text:
How to remove part of a model and create a handle?
I'm new to blender so sorry if I posted it in the wrong place or someone else has already answered this.
What i am trying to make is a bleach bottle something like this:

Right now i currently have a basic shape for the bottle:

but i want to know how i can remove a curve from the model and put in a curved handle.

Yes, as lemon mentioned bellow, you probably started in the wrongfoot. It will be hard to achieve that through direct vertex manipulation, you need a lower poly version of your mesh, add a Subsurf modifier and work from there as illustrated bellow

Not a direct answer, but I propose this approach :

Upper left, the base shape (only extruded cube)
Lower left, the same with a subsurf modifier
Upper right, vertices adjustment in order to fit the shape
Lower right, the same with subsurf

Edit for some explanations as Thefundude said to be new to Blender :
The main idea is to start from a basic shape which as the topology of the bottle. So mainly here, has a hole below the handle and is opened at the top.
The very basic first shape is here for that (defining the topology), but also, as it is very basic (few vertices), its vertices can be used as handles to reshape this starting mesh to the wanted shape.
The subsurface modifier is used to round the shape.
Here is how to set it up :

Select your starting mesh
Go to the modifier panel and select the subsurface modifier
Give it one or two subdivisions

Now the first part to enhance will probably be the handle. We want it curve. We will use the spin tool for that.

Remove the non curve part
Place your cursor at a pivot point (the spin uses the cursor as pivot). Select the location and Shift+S and 'cursor to selected'
Select the vertices to spin
Place the view in the spin axis. Here front view so NumPad1
Then Alt+R to invoke the spin tool
Change the amount of steps to an amount which more or less preserves the proportionalities of the whole model (the same precision everywhere, for now)
Finally, as the spin has created vertices which overlaps already created vertices (these on the bottom right here), select them (or all) and remove doubles.

After that, this is mainly tuning and adjusting matter.
For instance you can scale the handle :

Or add some more geometry to refine the shape :

Or want to add more edge loops, in particular to flatten the base (I used here the 'inset tool' which is invoked by I (then adjust moving the mouse) :

Step by step (but starting from an appropriated topology, adding few vertices as you want to master the shape easily) you can refine your shape without arriving to the complex situation of your question.
Cheers !


text:
How can I create a milky, smooth, transluscent plastic material with nodes?
I have been searching around for quite a while now. How to create a plastic material which absorbs light with properties of having a volume absorption node;is shiny on the surface (glossy) and is a nice milky white. Something of an eye candy as far as node materials are concerned.
I do not know if this question has been answered yet, so if it has please send me a link and I will check out the procedure. Thanks..!

It would be helpful if you could add some pictures of what kind of look you are going for.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Material Node Problem
I want color from one image and texture from another image for the material of the dress I am working on. Currently I am using a mix shader to join the two images but I am not getting the desired result.
Below is an image with the color I want (I set the mix factor to 0):
Below is an image with the texture I want (I set the mix factor to 1):

Is there any way I can get 100% of both effects. I don't want any color from the second image and changing from color to non-color data in Image Texture Node doesn't seem to do much.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'll add my blender file in case it helps.

This isn't an answer to the question, but you shouldn't be plugging green outputs (shader) into yellow inputs (colour).

yeah sorry I was just playing around with the nodes hoping the problem would suddenly disappear

The mix node is for mixing different shaders, or materials, not different parts of one material. To add the "Texture" effect you want, I took a look at your file and reconfigured your shader to use a Bump node.
First, within the Chocofur_Fabric_Basic material, I removed the overlay node (unnecessary) and replaced it with a Bump node, routing the Main_Color input directly to the shaders and the Bump into their respective Normal inputs.

Back in your main material node setup, I removed redundant nodes and hooked the sideways skirting color into the Main_Color input of the fabric shader and the Chocofur texture image into the Texture_Input input of the fabric shader.

Here is the final Blend file:

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


text:
Modeling sharp edge problem
I am struggling to model clean sharp edges on a dress I have designed in blender. I have attached a photo with circles marking the sharp edges that aren't looking to great or sharp.
Here is the blender file:
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

this should help here too https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/76892/i-cant-make-an-edge-sharp/76912#76912

Some of what you are showing in the first image is caused by extra geometry you have in the mesh. Before following Patdogs suggestion you should first sort that out.
Use the Delete > Delete Vertice tool on the 2 inside faces and the Delete > Disolve Vertice tool of the rest.

