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Array/Curve: How do I fix array modifier overlap when combining "Fit Curve" Setting with a Curve modifier?
I am attempting to create an arena using the Archimesh addon and the curve modifier. I created a set of archways and columns with Archimesh, using the built in "create an array of elements" checkbox. I then set the Fit Type of the array modifier on the created objects to "Fit Curve", then add a curve modifier set to a bezier circle using the default settings.
My problem is that the start and end points of the object arrays overlap.

Any help fixing this would be greatly appreciated.

You need to make the circle bigger or the pieces smaller - there is no other way.You make the circle bigger by scaling it edit mode.You make the arrayed piece smaller also by scaling it in edit mode.

If the curve is circular, using the 'bend' option of the 'simple deform' modifier can be an alternative

if using relative offset, you can manually find an offset value that makes all pieces to fit the curve, even if they are no more connected. Eg, instead of offset 1, you could find that 1.0175 would make a good fit of the curve. Then, scale your object of that exact amount along the local axis used to fit the curve, and then reset the array offset back to 1. It may fit perfectly.


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Why is my image sequence appearing darker in the VSE than in the render output window?
I'm having a weird problem with the VSE in Blender 2.90. I am rendering a night time scene using the physical atmosphere addon, with a very bright emissive object that passes through the sky. When I try to use the rendered image sequence in the VSE though, it appears much darker than it does in the viewport or when I replay the animation with ctrl+F11. I simply opened up a preset "video editing" workspace, then used shift+a to add the image sequence. I am experiencing the same problem with both cycles and EEVEE renders. Render format is the default PNG.
What might cause this behavior?

You'll need to set View Transform to Standard(and not Filmic).

If you use the Video Editing template at start-up or through File - New - Video Editing it'll be set to Standard from the beginning.

Thanks for the answer. While that did change the brightness a little bit, I discovered my problem was actually caused by my exposure setting - the physical atmosphere addon sets it to -6.0, and I did not realize that setting also affects VSE renders.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How can I blend a moon/planet (textured sphere) into the background (procedural sky texture)?
I've been trying to tackle this challenge for a week or two now and I'm still somewhat stumped. I am trying to create the effect of a moon or large planet seen in orbit from the surface during daylight, when the darker values fade behind the blue sky and the brightest values shine through.

I'm trying to make this effect with RenderLayers compositing nodes, which I still don't really understand compared to shader nodes. I know the solution should involve mix nodes and color ramps, but I haven't  been able to get anything close yet. I've tried mixing the environment socket of the layers node with the image socket in various ways but I'm still stuck. Can someone point me on the right path?

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


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Fill Brush with Radial Gradient not working with Project Paint
I have modeled a leopard frog with the mirror modifier and unwrapped it, and am attempting to paint the diffuse texture in the 3D viewport. When using the draw brush, painting works fine. When using the fill brush without a gradient, it works as expected.
My problem occurs when I try to use the radial gradient option on the fill brush to paint the spots of the frog. The results are mostly crap. For example, I'll paint the top of the body, and it paints a spot on the bottom as well. Or I'll paint on the side of the body and the spot shows up on the belly instead. Sometimes, the brush won't even work and I have to fiddle with re-unwrapping and making a new image to paint on to get it to work again. I feel confident the problem is not my UV map; I have islands for the legs, body, inner mouth, hands, etc. No vertices are overlapping in the UV editor. When I texture paint from the UV window, I get no unexpected results. For some reason the fill brush just completely craps out on me when I use a radial gradient in the viewport.
I should add that I've tried toggling Occlude, Cull and Normal options in the toolbar to no effect.
I'm really at a loss for what to do here. Is there a better way to paint the spots? Is radial gradient fill just plain broken?

I think that actually we need to think in regards to how to arrive at the radial gradient dots on the target image. The gradient fill brush is going to fill the whole image, and works from clicking somewhere in the image and pulling away from center to create a radial gradient fill.
My preferred way to do this is to use a Blend texture set to radial, and in the brush settings I set it to stroke type 'Anchored' and change 'Tiled' mapping to 'View Plane'. Define your gradient there in the place in the texture panel marked 'color' and then set your stops to the colors of your choice. If you already have a gradient worked out, hover over it and press ctrl-C to copy it, and hover over this color ramp and press ctrl-V to paste it in. Click in the image area on your mesh, and the dragging away you should get a preview of the colors and size before release.

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


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Why is this reflection incorect?
I am making an illustration in Cycles Render of a table with a lamp and a Magic-8 ball below it.
Here's what it looks like when I render:

On closer look, the reflection in the ball is wrong given the curvy object it is reflecting:

(image above is the result of 1000 preview samples).
Here are a couple more view of the scene and its data:

The black ball's material

The lamp's material

Another light source is present.

What the lamp really looks like (y'know, IKEA).
I have tried full global illumination in the render settings, various sub surf modifiers to the lamp and to the ball, Multiple Importance on and off, but this didn't change a thing.

I think it's not the fault of IKEA lamp (though I'm not a big fan of their designs BTW ;)).It's rather the fact your sphere is not smoothed (Tool Shelf-->Tools-->Shading-Smooth). Oh, and you may give your sphere a Subsurf modifier first.

Possible duplicate: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/2773/599

@Gonzou is right, you should turn on smooth shading on your sphere.  Smooth shading smooths the normals across flat faces creating the illusion of curvature.  It also wouldn't hurt to add a subsurf modifier too.

@Gonzou thanks, friend! Looks like an answer rather than a comment, feel free to magically transform it to an answer

Oh, yeah, it's a duplicate, you're right! I looked for it for a while though... Should I delete it?

Can you make the comment an answer to be accepted and upvoted/close this question? thanks


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Sizing a file from Blender to Shapeways
I have designed a model in Blender I want to print through Shapeways.
Here are the dimensions of the object in Blender, and the Scene's Units settings:

After import in Shapeways, the sizes are wrong:

When I fiddle around the Scale tool in Shapeways, I am still getting dimensions that are wrong (for example if I scale 10 000%, the dimension for Z will be 12.8cm but is 12.14cm on my model).
So I tried following their guidelines "scale your objects to the size you want, assuming 1 blender unit equals one millimeter".
So, I click on Units > None and my dimensions become this:

So I type S 100 and I obtain this:

Which I think is what I want. So I upload the .STL file in Shapeways:

But after import the file is still given an imprecise/different size in Shapeways:

12.8cm on the Z axis while it should be 12.1cm.
Can I get Shapeways to print my model the exact size I want it?

Obvious question, but was the scale applied / changed by y and z axes ? (looks like scale by x is correct).

Thanks for the comment! In the first image you can see Scale: X/Y/Z: 1, after I applied scale it went to 1

Might be rotation is not applied and axes are reversed? Also: you can choose whether to use Y-up or Z-up in shapeways. Blender uses a Z-up coordinate system.


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Creating and packing a 32-bit float image
How can I specify the file type and color depth when generating and packing an image with Python?
I'm trying to generate an image with full 32-bit float color depth and pack it into my blend file but I keep getting it revert back to 8-bits per channel.
I'm creating the image using the following python code :
import bpy

width = 800
height = 400

image = bpy.data.images.new("testimagepacked", width=width, height=height,float_buffer=True)

pixels = [None] * width * height

for x in range(0,width):
    for y in range(0,height):
        pixels[(y*width)+x] = [float(x)/width,float(y)/height,-y+x,1.0]

pixels = [chan for px in pixels for chan in px]
image.pixels = pixels
image.update()

This successfully creates the image and dragging the mouse across it in the UV/Image Editor shows that the pixels are correctly stored as floats (with the Blue channel ranging way beyond the usual 0.0, 1.0 limits and green and red not being rounded to 1/256ths).

If I manually select Image/Save As Image and specify the format as OpenEXR, RGBA, Float(full) to save if as a file and then select Image/Pack then the image is packed into the blend file retaining its full 32-bit precision.

This shows that it's possible to pack the image in 32-bit precision.
I have tried to replicate these actions in Python but am unable to save the image as 32-bit float - I can't figure out how to specify the image file format.
The nearest I've got is to save the image as OpenEXR but, apparently, not in 32-bit float for the image loses its precision when it's packed using this :
image.file_format = 'OPEN_EXR'
image.filepath='//created image.exr'

image.save()
image.pack(as_png=False) # I expected this to pack as float rather than PNG but this doesn't seem to work
image.use_fake_user = True

How can I specify the Image Format Settings when saving the image from Python? Even better would be to be able to directly pack the image (as 32-bit float) without having to save it to disk at all, but I don't think this is possible.

Yep, seems not possible at the moment... the image needs to be saved before :/ Alternatively you could use python's tempfile library https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/tempfile.html (just an idea).

@poor Thanks - that sounds useful for generating a temporary filename - I'll look into that.

It would seem that to control the image format that gets packed into a blend file, you will need to save the image to disk and then re-open it.
To get control of the file format an image is saved to disk with, you can use save_render(). The render settings from the scene parameter holds the ImageFormatSettings which allow you to adjust the settings. If you don't want to use the render settings from the current scene you can create a new one just for this.
scn = bpy.data.scenes.new('img_settings')
scn.render.image_settings.file_format = 'OPEN_EXR_MULTILAYER'
scn.render.image_settings.color_mode = 'RGBA'
scn.render.image_settings.color_depth = '32'
img_path = bpy.path.abspath('//')
img_file = image.name+'.exr'
image.save_render(img_path+img_file, scene=scn)
bpy.data.scenes.remove(scn, do_unlink=True)

But this still leaves you with an edited image that doesn't respond to pack(). To get around this, remove the image block and open it from the file.
bpy.data.images.remove(image)
bpy.ops.image.open(filepath=img_path+img_file)
image = bpy.data.images[img_file]
image.pack()
os.remove(img_path+img_file)

Thanks! That looks like exactly what I need. I'll give it try.

