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Blender Game not rendering objects correctly
When I try to play my game, the scene gets messed up. I think it is better if I show you what I mean.
Image:

The skydome is completely gone and the order in which the models render is completely wrong. I tried a lot of things, but nothing seems to fix it.
EDIT: The problem with the skydome is fixed. I had to flip the normals.
EDIT #2: Here is a link to the .blend file: http://www.mediafire.com/download/lm3i4n78gcok8q2/Station_of_Awakening.blend

probably camera clipping issue, check this : http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/18291/11431

Thanks, but that didn't fix it. The problem is not the render distance, but the skydome doesn't render at all.

try to recalculate or flip the normals, else you'd better upload the blend file

Yes, thanks, the skydome problem is fixed, but the rest is still messed up.

post a .blend file

I will in a second.

Oh, haha, I guess I figured it out myself. Sorry.
I fixed the problem by selecting GLSL instead of Multitexture in the Properties > Render > Shading menu. Let me show you:

glad you found, i was replacing the materials with a simple one with a grid texture and it would take forever :) (can't see anything but pink!)

Thanks for your help, anyway. Thanks to you I fixed the skydome, even though it has some cutoff :P


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Rendering fire animations with transparent background
I'm creating a simple fireball sprite for my game and I want to render a fire animation.
I would like to get the upper images with transparent background, but when is set the transparency on under Render -> Film one of my frames will look like lower pictures.
You can see the difference of these two images.

This works for me in 2.76b

Oh. I am very sorry for asking it then... I was still using an obsolete version of Blender...

That's ok. Try using the latest version from Blender.org, it should work correctly. There are a lot of cool new features too :)

Also note that if you have an Emission Shader plugged into the Volume output it won't be visible against a transparent background unless you are rendering out to EXR format. I don't know what kind of node setup you have, but figured it wouldn't hurt to mention that.

I used the transparency setting with the latest Blender version, but something went wrong. I didn' t get the result I desired.
Here's the image of the basic settings I use to test, whether my flame gets rendered.
https://gyazo.com/f3829e2e83d284344ecd841473c4397a
And here's my node system for domain. Not sure, but I think I have missed something important.
https://gyazo.com/de7a3281fa693f06440e0924b8f68e2f

Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/41574/render-semi-transparent-volume-with-cycles ?

Blender's viewer is broken for that kind of images, so it's possible that your fire is rendered properly but the viewer isn't showing it correctly when you activated the "transparent" checkbox.
Try to switch the channels preview setting in the viewer from "color and alpha" (RGBA) to "color" (RGB).

If after doing that you can see the fire on black background, then your output is ok. (The ball occludes and emits, while the fire only emits.)
The next step is making sure that you're exporting the image correctly: You'll have to use a format that supports associated alpha. As @mentalist mentioned, EXR is one of those formats.
You'll have to make sure that the program where you're going to use that sprite supports EXR and associated alpha images, otherwise it won't be composited properly.
Keep in mind that PNG won't work for that, as it uses unassociated alpha.
EDIT:
On version 2.92 the viewer has been fixed, so you can see the proper associated alpha.

In 2.93 the issue srill persist and you get an empty image when rendering a tranparent background png. Using composition method results in a ugly green flame.

The emission shader renders almost completely transparent to PNGs, I believe, because it is rendering no volume. You can use the Emission Strength and Emission Color properties of the Principled Volume shader to correct this, and then you don't need the emission shader.

Hey, I appreciate the downvotes.. What I'd appreciate more is some constructive criticism. This method works for me. How can I improve it?

This worked for me too. The critical step seems to be setting "Density Attribute" to "flame".

source: Stack Exchange

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Process of texturing a model
I've modeled a dragon and I now want to texture it.
I'm stuck in thinking where I should start and how I should proceed. I already have done the UV-mapping of my creature. As I want my dragon to have scales, I've been wondering whether I should create a normal map in blender (by drawing each scale on my own) or create some kind of procedural texture (in Substance Designer 5).
Here's an image of my creature:

As it currently stands this question is not very suited for StackExchange, because it is too broad and opinion based. There are just too many possible good answers for this. Try something like the Blender Artists forum at http://blenderartists.org/ which is much more suited for this type of question. Once you start your texturing work, if you have any more specific doubts or particular difficulties you can come back here and ask a more focused direct question.

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


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How do I eliminate a harsh lighting issue on my cylindrical glossy model?
I am new to blender and have recently created my first model.  I created the mesh and then textured it, added a world environment texture, and rendered it only to find a very dark harsh "shadow" around the rear of my model.  However, the shadow only appears when I add a face to the back of the model to complete the whole mesh.  I have included pictures so you can see what I am talking about.
Without the rear face

With the rear face

In the first picture you can see the model's cylindrical body WITHOUT it's rear face resulting in no shadow.  However, in the second picture, a face was added to the rear of the model resulting in a harsh shadow as shown.
I am using blender version 2.73

Let me guess, Subsurf modifier, and then a flat many-sided face on the back? That would be called an N-Gon, and is highly frowned upon in Blender as it brings a host of issues into the picture. Try adding an edge-loop near the N-Gon face on the back (Ctrl+R)

Yes that sounds about right although, the rear face is only made up of one side.  However, your solution fixed it, thank you! :)

I'll add an answer  then, glad it helped :)

BTW, I meant side as in edge ;-)

It appears that you are using a Subsurf modifier, and a flat many-edged face on the back. That would be called an N-Gon, and is highly frowned upon in Blender as it brings a host of issues into the picture. Quads (faces with 4 edges) are much prefered, as it they work best for almost all of the relevant calculations done by Blender.
This particular issue can be resolved by adding an edge-loop near the face on the back by pressing Ctrl+R

It looks to me as though the blackened part is caused by the smooth shaded normals being interpolated across the sharp angle, not necessarily the n-gon.  In which case the extra loop cut you suggested would fix it.  If my theory is correct, adding an edge split modifier or enabling auto smooth should fix it as well.


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What are the Change Brush Size shortcuts in Sculpt mode using Maya Navigation?
I'm definitely struggling for this, I use Maya Navigation, and F and Shift+F keys are already bound.
Now in sculpt mode I can't find how to get those useful shortcuts to change dynamically size and strength of the brush, any idea how I can recover them and bind them to different shortcuts and continue using Maya Layout ?

I know size is F and scroll wheel. It also changes the strength a bit. Think of it like Focus.

As I said I'm using Maya Navigation, which use F + Shift-F already to focus to a single object or whole scene,  I cannot change that manually cause it's not present in the binding possibility. I think I must get out of Maya Navigation, see wht python command bound to F and write that down, then in Maya navigation bind those to other keys.

Ok, I've found them; the keys were bound to B for the size, Shift + B for the strength and Ctrl + B for the rotation of the brush.
To find this, I first switched to the default layout and searched for the actions bound to F, noted the entries were named 'Radial Control', switched back to the Maya layout and searched for that name.


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Changing the currently open tab in graph editor with Python
I'm developing an add-on, that sits in the graph editor. I've just upgraded to Blender 2.78 and saw that the panel is divided into different tabs (View, Modifiers, F-Curve, etc.). My add-on is placed in its own tab (mmvt). How can I change the currently open tab to be my tab (in code)?

See this.

I could be wrong, but I don't think this is possible

Maybe you should go to stackoverflow

@NikolaTeslaMandici I want (in code) to change to currently open tab from "Modifiers" (in this example) to my addon tab (mmvt).

Old question I know. I found this: https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Doc/Projects/UI/Tab_Guidelines
you have a panel right?
People seem to need a property called bl_category be set to the tab page name they want to place it on.
In regard to this question it may be:
class panelName(bpy.types.Panel):
      bl_category = "Modifiers"
Also, changing the focus is a completely different task

Thanks Ruben! Yes, I'm setting the bl_category to "mmvt", this is why the tab's name is "mmvt". I'm trying to see how in my code I can change the currently open tab, so the user will see my tab instead of "Modifiers" for example.

please note: "changing the focus is a completely different task" ;D
my approach would be:

get a reference to a panel inside the tab
search the documentation for some Panel.Focus() functionality
then shoot it! ;D


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Which pie menus addon to use?
I want to use the pie menus addon, but confusingly I have two of them. The second is called "official", and it has a higher version number, but the first one seems to have a lot more hotkeys.

EDIT As I got here only generic answers, I researched and compared them, and here is what I found: the "unofficial" 3d Viewport Pie Menus are a new addon in 2.78, and as of 2.78 they seem to be more powerful than the official ones.

Tab: the "unofficial" is better, because it has an Edit/Object toggle, and most of the time this is what we want. One can also directly jump to the edge/face/vertex selection sub-modes from the Object mode.
Ctrl-Space: the "unofficial" is better, because it has combined widget options
. (pivot setting): the same
Z (shading): the same
Ctrl-Shift-Tab (snap): the the "unofficial" seems more powerful
q (views): the "unofficial" is definitely more powerful, it has not only the views, but options like lock camera to view.
Clip Editor pies: this is only in the official
There are 11 more pie menus only in the "unofficial", all of them can be activated individually, and as the accepted answer says, one can also combine them

More information about the "unofficial": https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?401789-3d-View-Pie-Menus

I think you should add your edit as an aswer instead of editing the question.

There is no reason why you cannot use both and switch off/on functions that are suited to your workflow. I would recommend starting with the official and get to understand possible conflicts. An example of this is the TAB which access switching between 8 modes, where as before it was just between Edit and Object. Recently they added a new feature with micro-displacement where you can refresh the viewport render by hitting TABTAB - which doesn't seem to work with the pie menu activated. One has to make choices.
I have the second pie menu activated, but with only one key - the W key  for the Sculpt menu. I find the rest cause confusion/ conflicts with other hotkeys I used. Having the choice to customize means you do indeed have to see what works for you. If you find stuff getting in the way - just un-tick those keys.

Thank you, but in this case there is a reason: the pie menus are not different, the "unofficial" version contains the "official" shortcuts and some more, so there would be a conflict. BTW, your remark about Tab-Tab was very useful, because I didn't know this trick :) Did you try all the shortcuts in the "unofficial" version or only the official ones?

