text:
How to give an image or video a TV screen effect?
I thought it would be interesting to create a .blend that filters any regular video or image with vintage television look.
Edit: Although this question initially arose from my desire to create a vintage look, it has since been pointed out in a comment that all displays use arrays of RGB emitters, so it's not really an issue of vintage or not. How vintage it will end up looking is probably more a matter of the shape, size, and density of the emitters.
Reference images:

Upon examining the structure of screens, the most common seems to be rows of vertical RGB bars:

Here is another type which I believe is common in computer displays - circular dots in a hexagonal grid:

I have been thinking about how to make a screen in Blender that takes its input from an image or image sequence and for each frame converts the RGB value for a pixel (or region) and uses that to illuminate the red green and blue phosphors in the correct ratios so that when viewed from a distance an image is distinguishable.
Do you think this will require python scripting? I made some initial attempts modeling an array of phosphors then using a Light Path node and a Separate RGB node in Cycles but I haven't gotten very far. I would love to hear what you all can suggest.
Thanks!

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/3491/599

@gandalf3 Excellent link! Very much related. Thanks!

I'm too old when LCD is already called retro ...

Actually these images are not from LCD, but from older color CRT screens — e.g., the first image is from the Trinitron Wikipedia page, and the last one is from an older delta-gun shadow mask color CRT.

Er, you mean "a retro CRT look"? LCD is the current technology.

@TobiaTesan Haha, yes! You are correct. I guess compared with LED screens both are retro, but I did mean CRT. I think I got confused by the image in the Wikipedia article for LCD screens because the closeup looks so similar. However, considering cegaton's comment that all are "arrays of emitters of RGB pixels" I think I should re-title the question to be more general.

There has been a great Talk "Simulating materials with unusual microstructures" at the BCon15 about Microstructures by Thomas Radeke and he showed an PC-CRT, LCD and TV-CRT subpixel example setup of a CRT TV there. ![Example of CRT effect](http://rahdick.at/projects/02_projects/2015-09-01_blender_conference_unusual_materials/medium/761d83892f0d736c854fced8190e718b_02-crt

As an alternative for @cegaton's answer, here is a purely node-based alternative, trading only supporting stripe-pixels for the ability to be applied to any UV mapped surface:

The second value of the "multiply" node on the top left is the amount of horizontal "pixels".

This works by transforming the horizontal texture coordinate to determine its position within a single pixel, and constructing the color for that point based on the color ramps, which are used as ranges. Basically:

if x < 1/3, red
if 1/3 < x < 2/3, green
if x > 2/3, blue

Finally, multiply that color componentwise with the actual texture color, pack into a RGB and feed into Emission.

Simply brilliant! Love it. How do the three nodes in the upper left area work? I would guess Separate X moves the coordinates along the image's X axis... But why Multiply 100 and Modulo 1?

Separate XYZ just splits the three components of the vector (in this case, the UV vector), since we only need to operate the horizontal axis. Since UV coordinates' range is [0; 1], I use Multiply to map it to the range [0; 100]. The number 100 is the amount of horizontal pixels. The Modulo 1 just makes the output of Multiply wrap around the range. Together, Multiply and Modulo just makes the value loop 100 times in the range [0;1] throughout the UV. This is fed into the ColorRamps to give a color output to each sample. Example visualization: https://gyazo.com/185adb745fc3480c1c89fd8032388cda


text:
How to switch render source (VSE or Camera)?
If you create a scene for the Video Sequence Editor and start working on a project Blender will render the output from the VSE. But if you want to later switch it to render your 3D scene again (the camera output) where is the setting to select the source?
Usually I keep a separate .blend for VSE edits so I don't need to switch, but I feel like I ought to learn how to do this as it's pretty basic. I would expect to find this in the Render context but I see no place to specify the source.
Thanks.

Possible duplicate: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/31751/sequencer-wont-show-the-actual-animation/39221#39221

If there's anything in the sequencer, blender will render from there by default. If you don't want to render from the sequencer even if there are strips, disable Sequencer in Output Properties> Post Processing:

Ah-ha! It was in the Render context, hidden in plain view. Thanks!

source: Stack Exchange

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

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

sort: votes


text:
How to render an environment to a Cube Map in Cycles
Usually, when I create environment maps I do it in Cycles. I render out a single equirectangular image, and it's easy.
But recently I find myself creating content that needs to work in Blend4Web, which means using the Blender Internal schema.
So the way BI handles environment maps is: It expects a cube-mapped texture with the six faces placed as follows:

The above image is from the Blend4Web Manual.
Here is another reference to this cube-map format: A rather old Blender Internal tutorial. (It lists incorrect Z axis values)
Cycles does not offer a cube-map option for panoramic rendering:

Currently I am using a custom .blend I made to Cycles-bake the equirectangular environment map onto a UV-mapped "round cube" and the cube's faces are animated to unfold into the correct layout, which I can then render - but the seams are visible, and I think there must be a better way of doing this anyway.
How can I render out such a cube map directly from Cycles?

You could set up the camera with a focal length such that the FOV angle is 90 degrees, then render from all 8 directions.

@PGmath I had considered that, but I don't know how to calculate the focal length. Do you know how?

@PGmath Wait, I think I figured it out. I think the focal length should be 16. I created a linked duplicate of a camera with a square aspect ratio, rotated one 90 degrees, and adjusted the focal length slider until they appeared to be touching in the viewport. I will test this out. :-)

Update: I've got this solved, and plan to post a proper answer in a day or two. I keyframed rotation for all 6 directions once I knew the correct focal length. I've got a nice all-purpose .blend for cube-mapping now, as well as a compositing setup to instantly combine the 6 tiles into one image so seams are as smooth as possible. I will share those too.

You can save a environment map generated by a material
This is a cube map.
https://www.blender.org/manual/render/blender_render/textures/mapping/environment.html

@BluePrintRandom That's helpful if using Blender Internal, but that method is not available in Cycles.

Here is how I solved this - and there's a download link at the end.
(Coordinates written as 1,2,3 refer to X:1 Y:2 Z:3, for example.)
Setting up the "Cube Cam"
Add a Camera and an Empty at location 0,0,0 and set rotation of each to 90,0,0 degrees. If you choose "Arrows" for the Empty display type it may help avoid confusion later.
Parent the Camera to the Empty. The reasons for rotating and then parenting in this order are so that the Camera's coordinates will match the reference image above, and so that the Empty's -Z will point in the same direction as the Camera's when the Camera is facing forward.
The Empty allows the Camera to be easily repositioned, because the Camera's keyframed rotation will be relative to the Empty, not the World.
Set the Camera's Focal Length to 16mm (or 90° Field of View). This is necessary for the "faces" of the cube map to touch exactly.

Set your render dimensions to a power of two, such as 512, 1024, etc.
Leave the Start Frame at 1. Set the End Frame to 6. There will be one frame for capturing each direction of a cube's faces.

Keyframe the Camera's rotation accordingly in these frame numbers:

90, 0, 90 (left)
90, 0, 180 (backward)
90, 0, 270 (right)
0, 0, 0 (down)
180, 0, 0 (up)
90, 0, 0 (forward)

Optionally, you can add a guide object containing text labeling the directions (visible in the viewport, but not in renders), and parent this to the empty as well. And you can group these three objects (Camera, Empty, text guide) together, so that they can be easily appended to other .blend files.

At this point the Cube Cam setup can be appended into any .blend file.
After appending, from within the new .blend:

Go to frame 6, where the Camera is facing forward.
Make sure the Cube Cam is the Active Camera, by selecting it and choosing View > Cameras > Set Active Object as Camera.
Use the Empty to position the "Cube Cam".
Set the frame range from 1 to 6, and specify the Output file name to be something like "cube_tile_".
Set the Render Dimensions for X and Y to a power of 2, for example, 1024x1024. This will be the resolution of each of the 6 tiles.
When ready to render, click the Animation button.

This method of rendering directly from the environment scene is quick and easy, but there is still some distortion that shows up, revealing the cube shape of the cube map if you look closely. The way to eliminate this is to first render an equirectangular (or mirror ball) environment map, and then render that to a cube map.
Equirectangular Map to Cube Map
First, let's review the steps for creating an equirectangular map to begin with. It's pretty simple.
Step 1: Adjust the Camera settings to be Panoramic, then choose Equirectangular for the type.

Step 2: Set the render Resolution so that X is twice that of Y.
Choose a resolution that is significantly higher (perhaps double) the pixel detail of what one of the final cube map's tiles will be. So if one tile of the cube map will be 1024x1024, and two of those tiles will be stacked on the Y axis (doubled), then doubling that to 8192x4096 would give 200% pixel density on Y (and 266.6% on X because of the difference in ratio).
Here's a diagram to make it easier to understand:

Render!
Now, back in the Cube Cam .blend file, in the World context  click the Use Nodes button and go to the Node Editor for the World. Create the node setup for a panoramic environment:

You won't need many samples for this. I did some testing and found that no sample count higher than 20 produces any visible improvement, so I recommend rendering at 20 samples.

Save this .blend file to reuse later.
In the Environment Texture node, click Open to load a specific panoramic image, and render it out as an animation to 6 cube map images.
You can use an image editor such as GIMP, or Blender's compositor to combine the 6 image tiles into one cube map image. Two advantages of doing this in the compositor are that you won't need to rely on other software besides Blender, and you won't need to manually position each tile every time you create a cube map - once you've set it up, it's an automated process.
Edit: While it's really cool that Blender can composite tiles into a single cube map, I have since discovered a faster way to do this using imagemagick. Example syntax:
convert \( 0001.png 0002.png 0003.png +append \) \
        \( 0004.png 0005.png 0006.png +append \) \
        -background none -append +repage cube_map.png

If you still want to do it all in Blender, continue reading...
Putting it All Together With Compositing
In a new .blend (or new Scene, if you prefer), create this node setup in the Compositor:

Let's examine it in more detail.
The Value node for "Tile Size" should be set to the X and Y resolution of one tile (or you can think of it as one "face" of the cube map). So the final image resolution should be this amount times 3 across (X) and this times 2 down (Y). For example, if one cube tile is 1024 pixels, the render resolution should be set to 3072x2048. You don't even have to do any math in your head - just type 1024*3 into input field X, and 1024*2 into input field Y. Blender will calculate it for you. (Okay, maybe 1024*2 is easy, but you can surely see how this shortcut is useful.)

