":'CLOSEST', "snap_point":(0, 0, 0), "snap_align":False, "snap_normal":(0, 0, 0), "gpencil_strokes":False, "texture_space":False, "remove_on_cancel":False, "release_confirm":False, "use_accurate":False})
    backup = bpy.context.object
    backup.name = 'backup'
    remove_shape_keys(original)
    apply_modifiers(original)

    for key, shape_key in get_active_block().items():
        select(backup)
        bpy.ops.object.duplicate_move(OBJECT_OT_duplicate={"linked":False, "mode":'TRANSLATION'}, TRANSFORM_OT_translate={"value":(0, 0, 0), "constraint_axis":(False, False, False), "constraint_orientation":'GLOBAL', "mirror":False, "proportional":'DISABLED', "proportional_edit_falloff":'SMOOTH', "proportional_size":1, "snap":False, "snap_target":'CLOSEST', "snap_point":(0, 0, 0), "snap_align":False, "snap_normal":(0, 0, 0), "gpencil_strokes":False, "texture_space":False, "remove_on_cancel":False, "release_confirm":False, "use_accurate":False})

        meshed_shape_key = bpy.context.object
        select(meshed_shape_key)
        reset_shape_keys()
        get_active_block()[key].value = 1
        bpy.ops.object.convert(target='MESH')

        select(original)
        meshed_shape_key.select = True
        bpy.ops.object.join_shapes()
        select_last_shape_key()
        bpy.context.object.active_shape_key.name = key

        select(meshed_shape_key)
        bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False)

Oops link posted only had link to docs. https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.ops.transform.html#bpy.ops.transform.translate   2.8 is using orientations.  The arguments orientation_type and orientation_matrix.  An operator call copied from the INFO window has all options shown.  Most of these are defaults and need not be set. Also creates ridiculous line lengths and arguments should be indented on a new line IMO. (This is Well demonstrated  in answer below)   To transform in a script would use direct matrix manipulation via API not the operator.  Since there actually is no translation

its (0, 0, 0) so could be bpy.ops.object.duplicate() .. but wouldn't use the op would new_ob = ob.copy() and link it to the collection instead.   Anyway I digress, main point if using operators in code IMO don't copy paste from INFO. Type them in and add only the arguments that you wish to set and let the defaults take care of themselves.

Here is the Script converted to 2.8
import bpy

def reset_shape_keys ():
    for name, shape_key in get_active_block().items():
        shape_key.value = 0

def get_active_block ():
    block_id = bpy.context.object.active_shape_key.id_data.name
    return bpy.data.shape_keys[block_id].key_blocks

def select (selection):
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    selection.select_set(True)
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = selection

def select_last_shape_key ():
    shape_key_count = len(get_active_block().items())
    bpy.context.object.active_shape_key_index = shape_key_count - 1

def remove_shape_keys (object):
    selection = bpy.context.object
    select(object)
    shape_key_count = len(get_active_block().items())
    select_last_shape_key()
    for i in range(0, shape_key_count):
        bpy.ops.object.shape_key_remove(all=False)
    select(selection)

def apply_modifiers (object):
    selection = bpy.context.object
    select(object)

    for key, modifier in object.modifiers.items():
        if key != 'Armature':
            bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(apply_as='DATA', modifier=key)

    select(selection)

def super_apply_modifiers ():
    original = bpy.context.object
    bpy.ops.object.duplicate_move()
    backup = bpy.context.object
    backup.name = 'backup'
    remove_shape_keys(original)
    apply_modifiers(original)

    for key, shape_key in get_active_block().items():
        select(backup)
        bpy.ops.object.duplicate_move()

        meshed_shape_key = bpy.context.object
        select(meshed_shape_key)
        reset_shape_keys()
        get_active_block()[key].value = 1
        bpy.ops.object.convert(target='MESH')

        select(original)
        meshed_shape_key.select_set(True)
        bpy.ops.object.join_shapes()
        select_last_shape_key()
        bpy.context.object.active_shape_key.name = key

        select(meshed_shape_key)
        bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False)

You can write the bpy.ops.object.duplicate_move() like this because your only use the default values of this operator.
[Tested on 2.83.3]


text:
How can I make a glossy BDSF shader reflect the true color of an emission?
I have a red glossy shader on a car and a different object with a blue emission shader, the blue emission is reflecting off the glossy shader as yellow. How can I make the reflection the true color of the emission instead of yellow? An image of the problem is below, thanks for any help I appreciate it.


text:
Black artifacts only in final render
I have a rather simple glass material on a wine glass model, it renders perfectly fine in preview, but in final render it gets these black artifacts around edges.
I've checked other threads and tried tweaking the near/far clip but it doesnt seem to affect the issue. I've also upped the light paths to full global illumination.
Example:

Material and render settings:

What could be the cause of this? Any help appreciated.

