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Ctrl + "numpad -" to create boolean subtract doesn't work here
I create a new project, duplicate the cube, move it a bit, press ctrl + "numpad -", nothing happens. On my other computer it works. It's a fresh new blender installation. I checked preferences/keymap, there's no boolean. Any ideas? The ctrl key is definitely working.

Ctrl- is a BoolTool shortcut, you need to activate the BoolTool addon:


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Boolean subtract enlarged
I create mainly moving parts for 3D printing, where there are parts rotating around or moving along each other. For example:

I want to make a cube or cylinder around it with this shape subtracted. Easy, using boolean. But I also need say 0.3mm gap between them. I usually dublicate and enlarge the object to be subtracted, but that's quite clumsy. Is there a better way?

Use Alt+D to linked-duplicate your input geo. This will mean if you edit the original the new one will update with that mesh as well.

Keep this object in the same location as the original, select it then the original and then use Ctrl+P > Set as Parent (Keep Transform). This way it will keep the objects in the same place when you move the original.

Then use a Displace modifier on the duped object that looks like this.

The strength value will control the size of your gap.
Then you just boolean your target object with the Displaced object.

You could also achieve this effect with a Geometry nodes modifier on your target object by putting all of your bolt subtractor objects into one collection, displacing them in GN and subtracting from the target object that way. Then you can skip the whole parenting deal and it will just automatically subtract your objects with the correct spacing.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Why is "gear" object non manifold in Reaper
I want to postprocess gears with some booleans and all was failing, so I started investigating and it turns out even the default gears is nonmanifold! Why? And how to fix that easily?

Adding a Gear object and checking it with Blender's 3D Print Toolbox addon shows that the two inner loops of the gear are non manifold.

Selecting both loops in Edge mode and then using the Edge > BridgeEdgeLoop menu will fill the gap and checking again now shows 0 Non Manifold Edges.

Thanks. Any idea why the gear is like this? A bug perhaps?

No idea I'm afraid. It's always been like that and I doubt it was written with 3D printing in mind.

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


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Driver to change the seed every 4 frames? (Replicating "Step" Function in LineArt Modifier)
I am trying to work out an easy, repeatable solution to this question:
I am using Line Art in Blender 4.0, not freestyle, but the problem persists.
I am trying to use a driver on the Noise Seed in the Noise Modifier to give it a random/value every 4 frames. I want this to be editable, pretty much recreating the "Randomize" option below it. I have used keyframes to get the result I want by changing the seed value every 4 frames with constant interpolation, but want a simple driver command to simplify/recreate this. The closest I have gotten is "(frame - 1) % 6 // 4" from this This Answer
However, my understanding of drivers/python is incredibly limited. Would be fantastic to get some kind of help here with a solution/possible description to increase my understanding of the process. Thank you.

(This answer is a frame challenge.)
Don't use a driver expression. Use fcurve modifiers.

Set a keyframe on the Seed property.
Open the keyframe editor.
Add a Noise modifier to the fcurve and scale up the strength (to $1000$). [Set the Scale property to an odd value with decimal places to circumvent the artefacts of pseudo-random noise.]
Add a Generator modifier to the fcurve and use the coefficients $500$ (for x^0) and $0$ for x^1. This shifts the curves and prevents negative values. (The seed can't be negative.)
Add a Stepped modifier and set the step size to $4$.

Awesome thank you so much. I will give this a go, am probably going to use the floor driver listed above for most of my solutions but this seems far more versatile and a good exercise for me to undertake.

Try floor(frame / 4).
(Note that frame // 4 is substantially the same, but is a "Slow Python Expression", so is to be avoided.)

Sorry for a the late reply, thanks a ton for this addition. I think for my scenario this is the answer I am looking for. Thank you


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Is there a way to stack boxes up as you might expect in the back of a truck?
I have a large number of box models (think UPS, DHL, Amazon) and I want to stack them up in the back of a truck like a human would. Is there any functionality in Blender that will allow me to do this?

You could create a box, give it Physics > Rigid Body > Active type, duplicate, create a ground that is Physics > Rigid Body > Passive type:

Select all the boxes and Object > Transform > Randomize Transform:

In the Operator box, play with the parameters:

Play the animation, the box will fall and stack:

If you don't need anymore physics you can select all the boxes and Object > Rigid Body > Bake to Keyframes.

+1 for your red arrows, although the menu entries are already blue ;)

to say the truth I had to restrict myself not to add some more

so you are arrow addicted? :D

yes, I wanted to point each box but didn't find a solution to point the ones behind

you should have tried the wireframe mode :D I am happy, i could help :D

oh my god you're right I was so stupid

no not stupid, we are all learners :D Just ask me...if you want stupid answers :D

plus red arrows are not accurate, they should have been green, I hope my red arrow have not misled people these last 4 years, oh my god I need to edit all my answers, nooooooooooooooo

Now you now why you only got 3 upvotes, if they would have been green - you would have 100+ upvotes!!!! :D     You made my day. I am very very happy that people like you are here with a huge knowledge, always friendly, unbelievable helpful and lots of humor. Love that. Only met maximum of 3 people who met that criteria. Robin is another one. I would have left this forums months ago if you weren't here...too many people here who just want to play sheriff and think they know everything better  (puke)

but but but I'm very serious Chris, I'm offended you don't take me seriously  :/

@moonboots this is a great answer to my question. BUT, I realised I forgot a crucial point (and even my image doesn't illustrate it). The boxes are all different sizes and orientations (but they are still all cuboids). The challenge then becomes writing a script to arrange them in such a way that when they are dropped they stay stacked. It's a difficult mathematical problem, but I was hoping there would be some blender add-on or functionality that handles it.

what do you mean, in what way the fact that they have different sizes change anything? It just changes the creation of the rows at the beginning as you need to bring a bit of variety, but the randomize transform and physics will work fine. Please explain more in detail

@moonboots sure. It is indeed the creation of the rows bit that's challenging. With same size oriented boxes it's trivial to place them in a regular lattice. But with different size boxes (different heights lengths and widths) it's a little like Tetris trying to pack them together. If you just put them in a regular lattice, when you drop the lot, it will all just topple down. And even if it doesn't topple, you'll end up with weird looking totem poles. The actual mathematical problem of packing different shaped boxes is very hard, and I was hoping I wouldn't have to write my own script for it

just create 3 kind of rows, then Alt D to duplicate the rows, rotate them 180° on an axis, select the 2 rows, rotate them 180° on another axis, and so on, in few seconds you have tens of rows of boxes of different sizes

the Randomize Transform even allows you to give random sizes to your boxes, you could also play with some random textures

@AlexanderSoare if a real human can load that van full of random boxes in 10 minutes, so can you in Blender :)

@Cylindric yes but try generating 20k photorealistic images overnight with an RTX 3090 and 16 CPU cores ;)

Thanks for the tips @moonboots


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How do you change the point of reference measure?
So I want to measure from the corner point which is where the 3D Anchor? is?
The one vertex all the way to the bottom left.
I want to measure from That to the selected bottom vertex..
How do you do this?

from the vert at 3D cursor all the way to the bottom left? or did u mean bottom right?

The Edge Length feature in the Overlays doesn't have a reference point from where to measure some overall length. It is only showing the length of each selected edge separately. So if you want the overall distance from one certain vertex to some other, you either have to add all edges inbetween or (if there's no straight connection you could summarize) you have to select those two vertices and press F. This way a single edge connecting them is generated and you can see its length. But you should undo this or delete the edge in order to get rid of unwanted geometry.

It would be nice if there would be a way to select the end vertex to skip everywhere on that perimeter like measuring a waist.. What if someone has to measure a character waist like for pants? How do people "tape" measure it?


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New keyframes are changing old ones automatically
I set a few keys with an armature.  If I try to rotate transform along an axis between the last two keys....it rotates other keys set before as well.  I tried just moving my spine bone backwards and the spine is backwards on all my previous keys.
I select everything with A for rotation and only a single bone to bend spine
My goal is for my keyframes not to change after setting them but if anything, I’d really just like to know why new keys effect old ones?

I’m using blender 2.79 and I reset factory settings.  I added a metarig armature (with and without adding rigify controls)*

maybe create some keyframes before the one you want to create?

Try to replicate your workflow with a new file with something simple. If that is happening again share this file via https://blend-exchange.com/

Ok it looks like keyframes were not being set for all the channels making it appear like old keyframes were being overridden.  Looking for tutorials explaining the keyframe menu....like what is a visual keyframe.   Wondering if an option is available to key every possible channel for the armature


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Spin Character like Sonic or Blanca (Root Pivot Around Spine)
I want to pivot root of armature around spine (multiple times) in pose mode as I animate fight scene. This is easy using transform slider in object mode but origin keeps changing. Below is the condensed version of what I tried:

constraints (pivot/transform/child) - works shortly before rig floats away...connected empty to spine and did same thing

change pivot to 3D cursor - works but slider only goes to 360

move root in edit mode - works until actually pose character then center off

On point 2.: slider might only go to 360, but you can usually enter higher values manually in many fields. I just don't know which slider you are referring to now.

