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Vertex colors loose color data
Vertex color data seems to be distorted when used in material nodes, does anybody has similar issues? Looks like Blender modifies them for Cycles somehow. I am using VC not for coloring but for hinting shader about material properties at specific faces and need exact RGB values from Attribute node.
This happens with "shade" colors only, not with "pure" colors
Exact case:

When i am using pure colors in vertex color editor ( full red/green/blue/white) and read them via Attribute node in material - everything is fine, i get the same RGB values. So in case of (1, 1, 1), (0, 0, 0) color data is not lost.
But when i assign colors like (0.5, 0.5, 0.5) - "Attribute node" returns halved values, (0.21, 0.21, 0.21) for pure gray, for example.

In other words colors in Vertex color editor and "Attribute node" are not the same, there is a nonlinear mismatch. How this can be fixed? How real RGB, unaltered values of vertex color data can be read in material node?
For now, i manually reajdust values with pow(channel, 0.45188), which maps 0.5 in vertex color editor to 0.5 in Attribute node, but... that`s weird. Any help really appreciated.

I wouldn't say the color data is lost, looks like you face transform curves conversion when looking at the vertex colors assigned to material and rendered. How are you actually previewing colors, what material do you use? What view transform in the Color management settings are you using?

I preview vertex colors like this - Attribute node->diffuse shader->Diffuse color channel in Render Layer. I tried different color management settings in scene tab and must say while i visually see differences from switching color modes, the effect of "color distortion" still the same. Attribute node outputs "shifted" colors
It really looks like "sRGB" implied for vc data, which is weird... Imho color space manipulations should be postponed to the latest steps

I found a workaround for this. You need to create the vertex_color as
a new attribute and not as purely "vertex_color", then the Color object will be expecting regular RGB values rather than sRGB.

Vertex Colors are held in 8-bit sRGB format rather than 'raw' (linear) RGB. Therefore, what actually appears to be 0.5 in sRGB space actually refers to a different 'raw' value - hence the need to convert. See How to convert image pixel values from 8bit to 32bit properly? - answered.. but why byte image buffer is stored with non-linear color values? for some related discussion and links.


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Why won't blender files open?
I have a student that has been working on a project recently and finally got the steps to work. However, when she tries to open the files in blender, it won't open. Instead, it takes her to the page as if she was saving it again. Any ideas on why this is happening? I have never ran into this problem before.
Thanks!

You probably saved the file while you had file browser window open instead of 3D view window, try to switch it back when you open the file.

Keystroke Shift F5 for the 3D View.  Sometimes the escape key will work.  Or use the little button on the bottom left typically.  All windows can be switched to another type.

Also when selecting the file to open you can turn off the 'Load UI' option.

Uncheck the "Load UI" button when loading the file. That'll keep the user interface as it was before, instead of loading it from the blend file.

This happened to me, but I easily fixed it. It happened to me since i saved the file while in the Save As page, and knowing this, i clicked on "Back to Previous". This doesn't exit blender, but returns back to the same state as when you saved. Hope this helps.

I have been having a similar problem and I have finally figured out a solution. If you are using Windows, go to the .BLEND file you want to open and put it up in a smaller window. Left hold on the file and drag over to the Blender icon program on your desktop and click "Open in Blender." It should open just fine.

This is the same as just simple open of the file which won't allow changing Blender UI setup on loading a file. It will be opened fine only if everything is already fine with the file itself as well.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Applying array modifier to multiple items
I want to create a "wheel of fortune" type wheel.

To do this I created a single segment that could be shown multiple times. It consists of a slice, some edge poles and a text.

I then planned on duplicating this using the array modifier. In order to apply an array modifier to all of these things (to have multiple instances), I parented them to an empty.
I then thought I could apply the array modifier to the empty. But this does not seem to be possible. What am I thinking wrong?

The OP was talking specifically about a kind of "group array" function, I don't think that's strictly a duplicate.

I don't think it is likely to happen now, you have to either adding array for each object, or join them as a single object. But you can use other method like Dupliverts to achieve the same goal.

Is there some way to group these objects and then apply the array to that group?

Use the following settings for the Array modifier and be sure to add the empty for the Object Offset.  Note that the Modifier should be added to the object that is being duplicated and not the Empty.

Now rotate the Empty

SixthOfFour as you said this was not what I was looking for (although it certainly is a necessary part of the solution, but one which I already knew about).

What you might do is joining your objects first and then aply the trick as described by MarcClintDion.
Note that if you made several segments with some text, it might be more easy
to create one "backgroundblade" change its origin to center of the wheel. (set origin to cursor (hit space type origin) and place cursor at center.
Duplicate object view times, for all your texts
join each different text to each blade.
now for each blade, using snap perform Object to Cursor (center of wheel)
And type in object mode RZ30  or RZ25 something like that Repeat till proper position.
(its just another way of doing this)

Thanks. It's been so long I can barely remember why I needed to do this back then, but I appreciate your answer.

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


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Moving objects along individual normals
So here I am making this simple dice in Blender 2.82a, and it's going swell, but these pips need holes to live in.
I think I should move all the pips inwards a little bit and use boolean difference to cut holes. I set the transformation orientation to "normal" and transform pivot point to "individual origins", but sadly that doesn't seem to apply to moving (I tried pressing G and then Z, and also tried pressing G and Z Z but all the pips just move in the same direction).
Is there a way to move all of these pips inward along their normals, or should I just quit trying to optimize my life and do them one by one?

This might sound like a non-answer, but you hit the nail on the head with your last sentence in my experience. I can think of a few ways to do something like what you want, but they all require more effort than g, z, [some integer], then repeating on x and y.

Guess I'm preparing for the moment where someone holds a gun to my head and demands me to move 1000 objects along their normals within 10 seconds.

The only reason I even know about the grab and axis keys is exactly the same impulse :p Don't feel bad

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


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make vertices have the same number of weights
In my scene the model only has three bones attached to it.  Most of the vertices have weights for these three bones, but a few of them only have weights for one or two of the bones. For some reasons, I'd like to let all of them have weights for "at least" three bones, and "no more than" three bones, because for now a few of the vertices only have weights from one or two bones.

Bones deform vertices that belong to a vertex group of the same name as the bone. You can manually assign and adjust the weight a vertex has for each group.
While in edit mode the vertex groups panel looks like this -

The assign button will assign the selected vertices to the selected group with the current weight setting. The remove button will remove the selected vertices from the selected group.
In the properties sidebar there is a Vertex Weights panel that can help, it can be elusive as it only shows if a single selected vertex is assigned to one or more vertex groups or multiple selected vertices that belong to the same group (only the one common group will show).

There is also the show vertex groups weight addon which you can download from here.


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set a minimum number of bones to the vertices?
Is there a way to set a minimum number of bones to the vertices? Supposed there are three bones in the scene, and I want the vertices to have at least have two bones attached to them.

Can anyone help me or is the problem impossible to solve?

I dont quite understand your question. Could you be a bit more specific about what you are trying to achieve, and maybe some pictures?


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No Australian mirror on download page
I'm from Australia so obviously i would want the Aussie mirror. But when i go onto the downloads page there are only the US, German and both Netherlands mirrors. Please help

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not about using "Blender to create 3D graphics, animations, or games". As a sidebar, mirrors are much less important today, than they were years ago, when international long distance calls were expensive, and modem speeds were slow, than they are today, when the internet is more built out, and more economical.

You can download Blender from any mirror you want. Australians can download from US, US can download from Netherlands, etc. If there's no Aussie mirror, just pick a different one.


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How do I create FNaF floor tile bump using brick texture?
Okay,I hope this isn't a duplicate.
Do you remember how the floor tile in FNaF has that bump to it?

Well,I want to replicate it in Cycles so I can bake it as a Bump Map for Blender Game Engine.
I haven't seen any of the tutorials,so technically I don't have a clue and I'm nowhere close to finished with my fan game.
Can someone help me,please?

So you just want to know how to do bump mapping in Cycles or is there something specific about the bump map?

There is.
What I want to do is scale the bricks horizontally so it matches the floor tile's shape.
Then I want to align the bricks into a perfect checkerboard pattern.
And finally bake it as a bump map.

You should add that into your question by using the [edit] link below your question. I think you are presuming that users of this site have a familiarity with FNaF. You are limiting the amount of users that can answer this question by not being specific with what you are asking and relying on people's familiarity with that game.

Sorry Ray.
I don't mean to confuse people.
I'll try experimenting and if it doesn't work,I'll show you guys as an example.

What you need to do is watch this video and then just do it with your floor and your texture. If you want to make it so it has bumpy-ness, then you should watch this video and then use your own textures. You can also use bump maps in the BGE. Here is a texture similar to the one that is used for the floor in FNaF: FnaF floor texture...

I could watch this.

Only I'm using a school laptop and YouTube is blocked.

But you gave me the hint I needed all along,so thank you.


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Noise Texture Glitch when using denoise

Hey,everyone. I created a PBR FNaF plastic material and when I render it with low samples and use the Denoising feature,it blurs the Noise Texture and makes it really hard to see. It's supposed to look like the image above and not the one below. Can someone please tell me how to fix this without using high samples?

I'm using 32 samples. I used 1600 on a test render of my Ballora model,but it took too long. When I used 32 for it,the noise texture was horribly blurred.

I did and it was still blurred. Maybe I should use 1024 or even 1250 samples,but the price for that is a slow render speed.

Can you upload a .blend file or post a picture of your nodes?

Okay,I will. But after you help me,promise that you'll delete it afterwards. Capito?

I have another problem with the Noise Texture now. I'm trying to render a teaser for a FNaF fan game and every time I render the hat,the texture is blurred by the Denoising pass even when I'm using 4096 samples. Please help me.

