text:
Subdivision modifier fails on cylinder
FYI I am very new to Blender.
I need to:
Create a cylinder with a cavity - just like a cup.
What did I try:

Created a cylinder.
Created a cylinder within it.
Used "Boolean" "difference" to create the cavity.
Smooth result using "Subdivision modifier".

The problem: the "Subdivision modifier" creates a very weird result (see images).

Two questions:

Why this is happening?
How should this be done properly?

The subdivision modifier does not work well with n-gons (faces with more than four vertices). In fact, you should if possible only use quads (faces with four vertices/edges).
After your operation there are four ngons (the fourth is on the bottom of the cylinder).

Delete the ngons. X

To fill the gap between the outer and inner wall at the top, use the Bridge Edge Loops operation from the Edge Menu. CtrlE

For the circular shape it is enough to add a supporting edge loop before merging AltM the vertices at the center. The resulting triangle should only be on planar surface and surrounded by the supporting edge loops.

You can also fill such holes with quads using the Grid Fill operation, though it may be overkill in this situation where your surface is planar.

Thank you @Leander, I certainly learned something new about subdivision. My problem was that I am so new I couldn't figure out how to "add a supporting edge loop" - what is the command for that?? :-/

Ctrl R for loop cuts, only works if there are existing faces with edge loops. E for extrude.

No need to use Subdiv modifier which gives you more details but not necessarily smooth shading (unless you have high enough subdivision which is overkill).
How about starting from a cylinder, inset, extrude down, shade smooth and auto-smooth?

many thanks, I think I will go with your suggestion - you really helped me! . Is your advice still valid if I add that this object is going to be 3D printed? Is this kind of smoothing only a "cosmetic" one or will it apply to an actual body as well?

The smooth shading is only a rendering effect where the renderer interpolates the normal to the surface between vertices. It does NOT modify the geometry of your object. In other words, whether you apply smooth shading or not will have no influence on a 3D print


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How to center location of all objects?
All my object have their location at 0,0,0 I would prefer if they have their location in the center of the object.
I thought I could just select ht object, go into edit, snap the cursor to the center, go back to object mode and adjust the origin.
I always get the error context is incorrect for snap_cursor_to_center() but I am checking before that I am in the VIEW_3D. I am not sure what is meant by context error.
import bpy

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':

        for object in bpy.data.objects[:1]:  # only one for testing
            bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
            bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

            object.select_set(state=True)

            bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
            bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='SELECT')

            bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_center()  # ERROR :(

            bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
            bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_CURSOR')
```

For multiple objects, suggest iterate through the objects of the scene:  bpy.context.scene.objects instead of bpy.data.objects and use the python console to test, Cheers!

Might be useful as well Changing object origin to arbitrary point without origin_set()?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Is there a way to automatically align UVs via shortest edge?
Is there a way to automatically align UVs via shortest edge? I want to lay these steps out longways so they use the wood trim section. I can do each manually, snapping to vertex, but it takes a while and doesn't scale with more steps.

Not exactly what you asked for, but if you select all faces and press U > Reset, every face will be mapped to the whole UV space, so it becomes fast and easy to edit them, not one by one but using groups of similar faces (rotation can be unpredictable, so there can be 4 different orientations in the UV space).
Then you can move some faces to get variations.

Hmm, that might work. Is there any way to do that while preserving or restoring each face's aspect ratio afterwards? currently it stretches to fill the UV space.

I ended up using this method. I left one face untouched and used that as a reference to scale the others back into proportion.

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How do I create this shape at the top of a violin (the scroll?)
I am trying to model a violin, but I am unsure how to make the coiled thingy at the top above the pegs:

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/74169

You could begin with a Curve > Curve Spiral > Archemedian (with the addon Add Curve: Extra Objects). Reduce its Radius Growth:

Covert to mesh, extrude down:

Fill the faces along the spiral:

Flatten the top on the Z axis:

Continue to model:

Then at one point select all and Mesh > Symmetrize on the Z axis:


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Proportional Editing is not working, object is moving
Have a question about Proportional editing. When I choose the vertice, then press O, and press G - as result my object is moving completely unstead of editing. Please advise what can be wrong?

Have you tried reducing the radius by scrolling the mouse wheel after pressing G?

Thanks a lot!!! Just tried and it's works!

It's a good idea to take a look at Blender's manual for questions like this: page on proportional editing

Lower the proportional editing influence using the mouse wheel.


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Automatic Weights not working when trying to bend a cylinder
I've been trying to add automatic weights to a cylinder to bend it at a 90 degree angle around the middle.
I've created the armature and then selected the cylinder and the armature and used add automatic weights. But in pose mode any rotation fails to mutate the cylinder.
Please find attached blender file link and images of my attempts.

Blender Source File
Any guidance would be appreciated!

You need a topology that will allow your cylinder to bend, if it doesn't exist, it won't be able, so create at least one edge loop at its middle, and probably more. Also, deparent the armature from the cylinder before parenting the cylinder to the armature, otherwise there will be a parenting loop.


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Trouble Posing Rigged Model
I followed the tutorials and rigged a model using rigify. Visually, everything appears to be correct, but when I go into pose mode and adjust the rig, the model doesn't move with it. It seems like I did something wrong, but I sure can't figure out what it is.

Your generated rig is offset because your metarig's transform wasn't applied when you generated the rig. Make sure in the side panel(N key toggle)<Transform, that location, rotation, scale of your metarig is 0,0,0. If is one mesh, automatic weights will work. For hard objects, parent them to specific bones in your mesh(View bones by clicking what is circled in red here as blue. After selecting your object, go into pose mode and with ctrl+p<bone. Also try going into weight paint mode and checking each Vertex group, found when selecting your mesh then in Object data properties<Vertex groups.

It can also be an issue with your mesh. Recalculate normals with Shift N, remove non-manifold geometry, found under Select<Select all by Trait<Non-Manifold, and look for holes in your model.


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Blender model losing faces in unity
I'm trying to import blender model(character with armature) to unity and in unity some model faces are lost, how to fix this?

I guess they are not lost, could it be that Unity has backface culling enabled by default? Maybe those faces are flipped?

Yes you probably need to recalculate the faces normals in Blender (Edit mode > Mesh > Normals > Recalculate Outside)

100% that. The mesh also has interior faces it seems which can be detrimental to shading

ok I'm really confused right now, I tried recalculating it inside in that leg that problem happens and now it works, I'm really bad at this staff can anyone explain why it works now when normals are faceing inside? now in unity faces are showing but now they are black.
https://imgur.com/a/hzTc3xg


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Blender OpenCL uses all of my RAM, and my VRAM, and makes my computer crash
I have this weird thing with OpenCL/Cycles, it uses 5 GB of my ram + half my VRAM (4 gb) and the scene i am rendering isnt even complex, it is just a rigid body simulation. How do i fix this or why is blender doing this? Sorry if i made title too long or i couldn't explain correctly.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/221683/cycles-opencl-and-mesa-driver-support/221710#221710

thank you for comment


text:
I am trying to develop faces but i keep returning Attribute error 'int' object has no attribute 'x'
I am trying to develop faces but i keep returning Attribute error 'int' object has no attribute 'x'
bpy.ops.mesh.remove_doubles()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Xaris\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.82\scripts\addons\sailFlow2_0\sail_flattener.py", line 314, in execute
    sce.sailflow_model.deStresLoops)
  File "C:\Users\Xaris\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.82\scripts\addons\sailFlow2_0\sail_flattener.py", line 277, in makeFlattened
    max_stress_on_edges = verts_stress_minimizer(maxDeformation, deStresLoops)
  File "C:\Users\Xaris\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.82\scripts\addons\sailFlow2_0\sail_flattener.py", line 187, in verts_stress_minimizer
    maxD.x = print("Destressed called---")
AttributeError: 'int' object has no attribute 'x'

location: <unknown location>:-1
```

Hi. Please add more details to your question, like what code you are using. Remember, we don't know anything about your project. You can use the [edit] link below your question to add any appropriate images and code.

Simple python runtime errors are prob a little off topic here. This is the Same error message  with eg y = 4 then later  print(y.x) ie y is an integer, and it does not have an x attribute.


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Why is nothing appearing when using the 'Face Set' feature in Sculpt mode?
Learning Blender with Blender Guru. He used a Face Set feature in Sculpt Mode to define different zones on the sofa. When I use the command nothing appears. When I click on my object there is no colour appearing it stays grey. When I select Face Set by UV Seams nothing changes either.
Is there a setting I am missing. Display Face Set setting or something?

I can see facesets and use the tools but only in Layout mode, then select 'Sculpt Mode' from the top left. If I'm in the sculpt workspace I can't see the facesets. Blender Guru mentioned there is a bug where your cant see the facesets if you have modifiers (subsurface modifier) but this was not the case for me.

Dyntopo also removes all color data.(vertex col, facesets,e.t.c.)

You have to go the the modifiers tab and then click the small monitor icon. This will hide (not delete) the subdivision surface modifier. This will then show you the UV Face Sets

I hope you solved this. In case it helps, I want to add that face sets don't seem to work when dyntopo is enabled. If you disable this then it should work.

The solution is enabling it in Viewport Overlays.

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

And yet this was the answer, at least to me, thanks for the tip, I was not getting the colored features that facets usually display, as the answer states, it enables to view these colors.


text:
traceback error message in blender 2.80
when I left click on any part of screen in blender to choose item it sends me this error message
the last thing I did was weight paint to help with my rigging .
file "/volumes/blender/blender.app/contents/resources/2.80/scripts/startup/bl_operators/wm.py",line 348.in execute
if contexts_path_validate(base,data_path) is Ellipsis:
file "/volumes/blender/blender.app/contents/resources/2.80/scripts/startup/bl_operators/wm.py",line 83 in context_path_validate
value = eval("context %s " % data_path) if data_path else ellipsis
file"<string>", line1 in <model>
attribute error : 'scene' object has no attribute 'exclude'
location: <unknown location>:-1

This is the error message from your previous closed question.  The message in image is not the same. But is similar to previous, see my comment there Suggest trying File > Defaults > Restore Factory Settings as it is possible one of your addons is causing this.

when I tried File > Defaults > Restore Factory Settings it deleted my mesh

After restore defaults, open your saved file and see if error persists.

yes error is still there it just delete all my saved files

Restore factory settings does not delete any saved files. Restore an autosave file. Also recommend you update to at least 2.81.

