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Creating/saving a shape key from moving a bone (Rig)
How can I create a shape key by moving the mesh's bone?
The bone I have selected will move the mouth mesh.

I moved it to the desired location.

And now I want to save this changed mesh as a shape key, so the slider will activate it and change it back to normal when the value is 0.

How can I save this final mesh as a shape key? The last picture will be the at the value of 1, and the first picture will be at the value of 0. Can I do this, without toggling Edit Mode, to create the shape key?
EDIT: Unless there's a way to save this pose (edited) in edit mode, I'll try to find another way to create this shape key.

I'm not sure if you can do this on a rigged mesh. I think the bone deformations will clash with the shapekey deformations. Someone might correct me on this.

Do you have another way of doing this? I'm trying to lip-sync it with words.

I know how to use shapekeys without bones. You just move the mesh by hand and then save the shapekey. You can mix shapekeys with bone movements, but I don't think you can save the bone deforms as shapekeys like you want to do. Again, I might be wrong (I have been at least once before).

Well, is there a way to save this mesh (edited) so it stays like this in edit mode? Until I switch it back?

If you have used bones to deform the mesh and now want to save that deformation, just use the PoseLib. You can save partial poses based on just the bones you select, so that you can save facial expressions as poses and then add them to other poses. I think that's the way you need to do this.

So I can save them in edit mode to create a shape key?

Have you tried?

Yeah. I just need to make the slider work.

There's a button under the shapekey panel that you need to click on to allow you to apply shapekeys in edit mode. It's beside the little pin button. Is that what you want?

Sorta. I thought you had to do something with a driver. So, I create a shape key, and edit the mesh, then somehow save that mesh to apply as value 1 in edit mode. Somehow?

Normally, you create a shapekey in edit mode and then use it in object mode. You can test your shapekey in edit mode if that button is highlighted. No driver should be necessary.

i think you will be better served by using the pose library and creating different poses

Select your mesh, go to the properties window, modifiers tab, in the armature modifier you'll find a button named "apply as shape key" wich does exactly what you're asking for.

Yes, but how can I make the value/slider open and close his mouth, by changing the slider's value?

See my comment above.

How I do it: To convert poses to shape keys,
First select your mesh in object mode, then click the little plus next to "shape keys" in the vertex panel; this creates a basis for your mesh, and it should say Basis or Base.
Then go in your armature's pose mode and create your pose.
Then in your meshes modifiers, click "Apply as shape key," this will remove your modifier so just recreate another armature modifier and set it to your armature again.
If you changed the location of the bones(not just rotation) for the shape key, the bones will displace their origin of manipulation if the shape key is used in conjunction with pose animation, as long as you do not use those bones in actual animations, you will be able to have scroll-able shape keys which work with the rest of the armature.
Also another tip for converting poses to edit mode without losing armature integrity,
Make your pose in pose mode, then normally apply the armature modifier on the mesh, open your armature's pose mode again and press "Ctrl-a" and click the first option, "apply pose as rest pose."  Then just reapply the armature modifier on the mesh.

Could you please post some pictures on this? Looks interesting but the switching order of object-armature-pose as shape, then what happens with the original Armature? This is what is confusing me. Could you please post pictures? Thanks.

I'm very new to blender. After I create my first shape key using this method, I'm unable to do it again. The bones in pose mode aren't connected to the meshes anymore. How do I "...recreate another armature modifier and set it to [my] armature again"?

This is not a typical forums so put this in the question section, or wait for the rep to go over 50 to comment.


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Fixing arm-bend in rig
I have followed tutorials, but I can't seem to make this sharp bend just right for a minecraft character.I changed the max and min amounts, but there is still a crooked line on the elbow.

To me it looks like your bend shape key isn't correctly connected to your armature

Did you use corrective shapekeys like in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3JWNIkwBZ8

Not sure. let me check.

Just add some loop cuts around the elbow...

Where exactly? Let me upload a image of edit mode.

@ Paul I watched the video, but the regular pose of the arm expanded.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Effects of python script are not permanent
I created my first python script in blender, the purpose of which is to manipulate an animation.
To be more precise, it loops over some F-curve and on some of its BEZIER segments, it changes the intermediate control points (left_handle and right_handle in blender speak). I am quite happy because the script does what it is supposed to do.
However, whenever I manipulate the animation otherwise (create a new keyframe or use the F-curve editor), the effects of the python script are undone. So I keep the editor window open and when needed, hover over it and do Alt-P; so by and large, the problem is only mildly annoying, but anyhow. Also, I meanwhile noticed that the scripted changes do survive a save, blender close and re-open. But the first added keyframe spoils it again.
Q: Did I miss some special call that needs to be made in order to make my scripted manipulations "permanent"?
For the record, here's the script, slightly shortened
import bpy
import os

fc = bpy.context.active_object.animation_data.action.fcurves
loc_z_curve = fc.find('location', index=2)

extrafactor = -1.5 * bpy.context.scene.gravity[2] / bpy.context.scene.render.fps / bpy.context.scene.render.fps

prevk = None
for k in loc_z_curve.keyframe_points:
    if not prevk is None and prevk.interpolation == 'BEZIER':
        frames = (k.co[0] - prevk.co[0])/3.0
        dist = (k.co[1] - prevk.co[1])/3.0
        extra = extrafactor * frames * frames
        prevk.handle_right[0] = prevk.co[0] + frames
        prevk.handle_right[1] = prevk.co[1] + dist + extra
        k.handle_left[0] = k.co[0] - frames
        k.handle_left[1] = k.co[1] - dist + extra
    prevk = k

Very hard to help without actually seeing the script you are using. Please [edit] your question to add the relevant part(s) of the script.

All I needed was to add two lines
prevk.handle_right_type = 'FREE'
k.handle_left_type = 'FREE'

The original / default handle types caused a recalculation with the consequences observed once the F-curve was "touched" in any way, and that is expected behaviour.

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


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Copy Rotation adding rotation to start position?
I am making a rig that transfers motion from one mesh to another via bones. This is for complex mesh hair strands. The base mesh has a cloth sim on it. A Chain of bones are constrained to follow this mesh. Another version of the mesh is then driven by this bone armature.
It works by having a vertex group of a horizontal loop at the top of each bone. The bone has a Copy Rotation constraint to this group, and an IK to the next group down (at its tip). The bones are not using inherit rotation.

The copy rot is giving strange results. The bones seem to get ~45 degree rotation around local Y. There is also X and Z rotation, but it is overridden by the IK constraint. I am trying to figure out where this rotation is coming from, and how I get rid of it. I do not want things to rotate until the simmed mesh (red in this picture) starts moving. This problem occurs regardless of the Space I use for the Copy Rot. Different combinations of spaces give different results, but all are wrong.
Where is this extra rotation coming from?

There needs to be a bone for every segment like this:

The bones are connected into single chain and using inherit rotation (but this is irrelevant because it is overwritten with constraints)
In edit mode the bones were aligned with Ctrl+N > Cursor with cursor being in the center of mass of the bone chain.
Then the red mesh (the reference hair strand) has a vertex group for each vertex on the bone chain containing that single vertex:

Vertex0 is at the root.
Here is setup of every single bone exept the root bone. The root has copy location from Vertex0 as a first extra constraint in the stack:

The bones will not rotate until you simulate the red mesh now. They won't follow the mesh perfectly (that's because vertex normals and how they work) but they will follow closely. To make the chain follow perfectly the bones would have to target polygons instead of vertices (it's not supported, they can target only vertices - with vertex groups).
Here is a blend with the beginning of hair rigged:

How DO vertex normals work? I had skipped trying this before because I was under the impression that a single vertex could not express rotation.

@Drudge display them in properties panel (N) under Mesh Display. It is the normalized average of normals of the faces that contain that vertex (if smooth shaded). Therefore a vertex normal is affected by surrounding vertices.

Well, I tried it, and I'm getting this, which is insane: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/b/223/ My settings don't seem to be any different, so I have no idea why my setup is tearing everywhere? I tried turning off IK, and observed that in pose mode, my bone chain went in a totally different direction from in edit mode.

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


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Limiting the roll on a rigid body cylinder joint chain
I am trying to setup a rig that is based on rigid body shapes driving bones that then drive a mesh. The current setup is a chain of cylinders attached to each other with rigid body constraints (point type.) A chain of bones is child of an IKed to the cylinders, and a mesh strip is controlled by the bones. (See attached file.)
Currently is working well, except that the cylinders can roll over and twist the bones too much. I would like to limit the amount they can roll. This seems to be the local Z. I have tried the Limit Rotation constraint. This succeeds in having them stop rolling at a certain point, but then they fall over and begin rotating in other directions.
How can I stop their roll without this new poor behavior? The file is attached showing my setup. Is there a better way to do this?

All you really need to do is get rid of the Child Of constraints on all of your bones.
The other thing I did which will improve the accuracy of the simulation, is change the shape of the ridge body collision shapes, so that they are thinner and wider (they can also be much shorter).
In this picture I have the ridge body collision set to "Box", and as you can see it works fine.

For reference here is before and after.

Thanks for the answer. Changing the geometry helps a lot, but it isn't enough to solve it if I have something like wind active. I need to be able to forcefully limit the rotation for when it is under extreme forces.


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Can animation be built up with multiple curve constraints?
I'm trying to animate this object hitting a wall. I have constrained it to a path.
Now I want it to reverse up by following another path.
Then zoom off with a third path.
I tried adding multiple follow path constraints to the same object, and keyframe them to follow one after the next, but it goes crazy.
I can't animate along one path as the object flips around when it is supposed to reverse up, and keyframing the position keys gets very complex.
So it seems the easiest way is to delete the path each time but keep the keyframe animation. And gradually build the animation in steps. Is this the right way to go?
If so, how do I bake the animation for each constraint path on a single object without affecting any other animated objects?

