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Tips for creating PBR skin material?
So, I've been messing around with skin subsurface scattering shaders for about a day now. I'm roughly following this tutorial, by CGBlender, (links to both .blend files at the bottom) with elements from Andrew's PBR Dielectric Tutorial.

I've almost entirely gone my own way with the material, the main difference being that instead of giving the subsurface scattering nodes different colors, I gave them all the same color, but each has a radius that only scattering certain colors.
Now, for my question: what is the most physically accurate way to mix "layers" of SSS. In other words: I want to know how to mix the different layers in order to create the appearance of layers of skin, fat, and blood. Sidenote: I haven't yet added a third SSS node, so I only have representations for blood and fat, with diffuse acting as the skin. The fat and blood layers are being controlled by a simple factor slider.
P.S. don't hesitate to tell me if I'm doing all of this entirely wrong, and please lead me in the right direction; I'm pretty much winging this.
Any help is appreciated :)
Files:
CGBlender tutorial file (from the guy's website)
My file (google drive) and the textures are the same as the first file

Although not Blender-specific, this thread may be of interest to you :) http://www.cgfeedback.com/cgfeedback/showthread.php?t=3776


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Tips for creating a realistic procedural dirt/ground texture?
I've been messing around with ground textures, dirt, specifically, and I'm not really getting anything super realistic. Basically, I'm just combining a bunch of noise textures with a MixRGB set to difference. I've got it looking alright (see picture) . Does anyone have tips for how to improve this texture?

There are many knind of dirt/ground texture. Could you show a reference image of what you are looking for and highlite the relevant features? Are you using cycles render engine?

example of what I'm looking for. Oh and I am using cycles.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Why aren't most of the displacement noise options available in the node editor?
For displacement, you have many options, such as marble, clouds, etc., but the node editor only has musgrave, voronoi, and noise. Why is this? Is there a way to obtain these noise options in the node editor? Any answers are appreciated :)

The textures you find in the node editor are render engine based shader nodes, what you see is dependent on currently active render engine, and only available at render time for Cycles and EEVEE, or Material Preview in the viewport using EEVEE.
On the other hand, textures available for Displacement (or any other modifiers for that matter, like particles, hair, painting among others) must be available at all times, even before rendering, and regardless of the currently active render engine, such as third party ones.
For the purpose of this answer I'll assume you are using Cycles as active render engine, and by the "node editor textures" you mean Cycles Shader nodes.
As such the textures you find in the node editor are Cycles Shader textures, capable of GPU computing and other Cycles exclusive features. They only really work if Cycles or EEVEE are used as render engine, and are generally computed at render time, making them unavailable for use in modifiers.
For modifiers, legacy Blender Internal Render Engine based textures are used instead since these have been around far before the emergence of Cycles. They supporting a different set of features and aren't bound by the same constraints required by Cycles. These are computed in different ways, on CPU only, and rely on Blender Internal, and as such are available at all times even if Cycles isn't being used.
You can't really use Cycles shader nodes for modifiers, and the opposite is also true for now, you can't use Blender Internal textures for Cycles shader trees.
For future Blender versions 3.3+ there are plans to eventually comply retire the old Blender Render based textures and replace them by a modern Cycles compatible node system.
Some of them are already available in geometry nodes in an incomplete form, but it will probably require that more systems (like physics simulations and rigging) are modernized into a node based pipeline.
If you really need to use one texture of either system in another one, the only currently known way is to bake it into an image texture, as an intermediate step.

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


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What is the physical difference between the Subsurface Scattering and Translucent shaders?
Generally speaking, I know to use translucent for leaves and SSS for skin, but why is this? Physically speaking, how do these shaders refract/scatter rays differently? Why does translucent have no sliders or options? If anyone could sketch up some rough optical diagrams, that would be absolutely awesome! Any responses are appreciated :)

If i remember correctly, the translucent is like a really lite version of the SSS. Same basic principle, vastly lower quality.

Translucency allows light to pass through an object. Using only a translucent shader will leave an object dark on the side receiving light with the other sides being lit.

Sub Surface Scattering allows light to penetrate the surface and be distorted before bouncing back out. Each colour component disperses differently, leaving areas with a different colour than others. Thin areas allow light to pass through to light the opposite side before being bounced back out, these thin areas give a translucent appearance.


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Addons Not showing up in Toolbar (Blender 2.8 Alpha)
After installing the addons in the user preferences, they don't show up anywhere in blender 2.8 except from workspace addons tab in the properties and clicking it doesnt do anything. In user preferences next to the addons list, it also says that "Upgrade to 2.8x required". Does that mean that we can't use any addons in 2.8 unless they are upgraded for 2.8 builds?

Since the addon version check, need to update to "blender" : (2, 80, 0) in the bl_info dictionary to register an addon. Some basic changes like no more scene.objects.[link, active] break a lot of addons.  If you really  want to disable the check, find the file 2.80/modules/addon_utils.py and edit the line if mod.bl_info.get("blender", (0, 0, 0)) < (2, 80, 0):  to if True:  (The addons may register, but be aware a lot of ops and panels will be broken)

whoops  that should be if False: above, to remove the check. Liking 2.8 too, albeit a little frustrating.

Oh i was struggling to get it work with If True.... Thank you :)

I got it working by doing this:
if mod.bl_info.get("blender", (0, 0, 0)) < (2, 80, 0):
Change to
if mod.bl_info.get("blender", (0, 0, 0)) < (2, 79, 0):

Blender 2.8 has yet to notify the add-on developers to make it compatible with 2.8.
If you see a message stating "Upgrade to 2.8x required" it means the addon was made for older versions of Blender 2.7x and does not work for newer versions.
Unfortunately there is very little you can do as a user to fix it.
Check the author website for an newer updated version, or ask the developer for an update. Most addons require small changes to adapt and can be easily updated.
If it is a commercial addon you payed for try contacting support for an update. It is often in the best interest of the owners to make it work in the latest release.
Otherwise roll up your sleeves, learn Python, and update the addon yourself by coding in the required changes in. Most addons require only small adjustments.

The add-ons now appear on the opposite side menu bar. Where they used to show up on the (T) menu bar, they now show up as tabs beside the (N) menu bar.

Thanks! I was looking for this everywhere.

Ok the addons are in the addons in the preferences in 2.80  the mesh 2 is there
But I am missing the measuremnts and the snap utils that used to show up in the T toolbar. Tool bar T is missing now.
Someone else must be scratching there head about why the addons are included with 2.80 but no person can find them to use them.


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The Blam Image BackGround Not Showing in 3D View
I'm Trying to use Blam but I cant see the Image background on CameraView, the one that I added in Movie Clip Editor and draw lines in X and V axis for mapping
Here is a screenshot of my blender

did I change something that I don't remember or like that?
and sorry for my English

You must manually add the image.
press N to spaw the view properties menu in the 3D View - Object Mode. In there, locate a check box that reads, Background Images ( It's around the bottom). Drop it down and enable it. Click on add images, locate the photo you used in BLAM and you should have the image visible from the camera view.


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FBX export missing cloth modified mesh
Ok I spent hours trying to figure out the cloth modifier trying to get the cape in the pic to work properly. I FINALLY GOT IT lol. Now im having the issue of the exporting it. In blender it works and shows up perfectly fine.

Idk if its a setting in blender or not but i export to an FBX and import it in UE4. the cape wont show up.

im breaking my head over this so if anyone knows something i dont it will be greatly appreciated! :-)

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

I dont think its the materials. before i applied the cloth modifier the cape used the same materials and it showed up but in ue4 it was more like a car hood so i applied the modifier to make it more realistic and now that i have i export the model and the cape is a no show in ue4.

I think the answer is you dont use blender for unreal cloth. I think you make the cape in blender same as any other mesh, then import it into unreal and do the cloth there. Unreal used to use something called apex cloth (which it still can), but now also has its own cloth authoring tools.
Here is a link to a video showing unreals clothing system, if you skip to 5:00 exactly it will show you how to author cloth with the new system in ue4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZN3WHh3M9M

Absolutely. I just figured that out last night made a big difference and so much easier. Thanks a lot MajorTom


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HDRi not showing up in render, evee or cycles
HDRi not showing up in render, evee or cycles. I've done this a thousand times but for some reason no luck, 2.91 and 2.92. Any suggestions?

To make the HDRI work properly you would have to use an Environment Texture node and you are currently using an Image Texture node, just swap them out:

Thank you very much I just figured that out and it worked but drove me nuts! Have a great weekend!!

If that "worked", please consider to accept the answer @Saberblend see: https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/someone-answers


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Triangles or Squares or both? Which polys are easier for to render and in number? Or what if there are more verts than 3 or 4?
I have a question, I am aware that sometimes triangles can make a better curve, or close enough, using less polys, but which are would be less work to render? 1 square, or two triangles? So that being said, would it be best to make all faces of triangles, or triangles where necessary and save squares where squares more triangles than squares would be? What if it has more sides?

As far as I know, fundamentally speaking computers only understand triangles, nothing more.
So technically whatever you use will be converted to a three sided polygons only representation of the model at render time regardless. Having a triangle based mesh or a quad based mesh should not make a very significant difference at render time.
Storing a triagulated version of a mesh however will require more data and hence more memory and storage, because of the additional edge info that is being recorded. It should not be a very significant difference though, unless you have a very large and complex mesh.