Thanks very much for this - I've made two minor edits (one to use abspath('//') as '//' wasn't being correctly expanded and the other to include 'do_unlink=True' when removing the scene as it was failing due to a user still being present). This is working perfectly. Thanks again :-)

For info, discovered that the do_unlink is only valid (and required) in Blender version 2.78 and above. It was introduced to make the 'remove' behaviour more consistent between data types.


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Loading Image and Applying it to Image Texture Node
I am coding an add-on, in which I want the user to select an image using a File Browser of a Custom panel. Then the Image selected is applied to the "object's active material's - Image Texture Node".
I have used this code to create a File Browser in the custom Panel. But when an image is selected, it does not get imported in Blender.
This is the code:
Img_path= StringProperty(name="Browse for an Image:",attr="custompath",description="Image file path",maxlen= 1024,subtype='FILE_PATH',default= "",update=update_texture)

That update_texture is defined to set the Image to the Image Texture node. But I don't know how to do it!
Also I need help in making only image files available when File Browser shows up. Thanks in advance....

The import image as planes does most of what you are after, where it creates new objects for each image you could adjust it to alter an existing object material.


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Properly convert Hex Color code to Blender RGB in python
I have noticed that a color can be assigned, by their rgb values in Blender using Python. But it is not possible to directly assign a hex color code to it.
Also, there were some hex to rgb function which I found and used, but still it does not give the correct rgb values because Blender uses 'Gamma Corrected' color values.
Hence, I have found out a proper way to convert hex color code to RGB Color Value.

check this link it works perfectly https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?360140-help-please-is-there-a-fast-way-to-convert-srgb-values-to-linear

This helped me: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/72052/node-for-setting-render-colour-regardless-of-lighting-blender-2-78a

@JustinHelps That is based on nodes. The code I have answered below does the same thing

There is also an extra bit in the bottom answer to that question which talks about setting color management to "Raw". This turns off the gamma correction, allowing people to get the desired colors even if their gamma isn't 2.2, which seems to be the case for some folks in these threads.

@JustinHelps Yes, but actually that is not a good practice. Gamma correction is followed in all softwares and explicitly disabling it would not give correct colors in renders.

This can be achieved using the following code:
def hex_to_rgb(value):
    gamma = 2.2
    value = value.lstrip('#')
    lv = len(value)
    fin = list(int(value[i:i + lv // 3], 16) for i in range(0, lv, lv // 3))
    r = pow(fin[0] / 255, gamma)
    g = pow(fin[1] / 255, gamma)
    b = pow(fin[2] / 255, gamma)
    fin.clear()
    fin.append(r)
    fin.append(g)
    fin.append(b)
    fin.append(1.0)
    return tuple(fin)

It may not be completely clean code, but is really helpful

It definitely helps, but in my case the values are still slightly off.
I tried tuning the Gamma value, but no luck.

The above method is not 100% accurate, and that is why I have posted it here so that someone can suggest a better method. I think that Gamma should be 2.2 based on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_correction

I apologize but I would like to point out that this is not a precise answer, so it could create problems, the Hex values change, albeit slightly.
I think this answer should be reviewed

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


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How would I go about rigging this?
Recently, I began goofing around in Blender and came up with this

Now, I am a beginner and I wanted to rig him to use in unity, and I've been following several tutorials on how to rig characters in general. But the problem is a lot of the time, I end up getting stretching or some pieces of the robot won't follow the other parts, such as the fingers.
I have succumbed to frustration and have decided to put aside my stubbornness to come here and ask for advice.

Here are a few nice tips, scroll down to the message with the videos:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?248085-Rigging-a-ROBOT

First enable the Rigify Addon in Menu: File / User Preferences

Now you can add the whole human rig to your scene in Object Mode Shift-A

In Edit Mode align all bones with your model. When done parent the model to the rig Ctrl-P (With Automatic Weights).

And create the Meta-Rig.

After that you can create Actions and arrange them in the NLA editor. Importing to Unity is best done by Import New Asset from the Asset Menu.
A more detailed description with removal of unneeded bones is available in the Unity documentation: http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/BlenderAndRigify.html

If you don't want to animate a humanoid then chose Animation Type: Generic  in the import settings of the rig:


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Changing Centre of 3D Viewport
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question; I am very new to the program.
All the basic movement controls (Orbiting, zooming, strafing) seem to be based around the centre of the viewport. I am trying to work with something fairly far away from this point, and it is very difficult to control. All movement is very sensitive (do you know what I mean?). Is there any way to change this point? Or is there any other way to circumvent this problem? Sorry again if the answer is something obvious.

If you LMB click anywhere in the viewport, the 3D cursor will go there. Now press Alt-Home and your view should focus on the 3D cursor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT2mtoDnSzM https://www.blender.org/manual/editors/3dview/navigate/3d_view.html

Select an object by LMB over it and then press numpad period to focus on it.
But if you want to focus on an emtpy space and pivot around it, LMB to move the 3D cursor to that spot then  Alt home


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UV mapping perfect pixel textures
I am trying to model a Mech in a very simplistic style with pixelated textures.
I am trying to achieve something similar to this:

Here are the textures from the last one:
Im having issues with the UV mapping.I am trying to make my mech have similar textures in that way that they are pixelated,straight and perfect.The mech here has a texture size of 128,but im trying with 256.
I have tried with the lightmap pack unwrapping and with smart UV mapping and both make most of the UV straight but they make them distorted at places and not pixel perfect.
The ideal solution would be if somehow all the UVs of the faces could be laying on the normal of the face without any distortion,that way all the pixel would be perfect squares.
I have pixel snapping on and with that still some UV faces arent rotated perfectly straight so the pixels go at a angle.
The only idea that comes to my head is to try to UV unwrap everything by hand which would be really tedious...

See if this is what you need http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/47636/low-res-texture-blurry/47643#47643

I already done that,the issue i am having is with setting up the UV to have all the pixel perfect.
I just thought up of an idea,maybe i could look at a flat surface and try project from view and see how that goes,it should theoretically give me what i need.

Well you can only have pixel perfect unwraps if your mesh was totally orthogonal and made up of perfectly rectangular or square faces since all pixels are square, and I see your faces are slanted and trapezoidal. You could also use the UV Image Editor > UVs > Snap to Pixels option

Yeah i figured. I've tried with the lightpack and to tweak a bit by myself and smart unwrap with low angle limit and still i got intersecting pixels in places i didn't want so in the end i went with the all done by hand solution. Either way its gonna have intersecting pixels but at least this way i can control it to some degree.
Anyway thanks for the help :D


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Simple mechanical animations
Try out animation
^look at the gif.
I have managed to do this simple animation with the record function but it all looks like it could have been done better.
Animating like this is more free than i want.
How can i animate this simple parts along with the joints i will add later so i can edit it both when its open and closed?
The problem is i dont really know how to ask the question,as i dont really know how it would be the best way to do it.
Should i add a simple armature and use it to animate and move it around?
Or is there any other better way?
I am sorry if there are any grammar issues in the post and thank you in advance in any help i may receive.

You'll want to design a rig to manipulate the pieces. Here is an article on the subject (it's for an older version of Blender, but the concepts should still apply): http://www.rab3d.com/proj_excavator-1.php

Thats what i expected.I will have to look at a few tuts about riging so i can do it properly,tuts like these.Thanks.


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How to cut one group of faces with another group of faces?
First off, I would like to apologize for any mis-terming or anything of the like, as this is my first blender project. I'm trying to make a mesh model, and I like to have everything neat and connected. I have run into one problem multiple times, that is that I need to connect two parts of the mesh at a certain point, which is inside another face. Is there any way that I can use both face to "cut" each other, sort of making a cross a corner? I have some screenshots below for clarification.

It's a bit hard to understand. Do you aim to use one group of faces as a "knife" to cut another group of faces? or do you need to simply split some faces?

You could try and use edit mode Boolean Operations (only available in Blender 2.77+)
Go into edit mode, select one of the groups of faces you want to use, open the Spacebar Menu and search for Boolean. Then choose one the the options that suits you best.
If you need the original intact faces you may need to create a copy of your objects first.

Have in mind that these will merge faces together and likely result in bad topology and non manifold meshes.
You should always strive for clean topology manifold meshes, and quad-based or quad-dominant topology

That worked well enough for a noob's first model! Thank you!

I downvoted because "Use boolean operations" is not descriptive, nor does it even attempt to clarify how one might get to said options. And on top of this, spacebar is not bound to the search function by default: https://stackoverflowsolutions.com/topic/product-guides/how-to-ask-and-answer


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can the "channel" button for the preview screen be set to a new default value
When I create a new blend project... the "channel" button for the preview screen is set to channel 1, apparently by default.  Is there a way to make that button default to channel zero?
I ask this because I was trying to do a gamma cross transition and did not realize the viewer channel was set to 1... so even though Blender was doing the cross, fades, wipes, etc... I could not see them happen... and thought something was wrong with Blender... i.e. a bug... or more likely that I... being a noobie... was doing something wrong.
Once I changed the previewer channel button to zero... i could see the transitions happen... and naturally they were in the rendered video.
Please advise as to whether a new default for that channel button can be set in something like user preferences ... and many thanks!!

Perhaps save a new startup .blend?  I think that would be in the File menu.  So make the change, go back to the 3D view (so that it doesn't always go to the VSE or wherever), and then save.  If that works (unable to test now), let me know and I'll convert it to an answer.

First go to the Video Editing layout:

Now, in my Blender (2.77), this defaults to 0, but find the Channel for the preview here:

Click on the left arrow to change it back to 0.

Now here you have an option, you can either go back to the 3D view (Default), or if you are going to be exclusively video editing, leaving it on the Video Editing layout may be useful.

Go to File -> Save Startup File and click it.  You can also use Ctrl + U.  This can of course be used to save Blender in other states (for instance, having a scene without a cube at the beginning).