Check out this Answer: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/36538/15366

It could be to do with flipped normals or even simply smooth shading applied to a subsurface mesh?

Thank you, you solved it! :) Problem  was smooth shading to subsurf

possible duplicate of Why does the Minecraft-texture have black/dark borders in Cycles?

The problem was smooth shading, as pointed out by Igor Tatarnikov and Hexbob6.  I needed to apply an edge-split modifier to the problematic geometry to fix the issue.
See Why does the Minecraft-texture have black/dark borders in Cycles?

Also try the setting in finalrender for number of refraction passes, A glass needs 4 at least. increase and check if improved.


text:
Rigging a robotic arm
I made a model and an armature, which I did not parented yet to the mesh. I want the robot rotate towards a specific bone. Through IK I can move the whole armature towards this bone but I want the robot only to be able to rotate on the z axis. So when I move this controller bone, the robot armature should rotate towards this position on the z-axis. Is this possible in blender?

Yes it is.
In every IK chain you can select a bone and set some constraints in the IK tab of the bone section of the properties panel. The XYZ constraints are referred to the bone axis, not to the global orientation.

I managed to make the armature almost work as intended, but I want to "skip" one bone in the IK chain, namely the topConnector bone, is this possible? So no matter what, this bone should have the same rotation on the x-axis in world space, so not dependant on the parents rotation on this axis.http://www.pasteall.org/blend/38948


text:
Linking external data back to the blender file after moving
I want a friend to render my 6400 frame short film I made on blender... And it has a lot of image textures for materials... I have all the images, music, and pretty much everything that is in the animation in one folder, including the actual blender file... But it seems the destination of the files will change because the folder would be installed on his computer and he would have to go and change all the matierial image texture file destinations to the same folder on his disk... Is there a way where he can just link up to all of the files without the hassle? Thanks

What happens if you copy your folder to a USB stick or SD card, and load your blend file? If you can load it from there you friend should be able to load it from there,too.

@RayMairlot  Though the answer to that question may address this users question that question is asking an entirely separate thing, transferring an already packed file between OS.  See this meta post.

@PGmath I understand your point and I have quoted that meta post to many other people. To me the difference between the questions is a bit more subtle, but I can see that that the OP of the other question was a step further than this OP as they had already packed the blend.

Thank you both for your answers! Both are great answers!

You could pack the Blender file before giving it away.  Packing basically copies all the external files which the .blend file refers into into the .blend itself.  To pack external files go to file > external data > pack all into .blend.

Thank you sir... It worked... But what if I had images in blender and I wanted to pack them?

I meant if I added images in the video sequence editor... Because they weren't there when I packed it and moved it... I'm sorry

@Noah  Once you have packed the file, every time you save it it will pack any new external data you have added since the last pack.  When you save it should give you a message in the info bar that tells you how many new files have been packed.


text:
How to make good camera tracking markers
I am going to be making a scene where I will be using camera tracking for the first time and I was wondering how to make good markers for good scene tracking... the scene is going to consist of just white drywall with a ball smashing through it from the inside of the drywall into view... I will be using cell fracture and bullet constraints for the scene... If there would be any other good tips for me to know, it would be great if you could comment it... But I need to know how to make good markers for camera tracking... Thank you very much!

Could I maybe tape some black dots on the wall? Would that help?

Ok thank you so much sir... Very helpful indeed!

related: http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/5541/what-kind-of-camera-do-i-need-to-record-a-moving-object-in-order-to-do-motion-tr

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the question is not about blender.


text:
Parenting Mesh with Bone
So I was watching this tutorial on how to make a lightsaber (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxMI4aT4FQQ), and at time 16:12, he asks to parent the bone and the mesh, like he says, I hold shift and then I select the mesh, then the bone, and then press ctrl+p to parent, I then press parent with envelope weights, like he said... I do that, then i play it,and then only the bottom is moving and pivoting and following with the motion tracking... Could someone help please?