Blue is quad based Suzane, orange is the same mesh triangulated
What you should be concerned with instead is good topology to make your models easy to work with, easy to edit or modify.
Quad based topologies are also good for animation, by being easier to rig and better at deformation based transforms, it makes them easier to texture through UV Unwrapping too.

This answer misses an important aspect - that is smoothing/auto-smooth (normal calculation) which is calculated based on non-triangulated geometry.

Hum good point, wasn't aware of that aspect. Could you elaborate a bit on that? Not an area I am so familiar with

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How to bring 3d effect in surface?
Can anyone tell me how this surface looks like 3d which covers red sphere and blue cylinders.
see the blend file here
https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/b/3570/

There are many ways to approach the rendering of a surface. What aspects are you most interested in? The more you see the surface, the less you'll see the mulecular structure. Is it a choice to show only the surface in 3D and leave the structure as it is? Can you tell more about your goals? Do you have any reference image?

Hi @Carlo I want somewhat similar to Penicillin structure  https://github.com/patrickfuller/blender-chemicals   but not too much glassy. Internal molecular and surface both should be visible clearly.

perhaps, you could try to build it with metaballs, then you could convert them to mesh...

The primary problem with the lack of visual space is that you're using an Emission Shader for the blue and the red.  Emission shaders cannot receive shadows so they look more cartoony for something like this.  I would change the material to Diffuse:

I added a UV Sphere with a Solidify Modifier and mixed the Glass Shader with Transparent (mostly transparent) to take the "edge off the glassiness".

Thank you very much @bertmoog for your good answer. I am trying to repeat what you have done but not getting the same. Can you upload the blend file so that I can see what is the difference between my blend file and your blend file. Thanks a lot.

@user3704712 - No problem: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/b/3573/    - Just open it and press Shift+Z to see render preview.

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


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How can I make a glowing material?
I asked related to this question in the past.  How best to render a 3D grid?
Now I wanted to know how to make this picture in the blender.

And you have an answer there from mr.aradito as far as I can see. For glowing effect add Emission shader and Glow in Composite.

Possible duplicate of Glow with depth in Blender? Also https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/53309/how-to-make-edge-glow Or just type 'glow' in search box to see another results.


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How to create loop cut through an object?
To make things easier to understand, I have some photos below.
Now, if I create a 4x4 tile, then extrude the outer 12 squares, I get a cup-shaped object.

But if I create a Loop Cut on this object, you can see that it doesn't reach to the inside of the object.

How do I make it so that a loop cut reaches through the entire object?
Thanks for taking the time to read my post!

That is not possible, In this specific case it might seem trivial, but on more complex shapes how would Blender know where to cut? Use knife project instead

If going into wireframe mode doesn't work, then you can use the knife tool in wireframe view and use it there.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos I'm trying to make a 2D, horizontal, level loop cut that reaches through the whole object. Like a plane that cuts through the object. Is that possible?

Loop cut is always made on one loop of faces.
In your example you have 2 separate loops so it cannot be cut at once with this tool.
What you can do is to make one loopcut for each face loop (inner & outer):

or use Knife tool K with Z (cut through) option enabled (the Z key is not captured in the example). Hold Ctrl to make a cuts in the middle of edges or if you want to place it some were else but have it accurate press C to constrain the direction of the cut to 45 degree steps.

This method works fine on the simple model that I made, but I'm not sure if it will work on more complicated models with lots of little chambers and things..? (I actually read about this method, but they put it in the most complicated way possible.. Thanks for making it so easy to understand) Anyways, this seems to work well, so I marked it as the answer.

I think that if you need to do this too often, you should change your modeling workflow. Also look at Subdivide - if you select all vertical edges here and press W -> Subdivide, you would also get the same result.


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How to separate joined objects in Blender?
I thought this would be a common question, but I can't find any answers to it past 2009 (The answers from then seem to be outdated, it tells me to do Ctrl+P but it opens up a tab called 'Set Parent To"?).
I joined three objects using Ctrl+J, how do I "un-join" these objects?
Sorry if this is a duplicate, I couldn't find any clear answers to this.
Thanks!

Ctrl+P is still the answer, but it has to be done once in Edit mode and with all vertices selected

@NicolaSap No, Ctrl+P is for making a vertex parent. The correct shortcut is P.

@RayMairlot oh, sorry, my bad.


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How can I make a custom sensor in Blender Game Engine 2.79b?
I need to replace a mouse sensor in my control dictionary with a different class that would serve as a sensor that is not provided by default by the Blender version I am using.

Didn't you ask this yesterday?

Yes but no one answered so I thought I should rephrase my question.

In future, if you need to rephrase the question you should use the [edit] link, which will in turn push the question up the 'active' list on the homepage, instead of deleting and re-asking.

Okay, I understand, my apologies.  I am relatively new to this forum.  At any rate, do you know the answer to my question?

You may want to familiarise yourself with the site by taking the [Tour]. If someone has an answer they will post it in the answer box below.


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How can I attach a class to an object in Blender Game Engine 2.79b using Python 3.6.5?
How can I attach a class to an object in Blender Game Engine 2.79b using Python 3.6.5?  I need the class to be attached to an object once it is initialized.

There is no such thing as an object having a reference to a class in class-based object-oriented programming languages. See Wikipedia for that. I am sure your question aims at something different, like a reference to a static class for example. Please be more precise.

I am not trying reference a static class.

I am not trying to reference a static class but rather a dynamic class.


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Image Object not showing up in render view?

Doesn't show up, how would I fix this?

@cegaton yes the object is a "Empty" image.

@cegaton how would I do this?

@cegaton I've changed it to a background image and it's not appearing how do I fix this?

Possible duplicate of The Background image is not showing in the rendered slot


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How can I achieve more realism in this given scene?
I've been working on this project in Cycles for quite some time now and it's probably my first project I created and rendered in blender (besides creating some simple shapes before but not rendering them). I've been trying to tweak different settings, materials, lighting and use the filmic colors from blenderguru's video to achieve somewhat realistic effect but those renders still look fairly "artificial" and as if someone pulled them from a game, instead of looking photo-realistic. Something just seems "off" in this renders.
I'm running out of ideas on how to make these scenes look more photo-like. I'd be thankful if someone could look at it from a "fresh eye" perspective and hopefully point out what I could've missed or forgot to do while creating them.
Render of the car washing station with a blur and slight colour correction in GIMP

Render of the car washing station without the blur

Render of the car washing station during night, with some lights (emission nodes)

As it stands this question is mostly opinion based or artistic critique. For that it is probably best to ask over at blenderartist forum

Work on the details and imperfections(cracks,  scratches, etc.).
Add more assets as you can.  I believe there is no car wash that is sitting alone in a parkway. From simple things like debris and trash cans to more complex scenery like cars and humans will make your scene complete.
Try to reduce low-quality textures for the building and try to model it yourself using procedural materials. 90% of realism is focused on lighting, materials, and scaling.
And I don't think StackExchange is a good place for critics and specific requests, try Blender Artists instead.


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Removing facets inside another object when they intersect (pictures included)
I'm looking to remove the faces from inside one object where another object intersects it.

So, what I'm looking to remove would be the plane inside the small box from the big box.  This is just an example, so these objects will be complex.  I can't find a boolean that will do this for me in Blender.  My friend who has Maya says Boolean Union using Normals instead of faces does exactly this, but with Blender's Union it drops the bottom of the small box (and the plane inside the small box).  I would love to be able to do this programmatically as well and without intersecting faces as this will be something that will need to be done a lot in a step of a computational engineering test bed, but I'll try not to get too greedy here.  Please let me know if I am unclear on anything.

For anyone trying to do the same thing as I am here is my hacky way of solving it.  I first did a difference as quiliup suggested, and then did a union with the original small cube, and finally removed duplicates.  If anyone knows a more concise way to do this though I'd be happy to approve your answer.

follow the prints, follow the prints .. rsrs :)

Select boolean and apply difference

Select the larger box that will make the cut

Apply the boolean and it will be ready!

I also have problems understanding. Maybe this is what you want:
The boolean difference modifier applied to the bigger one. It keeps the bottom of your smaller cube (even if I forgot to show this in the gif).

What I'm looking for is a joined mesh where the plane inside the smaller box from the larger box is gone.  Like I said it would be great if it meshed it without intersecting faces, but one thing at a time.


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The color of my video is wrong when I input it into "Composition"
So, I'm tracking a video, then applying a vide on top using "Motion Tracking" and "Compositing" in Blender. My video's colors always came out a bit "whiter" and "higher contrast" than the original, so I fiddled around with the color values and found out that setting the source video's settings to "Raw" (In "Footage Settings" -> "Color Space") fixed it!
However, now, when I try the same thing, it won't work anymore.
In the "Tracking" panel, changing the settings to "Raw" fixes the colors, but if I go into "Compositing" and do the input color (in the "image" node) to "Raw", the video turns much whiter and brighter than it should be. (Changing it to sRGB turns it darker, but still too white compared to the original footage.)
I currently have this node setup (see below), but the video footage is the same color even if I connect the "Image" node to "Composite" and "Viewer" directly.

And THIS is how the image looks in the "Tracking" panel, and how it originally looks:

How can I fix this? What causes the video to get whiter than it should be?
Thanks for the help!