You can like Gliderman said when you just change it and save your startup Blend file...
However, you shouldn't do this. As there's a special concept behind Channel 0 as said in the Introduction to the VSE:

Note
The first channel 0 is unusable as a place to put strips. This is because it is used by the Sequencer Display to show a composite of all strips above channel 0.

I think, Mikeycal Meyers explained the concept quite well in his VSE Tutorial Series.

This is different, we are not adjusting which channel the clip is on, we are adjusting (and then saving) what channel the viewer is set to.


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Modal operators not working when used through pop-up menu
So I was trying to use change the value of the thickness through a modal operation where the mouse movement along the x changes the thickness of the modifier. It works fine when I execute it from my custom panel but it doesn't work when I try to execute it through the pop-up menu. There are no error messages shown, nothing happens when i press the button in the pop-up.
Sorry the codes breaking up in the post, I'm new to stackexchange.
import bpy
from bpy.props import IntProperty, FloatProperty
class FattenerModal(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "fattener.f_operator"
    bl_label = "Fattener Modal"
bpy.ops.object.modifier_remove(modifier="Solidify")#Clears previous solidify modifier
bpy.ops.object.modifier_add(type='SOLIDIFY')#Adds a new solidify modifier

first_mouse_x = IntProperty()
first_value = FloatProperty()

def modal(self, context, event):
    if event.type == 'MOUSEMOVE':
        delta = self.first_mouse_x - event.mouse_x
        context.object.modifiers["Solidify"].thickness = self.first_value + delta * 0.01

    elif event.type == 'LEFTMOUSE':
        bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(apply_as='DATA', modifier="Solidify")#Applies the solidify modifier
        return {'FINISHED'}

    elif event.type in {'RIGHTMOUSE', 'ESC'}:
        context.object.modifiers["Solidify"].thickness = self.first_value
        return {'CANCELLED'}

    return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

def invoke(self, context, event):
    if context.object:
        self.first_mouse_x = event.mouse_x
        self.first_value = context.object.modifiers["Solidify"].thickness

        context.window_manager.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}
    else:
        self.report({'WARNING'}, "No active object, could not finish")
        return {'CANCELLED'}

class FattenerPopup(bpy.types.Menu):
    bl_label = "FatternerPopup Menu"
    bl_idname = "FattenerPop"
def draw(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    layout.operator("fattener.f_operator", text="FattenerF", icon='MOD_WARP')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(FattenerModal)
    bpy.utils.register_class(FattenerPopup)
km_list = ['3D View']
for i in km_list:
    sm = bpy.context.window_manager
    km = sm.keyconfigs.default.keymaps[i]
    kmi = km.keymap_items.new('wm.call_menu', 'Q', 'PRESS', ctrl=False, shift=True)
    kmi.properties.name = "FattenerPop"

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(FattenerModal)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(FattenerPopup)
    km_list = ['3D View']
    for i in km_list:
        sm = bpy.context.window_manager
        km = sm.keyconfigs.default.keymaps[i]
        for kmi in (kmi for kmi in km.keymap_items \
                            if (kmi.idname == "FattenerPop")):
            km.keymap_items.remove(kmi)
if name == "main":
    register()

you should add
self.layout.operator_context = 'INVOKE_DEFAULT'
to get modal work.
in your code should be:
def draw(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    layout.operator_context = 'INVOKE_DEFAULT'
    layout.operator("fattener.f_operator", text="FattenerF", icon='MOD_WARP')


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2.8 Transparency in Solid Viewport Shading
When setting the Alpha value to anything but 1 this happens. Setting it back to 1, everything goes back to normal.

You might try changing material's, "Blend Mode," if you haven't already: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/eevee/materials/settings.html#blend-mode

Kindly recommend you update to the newest version of Blender and AMD graphics driver. 2.8x has well-known bugs and glitches related to several versions of AMD graphic drivers like this:
AMD GPU Material in "material preview mode" and "rendered mode", is entirely gray as background. Only outline is displayed
https://developer.blender.org/T67615
Viewports broken on RX 580

I literally have a RX 580 lol


text:
Considering the character is not selectable as a mesh, how would I mirror these earrings?
Considering the character is not selectable as a mesh, how would I mirror these earrings to the other side of the head/the other ear? (The helixes, stud was just there for reference)

The result that you're trying to achieve is actually very easy to do.

Add an empty.
Position it to be in the middle of your character's head.
Put a mirror modifier on your ring objects.
Use that empty as the "mirror object."


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CPU vs CUDA performance differ in render and rendered display
Blender 2.78a on archlinux (FX-8320 @ 4.4GHz, GTX1060)
Rendering times for RyzenGraphic_27.blend from amd website:
CPU - 0:58
CUDA - 1:20

Live rendering times when switch "Viewport Shading" to "Rendered":
CPU - 0:22.28
CUDA - 0:04.54

I expected one to be faster than other in both cases, but this is strange, why is this happening?

Can I ask how you enable GPU rendering via Python? My Blender never uses GPU on arch linux.

i just change settings in blender to cuda, then in rendering tab set render to gpu, nothing else, it works

Right, with GUI it's that simple. I am asking if you know how to do it via Python. Seems not. Thanks anyways!

Live rendering is preformed on the whole screen area at once, or a large part of it at least; and actual rendering is performed in smaller tiles, the way Cycles works that leads to very different management usage and bandwidth requirements, which gives different performance results. Also viewportRendered view generally uses a much lower number of samples suitable for a quick preview, while final rendering requires "production quality" sample count

i tried set samples for rendering same as for preview (50), still same

ok, apparently tile size matters, big tile size improve gpu render speed

If you are rendering with a CPU smaller tile values like 16x16 ( keep them square ) will be fastest. With a GPU larger ones like 256x256 work better. This is due to the way they make calculations. So just ticking the box and set it to GPU without changing this value will make it slower than it can be. Since viewport render is the whole screen the GPU will be faster because the "tile" is bigger


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Export model transformation matrix
I am a very basic blender user, I need to know if there is a add-on or a built in function that could export selected objects model transformation matrix (the matrix that contains the models scaling, rotation and translation information).
Thanks!

What do you mean by export? To where or in what format? This would be a pretty easy thing to do using a python script, but you need to be more specific about how you need the matrix to be represented and exported.

For example a text file, any format would be fine.

Alrighty, then this script creates a text file with the transform matrix [see answer here to understand blender's transform matrix format] of the active object as it is represented in blender. Just copy and paste it into a text editor window in Blender, save your blendfile where you want your text file to be created, and run the script:
import bpy
from os.path import dirname, join

if bpy.context.object and bpy.data.filepath:
    fname = bpy.context.object.name + ".matrix"
    fpath = join( dirname( bpy.data.filepath ),  fname )

    f = open( fpath, "w" )
    f.write( str( bpy.context.object.matrix_world ) )
    f.close()

Example:
For this transformed cube with the following transform values:

You get this result in the generated textfile:
<Matrix 4x4 ( 0.6416, 0.2411,  0.7263, -0.8912)
            (-0.8174, 0.1801, -1.0416, -2.1409)
            (-0.8864, 0.0084,  1.4863,  3.1665)
            ( 0.0000, 0.0000,  0.0000,  1.0000)>

There is this Blender add-on, that allows you to extract transformation matrices from objects and write them on disc.
It also allows you to apply transformation matrices to object - for instance by loading them from disc.
Here is a screen shot of the GUI elements added by the add-on.


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Best way to create blended cylinder/hexagon?
I'm fairly new to Blender and I'm trying to create a mesh that smoothly transitions from cylindrical endcaps to a flattened hexagonal midbody.

I'm able to make one pair of faces easily enough by selecting verts and doing a normal z scale operation of 0.  You can see one of the faces generated this way on the right side of the mesh.  However, this doesn't work on subsequent faces since the scaling operation moves the verts that border the neighboring hexagon faces, distorting them.
I've highlighted the next face I'd like to flatten.  How can I do this while keeping the verts on the far right and left side of the face stationary?  I've seen people using vertex hiding to hold geometry in place but I can't do that since I need to have all of the verts in the face selected when I do the scale transform.
Alternately, it there a better way to do this than distorting a cylinder mesh primitive?

Perhaps you may want to try from the opposite approach: Start with a cylinder with exactly six sides. In edit mode, hit W, then subdivide. Repeat this three (maybe four) times until you have a nicely subdivided hexagonal prism.
Enter Edge Select mode and select the very top loop around the circumference. Hit Shift+S, then Cursor to Selected, then hit Shift+Alt+S to perform a Transform To Sphere. With the keypad, enter 1.0. This top loop will now be a perfect circle.
Select the next edge loop below the top one, and repeat the above steps, except enter 0.8 when performing the Transform To Sphere. This loop will now be a slightly hexagonal circle.
Continue selecting lower and lower edge loops, using values of 0.6, 0.4 then finally 0.2. You will then have something very close to what you want.

You can use the Bridge Edge Loop, an operator available since 2.63 version, to connect two different profiles (obiuvsly works best if they have the same amount of vertices):

A similar function can be found in the LoopTools Add-on, but has fewer options (it's where the Bridge Edge loop operator came from):

A possible result:

This is a great solution.  I went with the other answer mainly because it didn't require an external library but this answer seems to be more powerful.  Thanks for bringing LoopTools to my attention.

Don't worry! Anyway, the second option (Bridge Edge Loop operator) doesn't require an external add-on. I'll switch the two options.

authors: Александр Балакирев


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I somehow made edit/object mode monochrome. How do I revert to default render settings?
Relatively new to Blender here.  While doing a bunch of Control-Z undos in edit mode, I somehow made both edit and object mode monochrome when I fat-fingered something.  I've been searching through all the render settings but can't figure out how I got it to this state.
https://i.sstatic.net/6QKOI.jpg

I don't know if this is what you mean but you are in Texture display mode...see that little red and white checked ball to the right of the "Object Mode" dropdown?  Just hit 'Z' once to go to wireframe, or twice to go to Solid display mode...or click on that ball to choose a different rendering mode.  You probably hit Alt-Z instead of Ctrl-Z.