Select "bone" instead of parenting it with "envelope weights"


text:
Is it possible to control a value in all of my materials with one click?
I have a few materials that are slightly different but all have an emission shader. Whenever I want to control the strength of all the emission shaders I have to go into each object's material one by one to change the value. I'm wondering if there's a node or add on that can change all of them at the same time. Thanks for any help I appreciate it.

Tweaking values inside any material with a driver in the current scene's properties :
Go into the Scene properties, expand the Custom Properties foldout and click on Add to add a new custom property.
Right click in the field, choose Copy as New Driver.
Then right click into the field you want to be driven by the custom property, and choose Paste Driver.
Now the purple fields get updated when you change the custom property in the Scene properties.

Notes :

You neeed blender 2.81 + to have access to the "Copy as new driver" context choice
Notice the purple tint in the driven fields. That means you can't directly change the values anymore. If you want to get rid of the driver, right click in the field then choose "Delete Driver"

Of course.. use Scene properties.

So crazy what feature Blender has...

Gorgious, could you please write a step-by-step instruction on what you did in the GIF? Because I don't understand it and I would really love to know. Thank you!

Yes, thank you very much :)

One way would be to CtrlG  put an Input > Value  node into its own little 1-element Node Group. Then use the group to control the strength of the Emission in all your materials.
Any edit to the value in the group will be reflected in all the materials, and it can be keyed, or, as @batFINGER has commented, driven.
To drive the value, you could create an controller Empty, just to contain Custom Properties. Add a Custom Property to it, called something like 'Emission Strength' Right-click in the property's value field, and 'Copy as New Driver'. Then right-click in the value field of the grouped Value input node, and 'Paste Driver'.
Now changing the value in the Empty's 'Emission Strength' property will change the emission of all the materials.

.. or driven...


text:
How do you bevel on an already beveled edge?
I am following a tutorial for modelling an air conditioning unit, but in the tutorial the person bevels successfully on an already beveled edge with the usual ctrl+B. Here is the screenshot of the video:
However when I try doing the same, the bevel goes all funny,and the lines seam to stretch to the centre:

I've reset rotation and scale and tried changing settings, but nothing has seemed to have worked. I've heard that you can't bevel on a bevel, but on the tutorial he seems to do just that, so I'm stumped. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Turn off auto-merge vertices at the top of the toolbar next to the XYZ symmetry buttons.

@Electric_Wizard I've tried that but it hasn't worked

OK this is very confusing, after saving, closing blender and re-opening blender it has magically worked. This is great but I'm still really confused why this has happened.


text:
Why are all textures rendering differently?
As you can see in the bottom right, the textures that appear when I render as completely different from what I have and get when I export as obj+mtl.  I believe this is because I used an old object and edited/overwrote the textures on the walls, but how can I get rid of those original ones?  I need to get the render to use as a png or jpg format.

Hi. I think if there's something important we need to see in a screenshot it should probably be a bit bigger.

The screenshot just shows the render view in the bottom right, where you can see the textures on the walls are completely different from in the main view.

Yes, I know the screenshot shows it. I'm saying that, in general, if something is important to see, it should be made far bigger so that users can see it easily.


text:
Best Render Settings to Eliminate Image Grain?
First things first, I'm basically brand new to Blender. I used it years ago to do nothing more than import Minecraft models, pose them, and take photos.
Well, now I'm doing basically the same thing but I'd like to actually learn Blender properly this time and the whole new 2.8 interface doesn't help haha. So I imported a model, posed it, and when I render I'm getting a pretty sub-par image and I don't know how to fix it. Specifically in the graininess territory. I've played around with the Samples tab varying both the "render" and "viewpoint" sliders but I'm kinda stumped and would rather ask the pros.
Down below are my photos with the settings marked:

Top Pic: 128 "Render" & 128 "Viewpoint"
Bottom Pic: 500 "Render & 200 "Viewpoint"
I wanted both to be in 1080p for best viewing quality on here but had to limit it to 50% to keep the file size small enough to attach to the document.
If any of you have tips to improve basic render quality or even advanced tips for when I try to do animation with these rigs, I'd really appreciate it. Below are my settings for rendering. If you need me to open any of the tabs to relay my settings to you, just let me know.