Does this answer your question? Blender image output gets greyish touch

Don't use Raw as the color space for video.
The issue is that by default blender is set to use Filmic as the color space. It is meant to render images using a wide dynamic range, not for dealing with video.
Your video is in a Rec709 or sRGB color space, so it should be displayed in sRGB color space.
Images viewed or processed in the wrong color space will always look wrong.
In the color management section, set the display to sRGB and the view transform  to standard (which is the dumbed down name the developers set for sRGB).

And set your footage to use sRGB.

Thanks so much! I think that fixed it. What format do you recommend that I export it in? AVI JPEG, or AVI RAW?

no unrelated questions in the comments please. for new questions use a new post.

As much as I love the professional answers in here, I sometimes dislike how everyone believes that they MUST keep the rules, even when it's much easier or even more effective to go around it once in a while. It is much more ineffective and time consuming to write an entire post describing the problem, when the context already exists in this post. Could you please answer my question so I can mark the post as solved, without me needing to clutter up the site with very short, context-less questions?


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Motion Tracking Markers don't show up!
I just got Blender 2.8 (ok, I got it a long time ago but it's my first time trying it out).
I watched a tutorial on Motion Tracking ("Camera tracking basics (in blender 2.8)" on YouTube), and I followed all the directions; Exported the video to image sequences, imported into "Motion Tracking" on "VFX" mode, added trackers (the only difference is that I used the "Track Markers" (CTRL+T) button on every point, because it's not a complicated scene. The movement is very small and almost on a 2D plane, not a 3D plane.
So I added 8 points (as seen in the image), and checked that they all matched the movement correctly.

(Amazing, it stabilizes my video when I press "L"!)
BUT, now when I go to the Layout panel, add an object constraint, and toggle "Motion Tracking" in "Viewport Overlays", nothing happens! The camera doesn't move, no points show up.

And I'm stuck and need to go to sleep. Could someone educate me as to what's going on?
All I want is to add some text to a scene, so I could walk past it, etc.
How can I achieve this? Please help!
Thanks in advance,
BeardWix.

What you are missing is solving the scene if you want motion reconstruction in 3d.
In the solve tab press Solve Camera Motion

Once the scene is solved, open the scene setup and press Setup Tracking Scene.

That will add a camera tracking constraint to the camera that is linked to the track information and camera solution.
To view the video through the camera view, press Set as Background
Additionally you could also add empties to the scene to match the trackers. Press Link Empty to Track

Thank you! Very helpful. Now all I need to do is to re-record my videos with dozens of trackers, since I can only find about 6 usable tracking points. Solved!

If you want to learn some more about tracking read this post that details a lot of the problems and solutions: How can I get better results when doing camera motion tracking also look in the internet for a series of videos called "Track, Match, Blend" by Sebastian Koenig. He explains the whole process very well.

In the image you posted there are plenty of elements that can be tracked. What matters is to have elements that cleary stand out from their surroundings and that can be recognized clearly by the trackers from one frame to the next. Use the cacuts, the base of the tree, the wall behind.

Haha, that video was a dummy video I was using to test the features. My ACTUAL video was much lower in contrast and frame rate, so I'm going to re-record it in 60fps, and put some trackers on the ground to make the process easier. Thanks for the help again!

Read the link. It will save you a lot of time.

Thanks, I've already been reading that up a bit. The only annoying thing is that those trackers are of absolutely NO help when the scene is outdoors! Sigh. Time to print out some new trackers that are more visible in the scene..


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Pulling a net tight
I am trying to drape a net using the cloth physics, but then is there a good way to make it look like the four corners are pulled and "staked" in a certain place?  My first thought was some kind of force field, but then I was curious if I could somehow pin the corners of my net to the plane.  Maybe the best way is to just do it manually.  I'm very new to Blender so just looking for some direction.  Here is an example of the net without the corners being pulled tight to the plane.

There are pins and also seams strings that can help in this. Coudl you better describe the behaviour of the four corners? Should they be pinned far from the poles? And is this for animation or just modeling?

I would want the four corners to be as far from the poles to where it looks tightened around the objects, and pinned to the ground.  This is just for modeling.  It would eventually be exported as an obj for a computational test bed.

Cloth Sewings springs
I would add a sewing edge to each corner of the surface and set its ending point to a pinning group.
From the linked page of the manual:

...Sewing springs are virtual springs that pull vertices in one part of a cloth mesh toward vertices in another part of the cloth mesh.

Extrude the corner vertices and assign the edge and the new vertices to a different vertex group:

Starting from a similar scene where there is a single mesh acting as an obstacle and a grid surface falling from the top by the scene gravity and with cloth physic enabled, you should first of all enable the collision for the cloth:

Notice how the pinned vertex stay still on the ground because Pinning checkbox is was enable. The sewing edes are now simply connecting the vertices the belongs to by freely altering their lenght
Then introduce the sewing force and start tweaking the parameters (in the following image sequence are greyed out because I baked the simulation):
You'll probably have to lower the friction parameter too, gradually increase the resolution and quality of the simulation to achieve best results. For example I had to smooth out the top faces of the obstacle in order to lower the friction and transmit tension across the whole surface.
Finish by introducing the Sewing Spring vertex group in the Shrinking to restrict the tension only on the edges if that is the kind of simulation you are aiming to.
Here's what a possible result could look like by using the Shrinking group.

Notice how next to the 3D cursor the cloth is clearly not pulled, while in the previus example there were a bit of tension in that place also.

That is very cool.

This is great, thank you.  Just to clarify it is a combination of using the sewing springs and reducing the friction on the obstacles that gets you from your first messy drop to the tight drop at the end?

@fatalaccidents yes, in conjunction with the increased quality of the cloth and cloth collision simulation. As every simulation, start low and then gradually tweak things. Just adding the sewing springs should put you in the right direction, but then is a work of fixing things. In my example I also had to increase the pole end size, because the net was trepassing the tip...

@Carlo I seem to be having an issue.  I know how to apply pinning, but where do you apply the seams springs.  It would seem like it would be in the shrinking, but yours is not that way.  Lastly, I can only see the extruded vertices in edit mode, and they were ignored in the pin.  I'm a bit new, so it might be something very simple.  Edit:  I had not applied the wireframe modifier, that fixed seeing it.  Still don't know where to apply seams strings

@fatalaccidents My mistake...:) Yep, I forgot to target the vertex group I prepared! So in the simulation shown, it's actually using all the edges as seaming springs. Well, it's not working badly: probably with the group the pull towards the edges will be more prominent, but the ending result should be similar. I suggest anyway to start with little examples to take confindence with the workflow and then grow in complexity from there. https://i.sstatic.net/kgxz9.gif

@Carlo Sorry to keep bothering you, but I was curious how you created your mesh.  I used the wireframe modifier but your net looks more like what I want.  If it is a complicated answer I can create a new thread for it.

No problem! Feel free to ask. It's just a subdivided plane, a surface (like the one shown in the last image sequence. What you see before was only its wireframe rappresentation (a simple placeholder to see behind it without using the wireframe modifier).

Pinning with Hooks
Animated example:

"Interactive" example:

Overview:

Select your corner vertices and put them to the Vertex Group, that you will use as a Pinning.
Create as many Empties as pinned vertices. They should be in the same place. Create Hooks for those vertices with each Empty. I have done it by selecting Empty in Object Mode than with SHIFT selecting Plane, go to Edit Mode, select vertex and CTRL+V > Hooks > Hook to Selected Object.
Animate Empties.

Note: For creating net you can utilize this method: How to create and design hoops net and attach ot to a hoop?

Thanks ! How do you clear the cloth cache ? Actually I have to remove the cloth and set it again for my animation being correctly updated.

@gordie it should update after any change automatically... Try changing any settings in cloth panel and see if it works.

ok, thanks.  + how do you achieve this "interactive" example ?  You've got realtime in the viewport ?

It's not real time. Just set very long animation and hit play ;)


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Scale flipping keyboard shortcut not woring suddenly [Keys: S,X,-1]
Ive just jumped back into Blender to try to create a simple metal girder model. I'm sure that pressing S,X and -1 should make the model flip as a mirror of what it was.
But this isnt working for me. I'm in Object mode and pressing those keys does nothing, if I press them twice it seems to blow the model up by like 100times or something.
Any ideas what this could be? Or is there a button to reset all keyboard settings maybe?

With your object selected you are only pressing them one at a time correct?

There isn't a button to reset keyboard settings.. even if it was it wouldn't clear but reset them, and by default S > X > -1 will scale by X axis. What is your model? Are you sure you can see scaling happened (e.g. if origin point is in the center of the mesh you might not see if it's scaled by factor of -1). Could you show what is "blow the model up like 100 times"?

thanks for the help guys. Imust have been being silly as I tried it in Edit mode and it worked straight away. My model was just a simple girder made from a few cubes. I was trying to scale -1 on the part that forms the criss-cross in the middle of the girders.


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Uvmapping and UVpeeling - How did they get the textures in the first place?? (eg. Coke can)
Really enjoying my progress in Blender so far. Have got to the stage where I know many things so i can at least make some simple projects nad fix the simplest of problems by myself now so its starting to become fun.
It's got me wondering something though, and Googling this particular question was quite difficult as it just brought up info about mapping the texture back onto a cylinder or can model etc.
So what would be the terminology used for the unwrap process of a real life texture, such as if I wanted to take a energy drink i have at home and turn it into a flat texture?
I'm unsure of exactly what that process is called, and the best way to go about it (bearing in mind, all i really have is a half-decent mobile phone camera to play with and not much other hardware)
PS. Its only for a fun personal project so I am not bothered about copyrights and not worried too much about superior AAA-level quality just yet etc , just wondering how to do this thats all.
One way I can think is just take lots of photos and splice them together, but this seems way too much relying on me (the human) to get things accurate. I'm sure you guys knw a better way :)
Thanks for any help guys

This question isn't exactly about Blender, but you could either Google an image of the flat label, or you could "unwrap" the actual can (or bottle label) by cutting a straight line down the seam and lay it flat on a scanner bed.  It would be very difficult to stitch photos of a convex object together.