Your suggestion of baking the transformations as keyframes would likely work but I can understand why its not an attractive solution, since making changes to it would be very time consuming. While I'm not sure if this solution would work for your needs I think I've found a workaround that lets you switch the direction of your motion along a curve without needing to keyframe the influences.

Instead I tried to use the offset keyframes and shape keys to change the curve profile into the next stage of your path you want, switching to it at the moment you need and animating the offset to reverse the direction of travel. Here's an example blend I made https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LmXxBo9pAb2BZ2cee0_iGg1xqalWM9xY/view?usp=sharing
Aside from that my other suggestion would be to have 3 separate objects, one on each curve, that appear and disappear as needed alongside their animations.

There's already a clever answer, but I think that the easiest way to deal with many curves is to create an empty  following each path, then animate a serie of "Child of" constaints to make the character follow the relevant empty.

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


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Why won't Blender keep the render cache where I set it?
I have set my animation render settings in preferences to an image folder on my system, and yet when I render, the output path has set it in some random place that I cannot find. I can also find no way of finding the full path inside Blender.
To make matters worse I am on a Mac and Finder won't show me the full path either.
When I look in the folder I set my preferences to it is empty. This /tmp folder is a mystery. And I have no idea where it is.
How can I get Blender to show me the full path?
How do I set the preferences to place these render files in the proper default folder?

Related: Changing the default render path is not working. The path in preferences is just a 'default' for newly created blendfiles.

AFAIK /tmp/ is macOS's temporary directory that is deleted when shutting down.
To access it from Finder, open the "Go to the folder:" popup with ⌘ CmdG or ⇧ Shift⌘ Cmdg, type /tmp and hit "Go".
To choose a different path where to save your renders, you need to write a correct path in Blender's file output field. You can type it manually or use Blender's browser. Make sure you have full read/write access to that folder and that it doesn't contain any special characters, dots, spaces, punctuations, ... It can cause issues sometimes, so sticking to bland Latin letter and Arabic numbers dashes and underscores is the safe solution.
You can also just type //<filename> to output the render files alongside the .blend file.
Please note that the scene's file output is used only when rendering a sequence of images. If you render only a single image, you have to save it manually from the image editor, or use a "File Output" node in the compositor.

Although these explanations will surely help saving renders, there is this one issue which I stumbled upon a very long time ago already but decided to ignore it, and I could imagine that this is what was the source of confusion for the initial question, it starts with: "I have set my animation render settings in preferences", because in the Preferences under File Paths you can set a Render Output path. The Blender manual says: "Render Output - Where rendered images/videos are saved." Hovering your mouse over it says: "The default directory for rendering output, for new scenes."

In my Blender, it has the path "C:\Output" in there by default. The folder exists, however nothing ever gets saved there. Nor in any other path I put in there. Even if I delete the path /tmp\ in the Output Properties, the one from the Preferences is not used. If I try to render an image sequence without a path there, rendering stops after the first frame with "Render error (Permission denied) cannot save: 0001.png". So I'm wondering, what is this setting in the Preferences good for anyway? As I said, I decided to ignore this setting completely because to me it does not seem to work.

@GordonBrinkmann Hehe that is weird but it does exactly what it says. Try creating a new scene in your file and check the render output. No idea why the first scene in a new project defaults to tmp though. Might be a bug ?

@Gorgious Actually I never realized that :D Probably because most of the time I use just one scene in files. However, the description in the Blender manual is not so clear about that "new scene" stuff and a bit misleading. So if I would simply change the path in the Output Properties in my startup file to the one in the Preferences, then from this moment on it should be consistent, no matter if I create a new project or a new scene within this project...

@GordonBrinkmann agreed ! Blender works in mysterious ways ;)


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How do I stop the axis line from covering over my edge?
This one has been driving me crazy or a long time. I have tried every logical setting I can think of, but it will not switch off. I have even turned off every setting in viewport overlays but the line still shows, blocking the edge I want to drag up. Isn't the z axis line a viewport overlay?

Here are the edges I am tring to drag out by eye.

The axis point hides the edge

A possible workaround is to Kbd1 switch to Vertex Mode:

At least, then, you get feedback on the edge's end-position.
(There's also the F9 Adjust Last Operation panel, for tweaking from any viewpoint.)

Thanks. That's helpful


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Why are there black lines on my seamless texture?
I edited a seamless texture in affinity photo and added it to a spherical object. However, when I zoom in on the texture there are very thin black lines.

I cannot see any lines on the texture image itself:

On the texture they might not be visible and it's hard to see on the white background here, but to the right and bottom there is a single bright line. In the screenshot the line is dark, not bright - but the Image Texture node says it's a PNG, not a JPG which you uploaded here. So presumably the PNG has a semi-transparent vertical and horizontal line on the border, which shows dark on a darker background. In the JPG the transparency cannot be stored and I guess there the background is set to white, that's why it looks brighter in the uploaded image.

Those one-pixel lines at the right and bottom edges of the image become visible if you zoom in enough:


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Animation disappearing when closing and opening a project
I keep having issues with vanishing animation in Blender and I can't figure out if it's something I'm doing.
I have created an animation made up entirely of text to vocals. Each word is keyframed to appear and dissappear in the same place using the 'globally disable in viewports'icon in the scene collection. It plays fine. I close the project and reopen it. It's still there playing okay.
Then, I open a few different blender projects or work on something fresh. When I reopen my animation file and play it, none of the text will appear on screen, despite all the keyframes still being there. Nothing I try makes any difference.
Bizarrely, I have to select all the objects in the scene collection, delete them and then command Z to undo the delete. Then they all reappear as they should on the timeline. If I only delete and undo one, just that object appears.
Is there some sort of cache that I don't know about that is causing this problem?


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Cooky cutter from svg file for 3D printing
I have the idea to create a cooky cutter from a svg file. What I basically do is importing the svg and extruding it into z direction. But now I have to make the material anyhow solid, ideally some kind of V shape to have a sharp edge and a more solid part.

At the moment I don't know how I have to modify only one side of my curve to expand it. I found a link to a thingiverse file which actually shows what I am trying to do: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:35719
Here you have a solid part at the bottom, perfect for printing and a sharp edge for cutting.
Thanks in advance.
EDIT:
Maybe this is another example which would help but I am not able to add this to my curve/mesh: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:33096
Here they just added a border to the shape.

Could you give me more details? I can convert my curve into a mesh and give it also some height. My problem is to extrude one side of this curve to get something like a knife. The thingiverse example shows this very nicely.

Please show an image in your question of your curve.  Please see this ..... http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/47906/find-the-color-at-a-particular-surface-point-on-a-mesh/47916#47916 .... where an image creates a mesh.

I added an image how far I am at the moment. Would love to make the curve solid, so 1mm even thickness and adding a border to it like in my second link

If you wish to make curved surface to be thicker in the base and less thin in the top then don't convert curve to mesh because when it's still curve it can use Bevel object, which can be any other curve.

Solidify Modifier

Image above. The blue flower shape has the solidify modifier.  You can press apply to make it permanent.  You may need to look closely to see the thickness on top, and clicking on the image will show a larger image.
You can scale a ring smaller.  You can also scale the extrusion as a modelling technique.

Loop Cut and Slide
In the image below extra rings of vertices were added along the edge.


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Removing internal geometry before 3D printing
I am pretty new to Blender but I looked at some tutorials on how to build my own structure etc. I found one Youtube video at about 2:05 minutes, where they select all inner vertices with some clicks and removes them afterwards.
Can somebody help me to redo this on my objects? I have for example two cubes and they intersect each other. My next steps are joining these two cubes, I click in edit mode on Mesh > Faces > Intersect
Then I choose Self intersect and now I am losing track of the video, where he does Link select and inverts the selection and then magically he just removes the selected parts...
Can somebody help me on this a little.
If I let the internal geometry stay, my printouts in the printer get holes and other ugly stuff...
EDIT
Since I got now an answer where some people up voted but it is still not working in my example.
I added a screenshot
Here I have two cubes moved against each other. The answer from Gwenn suggests to use Select > Internal Faces but in my case there is only Select > Interior Faces. I guess this is a typo but it is also selecting nothing. When I click on Select > Non Manyfolds there is also no selection :-(
After following some links and checking the '3D Printing Tools' add on, I found the check function there which tells me how many problems where found in before printing (visible in the screenshot). It says no Manyfolds, maybe thats the reason. But I still have the problem of empty spaces within the 3D print where the two cubes overlap.
Again, I just created two cubes and moved them against each other until they intersect.
The only possible solution by now is to use a boolean modification, Difference and select the second cube. In this case the overlapping part gets removed from one of the cubes. Not very handy but by now the only solution which works.

see "invert selection" here http://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/meshes/selecting/basics.html#additional-selection-tools

@m.ardito thanks, I found the invert selection in the menu as well. I am really wondering how it actually in the video works. I can not select any links or so and just move them out of my object.

I guess he pressed CTRL + I?

I don't have the problem with the invert. He is doing this self intersect selection and everything afterwards is not reproducible for me. I can not select the links, not sure if I need some special settings for it, my invert afterwards is useless since I could select only the links and also I am not sure how to "just move" the selected links out of my structure.

Beginning from the very starting point, you asked about using Mesh > Faces > Inetrsect function described by Campbell Burton. To repeate these actions on your example, with those cubes joined select all and use the function, that's all.

:-( I am really sorry to bother, but when I do it like this, I get a little Exclamation mark No intersections found. I add a cube, copy paste it, move it a little to still overlap, joined, selected all, switch to edit mode, Mesh > Faces > Intersect and I get this warning no intersections found?!