Then use the knife tool to add back some now missing edges.


text:
Game Engine: how to switch scenes in python code
I need to be able to switch scenes in python code while in game, and I don't mean hooking up a python controller to a scene changing actuator, I need to be able to change scenes without it. Does anyone know how it would be done?

What are the reasons why you think you "...need to be able to change scenes without it."

It does exist in the API, the trick is you have to get the scene first:
for scene in bge.logic.getSceneList():
    if scene.name == 'oldSceneName':
        scene.replace('newSceneName')
        break

API:
https://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_78a_release/bge.types.KX_Scene.html#bge.types.KX_Scene.replace

Another useful 'replace scene' like thing that I have done quite a lot is to end the current scene(s) and then add the new one:
for scene in bge.logic.getSceneList():
    scene.end()
bge.logic.addScene('sceneNameGoesHere')

The BGE API (version 2.77) does not support to switch scenes without an actuator.
The scene actuator is sufficient enough.

You will never be able to switch to more than one scene. [dynamic number of switches]
You already can dynamically setup the scene to switch to. [dynamic calculation of the target scene]
A scene switch will always performed AFTER the current frame (after the actuators where processed). [timing]

Remark:
You can dynamically add overlay/background scenes via addScene(). This is to add several scenes within a single frame without the need to know the number of scenes beforehand. (Otherwise you need n actuators for n scenes to add).

authors: Александр Савский

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


text:
Blender Game Engine: Added objects from actuater are invisible.
I was adding an object with multiple child objects from a different layer. It was working fine in testing, but then I tested it again after making changes and all the objects appeared invisible. This is the same for any added object whether it has child objects or not. I have been unable to get the added objects visible again. Does anyone know why this is happening?

what changes were made? we need more information to solve the problem.

move all your child objects onto the same layer as your main object that is being added. When objects are parented across different layers, unless all layers are visible, the child objects will be invisible.

I added an object that would act like a coin, it was given a yellow material and would disappear when it collided with any object with the variable "player", but after deleting this object it didn't fix the problem.

I figured out the problem, somehow every object wanted to add had "Invisible" turned on. I never did this, and I don't know how it was done either.


text:
Blender Game Engine Edit Object: can't use "add object" to spawn a character object
I want to use "Edit Object, Add Object" to spawn a character object, but nothing happens. It seems to be that blender refuses to add character objects since anything else I do works fine. Is there a way to spawn my object and keep it as a character?

Ensure the object you want to add is at an hidden layer. This makes object an inactive object while running the game. The BGE will dynamically add inactive objects only (it makes a copy of the inactive original).
This restriction avoids to accidentally remove the original object (which disables the ability to add more copies later on).


text:
Thumbnail of exported render looks different
sooo, on the right you see the rendered PNG.
On the right you see the completely different looking thumbnail. So, basically I have two questions.
1: Why? Why does it look so different?
2: How do I get my actual render look like the thumbnail?

is the background of the smoke transparent?

It could be something to do with how transparency/semi-transparency is displayed on the thumbnail of your PNG vs what it actually looks like.
In order for your smoke to look like that in the PNG, you'll need to make it thicker and have a bit more volume absorption. Possibly also a bit of vorticity/noise.
This is largely speculation as I don't know your setup for the smoke settings or the shader.

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


text:
How to achieve live updates in sculpting split view?
Soo, imagine the following scenario:
I am having a head sculpt, that I am working on. I have my viewport view split in two, so I can view the head from the front, as well as from the side at the same time.
However, when I do changes with a sculpt brush from the front view viewport the changes only update on the side view viewport after I am done sculpting, which is annoying, when both perspectives are important.
Is there any way in heaven or hell to have all viewports giving me live updates when sculpting?


text:
Make Bezier Curve look like Torus Array
I am just sitting here at my very first own project and just thinking if it is possible to make a bezier curve look like a torus array like seen in example picture. Hope anyone can tell me how to do if possible.
I have already tried using a simple torus array and made it follow a bezier curve but first of all it got pretty stretched out at some point but second and most important it was nearly impossible getting this thing into exact position I need, which is pretty difficult. But at all other ideas are welcome.
Thanks for the attention. :)

Not exactly what you want but the technique explained here may also be of help https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/68923/torus-object-stretched-in-array-curve-modifier/68925#68925

This is so totally helpful for another thing I will need for this project in near future, thanks a lot! :)

The easiest way to do this is the Curve modifier.
In the following screenshot you can see a torus mesh to which I added an Array modifier and a Curve modifier.  The curve modifier refers to the Bezier curve.
I had to rotate the torus array 90 degrees around the Y axis because it seems the curve array defaults ton the X axis.  I guess I could have picked a different deformation axis if I had noticed that radio button array earlier.