I did load factory settings and it worked out thank you


text:
Trying to get depth-information in Workbench
I am normally using Cycles to render large quantities of images and I'm getting the depth-values by linking the depth-output of the renderLayer-node to the alpha-input of the Composite Node. I then usually save them to openEXR.
Since I am stuck on much worse hardware, I would like to debug my program with the workbench-engine in the foreseeable future, but the render node in workbench does not have a depth-output.
Is there any way to get those values in Workbench too?

Im afraid it's not possible without modifications. As  stated in the manual, the workbench purpose is to provide a fast visual output for animators.

The Workbench Engine is a render engine optimized for fast rendering during modeling and animation preview. It is not intended to be a render engine that will render final images for a project. Its primary task is to display a scene in the 3D Viewport when it is being worked on.

The only options you have is to use the regular viewport color, metallic and roughness value or any of the display methods to show random, object or vertex color . Since those can not be filled with a map (to be used with a view dependent gradient to simulate a z-pass) you have not much options.
The only rough approximation possible, would be to use vertex paint, paint the distance into a gradient and render this in workbench, with vertex paint mode on.
But that is dependent on mesh density and also not dynamic.
You can however define a render in cycles or eevee, without any lights or shaders evaluated and just render the depth, this should be very fast, and deliver the result you are looking for !

"vertex paint" Hmm.  Wonder if there'd be some way to vertex weight prox (camera)->data transfer VC to get a depth map in VC (which can be rendered directly in WB without vertex paint via rendering settings).  Not really dependent on vertex density, since depth interpolates linearly across vertices (faces are flat).  But personally, I can't imagine why I'd go to such trouble, when it would be so much easier to get a depth map out of Eevee.


text:
Encoder Timebase is not set - audio duplication error, FPS problem
I understand this question has been asked but I cannot find a solution to my particular problem.
When I try to animate my video project I get the error 'The Encoder Timebase is not set' - through this forum I found out that when I imported my video Blender changed it from 60fps down to 59.96fps.
Before animating I changed the fps back to 60 which allowed the animation process to begin. When my video had rendered I found that the audio tracks seem to have multiplied and overlayed each other. I also found that my Movie sequencer had lots of extra audio in it. In addition to this I found my outputted video had severely dropped in quality from the original 1080p.
Please see here for examples of what I am referring to -

Thank you so much for any help, total beginner here having a meltdown!
Paul

As suggested elsewhere I managed to export the audio as a .wav and then remove the audio track, set to 60fps and then overlay exported .wav file. I’m just animating at a higher quality than last time so I will know if this worked soon :)


text:
Projecting grease pencil on object surface from python script
I am new to blender, and am trying to generate some random trajectories on a landscape (from A.N.T plugin) to create a synthetic dataset. Let's move on to the problem.
In 3D view, I can use grease pencil "draw" option with data source being set to the "object" and stroke placement being set the "surface", then draw a path on my already added landscape and the path gets projected on the landscape surface.
But I could not figure it out how to do this programmatically, with simulating some random mouse movements with the settings I have mentioned.
I have found samples that make strokes using gpencil like this one:
How to add points to a grease pencil stroke (or make new one) with python script?
But I could not set the data source and stroke placement so the stroke can be projected on my landscape.
I will appreciate any help with this. Let me know if providing any further sample or information is needed.


text:
(Blender 2.8 Stable) Smoke Domain renders as cube in EEVEE
I imagine this has come up before, and I am happy to have this question deleted (if I cannot do so myself):
When rendering smoke in EEVEE, the domain renders, rather than just the smoke. My steps for setting up the scene:

Create Domain cube
Select starting cube as Flow
Save file, then bake Cache.
Select Domain and apply Principled Volume material
Make sure that Volumetrics lighting effects (Volumetrics Lighting,
Volumetrics Shadow) are switched on.
Switch to Render mode in Viewport to make sure scene results look
appropriate what is desired.

Render mode shows that scene looks to render smoke appropriately, yet when I choose to make a final Image Render, all I get is the domain cube rather than the smoke.
Am I missing a step? What exactly am I missing?
I have followed multiple different video tutorials, though some are out-dated (including the Volumetrics check-box which no longer appears in the stable release).

--- Blend File Attachment ---
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZCC-eXvl32SeWA9MIYEjGJSipeoojYF/view?usp=sharing

You have a Principled BSDF shader connected to the surface of the domain object. Objects with volumetric materials generally should not have any shader connected to the surface slot. Simply remove the principled BSDF shader, and leave the principled volume shader, and it should work. I
You want your node setup to look like this:

Hope this helps!

Okay! I must have misunderstood the tutorials I watched. Dunno why I didn't see (or think) that you can only link to the volume output of an object. Thank you, kindly!


text:
Tentacle rig hard to control
I am creating a tentacle rig and I have found the rig I created is have it limitation.
Basically the set up I am going for is

Using 8 master bone to control multiple individual bone. This allow me to control the rig more efficiently instead of manually control 20+ small individual bone.
However, I am find it difficult to control my rig to create a particular posture. whereby the tentacle is "spiraling" up a pole. No matter how I rotate it(local/global), gap between the pole and tentacle are always created.

I am looking for a way to create a much efficient method to create the mentioned posture. A guide/video to rig that is able to complete the mentioned posture will be welcome as well.
Blender file to my rig

Have you considered using Python to control bone placement?  Do you have much experience with Python?  Have you searched for Python scripts or add-ons which do something similar?  Is the pole the only goal? Will something more complicated be the next target?

maybe the spline ik constraint is the right choice for you? https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/animation/constraints/tracking/spline_ik.html

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/49639/how-to-smooth-an-arrayed-object-so-the-breaks-between-objects-are-less-obvious/

Maybe for some sequence you should use a trick, and animate with something else that an armature, like a Curve modifier on a tentacle to make it follow the spiral shape?

@atomicbezierslinger unfortunately no, i dont have experience in python, was hoping it will not came to that as I have zero experience in coding. As of now the pole is the only goal, not sure in the future.

Thank you for providing suggestion "Chris, Duarte Farrajota Ramos and moonboots". I will look into it and see if it is applicable for my current problem.
Again, thank you very much.


text:
Depth camera in Blender
I would like to know if depth camera exist in blender, I mean camera that instead of returning  RGB value of each pixel return a value that is a distance to closed object?
If yes, link to some tutorials can be helpful.

there's a camera depth of field if that's what you're looking for (?), in the Properties panel > Object Data > Depth Of Field

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1161/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1555/

What you are looking for seems to be a render pass for depth. I have found that the z render pass does not really work so try the mist pass.


text:
Why does EEVEE not have a displacement option?
When I switch in to EEVEE there is no micro displacement in the options.
Why won't micro displacement work in EEVEE?

Someone asked this question on https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/ane79b/micro_displacements_question and got an answer

Because no one has coded it for Eevee yet. Eevee can't use any of Cycles' displacement system. For best performance at least, it would need a completely new displacement engine based around OpenGL tessellation shaders. No one has gotten around to writing this yet, so for now Eevee just applies displacement nodes as a bump map.


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Collada Export Options Panel Not Showing in 2.82
Just started using 2.82.
When I try to export a model as Collada in File > Export > Collada/Dafault (.dae) I no longer see the Export Collada panel with Operator Presets show up.
Am I missing a preference config or an Add-On?

Found the answer. The panel is now part of the File Browser panel. I had not expanded the right hand side of the browser panel. I just noticed a little '<' at the top right and that popped open the panel with Operator Presets and the other options.

You can also click on the gear icon for the same effect.


text:
Pattern design on cloth
I'm not getting anywhere with my cloth design animation.
I have a city idea planned out for my animation. And I want banners to be seen on a few of the buildings with a dragon on the banner in gold.
Every time I run the animation to see how it turned out, the design just falls off. I used a .svg model which I then converted to a mesh.
From there I joined the 2 meshes together. What am I doing wrong?

How about using an image texture on the banner? You can convert your svg to an image

I'll see if that works

It worked. I'm so glad it finally worked


text:
How to make a linked collection into an appended asset?
If I have linked a collection in my Blend file and now I want it to behave like I appended it... how would I do that?
The collection in question contains many mesh objects. I have also parented the linked collection to an empty in my master file so I can move it around.

It seams that "Make Proxy" does not work if the collection has been parented to an empty...

Hover over the collection in the outliner.
Click the right mouse button to bring up the Collection menu.
Go to ID_Data.
Select Make Local


text:
Export .obj in 3ds Max and render in Blender Cycles
Wondering if it is possible to export .obj with texture in 3ds Max and render the .obj (with all texture attached) in Blender Cycles? Or I need to do all the unwrap and texturing again in Blender?
Thank you.

.obj files do not contain textures, but they do preserve UVs. In other words, you will not have to re-unwrap the whole thing, but you will need a copy of any textures when importing into blender.

May I ask what is the use of .mtl file? It stores material information of .obj file?

@newtoblender Read this answer. MTL files do save some very basic material information but are very far from a reliable method of creating full blown production ready materials. Bottom line: Create your own materials using the existing textures, UVs are preserved.

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


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Object origin/pivot point perpendicular to an object
how can I make the origin/pivot point perpendicular to the object like the second image? Thank you...

If you are asking about local axes then you should Apply Rotation to the object.