Each Image node is set to load a tile of the cube map (1~6):

These six nodes determine the position of each tile in relation to the whole image, or "canvas":

Set the Multiply nodes to the following values:

The Alpha Over nodes are just for layering the tiles, while preserving transparency (in case you ever need to composite a cube map that contains alpha data). These can be left at their default settings.
A Scale node, which I have labeled "Get Size" takes in the image data of one tile, then scales it to the size of the render (which, as mentioned, should be three times across and two times down in proportion to the size of one tile).
That image data is then sent through a Set Alpha node because the image data is not necessary - all we need it for is getting the correct dimensions. What we get out of the Set Alpha node is a transparent "canvas" that is the size of the render dimensions.

So that's basically it. You can render the image and it will be composited!
I've published a toolkit for creating cube maps to Blend Swap under a CC-0 license. You can Download it Here.

Excellent! It will be useful for many.

link is broken!

@Nolesh Thanks, but which link specifically?

this one: http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/83386

@Nolesh Strange... it's working for me. Do other pages of BlendSwap load for you?

@Nolesh I just updated the URL from http to https, in case that was the issue. Please test it now.

It still doesn't work. It seems to me that my provider is blocking the site. Anyway, thank you

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

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


text:
How can I use cell fracture to a limited section of the mesh?
I want to fracture a mesh to a limited section. It is shown in this sketch:
How can I control the width of this section and how can I let the top and the bottom of this mesh unmodified? How can I let the sections away from the fractured section the bits become larger and can I even make the fractured line be angled or bend?


text:
Where is the sqeeze value node in Cycles?

It's supposed to be here.
what I actually need to do is make a shader that mixes between shaders not colors dependent on camera distance, mixing between colors works, but using as a factor on the shader mix node doesn't, so I thought maybe I could use the squeeze value on the camera data node as mentioned here:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?82183-Camera-Data-Node

That forum thread is from 2006, way before Cycles existed. Cycles never had a 'squeeze' node, but someone might be able to tell you the equivalent.

I agree with @RayMairlot, never saw that node in Cycles (while for Blender Render is still available). I would suggest to better explain what's your goal, so a workaround to "fake" it could be found.

Thanks for all the help everyone, i found the solution, it wasn't working because i had the camera in orthographic mode, here i'll post a picture of the node setup that works.
Note the title of the question is now misleading, so the answer to that question was that cycles does not have a squeeze node, but the answer to how to blend between two shaders based on distance from the camera is here.

I just did some tests and it seems you can kind of simulate the Squeeze node using a combination of Multiply and a Color Ramp on the Camera Data node's View Distance or View Z Depth properties to control the shader mix factor. It takes a bit of fiddling to get right but it definitely works. I have never used the Squeeze node, so I cannot compare ease of use but I assume it would be a little easier.
In my example I scaled the default cube along the Y-axis so it was 50 BUs long and then positioned the camera at one end, pointing at the other. I then had to multiply the output by 0.02 (so that 50 would become 1) before passing it into a color ramp which I then adjusted to line up with the location of my cube, i.e. in order to have the nearest point of the cube be 100% material 1 I need to move the black slider to the position value that corresponds to the distance between the camera and that nearest point (multiplied by 0.02), then do the same for the farthest point and the white slider.

I already closed the project again after looking at forferdeilig's answer which is actually less fiddly than what I did and gives better results, too.


text:
"Vertex Data Detected" - Dynamic Topology (Dynotopo Warning)
When I try to sculpt in sculpt mode using dynamic topology, I get a message saying there is "vertex data detected." Despite this, I try to sculpt, but the details don't refine as I get closer to the model.
There was another post on another website about this same issue and someone responded "Properties panel / object data, see if you have something and delete it. Can be vertex colors, vertex-groups, UV's, simply select and delete it," to which the author of the post responded 'thats exactly what I was looking for.' I don't know how to access the settings for vertex colors, etc.
Besides that issue, when I exit sculpt mode and come back, the dynamic topology setting is off. Is there any way to keep it on consistently?
Please explain in simple terms. I still have yet to learn Blender jargon.
Thank you in advance.

The default cube comes with a UV map (so if you want to apply a texture you're already halfway there) which is what's upsetting Dyntopo. Click on the "Object Data Properties" tab (the green triangle, third from the bottom on the right), then unfold "UV Maps" and click the minus symbol on the right. Dyntopo will no longer complain when it starts, or switch off when you change editing modes.

Is there, by any chance, a way to turn this automatic-UV behavior off by default? My routine has me sculpting a lot of separate objects that eventually get joined; and this is easily the most annoying (and demeaning) popup I've ever gotten from Blender.


text:
Problem with tracking
When i'm trying to set origin, floor, X axis and Y axis my object just flips 90 degrees:

Now it just flipped upside down

It's not clear from your question what you would like to do. Could you rephrase it? Something like: 'I'm trying to XXX, but I can't, because YYY'?


text:
No way to light a scene with selective lighting without using layers?
I am slowly switching to Blender from C4D, and so far, i am loving (specially the character animation part_
But I've been trying to find, for a very long time an easy way to light up a scene with selection/restrictive lighting (this light will only affect this cube, this other light will be only for the background, etc...) in Blender, but I coulddnt find a direct and straightforward way to to achieve this.
I only saw some options when using layers/composition etc.. which is quite combersome for something that could be so simple, in just one pass..?
Is there any other way to achieve this results?
Thanks in advance!


text:
How to disable bounding box for reference images?
I've got a few reference images I've been working from. I've manipulated them so that they're transparent except for the sketch lines (shown below) but would like to hide the bounding boxes.

Checking/unchecking Bounds under Object Properties > Viewport Display has not done anything, and the Display as option doesn't apply to reference images.
Thanks for any help in advance.


text:
Vertex Normals Not Facing Correct Directions
I was in the process of modelling a part, but then noticed that the faces were not being shaded properly (smooth shading with auto-smooth normals). Upon closer inspection, all face normals are in the correct direction but the vertex normals do not seem to be correct. Recalculating normals does not appear to fix the problem. How do I recalculate the vertex normals?
I am unsure of the modelling steps that lead to this shading issue and have not successfully replicated the issue.
I am aware that it would not take very long to remodel the part but am curious about this issue.

Yeah, that's weird. I played around for a bit, I can see the vertices that are giving split normals, but I can't find out why or fix it. There really doesn't seem to be any reason they should be like that.

The issue appears to be linked to the object...if I add a circle into the existing object and remodel the part, I get the exact same normal issue. If I add a circle as a separate object and remodel the part, everything works fine. I suppose I'll put in a bug report about it.

Yeah, I also tried deleting both the edge and face and then rebuilding, but the "seam" reappeared. Very odd.

@ChristopherBennett found the issue, it was the scaling of the object. If you set the scale of the object back to 1:1:1, you'll notice that the source mesh is actually very flat with a sharp edge. Applying the scale fixes the issue. Credits to Rahul Chaudhary on https://developer.blender.org/ for the solution.

Very interesting problem, this object had me perplexed for some time trying to figure it out, turns out it was as simple as applying the scale !

Credits to Rahul Chaudhary on https://developer.blender.org/ for the solution.
Turns out the issue is a result of the abnormal scaling I had originally placed on the object to scale a cylinder down to the approximate diameter and height (.078 in XY, 4.888 in Z). Applying the scale immediately fixed the issue.
To clarify, this would be the mesh Blender used to calculate all of the normals, after which it rescaled the mesh to look like the cylinder I had.

Before Applying Scale:

After Applying Scale:


text:
How to create UI list prop for each Material in blender using python
I want to create UI list for each material slot ,
for example if i select "material 01" one it should only display custom_index which are assigned to material 01 ,
in short each material slot will show different UI list ,
to explain it better here is a video
https://youtu.be/0CZBrFv9xVY
this code is little bit working but it does not update on material change , , and i think its connected with entire scene not with each material ,
please help
i got this code from here
https://gist.github.com/p2or/d6dfd47366b2f14816f57d2067dcb6a9
    # ##### BEGIN GPL LICENSE BLOCK #####
#
#  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
#  modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
#  as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
#  of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
#  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#  GNU General Public License for more details.
#
#  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
#  Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
#
# ##### END GPL LICENSE BLOCK #####

bl_info = {
    "name": "object-uilist-dev",
    "description": "",
    "author": "p2or",
    "version": (0, 1),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "Text Editor",
    "warning": "", # used for warning icon and text in addons panel
    "wiki_url": "",
    "tracker_url": "",
    "category": "Development"
}

import bpy

from bpy.props import (IntProperty,
                       BoolProperty,
                       StringProperty,
                       CollectionProperty)

from bpy.types import (Operator,
                       Panel,
                       PropertyGroup,
                       UIList)

# -------------------------------------------------------------------
#   Operators
# -------------------------------------------------------------------

class CUSTOM_OT_actions(Operator):
    """Move items up and down, add and remove"""
    bl_idname = "custom.list_action"
    bl_label = "List Actions"
    bl_description = "Move items up and down, add and remove"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER'}

    action: bpy.props.EnumProperty(
        items=(
            ('UP', "Up", ""),
            ('DOWN', "Down", ""),
            ('REMOVE', "Remove", ""),
            ('ADD', "Add", "")))

