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Pose mode in 2.78 considerably slower than 2.77
I recently updated to 2.78 due to getting a new graphics card that was not supported by 2.77, but I've run into an issue with pose mode. Previously on 2.77, I could run it at full speed in material view, but since 2.78, it dips into the low 20s or high teens FPS when moving objects. It goes as far as locking up the programme if I try to type in scale factors.
I know that switching to texture/solid mode is a workaround for this, but I would much rather know if there is a way to actually fix this issue.

How many times recently (today) have you gone back and forth to seriously test this behaviour on the same file?  You should also be aware that often times discussing hardware issues directly is not the emphasis of this forum.

This is not a hardware issue, I have tested it just today. The reason I mentioned my hardware upgrade is that I need to use 2.78 now instead of 2.77, since it lacks the kernels for my GPU. I tested the same files on both versions, 2.77 runs consistently better than 2.78.

AMD FX-8350 running at 4.0GHz, GTX 1050 Ti 4GB VRAM and 16GB of RAM.


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Can I use keyframes and the nla editor at the same time?
I'm animating a scene with keyframes in the dope sheet. I have imported a walk cycle for a character in the form of an action. I'm not sure how to add the walk cycle in a part of the scene because it gets rid of all the keyframes I've done so far.
It's like I can only have keyframes OR actions in the NLA but not both. I'm sure that's gotta be a 'me' problem, so can you please tell me what I'm doing wrong? This is my first venture into the NLA so I'm not entirely sure whats going on. I understand the concept, but I want to keep the keyframes that's come before and just add the walk cycle to the character.
Thank you

Hello, please give more details, show some screenshots, maybe share your file, are the actions supposed to follow or combine? etc...

source: Stack Exchange

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sort: votes


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GPU Rendering issue “Cuda error at cuCtxCreate: Illegal Address
I get that error message when I try to bake a simple AO map in cycles. I can do it with cpu but with the gpu i get that error message.
I have 13gig of memory on the card so it cant be that but just to check I tried to bake on a simple cube and got same error.
Any Ideas?
-Computer-
Processor : 12x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-1650 v3 @ 3.50GHz
Memory : 32842MB (5671MB used)
Operating System : Manjaro Linux
Resolution : 1680x1050 pixels
OpenGL Renderer : GeForce GTX TITAN X/PCIe/SSE2
X11 Vendor : (null)

What version of blender? Are your drivers up to date?

hey, yeah drivers auto update.
blender version 2.79

funny thing is I can use gpu to render big scenes, that's why im confused

What is your OS? I'm using Windows10 64bit and having the same problem I attempting to resolve this now.

I updated my Nvidia drivers to 391.05 (it's a hotfix) fixed my problem no more errors so far.

Still getting the error will try something else.

Roll back the Nvidia graphics driver to when it did work properly.
In my case Nvidia drivers to v391.0 caused this error.
Since I don't auto update my drivers I rolled it back to v388.0 and rendered over a 100 frames in full HD with no problems.

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Blender Poly Curves Twist when moving

How to disable twist other points?
Thank you so much!

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/35771/why-does-a-bezier-curve-twist-when-rotated

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Apply filmic color management to an EXR file - post processing in photoshop
I am taking EXR files to photoshop for post processing, but I want the filmic color management applied. Is there a different file format I should be using, or is there a way to apply filmic color management to an EXR file?

Photoshop and other software of its ilk are display referred imaging applications. While PS will load an EXR, it does not possess the quality of controls one requires to properly manipulate scene referred photographic imagery.
To deal with a strictly display referred application and suffer as little quality loss as possible, save to a display referred format such as a 16 bit TIFF using the Filmic Base Log Encoding. It would then be possible to sculpt your own 'S' shaped curve to adjust contrast, or convert the Filmic set to the limited LUT format that Photoshop can understand.
DaVinci's Resolve has the granularity and more industrial tools to properly manipulate EXRs, although it will require a proper chain of nodes to do so. For further explanation along these lines, feel free to check Filmic's issue tracker where some help has been offered regarding the details of such an implementation.
https://github.com/sobotka/filmic-blender/issues/40

Thanks for the detailed answer, Troy! I have a question about where you said -- It would then be possible to sculpt your own 'S' shaped curve to adjust contrast, or convert the Filmic set to the limited LUT format that Photoshop can understand. --

Do you mean to do this within photoshop? e.g. Adjust the curves in photoshop, or convert to a LUT format within photoshop? Thanks Again!

Photoshop has some supremely limited and rather rubbish LUT support. You could either do a hand done curve using curves (yuck) that maps 0.606060 to 0.5 or you could convert and load the files required. I believe Photoshop can load dot cube files. Look to the attached issue for a sample in Google Sheets. Pipeline would be to save as Base Log, then apply the dot cube file as an adjustment layer. Can you report back on this, perhaps even in the Resolve issue thread? (As stated, Photoshop is rather rubbish at all of this.)

I understand how I import a dot cube file as an adjustment layer now, but I'm not sure where I'm supposed to find the dot cube file for filmic? Is there a specific file you are referring to, or are you just telling me that it would be necessary to apply a LUT to my Base Log file in photoshop?

Save to a 16 bit TIFF with the base log view. To convert the transform, see the issues thread where I shared the Google Docs dot cube version. It is simply a copying of values, with a change in the header lines. Very easy to do.

Hey Troy, sorry to bother you about this again, but I've mulled over this for some time and looked at the link you shared, and cannot figure out the next step. I open the 16 bit TIFF in Photoshop. Where do I go from here? I understand I would add a Color Lookup adjustment layer, but where would I get the proper LUT from filmic?

You would need to try one of the dot cube files out there via the link. Save the spreadsheet as a dot cube, try it on the log encoded image.

Hey Troy, last question I promise. I've read through the link again. How do I save your spreadsheet as a dot cube? I've looked at other CUBE files, and I don't understand.

I don't mind questions. At all. Have a look at the issue I posted a reply to at GitHub. It has all of the links required. Simply save the file as a text file, and rename it to dot cube.

I download your spreadsheet as an excel file. From excel save it as Text (tab delimited), and rename it with .CUBE. But when I use Color Lookup in Photoshop, it doesn't recognize the .CUBE file.

Just export directly from Google Sheets. I believe Photoshop accepts cube format for layers. Example: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1552879 (Again though, Photoshop is a bit of a ghastly application for this sort of work. It isn't great at photographic material.)


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Render decals as 2nd pass?
I have decals on my mesh in Cycles by way of placing it over my original material with a mix shader.
How can I render my decals alone on a 2nd render pass?
Thank you!

I think you'd need either a separate object, separate geometry, or at least a separate material, if I'm not mistaken

Can I have 2 materials applied to the same vertices/faces?

No and no. You can't apply materials to vertex, nor can you have more than one material assigned to a face. How would you render that?

I tried making a duplicate mesh that is transparent except for the decal, but then when I rotate the object, the decal always shows, even when it isn't facing the camera. Could you think of potential workaround?


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Can I mark on mesh surface with Grease Pencil and have it move with animated mesh?
I put GP marks on my mesh surface for reference in viewport solid mode.
But when I move my rigged mesh, the GP marks do not follow.
Is there a way I can make the marks follow with the rigged mesh?


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File format to exporting to After Effects?
What would be the best file format for exporting my animations to be edited in After Effects?
Thanks!

Bringing an animation into AE can be done in at least two primary ways: As an animation file -- avi, mov, etc -- or as a series of images -- 001.jpg, 002.jpg, 0003.jpg.
Blender allows you to render your animations in either way: You can select to render a complete and finished mov file, for example, or you can tell Blender to output each frame independently in many different file formats (JPG, PNG, TGA, etc.).
The "right" way depends upon what you want to do in AE, but outputting your animation as individual series of files gives you the ability to apply AE edits and effects to specific image sequences.... You can output image series for shadow, AO, gloss, difuse, depth, transparency, etc as individual files -- so each single frame of your animation will be output as 1, 2, 3 or many more distinct files. This gives you incredible control, and AE makes is as easy to import an image sequence as it does an mov.
When you then render in AE, it will assemble your shadow, AO, gloss, difuse, depth and so on into a single animation and apply your effects and edits as created in AE.
You can also use single still images in AE to add titles, lower thirds and other content... whether you are importing an mov file or a series of images, a single image an easy way to get a lower third.
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/preparing-importing-still-images.html
Fastest way to export files multiple passes into folders?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z_o8cvkE38

If I am exporting a series of images and not breaking my renders into passes, which file format will be the highest quality to bring into AE? png, tiff, tga, etc? Thanks again!

Sorry... away from PC. EXR and TGA would be good. If you want to have somewhat smaller files, PNG is OK and allows an alpha. But even jpg may accomplish what you want. Anything on stack exchange by https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/213/troy-s may have more info, as he is a wiz at color and file issues...


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How to make Eevee viewport background transparent?
I would like to view my meshes in Eevee rendered viewport with an alpha background when using HDRI lighting.
How do I use HDRI lighting without seeing the HDRI image in the background of my Eevee viewport?

You can use chosen color for EEVEE viewport using Light Path trick.
In the Shader Editor, go to World view and mix HDRI Background with Solid Color Background using Is Camera Ray. This way your HDRI will have influence over the scene, but it will not be visible in viewport/camera.
To make it transparent you can set Alpha in Solid Background Color to 0 but it will be pure black color then.

If you want to render with actual transparent background you will need to set Film > Alpha to Transparent:

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Exporting into CAD
Is it possible to export an STL file as a .dxf and keep the "z" values? I can get the file to export into CAD not problem but it becomes a flat object and loses the z values.
I have tried several different output options including exporting as points, 3D faces and polylines but non hold their z values!
Any help would be appreciated. I would even be happy if I could just get the xyz file out so that I can then model it in CAD
Thanks
Iain

If you try to import STL back in Blender, you should have Z values back... Sorry, which CAD are you importing STL into? Are you sure is not a 2D cad, or a 2D import option?