Ah sorry about that! Should be all set now.

The Intel Denoiser might be useful here.

Check Denoising Data in Properties Panel > View Layer
Check Use nodes in Compositor
Add the Denoise node and connect it like this

Now render your image and it will be automatically denoised.

Note:
If you're not going for photorealism, you'll be better off using Eevee Render Engine.
It can be changed in Render Tab > Render Engine > Eevee

Thanks for your help! I tried out both methods and each seem to do a good job. I'd include the images but I can't do so in a comment. I really like the result that the Denoiser node added, but tried out Eevee just to see the result. In the end it completely removed my environment background so it appears my character is just sitting in a white void. This also removed the shadow cast onto the plane below the character. Is it because I left the Denoiser node active?

Hello :). The Denoiser node wouldn't do any of this. If the problem persists, consider posting a new question.


text:
Camera tracking rendering problems
I dont know how to explain it but the camera tracking is not rendering correctly on the blender file i attached... It rendering the markers i used and the hole in the wall and it doesnt look right.. heres a link to the blend and blend1 file:https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BwmMw7JLbSKcUjJWMUcwR0U2QlE&usp=sharing

Could you post some sceenshots? Unfortunaly the .blend file isn't much help because you can't pack the video file...

Oh ok I can see what I can do


text:
Resume rendering?
Is there a way you can resume renderings with cycles in AVI JPEG Format? Like if you wanted to stop your computer and give it a break and then start off the next time where you ended it? I don't know, it's just a question I've been asking my self a long time

It's for reasons like this that it's recommended to render to an image sequence first.

Oh ok I understand

I don't think so, so just render each frame separately and use them in an image sequence when rendering the movie. That way you can pause the rendering any time you wish, and simply change which frame your starting from when you begin again.

You should absolutely never render in a video file directly. Always render into an image sequence first, then make a sequence of your rendered images and compress into a video format from there. ^ This is the exact reason to do this. If you break the render or need to render just a single frame to clean it up a bit, you don't have to render the entire animation again. Both of these answers describe it well enough.


text:
How do you animate image texture materials in blender cycles with keyframes?
I have an image texture material on a mesh already in blender cycles 2.75... I was wondering how to change the material with keyframes so it changes to different pictures in the animation... I tried image sequence, but that doesn't seem to be what I am trying to achieve, neither does pressing "i" on the image source in the materials tab, it just says that the name property can not be animated ... Could someone help?

Have you tried the AnimAll add-on? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSTp8EXSYnk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlJ71XChDuY

No I haven't.... I will see if it is what i am looking for... Thank you Very much!

Give it a try. Using it you may easily animate the textures. It works both in BI and Cycles. Here's an example how it works: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/18363/animating-eye-texture-in-a-head-mesh

Thank You very much! Your help was very much appreciated!

@cegaton your wish is my command :).

You can animate textures using the AnimAll addon.

Enable the addon (Ctrl+Alt+U-->Add-ons-->AnimAll).

Unwrap your mesh (U-->Unwrap). In UV Editor open your texture.

Check the UVs box in the AnimAll panel. Go to the frame you like and place the UV island in UV Editor wherever you like (enable the magnet icon and set its type to Increment to move it precisely). Now press Insert button as pictured below.

Then go to another frame, change the position of the UV island and press Insert again.

Here are my other answers that uses an Animall adon, that may help you:

How to create Motion Trail in Cycles
Animating eye texture in a head mesh
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/35887/how-to-create-and-apply-a-moving-texture

Ok! Very nice answer! but what if i want to use it to make my character switch facial expressions (My Character is just a basic UV sphere)... i made a strip of facial expressions on GIMP, and then put it into blender on the sphere using and image texture material, then used the UV image editor, placed the island on the face that I want to be shown on the front side of the sphere.. But it shows all the faces i made for the sphere... is there a way where i can show just one face on one side of the sphere without showing any other ones?

Just scale the unwrapped UV island and fit the texture by scaling it in UV Editor. I show how to do exactly what you want step by step here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/18363/animating-eye-texture-in-a-head-mesh/18484#18484 See the cegaton's answer there also, as his method is different from mine, but very smart and useful.


text:
Collada file size
I am a hardened cinema 4d user and am using blender to bring in fbx files and export out as collada using the open collada engine within blender.
My problem is I have a 20meg c4d file, a 20meg fbx file and when saved in blender again a 20meg file, yet when I export the collarda the file is 80meg!!
Any help would be really appreciated

I'm quite sure that is usual to have a collada file bigger than his fbx because it is designed to be supported by a very wide range of software packages. Are you sure that is this a Blender related problem? Did you try to convert your file with other softwares? What are their output size?