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        scn = context.scene
        idx = scn.custom_index

        try:
            item = scn.custom[idx]
        except IndexError:
            pass
        else:
            if self.action == 'DOWN' and idx < len(scn.custom) - 1:
                item_next = scn.custom[idx+1].name
                scn.custom.move(idx, idx+1)
                scn.custom_index += 1
                info = 'Item "%s" moved to position %d' % (item.name, scn.custom_index + 1)
                self.report({'INFO'}, info)

            elif self.action == 'UP' and idx >= 1:
                item_prev = scn.custom[idx-1].name
                scn.custom.move(idx, idx-1)
                scn.custom_index -= 1
                info = 'Item "%s" moved to position %d' % (item.name, scn.custom_index + 1)
                self.report({'INFO'}, info)

            elif self.action == 'REMOVE':
                info = 'Item "%s" removed from list' % (scn.custom[idx].name)
                scn.custom_index -= 1
                scn.custom.remove(idx)
                self.report({'INFO'}, info)

        if self.action == 'ADD':
            if context.object:
                item = scn.custom.add()
                item.name = context.object.name
                item.obj_type = context.object.type
                item.obj_id = len(scn.custom)
                scn.custom_index = len(scn.custom)-1
                info = '"%s" added to list' % (item.name)
                self.report({'INFO'}, info)
            else:
                self.report({'INFO'}, "Nothing selected in the Viewport")
        return {"FINISHED"}

class CUSTOM_OT_printItems(Operator):
    """Print all items and their properties to the console"""
    bl_idname = "custom.print_items"
    bl_label = "Print Items to Console"
    bl_description = "Print all items and their properties to the console"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    reverse_order: BoolProperty(
        default=False,
        name="Reverse Order")

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return bool(context.scene.custom)

    def execute(self, context):
        scn = context.scene
        if self.reverse_order:
            for i in range(scn.custom_index, -1, -1):
                item = scn.custom[i]
                print ("Name:", item.name,"-",item.obj_type,item.obj_id)
        else:
            for item in scn.custom:
                print ("Name:", item.name,"-",item.obj_type,item.obj_id)
        return{'FINISHED'}

class CUSTOM_OT_clearList(Operator):
    """Clear all items of the list"""
    bl_idname = "custom.clear_list"
    bl_label = "Clear List"
    bl_description = "Clear all items of the list"
    bl_options = {'INTERNAL'}

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return bool(context.scene.custom)

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        return context.window_manager.invoke_confirm(self, event)

    def execute(self, context):
        if bool(context.scene.custom):
            context.scene.custom.clear()
            self.report({'INFO'}, "All items removed")
        else:
            self.report({'INFO'}, "Nothing to remove")
        return{'FINISHED'}

class CUSTOM_OT_removeDuplicates(Operator):
    """Remove all duplicates"""
    bl_idname = "custom.remove_duplicates"
    bl_label = "Remove Duplicates"
    bl_description = "Remove all duplicates"
    bl_options = {'INTERNAL'}

    def find_duplicates(self, context):
        """find all duplicates by name"""
        name_lookup = {}
        for c, i in enumerate(context.scene.custom):
            name_lookup.setdefault(i.name, []).append(c)
        duplicates = set()
        for name, indices in name_lookup.items():
            for i in indices[1:]:
                duplicates.add(i)
        return sorted(list(duplicates))

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return bool(context.scene.custom)

    def execute(self, context):
        scn = context.scene
        removed_items = []
        # Reverse the list before removing the items
        for i in self.find_duplicates(context)[::-1]:
            scn.custom.remove(i)
            removed_items.append(i)
        if removed_items:
            scn.custom_index = len(scn.custom)-1
            info = ', '.join(map(str, removed_items))
            self.report({'INFO'}, "Removed indices: %s" % (info))
        else:
            self.report({'INFO'}, "No duplicates")
        return{'FINISHED'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        return context.window_manager.invoke_confirm(self, event)

class CUSTOM_OT_selectItems(Operator):
    """Select Items in the Viewport"""
    bl_idname = "custom.select_items"
    bl_label = "Select Item(s) in Viewport"
    bl_description = "Select Items in the Viewport"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    select_all: BoolProperty(
        default=False,
        name="Select all Items of List",
        options={'SKIP_SAVE'})

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return bool(context.scene.custom)

    def execute(self, context):
        scn = context.scene
        idx = scn.custom_index

        try:
            item = scn.custom[idx]
        except IndexError:
            self.report({'INFO'}, "Nothing selected in the list")
            return{'CANCELLED'}

        obj_error = False
        bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
        if not self.select_all:
            obj = scn.objects.get(scn.custom[idx].name, None)
            if not obj:
                obj_error = True
            else:
                obj.select_set(True)
                info = '"%s" selected in Viewport' % (obj.name)
        else:
            selected_items = []
            unique_objs = set([i.name for i in scn.custom])
            for i in unique_objs:
                obj = scn.objects.get(i, None)
                if obj:
                    obj.select_set(True)
                    selected_items.append(obj.name)

            if not selected_items:
                obj_error = True
            else:
                missing_items = unique_objs.difference(selected_items)
                if not missing_items:
                    info = '"%s" selected in Viewport' \
                        % (', '.join(map(str, selected_items)))
                else:
                    info = 'Missing items: "%s"' \
                        % (', '.join(map(str, missing_items)))
        if obj_error:
            info = "Nothing to select, object removed from scene"
        self.report({'INFO'}, info)
        return{'FINISHED'}

# -------------------------------------------------------------------
#   Drawing
# -------------------------------------------------------------------

class CUSTOM_UL_items(UIList):
    def draw_item(self, context, layout, data, item, icon, active_data, active_propname, index):
        split = layout.split(factor=0.3)
        split.label(text="Index: %d" % (index))
        custom_icon = "OUTLINER_OB_%s" % item.obj_type
        #split.prop(item, "name", text="", emboss=False, translate=False, icon=custom_icon)
        split.label(text=item.name, icon=custom_icon) # avoids renaming the item by accident

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        pass

class CUSTOM_PT_objectList(Panel):
    """Adds a custom panel to the TEXT_EDITOR"""
    bl_idname = 'TEXT_PT_my_panel'
    bl_space_type = "TEXT_EDITOR"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_label = "Custom Object List Demo"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scn = bpy.context.scene

        rows = 2
        row = layout.row()
        row.template_list("CUSTOM_UL_items", "", scn, "custom", scn, "custom_index", rows=rows)

        col = row.column(align=True)
        col.operator("custom.list_action", icon='ZOOM_IN', text="").action = 'ADD'
        col.operator("custom.list_action", icon='ZOOM_OUT', text="").action = 'REMOVE'
        col.separator()
        col.operator("custom.list_action", icon='TRIA_UP', text="").action = 'UP'
        col.operator("custom.list_action", icon='TRIA_DOWN', text="").action = 'DOWN'

        row = layout.row()
        col = row.column(align=True)
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.operator("custom.print_items", icon="LINENUMBERS_ON") #LINENUMBERS_OFF, ANIM
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.operator("custom.select_items", icon="VIEW3D", text="Select Item")
        row.operator("custom.select_items", icon="GROUP", text="Select all Items").select_all = True
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.operator("custom.clear_list", icon="X")
        row.operator("custom.remove_duplicates", icon="GHOST_ENABLED")

# -------------------------------------------------------------------
#   Collection
# -------------------------------------------------------------------

class CUSTOM_objectCollection(PropertyGroup):
    #name: StringProperty() -> Instantiated by default
    obj_type: StringProperty()
    obj_id: IntProperty()

# -------------------------------------------------------------------
#   Register & Unregister
# -------------------------------------------------------------------

classes = (
    CUSTOM_OT_actions,
    CUSTOM_OT_printItems,
    CUSTOM_OT_clearList,
    CUSTOM_OT_removeDuplicates,
    CUSTOM_OT_selectItems,
    CUSTOM_UL_items,
    CUSTOM_PT_objectList,
    CUSTOM_objectCollection,
)

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

    # Custom scene properties
    bpy.types.Scene.custom = CollectionProperty(type=CUSTOM_objectCollection)
    bpy.types.Scene.custom_index = IntProperty()

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

    del bpy.types.Scene.custom
    del bpy.types.Scene.custom_index

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

The indention is pretty messed up in your cut and paste of the code and I think there are bits missing.  Can you redo that?

I would suggest looking at this : https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/158440/how-to-get-one-uilist-to-control-the-contents-of-another-uilist/

here is a clean code which i have been using ,
https://gist.github.com/p2or/d6dfd47366b2f14816f57d2067dcb6a9

Have you already seen my answer here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/30444/create-an-interface-which-is-similar-to-the-material-list-box ? I implemented an operator to the material demo which allows to add all materials of the current blend file to the list. Does this help?

Yes i have seen your answer , but in your answer you are adding new materials. What i want is individual Ui list template for active material index.      Basically i am trying to create easy to use shading workflow addon, so select first material and it will show you some properties in ui list , select another material and it will show you some different ui list props

I tried and found one solution ,
in the custom properties instead of bpy.types.scene. it should be bpy.types.material,
so that the collection property will work for materials

# Custom scene properties
bpy.types.Material.custom = CollectionProperty(type=CUSTOM_objectCollection)
bpy.types.Material.custom_index = IntProperty()

than when we use it in panel code it will create collection properties for each material
still its yet not updating quickly as we select another material , but its working , and thanks everyone for helping ,
here is a code
import bpy

from bpy.props import (IntProperty,
                       BoolProperty,
                       StringProperty,
                       CollectionProperty)

from bpy.types import (Operator,
                       Panel,
                       PropertyGroup,
                       UIList)

# -------------------------------------------------------------------
#   Operators
# -------------------------------------------------------------------

class CUSTOM_OT_actions(Operator):
    """Move items up and down, add and remove"""
    bl_idname = "custom.list_action"
    bl_label = "List Actions"
    bl_description = "Move items up and down, add and remove"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER'}

    action: bpy.props.EnumProperty(
        items=(
            ('UP', "Up", ""),
            ('DOWN', "Down", ""),
            ('REMOVE', "Remove", ""),
            ('ADD', "Add", "")))