Hi, Thanks for your reply. I am using full 3D BricsCAD; I have since contacted them and they say that I need to use Communicator to import the STL directly, however, it is an extra $700 for a licence! I can see the Z values in Blender; it is only when I export it as a dxf file that the z values are removed.

Sorry last day I was on mobile and I misread: try to export in whatever format you need and then reimport that in blender, so you can check if is the export wrong or not...

I would first try to export that DXF from blender (btw, which version?) and import it back again in blender, just to verify that all the 3d dimensions are respected... but in the end there could be some incompatibility between blender DXF export and Bricscad DXF import.
Adding to that, I just downloaded the BricsCAD manual (Bricscad-CmdRef.pdf), at page 624 it says it should natively import also "DAE - collada files" without the need of the "communicator".

Blender exports .dae too so, if DXF does not work, you could try to

import STL into blender
export DAE (collada) from blender
import DAE into BricsCAD


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How to make rounded edges of a face
I want to make these 2 inner faces with rounded edges like the left image
At the right image I used Ctrl+B to make the outer edges of this board rounded but I can't apply this to  inner face as the board itself is a cube with some modification

If you want to smoothen geometry corners you need more geometry. In this case it would be beveling corner vertices of that inner red rectangle. After that one will have to get rid of Ngons.

can u attach the file

Check this topology. It's mostly manual work. https://imgur.com/0I8gMfF

For your example this could do the job:

Enable LoopTools addon in the User Preferences (CtrlAltU > Addons)
Select the outer vertices
Apply Relax function with Linear Interpolation

It will distort whole rectangular shape. OP asked about rounded corners.

Still, I think it should work for the case illustrated in the second image.

(tested with blender 2.9)
goto edit-mode
select only the 4 corner-vertices of the inner rectangle.
press CTRL + B
then, immediately press V  (for vertex mode)
use mouse and scroll wheel to round the vertex

video (external link):
https://i.sstatic.net/oT3GN.jpg


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In 2.8, Blender crashes while rendering trees
I'm trying to render a scene and in both render engines it crashes right before it would start making the image. I thought trees were the issue so i tested the render without them, but it crashed anyways. It might be my computer not being the best too, but if anyone knows a fix please tell me what's wrong.
Computer Specs: AMD Fx4300 (3.8GHz), 16GB RAM, AMD Radeon 260x (2GB), windows 10)

Okay I fixed it, not by finding out what was wrong, but just by re-making the model. Same blender file, I just deleted the model and re-made them and now it's not giving me the problem.

i think 6 subdivisions are way to high. reduce to 2 and test it again..
you can open Task Manager if you are on Windows and check the MemoryManagement. then see if it fills your Memory.
you can also start blender with debugging turned on then you get a report when blender crash and close and you have some more Information.
Start blender_debog_log.cmd and wait for the crash

I lowered the subdivisions and tried it again while watching my memory this time, and my memory seems to be the issue as it crashed once it got too high. I think the amount of pines on the trees is just too much to handle for my computer, so I'll tweak the amount. thanks for helping!

your welcome, glad to help out.
one more Question - do you duplicated the trees with Ctrl-D or did you made  linked duplicates with Alt-D. i have read somewhere that linked duplicates use less Memory.

Good to know as I was just using Ctrl+D but even without the trees the render would crash. I ran it through the debug and got an "Unrecognized Exception" error. Not really sure what this means, but I might just try re-creating this project and seeing if I run into the same issues.


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Are the Arcmesh materials broken? If so, how do I fix this?
The materials for the Window Arcimesh (Using the Archimesh add-on) were all black.
I entered the Node Editor to check it out, and found this material organization.
I'm unfamiliar with what is trying to be accomplished here, as these nodes imported with the add-on.
What are they trying to accomplish here? Is the node format outdated? What was trying to be accomplished?
And...
How would I go about restoring the previous settings? If I can't, how would I go about redefining these textures to look at least similar to what was intended?
(Apologies if these are too many questions; I'm looking to learn).

I can confirm that also in 2.79rc2 windows are created with such node material setup... this should probably be reported as a bug

@m.ardito Thanks for checking, it should be.

@cegaton Yeah, I'll probably just do that.

It's a bug. I recreated the material nodes in my own fashion in order to continue. However, the Archimesh add-on will need to be updated to truly resolve the glitch.


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Texture Not Appearing on the model
I followed the blender Guru tutorial and modeled the Anvil. I made 2 models The larger one is mine where the texture seems to work fine. But the small one in foreground was followed from tutorial and the front lower part is blank.
I know the texturing is less than ideal but this is my 1st time actually UV mapping.
[The Texture Not appearing on the lower front part of Anvil

Solutions tried
1. deleting and re-applying
2. changing normals (Shift + n and ctrl+shift+n)
3. adding unwanted seams
4. restarting blender.
5. thinking of doing it all over again!
6. clearing seam and doing a smart UV
Smart UV works without a fault, but the textures are all wrong.
The one in the background seems to be fine yet I've to tune the textures but here nothing is happening.
So what did I do wrong?
I'm on blender 2.8
Here is the file link

The geometry is less than ideal btw so I turned on the subdivision adjust edit cage in modifier panel.


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Child of constraint with bones and objects
Trying to attach a bone to an object outside of the rig but its just not following with the child of constraint. I've clicked set inverse but it still doesn't follow. Can you actually make bones do this?

Nevermind. I just made another external bone and it tracks no problem. If anyone can tell me if childing to an object and not a bone is possible id love to know where i went wrong

oh....i spoke too soon. Now the entire first rig follows the external rig when i only want the one bone to follow


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Controlling emission strength with bone driver?
I have a rigged model where some bones which are constrained to a certain y location length. I would like to control an emission strength with these bones if possible.
I've added drivers to emission strength and set drivers to sum value and selected the bones. It kind of works, problem is it only works if I take off the limit location constraint on the bones. How do I get this to work within the limited area? value 0 to 5 strength for example?

You could use the graph of the driver to extrapolate horizontally after (5, 5). I couldn't reproduce your problem, the driver works fine with and without the Limit Location constraint. Show your settings of the constraint/driver/whatever isn't working or upload your file.

Hey, here's a blend file i've made as simple as posible.

Turn the upper left panel to rendered to see the blue flame. On the same object is a sphere with a different shader, emission. Its that I want to change with either the empty or bone
Thanks

You have a single key in the graph of the driver, which is extrapolated near horizontal. It is common to map the variable linearly with two keys: (0, 0) and (1, 1). Also, place the variable's name var in the expression field to use it. Refer to this setup.

Thank you for your help. Been playing with the drivers for a few hours. Got it working! Although I still don't have the green line like your picture, just the ref one, for some reason I got it working perfectly....not sure how.
I need to study drivers a lot more...


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why does my explosion look like minecraft?
I've reached my stress limit. Can anyone please tell me what I need to tweek to stop my explosion looking weird and blocky PLEASE?

I've upped the render from 128 to 400 samples and no difference, i've set high resolution for the smoke sim too. It's taken me 2 days just to get it to even show in the viewport, had no idea had to bake it....the smoke sim isn't very intuitive

I assume you have divisions set up pretty high, like 16 or 32?  Could you show us a picture of the smoke settings?

I think your color ramp is not doing what you think it's doing. It's only setting the color. Te get fine control, you might try to make an attribute node for density and using a color ramp with that (I like B-spline color ramps). You just have to set the minimum density a little lower.


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whats different about octane?
Is there a point to use octane render over cycles? What benefit does it have? I noticed there is a certain 'octane look', i have no idea why. Just curious if anyone here has used them both and can point out pros and cons.
Thanks you.

not about octane, but whatever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO40X_ZEj4Q

The principles of how to synthesize an image out of a 3d scene are exactly the same. However, I'd say Octane is more optimized (faster for now) and can handle instances pretty well, that's it.


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Bridge edge loops gives weird results
I've got two closed edge loops that I want to join using Bridge Edge Loops. One of them is an organic oval-ish shape and one of them is the edge of a cylinder, like so:

However, when I Bridge Edge Loops, rather than getting the semi-tubular result I expected, I get a weird result with crazy criss-crossed faces, like so:

What am I doing wrong?
Edit: added a picture of the edge loops and their normals, for clarity.

Uneven topology and unmatched vertex count, most likely

Unmatched vertex count: probably, I'll check it out. What do you mean by "uneven topology" and why is it a problem?

This is far from ideal but it's a quick fix:

Extrude one of your edge loops and place it near or inside the other one.

Then bridge them.

Select the middle loop, hover over "smooth Vertex" and hold RETURN until it's stretched.

Of course this creates more horrible geometry. It might be better to use a cylinder made of quads and use a Shrinkwrap Modifier to get an inner wall. Or use the Shrinkwrap to replace the original organic wall with one that has a nice topology.
Blender is not really equipped to handle a lot of chaotic tris. Quads make bridging and other operations much easier and more predictable. Ideally the vertex count of both loops should be the same and the verts should be evenly spaced.
A crazier way:
Hide everything except your edgeloops. if they line up on an axis, hover over the axis in the transform panel (Y in this example) and hit CTRLC

LMB drag the value up until the loops roughly align.

Bridge them.

Select the moved loop, hover over the Y axis and hit CTRLV. The loop will be back in its place.

Yet another way would be to bridge the hole piece by piece and not in one go.
I must admit that so far I haven't been able to recreate your troubles, so the solutions are a bit of guesswork.

Alas, when I put the two edge loops on roughly the same plane, I still get the same weird criss-crossed edges. I'm going to try to do this in pieces now, see if that works.

@Bas That's bad. Does it also happen when you do only part of the loop, a quarter maybe?

It.. depends. I've now resorted to selecting, say, 40 vertices on either loop and doing a bridge edge loop. When it looks sort of okay, I keep them, and move on to the next 40. When they're wonky, I undo and skip those vertices. After I'm done, I look at the holes that are left and either select fewer vertices to do a bridge, or just select three vertices and do a Fill, basically creating polygons by hand. I've had to subdivide some edges to make some of the polygons not so crazy wide and skewed. It wasn't ideal, but I suppose the best I could get with this weird geometry.