@LukeD I did apply the rotation, but the result is still the same

Your question is a bit wrong and unclear, imho, for a few reason, I try to explain why:
You wrote "Object origin/pivot point" as to be "not perpendicular" but a point has no dimensions, and thus it can't be "perpendicular" or not to anything.
What you mean is "the three axis" that come out of the pivot/origin point. And this makes a big difference, because there are different "sets" of those axis, depending on the coordinate systems you refer them to. And they are specific of that 3d view area.
Those are known as "transform orientations", because they help you, pointing in the possible transform operations you can perform on the object.
By default you see the "global" orientation, but you can choose from a set of predefined orientations.
Here you see the same object, at the same time, shown in two different 3d view areas, with two different "transform orientations": note the effect on the pivot/origin axis

adding to this, in the properties panel (right side pressing N) at the bottom there's a dedicated panel, where you can also switch them, but here you can create a "custom" orentation, at your taste, too! Look at the small "+" button in the lower right corner:

In object mode those axis are always "cast" from the object's pivot/origin point but, in edit mode, that pivot is where the "selected" (average) part of the mesh/curve/other is:

Adding another example the "view" orientation makes those axis always "perpendicular" to your view:

in edit mode, you can spot the difference that the "normal" orientation can make:

here you see both orientation at the same time, again, but in edit mode

When you tranform the object, in object mode, or its mesh, in edit mode, you can be helped by those axis, because both the 3d manipulator (grab, rotate and scale) and the "visual guide" you get when you put transform constraints (pressing the axis letter).
see how all of the manipulator modes adapt to the selected transform orientation:

And, if you choose to grab a face - in edit mode - along X along "normal" transform coordinates
if you have this ("local" transform orientation mode) in edit mode:

when you press G, the transform start without contraints (you can grab it anywhere)
if you then press X a "visual guide" appears, locking the movement along "global" X, always, independently from your "transform orientation" choice in that 3d view area

if you press X again, the visual guide, and locking, is now bound to your choice...

eg: if you choose "local", pressing XX will guide and lock your transform along "local" X
The blender manual has a whole chapter dedicated to this argument, explaining every single bit: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/editors/3dview/object/editing/transform/control/orientations.html
Now, learn how to "correct" them, imho you should keep in mind (and specify) which orientation you wish to manipulate. A comment above points you to another similar question, with a solution. Try that and, if it doesn't work, improve this answer adding more details or open a new one, if it is a too different case. Hth

Sorry for my bad English. I changed to normal mode and it works quite fine. Thank you.

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


text:
SSS CUDA Error/Blender Crash
I solve all my CUDA out-of-memory errors, and think to understand everyone. But there's one which resist.
What is about SSS? I have two characters. When I try to render them alone, with anything else on my GTX 970: Blender crash!
Anoyone knows anything about this kind on material/shader and CUDA world?
Thanks in advance
Blender 2.78a
Asus GTX 970 CO

Hi cegaton, yes I can render without any issue on my CPU. It's a i7 6700 with 32 Gb RAM. It's the way I'm using now to solve the problem...


text:
GTX 970 - Blender278 - CUDA Error

Hi,
I've been using Blender 2.78a on Windows 10 Pro. The problems I'm trying to solve and I search for many solutions around the www is the classical Memory CUDA problems. I use a GTX 970 and batch render as you can see on the image. It has 4 Gb VRam and I use less than 2 Gb for the render...
Seems Cycles can generate the first bucket but when it goes to the second always crashes. I don't understand anything and it's so frustrating for me...
Things I've done:
- http://artificialflight.org/blog/2013/cycles-crash-cuda-tdr-error/
I put 64, 16, 256...
- I have last drivers
- Reduce bucket size
Could anyone help please? Thanks in advance

Why are you using an old version of Blender?

Here ir the problem of exceding the memory on CUDA:
On sampling:
AA = 4
Diffuse, Reflect... = 128
It makes a memory bug where run out of
But:
AA = 128
Diffuse, Reflect... = 4
Goes great and the vram is under control
Maybe maths are the same, but not the result.
My conclusion is to work always first with AA and put other samples at 0. When you have a good result you can start tweeking the other samples to clean the noise.

Searching a little bit more and more, I find many things about Mem Cycles consume and real consume. With GPU-Z I can see a real read.
First of all, the modifiers turned on in render, Subdiv mainly. When blender Mem says 1670Mb, is the limit for my 4Gb GTX 970.
All textures is better to be JPG, PNG. Only use float as EXR or HDRI on particular cases like environment lighting.
Maybe, one day, Cycles developers would think using GPU only to process and hardware RAM to cache everything, like Redshift and Octane do :)

Yeah, I don't get why the GPU doesn't just read from the RAM! Why is that? Maybe the reading would be a little slower, but I bet the processing capability would increase so much it would be worth it. Or maybe it could be a checkbox option. That's a great idea!

I think it's the key for not to be left behind and let anyone with a more or less good gpu to render with it. If Redshift and Octane are doing this is because it's not a whim and it's something possible :)

Yeah, I agree. Blender's great but there are always ways for it to be getting better.


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Replace object mesh with collection instance
I know how to replace an object with another object. I simply select two objects, press ctrl + L, then Link Object Data. There are 2 problems with this: First, for some reason the new instance of the object is much larger than it's supposed to be, and Second, the object that I'm creating a new instance of is wayyyyy more complicated than the replaced object and it's not practical for using in mass (I plan on replacing every low poly tree with a realistic new tree).

I want to fix the problem by replacing the low poly tree object with a collection instance of the new complicated tree. I put the complex tree into its own collection and made a collection instance of the tree, and I want to replace the low poly tree with a collection instance of the new complicated tree. The problem is that I can't link the object data to a collection instance.

I'm assuming that using a collection instance instead of an object makes the load on the CPU and GPU easier...?
So the 2 questions this boils down to is how do I replace an object with a collection instance so I can replace the low poly trees with new complicated trees? And second, is there a better way to do this?

Does this help? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/249344/is-there-a-way-to-replace-an-object-with-another-one-and-its-children/249369#249369

That did work. It made the low poly tree get replaced with the new tree but it was still suuuuper CPU intensive. I think it's copying every individual vertex and reconstructing the mesh on every instance of the low poly tree rather than just showing an instance of the collection. The file moves crazy slow and continuously crashes. Thanks for the post though.

To replace Objects with Collection Instances, add this script as a new text data block:
import bpy
for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    bpy.ops.object.collection_instance_add(collection='TEST', location=obj.location, rotation=obj.rotation_euler)
    bpy.context.active_object.scale = obj.scale

Replace collection name 'TEST' with your collection name (the original one, not an instance of it).
Select objects to be replaced, press "Run Script".

I tried this script and it just deselected the trees and selected the collection instance. It didn't replace anything

@ChristianOConnor The only way the script deals with selection is that after creating new instances - those remain selected. Are you sure the selected instances aren't new? Are you sure the collection name you provided is the original collection, not the instance name?

Very helpful, still using this with Blender 4.3 and UPBGE.


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Texture Bake is Always a Black Square Even though I Unwrapped Everything I Need to Unwrap for Game Engine
I unwrapped this object. Here is an image of the unwrap.

I tried to bake the diffuse and I set everything exactly the way it should be (aka Cycles, CPU, indirect and direct lighting off) but I just get a black square.
This is the image mid bake.

This is the finished bake. As you can see it is blank.

Why is it blank? What am I doing wrong?
P.S. Here is the Blender File:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ft4Qhh4tybpUjZ2GJYMBrWWFhGguNm55/view?usp=sharing

You have set Metallic to 1. This causes the bake to be black. Have a  look here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/233296/107598

@Blunder This fixed it! Thank you so much! If you want to make this an answer I will check it as accepted

You have set Metallic of the Principled BSDF node to 1. This causes the bake of the Diffuse color to be black.
For baking set Metallic and (Subsurface scattering) to 0. After baking, you can restore the Metallic value again.
(With the bake type Emit you can bake a Metallic map if needed.)


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How Do I Unwrap Only Certain Verticies/Faces in An Already Baked Texture
I have a Blender file and I'm adding greeble to the walls of a corridor. I have an object from another spot in the file that I copied over to the new wall. I already baked the texture for the object but in order to get the object to fit in the new wall I had to add a few new faces and extrude a few already existing faces. The trouble is that these new faces/extruded faces are horribly tangled and oversized in the UV map. This is the UV map with my added faces and all of the vertices selected.

This is the UV map with just the new verticies/faces selected.

I want to just unwrap the new vertices/faces. Is there any way to unwrap the new vertices/faces into untangled shapes so I can reposition them in the old baked texture map in a way that looks somewhat natural?

Is there any way to unwrap the new vertices/faces into untangled shapes so I can reposition them in the old baked texture map in a way that looks somewhat natural?

Yes, probably.
Select the vertices with a good UV map, where you don't want to change the UV coordinates.  In the UV editor, 'p' pin these vertices.  Select all of your vertices and unwrap.  (Or, pin only the border good faces, and unwrap the bad faces plus a margin of 1 face.)  The unpinned vertices will be unwrapped in a way that stitches them to your pinned vertices.
This isn't guaranteed to give you a good unwrap: if you have a lot of distortion in your base unwrap, you'll have even more distortion in your new vertices, probably leading to overlap.  And you'll need to seam new edges appropriately, to match any existing seams.  But this is basically what you want.  (And is a pretty useful technique to know about anyways, even if it isn't.)

So here I pinned all correct verticies. https://imgur.com/a/ZslQpSC
But when I unwrapped it, it still moved the pinned verticies. https://imgur.com/a/vZBR6Dk

Don't do a smart project.  Do an unwrap.


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Material Not Showing on Objects Using Geometry Nodes
I have a Blender project consisting of multiple objects using geometry nodes, and I noticed that none of the material appear in either the viewport or the final render.
This is the geometry nodes:

This is the material in the shading view in both material preview and rendered views (the color in the rendered view is from the lights not the material):

It turns out I needed to upgrade to Blender v3. There is a geometry node in v3 called Set Material and that's what you use to set the material of the object.