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Getting exactly circular/rounded NURBS corners
How can the weight of a NURBS curve/surface be calculated such that corners are exactly circular? It has something to do with the angle of the corner, but that doesn't seem to be displayed anywhere.

I'm not absolutely certain this pertains, but it may not be possible. NURBS cannot be used to represent a circle exactly, but may only be used to create an approximation, however close. You may want to refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-uniform_rational_B-spline for more information (especially the note in the section titled: Example: a circle).
Of course, this is a good answer if you are attempting to make a full circle. If your goal, however, is to make an exactly circular join between two perpendicular segments, it may or may not be possible.
Then again, as blender is typically used to generate imagery with a finite sample size (i.e. pixels) it may be possible that the rendering of the NURBS approximation of a circle would be sufficiently accurate so as to be indistinguishable from an actual mathematically precise circle.
Hope this helps.

Well as close as possible is sufficient, perfect circles are finitely impossible because as far as is known π is infinite. NURBS curves can be made very close to circular regardless of the angle between the segments. So based on that angle there must be a formula to calculate what the weight must be of the vertices?


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Centre-of-mass at a different location from the object's origin?
So I'm modelling objects where the vertices are aligned to the grid, and I snap the objects to the grid often so it is important that the origin is aligned to the grid as well. Of course when adding rigid-body simulation that becomes a problem as the origin is also the centre-of-mass, which will not necessarily be align to the grid. I need to know if it is possible to set the centre-of-mass to a distinct location from the origin in Blender.

Ah, sorry I misread your question, so I removed my answer, I'm not sure if it's possible to unlink the two. Off the top of my head, if your scene is simple enough to duplicate the objects, have a layer for organizing the objects, and have the simulation on a different layer and render that layer only, and lastly copy your final locations over to the physics objects layer, but that's definitely more of a hack.

Oh, so basically what you're say is that you could have the origin set to the centre-of-mass for the physics simulation, then have an empty aligned to the grid, then parent the object to the empty meaning when the empty is snapped to the grid the object is as well. That is insanely complicated and lowers that maximum amount of useful objects Blender could handle in a scene, but it is one workaround.

Just want to add to my previous comment. Another problem with that method is that when physics simulations are run, the empty will not follow the object. I have attempted to get around this, but I am confident that there is no workaround.

Ah, you're right! I did a little more searching and found the link below. It's just someone suggesting an idea similar to yours.  https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/Jzbbbc/

Take a look at this answer.  It provides a way to setup the moment if inertia and can be used to set the center of gravity. https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/39169/how-can-a-force-be-applied-not-to-the-center-of-a-rigid-body-object-but-to-one#42237


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Refactoring tools for Blender?
Are there any refactoring tools for Blender that are currently alive and work with the latest Blender releases?
By refactoring I mean making changes to data, such as objects and groups, where links to that data in external '.blend' files are updated. For example:

Renaming data.
Moving data to different files, which is the same as making a linked copy of that data in an external '.blend' file the source.
Safe delete, where data is only deleted if it is not linked in external '.blend' files.

I have heard of Blender-Aid, but it seems that project is no longer maintained.
Blender Asset Manager is great, but can only be used to rename or move entire '.blend' files rather than their data.
I'm not sure Asset Manager has the refactoring features I am looking for.
I have written some scripts using Blender's Python API, but because they need to open each '.blend' file to search it, they are extremely slow and cannot be used in practice.
I am currently attempting to use blendfile.py to rewrite those scripts, but it is turning out to be extremely time-consuming to learn how to use it given the lack of documentation, not just on blendfile.py itself, but also the way '.blend' files are structured.
I truly don't know how anyone can use Blender without refactoring, it's essential for the workflow of any large project. Surely there are already tools out there that do it.


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How to used the mousescroll to as a modal function to, for example, move the object?
For example, in the template in the text editor has an example script that utilizes a modal function with mousemove to change the location of the object along and axis, how can I use the same function, but instead it's the scroller that controls the function ?

The event.type that you get within modal() will be WHEELUPMOUSE or WHEELDOWNMOUSE when the scrollwheel is used.
def modal(self, context, event):
    if event.type == 'WHEELUPMOUSE':
        context.object.location.x += 0.5
    elif event.type == 'WHEELDOWNMOUSE':
        context.object.location.x -= 0.5
    elif event.type == 'ESC':
        return {'CANCELLED'}

    return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}


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Draw icons Bgl/Blf
I have drawn text in a modal operator using blf, I wonder if icons, shapes or boxes could be drawn the same way using Python.

Yes, you can definitely draw them, but I don't know if it's the same way as the texts.  The addon "SpeedFlow" by Pit wazou does use custom icons as image files.

I wonder if it could be drawn by pixels rather than images, but the image method would be fine too.

That I'm not too sure of.  I myself is in the middle of researching the draw_handler for Modal operator myself.  And you are actually ahead of me.


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Pie menu goes away after selecting an option
For example when I used the pie menu to set the mode to edit mode, the pie menu immediately goes away after i select edit mode. How do I keep the pie menu floating even after multiple lmb clicks on the menu. There was a similar post here which was old, and I'm asking this again because the pie menus are updated now maybe ?

Pie menus are not intended to stay there and if it would be possible it would be a terrible workflow to get used to. I'd reaaly like to see popups like Shift + A stay but pie menus don't even have the right layout and would take up way too much space.


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Custom hotkey for custom f6 properties pop-up menu
How do I assign a custom hotkey to this f6 type(properties) pop-up ? I have tried putting "wm.call_menu" in the keymap items but it seems like it doesn't work for this kind of pop-up.
Here's the code
   class ShowPopupOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
       bl_idname = "object.show_popup"
       bl_label = "sample show popup"
       bl_options = {'REGISTER','UNDO'}

       prop1 = bpy.props.IntProperty()
       prop2 = bpy.props.FloatProperty()

       def invoke(self, context, event):
           return context.window_manager.invoke_props_popup(self, event)
       def execute(self, context): # do stuff here
           return {'FINISHED'}

       def draw(self, context):
           col = self.layout.column()
           row = col.row()
           row.label("Hello this the operator drawing")
           row = col.row()
           row.prop(self, 'prop1')
           row = col.row()
           row.prop(self, 'prop2')

I think this or this is what you are looking for.

No, I was asking that could a hotkey be assigned through Python for this specific type of pop-up ? I tried coding a hotkey like I usually do with regular pies and menus but it gives me a "wm.call_menu not found", I also created a panel button for it then assigned a hotkey to it but it gives me the same error.


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Lock radius of brush in texture paint mode
This question has also been asked before but since it did not get any answer im asking again with the hope of getting any kind of feedback or possibly an answer since the original post had none .In sculpting mode the paint brush radius/size can be locked so the brush size doesn't change when zooming. This feature seems to be absent in texture painting, is there any work around in achieving that in texture paint mode ? Guidelines for a making a Python script would be useful.

Here is the original post https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/74165/how-to-make-brush-size-lock-in-texture-paint

Is this the same exact question as the other? Usually is good practice to not duplicate a question. To increase the chance of getting an answer you can 1) edit the question adding more detais/showing your progress to make it clear the goal 2) put a bounty on it.

Thank you from answering, sorry I'm relatively new to stack exchange so I might not know some things. You can mark this post as duplicate.

An answer has been posted on the original question. I guess this one should be closed as 'duplicate'.


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DOF not working in Orthogonal view
I am currently using an orthographic camera in my scene, and I tried to used the camera DOF effect and to my surprise, it didn't work, or perhaps I couldn't make it work. I tried to make the camera perspective again, and it worked. Is there any reason why this is happening or is there a solution to this ? I have seen orthographic artwork rendered with keyshot and software like magicavoxel and they both have DOF in orthographic view. Is blender able to use DOF in orthographic view at all ?

What do you mean by 'view'? The 3D View or when rendering? What render engine?


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Material preview icon through python

I have looked through the source py file of the material panel and all I could find is block data, it seems that the data that is responsible for the preview icons is hardcoded. Is it possible to display the preview icon on a custom panel ?


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blender 2.9 curve handles not visible until selected
In previous versions once you go to curve edit mode you see all curve control points handles. But in 2.9 it's only dots. To see handles you must select control point first
This is not ok if I want to move two side handles of different control points at the same time (for example I want to select and move only top handles of two points on screenshot). Is there a way to get it back?

I think that's what you're looking for (Viewport Overlays > Curve Edit Mode > Handles > All):


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Texturing a tree
I am making a 3d model of a tree using the sappling add on, when i put the bark texture on the tree the texture looks stretched (ive tried use UV for mapping and auto texture space).

Hi, maybe adding some screenshot or sharing the .blend will help some one understand your problem better...


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how do I get ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series graphics to work with blender?
I have an ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series graphics card and all the latest drivers installed, including the latest APU drivers that now come packed with the AMD catalyst software...
I am using Blender 2.76, which is the latest version of blender as of this post.
How do I get Compute to work on my computer?

The only option I get is CPU...
If anyone can help it would be most appreciated, Happy blending guys and girls!

Have a look at http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?381811-Blender-2-76-GPU-activation

EDIT I thought I'd fixed my issue but if you see the next EDIT after this remark I was mistaken
Okay I fixed my issue... I needed to remove all traces of the old drivers...
Then reinstall them by going to the AMD website and downloading the auto-detect utility and running it.
I read it very carefully and before installing the graphics card drivers, there is a note at the top of the app stating that it don't install chipset drivers so I did that first and was prompted to restart the machine.
I Then relocated the auto-detect utility and proceeded to install the graphics drivers followed by the APU drivers (found on AMD.com) also.
Everything seems to be working nicely now and I have a new option in the user preferences;

I am now rendering a complex scene and see notable improvements in speed!
EDIT:
It seems that support at this stage is only partial for lower grade AMD graphics cards... namely only GCN cards are supported and blender will hang if you change to cycles and change the setting from CPU to GPU Compute in the render tab.