Thank you I guess iPhone pics are too big to post but it’s a slider that appears on the left side of the viewport when you pivot around 3D cursor....I did try manual entry along the x axis but it still stops at 360 for some reason


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How can I copy a mesh whilst also copying all bones for the specific mesh and their weight-paints?
I wanna know if this is possible in Blender or not. Is there a way I can copy a mesh as well as it's bones on a single rig with the weight-painting intact. I'm trying to make Vulpix tails for a fan-character's model, and IO don't thing I'm willing to hand-do it over and over again.
If there' a way to do this, what is there to do?
Version Used: Blender 2.93 LTS

Your question is not clear to me. When you duplicate a mesh its vertex groups are also duplicated. The vertex groups store the weights for the bones. The bones are part of the armature. That's another object which also can be duplicated.

Any time you copy a mesh, you copy its weights.  Any time you copy an armature, you copy all of its bones.  So if you want to copy a whole mesh, with a whole armature, you just select both of them and shift d duplicate.
The way that bones and weights work is that a model with an armature modifier looks for any deforming bones in that armature, and for every vertex, it looks at that vertex's vertex group weights (which can be found listed in properties/object data).  If it has vertices assigned to a vertex group with the same name as a bone, those vertices move with that bone, in proportion to their total weights to all deforming bones in that armature.  These vertex groups come along for the ride with any duplication (or any other operation)-- they are vertex data, just as attached to the mesh as vertex color, UV, or even vertex location.  They exist only on the mesh.
Let's say you want to make a second head on an existing model, so you duplicate the head and move it someplace.  This second head has all of its weight painting intact-- in that, it's still weighted to your original head bone!  If you make a new head bone, like head.001, and move that bone someplace, the head will need those weights redirected to that new bone.
If we want to make a second head+neck with new, copied bones, but we don't want to do any weight painting, we can do the following:

Duplicate the head and neck bones on your armature (in edit mode).  Be careful if they have any bone constraints, but this is fine for a simple armature.  Take note of their new names: we'll assume "head.001" and "neck.001".
Duplicate the head and neck meshes, then separate your duplicated mesh to a new object ('p' for me).
Select the new object and look on properties/object data/vertex groups.  Find "head" on that list and rename it to "head.001".  Find "neck" on that list and rename it to "neck.001".
Join your duplicated head back with the original object.

You now have two heads, with two new vertex groups (they get appended to the original ones when you rejoin), controlled by two separate bones.  If you didn't move the bones or the mesh, you can move them now in pose mode.  You can move them each manually to eye in edit mode on the armature+mesh, but moving the head via positioning the new bones is preferable.


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How do i simulate an object on a string, with the string being simulated, and can collide with something else?
I want to simulate the string being attached to one stationary point and attached to a bigger object, which can collide with other objects? I've tried so many different methods but I still can't find one that works.

maybe this answer? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/239911/trebuchet-rigid-body

Perhaps this would help - https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/226766/how-do-i-pin-a-ball-to-a-cloth-sim-rope-to-create-wrecking-ball/227382#227382


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Trying to animate and use physics on rigid body
im making an animation and i have a rigid body. i want it to fall then after a few frames stop the falling and animate it.
but every time i automate the animation button to switch on when i switch the dynamics off the object moves to its original position.
how do i let the object drop to a certain position then from that position stay and animate it to do something else (in this case using a 'child of' constraint so it moves with another object)?
thanks

You'll need to keyframe its orientation following the RB sim.  Which is going to require baking the simulation to keyframes, keyframing the right location, deleting other keyframes, and then maybe re-caching a new simulation.  That's kind of a pain.
There's something you can do instead, which seems a little less painful to me, involving the use of object constraints: run the simulation to get it cached.  Go to the frame before you want it to stop, keyframe animated off.  Go to the next frame, make an empty, give it a copy transforms constraint targeting your physics object, then apply that constraint (x button next to the constraint influence, or apply visual transform operation.)  That empty is now holding onto the appropriate transform for your object.
Delete the constraint to prevent any dependency loops.  On your physics object, enable "animated" and keyframe that property.  Your physics object jumps back-- that's okay.  Now give the physics object a copy transforms constraint targeting your empty, apply that constraint, keyframe loc/rot, and delete the constraint.  You can delete the empty now if you want.  You don't have to though, it won't get rendered or affect anything.
Your animated physics object now has the transform it would have gotten from the physics, but as an animated set of loc/rot keyframes.
If you ever change the physics sim, you'll probably have to redo this to get the new orientation.

hey thanks for your reply, i tried your second method a couple of times even with a dummy object and it seemed to have the initial problem of it jumping back. i need to have a try with the first one though


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Sorting vertices and update their indices
I've created a mesh from a path, So I need to add sequentially a vertex group for each 5 vertices, So I need to sort vertices indices at first like in the image below. Or if there is a way to do that without need to sort vertices !


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Check if two vertices belongs to edge loop
Check if two vertices belongs to edge loop in object mode

something from https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/31797/111042 perhaps

@james_t Thank you but it's not working !

What have you tried so far? Please show your code so we can help you figure out what you're doing wrong.


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Merge bezier curves without deformation?
So I've been working on the hair of a character, and I need to merge all the hair strips together. But whenever I do that, everything is deformed after doing so. I have tried applying rotation and scale, but this also deforms the hair.

I just needed to convert the curve into a mesh.

Ah :-) so, delete the question?


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Viewport of render gone, I joined Areas to area with folders
My mistake was joined the area of folders to right side, when I wanted take of them.

The solution is:
Go to

later:

done!


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erasing part of grease pencil strokes
I am fairly new to using blender for 2d animation, and just blender in general. I'm trying to use the grease pencil to animate. I feel like I'm missing something simple but cant find it out. I am trying to erase part of a stroke (created using size 25px F pen) with an eraser (15px point F eraser stroke). i can erase parts of the stroke, but there seems to be a limit on how small the section I can erase is. once i make the eraser under a certain number of pixels (somewhere around 40) the eraser point will not get any smaller. So I can erase but I cannot erase the line to have one end of it evenly match a perpendicular line. I hope this question is not too confusing. If anyone has any tips or solutions they would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

it's because in blender you don't erase pixels but the dots that form the stroke (more like a vector graphic program). If you go in Edit mode and switch the Selection Mode to only points you will see what I mean

Thank you so much @wilks this has helped me out so much and I am sure itll help me out with many problems in the future!


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Cutting Shapes Into Another
I'd like to cut a complex pattern into another shape, to produce a square shape with holes of the pattern. However the knife project in both new and older versions of Blender either fails to work at all, or works quite badly; manually extruded and filling in the missing faces also seems like it would take forever, considering the amount of vertices in the pattern.
Does anyone know a quick way to cut the patterns I have into a square solid?

Here is a mega link to the file:
https://mega.nz/file/nBclFI7C#NU-CMMXmpGEs3KdE0IYdYo9GF_zXRLabwb6hya_GWwM

You can use booleans to do that.
First select your curve and right click>convert to>mesh (you can select a specific shape by hovering the mouse over it and hitting the "L" key  which selects everything connected)

Fill in the mesh, with the everything selected, press the "F" key. To create one big face.

extrude the geometry to thicken it up. Edit Mode > E to extrude

You can than use that shape as a cutter by placing it through the wall or object you want to cut through. Selecting your cutter shape first > Shift click target object (the one your cutting through), and than CTRL + the "-" sign (on the NUM PAD)


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How to fix texture mapping?
I have the house, and bricks texture. Howewer, the texture seems not be correctly located on the different parts of the house body. picture
So, I'd like to do some mapping with the bricks texture. But if I scale or rotate the texture, it looks the same as in the picture.

You should modify the UV map for that.

The Mapping node affects all coordinates you plugged in there uniformly, but obviously the front and side faces of the house are oriented differently, so whatever you do might correct one side but mess up the other side. Since you are using the UV coordinates you have to edit the UV map to orient both faces in the same direction. The scaling is different compared to each other as well. You have to edit the UV map or maybe create a new one. I would highly recommend you watch tutorials on UV unwrapping, UV mapping and texturing.

Thanks, I will just try to fix the UV and find some tutirials.


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X-Ray acting weird after tweaking MatCap
I was trying to set a new MatCap tweaking colors and stuff, but after this I'm unable to use X-ray properly.
In detail, the object is visible only if I'm not looking from the front. In that case, it becomes fully transparent. I also tried changing the x-ray opacity, but if it's set to 1.00 is fully opaque, while setting only on .95 gives the result in the images.
Thanks!


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Help with UV Unwrapping Modular Triangular Pieces
I am creating a modular hill set and have four quarter sections that go together to form a hill. I find that I get the best unwrap when using the Project from view option when looking straight down at the object. However, because my mesh is not a plane with 4 sides but instead a triangle, it unwraps with one side at the UVMap rightside, and it aligns the other side of the triangle with the top. The issue is that textures are seamless from left to right and top to bottom, but never seamless left to top. So i need a way to get one side on the left and the other on the right without major distortion. I am unsure if seems, stitching and splitting could be used to help solve my issue.   Thank you very much in advance!!!!

did u try project from view?

Yes I've been using project from view in bounds. The issue is I need the sides to be seamless but they will never be seamless unless UV is mapped from left to right. Right now it's the right and the top which many textures are not seamless in this way. So I need a way to manipulate the UVs to accomplish this, likely manually... but my circumstances are alittle unique but ik it's possible.

