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Cell Fracture and Boolean Operations
Hello i have such an object:

I want to achieve such a result so that it turns out like this:

BUT there should be no cracks.
I know that you can use a special blender assembly, but unfortunately I cannot use it.
So I thought, why not take a shard and use a boolean modifier to subtract this shard from the main object.
But I can't do it...
Artifacts appear in the form:

Editional:

with more scaling
enter image description here

Are you using the "Fast" or the "exact" setting on the boolean modifier? Exact should be better here due to the overlapping of the outer faces. If that does not work try this: Since the outside surface is the same (or very close) to the surface of the original sphere it might otherwise help to scale the fractured part slightly (e.g. something like 1.001) so that it is clear which surface is the outer surface for the boolean operation.

Hello, i use Exact setting on the boolean modifier. Your solution to scaling the broken piece really works for a simple object, but it does not work quite correctly with my more complex object, see what else you can do, I have attached more photos in the post.

Just scale wouldnt work since some parts of complex shape moves inside due scale shift ... scale works only for objects like sphere. You can dupli shard and add solidify modifier and Boolean to merge with original shard to get working shard object (if it is not clear I can add some screens) ... but it seems to me overcomplicated for such thing ... why dont use cracked cube to boolean from glass object? The best if you can show what is your desired result you need to achieve. There is also awesome Fracture Modifier in special build.

@vklidu, My main goal is to generate a lot of "bad" data for the neural network. I added in the post specifically what I would like to get, can you please advise how to do this. The problem is that this object is glass, and if you just break it with a cell fracture, then cracks will be visible throughout the object, and I just need a single straight/curved cleavage. Please help me how to solve this problem.

Please share your file https://blend-exchange.com I still didnt get it why to use crack of original mesh, why don't use a plane or cube or cylinder to Boolean that part away.

To automate process for variations try to search for it or ask a new question (if you didnt find it) ... I can't help you with a script, but for such think a few modifiers can do the same job. Here just a tips for the workflow.

Create one "crack" shaped by a Displacement modifier with Noise texture. To get object variations, set Coordinates > Global. Now the object is shaped based on its location.

Add Boolean modifier to your object.

By relocation your object you can generate variations.

To get hundreds in a minute you can duplicate it once and Repeat last step Shift+R or use Array modifier.

When it looks OK for you, Apply > Visuals Geometry to Mesh Ctrl+A for all objects at once.

Just for illustration ... Why not something simpler?
Here from Mesh profile > Screw > Subdivide > Boolean ...

Plane ...

Cylinder ...

... or any other object like a shard of Cube object split by Cell Fracture modifier.

Tip: For more efficient work with fractured object might be useful Fracture modifier (included in special Blender build). In this case for glass reason - modifier releases cracks after they are recognised by simulation as part that should be separated. So no cracks in anim before.

I need to automate this process with a python script. That is, I need thousands of different variants of chips, so it seemed to me the most logical algorithm: 1. We split the object. 2. Take a random shard. 3. Subtract this shard from the main object.
Yes, I agree, with the help of a grid or other various objects, my main object is cropped nicely and without any problems and is quite beautiful. But I just need automated generation.

It is really hard to understand your goal, your reference doesn't seem to have anything similar what I can call a chip (or neural network) or it is hard for me to understand how "crack" should looks like from your description "my object is cropped nicely without problems and is beautiful". Anyway I can't help with a script so just a tip with modifiers that can generate "hundreds" versions in a minute. See another answer.


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Save value on first occurrence in Animation Nodes
In this setup Random number defines Y position of Empty, which is shrinkwrapped-constrained to "Array of stairs".
I'd like to save Z value (orange circle) in memory, when the first positive number will be generated (green circle) and keep it until animation ends.
And please, do not modify Random number node.

EDIT: I've added another attribute to workaround saving value from previous frame. Looks messy, but works.

Attributes can be stored in memory during the life time of the blender instance as described in this answer. In this particular case, the logic is as follows. We have two variables occurred, storedValue:

If the current frame is equal to the start frame, reset storedValue to some initial value and reset occurred to False.
If trigger value is positive:

If occured is False:

Set storedValue to the value.

Set occurred to True.

Thanks, part of the job is done - I can keep value https://imgur.com/a/zTQ3cFI But as expected it getting overwritten once there is another positive number in next frames

@SergeL You also need to check if the variable already stored is positive, if it is positive, then you shouldn't change it. So you should do x > 0 as well and factor that. Makes sense?

I don't understand why X>0, if it is just "Z loc" and can be any number? I added condition that forces X to be written only when attribute is empty and it solves "rewrite problem", except it saves wrong value (on previous frame, not current) https://imgur.com/a/FZCe8zm

@SergeL Sorry, my bad. I updated the answer.

Is there anyway to do this without depending on frame numbers? I need to do something similar, but not necessarily animated.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Bump node doesn't produce bump from normal vector
Why does Bump node loose its functionality as soon as being fed with texture, connected to Normal vector?

EDIT: Using Texture Coordinate's Normal vector doesn't change anything.

This setup is not what I am looking for. Noise in this case uses Generated coordinates and plugged Normal vector is somehow useless. Final look that I want is stretched random lines along mesh normals for both diffuse and bump. I agree that there is cyclic dependency and the only way is to bake texture to UV map, then making a bump from it.

Because it involves a dependency loop.
Your normals (including both from geometry nodes and texture coordinate nodes) depend on your bump-- all a bump does, without displacement, is distort normals.  It needs to know what your bump is to determine the normals, and it needs to know what your normals are to determine your bump.
Notice, in the picture below, how the normals are determined by the bump map that I feed the material:

The problem here isn’t the Bump node but how the Noise Texture is being used.
With no input to the Noise Texture it will automatically assume Generated coordinates and with nothing connected to the Bump Normal it will automatically assume the Geometry Normal - ie, it's effectively automatically :

NOTE : The nodes shown in white are optional - if nothing is connected to the texture Vector or bump Normal then those are the values that are assumed anyway.
By connecting the Normal of the Geometry node to the Vector of the Noise Texture you are telling Blender to use that normal in place of the usual Generated coordinates , overriding the default with something that doesn't make sense (as @Nathan says, it's a circular dependency - the normal is dependent on the result of the bump which is dependent on the normal). This is effectively destroying your coordinates used to generate the noise.
If you do need to use a modified normal for the Bump then you could potentially use a calculated normal - either via Maths nodes based on something other than the actual normal or from an Image Texture via a Normal Map node.

Thanks, but could you please show a picture of correct setup? I updated first post with pic of using Texture Coordinates and can't tell it helped me. I've also tried to plug Geometry Normal in Bump along with Texture Coordinates in Noise and it never changed.

While Serge L did use the inappropriate node in his image, he's correct-- normal coordinates, even accessed through a texture coordinate node + image texture, will not be used for displacement.  I've tested this while researching this answer.  I don't know why.  But I also don't know why anyone would ever want to, so I'm not concerned.  Additionally, geometry normal and normal texture coordinates are two ways of talking about the same thing, the actual values involved are the same, and the geometry node can be used to read textures for regular shaders just fine.

@SergeL I've edited my answer and included an image - hopefully this makes sense.

@Nathan Yes - it makes sense that the Normal is not available during the pass to calculate the normal or, indeed, the displacement (since the displacement directly affects the normal so it isn't known before the displacement is calculated - it would be dependent on itself).

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


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Why parented to bone object has offset in local space?

Sphere empty is a bone's Сhild (origin is not cleared for it).
Cube empty has CopyLocation constraint set to local space of Sphere empty.

Now Cube has some offset, it is equal to bone's length. But why is it here, if Sphere empty stays right in the world origin

To remove offset from relation:

Clear origin for child object, ALT O (translation only) or clear parent inverse, ALT P (translation+rotation)
In bone's options enable Relative Parenting


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Blender colors don't match with the system ones
Colors on blender are not the same as they are in photo viewer (how they should be)

You probably need to mess with these settings. Try changing the Look and View Transform settings.

@Jakemoyo indeed I did (thought that it would help), but it seems not to be a fix in this situation


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How to create rugged/feathery cloth in Blender
I am trying to create a dress using blender or marvelous designer(export to blender) for a 3D character that will be suitable for both 3D printing(main objectice) and basic animation, possibly even use in Unity3D.
The idea for the dress is that it's skirt is made out of long feathers but still looks and functions as a skirt.
Also the skirt of the dress is not meant to be hanging on the character, but behave more like a Victorian dress supported by a corset.
I study through practice and currently my problem is that I have little idea of how to efficiently approach the problem without wasting days on trial and error.
A great help would be a technique, tutorial, or anything that can nudge me towards the right approach from where I would be able do further reading.
Here are some similar examples from internet of what the texture of the dress should look like:

maybe look into tutorials about hair, you can create hair with curves that have bevel objects, then convert to mesh and boolean?

Ya that makes sence and I could be using bones for main curves and some of plugins aimed at animating hair. However I found situations with a lot of intersecting curves to be poorly handled by blender booleans and need a lot of further clean-up. I will make attempts at using curves, however will still be looking for some more cloth based solutions.

once you have converted your curves to meshes you can give them cloth simulation, also you can give a Mesh Defom modifier to your feathers and use a cage that will have the cloth simulation.

you have a lot of tutos like this one, to me these feathers look exactly like this kind of hair and you can simply animate with cage (Lattice, Mesh Deform or Surface Deform): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMU_fa1G-bA

You can use the same technic as for modelling hair: Create some curves with a bevel object. Once you're good, convert to mesh, merge your meshes into several objects:

To animate you can give your feathers physics, either cloth simulation or soft body. To make it lighter to calculate you can assign the simulation to a cage and give your feathers a Lattice, Mesh Deform or Surface Deform modifier, like that for example:


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Create petals for cylinder flower in Geometry Nodes (3.1) (question 2)
question continued from first post
#2 I want to spawn a "petal" on each of the centre/heart's faces. As you can see, in this instance, the heart is a 6 sided cylinder with no fill, and so the result would be 6 petals spawned on each face with the appropriate rotation and position.
The only thing I can think of is to Distribute Points on Faces but that seems to place random points across the faces.