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Scaling vertices by a factor of their z coordinate
I have the following cylindrical shape:

I want to transform it so that it is not straight, but tapers out. I imagine that I want to scale it in such a way that the bottommost vertices are scaled by 1.5 on the x and y axes, and the topmost vertices are scaled by 1, so they are technically not scaled at all. All the vertices in between should therefore be scaled by a factor between 1 and 1.5, based on how high up the Z axis they are. If I have it all straight, I think that should result in a perfectly conical shape.
Is there a way to do this? Am I overthinking it and is there a sort of taper tool?

so that it is not straight, but tapers out. > it's not straight to begin with. what are you trying to accomplish? why not model it again since the toplogy is horrible.

To me this sounds as if you wanted to do Proportional Editing with a linear falloff.

Might be easier to control with a lattice modifier

It is straight, along the z axis. The topology with the weird curves is necessary for a shader that will be applied. The proportional editing/linear falloff is exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

Like others noticed, topology is "bad"(meaning difficult to work with) so you should probably consider remodelling it. Else than that, you can select some geometry on top and use proportional editing with linear falloff to scale:

You could also hit  Shift   +   Z  to constrain scaling to XY plane while in scaling operation. Also while adjusting the radius with mouse wheel or  Page Up / Page Down  don't forget you can hold  Shift  for more precision.

I can't change the topology due to shader reasons that rely on these vertex positions. However, proportional editing with linear falloff was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!


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Adding detail to a low-poly round object
I have the following model that has a curved bottom:

I would like to increase the number of vertices used on the curved edges to achieve a rounder look. How would I go about this?

Hello what does it give if you right click > Subdivide and in the Operator Box set the Smoothness to 1?

It works.. sort of. It only works with one subdivision. I then have to select all edges again, do subdivide again, etc. It's kind of a lot of work, but the results are okay. Thanks!

what does it give if you subdivide then right click > LoopTools > Relax? You need to activate the LoopTools addon first

I'd run a cleanup before you try @moonboot's suggestions. In Edit mode,use Mesh > Clean Up > Limited Dissolve which should get rid of most of the spurious edges that obviously weren't produced by Blender!

There are several solutions, you can right click > Subdivide and:

Right after the subdivide, in the Operator Box set the Smoothness to 1
Go into the Vertex panel on the top menu and Smooth Vertices and set the parameters in the Operator Box
Enable the LoopTools addon and right click > LoopTools > Relax then set the parameters in the Operator Box


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Parenting Mesh to Armature Deforms Mesh
When using the parent function to parent my mesh to my armature it deforms my mesh and creates a giant copy of the mesh that spreads across the project. I am using the Armature Deform with Automatic Weights function. I am not sure what could be causing the issues since I believed it to be Auto-Run Python Scripts was disabled but that is not the case.

Here is a picture after adding the armature.  http://imgur.com/a/4n6Yy

Hi, difficult to say from here, maybe try to upload the test file on http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ then edit your question and paste the provided link...

I found out the issue. Turns out there was an armature already attached to the mesh that was causing some unwanted results when I tried to attach new armature. Everything appears to be working now.


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Spin Tool Cursor Not Showing/Snapping to 3D cursor
I am trying to use the spin tool on my mesh but the tool is not appearing in my window. I have the cursor snapped to the face of the object itself but I do not see the spin tool when I have it turned on. I have modeled other meshes with the spin tool within the same blend file without issue, it just suddenly stopped showing up when I wanted to use it on this mesh and subsequent meshes. Even when zoomed out I do not see the tool.

You are accidentally animating your scene (e.g. pressed space) and some tools do not show during the animation. Your image shows the Anim Player at the bottom of the screen, which means you are animating.


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Blender crash when try to render with AMD GPU
I'm fairly new to Blender and I've been trying to speed up my rendering time by using my GPU, but every time I go to render my project, Blender closes without any warning or error message. I'm only trying to render a picture at the moment, and my PC should be able to handle it, so I can't figure out why it keeps crashing.
Here are some specs of my PC:
Edition - Windows 10 Pro
Processor - AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor 4.00 GHz
Graphics Card - AMD Radeon RX 460
Ram- 16GB
I'm using Blender 64-bit version 2.78

Try Blender 2.79-RC2. If that also crashes, write a bug report at https://developer.blender.org

Also try to open Blender the from console, it likely writes something there but you don't see it. Generally it all depends on that picture you're trying to render. Try with simpler / default scene, if that one works but the desired one - doesn't then Blender might be out of VRAM.

How do I try Blender 2.79-RC2?


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Voulme Scatter in World doesn't show up
When I enable Volume Scatter for the World it doesn't do anything.
There is no Enviroment Texture so that shouldn't be a problem.
I added a cube with the same settings and it does exactly what it should.

(Nodes are for the Cube.)
Ambient Occlusion doesn't make a difference.
Volume Bounces in Render-->Light Paths is at 4
But I don't want to use a Cube. I want easy fog to experiment around with as a first step.

The easiest fog is mist in the World settings > Mist Pass (shown there only once Mist is enabled in Render layers tab > Passes. Other than that cube with volume shaders is the most correct way for faking volume


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Animate Mesh in a wavelike movement
I want to built a tower out of these cylinders and animate the X-Y Scale of the individual cylinders over time in a wavelike pattern.
Is there a quick way to to that ?

You could use a sin() function and a driver to animate e.g. the X scale. In Object Properties under Transform for one of the cylinders, click the number in Scale: X and type in something like:
#1.0 + 0.2 * sin(frame * 2.0 * pi / 30.0)

That'll vary scale every 30 frames between 0.8 and 1.2. For later cylinders you can offset the phase a little:
#1.0 + 0.2 * sin((frame + 5) * 2.0 * pi / 30.0)

That'll put that cylinder 5 frames ahead in the animation.

You can use the wave modifer. It should result in about what you're looking for, and it can be adjusted to fit your model.

Some questions only require a one-line answer (e.g. Where is a certain setting in a menu?).  This question imo requires a little more effort.  This might be better placed in the comments section or else elaborate more on how the OP can use the wave modifier to accomplish this.


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How would you build this exact stone wall?

What is your suggested way to build a wall with a texture like this.
Or how would you UV-unwrap the modelled wall, to enable the texture of the stripes to work.
Im currently trying around but dont want to manually drag the uv map into a rectangle

Could you upload your blend file to: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/? Also don't forget to pack a texture in blend file. It would be much easier to answer.

have you tried project form view?

Try the UV squares addon


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Constraining the amount of movement on an axis in layout view
I have a design where a part can slide on a rod that is aligned with the X axis. I need to move the part around to see how it looks in different positions on the rod. To make this easier, I have locked the Y and Z location transforms, so I can just press G and move the part around on the X axis. However, I don't want to be able to slide it off the rod, so I'd like the part's X position to be locked between, say, 0 and 70.
I know this is possible in animation but I'm not doing any animation here, I just need to move the part occasionally to check the esthetics but I don't want to be able to drag it too far along the axis.
Is there a way to do this?

Add a Limit Distance Object Constraint? You could add an empty and use that as the target. Use two constraints with one Clamp Distance set to Inside and one to Outside if you want to restrain to a minimum and maximum distance.

@JohnEason: why not writing an answer as that?

@Chris Will do! - I didn't have time yesterday. Maybe later today...


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Gray edge at the edges of texture when using alpha transparency

I try to make a tree model and apply alpha on the leaves, but somehow the shadow of the leaves form some sort of transparent masking like the image shown, what is causing the problem?

Open GL viewport may not show more than one bit alpha for unselected objects. If selected you should see alpha treated correctly but underlying alpha objects will still only be 1 bit.

Please make the title of your question specific to what you are asking, not just the general topic.


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Change DOF Focal point in Compositor
Greetings to everyone from Chile! I am submerging in Blender world since a few week and probably I am dragging a little inertia habit from Nuke and After Effects trying to composing DOF from a Multilayer EXR sequence with Z pass.
I made a very simple scene in Blender (a pack of textured boxes) and I acheived a nice DOF in Compositor setting the camera focus in an Empty object (to have freedom of displace focus at my discretion) and using the Defocus node. My problem start when I try to change that focus plane in Composition once scene is rendered. In Nuke and After Effects i could do that in a straightforward way.
Because of the short time i am inside Blender i can't figure how to do that, or simply consider that Blender have just a different approach to get the effect.
A little light in this dark corner would be tremendously appreciated.
Thanks in advance.


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UV Map Distorts when I add bevel to model's edges
This is driving me crazy. I am relatively new in Blender (2.8), but I've been working with 3D app (Houdini) a lot of years.
I am trying to model a simple cigarretes packs. I modeled it and UV it without issues, but when I added bevel to some edges, UV map going nuts and distorts:

The left one is the basic UV cube. Note the cut when box opens.
I've tried everything that I've found in forums: Inset faces, adding loopcuts, subdividing faces, separates every faces of the model, adding seams in all edges, and nothing. Distortion appears anyways.
Any clue? Thanks in advance.

You need to unwrap again, at least the part that you've bevelled, once you've bevelled it has changed the UV mesh

When you change the topology of your object with the bevel, it changes its UV. I don't know how it works with Houdini but in Blender you need to make sure that the seams are still ok, unwrap again, and align again with the image texture in the UV editor.

Thanks for all your responses, they will certainly works.
Reading more about Blender's UV toolset, I've found an alternative solution that seems to works fine too:
1- This is how UV looks after the bevel operation:

2- I selected bevel's faces and apply "follow active quads" (u key/follow active quads command):

3- The result is a nicely aligned set of UV quads:

Thank you guys, you centainly motivate me to go deeper.
Regards.


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How can I make a rigid body interact with a fluid simulation?
I am confused as to why the rigid body sphere is not making any sort of splash when it hits the fluid. I have the "export as animated mesh
 box checked, but that did not change anything.
I would really appreciate anyone who could help me solve this.
Here is the link to the .blend
This is my first post on stack exchange, sorry if I am doing anything wrong.

Did you add to this Rigid Body: Fluid > Obstacle?