In the meantime I understand what you mean by using both without conflicts. Actually I like the "unofficial" Tab behavior better, because it has an Edit/Object toggle, which is actually closer to the old Tab.

The official one, made by Sebastian Koeing, comes with Blender automatically. I think you might have installed the first one manually, since I don't have it.
You could use the first one if you like. Whichever one fits you.

Thank you, I upvoted the answer, but I won't accept it yet. I hope someone has a deeper answer than "Whichever one fits you." - I don't feel like spending a lot of time comparing them.

@WannaKnow - If you don't "feel like comparing" them for yourself and let s.o. other decide what's best for you, you might as well throw a coin. Blender's UI and its possibility to extend it is all about personal preferences.

@metaphor_set I also don't want to throw coins :) I wanna know. Maybe one version is not well tested, but in some way it is better. I am looking for concrete information, not for generic advice.


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List of bones to file, is it possible?
Good day, I'm new to Blender, and actually to the whole 3D world. I have come with a non regular issue and I hope you guys can give me hand.
I have list of rigged models, each one with their very own set of bones. I'm looking, to put it in some way, all the bones of each model to find which bones they have in common to then build an specific project with that list.
However, the list is pretty much of something around 25~ models and they are fully rigged (regular bones, face bones, hair bones and so on), and doing this by hand seems like a extreme hassle.
This comes with yet another terrible issue: I don't know Python, so I'm pretty much against the wall right now and about to pull my hair. So I wanted to ask, is it possible to get the bone list from Blender? Or is there a script already made for that task? I hopeyou can help me guys, it would mean a lot for me. Thank you in advance for reading and for your time!

Welcome to Blender.SE!  Do you mean just a list of all bones?  By "in common" do you mean have the same name, or same defining parameters?

Hello, thanks for the answer. Yeah, by common I mean, for example, I know all of them have a pelvis bone, but some of them have a different number of spines, or don't have face bones or don't have hair bones and so on. I want the file so I can more or less do comparisons of common bones, number of bones and so on.

Do you just need the names? What if there is no naming convention between the rigs?

Yeah, just the names is perfect.it doesn't really matter if there isn't a convetion

So here's the plan:

to import all the armatures into 1 file
to run a script to compare them between each other and export the names of bones they have in common.

Importing (several options):

Just CtrlC, CtrlV from a file to another.
Or ShiftF1 to append an object. Navigate to a .blend file, select Object, and pick the armature object.

After all the armatures are in the same scene, switch to Scripting screen layout.

you can select it from the top menu bar (you should be in the Default screen now)
or you can use  CtrlLeft Arrow and CtrlRight Arrow to switch between the screens.

In the Text editor, make a new text file and paste the code in:
import bpy

bone_names = []
for armature in [ob for ob in bpy.data.objects if ob.type == 'ARMATURE']:
    for bone in armature.data.bones:
        bone_names.append(bone.name)

common_names = set([name for name in bone_names if bone_names.count(name) > 1])

print(common_names)

Run the script, it will print the output into the Console window (Window > Toggle System Console).
If you want to print it into a text-file or json-file that's easy too just give me a file-path and I'll edit the script.

Hello, first I want to apologize for the super late answer, my PC got messed up and I had to fix it, it took some time. Anyway, I tried what you told me, but the console doesn't return anything. At the top screen I get this: bpy.ops.text.run_script() but I don't get anything at the console

@TotalNoob Are we talking about the same console? There is a Python console and a Console Window. See: https://i.sstatic.net/BbPSG.png

Ok, I didn't notice that one, so I checked the other console, but it doesn't return anything, it only says set(). I gave it a try with 2 models on the same file http://puu.sh/lIa5H/8a6302a021.png

@TotalNoob That means the list of common names is empty. Try to test it on some test armatures, where there is at least one bone with the same name in both of the armatures.

Thank you very much, I tried it and it worked! By the way, is there a script to just fetch like, all the bones of a single armature? That would be asking too much, but yeah, still thank you very much, this helped me tons!

@TotalNoob Yes I could write a script to analyze names of bones in just a single armature, but in every armature the bone names inside it must be unique (Blender's design) - so there cannot be any duplicates. You can start another question about this.

Would having common bones in a single armature help?
If it helps, here is a addon called Hybrid Armature that will merge common bones between a selection of source armatures
Full disclosure, I put this addon together.
addon file on OpenCode here
https://www.opencode.net/thorsummoner/thorian_blender_ops/-/blob/master/operator_arm_hybrid.py?ref_type=heads
demo video on OpenCode https://www.opencode.net/thorsummoner/thorian_blender_ops/-/blob/master/operator_arm_hybrid.webm?ref_type=heads
((the demo video isn't embedding properly, sorry about that))


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How do I animate time?
I have created a storyboard where I frequently switch between slow-motion and normal motion. The scene involves a particle system, several animated objects and an animated camera.
How do I animate time for all objects globally? If possible I would love to do so using a curve so I can transition smoothly from real-time to slow-motion and back again. As far as I remember there was such thing as a "Time IPO" curve in Blender 2.4.x but I have yet to find the equivalent, nor do I know if that is actually what I am looking for.

See related question: Which animation features don't support sub-frames?

What do you mean by "animate" time?

I want to smoothly go from realtime to slow motion and back from slow motion to realtime again.

Okay, I understand you better I think (after giving it some thought).

Can you give an example? I'm guessing you mean something like bullet-time to regular speed and back to bullet-time.

Watch Speed up & Slow Down Audio/Video | Snap Strips option from Mikeycal Meyers

Time Remapper addon
Following Ideasman42's suggestion, I wrote an addon that allows you to animate time in the whole scene.

Demo video
Video tutorial
Source code

Limitations

Only for Cycles
Doesn't work for fluid simulations or motion blur
Works with Blender 2.70+
Freezes interface until frames are done rendering

Installing
Right click and save to your computer this link: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hxxr/time-remapper/master/render_timeremapper.py
Open Blender, File > User Preferences > Addons > Install from File, then select the file you just saved.
Type "time" into the search bar and you should see the addon "Render: Time Remapper".  Enable it.
In the Properties, you should see some new buttons,

Usage
It's best to launch Blender from a terminal so that you can see the output of the addon.  If you're on Windows, then you'd launch Blender normally and go to Window > Toggle System Console.
Create your scene.  Change any rigid body objects or animated objects to Quaternion rotation mode (N-menu > set XYZ Euler to Quaternion)   Make sure to bake any physics simulations.  For Rigid Body Physics, it seems work better if you do Bake to Keyframes (T-menu > Physics > Bake to Keyframes).
There's two modes you can use it in: Speed Factor and Time-Time Curve.  Leave it on Speed Factor unless you need to go in reverse-time.
The speed factor can be animated.  Setting it to 0.5 will give 2x slow-motion, setting it to 3 will give 3x fast-motion, etc.
After keyframing it, hit TR Animation.  This will freeze Blender.  You can see the progress of the addon or any error messages by looking in the terminal.
To watch what you've saved out, press TR Playback.
(OPTIONAL) You can choose up to 3 "immune objects" that will be immune to the time remapping effects.  For example, if you want your camera to rotate around the scene without slowing down (as in the demo video above), select it as an immune object.
Using reverse motion
If you want you animation to go back in time, then change Speed Factor to Time Time Curve.

Open the Graph Editor.  You'll see a 45 degree line that shows how time (in frames) maps to the animation's intrinsic time.

wow... does blender make sandwiches too? maybe someone will write an addon for that ^.^

wow thanks a lot! I haven't tried it yet but this looks useful. :D

Does this work with smoke simulations?

This fork doesn't freeze Blender https://github.com/hxxr/time-remapper/releases/download/v0.2/render_timeremapper.py

Thanks, @ElectroBit, I've updated the links to point to your repo since I'm no longer maintaining it.

Individual objects
Blender used to have a Time Graph Editor curve for controlling time. Since the animation system rewrite by Aligorith this is now done using the NLA Editor:

One you've created a NLA-Strip by clicking the  next to your action.
In the Properties panel (N to toggle) under Evaluation enable "Animated Strip Time".
Animate the "Strip Time" as desired.

Entire scene

In video sequencer Add | Scene | Scene or Shift+A,S,S
Add | Effect Strip… | Speed or Shift+A,E,P
In Properties panel under "Effect Strip" disable "Stretch to input strip length",
Animate the "Speed Factor" (or optionally disable "Use as speed" and animate the "Frame Number").
Press Refresh Sequencer to update after animating.

I tried both, but I couldn't get either to work. in the NLA editor, "Evaluation" wasn't there. (blender 2.67b) In the video sequence editor (after adding the scene and effect strip) changing the "speed factor" value did not effect the scene?

@gandalf3 I've updated the answer, hope it helps.

Thanks, the NLA edtor works, though the Sequence editor still doesn't seem to effect the scene..

I can't think of anything else to add. Here's an example scene showing it in action.

The disadvantage with the method involving the whole scene is that your scene would have had to be rendered at a very high frame rate or else it will look choppy.  In my answer, I show how to use a new addon to remap the time in the whole scene.

@Garrett, 2.76 fixes the issue where the scene had to have a high frame-rate - https://developer.blender.org/rB9b3fa880a5d567a45215c464764f089aa3e77347

Render any point in time
If you are prepared to learn a little scripting, you can in fact render any time you want without frame steps.
Using some fast motion (so you can tell sub-frames are working correctly)
# frame 1.5
bpy.context.scene.frame_set(1, 0.5)

... then press Render.
Since it's not such a hard task to render at any point in time you want, using a more advanced script you could use an fcurve to animate time.
Good opportunity for a newer dev to write a handy addon!
Note: Blender-Internal supports this since 2.77.

Thanks for the alternative solution! I don't understand how I could use a more advanced script to use an f-curve to animate time as you describe, but perhaps in the future. Definitely a good opportunity for a newer dev, nevertheless!

You could either define a custom property which represents the Frame, then animate with an fcurve, each frame you render the frame number defined by the fcurve (a little odd, but it would work). --- OR more complicated but nicer from user POV, you could define a custom FPS property, then the addon would have to evaluate the FPS changes over time to build up a list of frame times to render.