You could use the following setup:

Use the node Dual Mesh. This will transform Faces into Points (and vice versa).
Use the Normals of the Faces as alignment.


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A Possible Answer for "How Do I Mirror Knife Tool"
Working on mesh modified with mirror modifier. Attempted a knife cut. Was not reflected on the mirror. Looked around and came across what looked like my problem on Stack Exchange (How Do I Mirror Knife Tool?), but no suitable answer.
Looked around more on blender, and noticed in the mirror-modifier panel, at the top of the panel, is a push-button labeled "On Cage". When I selected it, my knife cut was mirrored.
I would like to let others know, in case this is a suitable answer for some.
Since I have no reputation, I am unable to answer or comment on the question. This was the only method I could think of to answer.

Hi :). Thanks for stopping by and sharing a solution ;). (btw knife cuts are always mirrored, it's just the mirrored side doesn't display the new edges)

Hi Jachym. Thanks for that clarification. Yes, experimenting on a cube agrees with what you said. When I grab and move the edge, the mirrored portion also moves.


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Blackness in Radeon ProRender
I'm trying to use Radeon ProRender and it's materials library, however I meet a problem: some parts of objects with default materials (Bronze Brushed and Fabric Matte Solid Beige) look black:

How can I fix these black parts?

@RayMairlot please don't remove the tag, I added it intentionally because it is relatively popular topic, and I also proposed fine description to it.

Hi. I removed it for a reason. Using this search you can see there are approximately 11 questions which might warrant the radeon pro-render tag. Based on that, I don't think it needs a tag yet. Also, were we to create a tag for this, we would probably want it to conform to the render engine tag format: 'NameOfRenderEngine-render-engine' (but that is not a suggestion for you to make that tag as I still don't think it's needed).

I found that I can fix the Fabric material setting lower value to the Reflection Weight than default 1.0:

Result:

However, the same doesn't fix the Bronze material, so additional answer would be very appreciated.


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Nice smoke in EEVEE
I made the smoke get rendering in Eevee, but I cannot make it looking pretty. I try to achieve a liquid nitrogen effect, but it's hard to make beautiful motion and nice colors. Even more, all the domain object uses volume shader, and it looks bad!
Here is how it looks in Eevee and domain object smoke settings (note strange fog on the all domain object volume):

Here you can see the scene in the ViewPort, and domain object material nodes:

This is smoke settings of my Flow object and the scene Volumetric settings:

How can I improve the scene and smoke effect?

0k, eventually I solved all the problems (and I met LOTS of them). Here is my explanation:

1. Fog/light on all the Domain object
This happens because of non-zero emission strength in Principled Volume shader. Also, to prevent it, the Blackbody intensity should be 0.

2. Too much transperancy
I found that the following parameters influence on smoke's density above other objects:

Density value in Volume Principled shader (it should be between 30-60)
High Resolution mode in Domain object settings (using this, you can set Density 1.5-2 times smaller)
Volumetric scene settings -> Volumetric Lighting -> Light Clamping. It should about 10-15, or zero (no clamping). Using this parameter you can easily control the brightness of the smoke separately from the density.

I also described this in another question.

3. The light
As usually in CGI, the light must be well set. For the smoke in Eevee, the sun type of light works well, and also it can be directed to the smoke only with less influence on other objects.

4. Smoke invisibility/transparency on the background
I noticed that using Transparent (in Film -> Alpha) leads to not showing smoke on the background so it will be seeing only on other objects. So, we cannot render smoke with transparency. I hope it will be changed in the future, but now it isn't. So, keep this in mind.

5. Bugs
In addition, I met a lot of bugs and errors using Blender 2.8, Eevee and Smoke simulation. Here is a couple of things that helped me solve them:

First of all, closing the Blender and starting it again solved many problems.
Sometimes smoke isn't seeing in the render, but baking it (Domain object -> Smoke settings -> Cache) often solves the problem.
In addition, another action sometimes help with not showing smoke: running all the animation again since scene's first frame / smoke simulation's first frame.

And just for fun, my collection of errors:

I would add, the tile size can be reduced to 2px for cleaner results, and the volumetric distance settings make a big difference too. Reducing the end distance as much as possible seems to help with improving density and appearance generally.

@StephenHamacek nice addition, thanks!


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How are the eyelids controlled in autorig pro?
Let's just think about the upper right eyelid for the moment.  Autorig pro created the following controls:  c_eyelid_top.r, c_eyelid_top.01.r, c_eyelid_top.02.r, c_eyelid_top.03.r.  There are corresponding vertex groups for c_eyelid_top.01.r, c_eyelid_top.02.r, c_eyelid_top.03.r.
But there is no vertex group for c_eyelid_top.r.   The controller does move the eyelid, but the weights need adjustment.  But I can't find the vertex group to adjust the weights.  How can I adjust the weights for this controller?
Thanks.

I don't know the Autorig Pro rig. But have you checked the bones for the Deform option? Maybe c_eyelid_top.r is the main controller that only controls other bones? Only bones that have the Bone Properties > Deform option enabled deform the mesh and have a vertex group.

That seems to be the situation.  c_eyelid_top.r is a parent of c_eyelid_top.01.r and the others.  Thanks!


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SMOOTH SHADING ARTIFACTING AFTER JOINING 2 MESHES
I made a separate object to model feet apart from the base mesh before joining it, making it one mesh. I then filled in all the faces between the two and as I did this I found that the smooth shading of the base mesh was interacting strangely with the joined mesh.
How do I fix this shading issue or is it a case of blender interacting with the model weirdly and its fine to export as is.

Check for duplicate vertex there, there could be vertex fighting for dominance.

You deserve that for writing in all caps

Theres no vert double ups and all caps scares people into answering my question. So maybe I do deserve it

Select all in Edit mode and press Shift N in order to recalculate the normals?

@moonboots that was it thankyou so much. I've had this issue a lot so much appriciated

Hello and welcome. Please don't write in all caps, it is the online equivalent of shouting, is harder to read and may be considered rude. You can use the [edit] button below to change you text into regular case.

Why would it be considered rude or be harder to read?

The normals are inverted (you can check if you enable the Face Orientation option in the Viewport Overlays, inverted faces will be displayed red instead of blue). Select all in Edit mode and press ShiftN in order to recalculate the normals.


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How to change the resolution of a rendered image
I'm looking to make my rendered image a higher resolution. I've tried a few things but nothing has seemed to work yet. As you can see by the reference image its pretty pixelated.

hello, it's in the Output panel > Dimensions > Resolution

Properties editor > Output tab > Format panel > resolution.  https://docs.blender.org/manual/fr/dev/render/output/properties/format.html

You fast @moonboots heh

Moonboots is a goddamn hero. Thankyou guys

@L0Lock, I know, sorry  ;)

Go into the Output panel > Format > Resolution


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Object becomes transparent when camera goes trough
i'm a beginner on blender and i just got this problem, i'm making a camera animation and when i approach an object it becomes transparent although the camera doesn't touch the object, do anyone have any fix?

Camera has a "clipping distance" any objects outside this interval clipped:

You can modify this values, but keep in mind, that a not huge interval helps Blender avoid z-fighting


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Detect angle of edges in GeometryNodes
I have been trying for some time with geometry nodes to detect the angle between two edges that are connected by a vertex.
My intention is to use that to spawn cubes or spheres at each vertex depending on whether or not the connecting two edges are convex or concave like the example in my image.

I've asked this specific question in several forums, and the only answer that seems to work at all involves extruding all the edges and then using a node to get the angles between the faces you've extruded.  I hope someone here has a better one.

@MartyFouts oh interesting, I haven't come across that info. If you can could you point me to some of them forum posts ?

Looks like someone has just posted an example.  If that's not enough let me know and I'll dig things up.

If your question was solved, please be so kind and mark the answer that contributed to the solution as "Accepted Answer". This will make it easier for others to see which way leads to the solution, and the question will no longer appear as unsolved. Thank you! Here you can find more information: What should I do when someone answers my question?. If you still didn't get a solution to your question, please be kind enough to address it.

It depends a bit on how you generate the edges, with a clean mesh like that you could transfer the angle of some adjacent edge to each vertex and use 'Signed Angle' to pick an instance object... if you have only the edges it's more difficult, besides it's somehow arbitrary what's a 90 or a 270 angle

first blend file

Here's another option with pure edges, it checks against a vertical vector, normal to the edges plane. I tried converting edges to curves to be able to use L/R handles for each point, it also orders indexes  as a bonus...

second blend file
and if you need the angles as the title suggests something like this could help...
maybe combine both setups to get signed angles


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Spawn point on the highest vertex of a mesh with geometry-nodes
Is it possible to spawn a point at the highest vertex of a mesh? I want to display the height of that vertex directly above it. But currently I can't isolate the highest vertex from the rest of the mesh.

An alternative to Chris' solution when you don't animate the highest point (it stays the same) or you're fine with a bubble (here a flag) transitioning immediately to the new highest:

I think the OP wants to spawn just a single point :D but +1 for the cool wavy flag

Here is a node tree which can do that:
It spawns several points and move them upwards at the highest point:

I think the OP wants to spawn just a single point :)

i know, but i think that my gif is more interesting that way :D

both your answers answer my question perfectly. Im not sure which answer to mark as accepted t be honest :(

just give it to Markus - he has less points and he needs more ;)

You guys are awesome :)


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Set origin for lamp and camera objects
According to my understanding, I should be able to set the origin of all object types using Ctrl+Shift+Alt+C, and then choosing Origin to Cursor. This works for mesh objects, but not camera or lamps. The origin point does not move for them, and they continue to rotate around themselves.
Is there a way to set the origin for cameras and lamps? I just want to rotate them around an external point.

@MrZak Your answer is simpler than creating an empty (I was unaware that one can change the pivot without changing the origin, but now I understand), so I would accept it if you provided as an answer.

for camera or everything else just do these 3 simple steps

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


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Issue importing .osm file with blender-osm add-on
I'm having trouble importing Open Streetmap Files.  When I do, I get this error:
<urlopen error [Errno 11001] getaddrinfo failed>

and it shows an empty:

I'm currently using blender-osm add-on but after reading the installation instructions I can't figure out what's going on.  I've used a number of .osm files (manually selected as well as general areas like a whole city) and it produces the same result every time.  What could I be doing wrong?