As developer said in the video you should keep track of what to keep and what to throw away when using tool, so there're 2 ways. If you'd like to delete one of cubes after executing operation, select it and use Intersect. Second - if you'd like them both intersected - then you could've noticed that in the video developer changes Intersect function mode to Self-Intersect in the bottom of the left panel in order to do that.

All internal faces can be selected by using Select > Internal Faces in the bar on the bottom of the 3D View in Edit Mode.
Since internal faces are Non-manifold geometry, you can also use the shortcut CtrlShiftAltM to select them, along with all other non-manifold geometry.
Once you have the offending faces selected, you can use Del>Faces to remove them without affecting the rest of your geometry.

Thanks for your help, but unfortunately this is not working in my case. I added additional information to my question. Thanks in advance!

@drmariod If you have separate overlapping objects, use Boolean union to combine them. The method I outlined is for interior faces within a single object.

Thats why I also tried to join my objects (I will do this in the end endways) and I hoped to remove the interior faces in one step, even if I have several objects joined.

You can use the boolean modifier. In order to use it, you first have to seperate the cubes into seperate objects.
Go into edit mode, select everything with A, press P and click By loose parts.

You now have 2 seperate objects. Go back to object mode, select one of the objects and add a boolean modifier.

Select the other object under the object drop-down menu and change operation to union.

Apply the modifier by clicking on Apply.

You now have an object with the shape of both objects combined, but without the interior geometry.

All you have to do now is to delete the other object. Select it, and press Delete.

Result:

This is what I do at the moment, but I am using Difference. Here I no longer need to remove the second object. Or is there more advantage on union? I would love to create my object with all it's parts and then finally, in the and, remove all the internal geometries. If I do this always when I add a new object to my structure, I sometimes forgot to use the boolean modifier and I get empty space in my printout. Thats Why I look for some kind of fine-tuning in the end :-)

The main difference is that the difference operation does not combine both objects into one, but changes one of the objects so that it fits on the other. This is most often fine for 3d printing, but technically you still end up with internal geometry.

Good hint, I guess I will use this than instead.

Union doesn't always remove internal geometry. Way to fix this?

In more recent versions of Blender, you can use the equivalent of the boolean modifier within Edit mode, so you don't need to separate the objects and then apply a boolean modifier pairwise, like @Ezra suggests, but can instead select your mesh, press Space, type Boolean, press Enter, followed by F6 and then, in the box that pops up, change the boolean type from Intersect to Union.

when I press space, I cannot enter anything. Instead I get the context menu, with options such as 'Select box', 'Cursor', 'Move',.. I would love to do what you describe, but how?


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How to get automatic keyframing to work with the VSE Transform tool add-on?
I successfully downloaded and installed the VSE Transform tool add-on found at https://github.com/kgeogeo/VSE_Transform_Tools into my blender. Through the add-on, I'm able to click on the VSE viewport and move and edit things like images and movies around straight from inside it. The add-on actually works great, except for the way it works with keyframes.
To save any of my changes, I'm required to manually insert the keyframes. Automatic keyframing does not work. For example, if I create a keying set, add the location positioning properties of a transform strip to that new keying set, insert a keyframe, change the frame I'm on, and try to change location positioning through the add-on, no new keyframe is inserted even with automatic keyframing enabled.
Initial frame:

100 frames and a positioning change later:

The only way I seem to be able to keep any changes made is to manually insert a keyframe myself. In the same example, if I use manual keyframe insertion at the end, the changes keep.
I would like to note that the add-on actually came with its own additional way of inserting keyframes without a keying set, accessed by moving the mouse pointer over the VSE viewport and pressing the I key. Inserting a keyframe through this secondary method does not immediately show a new keyframe in either the dope sheet editor or the graph editor. The add-on appears to wait on inserting a keyframe until blender takes one more additional action (changing selection, changing frame, etc.). I feel as though this somehow might help explain why automatic keyframing doesn't work natively with it.

Seems to be something that has to be addressed to the Add-on devs.

First, thanks for making me know this addon, it's fantastic. Now, I saw that you reported this as an issue in GitHub (I reported two issues more yesterday!). Did you report this in BlenderArtist thread? There are more interested people there who might fix this problem.

I know this is an old post, but anyone else looking for this should know that I have fixed this feature and a number of other problems in my fork of VSE_Transform_Tools.

I just wanted to say THANK YOU so much for picking this up and improving Transform Tools. It was an amazing add-on originally made so much better now.

Looks nice! What are the main differences between yours and the original?

Checkout the releases page to see the first change log. Other than that, the snapping feature is new. In the addon preferences window, you have the option to install version 1.0.0. You can install that and see for yourself.

I added a youtube video to demo some of the changes.


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Stopping Blender seeing all system/network folders in campus/school install
When I install blender on a school Windows network all the folders are suddenly visible, such as the C: drive, these folders aren't visible from MS products such as Word. Is this a blender issue or a network set up issue?  How do I enforce folder permissions on blender?

that seem to be an approach. But is there a way to make Blender function like a vanilla MS product? The tech team are a little time short...

@pluke - These are no vanilla MS product settings, your tech team set those settings via group policies which are part of MS active directory services.
Blender does not use the operation system's file selection system (or any other default file selection system on other operating systems), thus it doesn't read any of the group policies.
There is no easy way to do that and more important you'll need administrator rights.

Thanks, so I take it that Blender isn't suitable for a generic MS school setting as it'll blow apart their (MS specific) security? Can you set access rights on a specific product rather than group?

Normally I would create a new group called "blender" and change the settings for the Software there. Then I would chose all the users or groups that should have access to blender and that's it.
It's been a while since I've done group policies but if I remember correctly your specific problem is not easy to solve since blender doesn't use the operating system's specific routines in depth to chose files. I guess you'll have to ask s.o. from your tech team.
Normally the visibility of C: is not a problem. If the group policies are set up correctly you just see them but still have no access


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How to stop Blender from making the CPU overheat?
Apparently my CPU or GPU overheats when Blender renders more than a few minutes.  The computer suddenly powers down, taking down all running apps, email I'm writing, etc.  This is almost never a problem with still scenes, which finish soon enough, but often with animation renders.
The problem occurs with either Cycles or BI renders.  I'm running on a custom-built quad core 64-bit linux desktop system.  (I'm not the one who built it. I am  a knuckle-dragging caveman with hardware issues.) (Yes, all the fans are blowing and dust has been cleaned off.)
So far the only way to prevent this for now is to choose in camera properties: Performance, Threads, Fixed, 1.
Someday, I'll get better hardware, but in the meantime, I suspect Blender could run indefinitely, even with multiple threads, if I could make it pause for perhaps one minute between each frame when animating, just to cool down. How to make this happen?  At least, a way to run an arbitrary Python script between frames, or once per minute during any rendering. Such a script could contain a sleep stat
Even better, if Blender could throttle its rendering effort based on readings of the CPU temperature sensor.   Is that possible?
UPDATE: I've nearly forgotten about this issue, since writing a quick Python script to watch the CPU temperature, sending SIGSTOP and SIGCONT as gandalf3 describes. Zero crashes ever since. I reboot my machine once or twice per year for kernel upgrades, otherwise it's 100% up.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I took the machine apart, popped off the CPU heatsink, and applied fresh thermal paste.  Ever since, the CPU temperature has been running something like 30deg (C) cooler all the time.  Zero shutdowns, and I don't use the Python script any more unless I'm feeling paranoid.

Suggest to look into better cooling for your system, and if that isn't an option, under-clocking, since its clearly not able to run at the speed its set at. Also, this may be of interest to you: http://cpulimit.sourceforge.net

Issues with faulty hardware do not belong here. Also see: How can I pause a render in progress and then resume it at a later time?

I think this question is worded badly, You ask about pausing in between rendering but really you want to throttle blender to prevent overheating on Linux - these are very different things.

Indeed, it is purely a problem of checking temperature every minute or so, nothing to do with frames.

Sounds like your only guessing at the cause of the shutdown. Have you watched the temperature readings as it starts to shutdown? If your power supply can't provide enough power you can also get a shutdown, probably more so while GPU rendering.

Note: this could also be an issue with the PSU. Sometimes lower-quality PSUs can cause power issues when too much current is drawn.

If you are on Linux, you could use killall to send SIGSTOP and SIGCONT (see this post) signals based on CPU temperature readings from sensors.
This would have the added advantage of pausing the render even mid-frame, as well as working for baking and other processing intensive jobs besides rendering.
Another thing you could try is nice values, however they are only relevant if you are using the computer for other things at the same time.

I like this.  Sometimes single frames do crash when samples>=500.

Manually, those signals work great.  Implementation of something practical takes us out of scope for this SE site, but enlightenment can be found at http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/40645/2874

Edit, The original question was "How to pause between rendering frames", if my answer seems out of place.
Yes, to sleep in-between rendering frames you can use a Python script to add a render_post handler, it will sleep in-between rendering frames of an animation.
import time
def sleep(scene, seconds=2.0):
    print("Sleep start")
    time.sleep(seconds)
    print("Sleep stop")

import bpy
bpy.app.handlers.render_post.append(sleep)

If you want this to always be enabled, copy it into render_sleep.py and put it in blenders scripts/startup/ path.

Note: I have serious doubts about this as being a GOOD solution to the problem you describe, a frame that takes a long time to render could overheat your system - so relying on sleeping between frames seems very precarious, on Linux there are tools to throttle process CPU use, check on nice and cpulimit (if under-clocking or better cooling isnt an option).