Alright, I did an addon using this idea.  See my answer.

@ideasman42, I had a user requesting to be able to use my addon in Blender Internal.  You mentioned one only needs to comment out a few lines of C.  Is it possible to allow rendering at decimal frames in Blender Internal by default?  What's the downsides?

@Garrett: Added a patch to support, http://developer.blender.org/D1492, Will check on committing after 2.76 release

Update, patch is now in master.

You can use the 'time remapping' sliders to control time. The benefit of this is that all the simulation and whatnot are also slowed down properly.

The ratio controls how fast the 'time' goes.

100:100 is the default.
200:100 is playback at 2x the speed. (fast-forward)
100:50 is playback at half the speed. (slow-motion)

Is there a way to animate this? I tried pressing I while hovering over it, but nothing happened. (there was a error of some sort.)

I combined Time Remapping with the VSE and got this result:
http://rvzt.net/Temp/0001-0072.ogg
I used a time remapping of 100:800 and used a Speed Control with a Speed factor initially set to x8, then keyframed the factor down to x1 (8 times as slow).
It does seem to stutter a bit unfortunately, though.

Just tested this combination again and it does not seem to work reliably. If I turn down the speed and try to turn it up again at a point where x8 speed would have ended the animation, I cannot speed the video strip up to x8 again. It remains in slow motion. The blend file in question:
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/22136

Interesting... I didn't realize you can't animate Time Remapping. Probably because it will cause havoc with Blender so it was disabled.
I haven't considered time remapping in the VSE. It looks like a good way to do it. Will investigate why it doesn't work reliably. Could be a bug.

Is 100:100 the same as 200:200, or x:x? If so, why isn't it just a single decimal value field? If not, what's the difference?

Good question WChargin, as far as I know, yes 100:100 is exactly the same as 200:200. So yeah a decimal would make sense. Maybe a blender coder can chime in?

I'm not a dev, but I think the X:X is easier to use. For example, if I have a 3000 frame scene and I want it to play faster by 1 frame, then I can remap 2999:3000 without having to do the math and worry about rounding errors. It's also more explicit: I know exactly what's going on... though I may not know WHICH frame is getting skipped ;-)

Blender's time is very quantized, and doing something as simple as encoding at multiple frame rates (PAL -vs- NTSC -vs- cinema) can be frustrating.  This is in contrast to animated SVG where everything is in continuous time.
Using the animation philosophy of "don't make it if you can fake it", consider setting your frame rate at 3000Hz and then only render every 100th frame.  There is a Frame Step parameter in the Render tab.
Doing the smooth transitions would be a little trickier, requiring you to render frames at non-uniform steps.  I am optimistic that the blender API has functions you could drive from a python script to render specific frame numbers according to a non-linear formula that will give the effect of a smooth transition from slow-mo to real-time.
The Nyquist-Shannon theorem would suggest you set your project's frame rate at twice the frequency of your fastest slow-motion shots, and I don't see the harm in setting it at 10x (but I invite corrections).
Just to be a wonk, here are the frame steps to achieve all the frame rates I remember from MPEG specifications
divisor = 60000

60Hz = step 1000
59.94Hz = step 1001
30Hz = step 2000
29.97Hz = step 2002 (NTSC)
25Hz = step 2400 (PAL)
24Hz = step 2500 (cinema)

Sounds like quite a bit of manual work but thank you for the input on this issue!

I think a script implementing your ideas wouldn't be too hard, using bpy.context.scene.frame_set(.) and having it choose frames to render corresponding to some F-curve.  I suppose one downside of this is that all physics demos would now be over many frames, so they have to be slowed down and fluid simulations and soft body simulations would take a long time to bake.

I don't think a script would even be necessary. The step setting in the render panel can be keyframed, IIRC. For a 3000 frame animation, a step of 10 would be 10x speed and 1 would be "regular." So if everything is animated so that a step of 10 looks normal, then a step of 1 would look like slo-mo.

...it'd even accommodate physics sims.

Another technique for animating time is to use a Speed Control strip in the Video Sequence editor.
Whenever you want to use the VSE it is highly recommended that you create a separate scene that is only the VSE and has no 3D objects in it.  While it is not necessary, keeping VSE work separate from 3D work precludes a wide variety of very confusing mistakes.
Add a VSE strip referencing the target scene.  Then add an Effect Strip / Speed.  Then go into the properties of the Speed strip and uncheck Stretch to input strip length and uncheck Use as speed.  Now you have a Frame number property which you can keyframe.

One of my favorite tricks is to loop the source track by creating a linear animation of the frame number and using the fcurves editor to add a Cycles modifier to turn it into a sawtooth.
Note
Frame numbers with a fractional component only works in 2.76, there was a bug/limitation in older Blender versions, subframe rendering in the sequencer didn't work.

What type of confusion does having a different scene produce?

Having a different scene "precludes" (prevent from happening) a wide variety of confusing mistakes.  Precluding mistakes is a good thing, so you should keep your 3D scenes separate from VSE scenes.  The most common problem is outlined at http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/blender/python-cookbook/render-to-pngs.html in section 2.

Okay, cool. Good to know.

This isn't the cleanest way to handle the issue, but you can manually convert specific segments of your animation to slow-motion in the Graph Editor. Select the range of keyframes you want to do in slow-motion, scale them in the x direction (S+X), then shift them/the surrounding frames to fit.
Again, it's a clunky solution, but if there's no cleaner way to do it, at least this is an option.

Useful except in situations where you have physics, simulations and particles involved as is with my case. Hence why I was looking for a global solution. Thanks for the input, nevertheless!


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How can I export multiple animations into one .x file?
When I export my models and animations I use a .x (Direct X) format. I can see how this format could accommodate multiple animations. However, I can't get Blender to export anything other than the active action. I have my animations in different actions, as described in this question/answer.
How can I export multiple animations into one .x file? I'm using the built in exporter for .x files.

Blender has a DirectX exporter. Go to Addons in User Preferences and look under Import/Export.

Check Export Animations, this should export all the animations in your file. I would recommend playing with the other animation options as well. You can read up on each setting on its wiki page.

Test 1: I enabled it and made a simple scene with two animations. I exported the file to .x and opened it in a text editor and I saw the animations in there clearly labeled and with the transform locations I had used.
Test 2: I also downloaded a .x viewer called 3dmodelviewer, exported a file from Blender with over 6 animations and it loaded and played them all so the exporter works with multiple animations.
NB: In my tests, I parented primitives to several different bones. I also noticed that I had to be in pose mode when I was animating the objects, if not it doesn't work, not sure why.

I guess I just had to update Blender. This is a newer version of the exporter that has more options, including the one I needed. Thanks for the work you put into testing your solution and taking the time to make the answer look nice.


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How can I prevent the body object slipping through the clothing object?
When I model cloth separately and rig them to the same rig as character I have a lot of sliding - the cloth uses solidify to thicken them, but the "body" mesh still slips out of the clothing (through them, not using cloth simulation).
Just to clarify - In the picture it's not rigged yet.
Any ideas?

If the problem is that your topology on the clothes is different enough from the body underneath that parts poke through, then try the following:

Make the topology of the clothing more similar to the body
Use thicker solidify or subsurface
Use a shrinkwrap modifier on the clothing to keep it above the surface
Instead of weighting the body and clothing, instead make a simpler deform cage around them. Have that be driven by your armature, and then have the clothes and body use the Mesh Deform modifier with the cage. This will also make setting up your weights much easier.

For this to work nicely you have to either:

have the clothes as one mesh with the skin for good results with automatic weighting
create the weights in Maya with Geodesic Voxel Binding
weight just the skin, then copy (project) the weights with Data Transfer modifier to the clothes. This way they won't slide (hopefully)

create a shell around the clothes and skin, rig the shell with armature, drive both the skin and clothes inside the shell through Mesh Deform modifier

authors: Белый Кролик

authors: Рустам Султанов


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Blender 2.8 - How to access material nodes?
In Blender 2.7 we could change material nodes in composting. They removed it in Blender 2.8, where can I find it??

Hi, you mean shading in the main menus on top? Right where you have all the workspaces you need. Layout, modeling, sculpting, UV editing, Texture paint, Shading....

Oh ok, they created a new section called "Shader Editor". Thank you

in 2.8 the shader editor and the compositor have been split into two different editors.
You can use nodes in shading tab or if you go to compositing tab then enable the "Use Nodes" which you can see in the image:

If I click Use nodes in composting tab, then I just see the nodes from the composting not from the material.

What about the shading tab?

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


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Converting an image sequence with an alpha channel to video and keeping the transparency
I've checked the related questions, but the last similar question was asked 7 years ago. I haven't done video editing before (so please treat me as a noob in this field), and wasn't doing 3D art back then, so I don't know what's changed, if anything, with regards to blender's video editing tools.
Before finding out that my attempt to make the conversion failed, I tried the ffmpeg format and used the MPEG-4 and Quicktime containers in separate attempts. I used the H.264 for the MPEG-4 and HuffYUV for the Quicktime formats respectively. The MPEG-4 video plays with a black background (which I can't tell whether it's got an alpha channel or not), and the Quicktime video was a complete mess with no visuals of my animation at all.
As far as I can tell, I need a video format which supports alpha channels, but it doesn't seem like blender has that capability. Please tell me if I'm wrong, or if I'm right, what I need to do to make the conversion.
Sorry for the long post, I wasn't really sure what was relevant to include, so I just included everything I did. I appreciate any assistance.

I suppose that when you add your image sequence to the video sequencer (VSE), you see a checkerboard background for the transparent regions? If so, you can render this out as a video file with the transparency conserved by choosing the correct codec (see also the comment of duplicate post). Which codec. The key is to pay attention to the color attribute of the Output panel. There are two possibilities: RGB or RGBA. The latter is a codec that supports transparency. In the first screenshot, I have chosen for the FFmpeg Video file format, the Matroska container and the PNG video codec. This is a codec that supports transparency. The second screenshot with the MPEG-4 and H.264 codec does not support transparency. You can tell it because the A-option in RGBA is not available.
You can test this very easily by rendering out the sequence and adding back the previous output file to the sequencer. You should see a checkerboard.