Its rather convoluted and this behaviour should be blocked! I reported it as a bug but the devs are very busy and seem to think its a report and not a bug so we will have to put up with it until they discover it and fix it themselves.
This seems unlikely to happen because they all use powerful computers, so the message here is get better hardware because they don't care about bugs that effect older hardware...
lesson to be learnt... If you don't have the means, you won't discover that till you waste your time after not having any way of knowing it (unless your omniscient).
Lets just hope that they include support for older architecture graphics cards in the future because older graphics cards still have quite a lot of raw processing power and would increase confidence for disgruntled users like me that feel they don't have a voice!

It's not a Blender issue (besides giving you the option for OpenCL compute). AMD simply doesn't support most compute features with your card. As for "lesson to be learnt... If you don't have the means, you won't discover that till you waste your time after not having any way of knowing it (unless your omniscient)." A google search for "cycles supported video cards" leads to this page which flat out says HD5000 cards are not supported: https://www.blender.org/manual/render/cycles/gpu_rendering.html


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Query on OpenCL 2.0 support
Does the Blender-2.76 support any of the OpenCL 2.0 features like SVM, C11, atomics, etc … ?
I would like to know whether you plan to support the 2.0 in upcoming releases?
Thanks,
Srinivas

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about blenders source code. Try asking developers on irc or mailing lists

@sambler  This site is "for people who use Blender...", I don't see how Blender's source code is off topic.  Has this been to meta?

The question is too vague. http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/OpenCL for more info.

@PGmath while python scripting is acceptable the c/c++ source code isn't - see #4 here A user need only be concerned with the list of requirements While a developer could give some feedback, the specifics of what parts or features of opencl are used or may be used is only of concern to blender developers.


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Light pass the wall

Hello there,
My question is how the light pass the wall and illuminate the elements behind it?I wanted to make an isometric scene with sunlight through inside from window.How can i success this?Light must only come from the window.Like sunset through inside.Any help will be appreciated.

I thought about it too first but no.There is no gap between the walls because i made the walls from a cube and then add them to solidify modifier to make them thicker.

A possible explanation may be that your materials are not able to lower the energy of the light rays.
This may be caused by the use of an Add shader (which leads to non-energy conservative behaviour) or even a high RGB value as in the following example (shader of all objects is just a diffuse shader with roughness = 0)
RGB = (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)

Light cames in the scene from the window and is scattered around. When it goes between two surfaces, it starts bouncing. If it's doesn't lose energy after each bounce, you'll have lit surfaces where there should be shadows instead. The more the surfaces are close to each other, the more the effect is noticeable.
RGB = (0.8, 0.8, 0.8)

Usually is better to keep the RGB values far away from the extremes to achieve more realistic results.

All elements in the scene has no materials right now.Is this cause that problem too?I only add the window glossy and refraction shader with fresnel in the node editor.I think this isn't relate about this situation.Is this the possible way to make a volumetric light?

No, when an object has no material is shaded like if it was made by a diffuse shader with RGB (0.8, 0.8, 0.8), so you should not experience that. Your specific problem must be something different from what I showed in this answer. "Volumetric light" is about light interacting with "air", in your image seems that the effect affect only object's surfaces, not what's in between.

The first photo is showing the minimum diffuse value can affect any element inside the room whereever it placed.First,I changed the sample settings and light path settings a bit as shown on the screenshot.And keep the diffuse value at 1.And also changed the light source from sun to spot.Then added a glass material to window.

After all of these,there was still some tiny brightness on the stool.Then I decided to change the diffuse value to 0.First I changed the sample settings to "Final" and "Path Tracing".Then I modify the light path settings and took a screenshot.

I think the problem solved with trial and error.Thank you all who is in contribute this question with me.


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How do I mark a seam at an edge shared by 3 faces as a seam for only two of those faces?
I've got a house that needs a seam where the four outer walls meet the roof. If I place a seam where I need it, it separates the roof directly above the house from the overhang, which is unwanted.
Here's a picture. The highlighted edge is one of the problematic seams

So, how do I fix this?

Not sure what exactly is the problem, what are you trying to achieve?

Never use "edges shared by 3 faces", that is generally considered a bad modelling practice, creating non-manifold meshes that will among other things lead to problems like the one you just encountered. Why not just separate those edges?

This might help Rip Verts

The problem is that the roof has no thickness - so anything you do with one side of it (add creases, set material, etc) affects the other. You need to give the roof a thickness so that it has a proper 'inside' and 'outside' - this is referred to as being 'manifold'. There are various ways of achieving this but the simplest is to go into Edit mode (Tab), select all the faces making up the roof, and hit E to Extrude, and then move the newly generated faces up to form the solid roof (hit Z to constrain movement to the Z-axis then move the mouse up).

It is possible you could just alter the topology so that the roof does not share an edge with the walls.
Probably the quickest way to do this would be to select all the roof polygons and use p to Separate the mesh by selection.  Then go into Object mode, select both objects, and Ctrl-j to join the separated objects back into a single mesh.
The alternative of using Mesh > Edge > Edge Split would be more complicated since you want the wall polygons to share edges.  I'm not sure what operator you could use to reunify the edges of only the wall.  A Remove Doubles would glue the roof back to the walls again.


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Can't change material of anything?
Title says it all. I can not add/change the material/color of ANYTHING.The entire page where materials should be is just completely blank.

https://i.sstatic.net/tzzeY.jpg

You can upload to imgur or some other file sharing site and someone will add the image to your question for you.

Scroll up the tab where material settings should be. In the top there would be big button New.

I feel so stupid now XD Thanks a lot guys!

You Have to scroll up lol, you can see that you Have the scrollbar down.


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Apply linear transformation to a set of vertices
If I have a mesh such as a detailed pyramid, whose corner vertices lie at the coordinates (0,0,0), (1,0,0), (0,1,0), (0,0,1) (so along the coordinate axis), and I want to apply a linear transformation described by the matrix:

(i.e. converting it into a regular tetrahedron, with each angle equal to pi/3) what would the best way of doing it be? I thought that there would be some sort of transformation for this in the 'object' panel under transformations, but the scaling doesn't change the angles at all, and the delta scale doesn't seem to help either.

I don't think there is currently any built in method to do this directly from the UI, as far as I know, but it would probably be easy to accomplish with a simple Python script using the API

I found a simple solution to this particular problem, if you rotate the pyramid such that the largest face lies on the x-y plane and scale in the z-direction, you can create a regular tetrahedron.
I'm leaving the question open however, because I'm interested in how to apply general linear transformations to meshes.


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How to get realistic glass within glass look?
I've modeled a Klein bottle, but the glass inside the glass never shows up properly.

As in, the glass 'weld' part on the inside of the bottle (where the tube meets the base) never shows up. I've tried all sorts of combinations of nodes for the material (Glass, transparent, translucent, diffuse, fresnel...) but nothing seems to work.

Your problem is likely normals, without a proper look at your topology it is impossible to say, but it looks like you mesh is either non-manifold, or at least has inconsistent normals. Please edit your question and show a topology screenshot of your mesh with visible wireframe.

Please upload your .blend file here. It doesn't look like a material issue. One guess is that the mesh isn't solid, which it needs to be. Also make sure that the mesh isn't connected to itself at the intersection of body and neck.

I realised the things about the normals (after all Klein Bottle is inorientable surface), so I split the Klein bottle into three different sections, each of which is orientable (you can kind of see the breaks in the sections on the handle of the bottle) So it's still just a problem with the material of the glass... I can make the part of the bottle 'inside' to be colored a lot darker so it shows up, but it looks really unnatural.

Try looking at the bottle from underneath. I may be wrong but it looks like the materials. The fact that it's different sections likely has something to do with it. Also, have you used / tried the solidify modifier?

Have you tried looking from underneath? I believe the material is fine and the bottle looks fine but it's hard to tell. The fact the bottle is in different sections also probably has something to do with it. Have you tried using the solidify modifier on all three sections?

maybe if you add a thickness modifier?


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Fake Video Interference in Video Sequence Editing
How can I create fake video interference in clips placed in Blender's Video Sequence Editor? For example, I would want the image to shift every now and then, as well as switch, in a sort of old-TV style, between video clips.
A good example of what I'm looking for would be this Blender created video on YouTube, but I have no idea how the person went about doing it. However, I'm sure you can think of any moment in a TV show or movie when a TV or computer screen is displaying one image, then someone cuts or "hacks" in, and the image is replaced.
I expect something like this would require use of the Node Editor?

Im imagining an x/y transform of the rgb channels with a blur of some sort. But I never tried it.

Never done this but I shouldn't imagine it would be to hard.  They'd probably need to be manually keyframed where x/y transformations were being jumped between etc.  Disptorted analogue pictures such as minor sync loss could be easily done using a textured plane in the 3D window and shape keys to stretch bits and pieces here and there, all jumped suddenly to emulate static interference.  The options in the VSE might be a little limited compared to what you can do to a textured plane.  Didn't see anything resembling TV interference in your link, so I'm just guessing what it is you're after.

authors: Александр Хомяков


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Interactively change camera's focal length
Does anyone know how can I change my camera's focal length interactively, in the 3d viewport, (while looking through the camera)? I'm not looking for the "lock camera to view" feature, just so you know! I'm looking for the real zoom of the camera change/perspective "distortion"...

Could you specify what you mean by saying "interactively"? How is that different from changing the value in the lens panel?

@Carlo There's a shortcut to change the focal length live, without touching the panel. I'd like to be able to do it. Of course you can always go to the panel, change, check if it's good, go back to the panel, change, check if it's good, specially if you're working in fullscreen mode... ;P

Thanks! Now is clear. Are you interested change the parameters while in fly mode?

With your camera selected press W > Camera Lens Angle

Then move your mouse left/right.