I figured it out. A kind person on Reddit suggested that I should tweak with the settings and he was right. Like with Clamping,I noticed that the Denoising filter has Direct and Indirect settings,both of which are always turned on. I tweaked the Glossy pass of the Denoising filter and it helped me out a lot. To prevent the Noise texture from blurring,you have to turn off the Direct pass and leave the Indirect pass alone.

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


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How To Fix Hair Particles

Hey everyone. It's me again and I have another problem. I've been following the Blender Guru's realistic fur tutorial,but when I clump the fur and use the threshold,something weird happens. Instead of behaving like in the image above,they act like the example below. I'm not sure if this is a bug or not,but it's very annoying and I need help fixing it.

Are you using simple children or advanced?

They are advanced.

It is hard to tell without seeing your particle settings, but how about trying to add location dependent and random rough in the children panel?


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Why do my normal maps look so terrible?
I'm currently working on a model of a colonial era cannon. I'm wanting to add a normal map from a high poly model to the low poly model however whenever I try I always get some distorted results. So far I haven't figure out why I have looked all over the internet but so far haven't found any similar results. I made sure to add smoothing groups to my low poly model. I also tried the bake with and without a cage and had the same results. I feel like i'm missing a step but am not quite sure what that may be.
Here is a link the the image and blend files for what I have so far.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/q99mj0bh4p2a5th/AABsyvPYcOh-TSfiT0qkbanTa?dl=0
Unfortunately I'm limited to two links per post so I can't post them directly here.

It's hard to say why those mixed hues appear on the borders however if looking at the UV map it's seen that they are around UV map, so this is the result of Margin setting (although afaik this still shouldn't happen). Anyway enable Non-Color Data for Image Texture node with normal map.


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Why does my volumetric light disappear when I disable camera visibility?
I have been playing around with volumetric lighting and wanted to make a basic render. I create a point light put a UV sphere around it and deleted some of the faces to get the volumetric light. However the cube for which I'm using to control the volume scatter is still visible. I went an unchecked the Camera for ray visibility but the moment I do that my volumetric light disappears. Any suggestions?
With camera turned on:

With camera turned off:

Disabling camera ray visibility prevents an object or shader from being evaluated until after a ray has bounced for the first time. Directly visible volumetric light comes from striking the volume on the first hit. By disabling camera ray visibility, you prevent this interaction since there is no first hit on the volume.
What exactly are you trying to accomplish? I'm not seeing anything wrong with your first image.
Btw, you may get somewhat improved performance by using an emission texture on your light itself instead of enclosing it in a sphere with holes. The texture will prevent sampling around the solid areas of the sphere. Use the texture coordinate > normal output to mapping on a point light.

in the first image it's hard to tell but the cube it'self is still visible. Preventing me from using a world texture.

World texture should still be visible through volumes, provided the scattering doesn't wash it out. Just make sure the cube doesn't have corners/edges visible within the camera frame.

the edges arent visible however the world texture doesn't show through the cube.

Do you have any surface shaders on the volume material? If so, get rid of them. Otherwise, that sound like the scattered light just overwhelming the background.


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Is there a way to quickly swap active images for UV maps?
I have been looking around for this and haven't really been able to find a definitive answer. I just finished unwrapping a model and am getting ready to bake the Masks and an ambient occlusion map. This model has a lot of different objects a modifiers so I can't exactly combine them into one mesh. Is there a way I can take all the different objects and change the active image for baking on all of them simultaneously?

Maybe Texture Atlas can be of help enter link description here


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Part of my model won't show in cycles Render
I have been working on this mesh for a while now and finally got around to rendering it.
However when I attempt to do a test render the feet wont show in the render. I double checked to make sure that it will show to the camera. And verified that it isn't hidden in render.
It shows in object view

However not during render

I'm not really certain what else I should attempt to do.
Here is my blend file which you can use.
Mech.blend

Set duplication in object panel to none, you have set it to group. When the duplication is active the parent doesn't render

Dude thank you so much i would have never thought that would have been the case.

no prob, when there's a problem with one object only, the object panel is generally the best place to look :)


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Shadows on my Low poly model after applying normal map
I have been working on a model of a weapon and am currently working on baking my normal maps. however after it is finished and I import it into substance designer for texturing I get this shadow on the model. I have checked that my normals are facing the proper way, checked for any doubles. to no avail

Images Link: Images
Why is my model doing this, and how can I fix it?
Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Can you also add an image of your object in wireframe mode? (Or better yet - in shaded editmode)

I added the wire frame to the album.

Im confused as neither link really helped me any. some of the faces that are completely flat are having this issue as well. so im not sure if it's a non-planar issue. Also there arent any ngons in this model either.

Is there a place were i can easily upload my blender file maybe being able to look at it might help a bit.


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Accidentally removed cloth preset, how can I restore it?
I accidentally clicked the 'remove preset' button and now I am missing "rubber".  Is there a way to restore the preset?  Thank you!

I actually tried removing the rubber preset in 2.75 just to see what will be the best way to restore it, but it wouldn't really let me remove it at all. It's still there even after I pressed the remove button.
But anyway, in any other version, try to load factory settings and see if that helps. If not, take this as a great opportunity to update to the latest version of Blender!


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Cycles Image as Plane: How to improve the quality of Image? Sampling rate?
I am importing images as plane into Cycles render.  The image is a bit blurry, not as crisp, compared to the original image from Photoshop.  Is there something I can do about this?  Currently it is 12 x 12 and 300 dpi.  I imported it as emissions.
Is there an optimal render sample rate for images as planes?
Is there a special way to adjust color/contrast/etc. ?
Should i just 'sharpen' the image in Photoshop to adjust to the slight blurriness when I import the image into Blender?
I am new to this, so perhaps there is something obvious that i am missing.
Thank you for help!

Is it possible you could upload an example/comparison showing what the slight blurriness looks like?

Have you tried to raise the Map resolution in multiple importance under the world settings?

It can also be a UV map issue. The texture is stretched over the UV map's surfaces. If the surface is too small, it will become blurry and pixelated.
This also applies for the texture source itself, if it is to small it will become pixelated.
If you use light sources, you can make the shadows more sharp (become more crisp and clear) by reducing the light source's size (to something around 0.01).
With the shorthanded information you gave, I hope one of these suggestions will help you.
EDIT
Why are you importing it as emission? That will emit light and for sure as light spread, it will become blurry. Why not wrap the image on a plane as a texture?
Color/contrast etc.. can be altered in the Compositing editor for the scene.


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Creating the look of "object " mode
I would like to create a look for my model that is similar to the material of models in Blender "object"/"sculpt" mode.  I have tried using Glossy and Diffuse nodes to make "plastic" and "rubber" (according to online tutorials) but it ends up looking wrong; I want it to have a sort of rubber-putty 'sheen' rather than a plastic 'shine', if that makes any sense.  I am new to this, so there may be something obvious that I am missing.  Perhaps it is a matter of proper lighting, I am not sure.  Thank you for help!

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/9068/599 and http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/15459/599

Here's the similar effect I achieved mixing the Toon Shaders (see the nodes setup below). Although I don't know how to achieve the 100% accurate effect.

I used a three point lighting method in this case. You can see the light's setup below.

Wow, that looks great!  I tried it and it looks nothing like this!  The next step is to fix the lighting.  All my models either are washed out overexposed or lurking in shadows.  How are you lighting this?

I'll edit my answer soon and show you my lighting setup. Please be patient :).

Try using a Diffuse BDSF node (in cycles, of course), and play with the 'roughness' setting'. If your rig is like mine (not very powerful), it may be helpful to put your 3DView in render mode, hide everything except for maybe a cube or small icosphere (set to shade smooth), and then apply this diffuse material. Start fiddling with the roughness setting and watch as the render appears. You might find you'll get something that works.
Also, keep in mind that the 3DView in object mode uses 2 or 3 openGL lights of various colors and at difference positions in relation to the 3d View camera (not the render camera). Go to File > User Preferences > System tab and look at the upper right where you should see these "Solid OpenGL Lights" definitions. You can use this to help you decide how set up your scene lighting which should render the way you want.


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One material fades into another on model?
Is it possible to make the top of my model glossy, and have the glossiness fade into matte toward the bottom of the model? (Or any combination of surface variations, this is just an example) Thank you!

You need this in cycle or BI?

I am using cycles.

If cycle it would be something like this

You use the the gradient as a factor between the 2 shaders.


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How to create a translucent image-as-plane
I have imported an image as plane PNG in cycles render, with premultiplied alpha, emission and transparent. I would like to adjust its transparency.  How do I do this? Thank you!

Could you upload an image to make things a bit clearer?

Oh wait do you mean adjust how clear the image plane is?

I think I understand, what @WhishyQ is getting at is using the import image as plane add-on, and giving the the material the imported material some added transparency via cycles. This may be a challenge with a combination of mix/ transparent/ and diffuse shaders, but certainly can be done. Can you fill us in on the details of the object if it is anything beyond Blender's defaults? Pictures do help, even more so .blend files. They be uploaded to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ for further inspection.

You would like to adjust it's transparency in the 3d viewport on screen or in the rendered output (aka clicking the render button)?


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How to make an object automatically squish slightly at point of impact, while animating
Is it possible to use soft body or rigid body dynamics to make this ball interact with surfaces and other objects?  I will not be using normal gravity, rather, I will be animating it bouncing around and controlling its shape and motion, but I was wondering if i could improve workflow and cut out some steps by having the ball automatically 'squish' when put in contact with a surface, and then 'unsquish' as it moves away from the surface.  So far, all I have been able to achieve with physics is an object that becomes totally deformed as the animation progresses.
I can achieve the desired result by using shape keys to create the 'squish', but I feel like this could be more simple.
Thank you for help!