Good point, exporting from C4d to collada results in a file size of 44 meg, whilst still a increase in size no where as bad as blender.


text:
How to adjust normal map
I am attempting to create a Normal Map in order to apply High Res detail to a Low Res object. No matter how I set the Ray Distance for the bake there are areas giving me problems. Especially tight areas like between the toes and mouth as well as the eye openings, nostrils and the tail base. Any suggestion on how to clean up these areas?

BLEND FILE HERE

as Green Flamingo, it seems hard to get a 100% nice normal map with this kind of complex shape and you might need to paint it a bit where you see artefacts, you can even paint in Blender

As continuation of the above answer... i have to say that you have to make a cage, to make a cage use your low poly mesh, duplicate it, leave in the same place, then add a displace modifier with very low but enough distance, it has to look inflated and like shrink wrapping to it but not the like high and low poly meshes...then select "cage" option and select the cage model, before trying baking again,
Some tips
tip 1:
change your render (cycles) setting to 1 sample, you wont need more than that, if you dont change this, is gonna take longer longer to bake, oh yeah as well change the performance - tiles setting to the image size of the normal map output image i.e 2048 x 2048 px if applies or whatever resolution you are using...
tip 2:
using UDIMS for your model is good if your model has several splitted uv islands,if its a single one, just keep the default setting instead, with this you will get more resolution which means more detail in the final normal map images.
tip 3:
if your model has lots of hard edges, mark those edges with seams, hard edges are buggy when baking normal maps, you will need to split them to get clear results in shading...for example a cube that has 6 faces, which obviously these edges around each face are sharp, you will to mark them with seams, as result the uv map should look like each face from the cube are splitted, rathen than having the default uv map that looks like a cross uv island, so unfortunately we cant yet have normals "with good shading" with such kind of uv map projection, and this is overwhelming this baking normal techniques,there should be already have been replaced with a better and more useful technique without needing to care too much of the uv maps, because yeah things like bad uv stretching can also cause bad normals bakes, so if you try baking that with this type of uv map you would notice most of the edges have good shading but the rest dont...
tip 4:
good smoothing groups in the low poly mesh matters too (as well goes for the HP mesh)
if the low poly has bad smoothing, this normal data will be also be transferred, or maybe can be said "blended" to the high poly normal data, as result getting the two normal datas joined in the output normal map image, thus getting a good normal shading from the high poly, but with also bad shading because the low poly mesh wasn't taken in to account before baking...
ah sorry if this is too long or maybe a resume i think so, of the flaws and issues of baking normals map, leave a comment if you think i missed something, or other else tip.

Actually yes. It took me a while. Normal mapping is going to be one of the hardest things to do right. With a multi object, model you can explode the mesh and use displacement modifier cages. I don't think this model can do that though, not easily anyways, its a smooth organic and the cage might need a lot of tweaking..
I dont know if you could rig and pose the model in order to create a cage for the small areas like the toes armpits and groin. If you used a displace modifier to create a cage those sinchy areas would be toughest. You might have to fineagal the cage mesh for a better bake. I could be very wrong here, im still a novice. From what I've seen you may need to manually paint those problem areas in the normal map in GIMP. I wouldnt even know where to begin with that. Characters are kind of hard. If this was an object you could split it into parts and bake easily.
Please don't throw me in an oven if someone more experienced blows my suggestions out of the water.
On udemy theres a 3dcoat and blender tutorial on making a sword. It does an amazing job describing the normal map bake process.
https://www.udemy.com/intermediate-game-asset-creation-3d-modeling-in-blender/learn/v4/overview


text:
Scale edge loop
I've been out of Blender for over a year and trying to catch up on it again.
I have created some bent tubes by following a Nurbs Curve path with a circle and then solidifying it.  After doing other work I see the size of the ends on some tubes need adjusting to fit with other geometry.  If I select the edge loop on the end of a tube and try scaling it the scaling takes place based on the Origin Point of the tube not at the Edge Loop.  I have tried setting the Cursor to the center of Edge Loop and then moving the Origin Point of the tube using Ctrl+Shift+Alt+C.  If done in Object Mode this seems to work until I shift into Edit Mode.  Then scaling takes place based on the original location of the Origin Point not the new location.  Trying to move the Origin Point in Edit Mode using this method just produces an error message.
How can I scale this Edge Loop?