Alternatively with V2.93 you can use a Set Attribute and set material_index attribute. Make sure the actual objects have materials added to them corresponding to the index (first material starts at index 0)


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Can't UV unwrap object. I get "unwrap failed to solve 2 of 2 islands, edge seams may need to be added" error
I am trying to apply a corroded metal texture to this set of metal beams. But I get a "unwrap failed to solve 2 of 2 islands, edge seams may need to be added" error.

I am assuming that an unwrapping is required to apply the texture correctly. The texture appears to apply ultra zoomed in so you can't see all of the artifacts and imperfections in the metal's surface. Notice the difference in the preview sphere in the material node compared to the actual bars with the metal texture applied.

So really I just need to know how to unwrap this object.
Here's the file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tTSmWnLR8sIgnotKXcGLiRgF-blz-dXp/view?usp=sharing

As it says, you need to add some seams, so blender knows where to "cut" your object to make it possible to "lay it flat" (project it) over a 2D texture. I would suggest adding seams around all the end faces, as well as at least one edge connecting them. However, your object has some "bends" in it which could cause the islands to be placed at an angle, so I suggest you place seams around the bent parts as well:

Once you have added the seams, you can unwrap - the first image is unwrapped without placing seams on the bent parts, and the second shows it with the extra seams

You'll notice that the geometry of your mesh(s) (particularly the bevels on the corners) makes it a bit difficult to select the necessary, even edge loops - this is something to keep in mind for objects you plan on unwrapping in the future, as having "clean" corners (ones that can be entirely selected in one continuous loop) will yield more even and uniform islands on the resulting UV map.
Lastly, because your object is rather flat and straight, if you need it done fast, you could probably get away with a Smart UV Projection. However, this method will "cut up" your object in a bunch of unpredictable ways, and you will have to manually select each island and reposition it manually if you want the texture to appear to "flow smoothly" around most edges. Still, it's there as a quick option if needed:

Wow A+ answer! Thank you so much!


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Cycles Render Is in Low Quality But The Viewport Looks Great
I have a Blender file which consists of an ocean plane and a sky node. The render view looks great through the viewport and it even looks great through the camera view when I lock the view to the camera square. Why does it look extremely low res when I render an image? Btw I'm using Blender 2.92 on Windows 10 and I'm trying to render with Cycles Supported on my GPU which is a 3070.
This is a screenshot of the viewport. Notice how good it looks.

This is a rendered image. Notice that it looks really bad and low res.

Also here is the actual file.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vln8otPH7Yl5ANLYmMzED9RlNtTMg9s9/view?usp=sharing

Yup thanks! Sorry I missed it.

it is because your resolution viewport is 30, but your render resolution just 7. If you want the same quality, raise it from 7 to 30 or - if you wanna have even better - raise to more.

result: (resolution 30)

result: (resolution 60)


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Bezier Circle looks flattened like Tapeworm
This problem is pretty simple. I am trying to make a perfectly round tube like a pipe. I made a bezier circle and increased the depth to make it thicker but now it looks like a flattened oval. How do I make this tube perfectly circular?
Here is what it looks like.

Also here is a link to the file.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MTGfBifYD83TE8cU6sdVPGwCYmk-7dNy/view?usp=sharing

You've scaled it on the Z axis, press AltS if you want to reset its scale:

You can also apply the scale with CtrlA, but in that case, you may need to bring back the vertices radius to 1 in the N panel in Edit mode:


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Assign Materials by UV Island
Help needed. I am using Blender 2.79 - I have a dress that I modeled and then unwrapped in UV layout. The problem is that I never added any material zones. What I would like to do now is add materials by UV island without having to try to select all those proper polys in 3d menu. Is there a way to add material zones by uv? Any help is appreciated!

If you are in your UV Editor, you could select a Polygon Face of any island and then hit L on your keyboard to select the island , after that you could assing a material.

Hope that helps.
Good Luck

One way is to use Select Linked command in the viewport and constrain it by seams.
If there aren't seams already on the mesh choose UV > Seams From Islands in UV editor (when UV map is visible).
With seams available select a face of the mesh and press Ctrl+L (or L if mouse cursor is over the mesh) while in 3D viewport. In operator options (F6) choose Seams.

Now there will be selected only that part of mesh geometry corresponding to one of the islands.

Thanks. I tried that and it works to select the islands. But then when I try to assign the materials, they still all just assign to the entire mesh.

@VictorCsakany it seems that you selected islands in the UV editor. What this answer assumes is selecting geometry in the viewport, then if there are more than 1 material faces will be assigned to chosen one.


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Having trouble adding paths
I'm creating my first blender project and I'm trying to have the animated character follow a path. When I add the path in, there are no control points to make the path longer or  curved. I've googled it and haven't found any answers. Ideas? Thanks

Did you try selecting the curve and going into edit mode?

when in edit mode ( tab ) , press c this gives you a control circle that size you can control with mouse wheel, then press left mouse button on top of a verticle in the end of the path, then press g and ( grap ) and move the mouse to drag the path .

The answer is to press TAB button while the path is selected, in order to enter Edit Mode, when done editing, pressing TAB again will bring the path back to Object Mode.Hope this helps someone else


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Is Blender going to optimize RTX cores?
Right now blender can be used with RTX cards but they are not as optimized and are not using the RTX cores to there full extent. Will this change, am i wrong? If anyone has info on how this new tech works with blender help out.

There is now an option to render using OptiX, which renders in Cycles on the GPU using the acceleration of RT cores in the latest RTX GPUs. Most recently in the Blender 2.92 update, OptiX has been modified to render with both the CPU and RTX GPU combined.


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matrix_basis vs. matrix_local for object parented to bone
How does matrix_basis vs matrix_local work for object parented to bones?
Looks like matrix_local changes when the armature is animated?
I'm trying to get bone parenting work correctly for the glTF exporter and thinking that maybe it should use matrix_parent_inverse * matrix_basis instead for getting object's local matrix, but not sure if that would break other stuff.

matrix_basis is simply a way to access the pose-bone or objects (location,scale,rotation) properties.
This is just for convenience - so you don't have to consider if euler/quaternion/axis-angle rotation are used when getting/setting a transformation.
matrix_local is the the objects world-space 4x4 matrix, relative to it's parent, if it has a parent - if the parent is a bone or a vertex, it will be relative to the parent matrix defined by the vertex/bone parent relationship.

Hmmm something is acting weird then, in latest 2.80 I see matrix_local for my object (parented to a bone) changing when the bone is animated, even though the child object doesn't move in relation to the bone

Ok looks like the change in matrix_local are very small (1e-06), so maybe just some math rounding :)


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Blender 2.8 How to make the object color in viewport look excatly as it is?
So I'm making the models for a game that only uses vertex colors and no textures.
I've noticed that any color in blender 2.8 viewport looks darker that it actually is. I use vertex painting to paint the object in 100% white, I set the "flat" shading but the object is greyish.
Here's the screenshot with windows notepad opened above the blender:

It is obvious that the "white" torus isn't really white.
If I use color picker to pick the color from torus it will tell exactly what my eyes see: the picked color is actually 10% darker than real white. Even worse, If I pick the color and paint with it at the same area, it will paint with that darker color. Thus the color picker become unusable in many situations.
In blender 2.79 I've set the object to "shadeless" and it pretty much solved the problem, but this option isn't really there anymore.
Is there anything I can do to see the real colors in the viewport?
Thanks!
Andrey.

Did you see answers to similar questions before you posted it?

I've searched for the solution and haven't found it if this is what you're asking about.

Maybe it's displayed darker because of shading and/or light?
Try setting the flat viewport mode.

"I set the "flat" shading but the object is greyish"

EDIT (NEW SOLUTION):
I was browsing the bug reports and found the answer.
Set your Workbench viewport to Flat - Vertex Color.
In the Overlay Settings set the Vertex Paint opacity to 0,
this way you are going to avoid the darkening effect of your vertex colors (if not they multiply by themselves)

This is an issue I am fighting right now with.
The vertex colors viewport rendering is a mess and the solution I found is to tweak workbench to do the dirty work.
For painting if you want to have 1:1 vertex colors set your Solid view to:

Flat
Single (White)

(Object works too if your object color is set to white, you can then at least have outlines for complex scenes)
To see the whole scene with vertex colors I managed by setting Workbench's Rendered view as:

Flat
Vertex (note if you go in Vertex Coloring mode everything becomes darker)

And in color management

sRGB
Standard

So to work on on a scene with vertex colors you will have to swap between Rendered view and Solid view - It's terrible for color picking. I hope someone will fix this.


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Vertices Move Around With Jerking Motion
I pressed G and tried to move vertices but they move with these drastic jerking motion. How do I freely move this around?
Click here to see what I'm talking about
Thanks a billion. I'm totally new at this and I have no idea what's happening!

it is very small on the video, but it seems you have a snapping option : the little magnet on the bottom right part of the 3D view. You may deactivate it.


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Newby question - Alpha Channel not working
I'm trying to make a model of a tree.
The leaves are a picture with an alpha channel (tif). As a (material) surface I used the Principled BSDF. Here I tried to change the alpha values (for example, 50%). Unfortunately nothing happens.
Also when I connect the alpha part of the tif, nothing happens.

in the material properties, choose the transparency's behavior :

"opaque" means no transparency, that's why you don't have any changes in your viewport even if the shader you have configured is ok.
The "display settings" of the material is in the material panel, while the material itself is in the node editor.
There are 3 alpha modes :
"clip" is a straight "yes/no" mask, use it for very sharp mask like, well, like your leaves.
"blend" treats alpha mask with all it's shades of grey (usually more than 50, hahaha :-X)
"hashed" also treats shades of grey but using a smart "yes/no" pixels distribution, the result is average good and maybe lightest to calculate (and kind of super-stylish, why not !)

Probably worth mentioning what Blend mode to set :). They can be confusing for new users.

I always use ** Import Image As Planes**.
The image comes with the proper nodes.
I'm using the 2.79 version but I think the nodes should be similar.