I don't think the process of taking a real-world object's picture(s) and turning it/them to a texture even has a name... I hear a lot of people simply calling it "Phototexturing" though, and some call it "Photounwrapping".

ah thanks for the replies. Like i see there are many Coke versions so im thinking there must be some kind of way of doing it with taking multiple pictures of the can, but im only guessing. I wanted to do it with an energy drink and there arent any pre-made versions online. Perhaps if I manage it i will post it :) I was thinking about unwrapping the can but think ill still need to take a few pics of it to get it to look flat in the texture. Cheers for letting me know im not missing something obvious at least that does it for me.


text:
Blender only renders with 20% of CPU
I introduce myself, my name is Kepa and it's my first message in the forum, I wanted to ask for help with a problem that I have when it comes to rendering via CPU. I attached image, of what I comment.
As I commented the problem arises when I render through CPU, I have a workstation with a Dual Xeon 2699 V3-72 Processing threads, when I shoot render in Blender does not use more than 20%, as you will see in the attached image I had to correct it inside Of the performance section of the render tab, the auto threads detected by default puts me 36, that is half of them, I put 72 and nothing, is useless. I do not know if it is due to a Blender problem or that, I work under Max and with the rendering engine works 100% CPU I understand that it is Blender problem.
Any help would be appreciated.

Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/16251/how-to-render-a-30k-image-with-cycles

Maybe Blender is not well optimized under Xeon processor and can't fully detect/take advantage of the hardware available

From your screenshot, you can see that you are only rendering 12 tiles. If you have 72 hyperthreads, then 12 tiles / 72 threads ~= 16% utilisation. Options:

Render the full image, instead of small fraction that you are.

Reduce the render tile size so that you have more tiles rendering at once.

I had the same question and later realized that the graphic card (GPU) was near 100% while the main processor (CPU) was only around 20% (see the figure below). I understand this is happening because, in this case, the rendering is happening mostly on the GPU, not the CPU.


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smoke Rendering out is blurred
I am not convenient to express my settings，So have attached my file
I want to make the smoke more clear，Like an example of a photo
My file:https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9AIC7MxieHpdXN1QTdkbTZPZUU

You are showing us an opengl render from the viewport, did you try rendering it on a black background like the photo?

On the ones with all the mushroom clouds, it looks like you need more resolution in your smoke domain. This will allow it to use a lot more detail.
(Also, this won't change the look, but to make it calculate faster, you can enable Smoke Adaptive Domain in the domain settings.)

Did you look at his file? He already uses 128 subdivs for smoke and 3 levels of high res smoke domain with adaptive domain enabled. The bake already takes like 2 hours on my 40 core dual xeon machine, upping the resolution isnt the problem. The problem is hes showing us an opengl render from the viewport.

Ah, sorry. I didn't know it would show different cloud patterns.


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My object disappears is not hidden
My object is not hidden but in any case I can not see the object，The object will appear when rendering But I did not hide to the object

Can you provide blend-file?

我的文件下載檔案 https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9AIC7MxieHpQ3V5aWljVmdRTmc

You've used Alt+B - It is a clipping tool in blender.
All that you need to do ― it's just press Alt+B second time


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Blender quits after pressing the P key
I'm using blender with a Raspberry Pi 3 model B. When I use the text editor and run the script, it show that my program runs normally in the terminal. But, when I add the bge library and try to run the program by pressing the P key, blender quits.
If I run the text editor as a script it show me an error telling me that the bge not a library in Python, so the only way to run the project is by pressing P key.
At first, when I run blender in terminal it show me this message:

But, after pressing P key in blender the program quit and the terminal show me this message:

Any help is appreciated.

Not sure if this is related but is your pi able to run blender? I have one too and though it's great it's not very powerful.

so you think the problem in the raspberry pi not in the system or the program ??

Could well be though have you checked your bash commands or tried a different terminal? Also is it possible to map the command to a different key and tried that?

all keys work perfectly just when i put the p key the program stop and quit no just the p key also when i start the game engine by clicking the start button but what you mean about "have you checked your bash commands or tried a different terminal? "

Was just wondering if the issue was in the command line. If you're on Linux then chances are you're using bash is all.

Why are you using sudo to start blender? You do know that running GUI tools as root that don't require it is not recommended, furthermore that are not designed to do that will cause all kinds of problems. There are tools that need root privileges, but Blender is not one of them.


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Panoramic camera in Eevee engine
Does anyone know if the Panoramic/equertangular/360º camera will work with the Eevee engine? Maybe realtime viewport and/or when we press the render button?

Hi! Yes, the panoramic camera menu don't have any option to 360º render. And when I press to render, it make a normal camera image.

Please check this: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/75254/7777 answer on how to make panoramic distortion with a refractive plane. It won't be 360°, but with multiple renders you can stitch it together. You can also make 6 normal renders of 90° squares to form a cube map and then convert it into 360°panorama.

EEVEE doesn't support Panoramic, for now.
:(

I have no idea why this was downvoted twice. "No" or "This is not possible" is a perfectly valid answer for a question asking if something is possible/will work.


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Duplicated object still has parent material when exported to fbx
I duplicated (using Shift+d) and created 3 arrows from an arrow(This had a purple color). In Blender, the three new arrows have different colors, but when I export these objects to fbx format and use them in Unity, they still show with the parent's purple color.

Tried the following

tried un-linking the objects by pressing U and selecting Object & Data & Materials + Tex.
Verified that there is no link by going into the mesh tab for the object. (Saw that if there is a "2" beside the "F", it means that it is linked)

Created different materials for each of the arrows.
Verified online that the exported object has the purple color and not Unity issue.

I might be missing something trivial, but I was stuck here for the past 30 minutes.

This seems to be an issue with Unity not Blender. Also see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures

Thanks Ramos, I will use the blend file directly instead. And copy the materials from the auto-generated folder in Unity


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How can I animate Render Regions?
Back after a long time.
Very stressed and need to go to sleep so.. I'll make it short ^^;
I am working on short animations with transparent backgrounds, in order to superimpose the clips over videos taken in real life. They'll be, maybe, a few seconds long.
Most of them will only take over a small section of the screen, OR take over different parts of the screen (as in, the size will change). An object flying towards the screen and out of sight would start off tiny, then move to take over 1/3 of the screen, then disappear. See?
Problem is, as you'd know, Blender renders the empty space (often over 95% of the screen), wasting tons of time. My PC is not the best. Rendering one frame at 1080p takes over 2 and a half minutes. (The test project I'm doing is 60 frames, but It could always get longer so.. I'd like to get a solution right now)
If the object was stationary, I could just use the Render Region and be done with it. But it moves, which means I need to animate (keyframe) my Render Region!
I've looked this up and there seems to be ONE person who actually made this possible, Markus from Blenderartists.org. He wrote a script that makes Render Regions keyframable, perfect for my issue.
However, it seems to be outdated. Entering the script into Blender's Python console leads to a long sting of errors:

There seems to be an add-on on sale for $6~7 that does this, but that's a last resort. Are there any ways I can animate/keyframe a Render Region?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/44504/possible-to-set-render-border-exactly https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/61419/how-do-i-create-a-precise-tight-fitting-render-border-around-an-object/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/32127/is-there-a-way-to-have-cycles-skip-rendering-alpha

Hi :). If the background is transparent, simply check "adaptive samples" and Cycles will only use 1 sample on transparent areas

Related: How to speed up rendering of transparent areas

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Your first link was not relevant, 2nd and 3rd link simply led me to the add-on which I already mentioned here. Thanks, but not the answer I was looking for!

and @JachymMichal , thanks so much! Enabling that option made render times go from 2m 40s to 1m 40s. Not bad! (I tried removing the shadow catcher and lamp in the scene in hopes that it would quicken the speed, but that didn't work, haha.)
Do you have any suggestions to quicken it up further? And do you mind putting your answer in a separate "answer" so I can select it as correct? :)

Hi :). You could just accept the closevote, it will link both questions. To keep the site organized :)

@JachymMichal I selected that as the answer, BUT it's not the answer to the question I had.. whoops! Not sure what to do.

Hey :). No worries, your question is a nice example of the XY problem. You can keep it linked, if it's okay with you. It will ultimately direct more people to the solution.


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How can I track a moving board and superimpose a video on top of it?
You know Captain Disillusion? "The World's Greatest Blenderer"?
Well, he does this effect all the time in his videos; Adding videos on top of a board he's holding, to make it seem like he's holding one large, suspiciously bezel-less, screen.

Now, I'd like to emulate that in my video project.
This MUST be a simple process, easier than adding a 3D object to a scene, since it's simply tracking a 2D plane and superimposing a 2D layer on top.
But I just can't figure out HOW I would look this up!
"Chroma keying" just turns up tutorials of how to remove backgrounds from videos (Done that before), and other keywords didn't help.
So, how can I do this? And, do I need a green board for this, or would a white board with dots on it be better? And importantly, how would I go about masking the video (to compensate for fingers, etc)? Would it be better to use Adobe After Effects, since I have that in hand?
Thank you guys for the help!
It would be amazing to be able to make this effect work.