That's not the entire error message. Please copy all of it in your question, including the stack trace. Also include which version of Blender you're using, and on which OS.

@dr.Sybren  That's all I see for the error...is there a way to get a stack trace in Windows? I wasn't able to find a method online for that. I'm using Windows 10, Blender version 2.79.

Please contact the addon developer using of the ways listed here

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


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Criteria for Spline direction
I often work with instances or deform geometry along splines, and I consistently find myself struggling to control the output of my operations. Blender sometimes changes the spline direction randomly after I move just one of the curve’s control points. Notably, this direction change occurs with previously splited curves that are later merged back together.
This behavior is incredibly frustrating because there is no specific criteria for when Blender decides to reverse any spline. Despite my attempts to establish a control system to prevent these random direction changes, I have not been successful.
Could you please explain Blender’s rules for switching a spline’s direction? Additionally, is there a way to maintain stable spline directions?
Here’s a .blend file demonstrating the issue. It’s part of a large node tree that I’ve simplified to highlight the problem. There may be several elements that could be confusing, and I apologize for that.

In Edit Mode, you can select all points by pressing A, then right-click, and Switch Direction. It doesn't solve your issue procedurally but it may help.

I can't reproduce this.. can you share a misbehaving file on https://blend-exchange.com/ ? And describe how to make this happen? The tilt can spin around depending on the shape of a curve, but that seems a different question

@RobinBetts I have uploaded a blend file


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Composite interior and exterior separately
I'm trying to make an interior scene where I want to composite the exterior separetely form the interior. So, before I go any further I want to set up the layers to accomplish this.
In Layer 1 I've got just the interior:

Layer 2, the Sun and the Earth without the atmosphere:

Layer 3, just the Atmosphere, which I need to blur.

How can I composite the interior and the exterior separately and the join them?
 I'm fairly new to compositing so I don't have a clear idea to do this, specially with the window in the way.

EDIT:
This is how I've set up the three different render layers:
Layer 1:

Layer 2:

Layer 3:

And this is the result using the Alpha Overlay in the Compositer:

Thanks,

@cegaton I can't get it to work, there's no transparency in the first layer (because of the window?)

@cegaton It's just an HDR, please, tell me what else do you need and I'll update my question.

@cegaton I've already tried the links but it's not working for me, or I'm doing something wrong, I've updated my question with the layers and the result in the compositor.

With the help of Cegaton I've found the solution. The main problem was that the window is in the way so it has to be rendered separately. This way there's a hole in the first layer without the background so later on the Alpha Over node can be used.
So, in this case, four render layers are necessary:
Layer 1:
In this layer is the foreground, just the spaceship but without the Window, masking the rest so that there's a transparent hole in the window.

Layer 2:
In this layer it's the Earth without the Atmosphere.

Layer 3:
Just the atmosphere in layer three.

Layer 4:
Here is the Window:

And finally, here's the compositor node setup:


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Alternative to redraw_timer()
I have a script whose goal is to find all the visible vertices from the camera view. The simplest solution should work as follows:

Go Into Camera View
Update the view with bpy.ops.wm.redraw_timer(type='DRAW_WIN_SWAP', iterations=1)
Get the coordinates of the borders of the camera and use bpy.ops.view3d.select_border()

However, the redraw_timer() function is giving me the following error
WM: failed to allocate texture for triple buffer drawing (glGenTextures).
wmSubWindowScissorSet 0: doesn't exist
Error: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION

Now, I'm not surprised. The Gotchas mentions that this could be expected.
How should I then replace redraw_timer()?
I have tried bpy.context.scene.update(), bpy.context.area.tag_redraw() and a modal operator with no success. How should I then proceed?
IMPORTANT UPDATE (02.11.2015)
Both answers (zeffii and batFINGER) select all vertices in the camera frustrum. This means that vertices behind others are selected. This is not what I'm looking for. I need the unobstructed and visible vertices. That's why I thought of using bpy.ops.view3d.select_border() in camera perspective. Here is an example.
If Suzanne is seen by the camera like this

I want the following vertices selected.

I apologize for making my issue unclear.

related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/882/how-to-find-image-coordinates-of-the-rendered-vertex

Thanks for adding a bit more specificity to your question, perhaps I'll remove my answer until I have time to modify it.

you might need to be more specific when iterating over views... https://gist.github.com/zeffii/a01cbb28aed399146a86  this might be it.. if the error is that you are trying to set the border in a window area like the N panel of 3dview..

By the by, there is another way to do it. It's called back-face culling. Here is an answer that details how to do it. http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/938/how-to-find-back-faces-and-delete-them-with-python

IMPORTANT EDIT
re question change, pretty much the same code added to a modal timer operator, and changed to use view3d.border_select.  Run the operator in 3dview, then when in edit mode Right click in camera view to select vertices.   Setspace.use_occlude_geometry to view unobstructed and visible vertices.
import bpy
from bpy_extras.view3d_utils import location_3d_to_region_2d

def view3d_find():
    # returns first 3d view, normally we get from context
    for area in bpy.context.window.screen.areas:
        if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
            v3d = area.spaces[0]
            rv3d = v3d.region_3d
            for region in area.regions:
                if region.type == 'WINDOW':
                    return region, rv3d
    return None, None

def view3d_camera_border(scene):
    obj = scene.camera
    cam = obj.data

    frame = cam.view_frame(scene)

    # move into object space
    frame = [obj.matrix_world * v for v in frame]

    # move into pixelspace

    region, rv3d = view3d_find()
    frame_px = [location_3d_to_region_2d(region, rv3d, v) for v in frame]
    return frame_px

class ModalTimerOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Operator which runs its self from a timer"""
    bl_idname = "wm.modal_timer_operator"
    bl_label = "BXXX"

    _timer = None

    def modal(self, context, event):
        scene = context.scene
        obj = context.object
        region = context.area.regions[-1]

        if event.type in {'ESC'}:
            self.cancel(context)
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        if event.type in {'RIGHTMOUSE'}:
            print("modal")
            if obj.mode == 'EDIT' and obj.type == 'MESH':
                camframe = view3d_camera_border(scene)

                #print([xy for xy in camframe])

                bpy.ops.view3d.select_border(gesture_mode=3, xmin=camframe[2].x, xmax=camframe[0].x,
                                             ymin=camframe[1].y, ymax=camframe[0].y)

        return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

    def execute(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        self._timer = wm.event_timer_add(0.1, context.window)
        wm.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

    def cancel(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        wm.event_timer_remove(self._timer)

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(ModalTimerOperator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ModalTimerOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Similar to the method used in https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/40264/15543 , the handler below selects only the verts in the camera view, and deselects the rest, live, in edit mode.
Uses view3d_camera_border(...) and view3d_find methods from https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/14746/15543
dic = {}
@persistent
def edit_object_change_handler(scene):
    # if not some.prop return
    obj = scene.objects.active
    if obj is None:
        return None

    if obj.mode == 'EDIT' and obj.type == 'MESH':
        camframe = view3d_camera_border(scene)
        region, rv3d = view3d_find()
        #print([xy for xy in camframe])
        bm = dic.setdefault(obj.name, bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data))

        for v in bm.verts:
            xy = location_3d_to_region_2d(region, rv3d,
                                          obj.matrix_world * v.co)
            v.select = ((camframe[2].x <= xy.x <= camframe[0].x)
                    and (camframe[1].y <= xy.y <= camframe[0].y))
            #print(v.select, v)
        return None

    for bm in dic.values():
        bm.free()

    dic.clear()
    return None

Cannot see why same would not work in a modal(timer).  Needs some property flag to turn it on or off.
I'd be tempted to extend the BMesh

Nice answer. But the context to bpy.ops.view3d.select_border(gesture_mode=3, xmin=camframe[2].x, xmax=camframe[0].x, ymin=camframe[1].y, ymax=camframe[0].y) is incorrect. More details here

Yep, quite aware of overriding  context when running outside the view3d area. I used the name BXXX to make it quick to find in the spacebar menu for testing purposes.

@TedMilker Have a look at bpy.ops.view3d.select_box(...)


text:
Fire not showing up in final render (Blender Internal)
Using Blender Render. My simulation works fine in view port.I have tried setting up the textures as people have said but it doesn't help I got one with just smoke working but the one that needs fire doesn't.
blend file

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/34403/smoke-fire-simulation-cycles-material-not-showing-fire

@Mentalist The only problem is I am not using cycles so the material is different.

I see, thanks for mentioning that. I edited the question title to make that clear. Always best to note which render engine you're using if asking a rendering-related question.

Follow the directions in the Blender Manual for a minimal solution to both Smoke and Flame when using the Internal Render engine. The specific page is here: smoke and flame. TC


text:
Apply Texture map to 2D curve from svg
I'm trying to map an image onto a shape(svg) that is the same as shape/size as the image.  I'm trying to do a digital version of decoupage cards. I cut out each shape as a layer. I export the base shape for the layer as an SVG from Inkscape. I then export that layer's color data as an image.
After getting stumped I attempted to follow this: SO texture mapping question to no avail though.
In Blender v2.7.6, I blow away the default cube. Import the .svg. Click on the svg, in the Properties->Curve->Texture Space I tick 'Use UV Mapping'.
I then go to Properties->Texture->Image load up the image ->Mapping I set Coordinates -> Generated. And this is what I get->
If I try the other method and extrude the path and then turn that into a mesh, switch to the Compositing view, I get this:

I'm unable to move the mesh around or do anything. I'm a bit stumped at this point.  I followed this youtube video for that method
I can easily get the texture map to appear on a cube or plane but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong in this situation.
Sample files per request: image map->
svg->SVGfile

This is the effect I'm going for: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_h2qJID3nDAI/TMgBGlOXHCI/AAAAAAAAFB0/4ptl4i-9yiI/s1600/23102010753.jpg basically it is making a 2D scene 3D by making layers using various pieces of an image.  Kinda like making a homegrown depth map and applying it to certain pieces. Hmmm  maybe that's how I should go about things...a depth map/bump map/ height map.


text:
Bone Parallelogram Connection Translations and Parenting
I'm trying to get a single side of a mechanical parallelogram (with 2 bones parallel and equal in length) to carry the "Neck Base" along a fixed angle as a parallelogram only allows.
I've tried restricting the movement of the bone within the IK chain (pictures show that there are none, but I did try) to allow zero rotational movement, but the "Neck Base" still rotates weirdly and not smoothly. It reacts the same way without any of said rotational restrictions, if that helps.
I do have a Bone Constraint on both "Neck Rod Front" and "Neck Rod Back" to share the same rotation angle in only one axis as shown.
Is there a way to connect "Neck Rod Back" to the "Neck Base" to maintain that angle?
Is there a better way to complete this method of movement?
Here's a link for the file for testing.
https://ufile.io/wmhn6
Pictures:

Rest Position

Forward Position

Up Position
Short Gif

Select one bone as control bone, which you will operate, and make all other dummy bones move by Copy Rotation constraints.