BTW, assuming that I figure this all out, once I finish this hill set, I will be giving it away for free (open-source/creative commons) to anyone who wants to throw a quick realistic modular terrain set together for thier purposes

did u search for "seamless texture blender"? there are tutorials out there and some add-ons....

Yes the issue is that all the objects can Be mapped to a 4 sidded plane in the tutorials and mine can not as it only has three sides. I could make it have 4 sides but the vertices for the area above the origin will be sharing the same location which isn't really best practice.

Do you mind up voting this to get other looks. I am on a bit of a deadline and really would like to figure this out. Thank you.

i would recommend providing a blend file so people can check it out and test solution proposals. An upvote wouldn't help much.


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Seamlessly UV Unwrap Unique Shapes
I am fairly new to Blender, however I understand 3D concepts quite well, minus a few specific situations. This is one of those situations I am stumped by. Basically I am creating a modular hill, that uses one corner piece rotated around its origin point to create the hill. In 2D space, the corner piece more resembles a triangular shape with 3 sides rather than the ideal 4 sided plane used in UV Mapping. This causes a limitation, as textures are seamless horizontally and vertically, but never diagonally. When the shape is unwrapped to a UV Mapping, due to the triangular shape, it attempts to map it diagonally rather than vertically or horizontally. I am aware that this is difficult to understand from my explanation, as it was difficult to really explain, so I have attached a photo with a visual representation. I have a bit of a deadline, so please upvote if you are unable to answer the question, so that someone who understands the task can help. Thank you in advance.

It might be helpful to people trying to help you if you uploaded an example blend file to the site https://blend-exchange.com and add that link in the question.

Found the solution here: https://blenderartists.org/t/uv-unwrapping-unique-shapes-seamlessly/1517531 Had to edit the texture in a photo editing program.

In my example I created a plane with standard UV Unwrap, subdivided by 2, and modeled into desired shape rotating 2nd vertical edge loop by 30 degrees, third by 60, fourth by 90, then snapped into place (I used a shape key for better clarity).
Remember to uncheck the "Correct Face Attributes" Option during edit.

Then added another subdivision level for avoiding severe stretching and scaled the new edge loops for more roundness.
Hope it can help.

This is actually a better solution than I found! Multiple ways to skin a cat I suppose. So I got half this correct originally, but i had horrible stretching and all I had to do was subdivide again. haha smh. Thank you!

Where is your origin point as you rotate the edge loops? I am getting strange result when performing the rotation. Thanks in advance.

Got it. I missed the part about snapping the edges into place.

Sorry. I feel clueless. I did the UV Unwrap before making changes and as I make the changes it updates the UV! Is there a way I can keep the original unmapping or do I have to change it in the UV editor manually.

I updated my answer.

Perfect! Thank you.


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Use positions of geometry nodes instances in procedural shader
I have a geometry nodes sphere with several objects instanced on its surface in a spiral. I want to shade a circle on the surface of the sphere at the location of each instance. How can I get the positions of the instances into the shader and use them to shade the sphere?
Blend file download

It looks like the geometry node setup Ico Sphere is missing a Set Material-node.

I'm not interested in shading the ico spheres, I want to shade the large UV sphere based on the position of the ico spheres. I did go ahead and add the Set Material node.

You need to realize instances and use a geometry proximity node to get the distance from the sphere of each icoshphere. And don't forget to set the material too

Since the attributes are geometry based, you'll need to subdivide the sphere a couple of times to get higher res circles. Using a rounded cube can help topology wise

Thanks, this was what I needed. I actually have an irregularly shaped instanced object (the icosphere in the example), so I had to take the "Points" input to the "Instance on Points" node and use that as the target geometry for "Geometry Proximity" in order to have a circular shaded area for a non-circular object.

On second thought, that method removes the need to realize instances as well.


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Render only showing color on perimeter of walls/object

I finished modeling and coloring this room about a month ago, but upon opening and rendering (in Eevee) it today, the purple and blue colors on the wall don't show up in the render the same way as they do in the material preview. Is there any way to fix this/why this is? The trim and wall are one object but colored differently just by selecting different faces. I have included the project file as well.
Thanks!
Link to project file

The render suggests that there are some objects (placeholders from an earlier version, perhaps?) in the Outliner that are hidden in viewport but still visible in render.  The camera icon needs to be ticked for them.

@AllenSimpson Awesome, that was totally it! Had an extra wall model. Thanks!!


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Is VR component in UPBGE technical possible?
I had try using my Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) headset with UPBGE 0.3 VR scene inspection. Very impressed. I wonder if there will be a VR python component (similar to the first person player) implemented for game development in the near future. If not, is it possible technically to develop this component?

Please clarify. Are you asking if it's possible on a technical level, or are you asking if somebody could make this feature?

Thanks for your question. Perhaps I shall ask if it is possible to enable the VR feature in game development using the Python component of UPBGE. Also, I would like to know if the developer team of UPBGE is planning to enable VR game development.

It is actually possible to develop interactive content in VR inside UPBGE, you can take a look at https://www.patreon.com/upbge_vr

Thanks for the posts. This is not a regular forum, according to site rules links to answers are not answers if the link goes missing your answer becomes an empty shell without content. Answers should be substantial and stand on their own without relying on external data like links, videos or images. Instead of having users go through external links, either transcribe essential parts of the process here, linking the source, or posts these in the comments section instead.

While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference.  Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. - From Review

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos, thanks for the feedback, I'm a bit confused on how it could be a correct answer, since I've read again the question and the question seems to be if it is possible or not, so the answer should be a yes or not. Thanks in advance for your guidance.
I want to modify my answer to make it a good answer.

We tend to reject questions that are requests for resources, or can be answered with a link only. In this case it is fine as is, but maybe you could flesh it out a bit more, list the features of UPBGE VR, or shortly describe the required workflow, maybe add a few images or gifs, illustrating the results.


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Rigify armature shaking when parented to object
I have a human character mesh with a rigify armature deform that works great. I have the character driving a car for the video but I cannot make the parenting look smooth. The rigged human sits in the car and follows, but there are micro corrections happening at a frame by frame level. I have tried using a secondary following object (Sphere parented to car, then armature parented to the sphere, same results. I have tried baking the animation as well to no success. This whole file is scaled down to be quite small which may be the issue. I already have the entire video animated and did not notice until exporting at a higher resolution, but it becomes very obvious in close up frames. There are tires and mirrors parented to the car, and they do not have the same issue, only certain items will not follow smoothly.

Odds are that you've got some kind of dependency loop in your armature, either parenting, constrains, or both; but it's impossible to tell from just a description.  Can you add your blend file to your question? (How to add a blend file)

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


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I need help adding a chain with physics to an animated/rigged model
I had a 3d model that is animated, however, I now want to add some hanging chains with physics to the animation. I had the chain with rigid body, however, I cannot seem to attach it to the belt and have it move with the rig. I will essentially be making a chain "skirt". Thanks for your help

Is your chain with rigid body working okay?  It's possible, now, to make a rigid body chain, but it's very finicky and requires a lot of work.  If you've already done that work and just need to know how to attach a set of rigid bodies to a deforming mesh, then it's just a matter of making an animated-type rigid body "anchor" that is vertex-triangle-parented and then using a point constraint to join it to the topmost link's rigid body.

I have been able to link the top most chain to the animation by parenting it with the rig, then using the data transfer modifier to link it to the body. However, I cannot figure out how to apply this to the rest of the chain, while keeping the chains' rigid body as separate.

You don't do it to the rest of the chain.  The rest of the chain moves because of its connnection to the anchor.  However you have that set up (collision or constraints.)

I have been able to anchor the top chain, but then the rest of it just falls down, it will not stay looped with the top anchor

Okay, then you need to get the chain set up with physics; I must have misunderstood what you were saying.  Is your intention to render in Blender?  That affects the answer.

No worries. Yes I will eventually render it in blender. The chain already has physics and is moving on its own, but when I attach the anchor to the rig, the rest of the chain and its physics do not apply

Maybe you should link a file so I can see myself how you have the physics set up on the chain.

Hello and welcome. Rather than take photos of your monitor post actual screenshots instead, see How to take a screenshot. Photos are harder to read, because we have to guess if we are looking at a external interference like reflections or smudges or Moiré patterns, hardware issues such as a malfunctioning display or connection, a software level bug or driver malfunction, or an or actual artifact or issue with the model itself.


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Texture mapping issue
I have some problem with mapping a brick texture to the house model. I recently started learning blender  and I don't know how to fix this. Once the textures were displayed correctly, but I don't remember how i did it.

hello, you first need to unwrap your object, it will decide how the image is projected on the walls

1)Go into edit mode
2)Select everything with "A"
3)Hit "U"
4)Do "smart UV project"
5)Now split the window with one side being UV editor and the other - 3d view that's set to material preview.
6)In edit mode select the faces that look funky or wrong, go to UV editor and scale, rotate and move around the face there until it looks good in 3d viewport


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Phantom edges created on object when rendered
I modeled a microchip and I'm trying to do a render of it rotating in Eevee and am using depth of field to give it a realistic effect. However, I notice that these strange edges appear and move as the model rotates, depending on the angle of the chip, that aren't actually there. It looks like another piece of geometry, but there isn't anything there. I've also noticed that if I zoom the viewport or camera in they disappear. Any ideas what's causing this and how I can fix them?