@LukeD yes I did.


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sculpting result is fuzzy
When I try sculpt, the results are appearing "fuzzy". I thought it may have been the need for more vertices, but extra subdivisions did't help.
This started happening after I used the Scale function to resolve another issue I had.  Or at least became more obvious.
Any ideas on what I can do to fix this?

"after I used the Scale function" so did you try to apply that scale in Object mode?

Possible duplicate of How to fix sculpting ridges?

Hi Mr Zak, yes, I applied Scale in object mode as per your advice (unless I've misread your advice).

Thanks for your reply Crantisz, but as I mentioned, I already applied the Scale function, so that fix isn't applicable here unfortunately.

While it seems to be caused by unapplied scale, more information needed if it doesn't help, ideally your file. To upload it here use https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com.

Here is the object before any sculpting has been applied.

Sculpting acts on vertices. These are either from the mesh itself (real geometry) or created with Multires modifier / dynamically with dyntopo. However in any case it uses geometry for painting with brushes because by painting you change position of certain vertices. Dyntopo in this case is kind of lazy way since it creates as many vertices as required for currently required level of details, subdividing / collapsing only  part of mesh which is being worked on.
If geometry is uneven sculpting result won't be even as well in case of sculpting without dyntopo. Mesh in the file you attached is one of these examples:

This is wireframe of the mesh in question.
It won't act predictable being sculpted because proximity of horizontal edge loops is enough, while there are relatively small amount of vertical edge loops. When sculpted horizontal displacement will be detailed since there is plenty of geometry, but vertical will be lacking because there aren't as many vertical edge loops as horizontal ones. Since the sculpt will look stretched; inspite of the fact it has ~ 150 000 faces, it isn't really sculptable.
There are 2 general ways from here.
First, un-/subdivide edges of the mesh to get more or less even amount of edge loops in both directions (i.e. to get nearly squarish faces all over the mesh). In Edit mode either dissolve horizontal loop cuts (X > Dissolve Edges), or add more vertical loop cuts (Ctrl+R).
Second, enable dyntopo and set Subdivide Colalpse method of details with proper details size. Note that mesh will become triangulated.
Depending on the case both methods as always have their advantages and disadvantages; use the one which is faster for your situation.


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Image renders as gray frame
I'm pretty new to Blender but I have basic knowledge after watching Blender Guru and other tutorials. I was working on a game character and once I finished and animated it I figured I'd render it to a file. Unfortunately no matter what I do it just renders completely gray frames. What I've tried:
Turn off sequencer.
Turn off compositor.
Change file format (Png, MPEG, etc.)
Delete any strips in Video Editor
Check layers and visibility
Any help at all is appreciated. Thanks so much in advance. Below is screen shot. If you need more info let me know.

I’ve looked through these a couple times but didn’t find a fix. I’ll look again when I get a chance. Appreciate the response. What other info would you need?

Yeah I would do that except the mesh I’ve modeled is for game development and I don’t exactly want it out in the open if you know what I mean. Any other information at all I can provide

I’ll post if I find a fix. Any other advice would be great if you can think because it is rendering just rendering grey

Alright sure. Thnx for the advice. I’ve rendered in 8k before but I agree with you about the res it’s just I animated in 8k so don’t want to mess up ratios. About the sampling don’t most use 1000-10000samples? For some reason I can barely do 1000 within the hour :).

What is IMHO? Yes I would agree


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Boolean Modifier acts like the object has no volume
I added a cube and a cylinder.
When i now substract the cube from the cylinder using a Boolean Modifier it looks like this:

Like the cylinder has just a shell and no volume.
I checked the normals
i checked if there are any missing faces (what shouldnt be possible cause i just added the cube...but in case)
There are no other modifiers on them.
I added another cube in the exact same location and subtracted it with the same boolean...and this one works.
i just wann know...
please halp

Please attach your .blend using http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

.....i should have thought of that.... now i deleted the non working cube

I noticed the scale of the two objects are different so I'm assuming you scaled one of them.
If you resized the cube or cylinder try using 'apply object transform' and mark the scale and rotation. Probably even if you see the object as smaller or bigger, Blender doesn't take into account that the object has a new volume.
Most of the times it will fix things so that afterwards you can successfully apply the Boolean modifier.

The problem is duplicated vertex, removing them will probably fix this issue.
If you are a beginner, in Blender  2.8+ to remove doubles right click in the viewport while in Edit Mode, with all of your vertex selected.
Hover on Merge and select Merge by Distance.
In older versions do the same thing but don't right click. Instead press W  to open the specials menu, then select Remove Doubles.


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Synchronizing object takes too long
Im currently doing an animation.
One object in my scene has 1million polygons and highres textures.
Just synchronizing the object, during rendering  takes 30 sek.
So with 240 frames, each test-render of the entire animation, takes at least 2 hours.
Without the heavy poly-object it just takes 3 sek per frame.
Why does Blender need to synchronize the entire scene, for each frame of an aniamtion. And can't just do it once ?
Especially when certain objects don't move.
And is there a way to do this just once ?

Create a low poly mesh resembling the high poly mesh, intersect both, bake them and apply the obtained texture to the low poly mesh.

Hey thanks:) But this doesnt help since the highres texture, make up most of the synchronizing time.  Already tested this. It also doesn't answer my question.

I think it's happening because of your subsurf modifier value being high, I was messing around in blender and the performance dropped significantly, the culprit was subsurf modifier. If you've already applied that then Shrinkwrap modifier is your best bet. Follow the same procedure that I said in the parent comment, instead of baking them, set shrinkwrap modifier on the low poly then target the high poly.


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Is there a way to make custom composition guides?
I found this:
https://blenderartists.org/t/custom-composition-guides/597819
but it requires to modify the existing ones in ‘C’.
Second option would be to make some with actual geometry.
You'd think that in 2018 there would be a more user friendly way to do this.
Is there ?

There is one more option. Background image with the lines you need.

I'm trying to do some camera matching for a blender + real-world photo -- the final product must be square. My digital camera's highest res photos are 4240x2832 (about 1.5 aspect ratio). It sure would be nice to have a 'middle square' composition guide in my camera.


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Is there an overall accepted name for no-material renders?
Whitemat, whitecard (more for architecture), nomat, pure-render.
Is there any name for these that is standard ?
I can't imagine something that is so widely used to have no specific name.

Do you mean Clay Render?

reference image what you need


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How would you go about creating shards of glass?
I need to cover a large area with shards of glas
like in this picture.

The shards look like this:

My idea was to maybe sculpt the whole pile.
And then use a clever material, to create the individual pieces of glas and their reflections
.
But i have no idea how and if this would work.
Especially since the camera moves around the scene.
Any ideas on how to do this are well appreciated :)

Sounds like the job for a particle system

You know, blenderguru has a great tutorial on that! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L8qOq1Shiw

I was hoping for something without particles,  cause thats a loooot of particles that i need.


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Blender only renders in one Tile
I want to render a 4000x5000 picture.
I used a one-tiled (4000x5000 px) test render, with 20% resolution-scaling for a test over night.
But now no matter what tilesize i set.
No matter the resolution scaling.
It won't go back to multiple tiles.
Switching between CPU and GPU and using both auto-tile and manual settings, didnt work.

add a screenshot of render settings

Sounds pretty tileable ;) What's your question? Suggest to enable Auto Tile Size Addon, output as OpenEXR file, disable Progressive Refine and enable Save Buffers for such image dimensions. There no reason to render the image in one big chunk...

I really appreciate your suggestions. Disable Progressive Refine and enable Save Buffers was the solution. But sometimes it seems, every question without a screenshot isn't worthy ob beeing read fully. "using both auto-tile and manual settings, didnt work." Your first suggestion: "Auto Tile Size Addon". Nice thank you.Also rendering an image in one big chunk is a comon technique if you dont know how long you can render, but still want a full image, without tiles missing, when you come back to it.

There is no reason and that's not any common technique @JensClar. Progressive refine is for preview purposes in combination with the Render Border (waiting until you get enough samples for a small section of the image) in order to render the final image in tiles, especially when it comes to big images. Also notice that each finished tile can directly saved to the EXR file and the rendering is probably faster in general. Anyway, glad I could help. Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/3120/31447


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How do you make a Lego statue out of a character Model?
I want to make a Lego esc statue out of a character Model.
The character Model has a texture.
My plan is to use the Remesh (Blocks) Modifier to make the Lego pieces. This works without a Problem.

I then plan to bake the Textures from the normal Model onto the Lego Model.
This should also work.
BUT. I then want the texture to be a solid colour for each block. Like actual Lego pieces.

Is there a procedural/mathematical way of modifying the texture to accomplish this ?
Any other ideas on how to change my process to get the result i want without manually texture painting everything?

May be worth looking into the Bricker addon: https://blendermarket.com/products/bricker


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Wood Splitting By hitting object
How can i animate a wood splitting into 2 parts? Just like by hitting some axes.
I tried rigging and also Boolean modifier ,but it did work as i want.In rendering ,It show that they already are separate objects.

I didn't try that, but I think you can use use a complete version of the wood object and when the axe hit it, hide it (by a keyframe) and show that splitted one.

Any reason why -1?

Thank...But i want to show a gradual split........

i was just by mistake


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turning a map into height map
How can i change a simple image into height map. I am using crazybump software for making different maps of a picture. But it does not provide the facility to make heigtmap. Is there any way to do this?

If you plug image into Height input socket of Bump node in Cycles it will be used as height map (you might want to turn it to greyscale with ColorRamp in between). Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/390/how-do-i-make-a-normal-displacement-map-when-all-i-have-is-a-photo

Crazybump doesn't use height map because it is poor. Instead of height map, use normal map - it has much better results on same resolution.


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Mist doesn't work when looking through a glass object
I am working on a project. There is one scene that the camera is looking through a window that use the glass material to see the view outside. I decided to turn on the mist pass. Then I saw something isn't right. The mist just end at the window.
 Then I don't know what to do. This is an example.

The Compositing method of adding mist or fog uses depth, so it is not a "true" fog. You should try using a cube with a volumetric shader instead.