What you want is called Plane Tracking. The idea is that you associate 4 trackers to the vertices of a plane or an image.
Track the elements and select Create Plane Track.

In the compositor you use the tracking information to deform an image.
For more detail read the following links:
Can't choose Plane Track in Plane Track Deform node while compositing
Is it possible to take a mask clip and 'connect' it to a specific point on a moving object?
And yes, it would be easier to use a green (or blue) screen on the card you film, otherwise you will need to create masks over the fingers and other elements that occlude the card. Such process is called rotoscoping, it is more complicated and tedious than dealing with green screen.

I was JUST trying out masking.. It is a real big pain. Could you please tell me more about using green screens to add plane trackers? I have no idea how to start off, and every tutorial I see just uses trackers and masks.. I would REALLY appreciate it if you can tell me, that would make the process so much easier! Thank you for the help!

which I have done. Thank you for the helpful answer!


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Animation curves in 3D View

Is it possible to display and edit the selected object/objects animation curves in the viewport like the attached image.
This would be a huge productivity boost.

https://sites.google.com/site/bartiuscrouch/scripts/motion_trail is exactly what you are looking for.

Possible duplicate of Is it possible to create a path from an existing object animation?

@David Thanks ..  the download link is broken though.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Not a duplicate question. the curves need to drive the animation, not a visualization of the animation. Editable curves like the Graph Editor.

OK I just went back and got the link, again, https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/BAC/browse/master/animation_motion_trail.py?view=raw What happened is that it generates a temp url for the raw file, and that is what I had linked to.


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The Model doesn't appear when rendering....? UPDATE
I'm sorry for my last question I wasn't know what I have to upload to make my question clear also I'm a beginner ...
I have finish my tracking then try to render using F12 the result as shown in the screenshot
it show only a shadow

and as you asked I will upload .blend file
https://www.mediafire.com/?x5d1n0z99iufle3
please help me with this problem ..Thank You

Hi, next time please use http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ to upload your file (it's dedicated and permanent) then edit your question and append the provided link. That said, I got your file, and it  seems that is your node setup to screw it up, apparently. Probably the (complicated) alpha setup makes your suzanne mesh transparent and so it isn't visible...

also, I connected a viewer node to the renderlayer node using "foreground" and it shows nothing... ?! maybe I'm missing something...

I guess your're trying to set up a "shadow catcher" in your scene, see this recent question: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/85100/cant-get-background-image-to-show-in-cycles-render/85113#85113. I suggest you to try 2.79 rc1 and use the new "shadow catcher" feature...

Open my file and try to change it so the object appear in the rendering mod and tell me how you do it

I tried a simple setup for you, based on the above comments: of course I have not your movie so I couldn't use your tracking setup (instead I used a fixed image just to give the idea). And, I used the new 2.79 rc1 shadow catcher setting (of course this using the Cycles renderer)

As you see the node setup is way more simpler than using previous blender versions...
Maybe this helps you, maybe not, but anyway I think it will at least in future projects.


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What is the correct way to texture a cave for a game engine
It is not a good thing to make a high quality cave walls for a game engine.
If I create in  Blender a wall for any room, I can create high poly model and then bake a texture for it, then I can use it for low-poly version of this wall.
But it is possible for "small" objects. It could be one wall of big room, but what should I do with long caverns? I cannot UV them and cannot use Blender modifiers in Unity engine to make distortion of the walls and so on...
So I ask anybody, who can give me an advise - what is the best way to create cave texture?

Could you provide some images of result you are expected?

http://imgur.com/uPVGG6V

Depending on what kind of game engine you are using
big objects like a cave are consider terrain as i know
so your best solution here is to sculpt and material paint the cave in the game engine
but you can split the cave into smaller objects and work with them
I have seen this used ..even if it give bad lighting results


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Gray-scale operation on nodes
While I was  playing with nodes I wanted to check which gray-scale algorithm blender use. And i came up with this node system:

But I got this strange result. Where did i make mistake?

Why is this a strange result? What would be the correct output?

Wow, @DuaneDibbley, you are actually right! Thank you! I wish I  could mark your message as answer!

The luminance weights are intended to be summed. That is, for any given colourspace, multiply each light by its luminance position, and sum the result with the other two. You will end up with equal values across all three channels.
For REC.709 lights, which are the lights that define the sRGB specification, the formula would be:
Y = 0.2126*R + 0.7152*G + 0.0722*B


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baked normals dont fill uvs

I am having trouble with baking normals on these pants i modeled. you can see in the image that the top right. The normal just ends in the middle of the uvs. does anyone know of a way to deal with this sort of things? I had a high poly pair of pants with the folds and details and then retopologied using the snap to face toggle. so the models are the same shape and size.

The problem was to do with the Ray Distance setting. I dont know how it works exactly but it happened to the parts of the leg that were facing each other and sitting close to each other. turning the ray distance down to .1 instead of 1 made the normal render perfect.


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Does increasing Blender's noise texture increase the quality of the rendered video?
For example if (in the noise texture:Node editor) I increase the scale to 1000
and the detail to 20,000 will the quality of the rendered video increaase in quality or will it be neglible?

Short answer: it depends on your intentions and on the scene. Just try different settings.
Longer answer: the noise detail is not a quality setting, you might want a "blurry" look. And even if you prefer the "rough" look, it might not matter depending on the scene (for example if your object is far away from the camera).
Note that creating a more detailed noise requires more computing time. It depends on your scene whether this extra time is significant.
The scale is not related to the detail (or to the quality), the best scale depends only on your intentions. The scale setting should not influence the rendering time.


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select_next_item() work only with history selection?
I'm trying to use select_next_item() function to select the next vertex , and I select the vertices from a List .
Unfortunately it does not work
Here is simple code:
import bpy,bmesh

obj = bpy.context.object.data

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj)

vert = []

for v in bm.verts:
    if v.select:
        vert.append(v)

bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='TOGGLE')

vert[0].select=True
vert[1].select=True

bpy.ops.mesh.select_next_item()

bmesh.update_edit_mesh(obj)

Thanks in advance.

Using vert[0].select=True doesn't add the vertex to the bmesh select history, you need to add it yourself.
vert[0].select=True
bm.select_history.add(vert[0])
vert[1].select=True
bm.select_history.add(vert[1])

You may notice that the select history doesn't include all selected items, if you Alt-Click to select an edge loop only one vertex (the active vertex which was closest to the click) is added to the history. Shift-Alt-Click will then add a second vertex which is the new active vertex. If you use select all then nothing is in the history.


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how to save object data while changing mode (Object mode, Edit mode)?
how can I save the object data (Lists , edges , vertices , ...) if I switch the mode from 'Edit' mode to 'Object' mode ?
I wrote a script that append edges to a list in 'Edit' mode then call a function (from add-on called: Edit tools 2) that do some operations ;
One of the operations is changing the mode from 'Edit' to 'Object' then back to 'Edit' , when I want to use the edges from the list after calling this function
I get the error :
"BMesh data of type BMEdge has been removed"
and this error is most likely happening because of switching the mode.

The mesh data stored for an object is different from the bmesh data used while in edit mode, while the object data is static and used for drawing and rendering the edit mesh is optimized for adding and deleting items. When you enter edit mode the mesh data is copied to a bmesh structure which is copied back and destroyed when you go back to object mode. This is why you get the error as the bmesh data that you are using has been destroyed and no longer exists.
I expect you should adjust your code to not toggle in and out of object mode, you should be able to do what you want while the object stays in edit mode or perform the steps after you have finished in edit mode.
One option is to stay in object mode, you don't have to go into edit mode to alter the mesh, unless the user is interactively editing it. You can create the bmesh, edit the mesh and copy it back to the object, using bm.to_mesh() multiple times.
import bpy
import bmesh

me = bpy.context.object.data

bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(me)

for v in bm.verts:
    v.co.x += 1.0
bm.to_mesh(me)

for v in bm.verts:
    v.co.y += 1.0
bm.to_mesh(me)

for v in bm.verts:
    v.co.z += 1.0
bm.to_mesh(me)

bm.free()
bpy.context.scene.frame_set(bpy.context.scene.frame_current)

Thanks for the answer , I found that the function I call switch to 'Object' mode to take the object data : obj = context.active_object
,mesh = obj.data , is there any equivalent for 'context.active_object' in edit mode ?

The active object is context.active_object and should be the one that is in edit mode. You can change the active object with context.scene.objects.active = obj. You can get the mesh data to any object without it being active bpy.data.objects['Cube'].data or through context.selected_objects


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Boid Particles - How To Use Fighting/Battle Information In Animation (Fighting Ants)
I am experimenting with boid particles and I have set up an ant fight simulation, where there are two enemy boid systems emitted from different areas (vertex groups) of a plane.  "Allow Land" is enabled, "Allow Flight" is disabled (i.e., they crawl but do not fly).
Their "boid brain" rules include "Fight" and indeed they do go after one another.  Unfortunately I've had difficulty finding information about how the system uses the combat data.  It sort of looks like some of the particles slow down and perhaps stop after combat (maybe if their health is low?) and occasionally some seem to just disappear (maybe if their health goes to zero?  does a critically wounded boid just keep losing health even if it is not attacked, or does a dead boid just stick around for a while before disappearing?).
So part of my question is just trying to determine what the default programmed behavior is, if this is documented somewhere it would be handy.  But I'm also interested in finding out whether I can change or supplement this behavior.  Could I access the particle health status in a driver (perhaps to drive a shape key) or via the Attribute node?  Is there an attribute that tells me whether a particle is engaged in combat?
If that's too vague: ideally I would like my ants to go into a fighting pose when they are fighting (maybe rearing up on their back legs?) and when dead maybe turn upside down or change color or something.  This is both to simply understand what's happening (how savage the battle is) and ultimately to depict the combat animation with a bit of realism.  Thanks in advance!