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How to align objects to the center of another object
I am new to Blender (2.8) and trying to model a kind of turret, to try and learn by myself.
I am encountering a rather simple problem : I have placed 4 cannons relative to one another, and would like to align their center to the body of the turret (the grey elongated cube behind the cannons).
I would like to align them to the body of the cannon, either by :

Distributing them all along the length of the grey cube. (on the x axis)
Moving the cannons "as a whole" to the center of the cube.

I believe this should be simple, and has probably been answered before but I can't find where so I apologize.

Array modifier with object offset perhaps?

The way to solve this is pretty simple:
In the 3D Viewport Window (Shift + F5), select the objects you want to align (Shift + Click). At the top of the Window (beside "Object Mode" etc. selection), go to the Object tab, and select Transform.
This will give you another drop-down menu, which at the bottom has the option Align objects. Select this, and a menu will appear on the bottom left. It will show some options for aligning the selected objects. Play around with these settings until you have a pleasing result. You can also Shift-click on the x,y, and z align options to align on multiple axes at the same time.


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CUDA error at cuCtxCreate : unknown error
os : Pop!OS
ver : Blender 2.81
device : nVidia GeForce GTX 1080ti
every time my computer falls asleep with blender open, when i try to get back to my work i get this error and blender can't find any CUDA devices when i try to turn it off and on again. this seems to be fixable only with a system reboot but i'm hoping there is a better way. Has anybody experienced this issue and has a way to fix it ?
some additional info - i had the same problem using older versions of Blender and this would also happen under ArchLinux

I had this issue before when rendering an animation.
The solution is to simply decrease the tile size under performance.

When rendering an animation your graphic card's memory is filled with data, so reducing the tile size reduces the memory load. I understand how it helps for rendering, but how does it effect the idle computer falling asleep?


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Match camera view with image
I am working on an architectural visualisation where I would like to insert a new building project into an image from drone footage.
I have a rough, but accurate model of the sorruding landscape. I've manually matched the two views using a couple of houses as reference, but there is a lot of room for imporvement.
What technique is best to do this? Is there a way of automating it for higher accuracy and speed?

Hello and welcome :). There is a useful addon called fSpy created for matching your camera position. I don't use it much myself, but YT has many tutorials on it.


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Vray-like displacement
I've recently started using Blender in favour of 3ds max with Vray. 3ds max allowed me to use a detailed displacement map on a simple plane which resulted in 3D displacement. It was very effetive to create intricaty with minimal amount of modelling and keeping the files light. Blender seems not to be able to do this. In order to displace the mesh needs to be heavily subdivided to produce pleasing results. Is this correct, or am I missing something? Is there plans to implement this in Blender?
Ludvig

I am awere of the bump function, which works well when looking straight at planes, but is flawed when seeing at an angle (like floors often are)

3ds Max displacement also creates additional geometry. There is no way to do true displacement without additional geometry. From the 3ds Max KB: "Warning: A Displacement map can generate many triangular faces per surface, sometimes over one million faces per surface. While using a Displacement map can produce impressive results, it can cost a lot in terms of computation time and memory."

Thank you for the reply. That makes sense, however when it happens under the hood like that, it makes for efficient workflows where simple planes may be edited. Would you suggest simply adding subv surface with simple checked to achieve the same?

Yeah - you either have to use a sub-d modifier or manually subdivide your mesh to get detailed displacement. Since you have to turn on experimental features anyway, you might as well use the adaptive subsurf option. This can lower the total amount of tris created during tessellation.

Is this what you mean?
Blender/Cycles has render-time displacement in the (still in 2.81) Experimental feature set.
It can be combined with Adaptive Subdivision
This plane is subdivided only once in the working geometry:

The rest is done at render-time:

(In its Properties tab > Surface panel, the material's Displacement settings include 'Displacement')


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How to set Frame Range automatically to video length
How can I set a End Frame of blender movie clip editor to match the end time of the video (without trying to search the End Frame of video)? Currently when I'm importing the video, the End Frame is set to 250 instead of ~600 which my video is currently having.

Quick manual solution: Press PageUp after inserting the clip to jump to its end with your playhead, then hover over the timeline and press E to set the end frame

nothing happen when i do so...i'm i doing it wrong?

The PageUp / PageDown only works while hovering your mouse over the VSE view. It jumps with the green playhead between each cut (start/end of strips). The hotkey E (while hovering over the timeline view) sets the Scene.frame_end (the "End: 250" box) to your current playhead position (Scene.frame_current). It works fine for me (but only with recent versions of Blender like 2.76/2.77a, this behaviour has been added not too long ago).

Your problem - from a VSE point of view:

You want your End Frame Range to be set to your newly imported Footages length.
The solution:

While still hovering over the VSE view press PageUp.

Hover your mouse over your timeline and press E to match your End Frame with your Current frame. (Blenders Hotkeys are context sensitive)

Note:
Make sure, the function Use Preview Range is unchecked if you want your Scene Frame Range to be set accordingly for your final Render.

Further explanation regarding your situation:
You want to achieve this in the MCE directly. Which is possible via some Python code. But for a quick manual workaround just import your MCE Clip into a VSE via Add (Shift+A) - Clip - <Movie Clip Name> as it will produce the result you want in the MCE as well. The Frame Range used is the current Scene ones which is applied to both the VSE and the MCE. You could delete your VSE Strip of the MCE clip afterwards if you don't want it to be rendered out.

This has been not working any more by default in the earlier 2.80 versions, but just now the devs reintroduced these hotkeys. :-)

Go to View > Range then select Set Frame Range To Strips and it's done.

In latest version seems to be PageUP to get to the end of the strip then View>Range>Set End Frame

For 3.1: In Editor + Tracking + Clip use Clip | Set Scene Frames. This adjust Start/End for the animation range.

This is the proper way to do it

I don't understand why this is in "View" menu...

When your MCE is open, you could just use this line of Python to achieve your goal:
bpy.context.scene.frame_end = [area for area in bpy.data.screens.get(bpy.context.screen.name).areas.values() if area.type == 'CLIP_EDITOR'][0].spaces[0].clip.frame_duration
This basically just sets your End Frame to the Length of your Video Clip that is currently loaded into your MCE. It does so by getting the current active Screen, searching for the Area which is the MCE and uses this only one left from the list of all visible areas and from within it takes the selected/active clip and uses its length.
Paste it into a Python Console View, hit Enter et voilà.
And I already described how to execute such a piece of code via hotkey.

For newer Blender versions (3.4+): The default hotkey for setting the end frame equal to the current frame in the Video Sequencer on my version is no longer E, it is Ctrl+End.
On my laptop, the End key is accessed by pressing Fn+F12, so annoyingly, if I forget to press Fn, I render the video instead, which seems fitting.
I checked the hotkey preferences and found this hotkey under Animation > Set End Frame.
Also, in the Video Sequencer, the menu option View > Range > Set Frame Range to Strips  still works.


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Zoom Background Image in the VSE
Blender 2.74: When "Use Backdrop" is checked in the VSE, we can see the video clips in the background of the VSE; the clips will adjust to the size of the VSE, they'll be "full frame". I'm trying to have the display of video clips smaller within the VSE. On this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnM_UAsLHag&t=3m53s at 3'53, using Blender 2.73, with the shortcut V (background image zoom), he can reduce the size of the clip and move it anywhere he wishes. I haven't manage to select the background image and reduce it's size. Has this feature been removed in 2.74?

I suspect that he is using the special gooseberry branch of blender. You can get that version here: https://builder.blender.org/download/

You are right, he is using a Gooseberry branch of Blender. I downloaded it and couldn't get any video clip in the VSE in sequencer view... It doesn't matter, I'll just use the standard 2 VSE views in a regular version of Blender. Thanks for your answer.

When you watch closely, you'll see that "Use Overdrop" is checked in this video - which is a different feature that didn't make its way back into Blenders master branch.

It's not possible at the moment. This "VSE Backdrop" feature has been introduced in the gooseberry branch with rB0717d:

DESCRIPTION
Gooseberry request: Backdrop for sequencer.

There has been another request rB9a934 for an "Overdrop" what is exactly what you saw in your Video which has zoom functionality and can be dragged around. But it differs from the Backdrop feature you asked for. Actualy it's an evolvement of it and got renamed.
But as it is in development with feature branches not everything that is being developed for an Open Movie project finally gets into the Master Branch of Blender. Not every feature is bug free or already polished enough and therefore this would take too much time to merge it back into master.
A detailled description what has been merged back from Gooseberry is in the Blog article Gooseberry in Blender Master and unfortunately for the Sequencer only

A backdrop feature

has been mentioned there. Not the "Overdrop" feature. So your missing feature has not been removed, it just never made it into the "official" Blender development branch that results into the Version you can download from blender.org/download. You might ask the developers to merge this Overdrop feature back into Master as well.


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How can I drive the Switch nodes True/False value?
In the compositor I would like to add a driver to the Switch Node. I want to watch a frame value from a VSE strip.
When the current frame count equals the Strip start frame I want to switch the node.
Here is an example of what I hope to achieve:

When current frame is less than abs(var)+var_001 then pass no picture,
if current frame is greater than abs(var)+var_001 then switch source through.

Of course what I have entered is unformatted nonsense. And the switch node expects to return a true or false, not a value.
*nb: abs(var) changes negative number to integer.

Can I define the abs(var)+var_001 (it is the VSE strip trimmed start time) as a function of some sort to call elsewhere? It's a pain to define it all the time.

abs(var) doesn't change a value into an integer value (which are only natural numbers), but gives their absolute value, which is the same like multiplying by -1 if negative or in other words removing the negative sign if applicably.

Oh and the "trimmed start time" of a Strip is probably already available to you via its frame_final_start attribute.

Thanks for the tip, I was only grabbing paths from the variables exposed in the Strip Properties, I never thought to use any of the other properties.

To find out, which attributes exist from a given Property, just copy the Path like bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].sequence_editor.sequences_all[0]. including the following . into a Python Console Editor view and hit Ctrl + Space. The autocompletion feature will suggest you all available ones.

Is there something you're still missing in my answer below?