Thanks, that works, but it's still nto what I'm looking for. I mean, what it does is exactly what I'm looking for but I know there's a shortcut that skips this "w" menu... I'm looking forward to remembering what shortcut it is! I know that I need to have the camera selected and then, press something. No menus will show up but the ability to move the lens forward and backward will be active/activated. Thanks anyways @Jerryno!

@prubini87 Then press WC, that's the direct shortcut :)

Thanks @Jerryno but that's still not it!

Looks that @prubini87 wants to remember the shortcut but... there is no one. I think that this answer can be improved just by explaining how to add a shortcut there (right-click>Add shortcut). The "F" is free and stands for Focal Lenght.

When you are in camera view, click on the border to select the focal plane then right click and select Camera Lens Angle, it will interactively change the focal.
If you right click on  “Camera Lens Angle” you can add Shift + Alt as shortcut so that it call this function like for pan, zoom or orbit with MMB click.
I've made a video showing how to create a shortcurt to create interactive Focal

Right click that focal length button in the Shift + F7 Properties and set up one f-curve, then in the Shift + F6 Graph Editor, set up your desired lens shift (vertical scale) vs time (horizontal scale).
You could have a wide angle 15mm & 150mm telephoto on just 2 frames, (flipping between them with the arrow keys); or have a whole focal length transition that you play forwards (Alt + A) or backwards (Shift + Alt + A).
Difficult to stop that 2nd setup looping though.
It's fun to watch the (real) camera contorting lengthwise through one of the virtual cameras (Numpad 1,Numpad 3,Numpad 7 etc). It's also useful for controlling the size of the fly-mode 'dock', which has a freekish dependence on the active real camera's focal length.


text:
Slide two edge loops away from each other
I've been looking for this feature in Blender, either upon the time of creation using Edge Cut and Slide or afterwards, in just editing the mesh. I'd like to know if it's possible to evenly slide two edges away from one another in Blender?
Here's a picture of what I'd like to be able to do:

Thanks upfront!!

For two existing edgeloops the only way I know of is through scaling.
Scale the two edgeloops with S and constraint to the relevant axis with X, Y or Z.
Of course this only works with axis aligned loops, and with evenly sized geometry on both sides, otherwise it will create distortions.
If you don't mind creating new edgeloops then beveling does the trick.
Just create a new edge loop with Ctrl + R, then Right Click to leave it in place. Select the newly created edge loop and bevel it with Ctrl + B.
This works even on skewed or twisted geometry, non axis aligned loops, and has the added benefit of allowing absolute dimensions for distance, as opposed to only percentage factors with true edge sliding.

The only problem, like you said, is when you need to do that on twisted geometry... If I want to move two existing edges away from each other evenly across a twisted/non-uniform geometry, is there a way? Because to  use bevel I'd have to get rid of the edges and create new ones, right?

I don't know of any way to do that with existing edges, at least not symetrically. For bevel you need one central loop.

Many operators in blender use parameters that control how the operator gets the end result, some of these can be adjusted by moving the mouse as well as pressing keys and typing in values (look in the header as you adjust the operator) before accepting the end result. We also have the option of adjusting these parameters after accepting the result in the operator panel which can also be seen as a floating palette by pressing F6.
For the edge slide operator we can adjust the factor value (you can type this value instead of moving the mouse) as well as having a few options we can turn on/off. The factor is a value between 1.0 and -1.0 that defines the percentage of movement the edge is moved towards the next edge. A factor of 1.0 slides the edges against one edge loop while -1.0 goes to the opposite edge loop, values in between give you a fractional part of that distance.
Using the factor value it is possible to slide two edge loops the same amount towards the next edge. For example, if the edges between the loops outside of a pair of loops are both 1.0 units from the current loop then you can move both 0.7 of the distance and they will then both be 0.3 from the next loop. Effectively this gives the same result as scaling the loops away from each other.
To quickly do that with the keyboard - ⎇ Alt select a loop - GG.7⏎ Enter and then ⎇ Alt select the other loop GG-.7⏎ Enter

While it is common for two parallel loops to be moved opposite amounts (0.7 and -0.7), you can see in this example that sometimes you will want the same value for both loops. If you enter the value manually, repeatedly pressing - will toggle the direction of the slide.
The even option tries to keep the edge parallel to the next edge loop with flipped working with to the opposite edge.

Offset Edge Slide:
Create an edge loop in the middle of the existing edge loops. Delete the two edge loops. Select the new edge loop, press Ctrl+Shift+R and slide.
This also works when selecting multiple edge loops or faces, so it is definitely superior to beveling. One of the most useful features of blender and somehow I feel that nobody knows it exists, otherwise a lot more tutorials would mention it.

Select the edge loops that you want to move, and scale with S, then constrain it with X, Y, or Z.


text:
Add two edge loops aroung selected edge loop (hard surface modeling)
Does anyone know if there is an addon to add two edge loops adjacent to an existing edge loop, to make "creases" while using a subsurface modifier? I don't wanna mark sharp edges or mark creases, I want to manually (by this addon) add 2 edge loops close to a selected, exsiting edge loop. Ideally this addon would allow me to choose an offset, and also apply these pair of edge loops to as many edge loops I select. I don't think this exists already in Blender so I'm guessing I need to code that??
Just to make sure I expressed myself correctly, here's what I want to do:

Just use the Bevel operator for this Ctrl+B by default, no addons needed.
You can control how many additional loops are added from the operator options panel F6 by default.


text:
How can I smooth an object and keep the edges nicely beveled?
I have this very low-res object that I'd like to smooth with a subdiv modifier, however, I'm having problems with smoothing and keeping the edges nicely beveled... I've tried using a bevel modifier + subdiv modifier but I get fireflies... Is this way too low poly to be nicely smoothed?

The case study was not so simple for me so, I'm allowing to provide a more detailed answer (even if another answer is already accepted). Doing this, I'm also in hope that someone else will provide a simpler way to do it.
I presume we want to obtain the model on the right model from the one on the left:

The initial geometry is the following:

I've first simply added a bevel and a subdivision modifiers:

but bevel adds geometry along the cylinder so that the external part is not perfectly round.
So correct that, I've assigned the cross part to a vertex group and beveled only on this group:

but this makes appear some bad geometry at the cross corners (due to the subdivision modifier and underlying non quad geometry generated by bevel):

I correct it by "isolating" the cross part with an additional edge ring:

Now to bevel the outer part of the cylinder, simply add another edge loop:

Now have a closer look using a matcap, we can see that the center of the cross shows a visible square (which may be not wanted):

So to get rid of that I've subdivided the center square (making non quad, by the way):

Blend file with step by step modifications:

Thank you so much for your, honestly, awesome in-depth answer! I confirm that this method does work. I noticed a few, very minor artifacts in the bottom corners of the cross mark, but only at extreme angles... I think an alternative solution for my issue could be a mesh decal, but I haven't tested that because I don't know how to do it. Thank you very much, all and all, honestly, this is great! Thank you!

You seem to indicate two problems here.
Fireflies are usually a sign of rendering with too few samples and/or a very tiny light source. They are not directly related to bevel and subdivision modifiers.
To keep sharp edges sharp, you can set a crease value on selected edges (Shift-E) for the subdivision modifier. In the bevel modifier, set "Limit method" to "angle" with a value of 50°-80°.  Or, if you want different bevel widths on different edges, you can use bevel weight ("Weight" in "Limit method", then select edges and modify bevel weight through Ctrl-E.
Note that the order of the bevel and subdivide modifier is also important.
You'll often also need to set smooth shading, and in that case you might want to activate "Auto smooth" in the "Normals" section of the "data" tab (the one marked with an inverted triangle). Here also, set the angle to taste. Or mark some edges as 'sharp'.


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How do I animate a Vertex Paint Brush? Is this a bug?
I'm trying to animate a vertex weight paint brush (a torus object), but the animation behavior, when I keyframe the scale, is different from the viewport behavior. Here are a couple gifs illustrating the problem:
Viewport:

Keyframed:

Does anyone know how I can "fix" this and obtain the same behavior when I keyframe this scaling animation?

By configuring the "fade" setting (in the surface object), it's possible to obtain the same effect, or something close to it.


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Where is the Node Editor in Blender 2.8?
I can't seem to find the place, in Blender 2.8, where node-based addons lived in previous versions of Blender, such as Animation Nodes and Sverchok. Does anyone one know where that editor went, if it's being taken out for good or if something else is being developed?

https://blenderartists.org/t/where-is-node-editor-in-the-latest-builds/1117564/3

Thanks @WhatAMesh but I've already read that forum entry and they're talking about the shader/material node editor, which is not what I'm looking for... I need to develop a node-based addon but, unless I'm mistaken, it can't live in the shader editor because my addon has nothing to do with shaders?

As soon as you register a nodetree class, a new node editor for that class will be created.. The API will probably still change a bit, but you can check Jacques Lucke's https://github.com/JacquesLucke/everything_nodes_prototype for more info.

Oh, that's great! Thanks @Secrop, just what I needed to know. :)

That small drop down option next to object and choose the node editor you need such as Shader Editor.
Or by hitting Shift + F3
As @prubini87 mentioned, if there are no nodes created the area will be empty.

As stated by @Secrop: "As soon as you register a nodetree class, a new node editor for that class will be created..". I haven't tested it but at this point, since Blender 2.8 is still under development, I hold this to be the answer to my question.


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dope sheet -- how to show two or more NLA strips (actions) belonging to one object
I have an animation set up in the NLA editor with two or more actions for many of the objects.  The dope sheet only seems to be able to show one action per object.   Example:  I have a flower object with gesture poses on one NLA strip and the flower's horizontal movement on another NLA strip.  I can get either of these actions to show under the flower object's name in the Dope Sheet, but not both at the same time.  I can switch from one to the other by going to the Action Editor and choosing an action.  Then it shows up in the dope sheet, but it seems you can't choose more than one action at a time, so only one shows up in the Dope Sheet.  Is there a work-around for this?  Thanks.
Zaffer


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Use Pose Mode or Object Mode to move whole model
I've been animating a set of 2D images against a long strip background (flower, bird).  I have been splitting up the animation between Pose Mode and Object Mode.  I set the character's gestures in Pose Mode, then I animate their motion along X using Object Mode.  I have never done this type of 2D animation before and chose this method because it seemed logical.  Is it better to do all of the character's gestures and X movement in Pose Mode?  Thanks.
Zaffer

If you are just doing all the animation on the armature (pose and object mode), then I see no harm in that. In fact I think there is a little benefit over animating it all in pose mode.