Thank you cegaton, I did of course peruse the official documentation as well as do a  number of searches on this and other sites before posing my question.  If this documentation answers my questions I have failed to spot it.

E: I just wanted to emphasize that I really have searched and not found what I wanted.

Those general resources on boids do not speak to my particular questions about whether there are "health" and "is_fighting" attributes in blender's implementation that are reasonably accessible without delving deep into custom python, nor about how blender's implementation translates those characteristics into specific particle behaviors.  I appreciate the spirit of providing any info at all, but I think you're also demonstrating my point that there is little specific guidance out there.

were you ever able to figure this out? The best I managed to do was use geometry nodes to extrude an "energy beam". but this only works against an object, not against enemy boids (so all the boids were firing at the same thing, not in individual fights, as would be preferable). I'm not sure why there isn't more interest in this. The boid particles each have their own health information, and attack information, which it seems to me could be used as the factor for different shaders at the very least. not to mention all the things you could do with geometry nodes if you had access to the info.

I think you are expecting too much from the boids fight option. The boids documentation describes fight as Move toward nearby boids. It won't animate two ants in combat for you.
For more advanced simulation options have a look at Crowd Master or the commercial Crowd Sim 3D.

I guess I'm not "expecting" anything at all, rather I'm trying to understand what's provided, including the limitations thereof.  I have found boids to be poorly documented even by blender standards, and while I love blender we all know its documentation is sometimes sparse, that's exactly why this site is so valuable.  I appreciate the links, my goal is more to "understand boids" than to find other solutions.


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UV export layout for baking in cycles
just a quick question : is it possible to save the UV map with the UV export layout when we create a mesh,  so we can just use it for do the baking and dont be obliged to unwrap again?
I hope im clear enought with my broken english.
Thanks

UV layouts are saved withing the mesh itself, not exported. You should never have to "unwrap again" unless you change your mesh, exporting is used for editing textures in external applications like Photoshop, GIMP, or other image editing software

OK thanks so i dont need to worry about that.

UV layouts are saved withing the mesh itself, not exported. You should never have to "unwrap again" unless you change your mesh, exporting is used for editing textures in external applications like Photoshop, GIMP, or other image editing software – Duarte Farrajota Ramos


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Shadows on emission shader
Hi i have shadows after rendering on emission shader but it doesnt appear in rendered view (see the screenshot).
I tried lot of different settings for the render, on the mesh itself... i really dont find whats wrong.....

Please edit your question and provide more info like screenshots of your modifier stack. Looks like the result of different modifier settings for viewport display and rendering

I got it there was a mesh behind i forgot to delete....  waste of time!


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Make object from a clone
Hi again i will try my best with my broken english to explain :
I have a Plane and Sphere, i link both with the plane as parent and the sphere as child.
After i use in Object Tab the Duplication (faces), so  i have as result a clone (the second sphere).
So now i would like to make a object from this clone (make duplicates real) and work on it, like a new mesh.
For that i have selected the parent (the plane) and do  Shift+Ctrl+A  and as you can you on the last screenshot i have on the left menu " make duplicates real"  but what do i need to do now?

Please do not ask the same question again. You could of edited your original with the extra information here.

Sorry i wanted delete the other one i didnt find how to do it....

Ok i got it, i needed to do Maj+Ctrl+A just after have made the duplication.
Im not sure to be clear again with my english but i hope it will help someone not just myself ^^


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Update edges in UV map after editing mesh
I was working on a mesh to create a new UV map for it. The UV unwrapping showed me some places in which the topology was awkward (tris in places that they could be quads), so I popped back over to edit mode, and fixed it by dissolving the bad edges and creating good ones. I neither created nor destroyed the existing vertices in this process.
Now my UV map has some rather large holes where there should be new edges. Is there a way to ask the UV editor to update where it has its edges placed?

The problem, I just found, was with the faces created by dissolving edges. Rather than create two new faces, it merged the entire strip into a single face.
Suggestion for others with the same problem: Enter face select mode to make sure that new faces exist where you would expect them to.


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How do iterate over Grease pencil selection with python?
Is there a grease pencil equivalent for bpy.context.selected_objects but for strokes or points?

There is no separate variable.  Grease Pencil strokes are objects like any other object and so are included in (or excluded from) bpy.context.selected_objects.
If you want just the selected Grease Pencil objects, you can use the list comprehension [object for object in bpy.context.selected_objects if object.type = 'GPENCIL']

This makes sense but i was hoping for something that would list the strokes or points as being selected.


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How do I make data that the bpy.types.UIList can read?
I started with the blender template ui_list_simple.py hoping i could create my own layer system. But i cant seem to create a data block that the layout.template_list can list. when i try to imput my own data the panel just does not render. any help is apreciated. My code is below. Here is a pic of what is showing.
import bpy

class MyLayer(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    name: bpy.props.StringProperty()
    root_dir: bpy.props.StringProperty(subtype='FILE_PATH')
    index: bpy.props.IntProperty()
    active_index: bpy.props.BoolProperty()

class COMPOSIT_OT_create_layer(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = '3e.creat_layer'
    bl_label = 'create_layer'
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        bpy.types.Scene.My_Layers = []
        bpy.types.Scene.My_Layers.append(bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=MyLayer))
        return 'FINISHED'

class MATERIAL_UL_matslots_example(bpy.types.UIList):

    def draw_item(self, context, layout, data, item, icon, active_data, active_propname):
        ob = data
        slot = item
        ma = slot.material
        if self.layout_type in {'DEFAULT', 'COMPACT'}:
            if ma:
                layout.prop(ma, "name", text="", emboss=False, icon_value=icon)
            else:
                layout.label(text="", translate=False, icon_value=icon)
        # 'GRID' layout type should be as compact as possible (typically a single icon!).
        elif self.layout_type == 'GRID':
            layout.alignment = 'CENTER'
            layout.label(text="", icon_value=icon)

class UIListPanelExample(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "My Buttons"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_category = "View"
    bl_options = {'DEFAULT_CLOSED'}

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        col = layout.column(align = True)
        col.operator('3e.creat_layer')

        layout = self.layout

        obj = context.object

        layout.template_list("MATERIAL_UL_matslots_example", "", obj, "material_slots", obj, "active_material_index")

        layout.template_list("MATERIAL_UL_matslots_example", "compact", obj, "material_slots",
                             obj, "active_material_index", type='COMPACT')

classes = [
    UIListPanelExample,
    MATERIAL_UL_matslots_example,
    COMPOSIT_OT_create_layer,
    MyLayer
    ]

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

You need to use a CollectionProperty to create a list recognized by the serialization system, not a regular python list

@Gorgious is right. I found a good demo of it here if anyone else needs. https://sinestesia.co/blog/tutorials/using-uilists-in-blender/

Thank you that was exactly what i needed!


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How can I proportionally scale a UV Map when scaling the object
I have a mapping node connected to an image texture to tile a carpet image on a plane. The results are OK until I scale the object. I am looking for a way to scale the plane without enlarging the carpet image texture.
Node setup: UV Map -> Mapping -> Image -> BSDF -> Output

OK result

After I scale the plane the carpet texture is too large. I know I can go back to scale the texture but is there a way where I do not have to do that?

IDK if it matters, but I want to keep this in EEVEE.

One way is to use Object Coordinates and an Empty.
The texture will then keep its size when objects are scaled.

Add an ampty to your scene
Set texture coordinates to Object and target your empty
Adjust the texture position/size by moving/scaling the empty or via the Mapping node.


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The Internal Clipboard is Empty when copy-pasting material nodes from one material to a new material
I am creating several materials that use the same nodes. I copy the nodes from one material to a new material and I get the error, "The internal clipboard is empty". I do not always get this error. Why does this error happen?

i think blender 4.x still don't support this .
i try to copy paste Geometry node , same issue.
someone talked about this three years ago:https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/94403
four years ago :https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/n5fbbc/?sorting=hot
there is an addon for blender 2.8,which can use on material nodes.
you can try :https://blenderartists.org/t/nodecustombuilder-2-8-free-addon/1152185

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


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Image plane Invisible when in front of objects
I am using Blender 4.3. I added an image as a background using an empty. The image is invisible when in front of other objects.

What about the Depth setting in the Data panel ? Above where you set the image path.

@Lutzi I think that this is the answer

@Lutzi Thank you, this is the correct answer. If you want to make an answer, I will mark correct.


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Baking normals with Multires modifier vs cage
Below you can see the baked normals for Cage and Multires.
Both yield almost identical results. But which of the two is more prefered? Is there a reason why I should use the elaborate cage method?
Rendered in Cycles.
Cage

Multires


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How to add/mix two bump's
Hello i have a prototype for 3d modeling that have scratchy surface and also a milled logo on surface that is deeper than scratches. So I have two bump files. The question is how in Cycles  separatly adjust  the strait of each bump and then add/mix it together put it in displacement and than bake normal map from all of this.