Oops, sorry I forgot to tick it. I don't ask very often so this is a bit new to me. Thank you for your help Samoth

It works for me with the plain Expr: abs(var) < frame. So basically you just need a Boolean expression (omit the if in your expression) for it to drive the Switch. Basically any numerical result below 1.0 will result in Off and starting from 1.0 and above will result in On.
You can put something like (abs(var) < frame) and (abs(var) + var_001 > frame) into the box to evaluate only True during the duration of your Strip after you changed your var_001 to the frame_final_duration.
Furthermore you could Copy'n'Paste drivers if you want to use them again.
When you want to use your own function to add more complicated stuff like conditional expressions, stick to the Example code in the documentation about the Driver Namespace:

This script will add a function to the driver namespace, which can then be used in the expression driver_func(frame):
import bpy

def driver_func(val):
    return val * val    # return val squared

# add function to driver_namespace
bpy.app.driver_namespace['driver_func'] = driver_func

But giving your variables meaningful names as soon as possible is a good practise... ;-)

Can also use 1 if (expr) else 0  .. unnecessary  for booleans handy for returning other values, eg 10 if(var > frame) else 99

Kind of... I updated the answer, you need to use a function for this. Don't forget to upvote ;-)

Can I define a name for variables in the driver window to use on other drivers? I thought you could only do that in text editor as a script. EDIT: oh i see so I define name via script which i can use in the driver entry

The variable names in the driver window should match with the ones in the function (in your script), otherwise it should work as well when you assign them directly in the function call like var + function(var=frame). But when there is only one variable that explicit name assignment might be omitted like in the example where frame in the driver properties will be assigned to var inside the function for calculation... The python documentation should help you out here... ;-)

Come on - what was the reason for a downvote here again?

" Basically any numerical result below 1.0 will result in False and starting from 1.0 and above will result in True."  Clarification on this, are you saying bool(0.9) and bool(-1) equate to False?

No, not when you use the bool(x) -> bool function (Returns True when the argument x is true, False otherwise.) and I didn't say this - but when you put these values into the Scripted Expression field in the driver to drive the Switch Node you'll see that it does so...

See what you mean, it either works as you say or throws an error TypeError: bpy_struct: item.attr = val: SomeObjectType.some_bool_prop expected True/False or 0/1, not float Think I'll  stick  with using 0/1 or True/False for on / off.

@3pointedit related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvFqhDE_vW8&feature=youtu.be ;-)

Ummm, thanks... thats me! I made the video after all of the help that I got here. Thanks everyone :D

I'd like to say thank you because your answer and batFINGER's comments pointed me in the right direction. I needed an Integer slider with possible values 1, 2, 3, to be the driver that activated and deactivated 3 constraints. I wanted value 1 to activate constraint 1 (and deactivate constraints 2 and 3), value 2 to activate constraint 2 (and deactivate constraint 1 and 3), and value 3 to activate constraint 3 (and deactivate constraints 1 and 2). These are the three I used:
(1 if (1==(your_var_here)) else 0)
(1 if (2==(your_var_here)) else 0)
(1 if (3==(your_var_here)) else 0)

I'd like to say thank you because your answer and batFINGER's comments pointed me in the right direction. I needed an Integer slider with possible values 1, 2, 3, to be the driver that activated and deactivated 3 constraints. I wanted value 1 to activate constraint 1 (and deactivate constraints 2 and 3), value 2 to activate constraint 2 (and deactivate constraint 1 and 3), and value 3 to activate constraint 3 (and deactivate constraints 1 and 2). These are the three scripted driver expressions I used, one in each of the 3 constraints:
(1 if (1==(your_var_here)) else 0)
(1 if (2==(your_var_here)) else 0)
(1 if (3==(your_var_here)) else 0)
You can modify this for greater than, less than, greater than or equal to, or less than or equal to with:
<,>,<=,>=
Maybe you'd like to set a range of values that activates the boolean to true? This example sets the boolean to true if your_var_here is greater than 1, but lower than 2.
(1 if (1<(your_var_here)<2) else 0)


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Drag and drop multiple files in the VSE?
Is there a way to drag and drop multiple video files in the VSE at once?

At once I assume?

Yes trying to drag and drop several files at once.

this question shows little research effort.

Bonus tip: If you want these clips to be stacked on each other, select all then press Shift+S to snap them to green playhead. They will stack vertically.

Yes, you can but you have to do it using the modal file selector which opens by using "Add > Movie Clip" from the sequencer.
You cannot drag-and-drop from the file browser pane which shows by default in Blender 2.8's Video Editing view preset.


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How do I use Proxies in the VSE correctly?
When I choose a 'Proxy Render Size' in the properties panel of the preview window then it seems that this is all I have to do in order to boost up the performance of the preview display for playing video. At least it is visible that the resolution changes to a chosen value that seems to match to the chosen proxy render size.
But I have watched a tutorial in which it is explained that I first have to make settings in the properties panel in the sequencer window under 'Proxy/Timecode' > 'Set Selected Strip Proxies'. According to the tutorial the button 'Rebuild Proxy and Timecode Indices' should be pressed then. After that the computer starts to calculate data which takes a moment. It is explained in the tutorial that only after that process is finished one should select the proxy render size in the preview window.
Now my question: What is the difference between both choosing proxy render size in the preview window directly versus making selections in the sequencer's properties first and then choosing proxy render size in the preview window and why do I have to stick to this order?
The Tutorial is 7 - Blender Video Editing (Preview Performance BOOST! [ Video Proxy ]) from Mikeycal Meyers.

Blender Video Editing (Preview Performance BOOST! [ Video Proxy ]) https://youtu.be/KZl1xS9Lmvw

This is a great question and actually has a simple answer. For optimal performance, both steps are equally necessary and have their respective purpose:
a) Sequencer: Generating Proxies
The first step is to generate proxies at one or more resolutions. In the sequencer, select the video strip in question and select the Proxy tab from the properties pane on the right hand side (View > Sidebar).

If not by default, tick the box in front of Strip Proxy & Timecode to enable the sequencer to use any available proxy that may exist for this clip. This doesn't do anything other than tell the sequencer "hey, if there's a proxy on disk at the resolution requested and enabled below, please use it if any preview window asks for it!". At this stage no preview window is using any proxies yet, this strip has only been enabled to use any proxy on disk as soon as it finds one.
Ignore the next two boxes (Custom Proxy > Directory and File), they're there to override the default location of proxies, which is the same folder the sequence is located in on disk, always set to BL_proxy/images/<res>, where res is the resolution of the specific proxy. Blender offers to render at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% respectively.
The next four check-boxes enable the concrete version(s) of proxies to render as well as to use, if available. Select the resolution you wish to generate.
Rendering the proxy: Just above, in Proxy Settings, click Rebuild Proxy and Timecode Indices. This will generate and save the proxies to disk. The Storage dropdown can be used to choose where proxies are to be saved.

This done, the proxy/all proxies have been generated and are activated for the sequence/clip. Note that you can untick the proxy check-boxes in the sequence's properties pane to disable the usage (or (re-)generation) of them temporarily - this will not delete the proxy sequence on disk. Any preview window set to using proxies (we'll get there) will resize the sequence/clip in realtime, which is CPU heavy and generally results in poor performance, hence the caching we're doing here.
Proxies have to be generated for each clip/sequence you want to speed-up playback of. Multiple can be selected at once to enable proxy generation & execute render on.
b) Preview Window: Enabling & Choosing the Proxy Resolution to Use
With our clip now being equipped with one or more generated proxies we can ask our preview window to use a specific one and it will do so if a proxy for the given resolution exists and is activated for the clip. Note that this setting is preview-window-specific, meaning we can have more than one preview-window with them using different proxies.
To ask a preview window to use a specific proxy, go to the the sidebar on the right hand side of it (view > sidebar) and in the View tab select the proxy resolution you would like to use from the Proxy Render Size dropdown and enable usage by ticking Use Proxies. This will tell the preview window to
a) not use the original resolution (clip/image sequence on disk) but render and the given resolution and
b) use the on-disk proxy if available (which we just generated above).
This should now result in much smoother scrubbing.

The order in which you perform the two steps is irrelevant. However, both are necessary to have (a) and use (b) a proxy for a given sequence.
I hope this helps and clarifies how proxies work in Blender!
NB: This is valid for Blender 4.1.1 - some details might be different or missing in later or earlier versions. Feel free to comment and I'll update.

Welcome to BSE. Nice answer! Good going answering an overlooked question.

Thanks for the welcome @David - yeah I couldn't just leave this sitting here unattended. Thought I'd use the opportunity to fill the gap with a (hopefully) complete overview to shed some light onto it for whomever it's a first-encounter with proxies :p

yeesh. It's taking over an hour to render 25% for a 2 hour raw video (1080p)

How frequently do I need to rebuild the indices? Hopefully not each time I add a new clip to the sequencer?

Could do with an update for 2.81 - I can't find any of the things required in the current interface

@JoePhillips: Render time depends on your CPU. While it comes at a cost, particularly on older hardware, it's a one-time investment and helps to speed up playback, so might be well worth it.

@JamesWatkins: Half a decade later but still worth clarifying: Proxies are generated per clip/sequence. You will only need to re-generate a proxy if the actual sequence or clip has changed externally. e.g. you use an animation that you created externally and might update intermittently. NB.: You can generate proxies for multiple clips at once, see set-by-step above.

@Markm0705: I've updated the instructions to Blender 4.1.1's interface. Let me know if anything doesn't seem to check out.


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In Textured shading mode, texture does not appear on an object unless the object is selected
I have textured a bunch of objects through the UV/Image Editor (Unwrap UV's > Image > Open Image > etc.).
For some objects that I've textured in this way, in Object Mode, the texture on the object will disappear when I deselect the object (even whilst I am still in Texture Shading mode). The texture is replaced by a pure white (I have Shading > Shadeless turned on). Strangely, for some objects, this does not happen at all. I am pretty sure that I followed the same steps to texture each object (exact same workflow pattern in the UI). I double-checked and repeated the UV unwrapping and texturing process for each object. Same problem occurs.
All things considered, it's a minor annoyance, but for some reason it is very disruptive for me. I would rather be able to see all textures for all objects while in the Textured shading mode. What steps should I take?
My Blender version is 2.72b, Windows 7 x86-64, Blender Internal render engine.