Try using smaller Tiles like 16*16 or even 8*8 and use fewer Threads.
However I think it would be the wrong approach to tackle this problem on the softare side of things. It might be safer to invest in a new CPU fan or another fan for the computer case (will be easier to install)

Modern CPUs throttle (reduce clock frequency) when they get too hot. That means you loose performance that is the last thing you want if you payed for a processor. Besides that the lifetime might be shortened when permanently running overheated (>65°)
You should unmount the fan and remove any remaining thermal paste. Add new thermal  paste  and re-mount the fan, after that measure temperature while rendering (minimum 15 minutes).
If the CPU gets still too hot, buy a bigger fan, and check that the case fans are able to transport the heat to the outside.
There might be also a tiny gap between your processor and the heat sink, you can see this when the thermal paste isn't decently distributed over the surface of both CPU and heat sink. In this case you should get another model.
See this HowTo: http://www.wikihow.com/Apply-Thermal-Paste

If you are using GPUs, you can use Precision X to control the voltage and temperature speed so that it keeps to a lower temperature.
If you are using CPUs, you probably have a muti-core CPU. Just use "fixed" instead of "automatic" number of threads, then lower the number of threads. This will have the additional benefit that your computer will respond better while rendering. Of course the render will take more time, so if you are doing it all the time, maybe finding a way to cool down your machine will be the best solution. Even if we are talking about a laptop, there are bases with fans that for \$10-\$20 might solve your problem and save you hours...
Also some utility to adjust the fan speed might help

If you're rendering with CPU, you can use cpulimit program available in most distribution repositories to limit Blenders impact on CPU load.
sudo apt-get install cpulimit -y

It'll make sure that CPU usage of a certain process won't exceed a given limit.
It won't help much with GPU rendering though, because there isn't much process control functionality present for CUDA jobs yet.
You could then use it like this:
cpulimit -e blender -l 15

The -e is used to define the executed process name. The -l switch is used to define the CPU usage limit in %.
Read more in the man page:
man cpulimit

Another approach could be underclocking your CPU, to make it run slower, so it's more reliable. A properly built and configured modern PC shouldn't exhibit random shutdowns when under load.

If you start Blender from a terminal, you can press Ctrl + Z in the terminal to pause it, and type fg and hit Enter to resume it.

Sepero has written a temp-throttle script to automatically check the temperature and throttle the CPU whenever it exceeds some threshold.
To use it, clone the repository and run in the background:
sudo ./temp-throttle/temp_throttle.sh 80

(where 80 is your desired maximum temperature). Once started, the script is completely automatic (it also un-throttles if the temperature falls).
Note that this works by lowering the maximum CPU frequency, which will slow down all applications. If you need it to only throttle Blender, you could probably modify the script to call cpulimit on the Blender process (which will alternately send SIGSTOP and SIGCONT to limit its average CPU utilization).


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Bend flat, circular object into half sphere

I have a flat circle(1). I want to bend it down into a half sphere non-destructively. I have tried using two Simple Deform (bend) modifiers as described here: How to animate morphing a rectangular plane into a sphere
That works, but it is distorted (2). I'm trying to get it even, like the top half of an icosphere (3). Is this possible?
EDIT: I am trying to find a method to use on a more complex shape. I want to model it flat, and then bend it to a sphere as it will be very difficult to model as a sphere itself.

Shrinkwrap - think it does exactly that

@Patdog Shrinkwrap would let me wrap something onto a sphere, but it won't be clean unless it's already very close to a sphere.

Have you considered the warp modifier? It's a bit tricky at first, but it would work I think.

@Timaroberts I have, but I don't see how it could help here. If you can demonstrate, it would be appreciated!

You could try using the Warp Modifier.

Add two empties, one at or near the origin of your object, and one that will control the deformation of the object. This one will be placed above the other on the Z axis.
Here, Empty is at the origin of the circle, and Empty.001 is the controlling object in the 'to' field of the modifier settings.

By adjusting the distance of Empty.001 from Empty, and the strength and radius values, as well as the falloff type (I used sphere) you can keep a good amount of control over the shape of the object.
Also, you may find it useful to add a Subdivision Surface Modifier above the warp modifier, as it makes the deformation a bit smoother.

Use a Cast Modifier.
For some reason you will have to move all you circle vertex up in local Z axis for it to work for some reason, then have to eye-ball the value to reach an aproximate half sphere.
In my case, move the circle [2] units in local Z axis in edit mode, then add a Cast modifier set to Sphere. Adjust tge Factor value.
Alternatively use the Control Object option, set it to an empty object to control the deformation center and move it down in Z axis as necessary, if you don't want to move the circle object center.

As the question is still active and you have stated that you wish to start off with a flat shape of the end model, I've varied @Scott Milner's suggestion and done as he has but using keyframed scaling instead.  The inflation would be forward animation, not reversed.
The approach is to make the 'fully inflated' model you wish to end up with and scale that down in the Z axis ONLY to a flat plane and keyframe that at frame 1.
The plane is now your 'model' at frame 1.
Go to the end frame and scale the z axis ONLY, back up again, keyframe that.
You start with a flattened shape and end up with it rising to the desired model.  I've done this here with the sphere and included the Blender file.
This has stemmed from @Scott Milner's answer so I'm not claiming any brownie points here.
The prepared answer follows -
-=======-
Add the UV sphere (or finished model) and flatten it by scaling only in the Z axis to 0 to begin with.
Set a keyframe at frame 1 for scaling only.
Set the timeline cursor to the frame required. (say 50 or 60)
Rescale the flattened sphere back to it's original shape.  i.e. in the Z axis only.
NOTE:  (For newbies) you may not be able to scale it back up using the gismo arrows.  Instead, open the Properties icon, the little cube at the right of screen.  You'll see the scale slider when you open the "Transform" tab.
Place your cursor onto the Z axis slider and drag to the right.  You'll see the figures scrolling up.  The flattened model will begin to inflate upwards.
Keyframe that scaling setting. Leave the cursor in the Scale panel and press ' i '.

The circular plane will rise to the occasion and inflate back to a sphere.
Note that it's topmost section remains flat but it's no problem to use a Shapekey on the uppermost central vertice and have it rise a little to restore the fully spherical shape, which I've done here. (See Blend file)
Another problem can crop up, this one involving shading -
When the sphere is flat it's goes shadeless.  At frame 2 where it begins to inflate, it switches to ordinary shading again, the transition far too annoying to ignore.
The solution is to go back to frame 1, get back into the Z scaling panel at right and tweak the Z scale ONLY from outright zero to 0.001 . Keyframe that.
 (with the cursor still in the Scaling panel, press 'i') (see pic)

That fixes it .  Shading starts normally and stays that way.

This can be done with Shape Keys. Create a half sphere as your basis:

Under Shape Keys in the Object Data panel, click the + button twice to add a Basis key, and a Key 1. With Key 1 selected, go into Edit Mode and scale the the whole object along the z-axis by 0 to flatten.

Now, you can control the flatness of the object by adjusting the Value: parameter under Shape Keys.

Thanks. I may be able to use this, but I have a specific flat circular object that I need to transform. I can't start with a half sphere and work backwards. This could work if I can do it on a lattice and have it start flat, but I don't think it lets me do that.

@Drudge Can you be more specific in your question, then? In your question, you just show a half UV Sphere.

Thanks Scott Milner. This is a straightforward solution for one of my projects.  It's only for video effects so reversing the clip would be no problem at all.

@ScottMilner I want to turn a flat, circular object into a sphere, not a sphere into a flat circular object. The order of operations matters i this case. I have updated the original question with a clarification. Thanks!


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Linking objects, groups, and Freestyle
Freestyle can be restricted to certain objects using Groups. I have a file with freestyle settings and a group named Freestyle1. I also have a separate file containing ObjectA which is also inside a group called Freestyle1 within its own file. However,when I linked ObjectA into my freestyle file, freestyle does not show up on it, and it's group does not show up as an option within dupligroups, or anywhere else.
If I link the group instead of the object, then it shows up under the freestyle group drop down menu, but as a second entry of the same group name.
I assume that what is happening is that the linked object's group is considered to be a totally different group, despite having the same name.
Is there any way around this? I want to be able to define what groups an asset belongs in within its own file, then link it into my scene file and have it work. Complex scenes simply aren't viable if I have to manually assign every object to a group every time.
If I create a proxy of the linked object, it simply has no groups.
EDIT:
Test files: A scene with freestyle setup for a group named freestyle, and another file with an object also in a group named freestyle (place in same folder or re-link the suzanne from linked object.blend):

Try creating another group, containing your linked-in groups. Then set your Freestyle options to that "outer group". If that works, you (or someone else) could write some Python code to automatically create those groups based on the linked-in group names.

How do I make a group contain another group? Linked objects do not show up as in any group under the Object Data panel. Does this need to be done with a script? Would it work to have a script that takes any duplicate group names from other files and adds those objects to the group of the same name?

If you post a URL to your file, I'll see if I can set something up for you.

I don't have a specific file, but I can set up a test file.

A group of object groups can be created as follows.  Suppose that you have three groups G1, G2 and G3 and you want to group them to form a new group G4.  First, add an empty to the scene and create an instance of G1 using the dupli_group option (in the Duplication panel in the Object properties window).  Repeat that for G2 and G3 as well.  Then add the empties to the new group G4.
Note that linked groups are automatically instanciated by the "Instance Groups" option of the linking operation.

I have just made a change to Freestyle so that nested object groups can be used for the Selection by Group option in the Freestyle Line Set properties panel. The code update is likely part of the upcoming Blender 2.79 release.  https://developer.blender.org/rB781507d2dded2a0fb2720ee045d31cc9f12d4696

@T.K. thanks. So if i am understanding correctly, currently if I have an empty that is Dupli-Grouping a group, and the empty is added to a Freestyle Group, then after 2.79, the objects that empty is Dupli-Grouping, but that aren't in the Freestyle group themselves, will still count as in the Freestyle Group?