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Precision of snapping to vertex
How could I pick which vertex in scaled object should be snapped onto vertex?
I can only snap the other vertex of the arch to the wall vertex

I would like to snap like that(i can only achieve this by eye without snapping to vertex) - Yellow circle is the state i would like to achieve with snapping to vertex

Ps.
Selection to grid dont work in manual case(screen 2) because it modifies top segments of the arch as well because I would like to keep proportions of the arch segments.

Change snapping mode from Closest to Active, then Shift click the desired vertex origin for snapping so it becomes the active one.

A simple workaround: extrude two vertices on right X. then spin 180 degrees around the center of top face, with 16 steps, then remove doubles (two vertices will be overlapping but not jointed).


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Workflow to make windows on building
I'm new.. I'll start with that...  I'm building a house for uploading to SecondLife. Well, trying anyway.  I built my walls of one piece, using loops to create spaces for doors and windows.  I've mapped and textured, and created glass for the windows.  So my question is about the window frames.  Is it better to just lay a window frame over the existing glass in the wall, remove the face from the wall that are the window and make a frame with glass and set it in, or should I just create the frame out of the wall?  or does it even matter how you do it?

I would recommend to cut holes in the walls using Archimesh and placing the glass frame inside the window frame. Reasoning behind it is that you might want to play with sliding windows etc. But at the end the goal of your project decides mostly what approach will work best.
You can use Archimesh for house/room modelling. But will only work if you started from scratch. In other cases you need to cut the holes your self by for example the knife tool or re-organizing your topology.
Using Archimesh
The Archimesh Add-on is a fine add-on what can make a room, place windows and doors in the location you like and hit a button called Auto-Holes that will cut the holes for you.
The Archimesh add-on is distributed with Blender by default, but it is disabled. You just need to enable it in the User preferences.

Archimesh and similar addons are heavily based on Boolean operations, which produce bad topology, which cause problems with ngons, and texturing and modelling. If this a game asset, bad topology is probably an issue


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Apply different textures to faces of an object
I find a lot of information about applying textures to objects, but when I try to look up info about applying different textures to each face of an object, it seems there's always a critical step left out.  For example, if I apply brick to one face of a wall, how do I get wallpaper on the opposite face?

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/blender_render/materials/assigning_a_material.htmlhttps://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/blender_render/materials/assigning_a_material.html

That's the same as with materials but depends on engine. If Cycles, edit material in Node edtitor and there add an Image texture node with desired texture for both materials. Though if you mean you want to make double-sided material (different materials on the sides of the same face) then it's a bit more complicated and involves setting up Geometry node with Backfacing used as factor

thank you Haunt, and thank you for those who marked it duplicate...I was sure that it was, but I'm just learning my way around sites like this.  The solution to my problem was simple: Limit selection to visible.  Problem Solved.  Thank you again.


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Can Materials be transferred to the UV Map?
Good day,
I was wondering whether it was possible to apply any materials I've made to my Objects/Faces directly unto the UV Map.
I'm satisfied with how my Model looks with the materials, but to export it to a game it needs to have a UV Map only. I just never get the same results painting over the UV Map in Gimp.

UV map is just a coordinate system. You don't transfer anything to it. What you can do is to store all the materials information in textures that will be projected using the UVmap. This is called Baking, and there's plenty of info how to correctly do this in Blender.

you need to bake the materials to a texture. search for "texture baking"


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shader painting!
I was wondering if I made a metal material and then made a metal scratch material instead of just placing one onto of the other could I some how paint the scratches on there?
so to put it simply how do I paint an already made material onto another material?

You can use a mix shader and paint a black and white mask and use it as "Fac".

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/101771/how-can-i-make-scratches-in-paint-so-that-they-reveal-the-metal-underneath


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Water for video games
Hey there Blender commune:)
I made a water shader in blender and it works in Evee can it also work in unity if it works in blender?
here is a pic of my node setup:)

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures/57541#57541

What if I used PBR based work flow? like made a material fo it then baked all of the materials into image textures and then imported those into unity when done


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How to add CGI claws to raw footage
Been messing around in blender a bit trying to find good ways to add CGI claws splitting through the knuckles of a hand. At first I thought I might just make a simple mesh the same shape as the hand and just make it a shadow catcher and have the cgi claws come through that. However, after I did this how would I show the skin splitting open? is there a way to make the front face a shadow catcher and the back face like mushy guts looking material?

What have you tried so far?

so I think I've found a method. If I place a solidify modifier on the hand then I have an inward layer as well so the top layer is a shadow catcher and the inward can be the blood and stuff


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Why is the DOF check box in BGE gray?
I know there may be a very simple answer, but I'm still kinda new at Blender's Game Engine and was wondering if I don't have something checked in the "addons" area that will enable the DOF check box on the side panel (Opens using the "N" key, to help with my description, lol). It's under the "shading" tab.
Like I said it may seem very simple, but I'm a NOOB, lol. So any help will be greatly accepted. Thanks :)

Actually I figured it out, lol. But just in case someone had the same problem I had... To get the checkbox to become un-grayed (Or make it usable, lol) You must be in "Camera View". Otherwise it will remain gray. I hope this helps someone not experienced enough in Blender. Happy Creating :)

Good on you for answering to help others, even after solving your issue. And welcome to Blender Stack Exchange!


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Hair particle options greyed out after cromping
Can I really not change the emission number and source ect of the particle system after I cromped the hair?
I am in object mode but the options are grey. So I have to delete edit and cromp again?

Yes, you have to.

Ok just wanted to make sure so it's not like I can bake it or something.

The problem (I think) is that if you increase the number of the hairs, the new ones don't have information about the editing.


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Is it possible to "vacuum form" a mesh onto another mesh?
Suppose you have a mesh with X topology, it might be flat. You now want to "mold" that exact topology onto another mesh with a (maybe worse or somehow unfitting) topology. Shouldn't that be possible similar to cloth simulation? If yes, what approach would you use for this?
Think of vacuum forming of a plastic sheet over a mold see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_forming#/media/File:VacuformVisualization.gif
In contrast to vacuum forming and shrinkwrapping, it would be great, if one could define some important vertex of the target mesh, that supposed to be aligned exactly with certain vertex of the source mesh, so that certain features in the source mesh meet exactly with where the topology should appear on the target. Think like I can define sews for two cloth pieces where they should meet in the middle, but here they would not be on the edges of the flat pieces but in the middle of it so the selected vertex align exactly with the source, like corners of eyes or mouth, fingertips ect.
I seek to create an exact profile for a shell over another mesh.

I think that using the vertices and faces snapping options will let you do it as an easy task. Maybe also creating a copy of the target and start modeling from there.

This paper looks to be a good overview of feature-directed deformation.. '3D  Morphing' seems to be a good search-term.


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Hair particle edit mirror doesn't work
I tried to x mirror my particle edit but it doesn't work.

If you just add random particles, they are all over the place, not mirrored, so the mirror function doesn't know what to do. You'll need to delete all particles in particle edit mode and use the add brush while symmetry is alread turned on.
usually you would place a couple of hairs far apart, comb them and use interpolated mode on the add tool, so you have a running start.


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How to fill a loop with faces?
I have this mesh that I cut the top half off. Now I want to like fill it all around with faces and wonder what tool I could use for that?

have you tried bridge edge tool?

I dont know what that is?

select the two parts that you want to join, press right click to display the context menu > Bridge Edge Loops

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/48155/how-to-connect-vertices-in-a-mesh-efficiently and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/46342/is-there-a-way-to-fill-the-area-between-two-circles

If you want more control, select 2 facing nodes and press F till you have filled all the couples with faces.
Check this video: I just pressed F many times:

Is that F2 what you're using? Because that crashes with a python error here after I make the bridge and then hit F. Attribute Error: Vector substraction (vector- noneType) invalid type for this operation. https://imgur.com/yuWyZoY

I've got F2, don't know if this particular feature is a core one or comes from F2 add on.

Well from the error it seems to be a problem in F2 since it reports the error in the F2 script.

I confirm that what you see in the video works even without F2 addon (so you can try to disable it forever or disable and re-enable to check if it fixes something)


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Basic hard surface editing: What is the quickest way to make a frame around an opening?
As the title says, I want to inset a frame here like a window frame in a wall or in a box.

If I understand correctly, what you can do is create some additional edge loops, select the inner side faces, AltE > Extrude Along Normals (enable the Offset Even option in the Operator box), then extrude the top faces up:


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When I import images as planes it shows a random line at the top
So I am making plants for a game and sometimes when I use Import Images as Planes, it has this random line at the top. I've done numerous test to see if my images were the problem, but every time I reimport the file it still has the line. I tried creating a new image, getting rid of other layers, erasing the background numerous times and it still has it. There are some images though that do not have this problem, but it seems to occur most of the time. If anyone could help, that would be more than wonderful.

The top has the random line in it.

The line is not in this image.

Suggest posting / linking original images.  Can then at least see if same behaviour occurs... oh and welcome to bse.

Set ithe image texture to Clip rather than Repeat - looks like this is simply bleeding from the bottom of the image as it wraps to the next repeat. Similar to https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/45725/29586

@RichSedman can I suggest you make your comment an answer? This problem is affecting multiple users (the one you link, also this one from 2015 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/39238/height-map-boundary-problem/87394#87394) that use "Import as a plane". They might come across this question via search engines and benefit from your tip.

Image textures employ interpolation to blend pixels into the neighbouring space so as to smooth the image rather than provide a hard pixelated effect. With the image set to Repeat there is actually a copy of the image just beyond the image borders. In your case the image against the opposite edge is butter right up against the edge and so the interpolation is causing it to 'bleed' across te border - the bottom of your grass image is bleeding into the top.
To resolve this, simply set the image to Clip rather than Repeat.
The option is located under the "Texture" panel:

If you're using Cycles

If you're using Blender render

Glad to help. If this resolves the problem, please 'Accept' the answer (click the 'tick' button alongside the answer). This will make it easier to find for others experiencing the same issue (and you'll also gain some reputation points yourself).