This would seem like a bug maybe . . . I don't have much experience with the BI engine as it has been discontinued.


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Unity3D controls in Blender
I am used to the control setup in Unity (moving around the world/scene) and I would like to use the same controls in Blender. How can I import these settings without changing them all manually. I tried, but failed and had to reset the controls.

You can go to User preferences > Input and set Presets(drop down menu to the top left and another one to right) to Maya.

It's been a long time since I've used Unity, but I think Unity and Maya are very similar in this aspect.
If Maya is not similar, try the 3DsMax preset.

Unfortunately both presets are still very different from Unity.

There seems to be a git repo that cover this, I'll give it a try as well.
https://github.com/niusounds/Blender-Keyconfig

i found solution, just import configuration: https://gist.github.com/bitinn/22f6fefe026d8d9e83468864edb8f835


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Unable to install cube surfer addon by PyroEvil
This is the error message I get every time I try to enable the cube surfer addon:

What am I doing wrong?

Sorry but i have already seen that post.
It did not help me. It is a different problem

It should be an OS-related issue. this addon requires some higher Visual Studio Redistributable version installed, like 2010 or 2012. Then restart Blender, enable the addon again.

I have tried the above but it didn't help. Thank you for the suggestion though :)

Hmm, That's quite strange, I had exactly the same error message as yours, but it work for me. Probably it is something about your OS I suppose. Or try completely uninstall the Visual Studio Redistributable then reinstall.


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How to play action actuator logic brick via python
I want to know how to play(send true pulse) to an action actuator via script (logic brick with all the settings) since playAction doesn't have animation property which I need.

You can use python to activate the Action actuator with this script. You will need three logic bricks: A sensor (to trigger it all), the python controller, and the action actuator.

cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()

act = cont.actuators["Action"] # the name of the Action actuator

if cont.sensors["Keyboard"].positive: # trigger when buton pressed

    #Set all the properties you want
    act.action = "CubeAction"
    act.frameStart = 1
    act.frameEnd = 30
    act.priority = 0

    cont.activate(act) # start the actuator

You can set as many or as few of the settings that you need with python or in the logic brick, however the python will overrule any duplicate settings. Here is a list of all the settings for the Action actuator.
Do note the the two minimum setting you need are the action name, and frame end.

c.activate(act) was the only thing what i needed but thx for all

Your code refers to the sensor and actuator explicitly by name. Could they be looked up by the "in" and "out" connectors of the controller brick?

@Passiday no, you have to specify the logic bricks by name, or id.


text:
How to avoid terminator artifacts while still using smooth shading and the new pointiness attribute?
I'm sure we're all familiar with the Cycles normal bug (aka terminator bug) that causes bad shading on sharp edges when smooth shading is set. The normal fixes to this are to use higher levels of subsurf (which lessens but does not remove the problem), or the Edge Split modifier which solves it by splitting the sharp edge.
I want to use the new Pointiness attribute in Cycles materials. However, it doesn't work on areas that are Edge Split, because the edge is now technically open. If I turn off edge split, then it works, but I'm hit with shading glitches again.
What can I do that would let me use pointiness and edge split (somehow get the pointiness data before the edge split is applied?) or counter the shading glitches in some way other than edge split?

notice also edge split modifier can be used.

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/91913/some-areas-of-the-mesh-are-dark

Yes
You can use autosmooth (added in 2.71) instead of edge split:

It works exactly like edge split, but without actually splitting the edge.

Thank you. I am using this successfully on some meshes. On other, even if I check the Auto Smooth box, the field for Angle is greyed out. Turning autosmooth on seems to be making the shading worse. This is an imported .obj. Why can't I set an Angle?
EDIT: Nevermind, it seems I imported it with Smooth Groups. I cleared the Custom Split Normal Data under Geometry Data and now it's working.


text:
How to get Cloth to ignore collisions with specific vertex groups?
I've got a thick cloth simulation, with a cage  that is simulated, then solidified, and my original model (With armature deformation) is mesh-deformed to the simulated cloth.
This works perfectly, but I need the simulated cloth to avoid colliding with the legs of the character, but if I add a collision modifier/physics to the original model, the simulated cloth collides with the jacket that's copying its deformation, so it goes haywire!
Here's the base pose:

Here's what it looks like with the simulation running:

And here's the clipping that I'm trying to get rid of:

Can I choose to ignore certain vertex groups in cloth collisions, between objects?

This is very difficult to picture from just your description. Could you upload a screenshot? A gif animation of the problem would be even better.

Here it is when idle, the mesh cage in wireframe,
Here it is when simulated,
And here's it causing clipping through the original model, the one it's influencing

(images now in the original post)

Instead of trying to selectively ignore vertices, just add some collision objects that follow the legs. Create some super simple ellipsoid colliders that are parented to his thighs, knees, and/or calves and make them more-or-less the same size as the legs.
Bob's your uncle.

I'll try this! Seems like a pretty effective solution if I bind the whole object to the leg bones

I'd love to know how it works out!


text:
Noisy edges on my animation

I'm rendering an animation and don't know how to smooth these noisy edges - sampling is also high. I tried clamping to no avail.

Have a look here: http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/7-ways-get-rid-fireflies/. Let us know if none of these methods work.

What resolution are you rendering at? That looks like you just have a low resolution.

Resolution is 1920 x 1080 with 100%. Plane is 20% of all image but this white pixels is still annoyng even in 1:1 view.
Im pined in post all sampling and light path settings.
Im was trying this methods and many of other. Surface of plane is clean. But on edges is very noisy and i dont know why.

im pinned in post what that does.
im think its kind a bug.

It's not a bug.

Don't use branched path tracing.
If you really REALLY REALLY want to use branched path tracing, then you need to increase your Anti-Aliasing samples. For each ONE pass on one pixel, you're doing 1024 Diffuse samples, and 2048 Glossy samples, but only 1 AA sample. Your Diffuse and Glossy settings are multiplied by the number of AA samples you use. Secondly, your AA settings define how many "passes" each pixel is given. You're only making two passes.
...and don't use branched path tracing.
Editorial: The only reason I say not to use branched path tracing (BPT) is that it's a specialized tool for solving a particular problem. Using it for a situation like this is unnecessarily complicated and creates more problems than it solves. It's common for Blenderheads to use BPT because they think of it like a one-button-click that "makes things better," but there's only one thing that BPT can do better: render faster... sometimes.
Don't worry about speed until speed becomes the bottleneck that you need to solve right now. And BPT is only faster if you know how to set it up for your particular use-case. Otherwise, it's likely to create more problems than it solves.
It's like the old adage about optimizing code "The First Rule of Program Optimization: Don't do it. The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): Don't do it yet." — Michael A. Jackson
Similarly, the first rule of BPT should be "Don't use it," and the second rule (for experts only!) "Don't use it yet."

I'll editorialize a bit in my answer ;-)

authors: Сергей Лебедев


text:
Object Chasing Another Object
I have two objects, Object A and Object B. Object B can be constantly moving whatever I set its position to be, or it's movement. It could also not be moving at all. I want to be able to make it so that Object A chases Object B (by moving towards it every frame) at a constant speed where if Object B changes position, Object A's direction of movement changes as well. I am using normal Blender Render, so can someone suggest me an easy way to do this, even if it involves Python coding. It's basically making an object face another and translating on its own local forward.
Want I don't want is the two objects two have their vertex positions linked to each other so if I drag one in the editor, the other one will move as well (aka parenting). I do not want that.
This means that if Object A's speed is set to 0, then changing Object B's position won't affect Object A's position.
Again I want that so as I play the animation frame by frame, the first object is moving towards the second object at a constant speed and the second object itself can move somewhere else which will change the heading of the first object in order to still be following the second object.

Have you tried setting your objects to follow a curve as opposed to parenting A to B?

I did think about that but it means I have to figure overly complicated math equations and it gets even hard when object b moves conplicatedly.

Here is something I put together to answer this q about a month ago, noticed it active and dug it up.
Before running script set up a scene with a sphere named "Sphere" and a cone named "Cone", give the cone a track to constraint to make it face the sphere.  The Cone is given a speed custom property.  Animate the sphere and the cone will track it.  This is done with frame change handlers.
NB: Need to fix for when the speed is zero, the track to constraint has no effect, (simple driver) 1 if speed > 0.0 else 0 and what to do when the objects collide.
import bpy
context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene

obA = scene.objects.get("Cone")
obA["speed"] = 0.01

obB = scene.objects.get("Sphere")
preloc = obB.matrix_world.to_translation()

def getloc(scene):
    global preloc
    preloc = obB.matrix_world.to_translation()

def setloc(scene):
    global preloc

    # set location for frame 1
    if scene.frame_current == 1:
        obA.location = (10, 10, 10)

    loc = obB.matrix_world.to_translation()
    v = loc - preloc
    if v.length > 0.000001: # it has moved
        print(scene.frame_current, v)

    # move object A towards B
    dv = loc - obA.location

    speed = obA["speed"]
    print(dv.length)
    if speed > 0.000001 and dv.length > 0.000001:
        obA.location += speed * dv.normalized()

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.clear()
bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(getloc)
bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.clear()
bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(setloc)

This is the kind of answer I want. I will check it out when I get home.