There is a Color Mix Cycles node with a multitude of blending modes that should cover your use case.

The mixing of two bump maps is the easy part. Converting that data into a normal map is the tricky part. There is an app called AwesomeBump that can convert it for you. (I haven't tried it myself because I can't find a Mac binary.) Otherwise, you can of course do it all in Blender by baking the combined bump map, and then using that as a displacement map with the Displacement Modifier, and baking a normal map from that. What's confusing is that we can't bake a normal map in tangent space unless we duplicate the object, select also the original, and choose the Selected to Active option.

Here's a .blend if you want to see an example. Just click "Bake" on the bottom right. The Image Texture node must remain selected when you do this.


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How to only render shaders on one side of an object
I was watching a youtube video about level design.  It spoke about only showing shaders visible to the player such as the inside of a room but not the outside for performance reasons.  How do you make the inside visible and the outside transparent?

Sounds like you want backface culling. The answer in this thread might be helpful: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/72165/is-backface-culling-possible-in-render-mode

That is an intrinsic shader property dependent on the specific rendering engine you will use, which you never mention. Unless you use BGE, it is not something you would do directly inside Blender, and hence off topic here. That is most likely done by default anyway. For Blender Internal/ BGE see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/59070/striped-sphere-hide-backfaces/59073#59073


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Use skybox texture as world texture
I have skybox texture which is a cubemap. Something like this:

Is there is any way to use such texture as world texture? It I just use this texture for world I get bad result:

Skyboxes are used on cubes tracking your camera's position. Then, with a little compositing, you render your scene and superimpose it over the skybox image. That's how you make it a world texture.
Attached is a way I work with skyboxes. I make the cube really small, barely larger than the camera. If I'm working on the scene in Render view, I hide the skybox by unchecking its eye in the Outliner panel. If I want to see the scene in context with the skybox, I scale up the skybox to surround most of the scene.
The thing is: it doesn't matter what size the skybox is, because if you check out the compositor, the scene and the skybox are rendered separately, and scale doesn't change the camera's perspective of the skybox.
To fly around the scene, select the skybox and scale it encompass the  4 objects in this scene. Then select the camera and go into camera view. Select Render view, and hit shift-F. You're now in fly mode. Use your mouse to turn and your WASD keys to move (shift to accelerate). The box moves with the camera, but doesn't rotate with the camera (check out the constraints).


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Get bone rotation in pose mode using Python
I want to get angles of joints in armature in pose mode, see the picture below. I tried to get local rotation of bones, but I can't find a way to do this.

I tried:
bone.rotation_euler()   # everytime returns [0, 0, 0]
bone.matrix.to_euler()  # everytime returns some constant value e.g. [2, 0, 0]

I can rotate bone, but values don't change. How can I get actual rotations of the bone?
Also I find out a strange thing:

If bone has Rotation Constrait I can rotate it to constraint and it stops, but in Transform panel I see that angle is stil growing
If I use IK and move bone, location and translation in Transform window doesn't change.

Maybe this is relating to my problem. What is actually displays the Transform panel?

The bone.rotation_euler property is only used if the rotation_mode is set to use euler. The rotation from the matrix property should update with any rotation that is within constraint limits. Are you sure you are looking at the right bone? context.active_bone is not the same as context.active_pose_bone

I figured out that matrix works well. I was testing using console and values don't change when I move bone and call it, but when I add this code to scene_update_post handler it's works, but returns bone rotation in global coordinates. Thanks to your commetn, rotation_euler with rotation_mode is works. Can you write answer so I can accept it?

UPD: I test It with IK and rotation_euler doesn't change when IK-driven bone is moving.

First note that bones have two representations within blender, the EditBone data represents it's static rest position within the armature while the PoseBone is the animated bone data that you would be moving around. The edit bones are stored in obj.data.edit_bones while the pose bones are in obj.pose.bones.
The rotation_mode value of a pose bone is used to switch between using rotation_euler, rotation_axis_angle or rotation_quaternion. These three rotation values can be seen in the bones properties and will show values without any constraints being applied. Note that euler values are stored as radians so you may want to use math.degrees() for the display value. Also the W in axis angle is radians.
The pose bones matrix value should give you the world position of the bone after constraints and drivers have been applied. You can get the bones euler rotation with bone.matrix.to_euler(). If using bpy.context to get the bone, you will find that bpy.context.active_bone.matrix will give you a matrix of zeros and ones while bpy.context.active_pose_bone.matrix will give you the matrix that you are after.
You can use a panel to watch the rotation of a bone -
import bpy
from math import degrees

class SimpleBoneAnglesPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Bone Angles"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'

    def draw(self, context):
        arm = context.scene.objects['Armature']
        bone = arm.pose.bones['Bone']

        mat = bone.matrix.to_euler()
        row = self.layout.row()
        row.label(text='X: {:.3}'.format(degrees(mat.x)))
        row.label(text='Y: {:.3}'.format(degrees(mat.y)))
        row.label(text='Z: {:.3}'.format(degrees(mat.z)))

bpy.utils.register_class(SimpleBoneAnglesPanel)

great! helped me a lot!


text:
Trackpad with Surface Book cannot navigate 3D View
I can use blender fine with a mouse, however when using just the built in trackpad of my laptop, I cannot navigate the 3d View at all. No panning, no zooming, no rotating. Is this normal?

It's normal because the default controls for navigating around Blender's viewport all rely on clicking on the scroll wheel of a mouse. No laptops that I know of have a similar input that blender will use by default. You will have to set up the input to how you want to control the viewport. There is an option to 'Emulate 3 Button Mouse' in the User preferences in the input tab that may be what you are looking for.

thanks man that was quick. and that was kinda dumb of me as well, it was just one check box. haha. thanks a alot!

"No laptops that I know of have a similar input that blender will use by default.": in my experience, zooming, panning and rotating work fine without changing settings on Mac laptops, by using pinch gestures or several finger drag.

That's good to know. I'm not a Mac user (nor a heavy laptop user) so it's very possible that other laptops have similar controls as well. Have you found pinch and multi finger drag to be a decent replacement?


text:
using samples in blender cycles render layer tab
I recently ran into the samples in the blender cycles layer tab (see picture). Somewhere I read I could change the sample rate for a specific layer. This can be useful if one layer doesn't need as many sample rates as others.
Does someone know how to use this? Would be awesome.
Regards

As indicated by the tooltip when hovering the mouse pointer over it, the Render Layer Samples setting allows you to override the Number of samples used. Setting it to 0 (the default) tells Blender to use whatever is the default for the scene (ie, the number of samples set in the Samples panel of the Render properties). Setting it to a non-zero value will use that number of samples for that render layer.
Eg, setting it to ‘1’ will render that layer as if the Render Samples is set to 1.


text:
Export .dae with "include UV Textures & Include Material Textures
I have a simple blender file and would like to export with textures, however I do not see the option within Blender Version 2.79.
I've come across this questions many times (ex), but my interface is different and I cannot seem to find a solution.
Here is what others have posted they see:

And this is what I see:

Any help is much appreciated! Thanks!

This was changed as of 2.79 and now assumes choosing certain property from the dropdown (UV Textures or Material).

so what are you trying to archive? Textures are not bundled in your file. Does it not save the textures to the folder where you export your dae file?

As of 2.82.7 that only has 2 options under "texture options": 1."only selected UV maps" and "Copy", even though the manual says that it should have more, https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/files/import_export/collada.html. Did anyone solved this? I get all exported models in white.

I have exported many .DAEs with textures from 2.79 without any problems.
The top image you posted is from an older version of Blender. To paraphrase what Mr Zak said, the export menu in 2.79 has changed to what you show in the bottom image.
The settings that work for me are:


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Background picture in animation
Im trying to make an animation like universal, but I don´t know how to put a backgroud picture that doesn´t shows the same all the time. For example, in the intro of universal the stars on the background change when the camera focuses in a different direction. someone knows how to do it?
thanks

Try a skybox, or skydome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skybox_%28video_games%29
or even a simple Import Image as Plane and warp it a bit, if you don't need a full 360.


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How to properly make certain areas of a mesh transparent
I'm a beginner in Blender and seeking advice how to properly make certain areas of a mesh transparent.
I have a house, which is built out of a cube. In Edit mode I've added planes to represent windows.
These planes have material glass.
I would like to put a light source inside the house, however, as the material of the house is not transparent, the light does not come through the windows.
I tried to cut areas of the house where the windows are through loop cut and subdivide, but as the windows have irregular shapes, it requires ages to cut and introduces too many polygons.
I wonder if there is any better way to make sure that the areas of a mesh, where planes are located are cut out in order to be able to see light through them.
Thank you for any ideas!

Are you using Blender Internal Render or Cycles? You should use the "edit" button under you original post and add it there.

Those doors and windows seem to be overlayed faces atop of the walls. In that case even if you assign fully transparent material nothing will be visible, wall material will interfere with them. Model walls so they have faces cut in them which can be (for simplicity) deleted and leave a hole in the wall, then you know it really allows light to go through


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'Add scene ' in Video Editing doesn't insert the whole scene
I've got a problem with the video editing mode. My scene is ready (it's just one scene and it is about 1800 frames long) and I would like to insert it via Add - Scene - Scene. That worked well the last time I did this, now I added one more animation and it doesn't work anymore. It now just insert a small strip with about 200 frames cut out in the middle of my scene. Changing startframe and length in the n-menu doesn't work at all.
Does anybody has an idea what the problem could be? Is my scene to long?
PS: I use cycles render if it matters.
Thank you sooo much for your help!!
Sabine

no your scene is not too long (1800 frames is short in video terms.) check that the frame range on both scenes is set correctly. It is found in the Dimensions section of the properties window.