@Sybren updated with some basic test files.

@Drudge Yes, that's right. So the solution suggested by Sybren will work as expected---you first link groups from other blend files, and create a new group of the empties that are dupli-groups of the linked groups.  Then you specify the new group in the Selection by Group in Freestyle, and all the objects in the linked groups will be considered as members of the new group.  This will nicely resolve naming collisions you might have, and no scripting would be required.

@T.K. This would help a lot, but still leaves an issues. Say I have a Character in an asset file. This character consists of several objects, grouped up as Char1. Each object is in some combination of freestyle groups, Say Lineset1 through 5. If I link the group Char1 into my scene file, I need it to correctly freestyle it based on the other groups that Char1's objects are in. With the change above, it won't distinguish multiple different groups on an object. I would have to individually parent each component object to an empty for every FS group. Are there any other options? Thanks.

The groups for Lineset #1 through #5 are not members of the group Char1, if I understand your description of the example correctly.  Then the code revision I mentioned is nothing related to that setup.  Flat groups work as they were in the past.

@Drudge here you describe a different situation than your example files show. That's not the best strategy if you want to have your question answered.

Naming collisions may occur in Blender when local and linked data blocks have the same name.  When a naming collision occurs, a linked data block could be distinguished from the others by taking account of the file name of the blend file the linked data block comes from.
As far as I can see from the Blender code base, data block selectors in the Blender GUI (such as the Group selector in the Freestyle Line Set properties panel) do not take into account the blend file names when showing linked data blocks.  Moreover, only one of the data blocks of the same name (i.e., only one of the groups named "Freestyle1" in your case) can be selected.  Due to these limitations, you cannot fully exploit the line selection by group when naming collisions are involved.
If you resolve naming collisions yourself (e.g., by renaming the linked group to "Freestyle2"), then you can avoid the aforementioned issues.  A scene render layer may have multiple line sets, so that for each of the local and linked groups, you can define a line set of its own and associate it with a line style data block (possibly linked from a separate blend file).

I will be linking in many characters and props, so any sort of manual changing of things will get far too tedious. It seems like my best option would be some sort of script that takes linked objects in group X, and adds them to the group of the same name that was already in the file. Do you see any options that don't involve needing to script?


text:
What value should I increase to reduce noise for subsurface scattering, volume scatter, etc.?
I'm on an AMD machine, so GPU rendering is off the table, but I don't mind a lengthy render as long as the end result is good.
So far I've tried:

Rendering at 5000 samples

Various indirect/direct clamp values

Increasing volume sampling max steps

increasing volume bounces (in light paths)
And in all likelihood, a few things I've forgotten.

This render took 40 minutes with tons of settings cranked up, but still has a lot of visible noise despite being fairly small:

I'm using a volume scatter shader to add fog, one transparent plane using a procedural texture for the smoke.
It's worth noting that while I do not have a high-end machine, I also don't have a particularly horrible one either.

Have you tried setting the light path as diffuse ray? You can add a math node to control it

Have you tried decreasing the Light Path bounces to something tiny, like 1, 2, or 3 MAX? This will mean that Blender has to work less to render, because rays that don't find a light source are terminated more quickly. Less bounces always leads to quicker rendering. I might suggest Max: 3, Min: 0, Diffuse: 2, Glossy: 2, Transmission: 3, Volume: 2. P.S. If you include a .blend file, I can look into it more in depth.

I've tried it at 0 and at 4. I'm not so much concerned that my renders are taking too long. What I'm trying to figure out is what I need to change to make the noise go away. I've cranked up a ton of values and reduced my render size yet the noise remains.
Here's the .blend file:
https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=Darkspire1.blend1

You can switch to branched path tracing and use its subsample controls. Increasing subsurface sample level will improve noise for SSS, volumes for volume scatter effects Note that volume samples only affect indirect light, meaning the noise that comes from volume bounces being > 0. For other volume noise, adjust lamp sampling values.
See this question for general info about branched path: What is branched path tracing and how is it useful?
I normally recommend using the "square samples" option with branched path, as it allows you to work with simpler values when juggling all the subsample counts. "square samples" just, well, squares all the values being used for sample counts. So "4" samples becomes 4*4=16 samples. The reason for this is the more samples you have, the more samples you need to add to get a noticeable difference. By adjust sample counts in increments of squares, you ensure you're always getting a statistically significant addition for each sample level.

Thanks. Amazing how long volume scatter takes when applied to the world shader.


text:
Why are the same flat surfaces showing two different shades?
Creating a paperback book. I add a fold to the front cover by creating a narrow channel cut into the surface.

However, when I add a bevel modifier and shade smooth, the flat surfaces to the left of that fold are clearly a different shade to the right.

I select harden normals in the shader of the bevel modifier and it makes it even worse. Adjusting the smooth by angle doesn't help. If I try to shade flat the two sides, it stops the bevel from being smooth.
Why is this happening when the normals on these two flat surfaces are in the same direction?

Do a face orientation check:

Everything should be blue. If you see reds, you go to edit mode, select all a and recalculate normal shif+n.


text:
Whats the easiest way to animate a toy house being built from the ground up?
I've modeled this toy house and now would like to animate it being built from the ground up brick by brick. Almost as if the pieces are raining down into place. I could animate each piece individually but I'm hoping there's a more efficient way. Maybe an add on? Any ideas would be of great help.

not sure to understand your need. But mesh deform modifier ?

I added an image that's more descriptive.

ok... just like the bricks are falling one by one or by level ?

so... shape keys ?

My suggestion would be to use python to animate the individual blocks.
I would pick a landing time based on the z coordinate of the block and a little bit of randomness (but not so much randomness that a block with a different Z coordinate could land before one below it).
http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/blender/python-cookbook/sweep-animate-size.html includes some examples of setting keyframes like
    fr = obj_to_frame_f(obj)

    obj.scale =(0,0,0)
    obj.keyframe_insert(data_path='scale', frame=fr-timescale-timescale2)
    obj.keyframe_insert(data_path='scale', frame=fr+timescale+timescale2)
    s = 0.9
    obj.scale=(s,s,s)
    obj.keyframe_insert(data_path='scale', frame=fr-timescale)
    obj.keyframe_insert(data_path='scale', frame=fr+timescale)

Although you'll be animating data_path='location' instead of scale.

Using a mesh deform modifier, you can play on the "object" of the modifier to displace your mesh.
And so make an animation with it (for instance a shape key on the cube object in the pictures below).
Not sure this is what you asked for... but...

ok.. bad answer considering the edit of the question


text:
What is the most effective way to use displacement with Cycles?
I have a PBR material with a normal map for some surface defects. I'm trying to use Displace to emboss some fonts but I'm just getting an outline instead of full depth.
Reference image:

Node set up:

Texture: (this is cropped the original is 2048x2048) Also, I've tried many combinations black on white/middle grey/alpha etc.

Mesh:

Result:

Can you show your source texture?

Yes, I had it ready to go and forgot... Thanks!

Are you using experimental Microdisplacement?

No, I read threads on it here and decided not to. But I am open to anything.

@cegaton - I have switched on "Experimental" but there isn't any displacement options showing up in the "Object Data". I'm using 2.78

The reason for the outline could be using normal map and displacement map in the same material if addressing this problem. It should be possible including that either in height map or in normal map instead.

@Mr Zak - My gut was telling me that might be the reason. Using a Normal Map (As suggested by Crantisz) yields a better result but I think it can be even better. I'll try a height map... I'm still trying to figure out "Experimental" as I cant find any displacement options when I enable it.

As to displacement in addition to already mentioned link read this https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/50440/getting-experimental-true-displacement-to-work. Generally this feature is used the same as displacement texture in your setup (Both method only worked for me but maybe it's not important)

Add a glow effect in 2D editor like Gimp or Photoshop:

Next, create normal map using this image (in GIMP - normal map plugin)

Normal map gives mach better result:

Thanks, but how does this solve my problem of the outline result that I am getting?

You have outlines because edges is to hard, I think. Add softness and use normal map instead of displacment


text:
Replicating sharp broken glass edges
I am inspired by an image from a recent question here. I couldn't figure out how to model (Maybe texture) the look and feel of sharp glass edges around a spherical shape and SubSurf.

A quick example
To make glass just model it to how u want it to look, try and keep it as random as u can.

Then just add a glass material
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRRN7yzPNQI
btw your glass should look way better if u follow the tutorial i just added the material without doing anything to it in the photo below

Also if u dont want to use cycles u can just turn down the transparency (alpha) as ive done here https://sketchfab.com/models/177e494fdada4b64b02acf041ae8cfdd

Edit: Something like this?

Thank you... but "Spherical" and with a subsurf modifier. And random angled edges so it looks real.

check edit please

Ty for your time... but not only no 90' angles but even more random within... like the image

Needs to be random


text:
Is there a way to separate selected vertices within the same object
Is there a way to separate a selection of vertices from a mesh directly without creating a new object?
My current way of doing this is:

Select vertices
Use Separate by Selection (P > By Selection)
Select both objects and join again J

I feel like there should be a way of doing this completely within edit mode.
Is there?

yes, using Y or V. The V will work only with selected edges and it cuts out the selection. The Y makes pretty much the same, except if it is not a closed polygon it will just duplicate the vertex or the edge. You cant just take out random vertex because it affect the faces and edges.

@Fowl ... that looks like an answer, to me.. if it was one, we could UV it.

@Fowl, Using Y (split command) seems to do what I was looking for. Thank you

You want Mesh -> Split -> Selection, which is the Y key.