I don't want the "Neck Base" to rotate at all. It should remain at the same relative angle by virtue of the parallelogram.

There are two simple solutions to it:
What both rigs have in common:

boss and helper are children with offset of main. That puts them into local space and prevents flipping. If ever the rig has to do a looping this becomes relevant.

bar is a child of boss.

neck 1 is a child of bar with offset.

1. Two simple constraints.
This one works if the bones are really parallel and have the same length (copied). Helper has a Copy Rotation Constraint and rotates in sync with boss.
Bar has a Locked Track Constraint pointing to helper. Locked Tracks only rotate around a locked axis and are therefore more stable than a Track To. They won't flip.
Now you can rotate boss and everything will follow.

2. One slightly more complicated constraint
This one will work regardless of lengths and rotations as long as it can function mechanically. Good for rigging excavators. It has an additional bone, target, which is a child of helper with no offset.
This time, bar has an IK Constraint pointing to helper, chain length 2. boss and helper kind of need a rename since now it's helper who gets to be animated. bar and boss will follow.
But you could just as well turn bar around, parent it to helper, put the target on top of boss and do the IK chain the other way around.

A third solution would be to let main be a duplicate of bar, maybe form a complete parallelogram with the 4 bones and give bar a copy rotation constraint to main but it's not really needed.

I am rather a beginner, just plunging into the topic of rigging, and have downloaded your file because it is an interesting issue, but admittedly I got a bit messed since your rig lacks any "limit rotation" constraints.
A possible workaround could perhaps be:
Add an empty (as target) at the tip of Neck Rod Back and parent it to that bone so that it always keeps the position of the bone tail.
In Edit mode, split the parenting (Armature-Split) between Neck Rod Front and Neck Base.
Select the tail of Neck Rod Front and the root of Neck Base and connect them with a new bone, make it child of Neck Rod Front and parent of Neck Base.
This new bone should get a track constraint to the empty so that it always points towards the tail of Neck Rod Back. Neck Base should keep its relative position to the new bone now.
The other meshes must be re-parented to the proper bones. Perhaps you re-arrange the bone constraints and relationships from the shoulder upward to the head.
Add the necessary movement constraints (Limit Rotation and possibly also Location; I suppose the parallelogram should move only within the symmetry plane of the robot body while the head should be allowed to tilt to both sides at the tail of Head Base?) - sorry, due to my limited experience I would have also have a lot of experimentation necessary to make that properly...
Greetings from Southern Germany, Tschöbbel

Thanks for the answer. Could you please use paragraphs and proper spacing? Walls of text are extremely hard to read.


text:
Is it required to attach objects together as one?
I'm not done with youtube tutorials and I don't think they will mention it. Do you need to attach all parts together? for example the limbs to the body? I'm gonna use it to make a video game.

required not, often helps: it depends on your specific "video game" character needs... try to elaborate more on this.

I'm not sure I get it... In what situation does it help can you give an example? I'm sorry, I'm kind of making similar to nier automata but not that wide. Kind of like "narrow that game down significantly".

It depends on how far you are in designing the object, at the end you want to have as much objects attached to one another and the least amount of vertices so it'll be easier to handle for the engine.
At the beginning you can do as you want so you can edit certain parts better (for example if you have a t-pose it would be nice if you could move the arm away so you can edit the side of the body).

So it's ok to not attach the parts? Because, for example I want to attach something to something but the vertices don't match (let's not talk about subdividing it).

Your end model always had to be just on piece like a body, but before you have your endmodel you can just have it as loose parts. And you can always retopologize your model which is actually recommended if you have a model with alot of vertices.


text:
Antialias and jagged edges on Cycles passes
I want to composite different passes in Photoshop but the GlossDir pass has jagged edges. I tried to boost samples, different experiments, boost resolution (about 6000x4800) but the GlossDir every time is not usable. I attach an image, can I extract an alpha pass to use in photoshop to mask the GlossDir and obtain e clean pass? (hope you understand my text)

Thanks a lot!

If the jagged parts are sticking out, then yes you should be able to, in Photoshop, select the alpha channel of your Combined Transparency image and then use that selection to create a mask for your Glossy Direct pass... but you shouldn't have to resort to that. There should be a way to fix it within Blender. Can you post the .blend using Blend Exchange?

Sure! This is the link :

I removed the hdri due to the file dimension: I tried with another Hdri, the problem is the same. Thanks a lot!

I tried to create a new scene, added a simple sphere, an hdri and the glossDir (glossind same) is jagged and seems without antialias..I think I'm doing something wrong :/

I opened your file and took a quick look. I didn't have a lot of time to spend on it then, but I did notice at least one missing texture (for the environment).

Yes, I had to remove the hdri due to the file dimension (max 40mb), but there is the problem with any hdri (I try another one just for test). Thanks again!

@Mentalist I'm really start to thing that is only a problem of antialias that I didn't understand yet. I created a new scene , insert a sphere without any gloss (a simple material principled, roughness 1). Combined pass, perfect, Ao perfect, DiffDir, GlossDir with jagged edge, no antialias from what I can see.


text:
sculpt grab tool problem
the sculpt grab tool is pulling the mesh's vertices in one axis it wont let me pull in free mode it only gets me to pull in one axis
as how i move the mouse cursor and then doesn't let me move it in free mode
is there any thing i can do to fix the problem?
it is a very annoying problem because am working on a character's expressions and its hard to do it without sculpt because it has many vertices

What do you mean by "sculpt pull tool"? Anyway if you are sculpting and sculpted geometry is moving only on one axis make sure there aren't any axes locked from moving in the settings of the sculpting brush, see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/12193/axis-is-locked-when-sculpting

oh uh excuse me i meant the grab tool and the symmetry/lock is all clean it has no problems its all unlocked and yet its pulling the vertices in the direction i move the mouse cursor  to and then moves it only to it and never makes me move it in a free movement

Look at the settings there for the brush to see if it is locked to a particular plane like View or X, Y, Z. This is just below the regular pressure controls.


text:
Weird modeling issue (possibly bone weighting?)
So I'm working on a custom avatar for a friend of mine for a game called VRChat. I've put the model into blender, configured all the bones and mesh. Weighted it all accordingly. Here's the issue i'm facing. I have the model right here:

And it looks good. No real big glaring issues. Still a few things I wanna touch up, but nothing too bad right now.
However, when I export it as an FBX and put it in Unity and go to configure the bones, this happens:

A random spike pops out of her wrist. I thought that maybe it wasn't anything to worry about, so I proceeded with putting it into VRChat. Well, that didn't work. The spike is still sticking out of her wrist. Does anyone know how I could go about fixing this?

Please use the editor tools to post images (free, easy, embedded) to help readers...

Fixed it. Hope that's better.

it could be some weight weirdness, but the only way to know if looking at weights, in that case... can't be spotted by above images...


text:
How to Change Keymap for Opening Nested Context Menu?
When you RMB (or press W if you have right-click to select) on an object you get a context menu, then RMB again on certain commands (regardless of LMB or RMB to select) you get a nested context menu with commands like, E.g.:

Add to Quick Favorites
Assign Shortcut
Online Manual

My question is: how can the keymap for bringing up this nested context menu be set?
The reason I'm doing this is that I have modified all context menus to be Ctrl + LMB to match the default behavior for Mac/OS X context menus for use with a tablet and pen where the pen buttons are not being used.
I have not been able to find a way to change the keymap to open this secondary context menu.


text:
Blender 2.83 model invisible glitch
https://gyazo.com/b3d840f42a8f57c23fb80645ba9f1e48
Something has happened today while I was modelling.
Magically my model became invisible and when I go to the material preview or render view, the model turns black and appears to shrink and contort itself.
This hasn't really ever happened, I thought it'll just go away if I restart blender but that didn't happen, I also created another blender file to see if its only something I did in the previous blend file but the same thing happened, invisible object. I looked if anyone has had this problem  as well but I couldn't find anything. What's interesting is that despite the actual model and its parts being invisible,the lamp, camera and reference images were completely visible and functional.
I tried restarting blender, reinstalling blender, restarting my computer, nothings worked, I checked if I maybe enabled something in blender that made  this happen, but again, I didn't find anything.
I really need help with this, cause I can't really make a model if I can't see it.

Not sure what's going on, but one more thing you can try - open 2 instances of blender - one with your troublesome file and another empty one (default cube, lamp, and camera deleted). Select all and copy (Ctrl+C) from the file that's acting up, and then paste (Ctrl+V) into the empty project. This will at least tell you if you just accidentally messed up some viewport/project setting in your original file, or if there's something more going on with the models themselves.

Please use the [edit] link at the bottom of your post
(https://i.sstatic.net/lXFuK.png) and use the tools from this site
to upload images so that they are displayed as part of your question.
See How to upload an image to a post?