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        scn = context.object.active_material
        idx = scn.custom_index

        try:
            item = scn.custom[idx]
        except IndexError:
            pass
        else:
            if self.action == 'DOWN' and idx < len(scn.custom) - 1:
                item_next = scn.custom[idx+1].name
                scn.custom.move(idx, idx+1)
                scn.custom_index += 1
                info = 'Item "%s" moved to position %d' % (item.name, scn.custom_index + 1)
                self.report({'INFO'}, info)

            elif self.action == 'UP' and idx >= 1:
                item_prev = scn.custom[idx-1].name
                scn.custom.move(idx, idx-1)
                scn.custom_index -= 1
                info = 'Item "%s" moved to position %d' % (item.name, scn.custom_index + 1)
                self.report({'INFO'}, info)

            elif self.action == 'REMOVE':
                info = 'Item "%s" removed from list' % (scn.custom[idx].name)
                scn.custom_index -= 1
                scn.custom.remove(idx)
                self.report({'INFO'}, info)

        if self.action == 'ADD':
            if context.object:
                item = scn.custom.add()
                item.name = context.object.name
                item.obj_type = context.object.type
                item.obj_id = len(scn.custom)
                scn.custom_index = len(scn.custom)-1
                info = '"%s" added to list' % (item.name)
                self.report({'INFO'}, info)
            else:
                self.report({'INFO'}, "Nothing selected in the Viewport")
        return {"FINISHED"}

# -------------------------------------------------------------------
#   Drawing
# -------------------------------------------------------------------

class CUSTOM_UL_items(UIList):
    def draw_item(self, context, layout, data, item, icon, active_data, active_propname, index):
        #split = layout.split(factor=0.3)
        layout.label(text="Index: %d" % (index))
        #custom_icon = "OUTLINER_OB_%s" % item.obj_type
        #split.prop(item, "name", text="", emboss=False, translate=False, icon=custom_icon)
        layout.label(text='hello', icon=custom_icon) # avoids renaming the item by accident

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        pass

class CUSTOM_PT_objectList(Panel):
    """Adds a custom panel to the TEXT_EDITOR"""
    bl_idname = 'TEXT_PT_my_panel'
    bl_space_type = "TEXT_EDITOR"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_label = "Custom Object List Demo"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scn = bpy.context.object.active_material

        rows = 2
        row = layout.row()
        row.template_list("CUSTOM_UL_items", "", scn, "custom", scn, "custom_index", rows=rows)

        col = row.column(align=True)
        col.operator("custom.list_action", icon='ZOOM_IN', text="").action = 'ADD'
        col.operator("custom.list_action", icon='ZOOM_OUT', text="").action = 'REMOVE'
        col.separator()
        col.operator("custom.list_action", icon='TRIA_UP', text="").action = 'UP'
        col.operator("custom.list_action", icon='TRIA_DOWN', text="").action = 'DOWN'

        row = layout.row()
        col = row.column(align=True)
        row = col.row(align=True)

# -------------------------------------------------------------------
#   Collection
# -------------------------------------------------------------------

class CUSTOM_objectCollection(PropertyGroup):
    #name: StringProperty() -> Instantiated by default
    obj_type: StringProperty()
    obj_id: IntProperty()

# -------------------------------------------------------------------
#   Register & Unregister
# -------------------------------------------------------------------

classes = (
    CUSTOM_OT_actions,
    CUSTOM_UL_items,
    CUSTOM_PT_objectList,
    CUSTOM_objectCollection,
)

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

    # Custom scene properties
    bpy.types.Material.custom = CollectionProperty(type=CUSTOM_objectCollection)
    bpy.types.Material.custom_index = IntProperty()

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

    del bpy.types.Material.custom
    del bpy.types.Material.custom_index

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


text:
Dynamic Paint Brush Erase doesn't work in Render Output
Got some problems when trying erase colors with a Dynamic paint brush.
I have plane which is affected by particles Dynamic paint brush (surface & color).
When I try erase some spaces on the plane it works in 3D view but not with render output. So how to make render output work?

Have you tried clearing the dynamic paint cache? Or using an image sequence? I recall image sequence working better under some conditions.

It's hard to say exactly what's causing the issue in your case without more information. Is possible you could upload your .blend?


text:
Adjusting rigid body properties for multiple object
Using object tools you can make selected objects to become a rigid body active, passive or  calculate the mass. But if you need more how to adjust other properties for multiple objects like "enable deactivation"?

Are you looking for Physics > Copy From Selected on the 'T' menu?

Yes, thanks! I knew it might be something simple :)


text:
When I link a blend file, why is the object showing up at 1/10th the scale?
I have two blend files. Both files use distance in meters. The first file is a character of 2.267 meters tall. The second file is a single handed axe of height 56 centimeters. When I link the axe object to the character file the axe shows up, but is only 5.6 centimeters in height.
Any idea what might be causing this?
Axe blend file: http://cybermagesllc.com/models/Axe.blend

Try applying the scale (Ctrl-A) of the model you're importing before you import it.

I have tried your suggestion of applying the scale to the axe prior to linking it. This, unfortunately, does not seem to solve the problem.

Two reasons this can happen are:

The file you are appending into has different units from the file you are appending from. You can go to the Units panel in the Scene tab to verify this.
You are using either Metric or Imperial units and the Scale value is different in both files.

The answer in this case was option #1. The Axe blender file specified a scale of 1.0 and the Character blend file specified a scale of 0.1.


text:
Is re-using materials on models faster than baking textures for each model?
Say I have 10 models in the scene. They all have 3 materials on them (Red, white, and blue). I am using these same 3 materials over and over again on all of my models. Is my game going to run faster if I bake the textures of all of my models and make separate materials for each model, or if I continue to link the 3 materials on every model?
I'm using Blender Game Engine.

I am not sure how the Blender Game engine handles rendering internally. If it first renders all objects that share one material (while keeping the material active all the time) and then all objects with the next material and so on, having only three materials will be faster: the OpenGL states have to be switched less frequently. Switching to a different texture for every object would be much slower.

As @maddin45 says - in engines like Unreal Engine 3, 4, you will definitely benefit from reusing shaders on multiple objects. There's a system in UE called Material Instances, which allows you to change only single parameters (like a texture) per object, keeping the rest of the shader untouched.

Even if Blender did something non-efficient, like making new shader for each object, there still would be an obvious benefit which @maddin45 mentioned. The less textures you have (the more you combine them in big atlases), the better.
As for the models themselves, think of modularity - make LEGO-like pieces and duplicate them.
http://blog.timothyeustace.com/2012/04/gears-of-war-wireframes.html


text:
Why is my texture appearing differently in texture mode compared to render display mode?
I have a question. I needed to hide seam marks on my model so I used clone stamp. The problem is that it looks good in every display method (texture/material) except in "rendered" display method. Here are some pictures
How to make it visible in render method?

I assume Blender Render tag is unnecesary in your question

My guess would be that you haven't saved the image after texture painting and/or reloaded it so Cycles isn't seeing the updated texture yet.
If you are in texture paint mode you can choose 'Save All Images' from the 'Slots' tab of the toolbar to save any edited images to disk:

You can then reload the image node in the node editor by selecting the image node and from the 'Properties' panel (Press N while in the node editor) and choose the 'Reload' button:

Note: I have sometimes found the need to switch from rendered view to another view and then back to rendered view for the image texture to update.

One more thing, do I need to save it each time to see some changes, or there is the other way?

I think you will need to save it each time if it was the saving that was the issue.

Looks like its a bug, it happens quite often when baking a texture few times too, saving the texture and reloading from the hard drive solving that problem.

No, it's not a bug...just the way it works, and yes, it will not only happen quite often, but should happen always :)

authors: Артём Ильичёв


text:
How to scale/rotate small trackers with mouse?
I'm working on a motion tracked animation, but I'm running into trouble trying to rotate and move small trackers independently of the search area. Usually, I would do this by clicking on the square on the far right, but this doesn't work so well for very small trackers, because when I try to click on it, instead it selects one of the corners of the tracker itself, so I can't rotate/scale it. I understand that I can move the whole tracker using the S, R and G hotkeys, but I want to be able to adjust the tracking area independently of the search area. How can I do this?

Have you tried using the Circle Select? Just press [C]


text:
How to find active brush in Image Editor context?
At the minute I use bpy.data.brushes['TexDraw'] in an operator, but can I find the currently active brush in UV/Image Editor?

I've found it
context.tool_settings.image_paint.brush

Good find. The latest documentation (2.79b) states 'bpy.context.brush' or 'bpy.context.sculpt.brush' (in sculpting mode) which don't work.


text:
How to link different parts of data blocks?
If I have a text object that says "ABC" and I want another text object to update only what is written how can I do that using data blocks in the Outliner after effects quick can  do stuff like this really quickly. Is blender just as fast?
Sharing data like font type and what is written, but keeping everything else isolated would be uber handy.
Maya does something like this here.
I think blender might be able to do it faster, because even the demonstrator is wrestling with what he is seeing on screen in Maya.
I would like to see if it was possible without "animation nodes" or any add-ons in Blender.
Hoping to share this with the community in a tutorial.

Create a Text and type ABC in edit mode, then create another text, go to the properties window, text panel: the first tab will show a dropdown menu with two datablock, named "text" and "text.001".
Just assign the first ("text", wich is "ABC") to the second object and every time you edit the "ABC" text, it will update all the objects, as they refere to the same object data.

While this will be obvious to many, it's worth mentioning that [Alt] [D] will make a Linked Duplicate of the Text Object. But yeah - understanding what's happening with the Datablock relationships (as your answer describes) is the most important thing.

Perhaps this better explains it one text would read the text geometry as both while the other would read the same.
I would like to be able to copy part of a datablock not the whole datablock. I hope this can clear up any miscommunication.
Is this possible simply?


text:
How to define customized property in Material?
I'm working on my addon for Blender, which is a simple offline renderer.
I'm stuck at the material system for two days.
I would be much appreciated if anyone gives me a pointer.
The issue is that in order to implement my own material system, I have to store my material information in the context.material class, however I've no idea how to add a customized property for this class.
I noticed that there are customized property for other external renderers, such as this one:
http://www.mitsuba-renderer.org/
There is a property named "context.material.mitsuba_material".
What I want is something like "context.material.my_material" so that I can store my material information there.
I also found this class in the render addon script:
@MitsubaAddon.addon_register_class
class mitsuba_material(declarative_property_group):
    '''
    Storage class for Mitsuba Material settings.
    '''

    ef_attach_to = ['Material']

I believe it has something to do with this customized property, however I got no luck by implementing myself.
Forgive me if it is a silly question and I did googled it, got nothing useful yet.