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Real messy hair with Blender?
I followed alot of hair tutorials but what I don't like about the hair is that it's always too perfect. It's like fresh from the stylist. So I wonder if it's possible to create more natural hair that's randomized into a more messy look with strands everywhere without having to create every strand manually. Is there a way to somehow randomize the messyness? I have tried with the wave and curly settings but they only create curly and wave over the whole hair body and not just single strands and these "flying" single hair fibres.

I have successfully used Nazars method in the past. Just continue to add more strands in a  "messy" particle system. And yes, there is no shortcut to complex styling, it is work.

Yeah his work is great he's an exellent hair artist but for my pupose its still too perfect. Funny enough his tutorial I had in mind when I wrote the question. I want the hair to be really messy not just some strands but really with fly hairs everywhere around but still in somewhat of a shape. Like the hair was just quickly bound into a ponytail or like you just came out of the wind and used your hands quickly to fix them a little but not really.

You must have misunderstood me. I meant: Using multiple particle system have dedicated systems for messy strands which you manually distribute.

Use the technique by Nazar Noschenko in his Youtube Tutorials

Multiple Particle Systems for different parts of the scalp with few parents and many children to have maximum control.

Messy hair is the result of positional varation and well-placed hair strands (parents). I'd advise to use multiple systems for "types" of hair.
Messy realistic hair will have many additional properties (which can be easily researched on the internet and the manual):

varying length
varying thickness
varying clumps
varying positional color
varying color along the strand

I will only focus on the first positional variation. I would also limit the children to the simple method.

 Top: Interpolated, Bottom: Simple
If you require the strands to end neatly as if trimmed by scissors, you will have it easier using interpolated children. If you want to be able to part the hair or create individual strands with greater control, you should use simple children.

I have color coded the systems with different settings. Use at least seven segments for the hair to gain control when editing the strands shape in particle edit mode.

Base Layer
With only jittery (messy) hair, we will have difficulty covering all of the scalp. I added a base layer (scalpA and scalp B) to cover the scalp intially.

Use the Clump curve to clamp the ends of the hair together. This way, we can prevent stray hairs from penetrating the hairband. I also added a slight amount of roughness to randomize the hair. If you don't add roughness, the hair will be to uniform and quickly form bands around the parents, which almost look solid.
Ponytail
I added another particle system for the ponytail to have more control over it. The children for the ponytail have a larger Radius, since the hair at the ponytail is more loose. (The hair on the scalp is tightened by the hair band.) In particle edit mode, I varied the length of the parent strands. Using the clump curve, I clumped the particles together at the beginning to prevent the hair from intersecting the bands. This is the reverse of the scalp hair, which gets clumped at the end. I also increased the random value, but set the threshold to ~50%. This means, that only 50% of the hair will be randomly offset. The result are clear strands in the ponytail, with 50% of the hair jittered more randomly. This supports the notion of some hair beeing distributed when the ponytail is tightened due to friction and some hair straightened, because it gets pulled.
To move the roots, disable Preserve Roots temporarily.
Scalp Overlay
Moving on to the more messy jittered hair, let's overlay another system above the scalp systems. I used very few parents with very large children Radiuses. The clump curve decreases towards the end and a high random value is used. When combing the parents, I tried to introduce more variation in direction. Most strands conform with the scalp layers at the first segments, but go in other directions thereafter, which would come from the hand brushing against them and/or gravity pulling them downwards.

Strands
After the base layers, I would add more refined layers, which apply to the specifications of the character.
Hero Strands
Hero Strands stick out. Using the clump curve, they initially grow thinner, which increases the density and makes them more refined. You can use them to set accents. They have to be distributed manually and with care, as they are easy to distinguish. Use varying length and shapes and don't put to many hero strands next to each other.
Messy Strands
The messy strands aren't really strands, but rather parents which control a bunch of disconnected hair. Just like the hero strands, I would distribute them manually according to character specifications. They use high values for Random and for Endpoint. The endpoint property scatters the children at the ends. With this system, we can add singular hairs to multiple locations. I use it for short hairs or hair ends, where the hair did not fit into the hairband and is too disorganized.

I don't know any conventions and my english hair vocabulary is non-existent. Any edits and suggestions are welcome!

Wow thanks for all the work with this answer


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Particle origin when particle is a group
I want to create a tree, but I have a problem to distribute the twigs with leaves on my tree.
At first I created the tree.
Then I build some twigs and used a particle system to distribute the leaves on the twigs.
From what I've read here, it is not possible to place hair particles on an object, that contain another particle system. So I converted the leave particles on my twigs to real objects and parented them to the twig.

So far, so good, but now I'm missing something. When I want to use these twig-groups as particles on my tree, they are floating around. The twigs don't start growing on my tree.

I played around with some values, but nothing helps.
When I use the particle system to just render the twig object instead of the whole group, everything is fine.
How do I get this whole group "origin" to align with the faces on my tree?

Please show all leaves and their origins in the groups that appears above.

Do you have a few leaves with different shapes?

It is not clear to me why you used a hair as the type.  Can you explain why you chose this?  What feature did you need?

My time may expire here soon.   Suggestion.  You know something more now.  Delete the particle system.  Enter a new particle System. Delete and Renew.   You may remove accumulated errors.  Show all setting of your particle systems.

Alternative 01. If you want a whole group to behave as one leaf.   duplicate the leaves ... then [Join] the new meshes into one single mesh.  You can change the origin of a single mesh in edit mode.

Alternative 02. Deselect [Whole Group] if you want your leaves separate.

When this is done increase the number of particles and bring image in 3D View up to date and inspect.  Increase or Decrease the number to suit your needs.

When I deselect whole group I will have twigs without leaves and some leaves on my tree.

That is a separate issue.  Do you mean that the leaf placement [location] is sometime correct and incorrect? Or do you mean you do not have enough leaves ... or something else?

When I deselect whole group, the placement is right. But the group consists of a twig (parent) and many leaves (children). This way, when I deselect whole group, I will have twigs on my tree (without leaves) and leaves that spawn on the "root stem".

You may choose to read again my post.  Make the changes listed above.


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Python Animation - Can change camera location but not always pointing correctly
This code will randomly place the camera around an object, and point at it, for each frame of an animation. The problem is that sometimes it doesn't seem to be pointing directly at the center.

import bpy
import math
import mathutils
import time

from random import randint

def eraseAllKeyframes(scene,passedOB = None):

    if passedOB != None:

        ad = passedOB.animation_data

        if ad != None:
            print ('ad=',ad)
            passedOB.animation_data_clear()

            #scene.update()

def look_at(obj_camera, point):
    loc_camera = obj_camera.matrix_world.to_translation()
    direction = point - loc_camera
    # point the cameras '-Z' and use its 'Y' as up
    rot_quat = direction.to_track_quat('-Z', 'Y')
    # assume we're using euler rotation
    obj_camera.rotation_euler = rot_quat.to_euler()

scene = bpy.data.scenes["Scene"]

passedOB =  bpy.context.scene.objects.active
eraseAllKeyframes(scene,passedOB = None)

cp = mathutils.Vector((0.0, 0.0, 0.0))
cam = bpy.data.objects['Camera']

scene.frame_start = 1
scene.frame_end = 10

for i in range(10):

  #bpy.context.scene.frame_current=i
  #bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_insert(type='Location')

  x, y, z = randint(4,10), randint(4,10), randint(8,10)
  cam.location = (x, y, z)
  bpy.data.objects['Camera'].keyframe_insert('location', frame=i)

  look_at(cam, cp)
  bpy.data.objects['Camera'].keyframe_insert('rotation_euler', frame=i)

  #bpy.ops.object.paths_calculate()
  #bpy.context.scene.update()

scene.render.filepath = "E:\\testing"
scene.render.image_settings.file_format = "JPEG"
bpy.ops.render.render(animation=True)

So.. I don't know why, but the solution that worked for me was to split the keyframe assignment into two separate loops.
Investigations made it appear as though the 'camera look' function just wasn't being called.. "in time?" I'm not sure. Working code below.
for i in range(10):
  bpy.context.scene.frame_set(i)

  x, y, z = randint(6,15), randint(-6,16), randint(6,35)
  cam.location = (x, y, z)
  cam.keyframe_insert('location')

for i in range(10):
  bpy.context.scene.frame_set(i)

  look_at(cam, cp)
  cam.keyframe_insert('rotation_euler')

Cool.  Didn't get around to commenting the other day. If you are using <= 2.79x a scene update may be needed (end of lookat) to update the object matrices.  (Or build and set the world matrix instead, since you have the translation and rotation)  Suggest using a track to constraint camera to object of interest  Would then need only to keyframe camera location. (Or set via frame change handler)   Re the question code, eraseAllKeyframes(scene, passedOB) will make sure the animation data is cleared, as it is will not.

Frame change handler and track to constraint.
As commented, another way to do this would be to

Set up a track to constraint camera to object. Tracking the point of
view, its negative z axis, y axis up, to the object of interest.
Use a frame change handler to set the random camera location. The
scene is passed as argument to handler.  The rendering camera is
scene.camera

Test script below using both concepts.

Render result with suzanne masquerading as cube in default file
import bpy
from random import randint
from bpy.app.handlers import frame_change_pre

context = bpy.context

scene = context.scene
ob = context.object
cam = scene.camera

if ob and cam:
    tt = cam.constraints.get("OB_Track") or cam.constraints.new('TRACK_TO')
    tt.name = "OB_Track"
    tt.target = ob
    tt.up_axis = 'UP_Y'
    tt.track_axis = 'TRACK_NEGATIVE_Z'

def frame_change(scene):
    cam = scene.camera
    if cam:
        cam.location = (randint(2, 10),
                        randint(2, 10),
                        randint(8, 10))

# clear previous

funcs = [f for f in frame_change_pre if f.__name__ == "frame_change"]
while funcs:
    frame_change_pre.remove(funcs.pop())
# set up the frame change handler

frame_change_pre.append(frame_change)

Of course if you wish to keep these random locations, keyframe only camera locations as in question code instead.