I remodeled another chip just to see if I could fix the issue (and I thought I could make a better model) and I've noticed the issue has returned.

Then I zoom in my viewport or my camera and they go away.

You may have a conflict between the almost-orthographic view and depth of field. Are you fully orthographic or is your focal length just huge ?

I have my camera set for Orthographic.Clip start is set to 0.001m. Focus distance is set to 9.4m. F-stop 4. Blades 8. Rotation 0°. Ratio 2000

Do you really have an object 1mm from your camera ? Looks like it's not the case at all. Try increase Clip start (in other words, reducing the Clip start-end range).

I've increased the clip start and it seems to push back the "phantom edge" along with the depth of field. Ideally I'm trying to keep the middle of the chip in focus as I plan to put a logo there. I also tried switching from Orthographic to Perspective and the weird edge still persists. Ideally, I'm trying to stick with orthographic. I'd be open to changing any of the other camera parameters, I just landed on this because of how it looks. Trying to have the shallow depth of field look, but not so shallow it'll obscure the logo or eventually make seeing the internals of the chip too difficult.

I'm not sure exactly. Eevee is doing a lot of guessing compared to Cycles, it may originate there, or not. We probably would need your blend files with https://blend-exchange.com/ .

I think I found a solution! Basically, I just increased the clip start as you recommended, and then re-adjusted the F-stop and focal distance to each a similar effect. It seems to removed the weird edge. Thanks for your input!

Clip start and end are quite important and should be as small a range as possible. Your welcome !


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Trying to work on my topology skills, would appreciate some guidance!
So this will be a slightly beefy post since I've got several things I'd appreciate some help with and I want to be nice and clear. Essentially, I want to try and work on my topology skills, and in doing so shift to a workflow that's a bit more flexible and professional. I usually dive headlong into a project and end up with a servicable result but it's rarely very pretty under the hood and a bit of a nightmare to revisit later if I want to change things.
So I thought a good way to start would be to have a go at an aeroplane, since it's got a good combination of curved and straight features, I'll have plenty of reference images, and also...I just like planes.
I also figured I would have a go at following a subdivision modelling approach. While I don't necessarily anticipate working on models for games, I liked the idea of a scalable level of detail that could be used to generate different LOD meshes just by adjusting the subdiv values.
Here are the real life images I'm using as references:

First thing that's got me scratching my head a little is the cockpit windows. Here's my current WIP (please forgive the terrible mesh topology, this is why I'm trying to work on it!):

It's got a bit of chubby-cheek-itis going on (best seen in the image below), which I imagine is from the 3-edged pole on the side. That came about from me trying to keep a sensible edge flow around the windows. Is there an elegant way to either change that topology or smooth it out to remove the effect?

But perhaps most annoying is the geometry around the window corners and edges. You can see on the first 3-view image that I've used creasing to give sharp corners and the nose ridge of the plane, and it actually works really well. But to get the other corners sharp, I run into problems. Here's two examples, one using creasing, the other using holding edges:

Both methods give a bump to the window edges, which is a little clearer when you look at them in profile (undoubtedly not helped by that 7-edged pole):

It feels like the holding edges are the better way to do this, they have a less pronounced bump and give more subdivided geometry around the corner for a smoother curve. But it's harder to achieve a clean holding edge on the outer corners of the windows. If you run a holding edge around the circumference, you end up with more bulgy geometry:

And if you run a holding edge down the length of the fuselage, you get a crease that runs the whole way:

Is there a better way to handle this? I feel like sometimes I'm too focused on making sure that everything is quads (I've got some triangles in the middle of the windows that would turn into quads when the mirror is applied), is this perhaps a time for some triangles?
Or am I asking too much of purely subdivision modelling? is this bulging around the window edges something that needs to be sorted out after the subdivision modifier is applied? And in that case, how would you maintain consistent geometry between different LOD models if the final touches are somwhat arbitrary?
Thank you very much for any help you can offer, and apologies for the length of this post!

Hi. Please use a title that matches the content of the question. It should be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the issue so that anyone searching for a similar problem is likely to find it. Remove anything superfluous, avoid using words like "this", "help with", "issue" or "question about", instead describe what "it" is. Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors see, answers you get depend heavily on how insightful it is. See What is the problem of asking “How do I do this?"

Hello and welcome. Please don't ask more than one question per post. Use the [edit] link below your post, to break this into multiple posts so that each focuses on a single issue. Make as many separate questions as necessary.

Hello, I've made a timelapse tuto on modeling a plane, maybe you'll find some ideas: https://youtu.be/mgWxA8fmUCo

Merci beaucoup Moonboots, your modelling workflow is defintiely much smoother than mine! I noticed that you ended up with some similar (though definitely reduced) lumpy shading effects that I did, but perhaps it really is a case of either living with it (they likely become much less noticeable with the right materials and texturing, especially with the natural kind of ripple in aircraft panels, which becomes obvious when seen from a shallow angle), or putting in some sculpting/manual adjustments after applying the subsurf modifier.

You can use the shrinkwrap modifier to project your mesh on a clean surface. By doing so, you wont have to bother about topology too much. You can even use triangles, ngons, edge and vertex creases anywhere and not get any shading issue (but don't do too crazy still)
As you can see here, the topology is horendous, but after being projected on a clean surface, all the shading issues disapear

This is what edit mode looks like. You can tell this far from being the best topology in the world

And this is what the clean surface mesh looks like. You need to keep it as simple as possible so the surface stays smooth. The clean surface needs to have more resolution than the projected mesh for optimal results

Thanks so much for your detailed answer! I thought about using the shrinkwrap modifier, but there's a mix of flat and curved surfaces around the window area (the inner windows are flat and the outer are curved), as well as smooth transitions between the flat and curved areas. And I figured that if I spend all that time getting the high-res target mesh to have the right curvature, flatness and transitions between the two, isn't it just worth doing that process with the original mesh?

@Welshie thecnically, you can use vertex groups on the shrinkwrap modifier so you can control which parts of the mesh are projected. Since the flat parts are easier to deal with, I'd recommend excluding them from the modifier


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Blender Bmesh set custom normal
I'm trying to adjust the normals of selected vertexes on a vector. The code runs without errors but does nothing.
Blender version 4.0.2
import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector

obj = bpy.context.active_object

if obj.type != 'MESH':
    raise ValueError("Активный объект не является сеткой")

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data)
bm.verts.ensure_lookup_table()

selected_verts = [v.index for v in bm.verts if v.select]

print(selected_verts)
bm.select_mode = {'VERT'}
v = bm.verts[selected_verts[0]]
v.normal = Vector((1.0, 0.0, -1.0))  # Установка пользовательской нормали

bm.normal_update()
bmesh.update_edit_mesh(obj.data)

bm.free()


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Parented object on imported FBX giving weird rotation data
In the original mesh everything was zeroed out before parenting to the armature, and appears fine before export, but then when I import the model back into blender the parented object is giving weird rotations.


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Rotation Keyboard Shortcut Has Stopped Working Properly - How to Fix?
this is probably a really simple solution I'm missing, but the keyboard shortcut for Rotate (R) has stopped working properly for me.  I press R in Object Mode and it immediately jumps to the Toolbar Shortcut for Rotate instead of staying on the Select Box.  It only allows me to rotate using the handles, I can't use the keyboard shortcuts for rotating on the X, Z, or Y Axes anymore, or type the degrees I want it to turn.
Grab and Scale are fine though and still work normally.  Also, the Rotate keyboard shortcuts still work in Edit mode, just not Object Mode.
One other thing; It's not an issue with the Tool > Transform > Affect Only (Origins, Locations, and Parents boxes are all unselected)
I'm using Blender 3.6 on Windows 10 and it's been working fine for the past few months (also tried using an old copy of Blender 3.4 I had installed and the keyboard shortcut worked fine with it) but today it only started doing this.
I know this is probably something really basic I've toggled on or disabled by mistake, but I've tried looking for a solution online and so far I can't find anything, so any help would be appreciated
.

That setting is usually controlled by changing Preferences > Keymap > Tool Keys from the default Immediate to Active Tool. However I'd normally expect that to apply to all hotkeys.

Try toggling between those settings and then use Save Preferences from the bottom-left dropdown in each state to see if that kicks it back into life.

Yes!  That did the trick!  I don't understand how that worked but thank you for that!

I have to admit I don't know why it was just the R shortcut key that wasn't working correctly, but glad it solved the problem! Please mark my answer as accepted (green tick). Thanks.


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How can I cut these intersecting faces off?
Modelling a house to be used as an in-game asset. Created a clapboard wall using an array and solidify modifier and was left with with some intersecting faces
At first I tried using a boolean modifier and also swapped the positions of the array and solidify modifier around. This is the result of the boolean modifier
Any help is appreciated.

First of all, if you want to keep the planks complete and not cut them off in the middle, the intersecting object has to contain the plank object completely, i.e. you have to scale the object "Main House" a little larger so that "Main House.001" is completely inside of it. You can either Scale "Main House" with the S key or better do it this way:

Select "Main House" (the "clean" house without clapboard planks) and in Edit Mode use Shrink/Fatten with Alt+S to increase the size (maybe hit S again for Even Offset).

Make it big enough to completely hide the clapboard planks, but do not exceed the roof. Then left-click or Return to confirm the action.