I'm totally new to python, just got my hands on it a week ago. I worked on this addon in my spare time so the progress is relatively slow.

If it's a simple render engine, this answer could be a solid starting point.

I believe all you need are bpy.props properties. The first example even demonstrates it for bpy.types.Material. Here's an extended example, that uses some additional options for a FloatProperty and adds it above the Material list in Material tab, so you can try it out:
import bpy

def draw_func(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    ob = context.object
    layout.prop(ob.active_material, "my_material")

def register():
    bpy.types.Material.my_material = bpy.props.FloatProperty(
        name="My Material Property",
        min=0.0,
        max=10.0,
        default=5.0,
        subtype='FACTOR'
    )
    bpy.types.MATERIAL_PT_context_material.prepend(draw_func)

def unregister():
    del bpy.types.Material.my_material
    bpy.types.MATERIAL_PT_context_material.remove(draw_func)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

You can add your custom properties to a full, custom panel too of course.
If you need to add plenty of properties, use a property group and a PointerProperty to organize them better (and avoid name conflicts with existing properties).
If you need a varying number of a group of properties, use a PropertyGroup to define the properties per occurrence and supply it to a CollectionProperty as type.

That is exactly the right thing that I should do, thanks.


text:
How to attach colors (e.g., gradient color) to fluid particles
This is follow up question based on {this post}, indeed.
The question is how to attach color attribute to fluid particles?
For example when a part of colored fluid (as explained {here}) separates, how to keep the assigned color moving with the particle?
For demonstration check the following:

Do you want it to depend on the distance to something?

possible duplicate of How do I get particles to change color over time?

So the issue is the blobs separating from the main stream are changing in color at the same rate as the main stream?

Could using uv projectors be a solution?

@NoviceInDisguise That answer probably isn't relevant. I don't think it would help since particles and fluid simulations are very different.

The answer depends on how much control you want to have over the color. In Cycles you can use the Geometry node's Position output as a factor between two colors or two shaders, and this will give you a variation between them.
If you want control over the angle you can then route that Position output into a Normal node and connect the Dot output into the Factor of the two colors - rotate the sphere to change the angle.
If you want it to be driven by the distance from an Empty then look into Drivers.
And finally, as another possibility for coloring/texturing liquids you might look into how to create matcap materials in Cycles.


text:
unexpected reactions in a quiet simple rigidbody physics simulation
Try the following scenario:

scene:
Add a cube; add a UVsphere; move sphere on X axis until less than half sphere intersects the cube. make a duplicate of sphere; apply boolean on cube (difference with sphere); add a plane; move it just a little below of them.

physics:
set rigidbody for all; adjust collision-shape (c.s) for plane=mesh; cutted-cube={chull, mesh) and sphere={sph, chull, mesh}. adjust mass to whatever you like; set in the world setting: check impulse; increase steps 300; iteration 50. play as you can.

Now check the following animations: Unfortunately we couldn't find a setting that makes this very simple physics working properly. The cube and sphere shouldn't react each other horizontally at all, bouncing should stop immediately! our simulations are just disappointing so far, for us :(

scaling objects even 20 times didn't work but added additional problems.

 original sizes
 all scaled 20 times

Note: there are some similar posts such as one of ours. here we aimed to go to details with a simplistic model possible. In complex simulations, such odd things are too hard to be seen. We think there should be quiet technical reasons for these unrealistic effects and hopefully a way to solve them.

To add that we've already considered all the ideas given in previous posts.

To express how annoying would be the above issue if exists in complex simulation you may try this: >add a plane, scale 5 times;>add a cube, move up to 3>[edit mode]sudivide cube 3 times;[object mode]apply cell fracture on cube{source limit:0, noise:1, margin:0.002}>hide cube>select cube_cell.001,apply rigidbody{active,mesh:margin=0}>select all shards>[rigidbody tools]copy from active>still all selected:Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C.>select plane>rigidbody{passive,box:collision.margin0.04}>rigidbody world{split impulse,steps100}: play: Explosion!!!?

I had no problems with the following settings:

Split Impulse enabled in Scene > Rigid body world:

Both the cube and the sphere with Mesh collision shape and Margin set to 0.

It is important in this case to set the Margin to 0 because the collision margin for mesh is not embedded into the object, so it will collide with objects that are near the object's surface but not actually touching it (unless it's set to 0).
It is also important to use the Mesh collision shape in this case, because Convex hull will collide with any objects in a convex part of the mesh.
To visualize this, have a look at the convex hull operator. Try applying it on a Suzanne, the result is roughly what Suzanne's collision shape would be if it was set to convex hull:

Applied to your cube object, you can see why it was causing a collision with the sphere:

Mesh is currently the only collision shape that can handle collisions with concave shapes. There was another shape developed in GSoC 2013 which also could handle concave shapes by breaking them into smaller convex shapes, however this is not yet integrated with blender officially.
The reason why Mesh is necessary for the sphere is because the sphere you are using is not a perfect sphere, while the collision shape is.
Since the concave depression in the cube exactly matches the "facets" of the UV sphere and the Sphere collision shape's radius is equal to the longest dimension of the object's bounding box, the sphere collision shape will intersect the cube slightly and cause a collision.
To visualize this, I have added a highly subdivided sphere to simulate the perfect sphere of the collision shape and scaled it so that it's radius is equal to the dimension of the UV sphere. I then used Clipping border to make only a tiny cross section visible:

As you can see, the "perfect sphere" intersects the cube, causing a collision to be detected:

The ground cube set to Box collision shape with a .04 margin (the margin is embedded for the box collision shape).
All objects have scale applied (CtrlA) and origins centered (ShiftCtrlAltC).

Result:

Example blendfile

Well, we have tried all combinations and are frustrated. Could be it a problem in the software that we have it? We tried both in 32 and 64 the same scene file. The results are disappointing.

@Developer Here's the file, does it still act up for you?

We checked your file. It acts almost identical to your animation above. Look we had applied all the lessons we learned from previous post. If you never experienced similar situations as in our animations in the post we may conclude that either there is a bug in physics simulation engine (which is hard to justify due to this sort of problems happens randomly but frequently) or unknown corruption in our installation. When apply similar concept on shards of fractured object it becomes more and more annoying.

@Developer You're using 2.69?

If you check stacker's answer and our comment there you may see his/her simulation shows at least one of the problem mentioned in our question, why they move horizontally immediately from the beginning!?

Yes and we use not installation but unzipped one. Both 32 and 64.

@Developer stacker did not disable the collision margin, see my edits. What OS are you using? I'm using ArchLinux, although this would be very strange OS dependent bug indeed :/

Windows 7 - 64 and 32 editions.

@Developer You could try filing a bug report, and then see what the developers say. It is certainly odd that the same file behaves differently on different operating systems.

Sure. We followed all details here on a little bit complex case 'fracturing a cube' as the details were just added as comment to our question above. We're still getting explosion (!?) as the result. The purpose of this post was to understand that problem and hopefully to solve that issue. Well, although we learned more again from your detailed answer (good answer is a good reference for others indeed) and we accept it but we need to clarify that we still don't get acceptable results from all scenarios in our collision physics experiences, unfortunately.

With the default settings only the cube and spheres type set to Active and *Rigid Body Collision** set to Mesh the described behaviour doesn't occur. (Plane set to passive,mesh)

Result:

Note that there are many issues explained in our post. As in the question we have tried all mesh, etc for collision-shape. Your simulation shows they rest on the plane (which is good) however even in your simulation (which differs from our noticeably and we don't know why) it seems that the sphere runs away from the hole immediate after starting simulation (it should go down together with cube and so with no horizontal move at all). Check that.


text:
Blender VSE - import multiple rendered PNG frames?
I usually use the Blender VSE for my normal video editing (for lack of After Effects).
I also usually render directly into AVI format, not PNG sequences of frames. I would however like to move to PNG sequences, because it's a lot easier to sort out any mistakes and to edit that way.
I would therefore like to load the sequences I render into the VSE quickly and easily (30fps) - which would normally require tweaking of every frame because they normally when added add an image strip which is 25 frames long (and I want each frame to be 1 frame long) - I can also only add one frame at a time.
How can I load a frame sequence into the VSE?

When you choose Add > Image, then select all frame in a folder (by hitting 'A'), it doesn't work ?

@Polosson Didn't try that xD

When you select multiple Images in the File Browser while adding an Image Strip, you will get one Image Strip which can be scrubbed along through all your frames. Make sure to set up your Project frame rate properly before.

You can de-/select all Images in a folder by pressing A. Or you can select the first, hold Shift and press the Down-Arrow until all of your Image files are selected. This works over multiple columns in the File Browser if applicable.

@Samoth Please read: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/436/what-to-do-with-questions-which-have-been-answered-in-comments

@poor: I did. If Polosson might post his point as an answer I would delete mine if that makes you SE folks happy. But I think it's fair to get some reputation for validating a method (which I thought of without reading his comment before) and elaborating around a bit too provide a neat answer. I took some time to create a PNG sequence, make that screenshot and validate how this works.

@poor: btw: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/50241/blender-2-77-renders-smoke-fire-domain-solid-black-on-gpu-cycles#comment85660_50241 ;-)


text:
How to create many clips in the NLA editor
I have a metarig with:

Action 1 - for example he run with ball
Action 2 - he walk and throw the ball

When I switch actions for metarig - ball goes wrong - he throws it while running.
How can I organize this actions with the NLA?

Create Clip 1 with needed actions, and Clip 2 and so on...
Except ball I have many objects, which are doing different thing dependant of the action of the metarig.

I use a new metarig with bones for each object - e.g. the ball has its own bone.