Vertex Groups may be what you are after? Found under Context


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Using Boolean Modifiers and Shape Keys in Animation

What I am trying to do is an animation exactly like the shown above, which is captured from YouTube. For the sake of simplicity let's talk about the far left split cube.
So as little as I know I thought so far the only way to do it, preferably in python, is to successively add and apply a boolean modifier in difference operation with object set to the sphere, after that adding a shape key to allow me to keyframe the cube's mesh shape, meanwhile changing sphere's location in this direction in small increments, and repeat. To put it clear all of that successively in each iteration of a for loop.
So here is the problem, applying a modifier for a shape keyed object is not even supported in blender. Moreover, I intend to use this in a far more complex animation, and I am not sure will that be reliable, or will it freeze when I execute that script?
So I wonder what is the best way to do it, and how is it made in this video?

Shapekeys work on objects with unchanged geometry, I would suggest using an object on another layer that will have a shape of the sphere and a cylinder to do a boolean operation.

thanks for your suggestion. the point is, as i said, i intend to make a more complicated,  even though similar animation. and it will be a long detailed curve

I think this would probably be a lot easier if you made a dummy object used as subtraction for the Boolean Operation.
Just model a pill-like cylinder object ending in a spherical cap, possibly starting from a UV sphere, then use that in the Boolean operation.

You can then hide it, make it unrenderable, possibly even parented to the real sphere, and use it instead as the Boolean operand, and it should easily simulate the desired effect.

first of all thanks for your time. but i intend to make a kind of similar animation, but with a detailed curve

@user8844 its exactly the same, just add more geometry to a dummy object and make it follow the curve.

i just tried it before i just read your comment, and yeah it worked! thanks, i appreciate your help

Brilliant suggestion. I must borrow this technique. :)

really good idea!


text:
How do I select a bone in a downloaded Blender skeleton and edit it?
I have downloaded a blender skeleton that I would like to make more realistic, e.g. separate the two pelvic bones that he has, into the 6 real bones.  Brand new to Blender, any help is appreciated.


text:
Cutting *only* existing geometry with a circle
Is it possible to cut only the existing geometry of an object using a particular shape (for instance the circle in red) to add vertices only where the shape bisects an existing edge?

Possible duplicate of How would you cut a shape out of an object using another object?

Nope, i saw that, its adding lot of poly i dont need, i dont want to get circular area with as much edges original circle had, i want to just add cuts where my circle is overlaping existing geometry as in my picture ... straight cuts.

Try subdividing each edge as 1 time per vertex (W > Subdivide), aligning the vertices with your demo circle, and using the Knife tool (K) to connect them and cut the in between faces.

Thx for answer but this is just simple example, would be possible some more "automated" aproach? Imagine i dont want to cut 8 polygons but 800, this process would kill me :)

Because i dont know the orange mesh, i want to create it based on that circle, this is whole point of this question :)

I will assume that you know how to use the Knife Project tool but if not, there are plenty of tutorials on BSE that can show you.
Here's a simple technique that might help you achieve what you're after:
Get everything ready to use the Knife Project tool but just before you do, select all of the vertices of the shape you want cut, and add them to a Vertex Group.  Once you do that, cut your shape out with the Knife Project tool.  You can then Deselect the vertices from your original Vertex Group and use the Dissolve Vertices feature to get rid of the unwanted vertices that you added with Knife Project:

Looks promissing and working, thx a lot. Marked as solution.


text:
Why is the fire Not looking like a Fire
This is how it should look like.

This is how it renders

Smoke settings:

alright wait a sec let me do that

I don`t understand did u solve this problem?

how can i add a blend.file

By default, Blender does not add all the nodes necessary to create the "fire" aspect of the Smoke Sim to the Material Output.  Basically you need to edit the material of the flame in order to make it visible in Cycles.
1.) There is an Attribute Node that must be added with the name "flame".
2.) The Factor output goes into a Color Ramp Node that you will edit for the desired color.
3.) That Node's Color output will go into an Emission Node since fire "emits" light.
4.) You will then add that shader to the rest of the material shaders:

EDIT: I've included a .blend file below that has all the basic settings enabled and tweaked for creating a simple fire in Cycles:

FYI, here is a pretty good video tutorial for explaining the basic settings for fire in Cycles: https://youtu.be/u-zK7Bu8cAI


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Subdivided cube to football instead of sphere
I get a football shape when using Subdivide Smooth on a freshly created cube.Am I doing something wrong? or have I found a bug?
Before:

After:

Footballs are round or pointy, depending on which country you live in and which language you speak. Please include some screenshots so we can see what you're talking about.

How do I add a screenshot?

Trying to follow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKkUOMB6Zsc&list=PLXMRarQYThdaFETVoc-ly8KZ4Os5qEsk6&index=5 and not getting the 1st sphere from cube he gets; I get the pointy football

When I increase the cuts, I get a football with a lot of cuts.

When the tutor uses Subdivide smooth on a freshly created cube, he gets a sphere that he then increases the cuts on to 2. I get an American-style footbaal that just becomes a smoother football when I increase cuts, & turns into a Xmas-star when I increase Smoothness

Fractal is set to 0

I raise it by z-axis, out of the rectangular box it,s created in, because origin is centered there, then immediately subdivide.

Go into Object Mode, press Ctrl  A, and select Rotation & Scale.  Then go back into your object and try to subdivide the Cube.

@cegaton - It's my fault, I was asking questions

The reason you had to do that is because you scaled it previously in Object Mode.  If you do all of your scaling in Edit Mode, the object scale doesn't change.  Nearly all modifying functions are influenced by object scale.


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Why does my Armature deform so incorrectly?
I have been trying to create a rig for my model of a dragon (it is a school project). I have constraints on the eye, inverse kinematics on the legs, and a spline restriction on the tail.
I stupidly made the teeth as a separate object, sculpted the mouth to include the teeth, and then used Ctrl+J to make it a part of the dragon. Before using Ctrl+J, the teeth moved very weirdly but everything else worked. After joining the teeth everything went weird. How do I made this armature work?

In your armature, the lower jaw bone is too high, lower it. Also influence zone may be too big. Hence, lower jaw bone moves upper jaw and vice versa. If this doesn't work re-sculpt, in addition, the teeth but not as a separate object.Ctrl+J can mess things up as it is e.g. with texture mapping.

the location of the bones worked perfectly fine beforehand. Why does ctr+j mess things up and how can i fix it

I don't know why it does, do what is written in boldface.


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When using Dyntopo, is there a way to adjust how far each vertex is pushed or pulled?
I am using dyntopo, and when I try to shape a square down into another shape that I want (torso, arm, etc.) it pushes some vertices too far down. Can I adjust that somehow?

You can press Shift+F to adjust the strength of the brush you are currently using.
You can also adjust the detail size with Shift+D
(This will display as a percentage or as a pixel count depending on the detail type being used.) The manual has an  explanation of each one.
Changing the radius of the brush with F as needed is also useful.


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3D-print friendly joints
I am trying to split a figure, so it will fit in my 3D-printer.
For the pieces to fit together after the slice, I plan to make a ball joint or a trapeze joint, and glue them together, just like this:

For this to work the best, I don't plan to bisect the model in a straight line, but use the knife it to fit certain lines on the figure, and so the figure itself hides the cut.
What I can do is (and also shown in the gif below):

Make the knife-tool selection K
Hide it H
Select a vertex, and all it is connect to ⌃ Ctrl + L
Unhide the previous selection ⌥ Alt + H

The issue is, when I make a "weird" cut, I have a hard time doing the following:

I need to select the edge of each of the pieces, which can be very time consuming. I need to find the ring loop (I think it's called?)
I need to make a surface when I finally get the ring, and it needs to be the same surface on each piece
I need to make the ball/trapese joint (I assume this is just a boolean modification with some extra space for the 'female'-pin.

How do I make a cut through a figure and make them overlap correctly so I can join them again after print?

OK, this is going to be a long one...
When you first create the "weird" cut, add the vertices to a vertex group, CTRL-G is the shortcut. With the vertices selected hit V to "rip" the edges creating 2 separate bodies, best to have Auto Merge off, RIGHT CLICK to end to tool without moving the verts. Quick tip, no need to select a vertex first then CTRL-L to select linked, just hover your mouse over the vertex you want and hit L Once you have one of the bodies selected, move them to a new object P. The new object and the original with both have the same vertex group so you can select in Edit Mode making the edge loop selection a breeze!

I've put my object at a weird angle so the following makes more sense.
The next step, to make the same face on each part is the trick!
Back in Object Mode, hide one of the objects for now.
First, edit the visible object and select the edge loop as described above ;) then hit F, it will look terrible but we'll fix that in the next step.

With that terrible face selected place the 3D Cursor at it, SHIFT-S To Selected CTRL-I to invert selection and H to hide it. Now back to Object Mode.
Square your view up as best you can to that terrible face you just created, doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough. Add a plane, align to view, edit plane, scale it to be bigger than the face and subdivide it, the more you sub the better the face will end up. Select all and X Only Faces so you are left with a grid of edges.

Object mode again.
Move the plane so that it is not intersecting the object but is still bigger when viewed normal to it and your face. Making the Transform Orientation Normal will help here.

Now the cool part!
Select the plane SHIFT-7 or SHIFT-CTRL-7 to view normal to the plane with the plane in front of the object.
Select the plane FIRST then select the object, enter edit mode. Make sure you still have all but the terrible face still hidden in the object. From the menu select Mesh->Knife Project If done correctly, this will project the edges of the plane onto the object and slice up that terrible face, there will be plenty of N-Gons but as this is for 3D printing it wont matter.

Now the matter of making the same face on the other part... Easy! (I won't give you key strokes here... you get the point!)
Edit the object your just made the "cool" faces for, use the vertex group again to select the vertices we need, then from the menu choose Select->Select Loops->Select Loop Inner-Region (you may need to invert that selection then select the group again) Duplicate the faces, move them to a new object.
Back in Object Mode join the new faces object with your original object that we hid at the start. Edit it...