Now back in Object Mode, select your object "Main House.001" (with the clapboard planks), set the Boolean Modifier to Intersect, choose the "clean" house "Main House" as Object to intersect those parts.

Now to really see the result you have to hide the surrounding object "Main House". To do that, you have to hide it in the Viewport (the eye symbol in the Outliner) and very important, to avoid unwanted surprises: Disable in Render (the camera symbol in the Outliner).

Thank you for the reply. This method wouldnt be useful in my case as the house isnt being used for a render but as an in game object meaning the viewport method wouldnt work

Of course this method works. You can't use it with the boolean modifier in other game engines anyway. You have to apply the modifier to create the object "for real", then you can delete the surrounding house as it is only needed for a non-destructive method - like keeping the boolean modifier - and in this case it would be in the way in the viewport and render. Once the object is finally created you don't have to care for the rest. You asked the question as if the result as shown wasn't what you expected it to be.


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How can I smoothen out these edges?
How can I smoothen out these pointed edges? I've tried beveling them, subsurface modifiers and subdivide + shade smooth but they didnt help too much.

hello, could you please share the object (at least the cylinder)? https://pasteall.org/blend/

An Edit Mode screenshot of the part giving you trouble could help us see if the topology is causing it, but generally sharing the .blend file with us (as moonboots asked above) is what's needed to get a good answer.

You'd generally be using subdivision to smooth out the silhouette.  That doesn't work here for a few reasons: 1) the mesh is triangulated 2) the mesh has disconnected vertices 3) the mesh has edges that join more than 2 faces 4) the mesh has custom normals built around all of those weird things.  First thing to do is to fix the mesh; here, merge by distance won't help, because it will create additional non-manifold verts.

The topology is causing you trouble:

The structure you're trying to round out via subdivision is made of trigons, which don't respond well to subdivision.  Retopologizing to all-quads would probably help.
There's other issues with the mesh you uploaded, like a lot of doubling, which may make more sense to recreate it from scratch.


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Why does weight Bevel deform my mesh?
I am currently applying a Bevel modifier with weights on my gun to smooth out all the edges and essentially finish the design, however it some edges get deformed, even if the topology seems fine. Why does this happen?

Looks as if you may have inverted normals on some of the faces. Enable Face Orientation in the viewport overlay dropdown and see if any faces are shown in red. If they are, go into Edit mode, select All with 'A' and press SHFT-N.

Thank you so much! Cant believe all I had to do was recalculate outside :D

No problem. It's not really worth posting a full answer to that one as it's been asked and answered here so frequently.

Ah well as it would turn out, I spoke too soon xD. While the majority of the edges resolved one specific edge still seems to become distorted.


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Blender Rig with only one finger
this topic has already been discussed but unfortunately the answers doesnt solve my problem. One of the recommandations is to spread the fingers a little bit more before uploading the body mash to mixamo so that the generated hand has 5 instead of only one finger. To do that is is reccomended to spread the fingers a bit more with the aramature, then delete the armature but keep the pose of the fingers / mesh. This doesnt work in my case because when I try to apply the modifier (this is necessary to keep the pose when deleting the aramture) blender says Modifier is disabled, skipping apply. But maybe its a completely other issue why I get only one finger in mixamo. I attached my body fbx file. If anybody is able to load this fbx into mixamo and help me to generarte an armature with 5 fingers this wood be so great! Alex
https://c.gmx.net/@334347682451561386/tosUPd1ASGq0qsK-UNWCFw

Already found out, that the wrists need to be configured seperatly in mixamo because the robotic right hand of the character differs from the human left hand. I still dont know how to freeze the body mesh when deleting the armature but thats not relevant anymore for the finger issue.

I had to remove the shade keys to apply the modifier so I could freeze the fingers. When I delete the armature the body mesh (finger position) doesnt change. Thats what I wanted. Now Mixamo kann better recognize each finger to build the right armature.


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How does blender save the different components together - including the object, the textures, and the meta-rigging?
My scene involves 1 object (3D model) with its 2 materials, 2 corresponding textures and 1 meta-rigging
I am often confused by the way blender saves files, for example:

When I save the texture as a new file, this new file is created in my directory but the file that the material refers to in blender has a name of its own - and that name is usually the name of the original file plus a “.001” after the file extension (ex. blenderTexture.png.001)

When does blender create this .001 version? Where does it save it internally? Is this version linked to the original texture file or to the most recent version of this texture file I have saved (under a different name)?

I assume blender somehow saves file paths in order to associate the path to the texture file with the material, that is itself part of the object. If this is indeed the case, how can I make sure that I can open the my 3D model with the right textures and meta-rigging on different computers?

So far I save the blender file and .blend files associated with 1 3D model in the same folder, along with the image files for the textures and exports of the object (.fbx).
I feel like I’m missing some information about how Blender connects these different elements together and how these should be saved in relation to one another.

When Blender references an image file you have somewhere on your computer, it makes a little structure of information: a file path, the color space in which it thinks it should read that image, and a unique name for the entire structure.  The name is not necessarily related to the file name, although it is often derived from the file name.  These structures can be linked, in which case they're all the same structure, but you can also have multiple unlinked structures that all reference the same file.  So when you have bT.png and bT.png.001, it is probably because there are two distinct "image" structures that you have created in Blender that both reference bT.png.  These structures are saved in Blender, but that only means they save the file path, not the actual file, in Blender.
By default, Blender stores filepaths relative to the directory of the .blend on which it is working.  So if you want to transfer files between computers, you'll want all texture images either in the same directory as your .blend, or in a subdirectory of your .blend, and then you transfer that entire directory to the other computer.
You can tell Blender to store file paths as either relative to the .blend, or absolute (C:\3D\textures\etc) with options found in the main menu, in File->External Data.
Another option here, which is often the simplest, is to pack all data into the .blend.  Once all data is packed into the file, it's no longer referencing copies of images on your computer, but is storing its own images right in the .blend file, so you can be guaranteed that all anyone needs to see your file is the .blend.  To pack data, again, you'll find it in File->External Data.  (Also useful here is "unpack", which is a good way to separate those files back into subdirectories.)


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How to dynamically add synthetic craters in a real image
I am very new to blender, however, I would like to generate a synthetic data set for my project. The idea is to add synthetic craters to satellite images. My starting point for this was this youtube tutorial.
Now I have essentially two questions, first, when I add one crater to an image (see image 1) it is not transparent and somewhat the way I want it to be (except for the crater color which isn't the brown I set it to be (in the Principled BSDF)), however, if I add multiple craters (see image 2) they start to get transparent for some reason. Why is that the case and how do I fix it?
The second question would be about the automation. Is it possible to dynamically add a different amount of craters? Right now I would add always four craters, however, I would like to be able to change this amount in a python script so that I can generate images without my interaction.
Thanks.

Blender File Link:


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Print indices of the selected vertices
I'm trying to select some vertices in UV Editor and print them out using Python in blender. But when I use code like this:
import bpy
import bmesh

obj = bpy.context.object
print('Start')
if obj.mode == 'EDIT':
    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data)
    bm.faces.active = None
    selected = [i.index for i in obj.data.vertices if i.select]
    print('Selected:', len(selected))
else:
    print("Object is not in edit mode.")

It always shows me that I selected all the vertices (no matter what I do in either UV editor or default 3D viewer).
Any ideas why? Thank you!

Was accessing wrong object (facepalm)
import bpy
import bmesh

obj = bpy.context.active_object
print('Start')
if obj.mode == 'EDIT':
    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data)
    selected = [i.index for i in bm.verts if i.select == True]
    print('Selected:', len(selected))
else:
    print("Object is not in edit mode.")

But still, it works only in 3D view/edit mode, not from UV editor. Can anyone help, please?


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materials compatibility Blender 2.79 - 2.93.5
I found a blender file online with some cool rendering I would like to use. It works fine with version 2.79, but if I open it with version 2.93.5 the rendering doesn't work anymore (pink objects are displayed after the rendering).
I am an absolute beginner with Blender, but I guess the difference between the two versions is in the nodes available for defining materials. In  particular, in the old version I have 'geometry', 'material', 'texture' and 'output' nodes, which seem to have been replaced or removed in the new version. They are displayed as 'undefined' nodes. I attached screenshots of the nodes in both versions below. Does anyone have any idea of which nodes I should use to replace the old nodes in version 2.93.5?
Any help is really appreciated!

Well, it's been so long that I have already forgot, someone may give you more information but Geometry node still exists, it is still called "Geometry", but it has different output values, for example Front/back is now called backfacing --- Those textures need to be changed to image textures and input textures that should be in them as in original... output is now Material output.... However I am not sure about that Material node

Hi :). The main problem is the material is made for Blender Render - a no longer supported render engine.

For the inputs:

The UV socket has a UV node
Front/Back is Backfacing from the new Geometry node (1 is Back, 0 is front)

For function nodes:
blender render materials have been deprecated. Cycles engine does not have an equivalent. The new Eevee engine is the closest. You can get.

for the Material node. Create a new Principled node, and connect its BSDF through a ShaderToRGB node. Use this node's RGB color output instead the old Material node's.

for the Texture node. If the texture is an image file, create a Image Texture node and hook it in instead. If the texture is a blender Texture object, you'll have to recreate it in the shader editor from the builtin procedural textures.

there is a new Output node, plug the color into the Surface socket


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How to extrude an irregular shape evenly and uniformly?
looking for the best way to extrude evenly. Im trying to make a "lip" for the carapace pictured and its not extruding evenly. I have tried using the normals/solidifying etc. Im not sure there is an easy way. Even when I do it seperatly (front half circle first then the top bit) it still does not extrude evenly. If you look at the red circle you will see the difference.
I am trying to create a uniform extruded lip/flange and the thickness is not uniform:

Any tips much appreciated

what did you use? Did you use Alt+E > Extrude faces along normals  with Even enabled?