Good Idea, can I put the Bezier right into the Array so I can precisely modify and put it how I need it? Never used this modifier. :)

The bezier is a separate object.  If you are going to link them at all (it is perfectly reasonable for the bezier and the mesh to have no relationship other than the modifier) it would probably make the most sense for the bezier curve to be the parent object of the mesh.  That makes it slightly easier to translate, rotate, and scale them together by just altering the curve that is the parent.


text:
Make object circular around one axis
I'm sorry if the headline isn't totally perfect but since English isn't my first language it's rather difficult to explain what I try to do right now, so please bear with me. xD
In the pic to be seen is a mesh and inside a sphere. I want the mesh be "circular" around z-axis so it completely surrounds the sphere.
I hope I could make my plan clear. :)
Thanks for the attention.

This question is geometrically unclear.
What do you expect as the final result?
Here are some variations of an answer, that all fit around the sphere.
Can you identify from one of the following?

Don't really have time to answer this, but see what you can glean from this demo. I'm going to have to circle back around to answer properly as time allows.

Quick hint I use Shift+Z when scaling.
My pivot is set to 3d cursor .
Snapping is on and set to Verts.
The rest is extrude and fill.

The one at the front looks to me like it fits the stated requirement from the original poster. Can you please explain how that one is produced?

Yay, the one in the front/far left is what I need, thank you, would you explain how you did it? :)


text:
Jet propulsion underwater - How to create bubbles
I am working on a project right now again in which I am having a pretty futuristic looking submarine underwater, working with jet propulsion. I want the blast pipes to spit out blue light, which is no problem, but I will also need many many different sized crowded bubbles behind them.
Just to give you guys an idea what kind of look I am after:
https://st4.depositphotos.com/1813545/21750/i/1600/depositphotos_217500626-stock-photo-underwater-swimmer-sea-air-jet.jpg
https://previews.123rf.com/images/zefart/zefart1806/zefart180600754/102834854-air-bubbles-from-jacuzzi-jet-in-bubbly-blue-water-in-a-thermal-spa-pool-abstract-background.jpg
The end result is going to be a still image, so I have not  planned to animate anything.
And for all questions and further insight, the image I am working on. Still far from finished, but I want to collect some ideas on this:

Thanks for reading and for any ideas! :)

First, create a single bubble by making a sphere and making it a glass material, or however you want the bubble to look.
Add a particle system to the engine and under render, change the default halo to object, and under object, select your bubble

To make each of the bubbles a different size, change the scale randomness to something higher like 1.

To change the velocity of the bubbles, change the direction you want them to flow under the velocity tab.

There are many more settings you can change like turning gravity on and off. Good Luck!

Thank you a lot for the quick answer Caleb, I’ll be sure to check this out! :)


text:
Bevelling sharp interior corners
I am trying to model windows on a somewhat cylinder-shaped object and I cannot figure out how to satisfactorily bevel sharp interior corners of the areas around them.  A screenshot of what I am trying to do:

And when I try to just use the bevel tool:

I've also tried using the bevel weight modifier and selecting the edges I want to bevel, but it only seems to work up to those corners, even though they seem to bevel when the modifier is applied to the entire object:

So basically, how would I go about doing this?
I'm a beginner so I apologize if there's something really important I've missed.  Thanks in advance!

Have you applied the scale?

@PGmath Yes, I tried that, but that didn't work either.. Thanks very much for the tip though.

Ngons.. remove doubles.. you can see the little useless faces hiding there n the viewport.

If you are using a subdivision surface modifier, the easiest way to sharpen edges is with a loop cut and slide (Ctrl R)

This is where loop cut and slide is located

And if that doesn't work try adding creases to the specific edges


text:
How to automatically adjust the levels of a grayscale
I want to generate a greyscale to apply a color ramp on it to generate my texture. In order to get the most value depth on this greyscale i want to adjust the levels in the compositor so the darkest color gets a value of 0 and the brightest color has a value of 1. I want Blender to detect the values automatically like the Auto Level node of Substance Designer.
Here is an image i have created for the test with bad levels:

And the result I want to generate in the compositor with automatic detection:

Sure just grab a Normalise node from the Vector node category.

And you can apply this to colour images by separating out the value component.
In this example I have intentionally underexposed the source using a colour curve node. You can compare the results in the split viewer node.

A useful application would be to smooth out exposure of time-lapse recordings. Where lighting conditions and therefore exposure, change radical during a recording.