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Normal map artifacts in Substance Painter
I am getting artifacts in my normal map when baking high poly to low poly in Substance Painter. I already discovered one thing that can cause these is that the high and low poly objects match too much, so I removed the objects that were extremely similar from the high poly and used Mark Sharp and Edge Split to get the desired affect. However, when I bake the normal map now, I'm getting different issues on the objects that aren't in the high poly.
The rails and main body of the gun are not in the high poly but I'm still getting these artifacts and strange lighting. They look perfect before bake.

I'm also getting this strange projection of the sling hook onto the rail of the stock that shouldn't be there. The models for the sling hook, rail, and stock are all in the exact same location in Blender so I don't understand why this projection is appearing. Here are a few more artifacts on the main body that shouldn't be there as well.

Thanks in advance for any help.


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Where is the principles BSDF shader?
I just watched Blender Guru's video on the new-ish Priciples BSDF shader. My current version of Blender is 2.78c. I don't know where to find the release which has Principles BSDF. On the Blender latest releases, they still say 2.78c. What version has Principles, and where can I download it?
Thanks, Phil

Possible duplicate of Node Shader and Principled BSDF not in the node list.

It is part of the upcoming 2.79 release and unavailable in previous versions of Blender.
It is not available as a stable release yet and you are recommended to await for the official 2.79 version (available When It's Ready™) to use it, unless you understand the risks of using pre-release testing software.


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How to rotate model so it matches X, Y and Z axises
Hey blender stackexchange,
I am working on a remake of a game called Assaultcube, and want to use an original gun model as a reference. I found is in usr/lib/games/assaultcube/packages/models/weapons/assault/world/tris.md2. I used a md2 to .3ds converter (there was no direct md2 to blend converter I could find) and imported it to blender. I used Shift + Ctrl + Alt + C and set the origin to geometry and set the object's location to 0,0,0. However, the gun is at a weird angle. I want the gun to be perfectly snapped to all 3 axises, but I'm not sure how. Could someone please assist me? Thanks.
Here's the blend file, I hope google drive works:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6smClKpjHImOWdvVFRJT3JVSTg/view?usp=sharing

Have the objects the transfrormations applied?

The rotations are all set to 0,0,0

I edited your file and I fixed and applied the rotations.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2r6fqaHYyfuclNDdmFDLXNuODQ
I hope it is good enough.
Bye.

Thanks so much! Could you please tell me what you did (there are 4 more models)? Thanks a lot either way :)

Ok. I switched to front view (1), side view (3), top view(7) and rotate it manually. After that I used Apply (ctrl A) rotate and location.

@Leonardo Nascimento I don't think it's a good method to do it manually :). It's not a precise way. BTW It's super hard to do this when the object has applied transformations to it.

Hello, Paul Gonet. The model had a wrong position and rotation. Mannuallly was the only way to do that. But it was fast to do. Quite simple.

If the object has the transformations applied it's impossible to match another one's transform parameters: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3027817/restore-the-objects-properties-after-applying-in-blender-3d-apply-location-rot BTW I wonder why @ideasman42 got the downvote for his answer???

While it is not a solution all on its own, How do I construct a transformation matrix from 3 vertices? shows how to create a matrix from 3 points.  You would have to get the coordinates of 3 points (and the first 2 you would pick to match one of the axes;  The third you would want to chose such that when combined with the other two defines one of the planes.)
Then you would need to take the inverse of that matrix and apply it to the matrix_world of your model.  Then it should align the model with the world axes.


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All Changes are Synced with Layers
I wanted to copy my mesh to another layer before I apply a mirror modifier. I copied it, went into an empty layer, and pasted it. However, every change I make seems to be synced on the two layers somehow, so if I apply the mod, it applies on the other layer too. Does anyone know how to help me? This has been not letting me make much progress.
Thanks in advance!

Copy pasting should be used exclusively to transfer between to distinct running instances of Blender or two separate windows, not to duplicate objects in the same file

I tried Shift + D, and I duplicated it to another layer. However, they are somehow still linked. I did u -> unlink and it didn't change. Whenever I apply the mirror modifier, it applies to both meshes.


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Rotation in Blender
I just started learning blender yesterday. In my model, there is an octagonal prism I created by changing the amount of vertices in a cylinder. I want it to be sideways, and have the flat part facing the ground. By default, it's skewed 22.5 degrees so that the edge is facing the ground. While the rectangle was still standing up, I turned it the appropriate amount of degrees. I then set the y rotation to 90 degrees so the cylinder is on its side. However, instead of lying on one of the faces, it is still on the same edge, but is at a different angle. This is because when I turned it, all of its axises turned with it, so nothing really changed. However, I want it to rotate on the global axises. I looked in the documentation, and it was for blender 2.4 and all the shortcuts are different now. What I am trying to accomplish is probably pretty common, so can anybody who knows what to do please help me with this? Thanks.

The current manual page is docs.blender.org, specifically about rotation - https://docs.blender.org/manual/de/dev/modeling/meshes/editing/basics/translation_rotation_scale.html. I suggest using it only for shortcuts and certain info, for tutorials use youtube or alike

Press R on your keyboard to rotate your object. You can choose a specific rotation, you can presss either X, Y, or Z. On your keyboard. Then simply type any number to change the rotation. In this case, press R and then X on your keyboard to change the sideways rotation.
(The next time you post a question, make sure to research it before you post your question.)

I did do research, and I read those shortcuts. They didn't mention pressing "r" first. Thanks for answering


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Sculpt tool not working
Ok so I have pillaged google and forums all over and still I am at a loss. I have this blender file and any attempts to use the sculpt tool and it does not effect the object.
I have gone in checked for any subsurface modifiers, I have checked to make sure that I go from object mode - to edit mode - and finally to sculpt mode. I have checked all through the settings for any other applied modifiers. Along with checking to make sure it was not with the user preferences in blender as well.
Here is a link to the file BLENDER FILE DOWNLOAD . You will be able to see that the sculpt tool is not working.
Any suggestions or information on what the problem could be would be most appreciated.
Thanks in adavance!

Sculpt Mode, Properties Panel, Active Tool and Workspace settings, Cursor <- Check

I finally figured my no-sculpt problem, it was I was on a shape key with a value of 0. So check under Editor Type>Properties>Data>Shape Keys and make sure you're on "Basis" key, there are no keys, or a key with max value if relative is checked. I don't know about the specific problem but for the general one I thought I should add this solution.

Can you provide an image for this fix? I'm also a newbie to Blender and I don't know much about the interface,yet.

This was something new. It seems that Sculpt Tool won't work if the Clip End is set to "inf". So for you to work with this mesh you can:
Set Clip End to 9999 or...
In Object Mode, mesh selected.

Reset location to center. Type 0,0,0 or press Shift+S > Cursor to Center than again this key combination and Selection to Cursor.
Scale it down. Much. S > 0.001 or just type Dimensions.
Apply scale. Ctrl+A > Scale.
Set Clip > End to something high but not "inf.
Press Shift+C or Home to center view to the scene.

@TheGugaru out of curiosity, how to enter "inf" value? I've seen it for the first time. Never mind, I've just hold 9 button for a while and it set it to "inf" automatically.

you can also just type inf ;)

I had same problem, but it's because I used the smooth modifier and didn't apply it before using sculpt brush.


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Painting with combined textures - select texture section to use
I have a combined texture (see image inside red box)

Now I know how to paint with just a single texture, however I am totally confused about selecting say the grass from the upper left of the combined texture. I know in many other applications you crop at min and max to define an area of the combined texture to be used, however it does not seem to be working here :\
I have google my head off and usually I find stuff really quick but apparently I do not know the correct terminology for what I am looking for as "Blender Using Combined Textures" fails to return anything useful other than "combining multiple textures into one"
So if someone could point me in the right direction that would be great. I am usually good at this type of stuff but blender has baked my noodle more than once in this endeavor :D

Your UV unwrapping needs to coincide with the image texture you are using. I would select the faces that need to be using a square of the image texture and Unwrap and then Reset, so that they are overlapped squares and with those selected in the UV Image Editor, scale and rotate to place them over the desired image portion - repeating the process until the unwrap is using the image the way you intend.


text:
I can't see textures in Game Engine
I unwrapped the plane and cube using UV unwrap. I added an Image. My view is set to texture. But when I press P the textures are not shown. I cant figure out the problem.
I made the project using this tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBVoKL3sbnw
This is my project file - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzymlv8wN9TiZ2Mwb2lDRWJCSHM
I saw many similar questions on this forum but cant figure out the problem. I am a beginner and any help would be appreciated.

Have you created materials using textures?

I told you I am a beginner. No idea of technical terms!! Let me tell you the steps I did. First I unwrapped(UV unwrap) the plane -> Then I opened UV image editor -> Then I clicked on open image and selected an image. That's it. But when I press P the texture doesn't show up.

You need to make a material for your object—go to the Materials tab (looks like a ball) in the panel on the right and hit the plus button. Then to to the Textures tab, one to the right. You should be able to add your image there.

Thanks a lot! It worked when I set the coordinates to UV

You're welcome, glad I could help.


text:
Q:How can i Combine a fluid simulation with an ocean plane?
I want to create a boat that floats across an ocean for an animation something like this in Moana: https://gyazo.com/b6bae882baad57b4da22549bb50ade43
but I just can't figure out how to combine the ocean layer with the fluid domain.
I have been searching for days I found a description of what I'm looking for but he didn't explain how one might do it here's the link to the thread that describes it better than I can: Is the ocean modifier better than the fluid simulation for making an ocean?
I would love to hear from someone who knows how the big studios do it.

Here is a complete tutorial on how to combine ocean modifier and fluid sim to generate exactly what you are looking for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVwfEHtLiyI
And here is a simpler version just with the Ocean Modifier (for zoomed out shots for example): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smArCTzxGpE
Both techniques can be combined but tend to be resource-intensive when rendering. I would move between two scenes (close and wide) to optimize.