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Help with textures disappearing
I am currently trying to make VRChat models using MMD bases. I molded a shirt to the model and added a texture but whenever I open it up in my actual model file it has no textures, it just shows up as orange. Im using the "blender render" rending mode because thats how the mmd models seem to come. Any help is appreciated  thank you very much.
Also I know how to use the append feature but I am not sure if I am using it properly, is there a way to keep textures when appending one model into another?

Make sure that the texture is packed into the file. You can do this by (in the Image or UV Editor) going to Image>Pack As PNG. A star* next to Image means that the image is not packed.

Not sure how to add an image to posts here but I did the packing as you showed and this is how my shirt looks in its own blender file https://gyazo.com/ad3fd9a43aee5f0ff0205d9b2a45489c
and this is how it looks when I use the append feature to add it into another https://gyazo.com/6a3286085c5a0858ee0a73be7e50791e


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Navigation working in Object mode but not Edit mode?
Hi I've got left mouse navigation working in object mode but in edit mode it doesn't work.
Alt Left - Rotate
Shift Alt Left - Pan
Ctrl Alt Left - Zoom
Also this only breaks when using left mouse selection
Any ideas why it would work in Object mode but not in edit mode?
Thanks,
Vaughan

Yes, this happens when you use "LEFT" click selection (not the default).
the shortcuts you used above need the "emulate 3 button mouse" setting enabled... which you can do with "RIGHT" click selection:

but as soon as yu enable "LEFT" click selection, the setting is unavailable (greyed), and thus those shortcuts doesn't work anymore

I guess you're on Windows, and I suggest you to use a little utility (called X-mouse, or a similar one) I suggested in another answer, here;
Can't navigate in the 3d view
With that, you can have an automatic setup just for Blender mouse usage, and your 3 button mouse will use the middle button as it is intended by Blender, so you don't need the "emulate 3 button mouse" setting, and thus you don't need the shortcuts either...
hth

Just figured it out, instead of using the select with left input preset you have to manually specify selection otherwise defaults override the alt left for navigation.


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Create plane by dragging in viewport
Is there a way to create a plane by click dragging in the view port? I'm trying to defining the plane using 2 corners interactively.

Not natively no, as far as I know. Maybe this helps https://www.blendermarket.com/products/snap-utilities (commercial addon)

link has expired

So, are you wanting to draw a diagonal line and it generate a rectangle? You'll have to write a script for that by using the Pythagorean theorem. But you can't determine a rectangle knowing it's diagonal length only. You must also know the width to length ratio because one diagonal length can have infinite variations of a rectangle. So, unless you want a hard coded width to length ratio, every time you draw your line you'll have to employ the extra step of determining the ratio by determining the slope of the line on an XY coordinate.
Example:
(X,Y)+(X౽,Y౽)= diagonal line
(X౽,Y౽-Y) = Other X vertex
(X౽-X,Y౽)= Other Y vertex
(X,Y)+(X౽,Y౽)+(X౽,Y౽-Y)+(X౽-X,Y౽)= rectangle

Could you give more concrete indications? This is of no help regarding the question.

First of all, his question was simply asking if you can make a plane by drawing a line. I answered it by stating he needs to write a script for that. If anything his question is a candidate for deletion for being vague and yet I went above and beyond to show him the math behind solving the problem. Should I develop the script for him too? You are not using the down vote as intended.

@LetTheWritersWrite to be clear I DVed your answer, because it is plane wrong. You are not thinking of it the same way the OP is. Look at how sketchup does it as an example.

@David "plane" wrong? Intended pun? ;-)

"plane" wrong you guys kill me...
sorry for the unclear wording, but yes the sketchup / Modo way of dragging out a plane is what I am looking for.


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Remap Middle Mouse Constraint Mode
I love that you can constrain to an axis using middle mouse during transforms, but I would rather have it on Right Mouse.  I can't find it in the input settings, does anyone know where to find it?

I don't believe it's in the input settings because you have to be in scaling mode (for example) in order for it to become available.  You could probably add it yourself although I don't know the identifier or the attributes, maybe someone will respond.  For what it's worth, I usually just use the X,Y,and Z keys which selects the specific axis.

These may be hardcoded unfortunately. While blender is quite flexible and configurable, these might just be beyond the threshold of customization, I'm afraid.

It's a shame since this is one of the most commonly used functions!

I know the question is old, but I spent hours trying to find an answer to this!
Not sure when they added it but it's available in 2.93. Using the search box won't display it, you have to manually drill down:
Preferences > Keymap > Transform Modal Map > Automatic Constraint


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Default stringproperty arguements
I have a class with a few StringProperties,
I'm wondering if there's a way reset the StringProperties to defaults each time I call the class.
I tried adding defaults like this but if I call with 'YES' it remembers the 'YES' the next time I call it.
cutline = bpy.props.StringProperty(name='Cutline',default='NO')
live = bpy.props.StringProperty(name='Live',default='NO')
insetted = bpy.props.StringProperty(name='Insetted',default='NO')
drawtype = bpy.props.StringProperty(name="Draw Type",default='BOUNDS')

Related  Possibly duplicate question if you are using props in operator class.


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Register Multiple Classes
I'm trying to register multiple classes at the same time like this:
I got it working like this
def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(VIEW3D_PIE_SPECIALS)
    bpy.utils.register_class(SMART_BOOLEAN_ADD)
    bpy.utils.register_class(SMART_BOOLEAN_SUBTRACT)
    bpy.utils.register_class(SMART_BOOLEAN_SLICE)

But I want it to automatically register all classes in my file
Here is my attempt which isn't working yet:
classes = ('VIEW3D_PIE_SPECIALS','SMART_BOOLEAN_ADD','SMART_BOOLEAN_SUBTRACT','SMART_BOOLEAN_SLICE')

def register():
    for cls in classes:
        return 'bpy.utils.register_class('+(cls)+')'

def unregister():
    for cls in classes:
        return 'bpy.utils.unregister_class('+(cls)+')'

You're looking for register_module:
def register():
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_module(__name__)

It grabs all the relevant classes in the file.

Thanks this works perfectly.  One case I'm having trouble with though is registering multiple keymaps.  I have them all in one class, but they are not registering using this method (works if I register the class manually).  Any ideas?

As far as I know you'd have to register keymaps separately through register_keymaps(), but that's a bit outside my experience.  Perhaps this will be helpful: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/40755/how-to-register-keymaps-for-all-editor-types


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Blender's video output is different than the preview
I made a short video with some recorded gameplay (from a rather low-fps game). The recorded clips have a varying framerate between 20-35 fps. I set Blender to render the clips in 60 fps, turned on AV-Sync, then added some audio and a scene "alpha-over" layer and it all looked great in the preview and rendered images.
But after I rendered the full video (with H264, encoding format also H264, and again in 60 fps), the video became extremely out-synced. Some parts of the video were suddenly sped up and the audio and scene was out-of-place, although length of the full video remained the same. I haven't yet tried turning the framerate to 30 as it wouldn't probably work, since the clips all have a varying framerate.
So what happened and what is the best way to fix this?

Did you enable "AV Sync" in the timeline while you were editing?

Yes, I mentioned that. If I set it to No Sync some clips will be repeated which is also not my intention.

Pffff I need to learn how to read. Can you share a minimal example so we can check it out for ourselves?

May be of help? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrX1sK_ZQqs&list=PLjyuVPBuorqIhlqZtoIvnAVQ3x18sNev4&index=27


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Can't increase density on a small object
This is a newbie question but I've searched all over and can't find a solution.
I'm following this tutorial to create procedural clouds and it works perfectly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhMQN4vVMIU
But I'd like to add these clouds to a small scene, which has been created using BlenderGIS and then scaled right down. I've scaled it down so that camera depth of field can give the scene a 'model village' type of look. At full size, depth of field has no effect because the scale is massive.
When I scale the clouds down, they become almost completely transparent, seemingly no matter how high I set density.
This image is a copy from the YouTube link showing the shader (the missing bits to the left are texture coordinate and random noise).

It's the principled volume step that causes the cloud to go almost completely transparent when small. Without that it works, but the cloud doesn't have a nice density effect.
Is there a way to make a cloud like this very small and maintain the density? I found references to 'Density Scale' in the user manual prior to 2.8 but not sure if that's what I want and I can't find references to it anywhere in 2.8.
Thanks!

Hello :). Don't forget to bump up sample count in Render > Volumetrics. They're set pretty low by default.

That seems to have cracked it, thanks. I couldn't find a setting anywhere that made a difference!

Don't forget to bump up the sample count in Render > Volumetrics > Samples.
They're set pretty low by default.

For anyone else stuck on the same problem, Jachym's tip helped but I also needed to change 'End' in volumetrics to a much smaller number to finally deal with the issue.

Thanks for letting me know :). I don't work much with Eevee, so any feedback is appreciated.


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Why are my Cycles settings missing?
so I'm working on a little bathroom scene and wanted to make a clay render. I started looking for the material override which I kinda knew where it was and on the way I switched my render engine accidently to workbench instead of cycles. Switched to cycles all my seetings on the render tab are missing except color management and free style. Hows that? I restarted blender multiple times and tried some other stuff but nothing changed a thing, and I'd rather avoid a new installation

Try opening a new instance of Blender and press Ctrl+O. In the file viewer, select your project and click on the gear wheel in the upper right corner to open the settings. Uncheck "Load UI" and open the project. If this brings back the settings, it means something's wrong with the UI setup in the file. If you don't mind losing that, you can re-save and it should be fine, all other project data will stay the same.

thank god for dudes that sit there and click every button in Blender to see what they do, without you guys we would be lost, thanks for this answer

This typically happens, when you check ✓ Filter Add-ons in the Tool tab.
Filter Addons allows disabling certain addons under certain workspaces. Since Cycles is integrated into Blender through an addon that means it gets disabled as well.
Otherwise check to see if the addon is globally enabled in Preferences > Addons.

Cycles is also an add-on, which is why the panels are hidden when filtering the add-ons.