Thank you for your answer. Also i add that if the greyscale must be exported a Gamma node with a value of 2.2 must be added to export it as Linear color space.

When I applied the normalize node to an image with baked in gamma it did not seem to shift the gamma value. But if you try to balance very underexposed images with baked in gamma you will notice a shift as the original mid point zooms up to the top value.


text:
How to enable the Alt + right click shortcut (select edge loop) in Lubuntu?
On Lubuntu the shorcut Alt + right click moves the entire Blender window instead of selecting edge loops in edit mode. How do i disable the Linux shortcut to use it with Blender.

I always just used the shift modifier with a-key to clear the selection...I'm not on Linux any more, but that worked great for me a year or two ago.

To disable the shortcut on Lubuntu open the file manager and at the path line copy and past this: ~/.config/openbox/
Open the file lubuntu-rc.xml (you can use Leafpad) and delete the following lines:

  <mousebind button="A-Right" action="Press">
    <action name="Focus"/>
    <action name="Raise"/>
    <action name="Unshade"/>
  </mousebind>
  <mousebind button="A-Right" action="Drag">
    <action name="Resize"/>
  </mousebind>

Then save the file, open the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and type this:
sudo openbox --restart


text:
Generating procedural metal roughness for PBR texturing
I want to generate a metal roughness map procedurally.

using what render engine? cycles?

Cycles and EEVEE.

Solution from this video (but result tweaked for PBR roughness): https://youtu.be/MAecwsiu1xk
To generate a procedural roughness map you will first need to use a PBR shader, you will need the Principled BSDF shader in Blender 2.79, older versions don't have it. Also you will need an HDRI texture to see the result, you can find free HDRI online.
The Metal roughness must be dark to get very reflective and will use a noise texture to get little spots less reflective. To get a constant size and avoid seams visible you should an Input > Texture Coordinate in Object mode. Don't forget to apply the scale and rotation.
(image bellow of the node setup
Attach the object input to a procedural noise texture, you can tweak the values, in this example I use a scale of 20 and detail at 2. Add a separate HSV, take the H (Hue) and mix it at 0.9 with the Object texture coordinate.
After the mix node add a second Noise texture with a scale of 10 and detail at 2. Then a color ramp to tweak the brightness of the texture. Move the cursor at 0.2 with a value of 0.248 and the right cursor at 0.8 with a value of 0.584. Connect it on the Principled BSDF texture.

You can bake a texture by attaching it to an emit shader then baking in emit mode to a low poly.


text:
Print a timer in Python to see how long to run a script
I want to print a timer in the console to optimize my script and see how long it takes to run the script.

Related https://docs.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_current/info_best_practice.html#time-your-code

This is one of the fastest ways I know:
import time

then = time.time() #Time before the operations start

#DO YOUR OPERATIONS HERE

now = time.time() #Time after it finished

print("It took: ", now-then, " seconds")

time.time() Will give you the current time in seconds.
There are other ways of doing it, but this is one of the best. I have always used this and it gave me no problem at all.


text:
How to generate a fake top lighting effect?
How can I generate a fake top lighting effect for a stylized game asset.

Lighting effect aren't recommended for PBR games, but it can be useful for games running on old hardware or mobile games to save calculation by displaying the assets in shadeless/unshaded.

To create this shader, add an emissive shader on your high poly.
Use an Input > Texture Coordinate and use the Normal input. This Input colors the faces depending on their orientation relative to the world (this means the rotation must be applied with Ctrl + a).
Connect it to a Converter > Separate RGB and use the Blue channel.
By default only the bright values are visible, to display the dark values add a Color > MixRGB and set it to Screen.
You can add a fake Global Illumination effect by adding another Screen node.
To bake your texture on the low poly use the Emit bake mode. You will find more informations about baking with Cycles here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/13509/23134
(optional) Blender's viewport and tools work in sRGB. If you want to export it to work in Photoshop or GIMP you will need to convert it to Linear, for that add a Color > Gamma and set the gamma value to 2.2.


text:
Can we use the UV seams in combination with Smart UV project?
Can we use the marked seams in combination with the Smart UV projection? Or is there a trick to achieve that?

What are you trying to achieve? You could use the "Smart UV Project" to get an idea about which seams to mark. A mesh will "Smart UV" unwrap differently with marked seams compared with no marked seams but advantageous use would depend on your mesh. You could try expirimenting, or if you post the .blend or a photo I could give more info. as well

"Smart UV Project" is ignored on edges with seams. The edges with seams are unwrapped along seams as if simply using "Unwrap" (but only for those edges -- the rest are smart UV unwrapped").
Using "Smart UV Project" and seams together would be advantageous where you'd like most of the mesh to unwrap based on the angle between faces, but would like some parts to be completely cut along each face (which is what marking seams is for).
For example:
If we "Smart UV Project" Suzanne, each edge is sliced when the angle between faces reaches more than 66 degrees (default angle setting for "Smart UV").