Here I have the X axis movement key framed on the armature object (it is 40 frames long). The small bounce along the Z axis is keyframed on the bone in pose mode (its animation only lasts 10 frames). Doing it like this enables me to separate the animation, and keyframe the bounce in local space, and then use a Cycle modifier in the graph editor to make it loop.

However if you are animating the mesh object too, then that is a problem.
The reason for this is because of the way parenting works in blender.
See parenting is one way, meaning that you can move the parent (the armature) and both will move, but if you move the child (the mesh object) it separates from the armature. When you bind an armature to an object you are parenting it among other things.

Thanks David,  I think I'm doing all my animation on the armature -- I'm not doing any "shape" animation like making a character's mouth move.  Is that what you meant?

The reason I decided to make armature pose changes in Pose mode and armature XYZ location changes in Object mode is that I noticed that if you make an XYZ location change on an armature in Pose mode, the origin doesn't move with the object.  But if you make the XYZ location change in Object mode, the origin stays with the object.  So it seemed to make sense to do it that way.  Thanks again.


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How do I smooth out an f-curve?
So maybe it´s a dumb question to the more experienced users, but I´m a noob at animating, so I tried to make a Basic intro(basically a world where there is a simple camera movement to the text which is wobbling to the Music). But the Text is just wobbling way too fast so I have to smooth out the wobbling of the text, how do I do this?

Check this: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/61428/how-can-i-simplify-or-resample-a-bezier-curve and http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/18729/how-to-change-timing-of-my-mocap-bvh-and-how-to-optimize-keyframes/18730

Is your fcurve a baked sound? If so you need to unbake the curve first.


text:
Setting a color for "World" doesn't work
I would like to have a pure white background in my animation.
When I set the color of the World in the World Panel to white, nothing works.
Even the "Preview" stays pitch black.
How do I change the color of the background "World"?

Your world surface node is using the Emission node inaccurately, use the Background node instead in place of it.

Awesome, boss, thanks

Glad I could help. If my answer helped your problem please consider marking my answer post as the thread solution.


text:
Trying to rig a Map
I'm trying to make a "simple" accordion map in Blender 2.79, for animated and still render purposes.
I will map graphics onto each face, and I don't want the faces to get stretched/distorted.
I do however, want to be able to create a hinge-type rig, to be able to fold open and close the map like an accordion without having to manually position each face edge (which would distort the faces anyways).
I looked into using an Armature, but the faces got distorted.
I tried to use a Hinge constraint, but I if understand correctly, it would require each flap of the map to be a distinct element - I don't want that.
I found solutions involving Weight painting, but I don't think I want any of the map's flaps to be anchored - also there is only one face per element and I don't know if Weight Painting is appropriate.

How can I rig this map properly to open it and close it without any distortion?

What you need here, above the answer from moonboots is a bit unclear to me. Could you develop about "move freely"? What is the overall context?

I think I mean I want to fold/unfold the map, but I don't want a specific face of the map to be unmovable. It just needs to be (ideally) one single Object that can fold and unfold. I think it might be easier in a game engine but I want to do it in cycles.

What moonboots has proposed should meet your need (again). You'll have to pose the bones appropriately. Alternative could be placing the root bone at the center, but won't change so much the solution. If not enough, probably some specific python or AN would be a way, but if so you need to add more information editing your question.

Ok thanks for the input. No harm in seeing if there are other suggestions coming along, is there? At the moment I'm rotating the flaps of the map in edit mode by moving the edges, and then scaling them back to the right length, until I can figure out Moonboots' solution which I'm not able to reproduce (for example in the first picture the edges of the map are visible but it's neither object mode + wireframe mode not edit mode since the bone isn't in wireframe mode?)

@MicroMachine, to display the wireframe for only one object, select it, go in the Properties panel > Data > Display, enable Draw All Edges and Maximum Draw Type > Wire. It allows to easily see the edges and therefore align the bones to them

Ah ok. In mine it's called Properties > Object > Display

I guess the easiest way is to use hooks and constrains.

Add Empties to the edges that should fold, and parent them to the first one (or the one that all others should fold to)

Set a vertex-group for each empty (select edge)

Use the hook modifier to parent the vertex-groups to the emptys

Add a limit distance constrain to each empty, use the next empty as target then reset distance and set clamp region to surface.

Now you can scale the empty and the map is folding correctly

Much more clever than mine even if with the same ingredients!

Using Keep Distance  to effectively generate a rotation from a scale/translation is a very neat trick, which could be used in all sorts of places..

Can you explain your steps more? I'm asking as someone who's used blender for 5 years. Blender crashes when I try to open your file.

Your answer is my favorite so far, but when I assign the Hook modifiers to the Empties and Vertex groups, the Map warps unexplicably. Also moving the Empties don't move the vertex groups so I must be missing something (even though the distance constraints work). Current workfile

I had a look at your blendfile, and there are 3 porblems. 1. Your distance-constrains are in the wrong direction. Your second empty should target the first one and so on (so the first doesnt have a constrain). 2. somehow your hook modifiers are buggy so just delete them and add them the same way. 3. your third vertexgroup has two edges selected. blendfile

Thanks! I deleted the hooks and tried again and it didn't work. The third time it worked! (why I don't know...). Now the only problem is the empties still kind of skew the map

move the empty to 0 on the x axis ( each empty controls one edge/fold so you can
just move the dislocated empty)

No matter what I try today, adding the hooks modifiers change the scale of the map on the x axis...

I can confirm now that the hook modifier bug only happens in 2.79, it worked smooth in 2.80. Phew

You could parent your map to an armature. I've set my own rigging, maybe there's a simpler one, someone will tell, it also depends on the animation you will need, but this is a start, and anyway the parentage With Empty Groups seems like the good solution to me:

First create a bone as long as the map, then subdivide it so that each bone has the length of a fold.

Now you need to organize your armature, i.e. the relations between the bones and the constraints. It all depends on how the map is supposed to fold. The most basic solution I've found would be this one: Select your 3 left bones and switch their direction with W > Switch Direction. Parent bone 3 to bone 4 or bone 4 to bone 3 (Keep Offset mode, and deactivate Inherit Rotation). After you've parented the map to the armature (see a bit further below), you'll just have to move the bones in Pose mode.

Another solution make it a bit more convenient to manipulate, but again, it all depends on your needs, so it may not fit: Switch some directions, parent the bones correctly. Bend the bones joints a bit. Create 3 vertical bones that will be you controllers, deparent them. Give them names. Switch to Pose mode. Give bones 1, 3 and 5 an IK constraint with the controllers as Target and a Chain Length of 1 (for controller 1) or 2 (for the other ones). Perhaps give the controller 2 a Copy Location constraint with controller 3 as Target, so that when you'll move controller 3 the controller 2 will follow. Give a Head/Tail of 0, a Space > Local Space / Local Space, and an Influence of 0.5.

Back to Object mode. Select the map, then shift select the armature, press ctrlP > With Empty Groups. It gives the object as many vertex groups as you have bones, but no vertex is assigned to any of these groups yet, consequently the bones can't control the object for the moment.

Now, whatever solution you choose, to assign each fold to its vertex group, switch the object to Edit mode / Face select. Select a face and in the Properties panel > Data > Vertex Group, select the vertex group it is supposed to be part of, i.e. the group with the name of the bone that is supposed to control it.

Once done, your mesh should bend when you move the controllers.

Really nicely done. Really clear.

thanks but I'm not sure about the armature organization, maybe there's a more optimal one, also, it really depends on what the map is supposed to do, I've explained this one because it allows to fold easily

Thanks, nice answer. I'm struggling to reproduce, starting at "parent the bones correctly" - it seems my subdivided bone is janky, when I parent bones they start moving or overlapping...

(2) I am also fairly confused by the edit mode/object mode/pose mode interactions and cannot find a clear explanation of them, in this case also, it's not clear what's a child and a parent object since all of them should be able to move?

It woul be a bit complicated to explain everything here, maybe first look for basic tutorials about bones, rigging, IK, etc... but the armature can be simpler, i'll try to edit

Not sure if this is a useful point ..  if you rig and bind the armature with the rest pose in the extreme folded position, the IK behaves well when straightening. For belt and braces, you can add IK constraints / stiffnesses to the individual bones, no poles required. .. but maybe that introduces as much faff as it saves ..

@Robin, I don't see what you mean, maybe add your own answer? There may be a very simple solution that I miss... In my answer I've added a very basic solution, with no IK nor constraints.

Where is "Keep Offset mode"?

"whatever solution you choose" - do you mean with and without controller bones? I tried without controller bones and it didn't move the faces after assigning them to vertex groups

when you parent a bone to another one (ctrl P) you can choose Keep Offset. For your second question: yes, whatever kind of bone setup you choose. Once you've parented With Empty Groups, select the vertex you want, select the vertex group it is supposed to be part of in the Vertex Groups list, click on the Assign button. Now when you move the bone, the mesh should follow.

When I try to assign faces to vertex groups, it doesn't show as assigned to them when I go back to click on them?

no it is not supposed to show, but if you deselect all and press on the Select button, it will select the group. You can also switch to Weight Paint mode, then select the group, and it will be displayed in red.

Corrective Shape keys.

In my setup here the the length of the edge between folds is 1. The folds are aligned to Y axis, the map sits on the xy plane..

Add a shape key, and enter edit mode
select every second fold edge and move them up
GZ1 (1 being fold edge length)
Select all and scale to  zero
SX0.