I had this same exact problem, so I went into Viewport Shading and was able to see the model.
Then I opened another instance of Blender and copy/pasted there and was able to see it and work on it.


text:
Custom Ui Columns In A Box
I want to put columns in a box, apparently I don't know how I can do this.
I have got the following code:
        split = layout.split(factor = 0.75)
        col = split.column(align = True)

        col.label(text = "select your armor here", icon = "OUTLINER_OB_ARMATURE")
        col.prop(obj, "ArmorHelmetEnum", text = "Helmet")
        col.prop(obj, "ArmorChestplateEnum", text = "Chestplate")
        col.prop(obj, "ArmorLeggingsEnum", text = "Leggings")
        col.prop(obj, "ArmorBootsEnum", text = "Boots")

        col = split.column(align = True)
        col.label(text = "")
        col.prop(obj, "helmet_color", text = "")
        col.prop(obj, "chestplate_color", text = "")
        col.prop(obj, "leggings_color", text = "")
        col.prop(obj, "boots_color", text = "")

It's not in the Box as I would like it to be. I googled it but I haven't found a good answer that has helped me.

You have to insert the Box component before the split.
        box = layout.box()
        split = box.split(factor = 0.75)
        col = split.column(align = True)

        col.label(text = "select your armor here", icon = "OUTLINER_OB_ARMATURE")
        col.prop(obj, "ArmorHelmetEnum", text = "Helmet")
        col.prop(obj, "ArmorChestplateEnum", text = "Chestplate")
        col.prop(obj, "ArmorLeggingsEnum", text = "Leggings")
        col.prop(obj, "ArmorBootsEnum", text = "Boots")