There's a solution that's in my mind but I've never tried.
Use a harmonic force field on the ocean plane with a strength 30 to 50. Now the fluid simulation will take the shape of the ocean plane.


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How do you access the camera besides using CTRL+ALT+0?
I've been trying to use CTRL + ALT + 0, but it doesn't work at all for me.

That key combination aligns the current camera to the current view in your 3D viewport (assuming you are using the Numpad zero).  Are you sure that's what you wish to do?  To simply jump in and out of camera view, hit Numpad 0 without any modifier keys.

doesn't ctrl+0 (ctrl+numpad zero) set any object as the active camera? In this way you switch between different cameras very fast and easily...

Either Select it from the 3D scene or outliner and make it active, or set it as active directly from the Scene tab in the Properties Window


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how to dig a hole on a object?

I simply want to dig a hole on a cube. I tried to extrude after creating a circle on the surface, which left me a hole with both ends covered by the original surfaces. I tried the Bridge Edge Loops and got the same result. I cannot find a way to get rid of the surface inside the circle(it cannot be seleted and delete).
I am a beginner hopefully anyone can help me.
thanks in advance.

For a really neat way to make a very clean hole in something watch this tutorial from min 25.45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKxxXzSr5vM It also avoids making any 'tris' or more than 4 vertises polys which is the dark side of boolean operations that sometimes take hours to fix.

Add a Cylinder and put to where you want to have your hole and how deep it shall be.
Add a "Boolean" modifier on the cube. In the settings set "Operation:" to Difference and the Cylinder as "object:"
Apply the modifier.

Nice thanks (+1). However I get two extra edges. Is there an automatic way to get git of them (or not to get them to start with)?

@cjorssen using booleans to cut holes produces ngons (faces with more than 4 vertices), and they behave quite differently than you may expect. Since you're starting, it's common to fall for the easiest path, but you'll thank you later to not use them if possible: see this related post (many ohters similar): https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/74922/how-can-i-make-holes-on-a-wrist-strap/

Really appreciate your help. This is a easy solution!

You can also use the ngons to your advantage if you want, and this is a way that you can make what you are looking for without using booleans.
Enable Looptools addon first in your user preferences under the Addon tab.
Starting with the default cube, I enter edit mode and change the selection to Face. I select the top face, and then shift-S to snap the cursor to selection. I add a mesh circle and change the vert count to 16 in the operator panel at the bottom of the toolbar.
I delete the top face of the cube, and then in Vertex select mode I select the top vertices and extrude and scale them inward. I subdivided them, and this creates an ngon situation. I change round them with the Circle command in the LoopTools menu under the W popup. I then bridge them with the mesh circle, and then extrude them down in Z into the cube.
I also could have skipped the step of adding the circle and just used the one made from LoopTools on the extrusion, but that would have been harder to place possibly.
!bridge edge loops]6[]7

Another option:
Add a Cube SHIFT + "A" > Cube
TAB into EDIT MODE and Subdivide it by pressing "W" > Subdivide and change the number of subdivisions to three in the tool panel (Toggled on/off by pressing "T")*(You can add more subdivisions if you need finer detail)

Select the middle eight vertices and press SHIFT + ALT + "S" and drag your mouse. Left Click when satisfied

Add the middle vertex to the selection

Extrude down by pressing "E" + the axis you want to extrude on. In my case it's the y axis so "E" +"Y"


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Cannot get rid of shadow under transparent texture
I'm using a png with a transparent back ground for a texture, and while the transparent portion appears to be transparent, there is still a shadow under it from certain angles - but no shadow with other angles.

What am I doing wrong? How can I get rid of this "eclipse" shadow?

And my color in the transparent node IS set to full white, BTW.

Try disconnecting the Fac on the mix shader and manually varying between 0.0 and 1.0. How does that affect the extra shadow? (this will determine whether it's a problem with your alpha)

Using Felix's answer, I was able to solve the problem.

The texture in your picture is not fully transparent. Since the Transparent node is set to fully white, your texture is not fully transparent in its background. Otherwise the material setup is fine.
Notice the eclipse shadow only appears behind the texture and is the same color as the surrounding shadow. This means you probably have an error in your light path setup. A simple reason could be that the transparency passes is set to low, and Cycles cuts off the light rays not allowing them to pass through the transparent material often enough.
Fix this by increasing your Transparency bounces in Properties >Render >Light Paths:

Felix - Perfect!! Fixed in an instant, after struggling all morning trying to figure it out. Much appreciated!
I have had Blender a couple of weeks, and learn something new every day. I love this stuff.


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Cannot export transparent PNG animation frames in cycles render
Newbie here, working with Blender for less than a week, so forgive my ignorance!
I've a simple 100 frame animation I'm trying to export with a transparent background.
Under "Output", I've picked PNG, with RGBA ticked with a color depth of 16. Under "Film", transparent is ticked.

I can render a single image (F12), and I end up with the correct transparency, but when I render it as an animation, the transparency is gone on all the frames, replaced with black. Check out the two images below - one is the animation frame export, one is the single image export.
What am I doing wrong?

I think I just answered my own question! In my compositing node, I did not have "use alpha" checked! All seems good now.

I did not have "use alpha" checked in my compositing node. Does that make sense...?


text:
How do you generally deal with topology?
Especially around the eyes, mouth and hands

http://topologyguides.com


text:
Multiple named animations
I am new to blender and I am trying to model, texture and animate a character like the avatar from Minecraft and I am stuck on the animation part.
What I would like to do is to create several animations (Stand, Walk, Kick etc) by using rotation keyframes for the various body parts.
What I can't figure out how to create some sort of group, like Walk, than have several actions inside it.
I thought I was going to be able to use the Timeline to keyframe the body part and then somehow associate and name that in the Dope sheet but I am stumped at this point.
(I am trying to do this without rigging the model)

As far as I know, you can not have multiple object-level animations in one action. You need to rig your model, then it is easy to use the dope sheet or action editor to switch between multiple actions.

Thanks @HENDRIX, I guess that means I have to learn rigging then. If you add that comment as an answer I'll accept it so that you get the bounty.

You can join the parts to a single object and animate shape keys. Not 100% what you asked for, but this could be a good work arround.

There is limitation with rotations - shapekeys won't support it. But else for linear motion this can be a way.

Shape keys don't handle rotations well. You'll find that the rotating cube also changes size inbetween endpoints.

Although it is clumsily possible if you layer different shape keys over eachother. Only why would I with having bones around...

for complex armature animation you need to learn NLA (non linear animation)
so you can block every simple animation made in Dope sheet like a walk run jump and so on, mixing them togheter in non linear fashion
you need to deep learn the use of dope sheet and NLE
if you are really interested in i suggest you to attend an animation course since animation is one of the most complex thing to learn in general not only in Blender
you will save a lot of time

This answer is not really that helpful. Telling the OP that he should attend an animation course is not the answer to "how create multiple animations"

i think i correctly answered to the main question about mixing multiple actions


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Apply individual Multires levels
I've created a simple landscape model and used the Multires-Modifier to sculpt it. The modifier is set to 3 subdivision for viewport and has a maximum subdivision count of 6 for sculpting and render.
The problem here is that my materials require vertex paint for their blending, which has an incredible low resolution due to the low-poly base mesh.
The solution would be simple: apply the first three subdivisions which gives more resolution for vertex painting while sill having a 0|3 Multires-modifier to keep the information of the sculpted high-poly.
However, the Modifier can only be applied as a whole, so i cant just "take the first three levels and leave the rest in the modifier".
Using the shrinkwrap modifier like suggested in this question from 4 years ago will lead to a loss of detail and distortions in the mesh. Is there (by now) a way to accomplish this without a loss of detail?

Mockup - the first three subdivisions have been applied

Try the data transfer modifier maybe?

This would be perfect, but i cant use it to transfer the positions of the individual vertices

Have you used Wrap Method = Project and ticked [X] Negative for direction for the Shrinkwrap modifier? This should prevent loss of details and distortion.

The shrinkwrap modifier itself isn't quite suited here as it has a problem capturing overhangs and keeping an even topology. Using project instead of nearest vertex gives worse results, especially for diagonal areas.


text:
bpy: Defining object location in view coordinates using the projection matrix
I want to scatter multiple objects inside the view frustum of the active camera. In theory it is easy:

Generate a random 3D Vector with values in [0..1]
Read the projection and camera matrices of the camera
Invert them and multiply them with the vector from step 1
Set the objects position to the result

But in praxis this just seems impossible. Reading the transform matrices is a challenge in itself, but with some adjustments an answer from an older question regarding the projection matrix seems to work.
camera_to_world = camera.matrix_world
view_to_camera = camera.calc_matrix_camera(
    bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get(),
    x = bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_x,
    y = bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_y,
    scale_x = bpy.context.scene.render.pixel_aspect_x,
    scale_y = bpy.context.scene.render.pixel_aspect_y)

Transforming the point should be straightforward, assuming the order is correct. The "camera_to_world" we read is already the right direction, saving us one inverse.
point_camera = np.append(point_view,1) @ projection_matrix.inverted()
point_world = point_camera @ modelview_matrix
obj.location = point_world

However, the end result does not look pretty:

What am i missing here? There are 31 other ways to combine the matrices, vectors and inverse, but i don't think that the issue lies there.

The order of operations was right, but i was missing a normalization step after applying the inverse projection matrix - the point (now in camera space) has to be divided by its w component.
The right way of transforming a point from screen coordinates (render, not viewport) to world coordinates is as follows:
    #get inverse projection matrices
    inverse_camera_matrix = camera.matrix_world
    projection_matrix = camera.calc_matrix_camera(
        bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get(),
        x = bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_x,
        y = bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_y)
    inverse_projection_matrix = projection_matrix.inverted()

    #project from view to camera space
    point_camera = inverse_projection_matrix @ point_view

    #normalize
    point_camera.x /= point_camera.w
    point_camera.y /= point_camera.w
    point_camera.z /= point_camera.w
    point_camera.w = 1

    #project from camera to world space
    point_world = inverse_camera_matrix @ point_camera