The official documentation for the NLA Editor gives you the basics of operating the UI.
How to incorporate this technology into your workflow is a little more complicated.  Likewise choosing which keyframes belong in which NLA strips depends on your experience and understanding of the mathematics of the NLA system.  You're just going to have to experiment and fool around and make plenty of mistakes.
Do not underestimate the value of setting aside time just to play around and make mistakes and then try to fix those mistakes under no time pressure and with no milestones or assets at stake.
My explanation of how to split an action into two separate NLA strips probably will be somewhat confusing on first read, but after some experimentation you should have the necessary experience to understand it and absorb the concepts within.

problem with that - NLA, can't remember different metarig action and object in the same time as they were separate groups.
for example:
I need to group strips -

walk and through (at that througn not same metarig animation, it's different action)
run and different actions

NLA mixing that and give bad effect, all is good if objects inside metarig as bones - I do this http://joxi.ru/Vrwo64MUKVK0zr
but if not - he can't grouping actions into one group for play

I do not have experience with metarig.  Since you have not posted a sample .blend file to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ I can not examine your animation to see exactly what is wrong.  The problem of mixing different animations using NLAs is complex and requires experience, careful thought, and experimentation to master.

you can just imagine that:
I have actions for metarig: shoot, reload and etc.
I have actions for object near him: for example throw shield, grab bazooka and etc , object as a metarig have different actions.
for me need play definently actions in the same time:
for example action metarig 1, action shield 2, action gun1
and etc
for this I need every time clean and compile this action.
But if NLA can group them , I can choose this
Do you understand without .blend ?

authors: Руслан Бобко


text:
Blender 2.73a Linux mipmap disable is not working
I want the viewport to filter the texture as closest and from what I read to do so I need to disable mipmaps. I'm using Linux Mint Cinnamon 64 bit Laptop with HD4000 graphics and in Blender 2.73a in Preferences-System the mipmap disable is not working. Is this a bug or am I doing it wrong?
EDIT

Works for me.. Is it possible you could add a screenshot of what you are doing and what is happening?

Screenshot added, I should also note that I'm using cycles


text:
How can I create 360° Videos?
First I don't want make an animation. I just want to understand how I can make a Scene and wander around in it with 360°.
I mean this as an example.

um... parent the camera to an empty, and animate the empty to rotate 360°?

He means 360° video, you can pan around in his example.

X-27 gave you the answer, just don't animate it. I think X-27 should officially write the answer, so you can give the credit where it is due, but until that happens, do these basic steps: Shift+S >> Cursor to Center, Shift+A >> Empty >> Plain Axis, Select the Camera, Shift + Select The Empty, Ctrl + P >> Object, Hit A to deselect All, Select The Empty, Hit Numpad 0, Hit R, Hit Z, Then move your mouse.

@poor and Jerryno, Polosson, ARadish & ,stacker, I think, he asked something different than in the question you marked as a duplicate - have you had a look at his example video?

@Samoth Let's wait for the OP - consider that your edit is not confirmed yet. In general more effort would be nice, then I will vote to reopen with pleasure ;)

There is a great App VRAIS which uses Blender and they provide a tutorial of how to render stereoscopic panoramas for this App:

Render dimension: 2048x1024 for starters, and for final rendering 4096x2048 (just type in 200% in the render percentage).
In the Render Layers Panel, enable "Views"
Set your camera to Panoramic. Choose "Equirectangular" from the dropdown menu
Enable "spherical stereo" (Only available in Dalai's version)
set the pivot point to „Center“

Or you could watch some not so static 360° Videos on YouTube. Pedro Gaspar made a tutorial of how to create them in Blender. Blenderrendersky already created some videos in the BGE with this method.

In blender cycles, change your camera settings to these
Then render and use KolorEyes to run your 360 video: http://www.kolor.com/kolor-eyes/
Hope this helped.


text:
When I render my video, the resulting file is only 30 seconds and not the minute and a half its supposed to be
The video is in 1080p and starts at frame 300 and ends at frame 1202. The video itself is in 29.97 fps. Anti-Aliasing is at 8 and the video is saved as a Xvid. It is using RGB. The bit rate is set to 7992.
My computer has a Geforce 1060 6gb Graphics card and an i5 Processor.

Thanks,
-Austin

It would be better to include a screeny of the project settings (or sample blend file) otherwise its a bit difficutl to diagnose.

@3pointedit I took a screenshot of the settings and uploaded it to http://imgur.com/a/S3TT7 . If you need anything else to help me just ask.

@Duane Dibbley Thanks, I didn't notice that. I have no idea why it was set to that.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/43779/2843


text:
Material controls are missing
While looking at a tutorial on the Anisotropic shader I got stuck. The controls it tells me to use are nowhere to be found.
One of the first things is tells me to do is to add an hdr file for some lighting. In the video when he has the World tab selected there is an option called Surface and within that there is a Color option but it's not there, and also isn't there for materials!
Did these things move to a hidden location between 2.65 (when the tutorial was written) and 2.74? Might I be in some mode that causes that option to be missing?
This is the tutorial I got stuck on: http://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/an-introduction-to-anisotropic-shading/
Any pointers to good resources for beginners would be great as would any ideas on what stupid mistake I'm making. I didn't bother making the sauce pan in the tutorial instead just going with the cube you get by default but I don't think that would cause this issue.

Here is a good collection of resources http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/15355/resources-for-blender

One common pitfall of new users is using a different render engine than shown in the tutorial. It should show on the top menu, either Blender Render or Cycles Render.

At least use the suzanne object set to shade smooth with a subsurf modifier  if you want to see the interesting effect of the anisotropic filter, a cube has boring flat faces.

I think you are working in blender render engine, you must change this to the cycles render engine. You can find this option in the header.

authors: Володимир Величко


text:
How to create a gradient texture?
I am wondering how to recreate some kinds of effects (you can easily do in Photoshop) in Blender.
I want to create the gradient textures like ones pictured below, should I render objects and blur them in compositor? Or can I achieve it using only material nodes?

The vertical one might be doable with the Color Ramp node

You can acheive this with Cycles material nodes using the 'Gradient Texture' node.

Setting the gradient node to 'Quadratic sphere' (and with a little offset from the vector mapping node) restults in this (on a plane with uv basic unwrapping):

To control the scale of the 'Quadratic sphere' in the result above I scaled the UV's as scaling using the vector mapping node node seemed to scale it towards the corner.
For a linear gradient you can simply set the Gradient Texture to 'Linear':

For different colours you can simply use a colour 'MixRBG' node and use the factor of the gradient texture instead of the colour and connect it to the 'Fac' of the mix node.

Thanks Ray. Now I don't need the Photoshop any more ;).

You can also use the "color ramp" node instead of the "mix" node. It allows more settings and finesse. https://i.sstatic.net/OIO5P.jpg

@Zampai this is a better answer than the accepted one IMHO


text:
How to Create Photo Collage Template using Blender?
I want to create a photo collage template in Blender. Is there any template available for this already?
My requirements is to create a video that covers several photos. Those photos should be pasted on the wall like a motion poster. Like photo collage apps for Android.
Here is the Video sample for what I want as a Blender template. It is a corridor with videos along the walls and a studio at the end. I would like to create it and include my own vids.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/48174/2843

There is no template available. You could ask Pedro if he could provide you his Scene or you have to rebuild it from scratch.

Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUzyteaGlqU&nohtml5=False

@Samoth exactly i want one like this video. Thanks and i will try to implement it

I gave this a down vote as the question is against the intent of stack exchange. The OP is essentially asking for a do-everything button by posing a very broad question.

First you need to build the entire scene, that video link it's 360° and has a blog post link in the description that explains how to do it. It's that a requirement for you? (think twice because it involves much more work)
Second if you want just the camera movement try the Sniper addon

Yes I want to do 360 video , before that i decided to model photo collage. and that link dosnot have proper step for Beginners Learners


text:
After import to Unity, back faces are transparent
I'm trying to add thickness to a mesh, but the tris count is increasing. How can I fix it without tris count increasing?

There are a few different things that might be causing your problem.
Firstly, there's no way to add thickness without increasing the tri/poly count. Polygons only have one face, so if you view them from the "wrong" side, they are invisible. There is no way to avoid this. If you want to see both sides, you have to have another polygon that is facing the other direction.
The first step is to make sure that when you add thickness in Blender, that you're adding REAL thickness, instead of using a modifier. If you do use a modifier, you need to "apply" before you export to Unity (there's a way to apply on when you export, but I won't talk about that right now). Either way, they have to be "real" polygons that get exported, not just the result of a modifier.
The next step is to make sure that all of the normals of your polygons are facing the right way (outward). If you select all of your polys in Blender and press ctrln then it should recalculate all of your normals "outside."
Once you've done these two things, try exporting to Unity again, and see if that helps.


text:
How to grey-out 1 item in enum property?
I learned here how to grey-out an item in a menu with the poll function, but this time I need to grey-out the first item in my enum property, whenever a bool property is False...
Is it even possible?
Thank you guys.

I'm not sure you can disable an enum, but you can dynamically build the items http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/10919/15543


text:
Why is my model unwrapping wrong?
I made a model of a Sega Mega Drive case, and I want to unwrap the faces to texture it with the label. But the wrap gets distorted. Of course, I can tweak it and make it right but, I still wonder why its not getting unwrapped in a straight line? If I mark seams, it gets divided into 3 parts. I want it to be in 1 part.

the blender file

Marking seams is the right way to do it. It got split into three pieces because you marked TOO MANY seams. Think of the model as a paper box that you have to unfold flat. ONLY mark the seams where you'd have to make cuts in order to lay the box flat. Don't mark seams all the way around.
Even still, it might not unwrap straight. You may still have to tweak it a little, but that's why nobody likes UVs ;-) Your most useful tool in this case will be scale.
Select a horizontal line of UVs, then type S > Y > 0. That will scale them flat along the Y-axis, making them perfectly horizontal. Then you you can move them up or down. It's tedious, but that's the way it's done.