I'm still not home yet...


text:
Python function behaves differently in a loop?
I rather hastily wrote a short python script which orients the local rotation of an object so the Y goes along the longest axis, without affecting the apparent global orientation.
import bpy
import math

def set_orientation(ob, target_rotation):
    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = ob
    #ob: object to operate on

    #this assumes you are starting at 0 rotaton, so you pobably want to apply rotation before doing anything:
    bpy.ops.object.transform_apply(location=False, rotation=True, scale=False) #apply rotation
    #get inverse of rotation we want:
    t_rot = (math.radians(target_rotation[0]*-1),
             math.radians(target_rotation[1]*-1),
             math.radians(target_rotation[2]*-1))
    #we need to apply the rotations in reverse order, so unsure that we are in zyx:
    ob.rotation_mode = 'ZYX'
    ob.rotation_euler = (t_rot) #set rotation to inverse
    bpy.ops.object.transform_apply(location=False, rotation=True, scale=False) #apply rotation

    t_rot = (math.radians(target_rotation[0]),
             math.radians(target_rotation[1]),
             math.radians(target_rotation[2]))
    ob.rotation_mode = 'XYZ' #set rotation mode back (was zyx, so we want xyz)
    ob.rotation_euler = (t_rot) #set rotation

def fix_orientation(ob):
    if ob.type != 'MESH':
        return

    d = ob.dimensions
    correction = (0,0,0)

    if d[0] > d[1] and d[0] > d[2]:
        correction = (0,0,90)

    if d[1] > d[0] and d[0] > d[2]:
        correction = (0,0,0)

    if d[2] > d[0] and d[2] > d[1]:
        correction = (90,0,0)

    # hack for fixing rotation on boards at 45 degree angles:
    if abs(d[0] - d[1]) < .1:
        correction = (0,0,45)

    if abs(d[0] - d[2]) < .1:
        correction = (0,45,0)

    if abs(d[1] - d[2]) < .1:
        correction = (45,0,0)

    set_orientation(ob, correction)

for ob in bpy.data.objects:
    # doesn't work as expected
    fix_orientation(ob)

# works as expected:
#fix_orientation(bpy.context.object)

However when I run the function fix_orientation() from within the loop, it changes the actual object rotation in global space. This doesn't happen if I just call it once on the active object.
Why is it only working as intended when called once?
What am I doing wrong (aside from the rather uncleanly implementation)?

Interesting.  Another way would be to manipulate the mesh vertex coords  v.co = v.co.yxz would swap x and y for instance, would probably naff some of the normals tho.

The loop is not the problem. The dimensions are based on the selection, which is why running the loop did not work.
All you need is to add in selection and deselection to your script.
Notice on line 6 ob.select = True and on line 25 ob.select = False.
That selects the object the loop is working on, then deselects it when that iteration of the loop is done.
The reason you need to select and deselect each object is because ob.dimensions is the bounding box of the selection, not just one object.
Which is why it seamed to work for only one object at a time.
Entire script:
import bpy
import math

def set_orientation(ob, target_rotation):
    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = ob
    ob.select = True
    #ob: object to operate on

    #this assumes you are starting at 0 rotaton, so you pobably want to apply rotation before doing anything:
    bpy.ops.object.transform_apply(location=False, rotation=True, scale=False) #apply rotation
    #get inverse of rotation we want:
    t_rot = (math.radians(target_rotation[0]*-1),
             math.radians(target_rotation[1]*-1),
             math.radians(target_rotation[2]*-1))
    #we need to apply the rotations in reverse order, so unsure that we are in zyx:
    ob.rotation_mode = 'ZYX'
    ob.rotation_euler = (t_rot) #set rotation to inverse
    bpy.ops.object.transform_apply(location=False, rotation=True, scale=False) #apply rotation

    t_rot = (math.radians(target_rotation[0]),
             math.radians(target_rotation[1]),
             math.radians(target_rotation[2]))
    ob.rotation_mode = 'XYZ' #set rotation mode back (was zyx, so we want xyz)
    ob.rotation_euler = (t_rot) #set rotation
    ob.select = False

def fix_orientation(ob):
    if ob.type != 'MESH':
        return

    d = ob.dimensions
    correction = (0,0,0)

    if d[0] > d[1] and d[0] > d[2]:
        correction = (0,0,90)

    if d[1] > d[0] and d[0] > d[2]:
        correction = (0,0,0)

    if d[2] > d[0] and d[2] > d[1]:
        correction = (90,0,0)

    # hack for fixing rotation on boards at 45 degree angles:
    if abs(d[0] - d[1]) < .1:
        correction = (0,0,45)

    if abs(d[0] - d[2]) < .1:
        correction = (0,45,0)

    if abs(d[1] - d[2]) < .1:
        correction = (45,0,0)

    set_orientation(ob, correction)

for ob in bpy.data.objects:
    fix_orientation(ob)


text:
How do I append an object so it is still correctly connected to its armature?
What are the tips for appending so that it works well? I tried to append but when the object comes in to the scene it's fractured e.g. bones don't fit the object, there seems to be multiple meshes etc.
Should I append in some specific order so that things come in the right place? First object, then bones, then material, etc.? I have the relative path set to ON if that helps.
The object is 'Sintel' from blender swap.

sintel should have groups available, selecting one of the groups should import all relevant parts.

I foundt out that using the group appending was the key to this problem .

Can you elaborate?


text:
How do I close a view Window?
I've read and seen all the questions and the directions say that you have to click and drag the tab used to create a new window over the window until an arrow appears and it will remove the view window. BUT I KEEP TRYING AND NOW I HAVE OVER TWENTY WINDOWS OPEN I NEEEEEDDDD HEEELLPPPP! can someone tag a youtube video or make a better description of how in hell im supposed to close these lol.

There is a youtube video linked in the answer in my previous comment.

It's a bit tricky, because to choose the window you want to close you'll have to first drag the cursor towards the neighboring window.

Otherwise you'll just duplicate the window.


text:
Disable double sided normals
I'm currently using the latest version of Blender and I've noticed something different. Models seem to render both sides of a model when in texture mode - I recall in previous versions that only 1 side would show while the other would be invisible (which is what I want). I'm exporting my models to a game engine and it shows only shows the surface normals on 1 side. Does anyone know how to have Blender only show 1 side of a face?
Here's an image:
The left window is what I expect, but the faces on the right window I expect to be invisible.

Literally just figured this out about 10 seconds after posting this. Here's the solution for anyone with the same problem:
Find the Shading section press N to open the Properties panel - should appear on the right side of your window. Find the Shading section in that panel and make sure 'Backface Culling' is checked. Voila.

This helped me with a possibly unrelated normals issue, where the polygons seemed to overlap with themselves (still not sure how this happened in first place)


text:
Context becomes a Nonetype object when called by a custom panel
I'm now debugging my code for 2 days and I can't find any solutions to my problem.
I am building an add-on for my company and I need to create a Panel to call the new operator.
The operator by himself works but when I call it with the Custom Panel it gives me an AttributeError : 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'data' on this function :
def parenting(parent,child):
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
    pbone = bpy.context.object.data.edit_bones['%s'%parent]
    cbone = bpy.context.object.data.edit_bones['%s'%child]

    pbone.select = True
    cbone.select = True
    bpy.context.selected_bones

    scn.update()

    cbone.parent = pbone

So I believe the class where I create the panel and call the operator has some issues
class LayoutDemoPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the scene context of the properties editor"""
    bl_label = "Automation"
    bl_idname = "automation"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "world"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        #scene = bpy.context.scene
        layout.prop(bpy.context.scene, 'MyWB')
        layout.prop(bpy.context.scene, 'MyT')
        layout.prop(bpy.context.scene, 'Myd')
        col = layout.column()
        col.prop(bpy.context.scene, 'Car_path')
        col.prop(bpy.context.scene, 'Wheel_path')
        row = layout.row()
        row.label(text = "Environment")
        row.operator(operator = "dh.autom")
        return {"FINISHED"}

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(AutomationOperator)
    bpy.utils.register_class(LayoutDemoPanel)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(AutomationOperator)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(LayoutDemoPanel)

#if __name__ == "__main__":
bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)

If any one has any idea?

I add another variable in the draw() to have 'draw(self, context):' It still doesn't work

I resolved my problem finally,
i'm just going to share the solution in case of someone has the same issue
the error was coming from the definition of the parent bone and the child one. Because I am in edit mode, I have to define them in the armature and not in the object.
So instead of
pbone = bpy.context.object.data.edit_bones['%s'%parent]

the correct code is
amt = bpy.data.armatures['PLATFORMAmt']
pbone = amt.edit_bones['%s'%parent]

If the rig object is selected, ie has context, then context.object.data is amt.   This is what the poll method is for, to disable operator or hide panel when certain context conditions aren't met.  The above will be fine as long as there is an armature named "PLATFORMAmt" in the file, but may not be in same scene as context scene.


text:
When working with different scenes, lower channels fade out
I am using Blender 2.74 with LUbuntu 14.10. In this case preview and rendering acted different, as I explain below. I tried also in Blender 2.69 and in this version preview was showing the same behaviour as rendering, which is what I am trying to resolve.
I've got a project with 6 channels. Channel 1 is just for Color strips, to easy the process of fading in and out. Channel 2 is a Movie strip. Channel 3 is the (processed) audio of that movie and channels 4 to 6 contain different Scenes with text fading in and out.
The movie and its related sound also fade in and out. I play with Keyframes and opacity for all fades. When previewing everything runs smooth.
But when rendering, with no apparent reason the movie strip fades out to black just a short time after its programmed fade in, and stays that way short before ending, where it fades in again (by itself) before performing its programmed fading out.
If I move that strip from channel 2 to channel 7, then its channel 4 (i. e., one of the text scenes) the one fading in and out with no apparent reason.
I've checked Keyframes in Graph Editor for the different strips and I can't see anything abnormal. All the strips have an Alpha Over blend except the color strips in channel one, with a Cross blend.

You should really add some example images of what you mean. And finally it seems more as a misconfiguration than a real question that might help others with similar problems... Might be improved to be more helpful.

I found the answer. In the properties tab of the text scene, render, shading, alpha has to be turned to Transparent. I guess there is a bug in version 2.74 that shows the preview in the wrong way.
Tx!!!


text:
Video Sequence Editor clips
I am wondering if Blenders Video Sequence Editor has the concept of clips, that I can temporarily store.
For example:

First I would take a video clip from file explorer and drag into the edit strip view.
Then I would take the strip and make a bunch of hard cuts that would result in a bunch of new smaller clips. Could I then take those smaller cut clips from the edit strip and store them somewhere in the project without having to export or anything. So I could take any particular clip and decide I want that here or here...

Hope my explanation made sense.