        col = split.column(align = True)
        col.label(text = "")
        col.prop(obj, "helmet_color", text = "")
        col.prop(obj, "chestplate_color", text = "")
        col.prop(obj, "leggings_color", text = "")
        col.prop(obj, "boots_color", text = "")
```


text:
Having more than more animation on one rig
On this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyI1zfvUjeM at 0:28 the guy starts to explain that he has 3 different animations as seen on the dopesheet. How can I have the animations cut into 3 different animations?
EDIT: I found a way to do what I want. No more help needed.

Change from dope sheet to action editor and add actions (animations).

But how do I create two different ones. I know how to create an animation but don't know how to... name them and group them up to be their own animation. I don't really know how to explain.

I don't really understand what do you mean by add actions? How do I link the movement with the so called created "action"?


text:
FBX export is destroying my model
Even though everything deforms just fine in Blender, as soon as I go to export it into .fbx and import it anywhere else the model is just obliterated - mesh is all out of wack and the UVs are incorrect.

Deleting the armature modifier fixes the geometry (though I need it, obviously). But, the UVs are still wrong and the model seems see-through - and it's not a normal issue, all the normals are correct in the 'face orientation' rendering mode.

I did read a post on here saying that merging a rigged mesh could cause issues with the rigging and/or shape keys, but I joined all of my separate parts. Not sure if that could cause an issue or not. Plus, the armature and shape keys behave correctly in Blender.
I also tried the Better FBX addon, and that doesn't fix the issue either.
Does anyone have any idea where to even begin debugging this?

You could try something like Recalculate Outside Normals (Shift N) or Recalculate Inside Normals (Shift Ctrl N) (or Edit Mode > Mesh > Normals). When I tried to use one of my models without doing that previously it just made every sketchy vertex group not load correctly when importing the FBX.
Secondly, check if you have any keyframes. Make sure your Timeline is at Keyframe 1 and see if the the armature has anything at that point.

I tried recalculating the normals and that didn't work. The timeline was set at an arbitrary frame but didn't have any keyframes, so I dragged it back to 0 and that didn't work either.


text:
Scaling hotkey S no longer works in edit mode
Suddenly, when pressing the S hotkey in edit mode, scaling is not working.  It was working previously, and still works in other modes, like Object mode and UV Editor.  I am new to Blender, so maybe I hit something and changed it?  I am using Blender 2.93.4.  I tried a new file, the default cube did the same thing.  I tried preferences keymap, but am not exactly sure what to change to fix it.  Any help is appreciated.

could you please share your file or at least show a screenshot? https://pasteall.org/blend/

I fixed it, apparently something had gotten switched in the keymap.  I tried restoring the 3D view settings, but there was a second restore option for the mesh category, and that fixed it.  Thanks though.


text:
Create text with custom 3d meshes
So i created a custom series of letters (3d meshes) and i wanted to know if there was an easy way of alligning them so that i don't have to do it manually every time. Like a mesh text generator with geometry nodes.

You should use custom Object Font for this.
This feature allows you to use regular 3D objects of any type (meshes, curves, etc) as font glyph replacements for your text object.
Under the Properties Window > Text Object Data > Font > Transform > Font Object you must specify a custom font name prefix.

This prefix will determine which objects are picked by Blender as part of your object font family. If you type MyCustomObjectFont. in this field Blender will look for all objects named MyCustomObjectFont.XXXX where XXXXis the name of the glyph it will replace.
If you want to create a custom "a" character it should be named MyCustomObjectFont.a or MyCustomObjectFont.A for a capital "A", and MyCustomObjectFont.! for a custom exclamation mark character.
After this activate vertex instancing under Properties Window > Object > Instancing > Vertices for your text object. Now any time a character you type matches an object you created it will replace the font provided glyph with your custom 3D object.
The objects are duplicated so that their center is positioned at the lower right corner of the corresponding characters, so position their origins accordingly.
Beware that this doesn't take into account custom object dimensions, and always uses kerning from the specified base font file. If your objects are too big or have very different scales they may overlap and require manual adjustment.


text:
Baking from multires doesn't work on a face
When baking normals from multires one of the faces (both of the sides since its a symmetrical mesh) remain blank.
What i checked:
-The face orientation is the same as the others
-The face has the same material as the others
-The face is connected to the mesh
-That part of the mesh is sculpted in the subdivided version

hello could you please share your object? https://blend-exchange.com/

ok so to solve this i just had to ad a loop cut on the face that was not baking.


text:
UV unwrap sapling in cycles
I have tried to UV unwrap a tree's branches that I have created in Blender. However when I switch into Edit mode and press the U key for the Unwrap menu nothing shows up.
Is there something I am missing or is there just simply no way to do this in Blender Cycles?

Did you convert the curve to mesh before trying to unwrap?

@Carlo no I did not convert it to a mesh

Unwrap command works for mesh objects only
Sapling add-on currently create Curve-type objects which must be converted to mesh with the Alt+C shortcut before performing unwrap.
Unwrap is an operation that requires faces in order to be performed: beveled curves, text objects and other types,thought they appear as solids objects, they don't strictly "have faces". Blender makes an on-the-fly translation for us to see them, but the object really is only defined by what you can edit (curve control point, strings... but no faces!)
If confverting the curve to mesh is not suitable for your work you can consider the option to see if another kind of UV mapping can be used. See related question: Adding a texture map to a beveled curve or path


text:
Why can't I merge two vertices?
I have modelled half of character and added Mirror modifier to it.
Now there are 2 vertices in the bottom that refuse to connect.
First, I can't move them by X axis towards each other for some reason. Also, I've tried every option that Alt+M has to offer but it didn't do anything.
P.S Also if anyone knows why the shading is so massive, that would be helpful too.

You have wrong order in the modifiers stack.
Move the mirror modifier to the top to make merging of the corner vertices possible.

Merge wont work because you are selecting only one vertex, that shows up as two because of the mirror modifier, and if you try to merge it it will merge itself = nothing will happen. To join them properly just select one of the vertices and move it toward the center using the red arrow(x axis).
The blue/dark shading in your object is probably because of inverted normals, to fix it select all the vertices, press space and type "flip normals" then hit enter

First of all, thank you for the quick reply. Second, I've tried moving through the x axis, believe me. This is the first thing that didn't work.

Ok I get it now, in the modifiers list, the mirror is applied after the subdivision, what you have to do is go to the header of the mirror modifier and click on the up arrow next to the X, to move it on top of the subdivision. Now you should be able to select the "original" bottom vertex and move it


text:
How to make walls be covered with tiles with different shading?
I am new to blender and already searched on google but didn't find a solution. I would like to create a round ball (and remove the lower half part but I know how to do this) and fill the face of it with flat objects like squares or triangles...
(triangles will look like:
\/\

so two triangles build one square)
Here is a picture from cerebro from the x men films. It is build of squares. I would like to achieve something like this:

Thankyou for your comment ;) I added a picture. Two triangles in different directions together build a square.

/\  and / next to each other. it's a bit difficult to explain because i am from germany ;)

I think there're 2 main steps - first, by making walls (which form a spherical or non-spherical, whatever object) appear as tiles, and then make those tiles being shaded like that. I'd say you should construct tiles somehow first, see this question for some details, and once tiles are ready you make them each shaded differently.

Are you trying to get something similar to this? https://i.sstatic.net/m828W.png

An icosphere is a triangulated sphere.
Subdivide for more faces.

That's one of the results i wanted to get. thank you.

Welcome to the site, famemaker. You might want to take the tour, and review the help center. One thing you will learn about Blender that I don't recall seeing when I looked at those pages is that given just about any task one can imagine in Blender, there are multiple, equally useful ways to accomplish it. The way I would make that wall in Blender is to start with a large radius cylinder, say a radius of 50 with 150 vertices in the circumference, or a radius of 100, with about 300 vertices in circumference, and in both cases a suitable height. Using edge select in edit mode, I'd subdivide the height into the necessary number of rows that make the height of the individual segments about the same as their width, and scale the rows of vertices demarcating individual margins to achieve the look of the interior of a tiled sphere.


text:
Blender 2.77 cycles. Smoke generation stops working when I click on flow
I'm trying to get fire/smoke working in Blender. I have Blender 2.77 running on Windows 7. To reproduce:

Create a new file (Ctrl+N)
switch to Cycles Render
Select the cube
Choose Object > Quick effects > Quick Smoke in 3D View header.
Press Alt+A to play animation. Smoke appears as expected
Go to the Physics tab on the newly created smoke object. Click on "Flow".

Smoke disappears and doesn't appear again when the animation is played again.

I didn't experience that on 2.77. Make sure to re-run animation after changing type of smoke. Note that at least one domain object must be present in order animation to work. Note that if changing type of smoke object for domain, its settings will be lost.


text:
How do I rotate an unwrapped model?
I'm trying to follow several texturing tutorials and guides, but I already have a problem after Unwrapping. My model does not get unwrapped nicely onto the grid... how do I do that? Even rotating the model itself does not seem to work. So I'm kinda stuck. Pure beginner here, I also got major help creating the (Fire Blast) model, shaped like the image I want to use (I cut out the fire blast shape with Photoshop already)
My unwrap in UV/Image editor:

album with images
Fire Blast I shaped after and which I want to add as texture:

image source
I have no idea how to do this. And you know Youtube... you hardly ever get an answer, or even a reply when you ask things there.
Also, when I tried again I had the same issue, but I tried to work backwards (instead of unwrapping first, adding the texture file to the texture pane first...) but my object model went pink? That usually means a missing texture, but I fail to see how a just added .png can be missing when it also DOES show up in the texture pane.
Hope you guys can help me. I'm sorry to bother you with this.

Welcome to Blender.SE. It looks like you should change way of unwrapping rather than rotating existing UV map. It seems that your mesh has thickness and in this case if you use U > unwrap you should mark seams first. Or you could use U > Project From View to unwrap according to the current view in the viewport.

Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6755/how-to-properly-unwrap-my-mesh

You haven't unwrapped your mesh properly. Go to the front view in Edit Mode and press U-->Unwrap-->Project From View (since your object is flat) and scale the UV island in the UV Editor. Remember to apply rotation and scale first (in Object Mode press Ctrl+A-->Rot&Scale).

Ah thanks for the answers guys. I will try that out. Though Paul the object isn't flat? It was a box first, but I placed the vertices on the picture's shape, then did extrude, place vertices, repeat until I had the model. So it's the same thickness as a box.


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Unable to see anything after importing pointclouds
I am trying to import pointclouds into Blender via dae, wrl, ifc file formats. After importing any of them the Blender scene looks empty. I have zoomed and changed scale. What is the problem?

Try to go into edit mode and selecting all (A), you might see floating vertices. These won't be visible in object mode.

Welcome to Blender.SE. Open the Outliner editor and try looking there whether anything was imported. See if helps  - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5495/how-can-i-prepare-a-point-cloud-for-visualization-in-blender-using-meshlab. If it doesn't help add screenshots of import settings and add link to your original file for import.

I have tried all of these and still unable to see anything.


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How can I seperate parts of a human body to add materials for texturing?
I have a few human models that I am trying to work with to add textures.
When I select all in Edit mode and ty to separate by loose parts nothing gets separated. I believe it is one solid mesh. There aren't any seams or anything to separate like in the tutorials I have watched.
Does anyone know a way I can take a solid model and separate it so I can add material slots in order to texture them?

It's possible to combine several materials on the mesh by either creating / using pre-made image masks or by assigning materials for different parts of mesh. For details on second method see http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/516/add-different-materials-to-different-parts-of-a-mesh.

Why do you need to separate your mesh? You can have multiple materials on a single mesh. In the material window you can add as many as you want. Then just go into edit mode and select the faces you want to give a different material, and then assign the matching material from the material window.

In order to separate loose parts, they have to be loose in the first place:
1- in Edit Mode, select the Edge Loop between the two parts you want to separate.
2- Press V in order to break the vertices, then RMB to quit translate operation.
3- Repeat step 2 in order to break all parts.
4- You will not notice any difference, but when you select a single vertex and try to move, you'll notice that it's broken, two separate vertices were created by pressing V
5- Press A until everything is selected, then press P > Loose Parts.
6- Now every piece of mesh is a separate object.
 This is the answer to the question as is, but you don't have to break the mesh in the first place to assign separate textures to different parts, you can assign a separate UV map to each part and assign a different texture or/and Material.

Another way to do this is to select the vertices/edges/faces you want separated and press Y then P.


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Creating addon for rotating fbx model in python
This is the code I wrote for rotating the .fbx model I imported from Rhino.
bl_info = {
    "name": "Reture Z axls",
    "category": "Object",
}

import bpy

class ObjectRotateX(bpy.types.Operator):
    """My Object Rotate Script"""
    bl_idname = "object.rotate_x"
    bl_label = "Rotate X by 90"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):

        scene = context.scene
        for obj in scene.objects:
            obj.rotation_euler = (0,0,0)

        return {'FINISHED'}

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(ObjectRotateX)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ObjectRotateX)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

The problem is that it will rotate everything in the scene including the camera. I wonder if there is better way to do this? Also is there anyway I can rotate each object seperately?
Thank you!

This sounds like a task that should be performed by the import FBX addon. The addon does include some options for rotation.
The first set of options allow you to define which axis is up and which is forward, if those two don't resolve the placement you may also need to try turning off the last option Use Pre/Post Rotation

There are two answers.
The simplest answer is to modify your for loop to only operate on the model you imported.
for obj in scene.objects
    if obj is 'Model_id' #some identifier that you know or can find
        obj.rotation_euler = (0,0,0)
    else
        #don't

The more correct way is to select the object you want, instead of operating on the whole scene context.
#unselect everything...
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

#then select just the object you want...
bpy.data.objects['Cube'].select = True

#AND make it active...
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = bpy.data.objects['Sphere.017']

You can also query which object is active
bpy.context.scene.objects.active

to see if that's the one you want to operate on.
ANOTHER answer is to delete everything first, then import and rotate the way you are already ;-)
Hope that helps!

I believe that it would be easier done if you knew the names of the objects that you wished to ignore.
I tried exporting the default scene to FBX, and then re-imported the same FBX after deleting everything.
The FBX file seemed to maintain the object names, so adding an if statement to iterate through the 'bpy.data.objects.items()[index][0]' to check for the known name, seems like an easy enough solution. I'm just not sure if the export for Rhino exports the names. I know you can set a name on any object within Rhino though (via the properties panel).
eg: If I wanted to ignore my default named 'Camera' object
for i in bpy.data.objects.items():
     if i[0] == 'Camera':
         print ("ignored Camera Object")
     else:
         print(i[0])

OUTPUT:
ignored Camera Object
Cube
Lamp

I hope that is helpful.
RRiggs

A reasonable idea, but relying on the name 'Camera' is limiting. A better way would be for obj in bpy.data.objects: if obj.type=='CAMERA':...


text:
Texture showing up in render preview, but not in final render
Recenty, I was making a plasma-like forcefield, and I found this material, which is almost what I wanted. So I copied the node setup, and I tried a test render, but it looked nothing like the render preview.
Render preview with correct material:

Final render, but the material is wrong:

I am using Cycles BTW.

I can not download the blend file, as I haven't got a Dropbox account any more. Could you (also for the future) upload the blend to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ please? That host will make sure the link stays valid in the future, thanks!

Updated it so hopefully it works now :)

Strange things happen here, I suppose this is buried somewhere in Color Management or somehow the way Alpha is treated. If you turn off 'Transparent' in the 'Film' Section, the renders become identical.

left: Viewport Render, right: Final Render, with Transparent turned off

The thing is that the ViewPort Render seems to Comp the Alpha against a different Color Value than the Final Render. If you render the image with Transparent Background, and Comp it using an Alpha Over node, you get these results here:

The Split Viewer Node shows you (with a percentage slider) in this setup the raw render on the left, the comped image on the right. The darker you make the background, the more you see the texture. If the background becomes white, the texture disappears. So I have the suspicion the Render View node comps the Alpha values against white background, the Preview render against the checkerboard background.
See these tests of the very same render for comparison:

That is really strange... But my problem is solved, so thanks!


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Why do vertices move when 'Smooth Vertex' is applied to mesh?
I'm having a problem when my meshes exported (to FBX) whereby Blender will smooth the model down.
To replicate the same problem I used Smooth Vertex and as you can see from the before and after the verteces on the barrel have moved. When I import the mesh into UE4 the problem is a lot worse with segments of the mesh completely missing. Its probably down to a fault of my own but this is my first ever modelling project so I'm still learning.

UE4 also displayed this warning message when I imported the FBX mesh.

Warning: No smoothing group information was found in this FBX scene.  Please make sure to enable the 'Export Smoothing Groups' option in the FBX Exporter plug-in before exporting the file.  Even for tools that don't support smoothing groups, the FBX Exporter will generate appropriate smoothing data at export-time so that correct vertex normals can be inferred while importing.

Any ideas as to why this may be happening would be greatly appreciated.

You got it correct.

Did you check your normals? my first impression is that wrongly flipped normals cause these artifacts when enabling smooth shading.

when exporting to FBX, Blender looks at the Modifier Stack of each object and applies the RENDER modifiers to the object. I can only guess without checking the file, but I suspect that you have a SubSurf modifier on your geometry.
Uncheck the Render Visibility (red arrow is pointing at it in the screenshot) and export again, it should be fine then.

I would try what you have suggested however my model has disappeared from my viewport and whatever I try I cannot seem to get it back. I will just start again and follow your advice when I come to export the model again.

check the layer settings, you might have simply turned the visibility of the layer off which contains the geometry. Layers can be found in the bottom of the interface, there's 20 small squares, each one representing one layer. Click to turn one of them on.

It disappeared when I attempted to add a sub-divide and then after doing so rotate the mesh. No matter which viewport I go into the mesh still isnt visible. The dimensions are also set oddly to very large negative numbers.  That issue may have arose when I got angry and pressed any key on the keyboard to get the model back. I

I pressed on all of the layers and none of them displayed the mesh.

I have set all of the XYZ location back to 0 however the dimensions are stuck at very large negative numbers and they cannot be changed. The median is also set at -1.#IND (No Idea what this means).


text:
Compositor's Corner Pin node does something odd to input image
Using Corner Pin on an image has an irritating little quirk. It seems to distort the edges of shapes, even when applied in such a way that should cause no change. In the screengrab below, the background shows the difference between the input (the alpha layer of a png), and the same image fed through a Corner Pin node with no distortion. I would expect there to be no difference. Is there a reason why there is a difference, or is this a bug?
Using Subtract instead of Difference shows the image seems offset a bit, rather than blurred (2nd and 3rd screengrabs).

from first tests run, it looks like CornerPin alters the input by adding a slight blur to the image. If you take an arbitrary render with some noise in it and use the same setup (but comparing the Image output socket instead of the Alpha socket), you'll see that there's a difference everywhere in the image, not only at the edges.

could be worth if you report it as a bug on https://developer.blender.org/ - if it IS a bug, they'll confirm, if not, they might give you the reason there.

Ok, just did: https://developer.blender.org/T54716

If you are seeing a "slight blur", I suspect it is poor cubic interpolation. Why it is causing halos is still up for grabs. Are there negative values in the fringe?

Oo, good question troy_s. Using Subtract instead of Difference shows that this is probably an offset or something rather than a blur. I edited the question with screengrabs to show this.

While I cannot be certain, I strongly suspect that you have been greeted by one of the many reasons that PNGs are a cancer; their alpha values are unassociated by design, making them an absolutely worthless default in a visual effects / CGI context.

I'm open to trying other formats. But this halo thing doesn't happen with any of the other basic Distort nodes in an arrangement like this. If the Corner Pin node here is replaced by a Translate, Transform, Scale, Rotate, or any other Distort node with settings that you'd expect to result in no change, the output of Difference is solid black.

Also, I'm using the alpha layer here as a black and white image, not using any Alpha Overs or Overlays or anything. I can't imagine how the file format would effect how it's handled here.

A .tif with transparency has the same result.

Same with using the output from the RenderLayer directly, without writing it to an image format beforehand. That cornerPin clearly should not work like this.

On a side note, PNG is a cancer...

Images without alpha do the same thing. This has nothing to do with transparency or image formats.

The only format with native associated alpha in Blender is EXR. TIFF has been mangled up thanks to the design decision in Blender to treat all 8 bit imagery as unassociated, despite the specification being quite clear that TIFF should encode associated. That said, hopefully the core issue can be resolved, as it doesn't appear alpha related?


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interaction of footage in 3D scene
Any Ideas on how to make Gloss and Transmission interact with the footage ?
I tried modeling those items on the footage but the camera wasn't matched perfectly.
So any chance on doing the trick on Comp ?

Hi. Please use the built-in uploader when adding images. See: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/75491/how-to-upload-an-image-to-a-post

my apologies , i was having issues on adding more pictures earlier didnt realized i need to add in on next line.

Don't get it. What's your question? How to get the sphere and the cube look "right"?

Turns out i just need to add as material the Original Footage on a plane and cover the Camera's Field of View .


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When you alternate a sculpting brush with modifier keys, is the alternation the exact same as the actual brush, or the inversion of the current brush?
Since some brushes can be executed while using other brushes, via modifier keys, eg.:

Fill brush, as I understand, is also accessible in Scrape brush by holding CTR.
Smooth brush, as most of us know, can be accessed from most brushes, using SHIFT.

My question is how identical are those brush-alternation versions of the same brush, compared to the settings of the actual brush? Do they maintain all your current brush settings or do they inherit some default settings? If that makes sense.
I was particularly thinking about Fill as triggered by CTR while using Scrape, but I'm also keen to know the same for temporary-Smooth.

Just for the record, this question was a beast to formulate well.

The "shift version" of the Smooth brush has the same strength as the "normal" Smooth brush. So I think it's the same brush. The Direction (+/-) of the brush is also the same if you change it. You can switch the Display Mode of outliner to Blend File and then you will see all available brushes in the blend file.

Thank you @Blunder, that was good advice. Also curious whether Fill and Scrape+CTR have the exact same functionality. I know one might say, "hey, if they feel the same, they are", but I'm not happy with that argument :-) I want to know, so I can trust that any brush settings I set in Fill will also reflect when inverting the Scrape and vice versa. I guess I'd like to know if there's a principle to this: if all 'inverted' brushes are the same as their actual brushes.


text:
Out of Memory in Cycles when changing render engines
When i change render engine to cycles it can't render until i reboot blender. This is caused because of a high res textures.
How can i fix this?

Could you convert this to a question, somehow? .. 'How do I A, B, C, given X, Y, Z'?

Can you include what kind of GPU you have?


text:
Weird blown out colours in renders eevee
I have a weird problem with blown out colors when I render with atmosphere and bloom.
It's weird because I'm rendering a video with 300 frames, and the glitch shows up at about 30 random frames.
I can solve it by manually re-rendering all 30 glitched frames, but that is very inconvenient and it should be much easier.
this is how the glitch look like, The red blown out dot shouldn't be there.

This is how the frame should be

Here can you see a couple of glitch frames

I have this problem on multiple projects
Can somebody help me how I can fix this problem?

I've had this issue as well, and it seems like it's an issue with using bloom and volumetrics at the same time.
Try clamping the bloom with a value of 20, see if that fixes it. (of course, you'll only know when rendering large batches of frames again)


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I cannot see or render an image as the world background in cycles
When I set the background to an option from blender it works fine but I wont work when I select an image from my computer.
In the screenshot I have an image selected but its just coming up as one solid colour as shown

The world should have an image that uses equirectangular projection. What does your image and world node setup look like? I suspect you are trying to use a flat image which does not work with the default setup.

yeah its a flat image. Do i need to convert it to a hdri?

If you are not using an image as environment, meaning that the image is not  HDR in equirectangular projection and you are not using it to light the scene, but just want it as background. Then set the image's vector to Window

To use a flat image, (really not recommended, you don't gain any dynamic range or depth of the environment) you will need to use an image texture node rather than an environment texture node and set the texture coordinate node to window so that the image fits within the camera bounds at all times.
There is a significant drawback to this, in that using an image this way does not provide the lighting that an HDRI does provide, and therefore it is better to use an actual HDRI that contains the lighting information and that captured the correct equirectangular projection that the environment image should have. See the gifs below for an example of the differences.

Regular photo, it contains no real light information, uses window coordinates stays static while the camera rotates:

HDRI with light information, correct projection as would be expected of the world when camera is moved:

Either of those two options will solve your current dilemma, if you do not have any HDRI images, there are plenty of resources for free ones, see our Resources for Blender post here for some good ones.


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My armature is not visible but my character still moves
I went back to an old project to append a character I had made, but for some reason the bones aren't visible. I tried pressing ⎇ Alt + h but it wasn't hidden. The character still follows the animation from the armature. The writing for the armature is grey in the outliner.
I am using blender 3.0 with cycles.

This happens when you duplicate an object without selecting it's parent or opposite and moving the new duplicate to a new collection.
Delete your armature with it's object and go to the original one and RMB  on the armature, then select Hierarchy and then press ⇧ Shift + D and place it where you want to. Then press M to move it to the collection that last one was.