Good to know, thanks :).

"Cycles is also an add-on" mind-blown. Nice solve!

Ohhh thanks, ist quiet possible that I accidently checked this box

Thanks to @Duarte for improving this answer :)

Try a new file, then in the file open dialog you will see a gear icon in the upper right. Click it, then untick "Load UI". See if that brings things back for you. You could also try restarting your computer. Otherwise, you may have a corrupt .blend file? In that case, you might be able to File>Append your assets from the old file into a new one.

Thanks for the answer, but I doubt that the blend file is corrupted because it happened so suddenly but I'll try it


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How to add background image with background environment and only render the first?
im new to Blender so apologies for any silly question but I have an object that have already an HDR image as environment background for reflections and stuff, and now I want to composite that object with other image, how can I add the background image without rendering the environment background too?

If what you want to achieve is a render without the HDRI Background, you can go to Properties Panel > Render > Film > Transparent [x] []1
Another option could be going to Properties --> World --> Ray Visibility --> Uncheck the "Camera" Box.
Hopefully this is what you need, Cheers!

That's a great tip but unfortunately it makes both background images transparent and I only wantthe environment background (HDR) image to dissapear from the background, keeping it rendering only on the object, so that I can use other non-HRD image as a background that fit better for the final composite


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How do I correctly overlap liquid+smoke domains?
I have a fire & smoke domain and a liquid domain, with the latter positioned within the former (see the image below). The F&S domain is active before the liquid domain - the latter is triggered only when the former ends.

However, as seen in the image, the liquid domain seems to be filled with liquid at all times when viewed in the editor.
I tried keyframing the rendering of the liquid domain "object" (only showing it after the F&S domain is cleared), but when it appears it still looks the same - like it's filled with liquid. I also tried putting them in different collections but nothing changed.
I've tried various offsets, and even no offset at all, but none of them work. Whenever the liquid domain is active it's that solid color. (see the following images for an example of the liquid appearing correctly in solid/wireframe view, but the column being incorrect in rendered view)

Can anyone tell me how I would have overlapping domains of different types, without this effect?

I resolved my issue. It was the same as another Stack Exchange post--I hadn't baked the mesh of the liquid domain.


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Randomizing Particle Behavior
I followed this tutorial to create lightning bolts. It gives me some parameters (bolt opacity, bolt length) that I'm manipulating with keyframes: it shoots down in 1/10th of a second, then fades to transparent.
I want to spawn a number of these randomly on a surface. I'm doing this with a particle emitter on a plane with the lightning as the emitter object. It's working.
The lightning bolts have displace modifiers on them which control their shape: I want the values for these to change for each emitted particle, so each looks different. I'm not sure how to do this. In the tutorial these are tied to a second empty object (so Displace Coordinates>Object), which changes the lightning shape as it moves around, but making that empty a child of the lightning doesn't seem to instantiate it alongside the lightning particles (or it's not using the instanced empty for the instanced particles--they're using the original empty as the object for their displace modifiers).
I want to keyframe relative to each particle's creation time, not some fixed time on the timeline. As it stands the emitted particles/lightning "flash" correctly if they start on the first frame of the timeline, but once they're past the time when the default particle goes dark (about 30 frames in), any created particles start dark as well. I'm sure I could simply modify my parameters for the lightning to use scripting: bolt_length = math.min(1, (#frame - #creation_frame)*0.1) - but I don't know what variables there are available indicating the time an object is created.
Can anyone help me with these?

I totally missed it but there's apparently a ParticleInfo node which I was able to use.

Unfortunately at present I haven't figured out how to get the shape of the particle to change (since it's based on a modifier on the object, not part of the material) but this is acceptable for my current usage.


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Error when trying to uv unwrap
when I'm trying to unwrap, Blender gives an error back and the unwraped uv looks strange. See image below... I researched for this topic bud can't find anything. Maybe one of you know this issue.
The error massage is: Unwrap failed to solve 1 of 1 island(s), edge seams may need to be added
Error occurs with the default cube and every other mesh.
Blender 2.93.0 (no additional plugins)
Win10 Pro
Nvidia Quadro K4200 (newest driver)
I tryed to:

find any settings that cause the error
uninstall and install Blender
repair the installation of Blender

Thanks for your help!


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Need help with the seams on this leather couch I'm working on
So I'm following this tutorial and I'm having major difficulties with the seams.  I was able to get them working on the back and side cushions, but the seat cushions are not cooperating with me.  I'm using 1 UV map for the leather and a separate one for the seams, but for some reason the seams texture is facing the wrong way on 2 of the edges.  I've attached some screenshots of the issue.  Any help would be greatly appreciated

Alright so I figured out a janky fix, but I'm not sure if it's the best way or not.  I selected just the faces with the sideways seams and manually rotated them all in the UV image editor, then manually placed them in the center of the image and scaled up till they matched the others.


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Why can't I dissolve this edge?
Hey Im new in blender and I'm having what appears to be a simple problem, why cant I dissolve this edge? I made a plane and I loop cut it to make the hole in the middle I dissolved the other edges except for these two

because you need at least one edge that connects the outer quad to the inner one

Blender faces can't have holes

I'll add that the preferential placement in this case would be an edge connecting the inner and outer edge loops at each corner

Faces cannot have holes in them in blender like they can in sketchup. This is because blender is closer to the hard coding of 3-D graphics.

Closer to hard coding what do you mean?

@sol_keys At the base of 3-D graphics, faces are always triangular. Blender allows you to create polygons by triangulating them at the last minute before sending the data into a render engine.

Then how can you cut holes in meshes?

@sol_keys Make a torus and find out!


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How Do I Create Random Animated Transformations?
I'm trying to make each individual cube increase in height, and then decrease, and then increase (so it's basically bobbing up and down slowly), but each cube should be randomly vertically transformed, so they are all different sizes from each other.
Video similar to what I want
I am using Eevee for fast render times and because I don't need complex lighting setups.
Cubes and current node setup (just material and colors for now) below.

You can use a driver or a script. The answers to this question will probably help you:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/33962/how-do-i-create-a-driver-with-a-random-value-and-apply-that-driver-to-multiple-o

You could make use of Randomize transform. First, make sure all your Cubes are separate objects that have their respective origins at their centers. Select all your objects (in object mode) and select "Randomize Transform" from the Object menu.

Keyframe your object at 0 transformation - Press I and pick "Location and Scale". Make sure to do this at the Beginning AND the End of your animation first (if you want the position to reset) because each time you use the Randomize Transform operation, it "adds" the last values you set to what's currently there. TLDR - keyframe your first and last frame at 0 location and scale transforms first.

Then, you can pick a spot in the middle, go crazy on the Z-location and Z-scale transforms, and keyframe that too.

The end result looks like this:

Here's a better example using some more conservative values for the transforms (closer to your example). The reflections are from an HDRI I used - I should have picked a different one - in the gif they look kind of strange.

oh god this is great, I was ready to downgrade my blender version just so I could install Animation Nodes. TYSM

I noticed that they all move uniformly relative to each other, is it possible to randomize each individual seed?

If you mean you want some of them to move at different "speeds" relative to each other, I don't know of any way to do it automatically (doesn't mean it doesn't exist - I'm just not aware of it). I think if you wanted something like that, you might have so select some of the cubes in "batches" and keyframe them separately with a different seed.


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Render output does not match with Viewport display
Trying to render this scene. My render output looks different from how it appears in the viewport.
The ocean looks different in the attached two images, one of rendered output & one viewport screenshot. trying to render in cycles. Applied Ocean modifier to create the ocean.
Please guide me with your valuable feedback & comments. Also appreciate if any suggestions to make the scene look better or any scope of improvement elswhere

You render what camera sees and now what's on the viewport. Move your camera. https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/3dview/navigate/camera_view.html

THe ocean modifier has a different setting for viewport and render subidivisions, make sure they're set to the same value

Hi :). Also, you're destroying A LOT of fine details using a denoiser on such a low sample count

Lastly, you have an object called "Floating Plane" that is hidden in your viewport (I'm guessing the blue/white thing). Objects hidden in the viewport will still be visible in renders. If you want to keep it, but not have it visible, either disable its render visibility in Object Properties, or move it to a separate collection then Disable (not Hide) the collection.

Those were helpful tips, Gorgious, yes Ocean modifier has different settings for viewport & render subdivisions thanks for that. Christopher, the object "Floating plane" also disabled in the render, thank you. Jachym, I will take note of denoiser & play with those settings. Also, I need to mention one thing, I had two Oceans with different settings & both visible in render, that was one reason for my undesired render output result. Thank you all for your support.


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Object won't retain position or animation when exported
I am trying to export this plane in the center of the room. I can't get it to export with it's position in tact. Also I have it animated to disappear from the render at frame 30. This won't stick to the export either. I am also trying to export the object of all of the pieces of the frame when it shatters. This animation doesn't get exported either. Also all of the pieces of the plane appear scattered all around the new scene with no animation or position applied at all.

This is how these objects import into a new blender file with a similar room.

Here is the file. How do I export the plane and the broken pieces of the plane after it shatters and import them into a new file?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10G93zGssfynaHU4Ed2_Rip69pIfNeGin/view?usp=sharing

I found a work around. First I open up the file that does NOT contain the object that I want to import. Then I go to File > Append. In the dialog that comes up, I navigate to the .blend file that contains the object that I want to import. I open this .blend file in the dialog box and it actually opens like a folder. Inside it are many directories including a folder called "Object." I open the Object folder and all the objects in the blender file exist in this directory as stand alone files so I just click the one I want to import.
The object now appears in my current blender file. The thing that's amazing is that the object seems to retain all of its properties like position and animations.