Ok thanks for that answer. I get a little confused by the seems but i will try to see if i can find out how to do it without having it split.

i tried it with seems and had it in one island but it still was not straight, but your tip about "scale" was perfect help. Thanks.


text:
Sound works in Blender, but no sound in the final render
I set the video to understand Xvid, and I have a codec, but no matter what I try I can't seem to get the sound to work when it's finish rendering. It works before I render but once I render, the sound is just gone.
I've tried to change the codec and output settings, but nothing works. I think I need specific settings for this.

I assume that you are using Windows if you are using xvid, but correct me if I'm wrong. I use a Mac, but this should transfer over in a manner of speaking.
On Macs, I can select the QuickTime video format. Once selected, there is a video codec option and an audio codec option. I generally select AAC as my audio codec. I would imagine that there is some format on Windows in Blender that works like QuickTime on Mac.


text:
How to create eyeballs holes without messing up the mesh and the topology?
How can I create this eye holes (the little black things around the eyes) Without messing up the topology? How may options do I have? I've alredy tried the Boolean Modifier

With Boolean Modifier:

Please answer with all the options. Thanks!

You have only one option - increase the density of the mesh around the eyes. It's too low poly. Look for "face topology" on the internet and adapt the density and edge flow to your model.

How do I increase the density? What  controls, i mean

You need to create more mesh lines around the eyes in order for there to be more points that Blender can use to maintain the form. Each vertex is a point on the mesh that Blender uses to calculate the surface area, so if you have too few vertices, it can only calculate the shape based on those few points. Add more mesh lines and use the vertices on them to give Blender more points to work with.
There are many ways to add more mesh. Listing them here is not possible. Play around with the various mesh tools and consult the documents for explanations on how to use them.

Thanks! I've tried Ctrl + R + 3 around the eyes, and it works!

You'll remember that useful tool and use it often.


text:
How to achieve advanced lighting in my scene
I have this scene
I have sun lamps but I don't know how to achieve advanced lighting in my scene, my lamps just contain yellow light.
And this is what it looks like when scene has hdr and also volumetric light.
Is there any further tehnics to make it better.

Try using HDRI image as environment texture for world material.

you should try the various options from the render color management available in the scene panel, this is applied after rendering so you can play around as you want with the settings and you can get awesome results. Try the "raw" option and tweak exposure and gamma for instance.
Or Maybe you need to increase your lights power and/or turn up the anisotropy factor for your volume scatter (cycles?)

yes its cycles and i should probably try that raw option.for the stones is it possible to make their volumetric lighting more solid?.

In addition to using an HDRI, try adding a mist and/or Z pass, and then compositing in some color to the value in the compositor. Remember that you can use the color ramp with multiple points assigning multiple colors, so you can get some pretty neat effects. These colors can add or lessen brightness.
I am not sure this is a complete answer, but I could not post this screen shot as a comment. The sand below is not mine, but the acrocanthosaur is!

Regarding the lighting of the rocks -- mentioned in a later comment: You can use an object index pass to accomplish a lot of things, including light changes, focal issues and the like. Here is a good example and a node tree view:
Separate reflection based on object index cycles


text:
How to create piles of snow on a mesh?
For example on tree branches like this:

Image from Wikimedia commons

There is no doubt that the best result can be generated by using Particle or Physics system, which is a bit complicated to talk about in a few words. A quick-and-dirty way is shown as below:

Switch Transformation Orientation to Normal, try to find and select a single vertex which Z axis towards up (or nearly up). Press ShiftG1 to select nearly all possible upward vertices by tweaking a reasonable Threshold value, as shown in Figure 1 and 2.
ShiftD to duplicate the selection, then P1 to separate it as a new mesh. Now you can freely tweak it with a few modifiers to make a nice pile-looking snow cover, particularly with the Displace modifier. As shown in Figure 3.


text:
Add Nodes to Material with Python
I have edited a script that creates some nodes, but the only problem is, it always created a new material. I want it to either add the nodes on the existing material, or a pre-defined material. Here is the script base I am using.
http://blenderscripting.blogspot.com.es/2013/06/automatic-colour-ramped-shader-from.html
Thanks for the help in advance! :D

You can get the material node tree from bpy.data.materials['MyMaterial'].node_tree
Then add the nodes with node_tree.nodes.new()
For example, to add a diffuse shader node to MyMaterial and create MyMaterial if it doesn't exist:
import bpy
mat_name = "MyMaterial"
# Test if material exists
# If it does not exist, create it:
mat = (bpy.data.materials.get(mat_name) or
       bpy.data.materials.new(mat_name))

# Enable 'Use nodes':
mat.use_nodes = True
nodes = mat.node_tree.nodes

# Add a diffuse shader and set its location:
node = nodes.new('ShaderNodeBsdfDiffuse')
node.location = (100,100)

For an example on using nodes from python, heres a script the FBX importer uses to setup a nodetree: http://git.blender.org/gitweb/gitweb.cgi/blender-addons.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/io_scene_fbx/cycles_shader_compat.py

+1 for the # Enable 'Use nodes': tip! I was so confused why I can't refer to the node_tree attribute.

The answer provided is only partially helpful. Or it is outdated in 2.7
Yes you have to add the nodes (use_nodes = True). However the default material is the Diffuse BSDF. So if you want to use this, fine, you're done.
But to change the shader being used:

Remove the shader in place (Diffuse BSDF, otherwise the second element in the material.node_tree.nodes.values() list. This is sort of optional, as it can also stay in place, but it's just not tidy and confusing to leave it there.
Create a new shader node. e.g. material.node_tree.nodes.new('ShaderNodeEmission')
Update the link to the Material Output node.
material.node_tree.links.new(mat.inputs[0], node.outputs[0])

Here an example I made I use quite often: a Mesh Light
    def create_light():
        """
        Add a mesh light for cycles
        """

        # Add new plane
        bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_plane_add(location=(15, -5, 5))
        plane = bpy.context.active_object
        plane.name = 'Light Plane'
        plane.scale = mathutils.Vector((4, 4, 4))
        # tilt
        plane.rotation_euler.rotate_axis('Y', radians(40))

        # Create a new material
        material = bpy.data.materials.new(name="Plane Light Emission Shader")
        material.use_nodes = True

        # Remove default
        material.node_tree.nodes.remove(material.node_tree.nodes.get('Diffuse BSDF'))
        material_output = material.node_tree.nodes.get('Material Output')
        emission = material.node_tree.nodes.new('ShaderNodeEmission')
        emission.inputs['Strength'].default_value = 5.0

        # link emission shader to material
        material.node_tree.links.new(material_output.inputs[0], emission.outputs[0])

        # set activer material to your new material
        plane.active_material = material

Your this code snippet is very helpful Sir. Thank you so much! Took me a while to figure out that link. Then I remember I saw your answer before.

Color can be set analog to Strength: emission.inputs['Color'].default_value = (0,1,0,1)  # green RGBA

now at first you have principled BSDF. a variation with a diffuse node on active object
import bpy

# Create a new material
material = bpy.data.materials.new(name="Diffuse")
material.use_nodes = True

# Remove default
material.node_tree.nodes.remove(material.node_tree.nodes.get('Principled BSDF')) #title of the existing node when materials.new
material_output = material.node_tree.nodes.get('Material Output')
diffuse = material.node_tree.nodes.new('ShaderNodeBsdfDiffuse')    #name of diffuse BSDF when added with shift+A

diffuse.inputs['Color'].default_value = (1, 0, 1, 1) #last value alpha

# link diffuse shader to material
material.node_tree.links.new(material_output.inputs[0], diffuse.outputs[0])

# set activer material to your new material
bpy.context.object.active_material = material

Another way to do this is. It picks up a material if it exists, else creates a new one with that name.
import bpy

mat_name = "MyMaterial"
materials = bpy.data.materials

# if .get returns None, the assignment comes from the right of the 'or'
mat = materials.get(mat_name) or materials.new(mat_name)   # *** see comment
mat.use_nodes = True
nodes = mat.node_tree.nodes

# Add a diffuse shader and set its location:
node = nodes.new('ShaderNodeBsdfDiffuse')
node.location = (100,100)

I expected this to work, but it doesn't.
mat = materials.get(mat_name, materials.new(mat_name))

mat = materials.get(materials.new(mat_name).name)

cool if that works :)


text:
Dots show on Volume material
So I've done the atmosphere, but the Volume material has given it loads of dots. I assume this is the resolution of the Volume light but is there a way to get rid of them without bumping up the resolution to over 100,000?

Try decreasing the Step size in the material settings:

Note that this will increase render time.

you can reduce the step size then reduce the number of attempts to speed up render time
I use a step size of 0.04 and attempts at 100 on my planet render

Check out Andrew Price's article on eliminating fireflies.  He lists 7 settings that reduce their appearance.
Link to Article
If that doesn't work, try adding a Despeckle node to your compositor pipeline.


text:
What causes these artifacts around the edges of objects when using the defocus node?
Continuing on with the same logo reveal. The depth of field in Blender results in this horrible effect around the edge. I've seen this sort of blurring a lot in games, Assassin's Creed is quite famous for it.
The focused object shouldn't make this strange outline and I need the edges to look properly blurred and transition nicely into whatever's behind it without this strange effect seen around the square in the top right.
Apologies for the low shading samples.

Just tried it in Cycles. The lighting looks a lot better as usual however the same effect is still happening. I've tried both 'radius' and 'f/stop'. Radius being the same and f/stop creating this crazy blur.
Radius

f/stop

The blurred cubes still have sharp edges alongside a blurry outline.

Try using cycles's built in DoF, see http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/7395/599

Just tried, and have made an update.

I don't actually see anything which looks wrong to me, aside from the overly huge aperture in the last render.. Could you highlight what looks off to you?

Updated it showing the sharp edges on the blurred cubes.

Do you still have the compositing nodes from before? If that's not it, is it possible you could upload your .blend?

I do yes, and I've set them close to what they were like in that other thread just with a higher f/stop in the defocus node. As it's a company project I can't send any file but I'll upload pictures of all the settings now.