What I did...
1 Created a UV Sphere
2 Created a 2X2X2 Lattice
3 Created an empty
4 Parent the UV Sphere and Lattice to the empty object.
Now ...
1 Create a vertex group selecting the bottom half of the sphere
2 Named the group "GroupSquish"
3 Fit the lattice and deform it's bases, leaving the top half lattices untouched.
4 Made sure the lattice only affect the "GroupSquish" vertices on the sphere.
Finally ...
Move the sphere up and down you should see the effect the lattice have on the bottom half of the sphere. Of cos I created this pretty quickly and you could
fine tune the effect further if needed.
So logically you can now animate the ball going up and down and it should just deform. And add horizontal/lateral(XY Plane) motion by animating the "empty" object! Voila!

Here is the blend file !!! How generous of me :)

Thank you!  This means the automatic squish cannot be achieved with rigid or soft body, correct?

If you are using rigid or soft body to control the animation, you are basically depending on physics engines to do the work. Although this is a prefered way to work, but as you found out by your own experience it does have it's limitation and the lack of control from the artist's perspective.


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How can I move a project that includes images-as-planes?
I am working on a project that includes images-as-planes.  I would like to copy the whole project to another computer.  How can I move the Blender file and also relocate the image-as-planes source PNGs without the Blender animation file losing track of where to find the PNGs?
Thank you!

You can pack all external data into the blend file by clicking on "File → External Data → Pack into .blend file"

Thanks!  Would that make playback speed faster as well?

By default blender tries to keep external data (images, textures, fonts, libraries, etc.) with relative paths, so if you have a project folder and all your external files are kept in it, you should be able to copy/move the whole folder and take it with you anywhere, and blender would still find your libraries, as long as you keep your sub folder structure intact.
Packing should have no noticeable lasting impact on performance, except maybe on file reading or loading for the first time.


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Multi layered image textures problem in Blender Cycles
I'm a total newbie at Blender... I've been trying to simulate foil effects on a mylar balloon design. All fine until I add holographic foil effects via video textures. I can't make the black elements of the design (a drop shadow on the text) visible. Blender just renders it as alpha. Any ideas? Have I just got too many textures working at once?

Hi, yeah there are several redundant commands on there where I was basically trying to plug anything into anything! Here's an annotated version of the node tree...http://tinyurl.com/q4acr73  And this is how the balloon should look... http://tinyurl.com/og2ztwx

As I'd say after looking on your reference image, you'd like to make those black cracks on your result influence on the displacement of the mesh. There are at least 2 often used ways: 1. Plug image with black cracks as a bump map (and preferably create a normal map from image) 2. Using sculpting, model those relief parts by hand (the mesh should be highpoly for that).

Thanks, I tried the bump map route after reading your comment. It almost works, but it wipes out the wrinkles bump map UV that I had in place. Sculpting isn't an option unfortunately as I want this to be a mesh which I can drop any new design onto. That works great so far - just not when I'm trying to achieve the holographic foil effect!

Here's a render of how the bump map worked http://tinyurl.com/oookwja It just didn't achieve the flat black.


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One point tracking - Image in Render Layers is not showing on the movie

Hi all, I am following a one point tracking tutorial on youtube and everything worked fine until the compositing stage. I am having trouble showing the Renter layers on the movie. Is there anything i missed? Please help!
Best Regards,
Gary

you need to toogle the two inputs of the alpha over node


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Alpha rendering with White background
I have applied a material and texture to a blender mesh. It renders in the 3D view with a white background in the texture paint mode. Is there a way to show the transparency correctly in this view?. Having read posts on the internet about rendering alpha, suggestions were you need to:
1) Ensure the texture is set up to influence the alpha channel (which it is)
2) "use Alpha" is ticked in the texture image options
3) Material is set to "Z transparency", with an alpha and specular value of 1
In the material window, you can see the transparency working. However in the 3D texture paint view, it shows as a white background.
Thanks,
Mark.

Does it help if you switch the shading of the 3d view to GLSL? You can switch between "Multitexture" and "GLSL" in the properties panel (open with N key in the 3d view), under the "shading" group. Material alpha should be 0, and texture alpha influence > 0 (texture transparency shows transparent in the material) or <0 (the inverse of the texture transparency   shows transparent in the material)
See this example:

Hi, I have tried those settings highlighted above - The only new one was the GLSL shader - it seems to do the same really. I also set the alpha in the Z transparency material setting to 0 as you have above. All other settings were the same. I did try changing the alpha influence to -1 from 1, and this also didn't change anything on the screen in the texture paint mode. Thanks.


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Wrap Geometry Around Mobius Strip
I have a geometry which is an extruded, rectangular plane with features on it, which I would like to wrap it around itself with a half twist in the way a mobius strip is constructed. Something similar to this:

How would I go about constructing such a geometry?

This answer might help: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/32456/6204

I start by making a few assumptions:

Your geometry is not too prominent.
It can get distorted quite a bit.

If these are true, you can use this trick.
There is one possible way. First you start by baking the height of the flat geometry. There are a number of ways to do this, see here for some possibilities:
How to make a displacement map from existing 3d geometry
Armed with the height map you model the Möbius strip. Unwrap it (hint: you only get one side). Then add a displacement modifier to it (you probably also want a "Subdivision Surface* below. Level four or five should do it.). Set the Displace to use the height map. Also set it to UV (messed this up myself a few times) and decrease it's strength. You can finish with the combo solidify-edge split-subsurf lv.2. For optimum results set the shading to smooth.
I hope this helps.

authors: Ильяс Миробдалов


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Add Properties Window
Suppose I've added a Cylinder, on the left side there will be the 'add properties' section where I can tinker with all sorts of options such as radius, vertices, Depth etc. I will then resize the Cylinder and once I confirm the resize the 'add properties' section disappears. How can I get back the 'add properties' section back after I've resized?

Sadly, this isn't possible. There are some good reasons why though.
If you think about it, when you add your cylinder, you have all your settings there. The settings will always be for the last operation done. When you do another operation, the old settings are gone, and are replaced with the new settings for the operation you just did. There isn't a way to go back to previous settings without going back and redoing your steps, because it's not really practical to keep those sorts of histories, especially when mode changes come into play.


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How can I make an object follow a path exactly
I want to make this sphere follow a path, but everything I try creates a giant distance from the actual path. I guess what I'm asking is how do I get the blue line extending from the path to the sphere to be basically 0 at all times?


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Why won't Lasso or Box Select select all of the faces in the region?
Here's a problem I've been having a lot of with Blender:  I have a mesh, and I want to select all of its faces, so I do a box select like so:

However, this never works right.  It always skips some polys as can be seen here (note the thin black triangles that are not selected):

If I try again it may or may not add a few more polys to the selection.  Sometimes, if I zoom in I can select a few more, but not always.  What am I doing wrong?

Try checking the "Limit selection to visible" checkbox... When it is checked, you can see thru the wire mesh in edit mode and box selections will select vertices or faces on all faces. When off, you are only selecting the visible faces/vertices.... Might this be it?

I did check the "Limit to visible", but that's not the problem since all the faces are visible.  I can press the 'A' key to automatically select all of the faces, and that does work, but sometimes I just want to select part of a mesh, like if I just wanted to select the X and T letters in the above example, and that's just not possible for some reason.

Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/38808/how-do-i-select-vertices-that-are-directly-under-the-other

There are several ways to select every vertice of the mesh not changing view angle in the scene.
Limit Selection to Visible
Uncheck Limit selection to visible.

If it's checked, it won't be possible to select vertices which aren't pointed to the viewer (like in your case).
If it isn't checked, when selecting either with Box select or with RMB (doesn't matter how) vertices on the other side of the mesh will be added to selection.
Wireframe viewport shading
Use Wireframe shading mode, accessible via shortcut Z while in 3D Viewport.

Selecting connected geometry

Select parts of a mesh connected to already selected elements.

Use Ctrl+L shortcut for that or from menu Select > Linked.

You can also select linked data directly under the cursor.

Press L to select linked data and Shift+L to deselect data which is located under cursor.
Read more about selecting linked in the wiki page.

Right, but once again this was not the case. Clearly from the screenshots we are not dealing with hidden faces or any other form of hidden geometry. Everything is all right in front of the selection, get randomly different triangles will not be selected. Without Moving the camera, and simply doing another select I can often cause some of the unselected triangles to become selected. This appears to be a bug.

@BGreenstone this isn't a bug. You use Solid viewport shading with Limit Selection to Visible turned on (I grab it to show what was selected). This means that possibility to select anything depends on camera view (and right, you won't be able to select every polygon, especially tiny ones, inside of area of Box select or whatever). One way to avoid that is to uncheck Limit Selection what was proposed in answer along with several other ways.

@MrZak - no I think it is a bug, you are not replying to what BGreenstone reports.
It is not about the visibility of the vertices. The problem is that Blender does not always select all the vertices that are visible.

You are not doing anything wrong, it seems to be a bug / limitation of Blender selection.
As described in the question, a workaround is to select multiple times from different views. Pan, rotate, zoom etc. to select all you need.
With a dense mesh I did not get anything selected when viewing from far away. Zooming closer, I was able to select, so have been panning around the model selecting everything in partial segments.
I suspect it has to do with how the selection works from the viewport and somehow the accuracy of finding vertices based on the selection. Or maybe the amount of vertices: in my case, I have a huge 17M verts object and it selects nothing if I try to box select all visible. But when I go closer and select only some area, it starts working, and it's possible to select what you need, jumping around with the view.
My guess is that it has to do with using OpenGL for the selection queries and precision of how the vertices are in the graphics system, maybe it fails to find all when they are very close to each other in view. But succeeds when you zoom closer.
Would be nice if that could be fixed somehow, maybe the selection code could be improved somehow, I don't know it close enough to know whether it'd be possible.