I inset all faces  (you may need to check 'Boundary', and 'Even',)  followed by Alt E > Extrude faces along normals, should be even. Is your object non-uniformly scaled? You may need to Ctrl A apply the scale.

If you use the Solidify modifier there is an option Even Thickness which you can enable:

If you want to do it with Extrusion in Edit Mode, use Alt+E > Extrude Faces Along Normals and then press S to toggle Even Thickness ON or OFF, or hold Alt.


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Follow path object not following the path
I added a camera with a constraint to follow a path, but when I slide the offset factor, the camera stays still and there is a blue dotted line moving from the camera to the position the camera should be. I tried many different Forward axis and Up axis combinations, nothing changed.
These are the follow path settings: https://i.sstatic.net/i2qbx.png

well...up and forward axis y ...is wrong. If you provide blend file, i will check it out. If you don't want that, try playing around with that axis values.

https://we.tl/t-N6eNPurirh Here is the .blend file. Thank you in advance.

apply scale + rotation to your path

set cam location + rotation to 0

set follow path like this:

result:

Thank you very much

you are welcome


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How to make painted texture a seperate object?
I am not sure if the question makes sense. Basically, I have a texture, I painted white lines on it, now is it possible to make the white lines a separate object? The main goal is to make the white stripes extrude a little from the object, like a little bump.

if it's just "a little bump" you can just fake the volume with a Bump node

Do I just connect the texture into a bump node into output volume? I am fairly new to blender.

I guess my texture is a little too complicated. May I send you the blend file to check out?

Sorry I meant Normal input of the Principled BSDF

it depends on the texture, if this is just white and black stripes, yes it will work fine if you plug the texture into the height of a Bump node, and plug this Bump into the Normal input of the Principled BSDF, it will fake a bit of volume as you'll see

you can pack your image (File > External Data > Pack Resources), save and share your file: https://pasteall.org/blend/

The blend file was too large to use pasteall. I uploaded them here - https://we.tl/t-UKyNKHAMfl

This is the setup that should work, the problem is that Blender doesn't manage well the bitmap pictures as bump images, it gives artefacts, unlike procedural texture images, I don't know how to fix this: https://zupimages.net/up/22/09/n0pr.jpg  the used images generally need to be openEXR, 32-Bit Float, but it doesn't seem to fix the problem here

Alright, thank you for the help.

With a ColorRamp between the ImageTexture and the Bump nodes you can get rid of the artifacts on the white strips. For the left color use 808080 and push the sliders a bit together. At the borders of the strips still will look a bit jagged. That's because you use a 1k texture but the leg only uses 1/4 of the image. The result is pixelated. Consider a better UV unwrap or a 2k texture. Since your model is fairly high-poly you could also sculpt the details in (or use a displacement modifier) and bake a normal map later for a low-poly version.


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Multi-scene rendering
I am very new to Blender and have been trying to figure out a way to render and save a sequence of scenes without having to manually render one after another. Each scene has a different light pattern projected onto chessboard image plane as part of a structured light calibration sequence. I have directly copied the scene 42 times, incrementally changing the light for each scene. I just want to render and save each scene automatically without having to navigate to each scene an re-render. I've exhaustively searched solutions without any success and feel this should be a very simple task.
Is there not a way that Blender can queue scenes for rendering? I don't care how long it will take, I just don't want to manually do this for each scene.   Here are some images from the sequence for context:
Light Sequence 1:

.
.
.
Light Sequence 10

All the way to Light Sequence 42

this question was asked a lot here...just search here for "automatic render". e.g. : https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/34303/render-different-frames using this answer you could extend by looping over your scenes-> ready

I'm aware that this isn't a proper answer but will help a lot when beginning in blender and isn't a comment because there are useful images.
Im not sure how to do this but id reccomend not copying the same object 42 times, just setup view layers,
To do this select the objects you want to isolate in each renders and then if you press m you get the option to move it to a different layer, create a new layer and put it there.
Once you've done that you can then press the new view layer button in the top bar, and make sure you copy settings.

Once you have created the new view layer you can change the visibility for different objects in different layers, make sure you are in the correct view layer and then right click the layer that you want to change and hover over the view layer button there and then finally press disable/enable for this layer. Then in the compositor you can either use an output node to output every image or just use the built in compositor and change the view layer.
Hope this is helpful, if u need any help just ask


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Problem exporting from blender to ue5
why when I try to export a mesh to ue5 from blender I get this massage: "Wood-Stairs has some nearly zero tangents which can create some issues.(Tolerance of 1E-4)"
And:
"Wood-Stairs has some nearly zero bi-normals which can create some issues. (Tolerance of 1E-4)"
And I can see through the mesh


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Sun lights think there is a 200m shade around the camera, the rest of the scene lights don't work at all with shadows turned on. EEVEE Blender 4.0
first post. Been learning blender in my spare time for about a year, so please keep in mind this could be a very simple problem to you that I just don't know how to fix.
Two crazy things keep happening on a project I am working on, modeling a Star Trek ship, both happen at the same time. This is one of only 2 big projects I've worked on since picking up blender.
First off, spot lights, point lights and area lights just stop working after a few minutes. The spot lights act like there is something in front of them casting a shadow. I say this because if I bump a spot light to 100000002004 GW then a ring around the edge of the cone appears, like there is just another cone directly in front of spot light and a microscopic amount of light is getting through. They work however when shadows are turned off for those lights.
(Point lights and area lights don't work at all as far as I know, no outlines or anything, unless shadows are unchecked on those lights)
Mind you, to take these screen shots I deleted everything in the entire scene to underscore there is nothing in the scene besides an untextured cube and a spot light. First is shadows on, second is shadows off (I guess I also increased the angle in this screenshot, or hadn't decreased it yet)

Okay so the other thing that happens is that any sun OTHER than the sun in the scene named Sun (no .001) acts like there is an umbrella with a 200m radius around the view. I say view because it is centralized around the view, and only appears on that view. Again, the other suns work if shadows are turned off for that particular sun. First screen is shadows turned on for sun.001, second is shadows turned off.

If I restart the program, the lights come back for a bit. If I only reload the project, or even if I start a brand new project, the problem persists.
My computer cannot handle recording live render at a framerate above 2 or 3 frames per second, but the last time I closed the program, restarted, and loaded up the file, I watched the lights dim as if the area was filling with a fog. Don't know if that helps anything click for whoever is reading this.


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Moving texture paint on a sphere without distortion
I'm trying to be able to draw continents on a planet and then move them around to figure out plate movements. I'm using blender because I want to be able to work on a sphere to better visualize how the plates would interact and move.
So, is there a way to move what I've drawn in texture paint around the sphere without distorting it?
I've managed to move it using a texture coordinate and mapping node but it causes a lot of distortion (I imagine it's just moving the flat texture). It looks like you can rotate things normally if you use an environment texture but I can't figure out if it's possible to actually texture pain onto an environment texture. Also they don't have an alpha channel so it's hard to create a transparent layer to paint on top of other layers.
This is my current setup which allows me to draw and erase without affecting the reference image.

Cheers for any help.

Hello it should work fine, not sure why it doesn't work, we need more informations, you can put a continent over a transparent background and move it with the Location values of the Mapping node, maybe show your current earth object, also a storyboard of what the movement is supposed to be, etc?

@moonboots Moving them around with the Location values will not work properly... see the last paragraph of my answer (well, not really an answer though, more a kind of explanation why this is problematic with texture painting).

@Tamrak My answer might not seem as if I understood correctly what you want to do, but I know or guess you do not want to paint on or move an existing planet texture, but paint parts (continents) on a transparent texture which you then want to overlay and rotate on the sphere. But they will suffer from the same problems I explain in my example with the existing world map texture.

My recommendation for how to handle this would be, use alpha textures with multiple spheres, very slightly displaced, and just actually rotate the spheres.  When you're happy with your final product, you can bake as many spheres as you want onto a single texture.

@GordonBrinkmann Thanks for your comprehensive answer, It's really useful for helping me understand what's going on here. I see the problem is with texture paint it's self using the 2D map. You understood exactly what I'm trying to do though, trying to see how continents would have fit together in 2D is hard since when you move them there should be distortion applied but there isn't and it's hard to visualize how them move around the poles.

@Nathan That's a really good idea, I feel like I should have thought of that XD. I'll give it a go.

This is only a partial answer on how to get a texture rotating "normally" around a sphere and a bit of highlighting/analyzing the problems with texture painting in this case.
You don't need to use an Environment Texture on an object, this is as the name says intended for the environment.
You could set the projection method of the image to Sphere instead of Flat. This will look weird at first because by default the Image Texture node uses the UV map if nothing is plugged into Vector. So you need a Texture Coordinate node and plug the Generated output into the texture node.
If you then place a Vector Rotate node between the coordinates and the texture and (most importantly) set the Center to (0.5, 0.5, 0.5), you can choose whatever Type you want, Axis Angle, Euler or one of the XYZ axes to rotate the texture on the sphere's surface.