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Render using way too much memory no matter how much I lower settings
I am trying to get my render time much lower. It's taking about 10 minutes a frame. which is obviously way too long considering that I need to do over 800 frames maybe even over 1200 by the time the whole project is finished. I tried doing the following things:

turning Render Properties > Sampling > Render from 128 to 64
turning Render Properties > Light Paths > Max Bounces to 3 for every single option
turning Render Properties > Clamping > Direct Light and Indirect Light to 0.00
unchecking Render Properties > Caustics > Reflective and Refractive Caustics

The most confusing thing is that changing these setting has actually made rendering take LONGER??!
Right now my peak memory use is over 21 GB??! I have no idea what's going on.
P.S. I am using a de-noising node in the compositing tab. Also, I'm using Blender 2.91 with the Cycles Render Engine and Windows 10.

I'm going to post an answer with a few things, but does this scene happen to have a bunch of objects that were appended to the scene?

A different version of the same question pops up regularly on this site. And most times folks casually forget to mention a description of the scene in terms of millions of vertices, size of the textures, and modifiers or simulations used... 3D can create scenes that require heavy computing power and resources that might exceed those of your particular computer. Please add information about your scene.

Every step you listed except for clamping probably helped out.
Turning clamping to 0 actually unclamps them completely.  You need some value in there, I think indirect is clamped at 10 by default and unclamping it increases render times pretty significantly.  It probably wiped out all the gains made by the other methods.
As for the memory usage, check your materials for duplicate image textures.  If you're using high-resolution textures and you think you could get away with a lower resolution, that will take less memory.
You can go this menu -

and lower your viewport settings and maybe cut down on the geometry that blender has to keep track of outside of the rendering process.
Consider adaptive subdivision if you have any highly subdivided meshes.


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How do You Prevent Texture Light Washout When Using Bright HDRs?
I have been having a lot of trouble preventing textures from getting washed out when getting hit with even a moderate amount of light. It keeps making my scenes look fake and poorly rendered and I wish there was an easy way to correct this. This is what my demo scene looks like in the material preview where it looks perfect.

This is what my demo scene looks like in the render preview where it looks washed out.

Here is a link to the demo Blender file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10cTD3O4WKq4uBi7em7TMG1LWXbwfB1El/view?usp=sharing
Is there any way that I can darken the texture while still preserving the majority of the texture's attributes?

If want to keep the background image the same brightness, but want a different strength for the light it provides, you can mix Backgrounds of different strengths (or even different images) using a Mix Shader and the Is Camera Ray output of a Light Path node. This splits the background between its image and its cast light and reflections so they can be controlled independently:


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How Do I Keep These Pants From Acting Like A Dress?
Im trying to figure out how to make pants, I dont want them to be skin tight but kinda poofy like this, but when I added the texture and material and added the rigging it formed like a dress.

This self-intersecting part of your pants might be a problem, if you rigged it with automatic weights. Inspect your weights and make sure each side of pants (L & R) belongs to corresponding side of armature.

you have to fix the weights of those bones of those legs, just like i show you here...
so as can you see the green weight there, there are green areas influenced in the other leg because the other legs weight, this will always happen when you parent your armature with automatic weights.

so you have to change the paint mode to subtract and increase or decrease the strenght of the brush and then start brushing the undesired weights.

other more quicker way to do this is to enter to edit mode and go and select the vertex group that you want to fix and you will notice that both legs thighs are selected so unselect one of them (the left one in this case) and then click in the button remove and then press A to unselect everything and press the select button again to the vertex group and will see that its not anymore selected the right leg thigh. and then repeat the same process in the other bones that have wrong assigned weights, and then if you go to pose mode again you have fixed it. happy blending!!


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My image looks different
I'm following the blender tutorial series by the BlenderGuru and my donut looks different after tutorial #4, making the icing on the donut look more realistic. The colouring on my icing looks like it has black residue around it.
I believe it's my videocard, I'm using a 2009 macbook pro 13inch model, however, I'm new to this and trying to learn which is why I'm asking.
Attached is a screenshot of what it looks like...
Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

It could be your video card, a couple things to check, make sure you dont accidentally have 2 icing's. Might have to delete one. Or try lifting the icing up just a bit, maybe it is intersecting with the bottom part.

After further inspection I discovered there was a second icing layer. I started all over again and it worked out perfectly.
Thanks again for the advice


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What features/menus/fx can I use to make a 3D Character OR Actor Emit Smoke while walking?
I am trying to achieve the effect shown here: https://youtu.be/RbP5frdcfzQ
I am new to blender, but am specifically looking to do Ghostly FX. I'm looking for a tutorial that shows - Step by step - how to make the entire Body/mesh/skin of a 3D model emit smoke or fog or dust...possibly other particles like magic.
My studio OWNS a MOCAP system, and we currently do 3D animation. I am a producer here, not a 3D artist, though I am familiar with linking emitters, and the overall concept. If anyone has done something like my youtube example, please let me know if 1.YOU have a tutorial you made or 2. One you know of you can send me the link to. Thank you for reading this. Jon Hyers, Producer


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Disable "Extrude region together along the average normal" dragable UI element
The yellow circle with the + icon. I pressed something accidentally on my keyboard, but I don't know what. I don't know how to get rid of it either. I suspect it has to do with the "Show Overlays" setting in the drop down above the view controls in the top-right of the view port, but I've tried all the options in there, none of them disable this circle with the +.

Everybody: for questions like this one see https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/index.html

in the tools menu on the left side of your 3D viewport press on this icon

Or just press W to select the same tool "Select Box".


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object disappears on material mode not clipping problem
Hey all I've encountered a problem on material mode my object is not fully showing I've checked my clipping
details and played with it a bit but the object is still not showing could use some help please
Material mode :

Rendered mode :

Does this answer your question? How do I increase the render distance?

no, my problem is not on render mode that is fine it's on material mode I can't see my model and the clipping end is set for a 1000


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material preview displays objects in black although it has texture
I'm following Lynda's tutorial and I've encountered something that I don't know how to fix.
some of my objects appear in black while I'm in material preview on the layout panel but has no problem on texture painting layout or render view.
im sure its something simple but i have no clow what to do

Try recalculating the normals, or inverting them! Or create a new picture, in the UV Editing window, and change the color from black to another!

The texture has its own color, the material has its own! When you switch display / shader modes, you can see, the only color, which you assigned to the material / texture. Recolor the black background, of the face your mesh, in the editor window, to a color identical to the material!


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Cannot see mesh behind shadow catcher
I'm trying to create a shadow catcher on a ground mesh that is also transparent. The ground catches the shadow of items above it but allows the bottom part of a background image (also on a mash) to be seen. See the quick diagram below for a visual explanation.

I have the shadow catcher working but I cannot get it to be transparent ether in the viewport or in a render. I've tried to follow the example here Shadow Catcher makes background objects invisible separating my background and ground (shadow catcher) into separate collections (see image below) but no luck - what am I doing wrong?
I'm using Blender 2.83.

can u provide blend file?


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A Particular Weave Pattern

Does anyone know how to make this particular weave pattern? It's basically just a checker texture, but the squares slightly overlap in the y axis, instead of being corner to corner. I would really appreciate it!

You have to offset the Y coordinate of the texture for every square along the X axis :

Playing with the offset:

Very nice :). It looked like a simple problem, until i tried it myself and failed miserably.

Yeah :) Playing with texture coordinates is a bit tricky, but once you get a hang of it, you up your shading game by a LOT


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A Particular Wavy Brick Pattern

I'm hoping to create something like this procedurally, but I'm not sure where to start. It's a brick texture with a color that repeats in a wavy fashion. I know I should use modulo somehow, but I'm not sure? Could a node wizard help out?

do you have a single mesh? why don't you use a mesh and an array modifier?

I guess that's true. I was thinking on the shading level but that makes sense


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Where does MyProject 2.blend come from?
When I've been working with MyProject.blend for a while, I see several files in the directory where I saved it:
MyProject.blend
MyProject.blend1
MyProject 2.blend
MyProject 3.blend
MyProject 4.blend

Blender also has stuff in /tmp
I understand that MyProject.blend1 is from the "Save Versions" setting in User Preferences.  And I gather the Blender should be autosaving to /tmp (which is set as my temp directory in User Preferences).
But where do the MyProject 2.blend and MyProject 3.blend and similar automatically created files with an extra number in the name come from?

Does this answer your question? Blender saves a new file every time

Also related: How do I get blender to stop creating so many files?, Saving Blender Files Issue, Config blender to save backup files in subfolder...

@brockmann That other answer talks about the MyProject.blend1 file, but doesn't answer my question about the MyProject 2.blend file


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What are these time units smaller than seconds: 1/60ths of a second
I am using Blender to edit videos. I see strip time units listed with three colon separators, like: HH:MM:SS:??. So, what are those smallest units? 1/60 of a second? 1/100th of a second. Or should the third colon actually be a period to indicate a decimal point? I have this time: 02:18:46:29. Is that for 46 and 29/60ths seconds or 46 and 29/100ths of a second - 46.29? I could find no documentation on this or any way to control time representation in preferences. I've never see a time unit like this.

That's Hours:Minutes:Seconds:Frames or Hours:Minutes:Seconds:Milliseconds (depending on your settings);

Ah, thanks. So, I was looking at the strip properties to the right of the sequence display with its timeline. So the preference you identified controls the timeline display, horizontally with the clips. By changing it to the different possibilities, I determined in that display of the clip timing, it is HH:MM:SS:FF, that is the last number is the frame number. That is still interesting to me, given that frames don't need to start on an even number of seconds, but anyway. Thanks.


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Not running at 24 fps in viewport
My main problem is that I have a character in a scene and the scene is only running at 17 fps in viewport. Everything is turned down to the lowest render settings. I have a i7-9700k and rtx 2070 super. Is there something I can change to get better performance or do I need to get a different cpu?
Thank you.

Without being able to look at the blend file I have no idea why your scene is running slow.  Can you add it to your question? Grab the URL of the question.
Go to https://blend-exchange.com/.
Select the blend file.
Add the url of the question.
Grab the url that results.
Go back to the question and edit it.
Add the new url to the bottom of the post.