What version of Blender? Normally if you select vertices in Edit mode and set Pivot point to Median Point or Bounding Box depending on the case scaling will work based on selection. No need to change origin point of the object

Ver. 2.79.  Setting the Pivot point to Median Point is better, but the previous Edge Loop is scaling as well.

I can't know what you mean "previous edge loop is scaling as well". If you mean that while you scale selected edge loop another one next to it is being scaled as well then turn off Proportional Edit as one option, see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/27394/why-cant-i-transform-faces-edges-or-vertices-without-transforming-the-whole-o/27395

Yup, that's what I meant.   Thank you for the help.


text:
Change Sculpt Tools Layout
Simple question.  I have done it before but don't remember how how to change the Sculpt Tool layout between one and two columns.

Drag the edge of the column of tool icons to the right.

That just makes the column wider until it covers half the screen.

What Blender version are you using? It works fine here in 2.83.5. You get the double-ended arrow, drag to the right, and it changes to 2-column.

I've just been experimenting. If you pull the edge slowly to the right, it changes to two column, but if you continue to drag right it then goes back to single column with text descriptions and if you drag fast enough it will go straight to descriptive text.. So try dragging more slowly!

I am running version 2.83.1.  I have been able to change it in the past but right now the single column of controls in sculpt mode is so long it is running off the bottom of the screen so I can not see them all at once.

AH HA. The format is dependent on how I enter Sculpt mode. If Enter using the button in the top bar it is showing the controls as a double column. Is I enter using the drop down above the controls it shows a single column.

It works the same either way here.


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Merge multiple vertices along axis
I have been modeling a character only to have blender hiccup during a save while setting up a UV workspace.  Fortunately I was able find an Autosaved version that was relatively recent to I don't have to start Retopology all over.  So I'm marking my seams.  The mirror modifier in the Retopo has been finalized but figured Symmetrize should be fine for copying my seam markings from one side to the other.
Symmetrize seems to have added extra geometry along the X-axis however.  It doesn't go all the way around the model but shows up in sections like shown in the picture.  Is there a relatively simple way to merge multiple sets of Vertices to 0 on the X-axis instead of having to go one group at a time?

alt M > Merge by Distance?

There are several addons to make this process fast, but here's a way to do it in plain Blender.
Select all the objects.  Get the 3d cursor where you want them aligned to (perhaps by cursor to selected, perhaps by typing the coordinates into the N panel's View tab 3d cursor section), and set the transform pivot point to 3d cursor - by default I believe that's the . key, though there's a dropdown for it also at the top of the 3d view.
Next, scale the objects with the modal scale operator (s by default), lock the scale to the axis you want to align on, and type 0.  They will all be snapped to the pivot point along that axis.

What I did to solve this was to first move the 3D Cursor to 0,0,0.  Then highlight the affected vertices in an area.  Next I moved them all to 0 on the X axis by typing S X 0.  This still left multiple overlapping verts so I hit A to highlight all verts and then Merge Vertices - By Distance.
Somehow extra vertices had been added randomly along the X axis so these had to be located, deleted and faces filled back in one at a time.


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Can't add keyframes properly
I am very inexperienced so if the solution is simple no hate please. I am trying to add more keyframes but it says: F-Curve with path= 'location'(2) cannot be keyframed. Ensure it is not locked or sampled. Also, try removing F-Modifiers.
I have no idea what this means. Can someone please explain it to me? I'd greatly appreciate it thank you for your time.

Could you add more information about what are you trying to achieve? Your scene setup, relations between objects, properties you can't keyframe...

I don't know what it means, but you can 'solve' the issue by right clicking on the 'animation' data in the Outliner, right click and select 'Clear Animation Data'.

In the Animation layout there is a "Dope Sheet" and summary. I resolved this problem by unchecking the lock icon.

This was my error:

RuntimeError: Error: F-Curve with path 'scale[2]' cannot be keyframed, ensure that it is not locked or sampled, and try removing F-Modifiers

After turning the lock icon off it works!