However, the problem with this is: Texture Paint uses the (2D) UV map to locate where on the (2D) image the paint will be appearing. The Sphere projection is 3-dimensional and oriented differently than the UV map (rotated by 90° clockwise on the Z axis) which means if you would now paint on some part of the sphere, the paint is actually not painted on the part of the texture you see there (although it is called Texture Paint) but on the faces and therefore it appears in those parts of the texture where the faces are located in the UV map:

Going into the UV Editor and selecting the faces where the red paint is on the texture, you can see in the viewport that they are indeed where I painted on the sphere:

What you can do to match the area where you paint with the UV map (more or less, the UVs are slightly more distorted than the spherical projection) is select all faces in the UV Editor and then move them to the left by 90°, (which is 0.25 of 360°) by pressing G X -0.25 Return:

Now the paint appears where you are painting:

Instead of shifting the UVs you could have rotated the coordinates by 90° on the Z axis with the Vector Rotate node, but no matter how you do it, this will not save you from more bad news coming up: this only works as long as you did not rotate the coordinates in any way with the Vector Rotate node. As soon as you rotate them (the more arbitrary, the worse) the UVs will be off again and apart from rotating on the Z axis, most of these rotations cannot easily be compensated for by moving the UVs.
What you always can do instead of painting directly on the sphere in Texture Paint mode and having to care for UVs and rotation etc. is opening the image in the Image Editor and switching this from the default View mode to Paint. Then you can paint on the texture where you want to paint and it will appear there and then also on the sphere in the place where you painted on the image. Note that a brush size of for example 30 px can be large for texture painting (because it's always 30 pixels in the viewport no matter how zoomed out or in) but maybe very small in the image editor, depending on the image because it will always be 30 actual image pixels. Of course all of this does not help if you want to explicitly paint on the sphere.

So all in all, this is not really a helpful answer, but perhaps it shows a little how you can rotate textures freely around a sphere while painting on it has its limitations.
And although you can move things around while using UV coordinates with the Location values of a Mapping node as @moonboots commented (you have to move them instead of rotating, since they are flat on a 2D plane: Z rotation would be moving on X, like my example above already showed), the problems there will occur when you try to move something over a pole for example - because as soon as you move something up or down with the Y location over the poles, it will suddenly appear on the opposite pole. Apart from that, moving up and down will result in stretching the texture since the faces have different dimensions on different latitudes.


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How to have actual see-through glass shaders in material preview?
I want to be able to see through my glass material in material preview mode, but all it will do is show a reflection of my HDRI. How do I make it actually see-through?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/150804/eevee-glass-shader

AFAIK The glass shader itself in EEVEE isn't transparent. If you mix the glass shader with transparent shader, you can see through like this in material preview:

Note: you have to change the blend mode to see that effect:

I do not think you are able to do that.
In order to see through an object you have to use rendered view.
Material view simply shows what material each object has, but it doesn't take a lot of other things into consideration.
Rendered view will take everything into consideration and show true transparency.


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I get an error message saying "Bone Heat Weighting: failed to find solution for one or more bones" when trying to rig with automatic weights
I can't use automatic weights because it won't work. I tried using "Merge by distance" because according to an answer on a different question that would make it work. It didn't. So what do I do now?

check normals, check for interior faces, make sure that scale was applied, check for non-manifold behavior, and if that all fails add your blend file to your question. (How to add a blend file)

how do i do those things? the only thing i know out of those things is applying scale

select the model. Go into edit mode. Deselect all. On the top menu bar there is a Select menu.  It has a Select by trait submenu.  Try Interior Faces.  If there are any they'll be selected and you should probably delete them.  Deselect all and try Non-Manifold.  Fix any problems that come up.

please share your file so that we can test: https://pasteall.org/blend/

all deleting non manifold vertices does is just gradually destroy the model and it still doesnt rig


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Rigify rig is not affecting the model
New to rigging. I'm using the Rigify addon, and the Human (meta-rig). Once I move the bones in place I'm able to generate a rig. Then I selected the model then the rig and Ctrl+P and Automatic Weights, then it loads for a bit and then when I try to move the rig it moves but the model doesn't.

Human model and rig

Pose mode, center box is selected and moved, but the model is not moving at all

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

Also you can try scale up the model and the rig in Edit Modes x100 times, and try to apply Rigify after.

This worked for me, thank you

Probably your Model is too high poly, for me reducing verticies which are close to yeach other worked, try it just to be shure.

if it works - later find a tutorial about how to transfer data from one rigged mesh to another.


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Why are some faces disappearing from on the camera view?
I was following a YouTube tutorial: https://youtu.be/XWv1Ajc3tfU and when I tried to see the result from the camera and some parts of the black hole's ring were missing. When I checked it from the viewport, everything is okay. Is there a way to fix this?

Select the camera and in the Data panel > Lens > tweak the Clip Start and End values?

Omg, I changed the clip end into 300 and it actually worked! Thanks a lot! @moonboots


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Why are there some shadowy lines here?
This is my rendered result and there are some lines. What is the cause of this?

I can answer your question what is causing this, but unfortunately I have no solution how you can get rid of this while maintaining the overall look you are going for. First of all, the radius of the dark spherical contour is determined by the Blend value of the Layer Weight node, a smaller value makes it larger and vice versa. And the bright larger outline (especially visible below the plane) is the size of the sphere: layer weight influence.

You can remove the Transparent BSDF in the Plane material, this will get rid of the dark contour from the Layer Weight and you will no longer see the bright outline of the sphere below the Plane. But when the accretion disk is no longer transparent it will have other unwanted effects as you can see: no transparency in accretion disk. Apart from the black streaks accluding the inner circle, the outline of the sphere is still slightly visible in the transition from the border to the background.

will switching the render engine to cycle make it possible?

Maybe. I've actually not tried to do it, because when I switched to Cycles the whole refraction effect looks completely different than in EEVEE, so first of all you would have to find a way to get something similar looking in Cycles.

Yea, you are right.

I tried a little bit but Cycles still looks very different... the result I achieved by setting the Power node's Exponent in the sphere shader instead of -3 to +10. Not the best result but there I could do something about the dark area. As you can see in the following image, on the left there is a clear dark outline where the original sphere is. On th eright it is gone. I achieved this by disabling Clamping for Indirect Light in the Light Paths settings in the Scene Properties. Unfortunately this does not exist for EEVEE. disabled clamping


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Why did my edge disappear here?
The edge seems to disappear with the bottom edge when it is rotated to a specific angle. Is there a way to solve this? I think it's the lighting problem and I wishes to render this with Eevee but I'm not familiar with the light and transparency setting with eevee yet.

It looks like these are the faces generated by the Solidify modifier, so either disable the Show Backface of the material (under Material > Settings) or disable your modifier?

No, like I am using the solid modifier to create a thick edge so I can't disable that modifier I tried to disable the show blackface too but that gives me the same result as disabling the solidify modifier. What I am saying is I wish to get the same effect of being able to see the inside of the model(the visible edges) but with the correct perspective. In my case, the bottom edge seems to be overlapping instead. It's not a great explanation but I hope you understand what I am trying to say.

I donn't know if you can fix it, Eevee is not accurate regarding glass, if you're using Cycles as render engine it should work fine though

I see, thanks for your information!


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Why is my UV map not circular?
The UV map is not circular as it should be but in the shape of my earcup model. The next problem is the star shapes are distorted even though in the original picture, it is not like that.

I'm not sure to understand, giving the way you've unwapped your object, the image is projected the way it supposed to be, could you please elaborate?

I was following a YouTube video and in the video, the UV map is just a flat circle when unwrap but in my case it looks 3D.

You just need to unwrap again, select the face and press U > Unwrap, for the ring you'll need to orthogonize the unwrap

First thing remove the overlapping vertices with a M > Merge by Distance. A solution could be to select the headphone, press Shift7 for front view of the selection, unwrap with the Project from View mode:

Then activate the Sync button of the UV Editor, select the bottom edge loop of the headphone and scale it up in the UV Editor to avoid the stretched image on the side of the headphone:

Ok so the circle UV and the stars on the front flat surface are fixed but for the part where I have to scale bottom edge loop in the UV of the headphone, it is not working and the stars are still distorted on those corners


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How to separate one material into multiple materials (e.g. one material for shirt, one for pants, etc)?
I downloaded a model that only has one material. Is it possible to separate it into multiple materials (e.g. one material for shirt, one for pants, etc)?
I would be using this model in Unity and would like the ability to change for example the pupil color within Unity without affecting the color of everything else. Only way to do that is have separate materials for each part but I'm too new at Blender to know how yet.
Thanks for any help.

that depends on your model, are different parts of the mesh separated or connected? Maybe some screenshot would help

It looks like it has about 5 different Meshes and maybe 50+ Vertex Groups.