If you think this is a bug then go ahead and report it. This is however not an answer to the question

Certainly that answer is not completely clear yet as the problem is not fully known. It does however actually answer the question:
OP asks what he is doing wrong. Answer is that nothing, it's a bug.
I also suggest ways to deal with it: zoom, pan, change the view, add to the selection multiple times like that.
Maybe would be good to edit those in more clearly, but that's what the text above already does say.
Your answer however is basically completely off-topic and hence would be clearer to remove, no?

Use decimate modifier to lower the poly count.  I tried this and it worked great.

Hi, thanks for the post. This site is not a regular forum, answers should be substantial and thoroughly explain the solution and required workflow. One liners and short tips rarely make for a good answer. If you can [edit] your post and provide some more details about the procedure and why it works feel free to restore it, otherwise it may be deleted or converted into a comment. Perhaps add a few images illustrating the workflow and final results. See How do I write a good answer?

This is not a universal method as it changes geometry.

Blender has tools to do it without decimating as in case of more complex models this changes geometry and should be used only if it is intended. Alternative way is to zoom in with e.g. the mouse wheel prior to selection. Or, in Edit mode, press A to select all.

authors: ایلیا اسمعیل زاده


text:
How can I subdivide a Surface NURB without affecting the shape?
Say, I lay down a Surface NURB Circle in Blender.  It has 4 control points, and it is circular.  Now, if I Subdivide it to add more control points, it starts to become a square.  The more I subdivide the more square it becomes:

What I'd like to know is if there is a way to subdivide the original circle and have Blender add new control points such that the original circular shape is preserved.  Same goes for any Surface NURB.  I'd like to be able to add new control points without destroying the shape of the curve.

I am afraid that's not how nurbs are design to work. The way nurbs are suppose to function is to use the least amount of point to describe a curve. Every quarter of a circle is a simple arc and would be suffice to have 3 points in order to describe it.
Is there a reason behind your question that you would care to elaborate? So we may figure out a better way to do if ... if any.

That's right, not sure if that is an option for you, but if you use a bezier curve instead you could subdivide with less distortion. Jus make sure you turn the handles to free type before subdividing.


text:
How to change default scale of new meshes added to scene
I have my setup configured for 3D printing, so I've set my Unit Scale to 0.001 and Length to millimeters.  This works fine except whenever I add in any new meshes to the scene they default to tiny.  For example, if I add a new Mesh->Cube it'll be 2mm which is almost invisible.  I have to scale it way up to be useful.
Is there a way to change the default scale of new objects so that they're relevant to the unit scale?  I've read in 2 other places that the size of new objects is based on the grid scale.  Some people said that changing the Grid Scale in Overlays will fix this.  Maybe it did in 2.8, but in 2.9, which I'm running, it has absolutely no effect.  I can set the Grid Scale to any number I like and it will still always plop down a 2mm cube.
Very frustrating because some of the more complex geometries (like say Torus or Metaball) that have options when you create them are too small to be visible, so you cannot see what you're doing.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
-Brian

If you change the properties of an object after you add it in the Operator Panel, the values you entered manually should stay until you alter them again manually. Try adding a cube, changing it's size from the panel, delete the cube and then add a new one. The new cube should have the same size as the value you entered for the last one:


text:
Can I apply "styles" to text strips?
I've got a number of text strips through a video I'm editing - most of which ha the same colour and font. Currently I'm changing these on each strip manually by doing Can you change the font in the Sequencer new Text Effect? - is there any way to, for example, set a style to each of the text effects, then change that style rather then having to manually go through each text strip? Or if not, at some way to change the default/all strips?

If you select all of the text strips and then change ex. the color value of the active strip, you can right click on the color and use 'Copy to Selected':

Thanks, that was great, it worked and saves a lot of time. :)


text:
Imported Sculptris textures/bumpmap not fitting mesh properly (tiny patchwork effect)
this is a problem regarding importing from Sculptris.
The model imported fine; but sometimes (seemingly at random), when I apply the texture/bumpmap it originally came with, instead of fitting over the model properly, it stretches hundreds of tiny versions of these textures across the mesh in a random patchwork.
I want to ask is there a setting I can select that will force the textures to adhere to their correct position?
1- This happened a few times when applying a texture on its own (but not other times, when it automatically fit it properly)
2- After successfully applying the texture, I simply added a second texture, defined it as a "Normal" in the mapping section- and while the "Normal" does appear, it does so as a tiny patchwork.

Can you include some screenshots? I've no idea what "tiny patchwork" is. As it stands it could be bad normals as well as inappropriate UV map.

I'm afraid a screenshot wouldn't help, as it's very hard to see (and partly a hunch). Instead of the texture being wrapped around once (covering the whole model once) I'm certain I'm getting an extremely tiny version of the texture spread across the model- or, if I wanted to texture a person's face, I'm getting lots of tiny "face" textures spread over the model.

It isn't clear at least what settings of the texture you use. That said if a texture appears on the mesh somewhat unexpected (on the every mesh face as well) then there's something with the UV map. But you question is tagged with normals so I was assuming it has something to do with custom imported normals, in that case see https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/76513/1245

Thanks for the help everyone.
It seems I've found the problem boils down to uploading the texture incorrectly.

In this case, as there currently is no other answer, it would be nice if you could describe (even briefly) what was incorrect and how you corrected it; this way people in the future can benefit from your experience.

(extended answer- may be useful for identifying other limitations)
To be honest I can't actually be 100% certain if this actually fixes it as it's still a finicky process and only the beginning of potential problems imported Sculptris textures bring (overall, sadly, I would simply not recommend it at all).
The immediate issue may be a difference in IMPORTING the texture as opposed to simply assigning a texture the "traditional" way via UV editor. It is possible the issue is one also imports a set of "coordinates" within Sculptris to correctly map the texture on the corresponding mesh, while the other fails due to the lack of marked seams on the UV map that Blender tends to require (resulting in a randomized mapping spread across the mesh). Of course, applying seams appears to run into a vastly greater problem that it tries to superimpose the neat 'unfolded' Blender mesh onto a fragmented Sculptris texture image- which makes the issue even worse.
Keep in mind, I haven't been able to certainly differentiate this as the issue, as it appeared to have been a random consequence the first time I used what appeared to be a similar approach each time.
BUT, to make up for the lack of decent answer to that issue, I think I may have found an answer to the UV-unwrap incompatibility; my suggestion is to try to make some duplicates of the object (low-poly ones) and flatten them so you can see a broad, flat representation of pieces of the texture, take screenshots and attempt to assemble an improvised texture using these in another program (Photoshop is an obvious choice, Krita should also do the job perfectly fine too).
BUT
I regret to say the main take-away message is I STRONGLY encourage anyone who did a lot of hard work on a painted Sculptris object, to bite the bullet and start from scratch making a new Blender one, complete with a new texture. It would actually take less time and run into less problems.

Just to be clear, there isn't really anything WRONG with Blender; it's simply a matter of its traditional "unwrap" mapping approach is largely incompatible with Sculptris' more randomized mapping approach. This issue is unfortunately the tip of the iceberg, and I would say, your ability to use an imported Sculptris mesh will be severely limited without an extreme level of improvisation that actually outweighs the effort of learning to make the whole thing in Blender... from scratch. Sorry everyone.

This tutorial shows a way that is probably more airtight;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ3ZmlwBaU8
I think the problem was I used a different method to import or assign the texture.
I think this should be all.

Link only answers are generally frowned on here, can you summarise what was covered on the youtube video in case it is taken down/unavailable in some regions?

Hi, please see my answer below. I think I've precisely identified the issue (and a few others), but please be warned, it's still not a certainty (but a probability!)

I solved it (to an extent)
The problem is that the imported Scultrpis OBJECTS are corrupt and retain their incompatible mapping code. IF you duplicate the vertices and make a new object this seems to overcome a lot of problems.
Solution here in more detail. Not a silver bullet, but it helps :)
Converting Sculptris into Blender SOLVED (possibly).


text:
Displacement/Bump mapping with repeated parts (Octopus Tentacles)
sorry for any incorrect terminology;
I want to make a low-poly octopus with a high-detail displacement/bump(?) map applied to the mesh. At the moment, I've completed the low-poly meshes for the body, and a single tentacle (which I plant to duplicate). I have not yet attempted to create any detailed mapping to either.
Because each tentacle is identical, I'd ideally like to do the details on one, make copies of it for the rest, and attach them to the body, so there is one smooth mesh with a smooth detailed layer.
My question:
1- Is it possible to join separate objects with their own displacement maps together as one object with a single displacement map?
2- If not, what is the best way to handle this task (without manually detailing each of the 8 tentacles)?

The bump is at the material level, so yes you can join them as they will all share the same material and UV map (keep the same UV map's name for all)

So theoretically, I could make one tentacle, give it a bumpmap, then copy and paste it a few times to make exact duplicates and arrange them on the body, then merge then all into one object with one bumpmap?

Yes. All copies will have the same UV map, mapping the same bump texture, used in the same material shared between them. And that will stay true when joint in one mesh. Give it a try on a simple mesh...


text:
Can the focal length be changed while animating?
I would like for the focal length of the camera to shift from 20 to 200 as the animation progresses.  Is this possible ?
Thank you!

Yes, you can. The Focal Length field can be keyframed with the I command just like any other field. Hover the mouse over the field and press the I key to insert a keyframe at the current frame of the timeline.


text:
How to make glowing particles, with a solid glowing center
How can I create a material that looks like this?

Thanks!

Why are you voting this question down?

3 Concentric Spheres with Emission Particles
Blur in Compositor

Render result and 3 Concentric Spheres each with a particle system.  Image above.
Click on images to see larger view.

Compositor with Blur and Alpha Over Nodes. Image Above.

Particle Settings. 3 Panel of which 2 are pinned.  Unpinned is the largest sphere particle system.  Image above.