Now select the linked verts of those added faces.
Choose a vertex that "stands out/easy to find on both bodies", make sure that is the active vertex.

Now with Snap to -> VertexSnap with -> Active selected move the selected vertexes to the correct spot, select all, merge by distance...
The alignment features should be a simple matter using booleans.
You're done!!
You should now have 2 separated objects with exactly the same faces that are readily 3D printable.
(I REALLY hope this answered your question!!)

This looks like the solution I am after. When I get to my machine, I will try it and get back to you. Great job, my dude!

@RasmusBækgaard Did this work for you? If so, please mark as answer so others can find it :)

Sorry about the super long response time. My graphic card went up in smoke, so it's a bit hard currently to try it. As soon as I can, I will check it, though this looks exactly like what I need.


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How to get Blender to add new face-ids but not recalculate old face-ids?
I am writing a procedural planet generation addon.
I thought it would be nice to give the user the ability to create continents. He can create a continent, give it a name and add some faces to it (via selection). The addon is storing the face-indices of the current selected faces. If a user selects a continent in the gui the corresponding faces are selected, too.
Now I found out (via extrude operator, Find out if Mesh Operator (bpy.ops.mesh...) was cancelled or not via python) that blender sometimes recalculates the index of old faces. That is destroying my addon and the way I store the continents (remeber: face-indices).
How can I force blender to only add new face-indices for the newly created faces and leave the old faces alone?
Thanks for helping!

Geometry element indices can change at any time, don't rely on them!

See e.g. How are vertex indices determined?
You should instead use a custom data layer to store the group (continent) information in. I would suggest bm.faces.layers.int. How to display them in a panel is a bit tricky, because you need to iterate the entire mesh before you know which numbers / continents exist.
API docs: http://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_75_release/bmesh.html#customdata-access
Note that if a user extrudes a face that is part of a continent already, then that property might be copied to the new faces. It's definitely true for vertex extrusion, but I'm not entirely sure when or which faces may receive the custom properties of their ancestors. Also see second half of my answer here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/36816/1363
Another approach would be to use Vertex groups. There are some downsides however: Vertices can be assigned with weights, they can be assigned to multiple groups and the face selection may differ for certain topologies (3 adjacent faces, left and right part of a continent, the middle one not will select all 3 if vertex groups are used, since all of the vertices are used by the left and right face).

Meh ... That is really frustrating. The addon is for my thesis and now I need to rework everything :( Thanks for the info.

Would I be able to store the faces itself in a different collection? For example a continent has a faces-set and I would add the faces itself to the set. So I would not need custom data layers or vertex groups and could get the current working index of the faces which are stored in the set.

No, they rare not really hashable and you cannot store direct references with Python (at least not persistently, and without causing crashes because references can become invalid). You would need to implement this in native code, similar to vertex groups. If this is a proof of concept, then go for the CD layer, even if the panel code will be slow. You could improve that with some kind of cache, to at least rate-limit the checks. Proper invalidation is not possible either with Python. You could also provide a button for the user to press to update the list of available continents.


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Getting the number of faces a certain vertex is part of
I am in edit mode and using bmesh to get all faces. I am iteration through the faces and their vertices. Now I want to know on how many faces the vertex, I currently have, is part of.
For example this green vertex is part of many faces.

Right now I have:
for f in mesh.faces:
    for v in f.verts:
        # some stuff before
        # now I need the number of faces the vertex c is part of
        # some other stuff

I know I could simply run through all faces and save the coordinates of the vertices and compare them with other faces and their coordinates - but maybe this can be done more easily.
Thanks!

related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/28934/select-neighbour-faces-from-a-mesh-with-python?rq=1

Uh, you are right, the link_faces were there, too! I knew this was similar but haven't found it while skipping over it. Sorry! I still am learning.

it's OK, it might better to have some overlap in questions, because there are many ways to ask a question, even if the answer is similar to all. Search results become better by directing to fewer related results.

a very nice feature of bmesh :)
import bpy
import bmesh

me = bpy.context.object.data

# Get a BMesh representation
bm = bmesh.new()   # create an empty BMesh
bm.from_mesh(me)   # fill it in from a Mesh

for f in bm.faces:
    for v in f.verts:
        lf = v.link_faces
        print('num faces:', len(lf), 'faces: ', lf[:])
    break


text:
What is the function of "removing doubles UV"
I was working with blender and I imported a CAD file.
I was trying to UV unwrap the model, which is high poly (see photos).
Can someone explain to me what the "remove doubles UV" option does?
In my case I just used it and from this

I got this

I see there are a lot fewer edges in the UV map but the model stays the same.

Remove Doubles UV does exactly what it sounds like.  The unwrapped vertices are combined within a set limit.  For some reason, the Merge Distance is not available in the UV window... only in the 3D View window.  This has no effect on the geometry of the mesh, only on the UV.

From the manual:

The Remove Doubles UV tool will merge selected UVs within the specified Margin.

So then is a good idea to use it one time when UV unwrapping? I mean in my example there are a lot of vertices gone...but haven't tested how looks like with a texture. Is there an advantage by havind less vertices in an UV map? Where do I find such an image, like the one you used in your gif?

@R.Gomez - I just Googled "test UV map" in images.  To be honest, I'm drawing a blank as to the usefulness of this function.  I can't think of a specific circumstance where I would want the UV map "compressed" with respect to the mesh.  In fact, the whole point is to get the UV as 1-to-1 with the mesh as possible.  But there are several vertex functions in the Mesh editing side of things that are also mirrored in the UV window, so I guess more options is better.

This is a very useful function when making textures for game assets.
When modeling game assets you usually get a lot of similar faces that could use the same texture space, so you want to align them on the same spot. But to save even more space, it's a good idea to use the "pack islands" function.
If you haven't merged the UV's with the "remove doubles UV" function, they will get separated again and moved to different parts of the map.


text:
3.3 Geometry Nodes not preserving vertex groups?
I wanted to ask on here to make sure this isn't expected behavior that I did not expect.
I had a geometry nodes setup that did something very specific: it basically generates cage "shells" with options to adjust their values in a vertex group.
My setup worked flawlessly in blender 3.2, but once I updated to 3.3, the vertex groups seem to vanish into thin air? I'm very confused because the values are clearly present in the geometry nodes viewer.
I've uploaded a sample blend file. In 3.2, you should see this:
However, in 3.3, you get this instead:
Blend file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z4QGAfxEtdhN-oNKtSDjXCoGhCvhIRwl/view?usp=sharing
Is this a bug, or did something change that I'm unaware of? I read the update notes and I didn't see anything pertaining to this.
EDIT: I've isolated the problem down to this node setup. The behavior in 3.2 is different from 3.3. If you assign faces to a vertex group and use this node setup, the values will not appear in weight paint mode, nor will they be functional in simulations.:
EDIT2: I managed to find this section in the manual: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/geometry_nodes/attributes_reference.html#custom-attributes
And this bug report saying that the vertex groups were not supported in the long run: https://developer.blender.org/T95489
There is also this, which says that there is an "Attribute conversion" thing: https://developer.blender.org/T100186
Still haven't figured out what I need to do, but I'll update with another edit if I do before someone else answers this.
EDIT3: I'm pretty sure this is a bug. Vertex weight modifiers aren't affecting anything either.
EDIT4: If you apply the modifier, it will create an attribute that can be converted into a vertex group again. However, this requires applying the modifier, which is not always desirable.
EDIT5: I've submitted a bug report. It makes no sense to remove this functionality because of how insanely useful it was.
EDIT6: Not a bug. Regression for something that wasn't technically supported in the first place: https://developer.blender.org/T100908

same thing has happened to me with a rig that utilizes vertex groups generated by geometry nodes, i dont have an answer sorry, but leaving a comment to increase awareness

If you apply the Geometry Nodes Modifier, it will create a generic attribute that can be converted. I'm looking to find out if there's a way to do it without applying the modifier.


text:
Is there an addon that can subdivide a mesh in edit-mode like the subdivision surface modifier does?
I have already tried tweaking the default Smooth slider for the modifier and it still does not seem to help the issue.

select all, right click > Subdivide?

Cant u just add another subdiv modifier normally and apply it? Its like 2 clicks more

@moonboots no,that's exactly what I say very different from using different,though I can just add a modifier and apply it,but I want find a way that can make this directly in edit mode,which is much more convenient

You can do it in edit mode, after subdividing in edit mode go to the foldout in the lower left of the screen or press F9 and sett smoothness to 1. however it's not exactly the same thing as the modifier https://i.sstatic.net/ccpL7.png

Select the edges and faces you want to subdivide, then RMB  > S key or ⌃ Ctrl + E > D key to select the subdivide option.
What you're asking is if you can do Catmull Clark surface subdivision and have it applied instantly. No, you can't. You have to select the object, add the  subdivision surface modifier then apply it. You can apply modifiers by pressing ⌃ Ctrl + A on a highlighted modifier or using the dropdown menu below:

Using the Catmull Clark subdivision surface modifier then applying it and the Subdivide function in Edit mode are two very different things that are used in different situations for different purposes.

Subdividing in edit mode  is for parts of your mesh unlike the subdiv modifier that applies to the whole mesh

Yeah! This person is very new to Blender. A little too new, they should be using a tutorial.