If I understand well, you just need to make a copy of the material for parts of your object so that each part can have its own material and can be changed without affecting the others, right?
Here I have a sphere with a green material applied to it :

To add a new material slot, you just click the + button on the right :

The new material slot is empty, you can either add a completely new material with + New or you can chose from the already existing one with the dropdown list (this is what you want if I understood you well) :

You have now two material slots but right now they are currently using the same material and if you try to change one of them, the other one will change :

It's because the two material slots are using the same material data-block and you can see here how many other slots are sharing that same material data-block (Blender refers to them as users and the little number that you see near the name is the number of users for the material) :

Here we have 3 users. To make the current user have its own copy of the data-block, you can just click on that number :

After doing that, you now have two different materials and you can now edit either of the two without affecting the other one :

Here, I renamed the two materials and changed the color of the second one. (Notice also that the red material doesn't have the little number near its name anymore since it has now one user)
Now you can just go to edit mode and select any part of the mesh that you want :

And then, select the material you want to apply to it and click Assign :

You can repeat this steps for as many parts of the object as you want.

This is exactly what I had needed. Thank you so much for explaining this. I hope this helps future people as well.

I'm glad that I helped.

If you insist on keeping it all into one material:
1- make a new material
2- in the shading tab of that material, build your two shaders
3- join the two shaders with mix shaders node.
4- in the factor input, use a image texture
5- paint your image texture with black and white(or values between)
(There's a problem with the image below, the UV output of Texture Coordinate should be connected to Mapping node. sorry! )


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I was working with a premade Geralt Model and was having trouble with the hair
I got the model from here: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/witcher-3-geralt-8f62c76580144ed2a8c648dd5046d8d9
Attached bellow is the an image of the current problem I having with the beard and hair textures. There is two objects for the hair and three different objects for the beard. Along with my problem is the current node setup I have for both the hair objects. The beard node setup is the same but without the normal map and file.

I didnt checked source, but from screen i can see you dont have assigned alpha channel.

@vklidu so I would just take my hair_d and plug that into the alpha channel of the shader as well?

Image Texture node Alpha to Principle BSDF Alpha ... Blend mode Alpha Clip under material setting is OK.

Thank you so much I'll try this out later


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Blender model imported in Unity in some parts have wrong material and some of them are black
I have a problem when I import fbx model in Unity. Some parts from one object that is for example extruded have the wrong texture from that object in Unity. As you can see below, that green is the texture of grass but it should be concrete. They are somehow mixed. Do you know how to fix it in Blender because drag and drop textures in Unity cause everything to take that texture?

More info, please. Are you using multiple materials, are you using modifiers etc. Best share the .blend, if you did not create the model in Blender, this is a Unity question

I did create a model in blender, and as I said when I imported it to Unity I saw those mistakes. That's why this question is on Blender StackExchange. I need to know what are my mistakes while working in Blender so I don't do them again.
Black/missing faces were because of normals flipped in the other direction but I can't figure out why materials are messed up.
I am using multiple materials on one object, but I can't share .blend file.

You're using fbx to transfer to unity, right?

@FrederikSteinmetz yes I do, do you have any advice to do it a different way or how to fix it?

No, FBX is standard, but the problems you are describing sound like the ones you get with .obj, which Unity at some point said are too obsolete to fix, just don't use it. So I was making sure. Without the .blend it's near impossible to tell. Can you delete parts of the model and post half of it?

One trick that comes to mind: Check the materials both in the .fbx and in the GameObject once you dragged it into the scene. Make sure the no of material slots are the same as in the .blend


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adding extensions
I recently upgraded to 4.2.3 LTS and appear to have lost all my extensions.  I found a blender site with 300 extensions, and downloaded those I think I wanted.  I received them as zip files and stored them in D:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 4.2\4.2\extensions
I enabled one, but I want to enable all of them.  It seems that I have to edit the TOML file but when I try to add two extensions, I lose both and end up with an empty extension screen in Blender.  ChatCPT gave me some responses like creating separate TOML files or combining them into a single TOML file but nothing worked so far. Suggestions?

That is not how you add extensions in Blender! Go to Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions in Blender and (assuming you have allowed Blender to go online) you should see the complete list of addons in the online Blender directory. Just click the Install button against each one that you want and it will be downloaded and installed and will appear on the Addons tab. See CG Dive's YT tutorial here.

The above was attempted several times and never worked.  What finally worked was installing zip files from disk.

Where did you download from? You don't need to manually install extensions, and you definitely should not modify them in order to install them.
Downloading and installing extensions from Blender
Extensions from Blender's official extensions platform can be downloaded from Blender out of the box in the Preferences > Get Extensions category:

You can add additional 3rd party repositories from which to download extensions without leaving Blender. See Get Extensions - Repositories - Blender 4.3 Manual
Install from Blender's official Extensions Platform Website
You can also go on extensions.blender.org, click the Get Extension button, drag and drop to Blender and confirm the installation.

Install from zip
If you want to install from an already downloaded zip file (you don't need to if it's in the extensions platform, that would be more used for legacy addons), use the ddrop-downmenu in the top right corner to install from disk:

Manual Install
It's the most cumbersome way to install anything but if you really want to do it manually, first you need to go to the extensions folder located in Blender's User Directory:

Linux
$HOME/.config/blender/4.3/
If the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable is set:
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/blender/4.3/
macOS
/Users/$USER/Library/Application Support/Blender/4.3/
Windows
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.3\

In the extensions folder, there should be folders for each extensions source you used: blender_org for the official platform, user_default for personal local extensions. If your extensions are from Blender's platform, go in blender_org, otherwise go in user_default.
Once there, decompress your zip file in its own dedicated directory, so that the final extensions's files (the blender_manifest.toml, any py files and subfolders) are self-contained. Example with the cloudrig extension, it looks like this:
▽ blender_user_directory\
    ▷ config\
    ▽ extensions\
        ▽ blender_org\
            ▽ cloudrig\
                ▷ __init__.py
                ▷ blender_manifest.toml
                ▷ LICENSE
                ▷ other extensions files and folders
            ▷ looptools\
            ▷ matalogue\
        ▷ user_default\
    ▷ scripts\


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using x-plane resources in blender
Can I import or directly use resources (scenery, meshes) from x-plane12 in blender 3.6? X-plane, world editor, and ac3d use resources such as object, meshes, scenery files to build realistic items like grass, buildings, highways, airports etc.  I would like to be able to use them in blender either directly (add a library taken from XP12 resources) or by importing them into blender, or by having python code to generate them.  Is there an app for that, a method or this even possible?

Hi. Have you tried an Internet search about this? Have you looked on the X-Plane forum? https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/ There is this on Github, but is says it is for up to Blender 3.3 https://github.com/X-Plane/XPlane2Blender/releases

Problem resolved.  Using GIMP I was able to convert x-plane textures (.dds) to ,jpg/.png files which I imported into blender.  Works just fine.  Also, object from x-plane or AC3D were easily imported into blender using .dae (collada) files or importing via .obj files.

Problem resolved. Using GIMP I was able to convert x-plane textures (.dds) to ,jpg/.png files which I imported into blender. Works just fine. Also, object from x-plane or AC3D were easily imported into blender using .dae (collada) files or importing via .obj files


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Duplicating material just creates a new name?
Using Blender v4.0 but I had the same problem in v3.6 on Apple Mac.
I am trying to duplicate a material but when I have the material selected and click on 'New material add material' all that happens is the name of the original material changes name. You can see in the image at the end of the material 026 denoting how many times I have tried to duplicate it.
I don't think I am doing this wrong? But am I?

if you click on this button it duplicates your material, you can select the original material if you click on the down arrow button next to the name

You are indeed duplicating the material. The new material replaces the old one in the active slot. The old material still exists and is still used by other users (objects). What you probably want is to add a new slot, choose the same material as in the previous slot, and then duplicate it:


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Error: "Exception: List Index Out Of Range" every time I press generate rig
I just started using blender a few weeks ago. This is my first time creating something on my own so I don't know what's going on. It still generates the rig, just that it doesn't line up with the bones and model. Here's the file in case anyone knows what's wrong with it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PXNtEJNSAVie8IrlVcftcarXLhc-_O3U/view?usp=drive_link

Rigify is not really designed for rigging robots. It's designed to be used with the supplied armatures although it is possible to modify them somewhat. You should watch a tutorial on robot rigging. There are lots around. One thing I did notice is that the scale hasn't been applied to any of your objects. Select all the parts and use Ctrl-S > Scale in Object mode. Their origin is also offset from the world origin in the X position which wouldn't help when you're trying to rig your model. Again select them all and use the Object > Set Origin > Origin to 3D Cursor menu.

See also https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/178060/error-messge-a-has-thrown-an-exception-list-index-out-of-range-when-w?rq=1 for the actual error that you're seeing.

Hello, Brandon, welcome to BSE. The commentary and link  do suggest it's fair to close this as a duplicate. If the linked answer isn't working for you, please edit this post to explain why. The we can re-open, armed with a bit more info that will help us to help you.


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Why do my shadows look weird here? I applied smooth shading and marked the sharp edges as sharp
As the title said, these weird jagged shadows keep appearing all over my mesh. I already tried using auto smooth, normal smooth, and marking them as sharp and fixing the normals.
Here's the blend file just in case
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ls65H27Y-NIw5jLAXMC0vWGHrDk3Wt3f/view?usp=sharing

Could you try to "Clear Custom Split Normals Data" ? In Properties Editor (right panel by default), open Object Data Properties > Geometry Data.

@StefLAncien Thank you so much!!