The 3 Object particles and the material settings. 2 are pinned.
Please experiment to your taste and improve.
Consider using a more irregular sphere in the center.
You may look at the movement of particle system on many frames and choose some particular frame.
Sloppy Imitation which may serve as a starting point.
Of course there are alternative and more CPU intensive ways to do this.

For complex effects like this, with many different settings, I would suggest uploading a blend file to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ to save having to have many images of settings.


text:
How can I give an array of objects a variety of colors?
I would like to give the objects in an array (using array modifier) different colors.  Right now the array of objects is just one color, and i would like to give each member of the array a different color, using a gradient.  Is this possible?  I have tried using the Particle Info node to no avail.
Thanks!

I think you need to apply your array modifier, and then separate by loose parts in edit mode.  Press P>loose parts to do this.
Add an object info node to your material, and use the random output. This will assign each object assigned the material a color from the gradient.
A basic setup would look something like this:

This is an example of the effect with an arrayed Suzanne with setup shown:

Use "Object" from "Texture coordinate" input node (without applying the arrays).

The object output is relative to "position coordinate in the object space" (see the documentation).

From that you can separate the coordinate in X, Y, Z and use these inputs as R G B channels.
In the exemple below, I used a multiply but you can choose the way you want (color ramp, ...).
After that, recompose all in a "combine RGB" node as color input for your shader.

As you can see, the result is very bright : this is because the values are above 1. The value input node is here to modulate theses values, in order to obtain the intensity you want.

Vector and Color types are identical (XYZ => RGB) and thus can be plugged into each others' sockets without a problem.  So a simpler but equivalent setup would be to plug the Value into a color multiply node.

thanks for this very useful answer that provides a solution that doesn't require applying the array! It took me a while to get it to work, because my array went in negative X direction instead of positive and I didn't realise it. I just thought I mention this, in case anyone else is struggling. Because some colour inputs don't like minus signs! After I figured this out it worked like a charm!

You can assign different materials to the faces of each object in the array, and that will allow you to apply different textures as well, without having to separate the array first.
Just go into Edit mode. select the faces you want to assign a specific color to, add a new material, and then assign it while the faces are selected. Do this for each object in the array.

when I'm in edit mode I can only select the first element in edit mode and all changes I make are then applied to each element of the array. Can you specify how to select other elements in the arry?

Faces of individual objects in an array can be selected only after applying the array modifier. This is not the solution for the problem presented here.

authors: Слава в Україні


text:
How big can i make the "world"/animation set?
I am setting up an animation scene that needs to be a sprawling area.  I have noticed that navigation gets awkward as I get further away from the central grid, especially in "user perspective".  I am only at the point of setting up the main parts now and I would like to know now if I am doing something wrong before I get into adding the details.  Is there a limit to how large I can make the world/set?  Can I extend the outer boundaries?  Am I doing something fundamentally wrong?  Thank you!

You can technically make the scene infinitely as large as everything scales linearly. as you start getting up to a large scale you might start running into clipping issues with the camera however this can be adjusted by adjusting the end clip of the view.

However it's not recommended to scale things up more than needed as translation and scaling starts to get a little weird especially when you add cameras to the mix.


text:
UV unwrap / Cannot link image to face or any other object
I tried various tutorials for UV unwrapping following every single step.
In UV Editing window I can open image but it will never actually link to the object. It always remains a dark grey. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

You need to add a material with the texture driving the color value

@NoviceInDisguise You do not have to add a material to get the texture to appear in textured view.

No, not in texture view. It just needs to be unwrapped, right?

Actually, not. You may notice that Blender Render (not Cycles) is used as renderer. In this case you may see the texture in Textured node on the mesh that wasn't unwrapped - http://i.imgur.com/SS5jev7.jpg. (The mesh is not unwrapped). Actual problem for me remains unkonwn. I would import everything from this scene to a new one and try again


text:
Faster blur effect in Blender VSE
Blender's Video Sequence Editor allows you to use the Gaussian Blur effects strip to blur the image or video, however, it uses a lot of CPU and the rendering is slow like a hell. It takes around 2 minutes to apply a blur of 80×80 to a single frame of a 1920×1080 video which is unacceptably slow. It even makes the system lag a lot.
Are there any ways to make the blur effect faster?

Since I figured out the answer, I'll answer my own question.
Blender's Video Sequence Editor is an awesome tool; however, it lacks some functionality like some effects the Compositor has.
For example, there is no Fast Gaussian Blur which is a lot faster than the normal Gaussian Blur with a minor margin of error (see this page for a comparison; it's not exactly the Blender's implementation, but it's pretty close). Furthermore, as far as my preferences go, I actually prefer the look of the Fast Gaussian to the normal Gaussian Blur.
So, since there's no direct way of using the compositing feature for the video strips, the question is, are there any workarounds?
Fortunately, I was able to find a working add-on for that, it's called Edit Strip With Compositor.
Note: There's another add-on mentioned in this thread called VSE to Compositor, but it doesn't work for Blender 2.76b.
So, let's get to it.
In order to install and enable it, follow these steps:

Firstly, download the latest version (it's the version 0.14 for Nov
20, 2015).
Next we need to extract the Python script from the archive.
Now, you can either install the script from the User Preferences or if you want to make it system-wide, you can copy it to the Blender's add-ons folder (in my system it's /usr/share/blender/2.76/scripts/addons). Note that this might require some administrative privileges.
Then you need to go to the User Preferences in Blender and activate the add-on.
If you want to enable it by default (on Blender's startup), don't forget to click the Save User Settings button.

After enabling it, you can start using the compositing functionality for the VSE. Here's a demo of it; however, he uses the other add-on mentioned above in the note, but they're not that different.
To apply the effects from the Compositor to the VSE strip, you need to follow these steps:

Select a video strip first (yes, unfortunately, you cannot apply the effects to the effects strips itself, but you can apply other effects on top of it).
Press N on your keyboard to open the Properties panel.
Scroll down in the Properties panel until you see the Edit strip with Compositor section.
Click the Set master scene button.
Check the Show options checkbox.
In the Compositing, choose the Compositing option from the drop-down list.
In the Editing Screen, choose the Video Editing option.
Optionally, you can enable the Add Viewer option.
Click the Create Comp from strip button on top of the section.
Click the Edit Composition button.
Now, this should look familiar. It should get you to the Blender's Compositor. Let's add the Blur effect. Open the Add menu by pressing Shift+A and select Filter → Blur from there.
Drag the Blur node over the connection path and once it becomes white, make a single click.
From the drop-down menu, select Fast Gaussian instead of Gaussian and choose your X and Y values for the blur size.

It should look something like this (except for the Backdrop which I have disabled):

Switch back to the Video Editor layout and voilà! You can notice that the blur effect is much more responsive now.
In order to animate the effects, you need to switch back to the Compositor and utilize the keyframing from there.

Related questions:

Can I add the output of the VSE as input to the node diagram? — Blender Stack Exchange
Blur video track in Video Editor? — Blender Stack Exchange

Upgrade to 2.77, since there has been implemented a massive performance boost thanks to the Caminandes: Llamigos Project:

Speedup Gaussian Blur effect (8cde671)

(Image by Pablo Vazquez)
There's a more in-depth demonstration in Thomas Becks Developer sneak peek #26 - Video Sequence Editor (Blender 2.77) at 0:33.

I've just tested it. It's definitely faster, but still not as fast as the Fast Gaussian blur. Developers should definitely add it into the VSE.

I share this workaround here in case anyone wants to used it. I'm on Blender 3.6 and Gaussian blur is still veeeery slow. I tried to use "glow" instead but rendering video is as slow or more. In case you want to hide and static thing, like in this case an IP, what I did is just to put an square of color over the part and set the color equal to the background, like here:

This allows you to render much faster than the gaussian over mask thing. Hope it helps. May be there are ways to make this attached to a moving mask. I don't need that fancy things for the momment.

authors: Максим Кобец


text:
How to achieve "simple" deformation of a plane?
Is there a way to achieve exactly (that's crucial) the same corner bend definition of a plane in blender?

What sort of material would bend like that in the real world?

Only unobtainium I think. Is there any other way than sculpting, to achieve this shape?

what does the shape look like from the side view? I'm curious as to what you will use it for.

I don't consider side view, only top view for this one. Two things for sure - bend have to be above, and it should be done from one plane. I'm using this to see if round bend edge is doable in blender in easy way.

maybe high sub-div levels and an IK rig?

You can use an armature to deform a sub-divided plane.  Select the plane and shift select the Armature to make it the primary selection with the plane as the secondary selection.
Press Ctrlp to parent the plane to the armature.  I selected Armature Deform with Automatic Weights.

There is a color picker available to select colors from other areas visible in the UI.
If you hover over the color field of a node and press the e key you can then click on an image that has has been drag 'n dropped into the UV Image Editor.  Now you can pick the various colors of the image to use for the Material and Sky colors.

You can use Freestyle to add the edge highlighting.
The setup is shown in the following two images.
(i)Activate Freestyle in the Render tab
(ii)Add a Lineset
(iii)Change the color to match.
The color of the paper is multiplied by 3.0 to brighten it up.

To get the exact shape of the reference image, you can try a more detailed Armature.
Another option is to add a sphere and use the Snap tool(magnet icon).
Snapping activates when you select one or more vertices and press g and then enter to set the movement.


text:
Can I store text object data in external file?
Situation: I have a project with 20+ scenes and hundreds of text objects in random places (a song).
Is it possible to put the text object data (text itself) into a text file(s), to edit externally without the need of searching the object inside blender? So that edited and saved text file will update the objects in project on restart of blender?
PS: text objects aren't keyframed (if that makes a change).

see if this answer helps

Hey thanks, it's neat and useful, but it doesn't solve the problem.

do you want to export them to individual files then synch them at the end ?

Exactly, I was writing this, but it timed me out. xml or csv is also cool.