Try removing the defocus node. Using two separate DoF methods at once is not needed, and my  guess is that those edges are caused by the defocus node.

Yes that worked! It's a shame though as it was a lot easier being able to set it in nodes without having to constantly render. I don't use Cycles a lot so could you possibly tell me how to up the quality so that I don't have the noise?

I've sometimes had odd results with the defocus node, particularly with large aperture sizes. See 2d vs 3d Depth of Field.
Try using built in Cycles DoF, which simulates the way light behaves at a lower level. It gives realistic and seamless results without requiring any fussing with the Z buffer:

The only downside is the inability to edit it in post.


text:
Script to store object's entire material setup and reuse them later?
What I wanted to do is, using Python, temporarily swap out the existing materials of selected objects, and after I'm done with these objects, reset their material setup back to their original state.
I already have some clue about how to do it using duplicated objects over a different scene with matching names.  But I'm wondering if there is a simpler way to do this?
I'd need to store the entire material setup including what material was inside every material slot of the object.  Thinking this way I actually have some more ideas now.
I can store the material names in each object's material slot in their original order, and when restoring, I can just loop over the names of materials stored for each objects if those material names will not change.
Thanks for any answers, voted close.

Have you considered linking materials from an external materials.blend for example? I think you are over complicating this a lot.

@VRM I'm feeling the same.  I could just make a copy of these objects and not touch the original objects.  Facepalm.

what you need to do is to press the little "F" next to your material that you want to save for later.
This will save the material data block even though it is not assigned to any object. Then you can assign a new material to your object to experiment, and then come back later.
you can also set those by scripting
material.use_fake_user

If you want to swap materials back later via script,
you could probably store your original material in the object datablock.
If you have multiple materials, it would be a bit more complicated, but you could remember which material slot held which original material.
Checkout how to work with blender datablocks to save custom metadata:
Datablock Documentation
This is how easily you could add your custom metadata to any object:
C.selected_objects[0]['OriginalMaterial'] = "materialName"
# Access it directly in the console
C.selected_objects[0]['OriginalMaterial']
'material'

You could save your .blend file and then duplicate it and re-name it. After you have altered the materials in the duplicate file you could "Append" the original material from the original file. "Append" can be found under the "File" dropdown menu.
It's not uncommon to use a similar method to build a "Library" of materials and even objects.


text:
Small Logic Editor Text
While I was working on a game my logic editor tab got very tiny and I can barely see it! How do I undo or fix this? I am new to blender so I didn't want to really mess with anything yet until I know what it all does. So if someone could explain it to me that would be great. I also have join.me if anyone needs to check my screen for it. Thank you.

Did you use the scroll wheel of your mouse?

Hold Ctrl+MMB  and drag left or right, or up and down to increase or decrease the size of the interface.
This works on many (but not all) of the 'areas' in blender, like the Graph Editor, Image Editor or the Properties area. It also works in the 3D view Toolbar (T) and the Properties toolbar (N).

If the answer solved your problem then please check the tick icon next to my answer, see: http://stackoverflow.com/help/someone-answers

With the mouse in the Logic Editor, Node Editor, UV Image Editor, Timeline, Graph Editor, Dope Sheet, NLA Editor, Video Sequence Editor, or Movie Clip Editor you can simply scroll with the MMB  to zoom in or out.


text:
How to save a rendered image that I have added a vignette to in Compositing?
I have a rendered image in compositing with a node set up to add a vignette. It all looks good in the compositing window but I cannot find a method to save this new image.

Actually there is a way to save the composited image without re-rendering:

select the viewer node
in the N panel (properties region) under "Node" there is a "Save This Image" button.

There are two ways to save it.
The first way is to predefine the output in the properties panel under render>output.  You can set a destination and file type there.  Once you click render the image will automatically save there.
The second way is to render the image with the vignette, and then select Image>Save Image As  at the bottom of the render panel.

Images are only saved in the output folder if you rendered by pressing 'Animation'.

I tried the first way already but get the original render without the vignette...so I guess I have to try the second way....when I try to Render from  the compositing window I do not get the vignette....

Thank you guys..root, Ray and CyberBurst...I had failed to use a file output node as suggested by root.

Hovering over the render window, press F3

I believe using the output, whether in the UI or as a node, will only work if you hit animation button

Got it! and many thanks for the invaluable help.

Go to the uv image editor and select the viewer node in the image list. Then you can save it.

How does this add anything? This answer already has this solution.

Actually, this is the only simple answer that works and to the point.

There seem to be no "Save This Image" in blender 2.93 anymore. The UV editor is one (or only) of remaining options.


text:
How can I import GEOTIFF raster data?
I have a terrain model in the form of a GEOTIFF raster which is from the SRTM (Shuttle Radar Technology Mission) data.
Can this raster data be converted / imported into blender into a triangular mesh?
Can 3D city modelling be done, over this mesh?

I think you're looking for a set of Blender addons called BlenderGIS.
See the BlenderGIS Wiki for a full feature list, but the suite author seems to be focused on accuracy and the tools are able to handle arbitrary rasters, DEM and other point cloud data, Delaunay/voronoi triangulation from a variety of sources, and has tools to assist building geometry accurately from topo maps. I haven't used it much, but the documentation is thorough enough, being a work in progress. It has been developed for over 2 years, by one person and is still actively maintained. Perhaps you can lend a hand with the project?

Blender can use tiff images, not sure if geotiff works to but it should work too. Otherwise you had to convert the geotiff to a png or jpg first.
Add a plane (same aspect ratio like your image). Go to the modifier tab and add a Subdivision Surface modifier. Set it to Simple. Add 3 or 4 subdivisions and apply the modifier. Add again a Subdivision Surface modifier to control the resolution of your mesh later.
Next add a Displace modifier and add a new Image or Movie texture there. With the rightmost icon you can switch over to the texture tab, load your image and give your texture a name etc.
Back in the modifier tab you can play with the values a bit (Strenght 0.2 for example).
You could add the Decimate modifier to simplify your geometry - just play with the values, Collapse mode should give good results for terrain models.
Here I found a tutorial wich covers also the geotiff conversion (under "Create Heightmap") http://www.navimationresearch.net/2013/norway-in-3d-part-1/ sorry link is dead now.

Sorry to say this, but this answer is as imcomprehensible to a Geospatial Data Scientist as it can get. The question was clearly about using a raster Digital Elevation Model to create a similar elevation model in Blender. Why should one "play" with values to create a DEM, when the values already exist? Also, the link does not work.

Sorry but from your question it was not clear to me that you need scientifical correct data viusalisation. You did ask if this data could be imported to blender and I gave you one possible solution. You can learn more about the displace modifier and how it works here: https://www.blender.org/manual/modifiers/deform/displace.html - should be no problem for a scientist to work out a solution with this.


text:
Changing the range of the coordinates on Blender's Viewport
I have got Geospatial Data, which has real world coordinates. The minimum and maximums of these coordinates are as follows:
         X     Y        Z
min    10000   10000  340
max    30000   30000  1100

I wish to fit all the view of Blender, in this range. How would that be possible, either by using the Blender GUI or the Blender Python API.

My suggestion is to use the scale option.
In the image below the real world block is 480 x 480 km, scale is used to map it onto 16 x 16 blender units. Once that choice is made, divide your coordinates by
scene.unit_settings.scale_length

when importing, calculated to give you the correct dimensions in the unit of your data.


text:
How do I make my file open in the same state it saved in?
I have a man who has a armature and has been weight painted.  Whenever I open a saved file, he is in a weird meditation pose.  In order to clear it I have to go into pose mode of the armature and click Alt+R, Alt+G, and Alt+S repeatedly until he is back in his normal pose.  I then can continue working on him.  when I save it and open the new file he is again in this strange pose.  Not sure if this is related or not, but when editing him and I click Ctrl+Z to undo something sometimes his pose will go really crazy and I can't clear the rotation, position or scale and have to re-open my last save.  I would like to have this fixed so I can open my project and go strait to work and would like to know how to fix this.  I don't know if this helps or not but this just started happening 2 days ago, Thanks for the help!

That pulls up a really old session.  Also, I don't want to have to do that every time.  I'm wondering if I'm saving it wrong or have a setting set somewhere that I don't realize I have set.

You can try using the Pose library (at armature properties) adding the desired initial pose. Or you can try to add a keyframe for all the bones in the first frame. However, it's possible there is an issue with the rig, but it's hard to tell without being able to check the blend.

How do I post the .blend file?  If I post the .blend file do I have to worry about copyright or someone steeling it?


text:
Long hair collapses with soft body physics in animation
I need to animate a long poly hair and would like it behave a little more like nature, so when I move the head it "follows it's path."

I used a Lattice Modifier with Soft Body Physics to simulate the effect. But as you can see it's collapsing on itself, making it look awful. Would anyone able to help me fix it please?
Braid Lattice Anim 2.blend

try to adjust the weight paint manually , and rotate the armature to see if it extends back to its normal scale

Thank you, but it's bending through Lattice Modifier, the weight painting is irrelevant. The armature is already rotating on the blend file.

Ah , i see , sorry i cannot help :)

Its odd, it isn't maintaining its volume

@tuliomarchetto can you reupload your blend, a good permanent place is http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

Probably the first thing people find when they enable soft body is that it all collapses in on itself. You need to stiffen it up a bit to have it maintain it's structure.
The first thing I would do is enable Stiff Quads and turn up Bending to 3, damp to 20 (under soft body edges) and damping to 12 (under soft body goal).
You will need to experiment more to get it right but that should get you closer.
You might find this video helpful in explaining some of the options.

I would even use cloth.


text:
Path Bevel With Different Thickness Along the Vertices
Hi guys I have a path that generates a extrusion from a Bevel Object, but I need certain vertices with different bevel size. I tried to select the vertices, I can tilt them pressing Ctrl+T, but I cannot change the size of the generated bevel in that specific point.

You can use Alt+S to Shrink/Flatten a selected curve point while in edit mode for the curve:

This option is also available from the Toolshelf (T)