Thank you so much David! That was my mistake. Thought I just have to change the frame-start & -end in the timeline. Thanks!

You need to set the "End Frame" for the scenes, both the one containing the animation and the scene for the VSE.
The end frame setting can be found in the Render tab under the Dimensions section of the Properties window.
Or in the header of the timeline, here it is simply named "End".
If you have the animation scene's length set right the whole clip will show up in the VSE, but it will only render 200 frames.
However if you only set the VSE scene's length, and leave the other at 200, you will only see 200 frames in the VSE, and it will only render what is in the VSE.


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Blender 2.8 freezes when adding new geometry to an exisitng file
I have been having an issue in Blender 2.8, whereby I'm working just fine, and then at one point when I add new geometry (simple shapes like the sphere), Blender freezes.
This hasn't happened before, I am not importing models from anywhere, just adding new meshes and moving them around.

Hi and welcome to Blender Stackexchange. The Please add more information, like the polycount of your existing scene and maybe a screenshot.


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World background texture not showing in render
I just started out using Blender Render. I wanted to create a starry background for my world and did so, and it appears nice and fine in the preview for both texture and world. Yet when I render the image, my objects appear fine but the background texture will not appear. I looked at several other similar posts online but all seem to refer to older versions of Blender, unless I'm missing something. Anyone have any ideas?

Hi, knowing a bit more (settings, screenshots, image) about how you did set up the world would help to spot why what you expect is not working...

For Blender Render (internal), and for a flat repeating background (not a wrap-around 360 background) try the following things:

Add a world texture (if you haven't already)

Properties > Texture panel
Click the "World" tab (it's one of the three little buttons at top of texture panel)
Add texture
Type: Image or Movie
Image > (open image file here)

Check influence

Under the "Influence" section of the world texture I had to check "Horizon" before the world background would render

Check mapping

Mapping > Size
Increase X, Y, and Z values to make background (starfield, in this case) smaller and repeat more often

Sky shading (instead of transparent)

Properties > Render > Shading > Alpha: [Sky]

Thank you so much. It was the last point about shading that fixed it. Much appreciated.


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Logic bricks disappeared in the Blender editor, but still work, can't find them
I'm pretty new to Blender, but I have a model in which I defined a bunch of Sensors, Controllers, and Actuators that move my model in response to the keyboard in the blender game engine.
When I press [P]lay, the keyboard sensors I defined all work just fine. But when I look in the logic editor it doesn't show any sensors controllers or actuators. I don't know what changed between the last time I looked at the model and now.

Is there any way I can somehow hide my definitions of sensors,
  controllers, and actuators in some other layer or somewhere that I
  perhaps don't know about?

This is what I see, but a half dozen logic bricks still function as expected.

I have a model in which I defined a bunch of Sensors, Controllers, and Actuators... In the image i see that the selected object is a Camera, select your model. As you are new i assume that you dont know that each object have independent logic sensors, etc. that can be linked to controllers of other objects

Oh duh! I absolutely did not know that. Thank you, I thought I was going crazy. :)  Please do post that as an answer, that's exactly what I needed to understand. @Strapicarus

I have a model in which I defined a bunch of Sensors, Controllers, and Actuators... In the image i see that the selected object is a Camera, select your model. As you are new i assume that you did not know that each object have independent logic sensors, etc. that can be linked to controllers of other objects.
Blender Manual: Game engine


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How to render a sky in game engine?
I tried to follow this question.
How do I render a background image as a sky in blender 2.7x
I've also tried to follow a number of older tutorials and posts, but my shading panel doesn't contain an Alpha option as mentioned in that answer.
Also, under World I don't see a commonly referred to "Paper Sky", "Blend Sky", and "Real Sky" option, which causes me to lose context in most tutorials.
You can see below that I got the picture in, but it doesn't get rendered, and I can't find a tutorial or Q&A answer that seems to match the settings I see in Blender 2.78. So either things have changed or I've broken things beyond recognition (the later seems quite plausible). :)
Also, I'm rendering this in the game engine if that matters.

Lookup the word Skybox or Skydome.  I'm sure you'll find the solution you're looking for.

@Doyousketch2 Ah, I see, I can't follow these simple rendering tutorials because of the nature of the game engine, the skybox makes sense. That's the key insight I didn't understand. You can post that as an answer, it's what I needed to know, maybe with this reference link: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Build_a_skybox

Add a 'Scene' actuator in 'Add Background Scene' mode and add a Scene to the background of the current scene. You have lots of options when doing this.
See the example file, where I mixed two scenes and (using Python) I copied the rotation of the 'game' scene camera to the 'skybox' scene camera. Try to read the script, see the logic bricks, explore the scenes and you will understand how this method is powerful, allowing you to make a dynamic skybox in a scene and simply adding it to the main game scene.
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=48431
Alternatively, make a skybox object and parent to a single vertex of your game character. The skybox will follow your character location, but not the rotation, which is good for a sky.


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What needs to be done to make an arbitrary model display in Blender Game Engine
I've been trying to get some models to render in the blender game engine. I've picked up models on TurboSquid.com and BlenderSwap.com. The models render with F12 in the blender engine, but when I press P they appear to render nearly the same as the viewport when in texture mode.
This seems to be the case with most models I download and try to use in this way. Am I missing something I should do, or is it not reasonable to think I can download models designed for the renderer and think I can get them working in the game engine.
My end goal is simple: to pan a spotlight around the inside of a car interior using a few game engine logic bricks. I don't need the game engine version to look as good as a full rendering, but I'd like to use one of these pre-built models and see the spotlight move around.

"or is it not reasonable to think I can download models designed for the renderer and think I can get them working in the game engine" You generally cannot. Materials need to be made specifically for the Game Engine/Blender Internal

I did make sure to choose models that render properly in the Blender Internal Engine. But there is still a substantial difference between rendering and Playing a game.


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What is the most simple way to play a continuous but dynamic animation? Game-engine vs. animation?
I'm relatively new to Blender (or more accurately returning after a long hiatus).
I want to render a fairly simple animation continuously, the movement of the animation is based on an external process (a camera is following actions in the real world, and a process external to blender will decide the settings for the blender model and write them to a file). I'm using an existing model and simply updating a few properties of the model continuously.
Reading the values from the file and updating the blender model using python should be easy.

However, I'm unclear whether I'm better off treating this as an animation, or as a game in Blender? Which will be easier to configure and why?

Are you sure you want to use a file? This can became problematic, when the file gets written at the same time. When you want real time, it might be better to use a network connection. The overall design would be the same: define a protocol, establish a formatter (to send data) and a parser (to receive data).

It'll be a named pipe, that part I'm quite comfortable coding. It's the blender part I'm less confident in. :)  I've been looking into the game engine, and it seems like the right answer will be to run it as a game.


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How to pass a variable to bpy.app.handlers.game_post in game engine
I'm adding a handler with bpy.app.handlers.game_post.append(my_handler) to execute some cleanup code at the end of a game.
My handler gets called when I exit the game, but I can't find a way to pass in a parameter. Using global variables doesn't work. I also tried bge.logic.globalDict['my_variable'] but I can't access that from the post game handler either.

BPY doesn`t work with BGE, what exactly are you trying to do?

Hmm, my code gets called by adding bpy.app.handlers.game_post when the game ends. But the global variables are not available to me. I'm running a little http server when the game starts to accept commands from an external process that tell blender what to do in the game engine (my purpose is to produce a visualization demo for an external application)

For the moment I've found that overriding the ESC key to call my code does work, I can see the bge.logic.globalDict from that code.

Interesting, can you provide some screenshot to illustrate us. I know that bpy doesn't work outside of blender and if you use standalone bge, any call to bpy will break the game but obviously if the game run from blender everything should work, Anyway i would like to know more of course if you can and have time to show.

You might be able to access bpy data from inside the bge (as long as the BGE runs embedded inside Blender). You can use that to modify the Blender data from within your game. (It will take effect after the game session ended).


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Turning multiple materials into one texture
I'm fairly new to Blender so there might be an obvious answer to this, but I need to be able to create a texture based off of multiple materials, sort of. I'm making low poly game assets, and have just been assigning materials to faces to get them "textured", then exporting them as .fbx files and using them in Unity. However, this creates WAY too many materials in Unity. I'd like to just use a uv map, but whenever I try painting, the colors run into each other a little bit at the edges. Is there any way to translate multiple materials into one .png?

Baking may do what you need

Baking is the way to go. If you're in blender internal, baking is very straightforward. If using Cycles it is a little more complex but can give great results. Create an image for each map that you need, open that image and select the node in the Cycles node editor, then bake the map you need in the bake panel. It can combine the diffuse map from multiple UV projections, procedural materials etc.


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How to create a veil
I am new to blender and I'm trying to put a veil around the shoulders and chest region of a model. I have tried using the shrink wrap modifier but no luck. Any ideas on how to model the veil?
Here's an example of what I want to achieve

OK. Here's a link to an example of what I want to achieve;  https://www.dropbox.com/s/m683ovylskeerf8/IMG_20170527_212851_693.jpg?dl=0