This is an addon for writing text objects to .xml file and reading them back from the text file.
How to use:

you have a file with text objects in one or multiple scenes
have text objects
export to an xml file (file->export->text to-from xml )
edit text outside blender save the .xml
in the first .blend file (with the objects and scenes ) use the addon to update text objects from the .xml file  ( this time select read_objects in the left side of the file browser )

install: from the addons tab click install from file and select this txt_xml.py file check the check-box to activate

UPDATE
the addon file txt_xml.py
bl_info = {
    "name" : "text objects to-from xml",
    "author" : "chebhou",
    "version" : (1, 0),
    "blender" : (2, 7, 3),
    "location" : "file->export->text to-from xml",
    "discription" : "copys an text objectx from-to xml file",
    "warning" : "this add-on is extremly unusefull",
    "wiki_url" : " chebhou@gmail.com",
    "tracker_url" : "chebhou@gmail.com",
    "category" : "Import-Export"
    }

import bpy
from bpy.types import Operator
from bpy_extras.io_utils import ExportHelper
from bpy.props import EnumProperty, BoolProperty
from xml.dom import minidom
from xml.dom.minidom import Document

def txt_sync(filepath):
    dom = minidom.parse(filepath)
    scenes =dom.getElementsByTagName('scene')
    for scene in scenes:
        scene_name=scene.getAttribute('name')
        print("\n",scene_name)
        bl_scene = bpy.data.scenes[scene_name]
        txt_objs =scene.getElementsByTagName('object')
        for obj in txt_objs:
            obj_name = obj.getAttribute('name')
            obj_body = obj.childNodes[0].nodeValue
            bl_obj = bl_scene.objects[obj_name].data.body = obj_body
            print(obj_name,"  ",obj_body)

def txt_export(filepath):

    doc = Document()
    root = doc.createElement('data')
    doc.appendChild(root)

    for sce in bpy.data.scenes :
        #create a scene
        scene = doc.createElement('scene')
        scene.setAttribute('name', sce.name)
        root.appendChild(scene)

        for obj in sce.objects :
            if obj.type == 'FONT':
                #add object element
                object = doc.createElement('object')
                object.setAttribute('name', obj.name)
                txt_node = doc.createTextNode(obj.data.body)
                object.appendChild(txt_node)
                scene.appendChild(object)

    #write to a file
    file_handle = open(filepath,"wb")

    file_handle.write(bytes(doc.toprettyxml(indent='\t'), 'UTF-8'))
    file_handle.close()

class   text_export(Operator, ExportHelper):

    """write and read text objects to a file"""
    bl_idname = "export_scene.text_xml"
    bl_label = "text from-to xml"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}    #should remove undo ?

    # ExportHelper mixin class uses this
    filename_ext = ".xml"

    #parameters and variables
    convert = EnumProperty(
                name="Convert",
                description="Choose conversion",
                items=(('W', "write objects", "write text objects to xml"),
                       ('R', "read objects", "read text objects from xml")),
                default='W',
                )

    #main function
    def execute(self, context):
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'OBJECT')
        if self.convert == 'W':
            txt_export(self.filepath)
        else:
            txt_sync(self.filepath)

        bpy.context.scene.update()
        self.report({'INFO'},"Conversion is Done")
        return {'FINISHED'}

def menu_func_export(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(text_export.bl_idname, text="Text to-from xml")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(text_export)
    bpy.types.INFO_MT_file_export.append(menu_func_export)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(text_export)
    bpy.types.INFO_MT_file_export.remove(menu_func_export)
if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

I am receiving following message ! [error_msg] (http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=86059). Am I doing something wrong? (I've also tried with blender 2.74)

@markac I'll check and be back

@markac i have updated the code (the fault was in my code ) remove the old addon and install this one (export fresh file and import it to be sure it is working )


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4 vertex shape faces
Good day everybody.
I've been having troubles with a phantom face that appears when moving a vertex from a figure inside. I'm not sure how to explain it.
I have this face:

And by moving a vertex inside bends the face and keeps it triangle shaped. I get the following result:

In my head it should keep the limits within the edges, but it's not doing that, I wonder if this is normal and i'm chasing a ghost or is that I missed a step somewhere.
Sorry for the nuisance ^-^

Yes it should keep the limits within the edges. Can you upload your .blend file? (http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/)

Sure, here is the file:

It shouldn't keep the limits of the edges in this case. There isn't enough geometry for that, because you create non-planar face by moving vertex like that, so it splits that face to 2 triangles. Try to avoid creating such geometry.

Select the face that is not behaving properly. Press 'x' and choose 'Only Faces'.
And fill it again with selecting two edges and press 'f'.
I hope this helps!

Just triangulate the face (ctrl+t) faces appear like that in blender it's just the way it is.. You can pres "F" afterwards but i suggest you to use triangles.

I don't think the problem came from the face but problably because your quad is convex so blender can't display it correctly. you can slit the face into two triangle. Select two vertices and press 'j'.
Like that:


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How to deform an ellipsis inside its englobing rectangle

In the image above, I created the orange mesh (2D) by scaling a circle in an axis. So I got an ellipsis.
I created the black one point by point by moving each point of a circle with the mouse. The black curve is not an ellipsis, this is what I want.
How can I obtain the same result by applying a transformation which will move all points from the ellipsis between surrounded points, but surrounded points should not move and moved points should stay inside the rectangle defined by surrounded points.
In other words, I'd like to control the shape linking two perpendicular lines.

Curves are not an option I assume?

If I can use a curve for just this part of the object that's an option.

You can convert the curve to a mesh too

Thanxs for your comment. I cut my mesh, created a bezier curve, merged the curve and my mesh.

If that worked for you, go ahead and add an answer so others can follow your steps if they come across the same issue


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How can I open an pskx file in blender?
So i need to import an PSKX file into blender but i have tried almost everything getting rid of the x from .PSKX and also this add-on script(Link) i have even tried opening it in unreal engine 3 and 4 the UPK file at lest i also tried umodel maya and nothing works but i have heard of a remodify file of the link i put in but can't find it anyway i just want to export it to any file that blender can read.

I use the exact same script you linked to and I works fine.
You don't have to get rid of the 'x" in the end as this is only a suffix Gildor, the creator of umodel, introduced because his tool adds some additional values useful to modders. The downside is that a PSKX file cannot be opened inside the UDK. The 'x' simply tells the user that this is psk has been modified.


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soft selection vertices on edit mode
Is there something like Maya "soft selection" on edit mode? Something like a selection with a gradient value to do modification on a lowpoly mesh?

Yes, in blender it is called Proportional Edit.
You just have to enable the tool by pressing O and then you can adjust its area of influence by using the mouse wheel (or by using PgUpPgDown) while you perform a tranformation, say, while you are translating a vertice.


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hard/soft edges set normal angle
how can I set se normal angle of an edge, to make it soft, hard or something inbetween?? (without beveling, withou more geometry)
I do it in maya selecting the edge ...menu/mesh display/set normal angle...
or just selecting ...menu/mesh display/hard edge

You can smoothen selected geometry with W > Smooth or scale it along normals with Alt+S to make it located under harder / softer angle. I don't think there's the same operator in Blender.

You also have an autosmooth option and the ability to mark edges sharp

This is an old question, but I figured out the correct answer after having no luck searching for it online.
The Blender equivalent to Maya's Set Normal Angle is in Object Data Properties > Normals > Auto Smooth.  You check Auto Smooth on, and set a percentage value.
However, it will most likely do nothing.  I found there's possibly 3 other settings that need to be set for it to work right.

Object Data Properties > Geometry Data > Clear Custom Split Normals Data.  This is only necessary if it says Clear Custom Split Normals Data, rather than Add Custom Split Normals Data.
In Object Mode, Right Click the object and select Shade Smooth.
Go into Edit Mode, select all faces (hit A), go to Edge > Clear Sharp.

If all 3 are set correctly, then the AutoSmooth should do what you want.

Select the object, context menu and click Shade smooth, then on edges, you select Mark sharp  or Clear sharp as you need.
You can smoothen selected geometry with W  > Smooth or scale it along normals with Alt + S  to make it located under harder / softer angle. That's adding a "smooth mesh" in Maya, adds twice the geometry per iteration and it's not related.
I don't think there's the same operator in Blender, it is, like most of the Blender equivalent its just named in a different way.
Go into edit mode and hit Shift + B and drag the cursor until you have the desired amount. no, that's beveling, maya ahs athe same concept in Mesh tools, bevel again, adds geometry, totally unrelated.
Go to the modifier tab and click:
Add Modifier > Generate > Bevel again, adds a bevel, which changes geometry and destroy uvs, not related to question.
There is the crease tool, which allows you to sharpen the edges by whatever amount you want, and doesn't add more mesh to do it, like the bevel tool does. Just select the edge(s) and press Shift + E , then pull the string you see attached to the mouse until the edges are as sharp as you want them. They will turn pinkish/purple as the crease gets sharper. You can adjust this at any time by pressing Shift-E again and relaxing the string with the mouse.
Nope, that's the crease tool, Maya has the same tool also named crease, and it's nothing like the guy asked.
What has turned me away from Blender has been the answers everywhere. "Not possible" actually means "I don't know how, so ill just say it doesn't exist".
A friend of mine who said was a Blender expert always told me of things that weren't possible to do in Blender, and it turns out not only they exist, but are easier to do that in other software.

There are two ways of beveling in Blender.
Method One:
Go into edit mode and hit 'shift b' and drag the cursor until you have the desired amount. This will add more geometry though.
Method two:Go to the modifier tab and click:
add modifier > generate > bevel
This will not add more geometry unless if you select 'apply'.

ctrl+B for the beveling (or is it OS dependent ?)

Yes, I believe it would be 'cmd' on a Mac OS.