As helpfully pointed out by @RobinBetts, via comment, The shapekeys give a linear transform.  The fold angle goes from flat 180 to closed 0.
Let N be the number of panels and v be the value of the shape key. The dimension as we move the shapekey value slider  is width  N * (1 - v) and the height is v
To make sure each panel maintains its unit length, will set up a driver on the z scale of the object.  Pythagorean trigonometric identity
import bpy
from math import sqrt
def scale(v):
    # end points Ok
    if v == 0 or v == 1:
        return 1
    else:
        s = 1 - v # base length
        # scale such that hyp is 1
        return sqrt(1 - s ** 2) / v

bpy.app.driver_namespace["scale"] = scale

so, for example, instead of having dimension.z 0.5 at v = 0.5 it is scaled by  1.732 such that dimension.z = 0.866 making it an angle 60, 30 right angle triangle instead of 45, 45 maintaining hypotenuse 1.

Perfectly good close approximation.. but it is one..  using translations in place of rotations (so edge lengths not constant while folding). But for most practical purposes, why not?

Oops, to the naked eye looks ok, but will need to drive the z scale to compensate

.. and without trig.functions.. ;D .. if I could UV again, I would.

Using hooks and constraints

The setting uses 5 empties for the hooks and an empty as controller (the one selected in yellow below):

The 5 empties are placed at the folds and parented each other.
Hooks are indicated in green and parentings are indicated in red:

So the leftmost empty hooks the vertices on its left and is parented to the empty on its right.
At the end, on the right, the fourth empty is parented to the one on top, and the one on top hooks the four rightmost vertices.
Then the last empty which is the controller is used as rotation constraints for the previous empties.

The constraints for the fifth empties are based on Y (axis of the fold):
The leftmost has -Y constraint (Y and invert), the one on its right +Y constraint, etc. alternatively -Y and +Y to the last one.

Finally, we can animate all rotating the controller empty around Y.
To avoid the fold to go to far, the controller empty has also a constraint which limits its rotation:

How to hook:

Select the empty
Shift select the map
Enter edit mode
Select the vertices you want to hook
CtrlH then 'hook to selected object'

Edit: 2.79 version

What benefit would hooks have over an armature? (As in realistic use cases.)

@Leander, nothing, practically. Except that the OP appears a bit lost with bones, pose mode, etc. And in another hand, this is just a play with another approach. No more.

(@Leander nothing else and not 'no more' I mean)

I don't get how you use this solution to fold the map

@MicroMachine, when a map folds, that mean side parts are rotating around the fold. Empties here make so parts rotate. And to run them all, another empty parent them to drive their rotation.

@MicroMachine, added a 2.79 version so that you can try it and have a better view of how it works.

I can finally make it work but it moves all the flaps at the same time? How do I fold just two while the rest stays flat?


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How do you make a transparent glass material in Blender 3.2?
I've looked everywhere but answers I've found are not applicable to my version of Blender because a ton of settings seem to change or disappear with every new version.
I just want to make a transparent glass object in Blender using either Eevee or Cycles.
I used to use Blender several hours a day and totally stopped after v2.8/v3 changed everything and made the app unusable without spending more hours relearning everything. Now I can't even make a glass material.
I tried using Fresnel / Refraction / Glossy with a Mix Shader. I tried using the Glass shader. I tried using the Principled BDSF. Nothing works my object stays gray and opaque whatever I do. I'll probably go do this project in 2.7 but for next time I'd love to know how.

Since you're using Cycles, a simple Glass BSDF is probably the best bet. If the object looks too "plain" (in rendered mode), I recommend using an HDRI for the world (environment) lighting.
[Glass BSDF with HDRI Lighting]:

Alternatively, if you are using EEVEE, the regular Glass BSDF doesn't work so well, so you can approximate glass with this shader below. Don't forget to change your materials Blend Mode to something other than Opaque:

Tried your node setup, it's not working. https://imgur.com/a/nhL0Cmf - even the sphere in preview doesn't have transparency. I'd rather get to the goal I have without having to set up HDR lighting to keep my workflow simple and avoid weird looking reflections.

Sorry, maybe I'm misunderstanding. Your issue is that even with a glass shader all you see is see a grey box? If you put something behind the box, there is still no transparency (you can't see it behind)?

@MicroMachine The sphere preview looks like you have the Blend Mode in your material still set to Opaque. Read the answer carefully, it says: "Don't forget to change your materials Blend Mode to something other than Opaque". So maybe try Alpha Blend. What I can't see in your screenshot: have you assigned the new material to any faces or have you just added it to the object? If it's not assigned to any faces in Edit Mode, they all use the first material. And about no HDRI lighting: well, a grey background will make glass always look boring. You need reflections etc.

Oh, and in Eevee don't forget to set a Refraction Depth in the material settings. In the question you said you wanted to make a glass object using either Eevee or Cycles, when you say the node setup didn't work for you, did you mean both or just Eevee?

Also, the sphere in the preview becomes transparent only when "Screen Space Refractions" is enabled in the material settings.

Yes, I couldn't see anything behind the box. The problem was for both Eevee and Cycles. Changing the Blend Mode to Alpha Blend worked - I overlooked that part of the answer. Thanks for all the tips!


text:
How do I open the folder with my renders from the Blender UI?
In previous versions of Blender, I could click on OPT + the folder icon in the Output section of the Output Properties and it would open the folder in the Mac's Finder.
In Blender 2.90, clicking OPT + the folder icon does absolutely nothing.
I've searched online and couldn't find what has changed or how to quickly open the folder.

In MS Windows a tool tip shows other options.  Do you have such a tooltip??

I don’t know what that means. On Mac only up/down arrows appear that make you move the panel up or down

In the Blender UI ... next to the name of the folder I see a little icon of a folder .  When I hover pause the mouse over this icon it shows me keystrokes to go with the click, such as SHIFT or ALT.

Ok atomic, that solved it. They changed the shortcut to SHIFT + Click the . When I hovered it made a label appear that suggested that. You can make your comment into an answer if you want, keeping in mind that I was asking for Mac

In the Blender UI ... next to the name of the folder I see a little icon of a folder .  The folder will have a tooltip or shortcut when you hover your pointing device .
The short cut or tool tip will read something such as
SHIFT + Click the
giving the keystrokes on your Mac OSX


text:
Mapping an orthographic texture to a model
I created a model, that is based on an orthographic projection. The orthographic projection also contains the image(s) that I want to map to my model. (Ship model left / Orthographic view and textures right)

I was hoping that there was a way to map this model directly as it is (Model made based off of the projection) to the orthographic view without having to individually map each part to the image. I was able to apply the side view texture to the corresponding side, but when I try to map any other angle, it replaces my old texture. This is what I was able to achieve:

As you can see, when I mapped one side, the top, and all other sides were replaced with what has left over from that side map instead of the part I mapped earlier (I used 'Project From View'). So I was wondering how I could map my model based off of this orthographic projection. Also, this is the only texture that I could obtain, so I won't be able to edit this image in order to change it to match a specific UV map. I would appreciate a precise step by step walkthrough (if possible) on how to accomplish this task.
Note: Using Cyles Render (can't use Blender Render for specific parts in this project) on Blender v2.76

The last piece which is missing in your setup is that Project From View like any other UV unwrap method unwraps all the mesh parts which are selected.
As you selected the whole mesh and unwrapped it, its UV map was created according to that point of view - for the whole object (so there are intersecting parts on that UV map island you have shown in your screenshot).
The problem is that you want only side of the object to be unwrapped according to that projection and it is very likely that you want the front part of the object to be unwrapped with Project From View executed once your view is oriented accordingly. E.g. this famous person uses UV map made with Project From View executed from the front view:

It looks relatively good from the front view, but the side view is distorted as much as it was visible from the point of view when unwrapping.
So if you want to use Project From View, select only adjacent parts of the mesh according to what is visible while unwrapping, or mark seams and unwrap according to them (the view point won't make any difference then).

I was able to fix my problem with my mapping, but now there is a seam that is dividing where I connected the top and side view textures. The textures match up, but the brightness changes (The top is darker, and the bottom is lighter). So I was wondering if there was a way to remove that seam in Blender without editing my original image. (I know it is not because of lighting because I am not in rendered view, and currently have no lamps)

@TomW probably normals are pointing in the wrong direction on those faces or texture has different brightness.., but that's guessing. You should ask a new question about that problem and provide context (like images and etc).


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Why is this white emission object rendering as grey?
I am making a very simple animation - a thin torus that spins.
I want the object to be sharp and pure white.
This is my material, it has an Emission shader with a 1 value which is supposed to render as white pixels:

But as we can see in the Preview, the object renders as grey.
The Hex value in Blender says "FFFFFF" but the eyedropper from ColorSlurp says otherwise:

Why is this object not pure white?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/154688/why-is-pure-white-output-gray https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/78284/white-background-with-filmic-blender

Thanks! I couldn't find this question either when I looked :/

The color is "off" because the default View Transform for Blender is Filmic (Good for HDR, but can be less "accurate")- Go into Color Management (Under Render Properties), and change your View Transform to Standard:

I'm sorry if you think the question is redundant, but I searched for a similar question for a good 10 minutes... this was never the way Blender used to work. "White background with filmic blender" is a question title no one will ever type when having this issue

Thanks for the answer, it's really upsetting that they made a standard something that changes the color set by the user...

The purpose is to better support HDR renders, but the color data gets scaled into a much wider range, thus making it "inaccurate" to what it's "supposed" to be.

I am sure there is a "purpose" however maybe this setting could have been activated when there is a need for it, or not be a default. I've never rendered a HDR scene or needed this feature in 7 years of using Blender. Oh well... now I know. Until I forget and ask again


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Can inset faces be used on a triangular face?
I have a triangular object created by merging two edges of a cube.  The object is a thick triangle of constant thickness.
I would like to do an even inset one of the triangular faces.
When I try the inset lines cross an