Yes, now we can use Geometry Nodes as tools in Edit Mode. All you need to do in geo nodes is add subdivision surface node, connect geometry from input node and plug attribute node with Edge Crease selected as named attribute to Edge Crease in Subdivision Surface node. Subdivision surface plug into output node. Pick obvious name and you can use it in Edit Mode.
Official Blender video about geo node tools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Udi1AkdGY&t=201s


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How to zoom in and use the scroll orbiting with a 1mm object?
I have a 1mm sphere and can't use zoom or scroll to navigate properly, to be clear, at first it was impossible to zoom in, then I change the view port scale to 0.001 and again to 1000, after that I was able to zoom in, but not too close of the object.
The other issue is with the scroll orbiting, when I hold Shift the movement is really slow and without Shift too fast, is really hard to control.
I have some objects in a normal size (about 10cm) and need to work with this to scale, when I changed the view port scale to 1mm I couldn't zoom out to use the bigger object.
I'm using Blender 2.81

There shouldnt be a problem. You can leave the viewport scale at is it on 1. I created 20cm object and 2mm and it is ok to navigate. Use ";" key the one above tabulator and the view menu opens, chose "3" to view selected and it will frame your selection, it will help you to see the object.

I had the same problem to zoom into 1mm sphere and to solve it you should select the object you want to zoom into then click / for Local View. This works like a charm, but you have to remember to exit local view again to see other objects in the scene.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/3dview/navigate/local_view.html


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How can I assign a material from the asset browser to a specific material slot?
I assigned several materials from an object to the Asset Browser, then tried to assign them to a new object, in a new file, that contains several material slots.
I assumed that if I selected the correct material slot for that object, then dragged the material from the asset browser  over the object, it would be assigned to that slot. However, it seems, no matter what I try, that the material is assigned to Slot 1.
Am I missing something or is this not yet possible?

Blender automatically detects the correct material slot depending on the face where the cursor is pointing. Each face has a material slot associated with it so you just have to aim the cursor on a face which is assigned to the material slot you want to replace.

Alternatively (for version 3.2 and above), if your material slot isn't used in any face on your object or the available faces are occluded in the viewport, you can drag the material into the slot in the Material properties.

Note the little tooltip that's displayed on top of the cursor tells you which slot and which material will be replaced.

Thank you @Gorgious. That last option is exactly what I need. I looked in the documentation and couldn't find this. I guess, being a new feature, the documentation is a bit behind.

Well this is strange. The first method works fine - although I had to zoom in a lot as I'm working with MakeHuman models and materials for e.g. fingernails. But the second method does not work at all. I just get the ø symbol anywhere in the material slots area. I'm using Blender 3.0.1. Any ideas?

@Thailandian oh, snap ! I'm using one of the beta versions, I guess it's a feature that wasn't shipped with version 3.0. Sorry I think you'll have to either wait for the next release or use the beta version.

Thanks Gorgious - that clears that up. I can work with zooming in on the relevant faces so I'll wait for the next release.

As a matter of fact the 3.1 stable version just released today. I can't say for sure if this feature is part of it but you can try it out !

Just tried 3.1 and dropping onto slots is still not implemented. Did you notice any problems using this feature?

@Thailandian sorry for the mislead. I confirm that this feature is only available in 3.2 and onward.

That's OK - I have submitted an edit to your answer to that effect. It's still very useful overall so thanks again.


text:
texture problem (going over the whole body)
I followed a tutorial for the sims 3 to the sims 4 accessory conversion here, and everything was fine, until I had to add the texture on sims 4 studio.
The object was converted with the protect paint, rigs and everything, still, when I put the 'diffuse' texture on the sims 4 studio, it seems to overline the object itself and go on the whole body.
I thought this could be thanks to something I didn't do right in blender, so I figure it wouldn't hurt asking here.
I'm attaching via mediafire - the blender files and the diffuse and spec maps in case anyone wants to have a look here.

I think you problem is the UV, your Main character is using all the UV layout and your spider is using all the UV Layout too, once you export both as a single object your are getting only one UV Layout for both objects, you need to arrange your UV's before you move frome Blender
Hope that helps
Good Luck


text:
Script to separate an object's mesh without using bpy.ops
I've seen several posts suggesting that it's better to write functions that
manipulate bpy.data directly, instead of using the bpy.ops operators. I can
understand the argument about how operators such as bpy.ops.mesh.separate() are
meant for the user interface, requiring context such as the active object or the
mode (object vs. edit), usually given by the user.
But the operators are convenient because they embody so much of Blender's
functionality already, and I don't want to have to re-code that from
scratch... So where I can find this functionality in Blender's API, apart from
the bpy.ops operators ? Is it in bmesh ?
Here's a specific example : if I want to code the equivalent of "separate", I need (among
other things) to identify, in the set of vertices that I want to separate, which
ones are on the 'borders', so I can duplicate them. This would probably involve
navigating around the mesh data, iterating over each vertex's neighbors, and
checking whether they're inside my set. Not trivial for a newbie. So is there a
function for this ?

No, currently the only method for splitting objects uses bpy.ops, there aren't always API equivalents for each blender operator.

Isn't bmesh module able of re-creating the functionality? It will probably be slower than the operator, it should be possible to implement however.

Its possible to write in bmesh, and fairly fast since bmesh has connectivity data, but functionality doesn't exist out-of-the-box.


text:
Get proxies to follow rig generated by manuel bastioni
I have a model I generated that has a rig. I added a couple pieces of clothing and want it to adjust when I move the bones and shape keys. I'm not sure how this should work at all. Here's a screenshot:
I thought the issue might have been caused by appending, but that appears not to be the case, as metaphor-set points out.
Edit:
Here's the link:

This should not have to do anything with appending objects. Look at this: http://imgur.com/a/NsgAW . I appended these 10 rocks to a new file, each of them is still editable and weight paint also works...

Yeah, but I clicked the append button and got an error saying I can't edit a linked object. And it wasn't just a one-time thing. I kind of got around it by exporting and importing, but that destroys my mesh, changing it all to triangles. And blender doesn't get the tris to quads quite the way it was.

Still it's not only about appending. There is clearly something different involved. Also exporting/importing does not necessarily change quads to tris, if done right. Consider uploading your file to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ if you want someone to take a look at it.

Yeah, you're right. It looks like it was some kind of bug. It stopped when I closed and re-opened blender. Still can't get the clothes to follow the person, though. I added a link.

This isn't an answer but an add on to this question since the site won't let me add a commment. In relation to number 5 of your answer Drudge, what does it mean when the options in the operator can't be modified?? I followed the steps, but when I tried to set the source layer, blender wouldn't let me in. Pic will be posted to show you what I mean.

The problem is that your clothing has no vertex weighting, only empty groups. The solution is to delete the existing vertex groups on the clothing, then transfer the weights from the body. To do this:
1) Select the clothing and put it into weight paint mode.
2) Select the body and put it into weight paint mode as well.
3) While the body is selected, shift+select the clothing. The clothing will now show as selected.
4) Use the Transfer Weights button in the left tool shelf.
5) In the Operator (lower corner of the left tool shelf after you hit transfer weights) make sure that Source Layer is set to By Name, or it will only transfer the active bone/group.
Note that you may wish to hide the rig, as if you have a single bone selected, it may transfer only that bone.
You can also do this with the Data Transfer modifier.

Thanks, it worked. I don't quite understand why it worked, so I'll look into that. But thanks!

The Armature moves the vertices of the mesh based on their vertex group weighting to each bone. You had the armature modifier, so technically the rig was working on the mesh, just by 0 influence. Now it has weights matching the body beneath it, so it works. Note that for clothing that isn't skin tight, you'll need more advanced weight painting or further rigging just for the clothes.


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Rigify N menu options missing, reloading the rig_ui.py doesn't help. Solution?
I'm having the issue where the rifigy properties and layers are missing, however the normal solution mentioned here does not work:
Rigify rig main properties and rig layers disappeared
I was editing bone constraints and perhaps i accidentally altered the constraint on a rig which i undid. But i recall that being one of the last things i did before i noticed the problem.
Here's the file with just the rig in it. No model needed to demonstrate the problem.
>>Problem Rig file<<
How could i get the menus back while keeping my current rig intact?

This particular problem was caused by deleting the rig_ui.py file and replacing it with the rig_ui.py file generated in a different file. The rigify plugin creates and executes the script which is partly specific to the rigify rig that it's generated with. It's found in the scripting tab.
The problem is solved by going to the scripting tab, and checking a specific line in the 'rig_ui.py' script.
On line 6, where it says 'rig_id =' there should be within quotes, a specific code that should match the code found on your rig.
To find your rig's ID, select your rig and check the rig properties. Underneath 'Custom properties' copy the 'rig_id' code. Check to see whether it matches the code mentioned in the rig_ui.py script. If it doesn't match, that's the problem, so delete the code inside of the quotes. Paste in your rig's ACTUAL id in the code, inside of the quotes next to 'rig_id ='.
Now hit 'Run script' on the toolbar below and the buttons on the N menu should return.

i have the same issue, but even if doing the above, nothing helps. I even made a new blender file, just added a metarig and hit generate. The "Rig main properties" is always empty. I can see the tab in Pose mode, but it's always empty. Where is it supposed to be?

is there a smart way to do this for multiple characters? I have 5 characters liked in the scene, I don't want to keep doing this manually for each one of them separately.

Where else can I find rig ID but not the underneath  ‘custom properties’??

I found that I just need to add rig_id properties and put ID from python at the properties value. Same like other fine rigs.

I found out that rig_id is pretty finicky with the names you might try changing some things about the name and rerun the script to see if that fixes your problem.
On Blender 2.79, having the word "rig" anywhere in the ID name would cause the script to fail (no N menu) without warning.
That is not the case in Blender 2.81 however: if you put a Capital letter like "A" instead of "a" anywhere in the name, the Ik_FK snapping options become unavailable. you only get the Ik_FK blend slider under Rig Main Properties and nothing else.
So, play with the naming, keep it simple see if that helps.

You need to turn on a layer, and when that layer is turned on only then does my rig main properties show up or else not