There is the crease tool, which allows you to sharpen the edges by whatever amount you want, and doesn't add more mesh to do it, like the bevel tool does. Just select the edge(s) and press Shift-E, then pull the string you see attached to the mouse until the edges are as sharp as you want them. They will turn pinkish/purple as the crease gets sharper. You can adjust this at any time by pressing Shift-E again and relaxing the string with the mouse.
It's best to have the subdivision surface modifier on when you do this, so you can see how much the edges are being sharpened. You can get some really nice rounded edges this way.


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Using multiple glare filter nodes
How should I apply multiple glare filters to rendered frames of an animation? I have an object with an emission shader that is keyframed to glow brighter every now and then. I want it to have a small glare effect when it is glowing dimly, but have multiple more noticeable glare effects that will apply and stack on top of each other when it is glowing more brightly. However, just combining glare filters with different thresholds with an "add" node isn't working predictably. Please help!
Here is a GIF of a preliminary render I have.
https://gfycat.com/JollyUnconsciousInvisiblerail
I want the glare effect to glow extremely brightly for a second to hide the moment when the second line of text appears. (This is the title screen for a movie I am working on.)
How would I accomplish this while compositing? Please help!

Don't use the "mix" function on the glare node. Just set it to 1 (outputs glare only) then add it back to the original with an add node, like this:

Not only can you chain as many as you like this way, but you can use the factor on the add node to have complete control over the intensity of the effect.

Thank you! That is exactly the effect I was looking for.


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Video preview disappears after adding a color balance node
I was trying to color grade a video in the "composite" mode, then I selected "use nodes". I could see 2 nodes in the compositor. No probs.
 But when I tryed to add between these nodes a color balance node, my video preview disappeared as you can see in pictures I sent.
Somebody could Help me?

Hello, of course

Your video needs to be added to the composite in the form of a Movie Clip node or as frames in an image sequence node, and then add a Viewer node as output to see the feedback in the backdrop.
Right now, you have a renderlayer node from your scene which probably only gets you the default cube.

Craig D Jones, your method helps me a lot


text:
i imported an FBX file and want to add bones
well the title says it all... I am not understanding why the bones won't move the frame.
I imported the file and then used http://blog.digitaltutors.com/how-to-create-your-first-character-rig-in-blender-part-1/ to get it going.
when it got to the setting of vertexes part the skeleton was like 1/100th the size of the fbx file

When importing models from other 3D computer graphics programs the model size is one of the main problems you will run into. The reason for this is that 3D computer graphics is not (necessarily) CAD. You don't have unified measurement units. Blender has a different internal measurement system than 3ds max, which uses a different one than Maya, and so on.
You need to resize your model to a reasonable size. The default grid floor is a good orientation point.

You also want to change Blender's internal measurement units from "None" to "Metric" or "Imperial" (Metric works great for me).
Go to Properties Window, Select "Scene" panel, scroll down to "Units" and change the settings to your liking.

This comes also in handy when exporting models to game engines.
Also be aware that the model's mesh isn't already triangulated. You simply won't have very much fun rigging it.


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Will Blender 2.76 run smoothly on new PC?
I am considering finishing my old 2.76 files in Blender 2.76 so as to avoid any compatibility issues, before moving to Blender 3.1.  I am wondering, will Blender 2.76 run especially well on the PC recommended for Blender 3.1?
Windows 10
64-bit eight core CPU
32 GB RAM
2560×1440 display
Three button mouse or pen+tablet
Graphics card with 8 GB RAM
It would be excellent if it would run well on a powerful PC, because I need to get a new PC anyhow.  Or, will running this "old" version on a new computer cause glitches rather than improved performance? I'm currently working with much less RAM, so I am used to a lot of lag when animating even simple models.  If I could just see the models moving in real time, rather than lagging badly after a few seconds, that would be very helpful.  Thanks for any insights!

Try it and see? - You can have several Blender versions installed at the same time without them interfering with each other. I currently have 2.83, 2,93, 3,0.1 and 3.12 on this W10 machine and I doubt 2.79 would be any different. Just remember that you shouldn't load and then resave a file with a later version if you still want it to run on the earlier version that it was created on. It might work ok, but isn't guaranteed!

@JohnEason  I'll try that.  Thanks for the suggestion!


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Creating enterable buildings
Im new to blender itself so I was wondering if anyone knew anywhere good to learn how to use it, Im fairly quick on the pickup with a good guide on hand.
Anyway Ive been looking all over the internet and can't find anything to help in regards with this.
Im looking for a good way to create from scratch multiple different building structures that can be exported for later use into my gaming enviroment in Unity.
I have no issue building them one by one over time. So if there's something that'll help me render them before moving onto intricate inside details, awesome! (I came to Blender because it seems to be the most commonly noted one for this task, but can't find any guides to do this)
Anyway any help on getting started and working through all this would be massively appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

If you want to render the materials of the facades in advance (aka. bake the whole surface), see here: http://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/introduction-baking-cycles/

Best begginers tutorials i know are at gryllus.net after finishing all tutorials in there you can just pick some from blender tutorials. As for enter-able buildings: just move pivot point to the edge of door so you can rotate around it, and animate it so it will look like door opening.
Example:


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Is there a way to render a wireframe independent of its topology?
Lets say I have an object and I want to render it in squarish wireframe in orthographic view. Here is what I mean -

I am not looking for a specific topology in the 3d view, but what ever the topology of a model is, is it possible to render it in this way? I know that there are tricks to do this, for example by using chroma key, but as you can see in the image it is not acurate because it has picked up information from the original black background. Is there any way to do this in blender without the usage of chroma key?
Update - Basically, to render an object independent of its topology with a checkered wireframe

The Brick texture node makes the grid texture.
The settings to change in the Brick texture node are:

both Frequency fields, set to 1
brick width and Row height must match to get squares.
Mortar size to set how thick the lines are.

The Camera socket of the Texture Coordinates node, sets the mapping to match the camera. Thus the grid will be straight.
The Mix node is used to overlay the grid over any shader you already have on the object. It works from the Fac output from the brick texture. white = 1, and black = 0 so where ever there is black in the grid it will use the bottom shader, and whereever there is white (where the bricks would go) it will use the top input of the Mix shader. The brown Diffuse node would be the underlying shader.
Those nodes will render this:

Nice! the camera option in the texture coordinate node didn't work for me...? any tips?

Thanks, but I can have them both in full opacity, not mixing the values in between, right?

the "usefull question" button doesn't work as a non registered user and I'm having trouble with registration, but I'll fix it or check "best answer". Thanks for the answer.

@Vladimir the reason the up vote button wont work is because you do not have enough rep yet. You need 15 to up vote.

Just one thing - Does this requires a "uv project" modifier?

@Vladimir not at all. only 2 things are required to get the grid the Texture Coordinates node and the Brick texture node.

Thanks. One last thing - I did all of that, but the vertical edges are not aligned forming edge loops as they go from top to bottom. I get this - http://www.tripurple.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Red_Brick_Wall.jpg
How can I fix that?

@Vladimir that is already in my answer, set both Frequency fields to 1

Yes(if I read your question correctly).
In this case I'm overlaying a grid(checker texture) as such:

You can use a image of a grid texture instead of the checker texture.
Steps:

Uv unwrap your mesh.
Add a uv project modifier.

Set the projector to your camera.

Set the Uv map to your Uv map
Set up a material such as this:

You can use any texture instead of the checker texture.

Sorry, I'm a little new to blender. What is a "uv project modifier"?
What do you mean by "projector" and how can I set it to the camera?
And what do you mean with "Set the Uv map to your Uv map"? Basicly, I want to render an object with a checkered wireframe. Is that it?

Done, feel free to ask more questions!

the "usefull question" button doesn't work as a non registered user and I'm having trouble with registration, but I'll fix it or check "best answer". Thanks for the answer.


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Is there a way to subdivide a cube while a shape of a sphere is maintained?
Is there a way to subdivide a cube while a shape of a sphere is maintained? When making changes on a cube (with subdivision surface, bevel etc.), instead of pressing AltShiftS, the shape of a sphere to be maintained. Is something like that possible to do?

You can do this non destructively by adding a subdivision surface modifier set to simple, and a cast modifier with the Cast type set the sphere and the factor set to 1.
Another method is W>Subdivide smooth will come close to achieving the effect you want, as far as I know, it doesn't divide correctly, and will create a mesh that isn't quite spherical.
Screen shot of modifier settings:

Thank you for the answer. I knew that there was some kind of a modifier for that, but I forgot that it is the Cast modifier.

@Vladimir if my post helped you, please mark it as accepted.


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Making ocean loop hexagonally
I am creating objects for a game which consists of hexagonal tiles. I successfully created looping animation for ocean, but failed to make it loop spatially, due to my tile being hexagon, and not a rectangle. As a result, my water objects don't fit together nicely:

Is this "hexagonal looping" possible in blender?
blend file

Is there a reason you want to keep your mesh as hex tiles? Or else you can use  CTRL + T to triangulate all the faces.

@hawkenfox Yes, the game mechanics have been built around a hexagonal game grid. Due to how the tiles work, it is necessary that each tile's projection on a horizontal plane be a regular hexagon. All faces are already triangulated, as my rendering engine does not allow non-triangle faces.

I see , is it possible to post a .blend file with just a portion of the mesh in question so some of us could diagnose the problem and probably solve it.

@hawkenfox added blend file

So here is a hexagon grid converted to a staggered rectangular grid with indication of the direction how the rectangles need to "line up":

The rectangles are seamless from top to bottom exactly how you expect. But the left-right 'seamlessness' needs to be rotated +30°(or -30°) because of the staggering.
When you have the rectangle seamless, you create the hexagon from it by cutting and re-arranging the corners like this:

Now you know how to seamlessly tile hexagons. With a bit of skill you don't need to go through the rectangle phase at all, just create tiling with one tiling axis rotated 30°. That's the trick.