I don't think I duplicated it, when i delete the armature with it's object it's just gone and there's no original one left. Here's the blend file, maybe it can help.

Your armature is not disabled. Actually it's disabled from rendering in view port.
Click on filters icon in the outliner tab:

Then press Disable in viewport button :

Then select your object in outliner and click on screen icon :


text:
Unwanted surface on top
I am new to blender and I am following a tutorial for making a coffee cup.  On a particular part of the cup, there are no mesh connections and hence the surface is emphasized as another colour.. and on rendering that part is seen as a hole.
I've tried to merge vertices but a lone vertex appears on the middle of the surface and is not helping. Also the coffee cup handle is a mess(I used the spin tool). Can I fix it through sculpting(I tried but not helping)?
I've attached all necessary pictures below:

From the first image, it seems you've removed some vertices and made a flat face. The mesh is symmetrical, that would help to fix that. For the handle that can be inside faces. You should upload the file to confirm that. http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

yea, can you give us the link to the file so we can take a closer look?

Yes, I have uploaded the blender file..It's named donut.blend

The following is "fixing" only, as there are few bad things in your model.
For the handle, you have inner faces, that should be deleted (only did 2 in the gif below):

Also have inverted faces. You can see that activating face orientation, then use ShiftN to solve it (except for the last issue, see below):

The handle also has inner part that should not exist: remove them.
Last step, the face that is bad. It is a ngon. Probably you did after removing some parts.
So delete the bad parts and use existing one to replace it.
Can do it by selecting a good slide, duplicate and rotate it ShiftDR and adjust as closely as possible to the bad part.
To do it, make sure the 3D cursor is placed at the center and it is the origin point for the rotation, also, use snap with increments (see what is surrounded by green below):

Once all slices are recreated, select all A and merge duplicates M then "by distance" (tune the distance in the operator panel to be sure to remove the wanted doubles).
Again, this is fixing only, and you'd better redo it all as exercise.
All these done, you should have a cup with no more cracks:


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How to copy animation from one object to another on Mac
I am trying to copy the animations from one object to the other and the Key command CTRL + L does not bring anything up for me.
Is there any other way to access this menu, or is CTRL + L the only way? If so, what's the Mac version?

most commands can be accessed through the search menu. Press F3 and type link or any other command you are looking for. https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/141118/how-to-access-the-search-menu-2-8-used-to-be-spacebar-in-2-79/141119#141119

ctrl L should work for Mac as well, you can go in the header menu > Object > Make Links > Animation Data. With right click you can assign it a shortcut.


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How to animate a split/crack in object
I wish to animate this model so it splits apart/cracks and each piece falls away from each other once it has fallen onto the scene.

I have also tried to use Cell Fracture, the result is below:

What would the best way to to approach this problem? I don't want the crack to form until it has fallen down into the scene.

Hi and welcome :) What have you tried so far? Cell fracture might possibly be manipulated to work here.

I am using a macbook pro so cell fracture just crashes. I wondered if a boolean animation could be a possible thing. Essentially I want the object to be a solid object until it falls and then that is where I want it to come apart.

https://imgur.com/GUL2efo heres what it does when I try cell fracture

Are you still going on this or has it been solved?

I'm afraid I couldn't find a solution, I've tried animating the visibility of a solid heart pendant falling in then replacing it with one that is in two pieces to give the illusion of breaking apart but that didn't work. What would you suggest?

Mark, that's the way I've been doing things like this, particularly with cell fracture so we don't see the fractures before it's supposed to actually begin falling apart.  I'll see what I can come up with.


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Is it possible to tetrahedral a mesh in Blender?
I have a mesh and I want to tetrahedral it (create a volume inside this big surface, important for the volume rendering), using a script in Python.
After days of research, I found someone who suggested the TetGen software, or the GAMer library. I found something about the FEM method and the Delaunay algorithm...But now I just have a big confusion.
Probably the problem is my ignorance of this subject.
This is my script (it doesn't work) and my mesh (it is only an "empty shell").
import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector
from bmesh.types import BMVert

# The mesh and its related object
obj = bpy.context.active_object
me = obj.data

# Access to BMesh data and ensure lookup tables
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(me)

# Geometry to extrude
bm.faces.ensure_lookup_table()
faces = [bm.faces]

# Extrude mesh with Bmesh
for f,triangle in zip(faces,me.polygons):
    newGeom = bmesh.ops.extrude_face_region(bm, geom = f)

    # Move the extruded geometry with translate operator
    extruded_verts = [v for v in newGeom['geom'] if isinstance(v,BMVert)]
    up = triangle.normal
    bmesh.ops.translate(bm, vec = up, verts = extruded_verts)

bm.to_mesh(me)
me.update()

Mesh:

In your code, you should replace:

faces = [bm.faces] by faces = bm.faces[:] because you want an array of face, not an array with one array of faces.

geom = f by geom = [f] in consequence

Though, using bmesh.ops too many times will lead to poor performance.
You can extrude all in one operation and loop over the result for just shifting the coordinates:
import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector
from bmesh.types import BMVert

# The mesh and its related object
obj = bpy.context.active_object
me = obj.data

# Access to BMesh data and ensure lookup tables
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(me)

# Geometry to extrude
bm.faces.ensure_lookup_table()
faces = bm.faces[:]

# Extrude once
result = bmesh.ops.extrude_discrete_faces(bm, faces = faces)

for face in result["faces"]:
    up = face.normal
    #Shift the vertices without bmesh.ops
    for v in face.verts:
        v.co += up

bm.to_mesh(me)
me.update()

Which gives:


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Soft body not staying contained in rigid body
I am fairly new to all this but I have been trying to do a motion graphic of a (balloon-like) soft body inflating and staying contained in a rigid body (cage). I have set the inside sphere to 'soft body' and the outer sphere/cage to 'collision'. Yet the soft body extends further than the cage and they don't interact at all. If someone could help me with my problem it would be greatly appreciated.

Collision > Softbody and Cloth > Inner, can you consider whether it is appropriate

if you include the blend file in your post doing a troubleshooting would be much easier. My first impression is that you may have to turn on face collision for your softbody, and increase it's vertex amount. Further the Thickness values of the Collision object in your case should be like Outer > Inner. A thickness value of 0.2 is equal to 20 cm.


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Rotating bone changes size
When I rotate a bone, the size of the bone changes. Any idea how to fix this?
.blend file

did you rotate the bone in edit mode or pose mode?

@David Pose Mode

It looks like the bone's parent is scaled in a single axis, meaning that this bone will appear to change size when rotate against the axis of the parent's scale.

@Poyo If I turn off "Inherit Scale" in the rotating bone, it still changes size.

@Poyo any idea how to fix this?

@chris I think you might have to upload a .blend.

@Poyo https://www.dropbox.com/s/7psawyxh1w6egaf/scout.blend?dl=0

@chris I was close. The bone's parent is not scaled, it's the whole armature that's scaled.

@Poyo So how do I fix this?

@chris Reset the scale of the armature by selecting it and pressing Alt+S.

@Poyo, or ctrl+A and scale (depending on what you want)

Chris, understand that this behavior is normal : your armarture is 2.8 times greater in Z than X or Y. So when things which were in Z come to X or Y, they become thinner.

I have the fix. It is so easy. Select your rig in object mode and apply the scale with CtrlA > Scale.

authors: Лиен Мищенко


text:
transitions between video strips in VSE not working... am I doing something wrong?
I've only been working with Blender for a few weeks and my focus at this point is on using the video sequence editor... VSE.
I am running Blender 2.77 on PC with 6 gigs of ram.
I add simple movie to VSE but when I try to add a fade-in from black, nothing happens.  I've tried wipe, cross, gamma cross etc and no joy.  I've been careful to select the video clip and color effect strip in correct order... black first... video second... still nothing.

Also tried soft cut and overlapping video strips to wipe from one to another and the preview screen just goes to black after the wipe.  I'm assuming this is operator error... but did see a reference to a Blender bug in regard to the above.  Please advise and many thanks

Might help to add a screen shot of your VSE view...

At the bottom of the preview window you can select the 'channel' to view. At the moment you have "channel 1" selected. The effect is on "channel 2" so Blender is not showing it to you.
This is called ch solo'ing, that is: make a strip play in solo (by itself) so you can see it without other effects.
To fix it simply change the channel selection to 0 (zero). This will force Blender to view all channels that have anything on them.

God bless you 3pointedit!!!   You have totally saved me a lot of grief... and with such a simple fix!!  Joy at last.  I was about to try a factory reset which would have meant a lot of repeat work to get back to my custom setup file... and obviously would not have fixed the problem.    I suspected it had to be something simple but because I am new to Blender I hadn't a clue as to what it was.   Again, many thanks for this valuable tip

@cyberman45 http://blender.stackexchange.com/help/someone-answers


text:
How to Tell if Object is No Longer in Camera View (bpy)
I'm wondering what's the most efficient way to detect whether or not an object is entirely within the current camera's field of view. For example, if I'd want to allow variations in camera rotation until the object is at the edge of the field of view, so to speak.
Is there an easy way to do this?
Thanks!

By adjusting this answer

Yes there's an easy way, go to the BGE Documentation to look for more information. Since you dont specified if you are using bpy or bge i go for bge.
from bge import logic
cont = logic.getCurrentController()
cam = cont.owner

# Test point [0.0, 0.0, 0.0]
if (cam.pointInsideFrustum([0.0, 0.0, 0.0])):
  # Point is inside frustum !
  # Do something useful !
else:
  # Box is outside the frustum !

I was using bpy, but I should probably switch to bge anyway. Thanks!

BGE is no longer supported. Is there away to do this using BPY?


text:
Overriding Context for bpy.ops.transform.shrink_fatten
I can't seem to get sufficient context for calling bpy.ops.transform.shrink_flatten() without this error:
RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.transform.shrink_fatten.poll() failed, context is incorrect
I've attempted to specify the active object and some area parameters (via this answer),
# attempt to set obj-to-be-resized as active obj
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = obj_to_resize

context = bpy.context
override = context.copy()

for area in context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
        override["area"] = area
        override["space_data"] = area.spaces.active
        override["region"] = area.regions[-1] # rule of thumb r.type == 'WINDOW'
        break

bpy.ops.transform.shrink_fatten(override, value=0.02)

but this isn't enough to avoid the error. I'm not sure which context parameters I'm still missing. Inspecting the source (line 947) gave me its polling function (line 373), ED_operator_editmesh, which checks the edit_object.
However, attempting to override this parameter by supplying override["edit_object"] = obj_to_resize produces a seg fault:
# backtrace
blender(BLI_system_backtrace+0x34) [0x561503952f54]
blender(+0xb7b882) [0x561502ede882]
/usr/lib/libc.so.6(+0x37e00) [0x7f060029ce00]
blender(BLI_addtail+0xc) [0x56150391cfac]
blender(ED_region_draw_cb_activate+0x39) [0x561502f04739]
blender(initTransform+0x8d3) [0x561503040e73]
blender(+0xcfd54c) [0x56150306054c]
blender(+0xcfd5ff) [0x5615030605ff]
blender(+0xb836ba) [0x561502ee66ba]
blender(WM_operator_call_py+0x6d) [0x561502ee6fed]
blender(+0xfab340) [0x56150330e340]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(_PyMethodDef_RawFastCallKeywords+0x148) [0x7f0605df31c8]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(_PyCFunction_FastCallKeywords+0x21) [0x7f0605df3461]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(_PyEval_EvalFrameDefault+0x4a75) [0x7f0605e62a75]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(_PyEval_EvalCodeWithName+0x2e9) [0x7f0605dac879]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(_PyFunction_FastCallDict+0x2fc) [0x7f0605dadadc]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(_PyObject_Call_Prepend+0x68) [0x7f0605dbd028]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(+0x16d3ef) [0x7f0605e0b3ef]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(_PyObject_FastCallKeywords+0x3ac) [0x7f0605e1f2fc]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(_PyEval_EvalFrameDefault+0x5d35) [0x7f0605e63d35]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(_PyFunction_FastCallKeywords+0x10b) [0x7f0605df2a3b]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(_PyEval_EvalFrameDefault+0x76d) [0x7f0605e5e76d]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(_PyEval_EvalCodeWithName+0x2e9) [0x7f0605dac879]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(PyEval_EvalCodeEx+0x44) [0x7f0605dad7a4]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(PyEval_EvalCode+0x1c) [0x7f0605dad7cc]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(+0x2381e4) [0x7f0605ed61e4]
/usr/lib/libpython3.7m.so.1.0(PyRun_FileExFlags+0x9e) [0x7f0605ed76ee]
blender(+0xf95b38) [0x5615032f8b38]
blender(+0xb79be5) [0x561502edcbe5]
blender(BLI_argsParse+0xd7) [0x561503908347]
blender(main+0x2e9) [0x561502ec5a39]
/usr/lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xf3) [0x7f0600289223]
blender(_start+0x2e) [0x561502edb33e]

What context am I missing? And why does attempting to override edit_object cause a seg fault?

AFAIK you cannot override context for  edit mode, ie set an object as the edit object without it being in edit mode.  Speculate the edit mode data is "loaded"  on toggle into edit mode, and the data updated when toggled back. Recent and related This may be more relaxed in 2.8 where multiple objects can be edited simultaneously.

@batFINGER thanks! Included your comment in my answer.

@batFINGER's comment is helpful: you (probably) can't override context for edit mode. I ended up just replacing the shrink_fatten operator with the equivalent function, per this:
def execute(self, context):

    ob = bpy.context.object
    me = ob.data
    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

    for v in bm.verts:
        if v.select:
            v.co += v.normal * self.factor

    bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me, True, False)
    return {'FINISHED'}

which was an order of magnitude easier and could be, in general, potentially the best way to replace relatively simple edit operations instead of overriding their context.