Unfortunatelly I never figured out such a function..
this is my solution to the problem:

group all your imported videos into a metastrip on layer 1 with CTRL + G and access them selecting the strip and tapping TAB

have your cuts into the metastrip

copy your desired clips from the metastrip CTRL + C exit the metalevel unselecting everything and tapping TAB so paste wherever you want with CTRL + V. I suggest you to keep the 1st layer hidden, so the "metatemp" (i will call It this way) will stay metatemp and not visible on the preview area.

repeat these operations from step 2 any time you need.

So I guess video editing with Blender is not quite up to snuff of dedicated video editing software like final cut or lightworks...

the VSE of blender is a new feature, will surely be implemented in the future.. For now, It's not the best video editor on the world... but for me, It works enough, love the proxies function :)

You could also download the blender gooseberry branch. https://builder.blender.org/download/
You can make different scenes using the video sequence editor. So like in final cut pro you can make different timelines.
In blender (the gooseberry branch) you can then add the scenes (but you have to check use sequence in the properties panel (N)) in the timeline you want to work in.
for more info

You don't need the Gooseberry Branch any more - it's now supported in 2.77.


text:
Controlling or syncing any F-Curve animation speed based on a path's Evaluation Time curve?
I have a camera following a path, and I have the camera rotation animated by F-Curves the traditional way. What I want to do is: Whenever I make whatever changes on the path speed on the Evaluation Time curve, I want to somehow sync the rest of the camera animation with it. This way I could have the camera rotation animation taking place always at the same points along a path.
I already looked into Drivers a bit, but I hit a wall when I realised I can't use keyframes AND drivers at the same time on a property.

@cegaton Thanks but those are irrelevant to my question. The question basically is whether it's possible to influence another animation graph of an object (eg. a set of rotation and scaling keyframes on an object) using the evaluation time curve, to control their speed according to the path speed.

Ok, so I made some progress with this, but not exactly the way I wanted to.
I discovered that I can make an animation evaluation curve, similar to the path speed one, if I convert my animation to an Action (simply by switching to the NLA editor view), then selecting my animation strip, then activating the "Animated Strip Time" selection from the properties panel. Now, if you enter edit mode with 'tab' in the NLA and switch to the Graph editor view, an extra curve will be available for controlling Strip time. HOWEVER, there doesn't seem to be a way to control the values with a Driver (since the values are by default, like, keyframed and you can't remove the green and you can't have both keyframes and drivers at the same time on a property). A workaround is simply copying-pasting the Path Evaluation curve into the object animation Strip Time curve.
I will report back if I ever find a better way to do this.


text:
Shader node to get z value
I am putting together a coastal scene. In order to make the rocks close to the water shiny from the water, I would like to set the roughness as function of the height (z value). If all the rocks where single objects with unique location, I suppose it would be easily done. However, my landscape is a big 3D scanned object and I would like the reflection to change accross the mesh. Is there a node that achieves this?
Ludvig

Personally, I would create a 'Sea Level' object and extract the Z of its Object Space like this:

Now the Z output is a number; the height above/below sea level in Blender units. You can scale that number, map it to another range, put it through curves or a color ramp.. whatever you need. If you put this pair of nodes into a little group, you can quickly include it in any material

Add a "Texture coordinate" node, and plug the "Generated" output into a "Separate XYZ" node.
The "Z" output will take values between 0 for the lowest point to 1 for the highest point.
Plug it into a "color ramp" or a "Map range" in order to fine-tune the output value.


text:
Match camera to with photo with points
I have a bird eye view of a site as well as accurately modelled topography and houses. I would like to get a perfect match of the bird eye photo and a blender camera. Fspy wont do the trick I don't have any clear axis and it isnt accurate enough. Ideally I would select a bunch of point on both the model and the image and a program would do the rest. Do you guys know of such a tool?
Ludvig

I think you would have to un-distort your source image before working with it in fspy. Scroll to the very end of this page to see an example https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-90/

Thank you, but by bird eye I dont mean fish eye. There is no distortion. Its simply too zoomed out and complex to have any dominant axis

Oh, okay my bad. Do you have any example of the type of image you are working with ?


text:
Exporting FBX Files - One Action per FBX?
Hello everyone!
I am new at blender but i need to learn it for a job. I worked like 3 years on maya but I would like to add my maya workflow on blender...
My probleme is : I would like to export each action of my scene as one fbx for each. I could export them one by one but sometimes my work need to have around 40-50 different actions.

This is my goal, but acutally I did 1 by 1!
If I compare to maya I would like duplicate the game exporter who actually work well for my work
if someone know something similar on blender let me know or I would like to script it.
thanks you !


text:
When pressing A it doesnt select all 2.81
It's the latest build v2.81.16
When I press A once it should select all but now i have to smash it at least ten times before it selects all but usually it just deselects everything. SO, how do I select all now? Preferences says that its binded to A but that's not the case apparently.

Not seeing the same issue, same version ... do you anything else bound to A?   Is there an issue with your keyboard?  Can't think of anything else.

Nope, I haven't touched them at all. And I'm pretty sure my keyboard is okay, maybe it magically fixes itself or I just learn how to use these things. Either way, would have been nice to have the option between these new pie menus and the old ones.

One thing that it different it would seem is that deselect all is double-tap A.  Seems you are having the opposite problem to me.  If you're on windows make sure that you don't have sticky keys enabled.

This really sounds like a keyboard issue where you're getting double "A" keypresses registering.  In my experience, it's not unusual to have a bad connection on a keyboard that you don't notice much during regular typing but that acts up when you use a key shortcut, just because of differences in the positioning of fingers and force of keystrokes when touch-typing versus using shortcuts.  Also remember, if you do any gaming with this keyboard, the WASD cluster tends to suffer some of the worst abuses.
I'd suggest disabling the dbl-A ("double click A") mapping in the Keymap preferences, to see if that resolves the problem.  In Preferences -> Keymap, search for "Key-Binding" of "A" and unclick the checkboxes for the dbl-A bindings -- note that there's a binding for each mode, so maybe disable "Object Mode" and "Mesh" to start.  If that fixes the problem, then Blender is registering double-taps on the "A" key, whether your keyboard is to blame or not.  You may also want to try checking in an editor whether hitting "A" at different angles or with less than usual force occasionally registers multiple keystrokes.

I use Blender 4.1.1. I was having the same problem. I had to press A like 10 times before it selected all.
Then I realized, when I press A only once it shows me the pie selections object mode menu. When I press again, it selects all. But there needs to be like half a second in between the presses (not immediately one after the other).
To deselect it, you do the same.

1st A press -> the pie selections object mode
2nd A press -> Deselects all.


text:
How to change the stopwatch settings to get a “clean” counting time?
Good day, everyone! I render the same scene with various renderers and try to learn which one of them does the job faster than the others. Main issue here is that the process of rendering on the CPU runs in multiple threads and each renderer that I use (appleseed, YafaRay, LuxCore, Cycles) within Blender takes different approach to parallelisation. I use a regular stopwatch to measure the rendering time, hence results that I get differ for different renderers. My problem is that the time that I require is a processor time which depends on the CPU clock frequency and other technical specifications.
Could anyone help me with that? Can it be configured in the settings of timer somewhere or is there, maybe, any external solutions?

Using an external program to measure the execution time for each thread, while taking CPU scheduling, context switches, interrupts etc. into account would require an advanced profiling tool and an API for the operating system that allows to perform such detailed measurements. This is not something that can be covered in a single answer and is off-topic for Blender's StackExchange.
I think the whole premise of your question is going in a wrong direction though, since the mentioned render engines use different conceptual approaches for the rendering. Comparing the render time of LuxCore and Cycles is like comparing the speed of a race car with a cruise ship. While they both transport people from one place to another, they serve a different purpose and therefore function differently. For instance LuxCore is able to simulate certain physical properties of light, like dispersion through a prism, which Cycles cannot do. Therefore Cycles would render such as scene much faster, but the results would be less physically accurate. In conclusion the execution time is not a helpful metric for this comparison.
That being said you can get precise time measurements, compared to manually operating a stopwatch, by using a simple Python script. This does not measure the execution time per thread though.
The script gets all the available render engines in Blender and renders the scene with them. The rendering is repeated measurements_per_engine times to get multiple data points, since the systems load will impact the measurements. In the end some basics statistics are calculated and printed to the console. The console can be toggled through Window > Toggle System Console if you're using Windows, otherwise you'd have to start Blender from the command line. Alternatively you could modify the script and write the measurements to a file. Be aware that the script currently freezes the UI, but since you're trying to benchmark the render engines you shouldn't be using Blender during the rendering anyway since this would impact the timings.
import bpy
import time
import statistics

render_engines = ['BLENDER_WORKBENCH', 'BLENDER_EEVEE']

# Get the render engines registered through Python
registered_engine_types = bpy.types.RenderEngine.__subclasses__()

for engine_type in registered_engine_types:
    render_engines.append(engine_type.bl_idname)

# The number of renders per engine for which we measure the render time
measurements_per_engine = 2
render_times = {}

for render_engine in render_engines:
    render_times[render_engine] = []

for i in range(measurements_per_engine):
    for render_engine in render_engines:
        bpy.context.scene.render.engine = render_engine
        start = time.perf_counter()
        bpy.ops.render.render()
        end = time.perf_counter()
        render_times[render_engine].append(end - start)

for render_engine in render_engines:
    timings = render_times[render_engine]
    min_time = min(timings)
    max_time = max(timings)
    mean_time = statistics.mean(timings)
    stdev_time = statistics.stdev(timings)
    print(f'{render_engine}\n min: {min_time}s\n max: {max_time}s\n mean: {mean_time}s\n stdev: {stdev_time}s\n')


text:
I deleted my light
I accidentally deleted my light. Now I can't get it back. I tried adding one of the other light options, but it doesn't seem to cast the same kind of light. I also can't seem to find one that says "Light".
Thanks

The light in the default scene is a point light named "Light". It has the following properties:

Location: $(4.0762, 1.0055,  5.9039)$
Power: $1000\ W$
Radius: $0.1\ m$

A new point light can be added through the menus Add > Light > Point. If you set the same properties for the newly created point light it should look just like before.

In general, if you've made a mistake you can undo changes by pressing Ctrl + Z or through Edit > Undo in Blender's header / top bar.

Much Thank you, my friend!

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