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CSG failed, exception degenerate edge
I have an object made in blender which needs to prepared for 3D printing. It is relatively complex object (114k verts, 228k faces, 228k tris) which contains three separate meshes.
I separated the object by loose parts, checked for non-manifold geometry, converted ngons to triangles, and am now attempting to perform boolean Union on them. Blender shows Cannot execute boolean operation, and CMD displays CSG failed, exception degenerate edge.
What's going on here?
UPDATE:
Modifier seems to work without an error if and only if objects don't intersect. That is a problem, since all my objects intertwine. Object parts were designed to intersect. For instance, a person representing a sword. Sword is a bit thicker than the hole in the person's hand to ensure structural integrity of a printed model.

I think it happens when two edges align just right, try making small adjustments to the location of one object to "break them apart".

@sambler Boolean operator doesn't produce errors only when objects are not intersecting thus defeating its purpose. If I could "break objects apart", I wouldn't need boolean operator.

I had similar problem.The problem was solved by converting the tris to quads (Alt+j).


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Horizontal lines showing in volume scatter shader
I am creating a landscape scene, and to get clouds I scaled a cube by a lot in x/y directions and set its material as follows:

A quick render resulted in the following pattern:

It is possible to see transparent horizontal lines in the clouds. Above image was rendered with 16 samples. Higher sample counts (like 4096 or more) resulted in smoother, but still visible lines. What could be causing this? Note: a workaround by translating the vector or changing the scale (even slightly) is possible, but I'd like to know the underlaying cause.
Blend file

That's very strange.. Is it possible you could upload your .blend?

Volumetrics shader are simulated by "overlaying several layers of thickness". These are called samples. From the Blender reference manual's page:

Step Size: Distance between volume shader samples when rendering the volume. Lower values give more accurate and detailed results but also increased render time.

Here's a default UV sphere showing the steps:

Your scene is quite big and deep, so you'll have to decrease the distance (increase the resolution) between these "planes" with the Step size property you can find in the Volume sampling panel in Render tab to hide this effect.
The purpose is to get a finer calculation of the procedural texture you are plugging in.

That's a pretty cool visualization!  It almost looks like diffuse.


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Simple normal baking - strange result
I need to make a normal map (high poly to low poly).
But whatever I try I always get a really strange result.
Here is an example:

It is a shoe, the high and low poly models together. Low poly model have UV map, all the settings are on the screenshot. The normal map I'm getting is completely wrong.
I need to finish it until Monday, so I would be super grateful for your help! Thank you very much in advance!

Maybe the same as this http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/76416/how-to-bake-normal-map-if-the-models-intersect/76428#76428

@lemon  No, In this case I already increased the Ray Distance to maximum - the result is the same, so the problem remains.

When I look at the unusual high poly sculpting and the normal map it looks about right. Why do you feel it is wrong?

@photox I added a bigger screenshot of the UV map, compare to the model with sculpting it is wrong. The baked areas are square, they are smaller and less than should be.

Ok, that is odd.  I would need to see a blend, can you post one?

Maybe a scale problem (the highpoly, or both, is scaled): apply scales (ctrl+A in object mode). If not you should upload your file.


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Cycles not rendering image or movie clip used as background in the viewport
First time I've used cycles rendering engine.  I'm using a movie clip as the background in short animation. Selected RBGA under Property Tab, and Transparent under Film Tab.  It looks good and individual frames in OpenGL active viewport render, and looks fine.
When I try to get it to spit out PNG files of the finished animation the objects render out fine, except no movie clip background as Blender Render engine did when using Paper Sky setting.  Operator error, or am I trying to do something Cycles won't do?  Haven't found an answer in my searches so far.  Can anyone point me in the right direction please.
Addition:  I think I found my problem after a couple more hours of research.  Post should read "operator ignorance" instead of operator error.  Too tired to try the solution tonight, everything looks better in the morning. Thanks anyway.
Sorry, I just saw your posts.  Really tired.  Much appreciation.

Do you want the movie clip background to influence (i.e. light) the scene?  If not I would add it in the compositor.

Do you want a transparent background or not? And what do you mean by "movie clip background"? Seems to me that if you want a movie clip for the sky you wouldn't want the sky to be transparent. I'm confused. Please clarify.


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I pressed P and I don't know what happened
Yesterday I was making a model. There was something that I needed to put on another layer. I forgot the layer shortcut, so I was pressing random letters until I pressed (Ctrl +?) P and it changed the lighting and completely froze. I left it on for a while to see if it would unfreeze, no luck. Today I opened my PC and all I can see in the blender window is my viewport surrounded by black. I really don't wanna close blender since I didn't save my model.
P.S. It is still responding but I can't do anything with it.

Were you in "Blender Game" engine mode? Did you try to press the "Esc" key?

There could be saved temporary versions of the file, located (if Windows) in user folder/AppData/Local/Temp (by default).

P used to be the key to start game mode.  I think they unbound it in recent versions to prevent people from having this problem.  (yes, I also fell victim to that once; and the Shift+Space toggle).
I agree with all the comments suggesting the Esc key as a possible remedy.  (although it won't get you back from Shift+Space; another Shift+Space does).

P does not start the game engine unless the Render Engine is set to Blender Game indeed. Shift+Space can also be undone using the Back to Previous button in the Info area.


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How would I attach text to a tracked point on video clip
I am using Ubuntu 15.04 and Blender 2.72b.
I've got a video clip where I want to display some annotation-like text next to some potatoes on a white table. The potatoes move a little in the video so I would need to adjust the text a bit every few frames.
(I am a total beginner, I have not used Blender's clip editor before.)
How would I attach text to a tracked point (to the potato) and manually adjust the text's location when required?

@cegaton I can handle starting tracking a object but how do I make it stop tracking the object and remove the annotation after a certain frame? How do I create the text object, do I have to make a .png with the text and then somehow import that to Blender?  (Sorry for asking so much questions, it's all new for me)

You should upgrade to the latest version of Blender (2.75a at the moment 2.76 will be coming out soon).

My answer here might be useful.

@cegaton Potatoes are still, the camera moves :).


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How do I join two models together without messing up the texture?
I have a model of a human body and a human head, and both models use the same texture file. When I go to join them together into one form, however, the head's texture jumps to all bundled in the lower left corner,messing it up. how can I stop this from happening?

Can you post a picture of what you're dealing with in your question? Is your model UV unwrapped?

http://imgur.com/PH7mi44
The model is uv unwrapped and both models are textured correctly before joining.

Ctrl + J should join meshes without change their UV Mapping

@parameciostudio Tried this, it doesn't work. UV mapping is still reset.

@sycon Can you provide the blend file?

@parameciostudio I'm not sure how to do this...

@sycon you can attach the blend file on mega.co.nz and give us the download link with the key attached. I can confirm that CTRL + J should not move your UV Mapping at all. That's how I do it. My guess is that you probably have some sort of parents or meshes with different scale apply. Try ALT + A and select "Apply scale" then Join the mesh and see if it works.

@parameciostudio http://www.mediafire.com/download/bnccom4y2tb3ebt/dude.blend here's the file through mediafire

Your are using two UV Maps with different names.
When you join the meshes, the UV Maps will be mantained:

If you want to merge the UV Maps, just assign them the same name before merging.


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Does Cycles' GPU support Intel HD Graphics 3000?
I'm currently planning on buying a Macbook Pro 13-inch from an acquaintance which uses Intel HD Graphics 3000.
While I was doing some research, I've read that there are people who say that Cycles' GPU only supports NVIDIA, but other's say that there are ways to make it work for Intel HD Graphics e.g. using Cycles AMD OpenCL or CUDA.
If they do work, how can I install them?

It will most certainly not work (ever). Refer to this page: https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/OpenCL
GPU on Apple products is a huge issue. Not even the extremely expensive mac pros come equipped with decent GPUs. So if you want to use CUDA etc... you're better off buying a laptop with a good nvidia GPU (You can run linux on it if you don't like windows (that's what I do)).

(Also keep in mind that even if it did work sometime somehow it would be way too slow. The Macbook Pro's CPU would probably render faster than the Intel HD GPU)

As mentioned it doesn't currently work, it's unlikely that it will in a near future, and if it did it would be way too slow to have any real world advantage. That is not to say however that you can't render on a computer with an Intel graphics card, you can still render with Cycles using the regular CPU, although from a 13 inch ultra portable you won't be getting stellar performance, for the same money you could probably do a lot better staying away from Macs


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How to see the changes in the graph editor while rotating an object
Is there a possibility to see the changes in the graph editor while rotating an object (a keyframe in a curve changes its height) i.e. not when the object is already keyframed, but when you're still able to change its rotation?

What is the actual Blender bigger goal of having such data?

You can change object's rotation even if it's keyframed, the changes only won't be saved. If the object isn't keyframed yet, it won't have any data in Graph Editor / anywhere, hence no changes won't be detected.

@atomicbezierslinger It'll be more convenient to adjust some keyframes (by rotating the object) while you see its instant changes in the graph editor. I've used to change the keyframes directly in the graph editor, but I've heard I shouldn't do it since I use Quaternion rotation. Hence, the W rotation doesn't change automatically.

The graph editor displays keyframed values. If you haven't keyframed a value then the graph editor doesn't have any data to display.
Similarly, as you move an object in the 3DView you are not altering any keyframed data so there are no changes being made to the data displayed in the graph editor.
Note that it does work the other way. After keyframing a value you can make adjusts in the graph editor and see the changes in the 3DView as you make them.

But if I adjust the keyframes in the graph editor the W rotation wouldn't be automatically adjusted. Isn't that bad?

@Eti2d1 it sounds like you need a better understanding of euler vs. quaternion rotation. When you rotate something on X it doesn't rotate Y automatically is correct and applies to both rotation types. Checkout Nathan Vegdahl's video on the subject.