Depending on the complexity of the scene the animation won't necessarily run at full frame rate when viewed in the viewport even with EEVEE but will be the correct frame rate when rendered to a movie file and played back.

The scene is not complex at all. it is just one character with about 28,000 faces. I am in studio material view and I have higher poly count animations run at 24fps in the viewport.

When I animate a simple plane (32 quads) with a cloth modifier, musgrave, wave and white noise texture, it impacts my FPS tremendously. As Weird Workshop pointed out, I've never seen anything above 60fps running a GTX 1080 TI :)
The only scenario where my PC comes to a screeching, kicking and crying stop is when trying to animate something with a complex shader or even a simple shader for that matter with microscopic details. Especially the first time. Do you have anything like that in you scene?


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How to get a smooth transition between two objects. Two perpendicular cylinders
I'm trying to create a smooth transition between 2 objects.
I thought I would start simple with 2 cylinders.
In the image below, I have created two cylinders, one slightly smalller than the other. I have simply used a boolean union, which I have applied. After this I have used a subdivision surface, to give it a smooth transition between the two. The issue as you can see is that it creates an undesired optical effect.
I've tried using a bevel, which just messes up. I've tried using a bevel modifier, which works at a very small scale. I'm looking for something like the hairdryer image attached - a smooth transition.
Am I modelling this the wrong way? If so, what would be better?

create a lip to the connecting piece
assign a vertex group to the lip vertices
add the Shrinkwrap Modifier to the handle, selecting the other cynlinder as target and using the created vertex group play around with the Mode to suit your needs).

This is great, it seems to have gotten me 95% of the way there. I still can still see a clear join between the two pieces, unlike your model. How can I make it super smooth?

You could try sculpting the shape. I would either create a circle to use as a guide or if you are familiar with python, write a python script to sculpt it for you.

I'd prefer to use block modelling here if possible. I'm looking to create product visuals, so keeping true to angles and dimensions is helpful.


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Blender doesn's use the graphic card to render and only use the CPU
When I hit render, doesn't matter what settings I change, blender only render the scene with my CPU ignoring my GPU(Nvidia 1060 with 3 GB of RAM). I've tried in edit ---> preferences---> system ---> cycles rendering and tried both CUDA and OPTIX.
When I check only the CPU, Blender only the CPU to render(as it should be).
when I check both, Blender only use the CPU(100% usage during the whole render time) ignoring the GPU(it stays at 5-6% with some peak at 15%)
When I check only the GPU, the usage of the CPU stay low but the GPU stay as well at ground level(again no more than 10% with peaks at 19-20% usage).
I tried changing drivers, but nothing changed.
The situation is the same with CUDA and Optix. How can I force Blender into using the GPU?
edit: Forgot to mention that I have this issue both on 2.8 and 2.9(I'm currently using 2.93)

If you checked only GPU and things didn’t gray out or say “no computer device found“, it probably worked. It’s impossible for it not to use the CPU or the GPU. The GPU is probably still at low usage when it renders on it simply because the cycles code is old enough to be somewhat inefficient, and it’s about to be reworked. The GPU is not getting used as often as it could be.

Tell us how you're checking GPU usage.  Blender's GPU usage doesn't show up in all settings of typical HW monitors.  Doesn't mean it's not being used.

@ZargulTheWizard I hoped for a better answer :(. Thank you

@NathanI I checked with ctrl+alt+canc in windows

@Wog4lf Was it uninformative?

@ZargulTheWizard not at all, I'm just sad because my CPU is very slow and I really wanted to be able to render with my graphic card. It is a problem of Blender, your answer was perfect(thank you again), it just isn't what I wanted to hear.


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Caustics options not show in 3.1 final
Caustics options not show in 3.1 final
Trying to enable this. Every tutorials shows it up under lights, and object/shading.
I am in Cycles. But still no option.
Official release of blender 3.1.
Any help on what i am doing wrong or has it moved?
THank you
gary

I'm a bit puzzled by it myself. 3.1-alpha does have caustics and no extra configuration is needed for them to be used. However, the final release doesn't seem to have it. Files generated in 3.1-alpha with caustics open and render in 3.1 but without caustics.

A build version that included caustics was D13533 submitted on December 18, and you can find it in the Blender Build archives.
Caustics did not make the cut for the official release of 3.1  according to the developer thread.  You can follow it if you are interested in the progress of the feature:
https://developer.blender.org/D13533

Indeed, thanks, the relevant comment is this, for those in a hurry https://developer.blender.org/D13533#381586

Wait, it is not clear. Was it dropped or deferred to a future version?

It has been added to Blender 3.2 (official).

As of 3.2.0 beta there's limited caustics in shadows of refractive objects:
Release Notes 3.2 Cycles (fourth bit down)


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Mix Shader not mixing textures
I have two different textures with selected geometry on both to properly display textures on the mountain (pictures of node tree and results right below this)

I'm trying to mix them both with a mix shader with a node tree plugged in to the factor of a mix shader after that to make the top of the mountain the snow/rock texture and the bottom of the mountain the grass/rock texture (by making the top of the mountain transparent by a transparent BSDF node plugged into the bottom of the mix shader) the result in and of itself is working perfectly. Node tree and result pictured below.

I then have both of these mixed with a mix shader and it appears on the mountain as pink (basically it doesn't work.) Why is this happening? I'll be glad to answer any questions!

Here's a picture of the complete node setup!

And here's a picture of the node setup that is turning it pink!

You might run out of memory, you could try switching to the cpu.

I'm on the CPU but since this is a far-away object, I am using 1K textures so it's only using a little over 1 GB

Hey :). There used to be some limits on number of textures in Eevee. Does it work im Cycles? Or when rendered?

No it does not.


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how to export correct file format from 3ds max to blender?
I tried to export a 3D model from .MAX file format in 3DSMax 2013 to obj file.   when I imported the exported .obj file to blender 2.77 it dose not show/work correctly.
    problems:

in converting model was rotated 90 deg in x angle ....
and also some textures add in incorrect place for example boot texture add to head ....
and one part of model did not add to exported model in this model eyes dose not add to exported obj model ....

how can I fix it?

Hi, You don't need rotate objects in 3ds. You can set Z as Up and Y as away in obj. export options. Also if you use more UVMaps, just set the right in Blender node editor. If I remember right, obj. support up to 8 UVMaps. I don't use 3ds a while, so I don't remember all terms and I can't look at export option and make screens. I answer only from my poor memory :D But maybe show you direction for solve this. Also is possible you find some tutorial, just google it :-)

ok , can you answer  the second question ?

You might try some other formats (like FBX or maybe Collada), depending on what 3DS will output.

Answer for 2nd question is in my comment: You need set correct UVMap for every texture/material in Blender. Of course you need export it. :-)

authors: Радмир Гиззатуллин


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Object renders only in viewport
What I see in the viewport is correct:

But one of the canisters is excluded when I render:

Test renders were working fine and now suddenly this strangeness, regardless of whether I render a single image or via animation. The missing object is enabled for rendering and set to be visible to camera. I don't know what else it could be. It's killing me. Please help.
*** BLEND FILE ***

hello, your link asks for authorization  ;)

Yikes! Thx moonboots. Should be good now.

it looks like it's the particle system that makes it invisible, if you remove the particle system you'll see the object again, I'm not sure why...

Hmmm... I did delete the inflow object after the bake. I wonder if that has something to do with it.

Show Emitter is ticked on the left canister but not on the right canister. Tick it and it will show up.

Oh, sheesh. You are the man, Harry. A thousand thank-yous.

no prob, glad i was able to help! sometimes we lose sight of simple details in a complicated project :)

wow of course   ;)


text:
There is no Shadow pass in Cycles
I want to render an EXR Multilayer sequence but there is no Shadow pass available. The 4.1 manual says there should be a Shadow pass option under Light>Other, but instead there is a Shadow Catcher option. My object is not a Shadow Catcher. Is this a bug? How do I render shadows within my EXR Multilayer sequence without a Shadow Pass?

Shadow pass was remove from 3.6 and above

So there is no way to isolate shadows in Blender without using Shadow Catchers? That doesn't seem right. Why would the 4.1 Blender manual say you can? 3.6 to 4.1 is a long time to leave an error in the manual.

The online manual is mostly run by volunteers and a few devs, and sometimes the changes are so vastly, it's hard to keep up. Sorry, the only way is to render in Blender 3.4 (last blender to have the option). Small mistake, Blender 3.5 and above don't have shadow pass


text:
How to get the object rename panel to appear via python code?
Did a bit of searching, and I can't seem to figure out how to get the object rename pop up (f2) to appear via python code. Renaming objects via python is obviously trivial, but I need to have user input in this case.

This is a window manager call.  The code is
bpy.ops.wm.call_panel(name="TOPBAR_PT_name")

To find this out, I used F3 to bring up the command search and looked for "rename".  When I hovered over "rename active", a popup showed me the command:

This works because I have developer extras and python tooltips enabled in Preferences.  I then searched for bpy.ops.wm.call_panel and found it in the manual here.
Finally I used the Python console to verify that it was the correct command and then wrote this answer.


text:
a 27 sided dice
I'm not a master blender user I'm just using it to make things to 3D print.
For my DND games, because I usually play chaotic neutral, I decided to make a dice with faces on it and use that to make more chaotic decisions. My friends then sugested I should be extra chaotic by making a non-standard dice shape. A 27 sided dice. Trouble is I can't even find a 27 sided 3D shape let exists let alone instructions how to model one. I found a post here
How to model 14,16 and 18 sided dice?
that included code to generate any side dice but I didn't even know you could code in blender let alone how to implement their code to do what I want to do. I just what my chaos dice. Is anyone able to tell me what I need to do?

Have updated script in linked question for blender 2.8.  Select and copy the script, paste it into the text editor, run script  to create a 23 sided dice.  https://pasteall.org/pic/814cc58f7127475989d6dd2d9f2cabc5

text editor? I don't know what you mean because I placed a text object and it didn't work