Where the rim of her ear meets the front of her ear forms an angle larger than 66 degrees, so the rim is unwrapped as it's own island.
However...

...let's say we wanted a very specific texture mapped on her ear, but would like the rest to stay unwrapped as it is, then we could mark-seam each edge of her ear. In this way, the angle threshold (used to determine Smart Unwrap) is ignored and we're able to view each face separately.


text:
What is the Python script to create nodes?
Is there a way to convert nodes (or nodes group) into Python script automatically?
If not what is the python script to:

create a node and set his position
attach a node to another and choose the input and output (and found the name of the input/output script)
create a group
choose if we want to create the node in the compositor or for a cycles shader
mute a node

related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5668/add-nodes-to-material-with-python

I would say that each of those bullet points should be separate questions, some of which have already been answered on the site.

All the answers are here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/23436/control-cycles-material-nodes-and-material-properties-in-python/23446 (for Cycles nodes) and here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19500/controling-compositor-by-python/19501 (for Compositor nodes). You mute a node by toggling it's node.mute property. Please read the python API documentation.

Shader node group is just enother node type of ShaderNodeGroup and you access it's nodes like this: node.node_tree.nodes (through it's own node_tree property). Here is the documentation: https://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_77_1/bpy.types.ShaderNodeGroup.html#bpy.types.ShaderNodeGroup

You can also use Python nodes as in here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/67487/cycles-materials-math-node-with-more-than-two-inputs/99003/

There's not an out-of-the-box, native way to do this, at least as of the current version (Blender 3.6). However, you can write a script using the Python API.

Creating a node: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.NodeTree.html#bpy.types.NodeTree.nodes

ex. my_node = my_node_tree.nodes.new('ShaderNodeSeparateXYZ')

Setting a node's position: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.Node.html#bpy.types.Node.location

ex. my_node.location = (100, 200)

Attaching nodes: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.NodeTree.html#bpy.types.NodeTree.links

ex. my_node_tree.links.new(my_node.outputs[1], my_node_2.inputs[3])
To get the sockets, you can also reference the inputs/outputs by name (my_node.outputs["X"]), but I've found you sometimes run into name conflicts with this approach, so I don't recommend it. Using the socket's index guarantees you don't get any collisions, but these often need to be found programmatically. The sockets can be hidden either by a node group creator or by a node setting changing the visible inputs and outputs, so the first visible output socket doesn't necessarily correspond to my_node.outputs[0].

Creating a group: For this, you want to create a new node of the appropriate type ('GeometryNodeGroup', 'ShaderNodeGroup', or 'CompositorNodeGroup'), and then set its node_tree attribute with the one you want. You'll likely want to set up inputs and outputs for the group, as well, which you can find some documentation here https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.NodeTree.html#bpy.types.NodeTree.inputs.

ex.

my_group_node = my_node_tree.nodes.new("ShaderNodeGroup")
my_group_node.node_tree = bpy.data.node_groups.new(type="ShaderNodeTree", name="Shader Node Tree 2")
my_group_node.node_tree.inputs.new("NodeSocketInt", "An Integer Input")
my_group_node.node_tree.outputs.new("NodeSocketColor", "A Color Output")

Muting: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.Node.html#bpy.types.Node.mute

ex. my_node.mute = True

As for a solution that does all this automatically, I've created an open source add-on that does all this for Geometry Nodes and Shader Nodes for Blender 3.0-3.6, with work in progress for Compositing Nodes.
https://github.com/BrendanParmer/NodeToPython

You're right, I was trying to futureproof the response in case something were to change after v3.6. As far as I'm aware this hasn't ever been a feature that comes with Blender

Alright, all good then. Thank you for the answer and the addon. Congrats for the 100 stars ! ;)

Here is a repo that does exactly what you want. It has a ready-to-run python script that can be run from the command line in the background without opening the blender GUI. It creates a water material on a surface mesh for a convecting bubble - this is done with 2 different shaders and mixing them using a mixer shader. The script loops through the different files and renders the images as jpeg. The images are also there in the repo. Just clone the repo and run the command given in the README file in the terminal. This scripting was done with Blender v2.78.
https://github.com/nataraj2/BlenderScripting


text:
How to have the Mouse Over blocked by other meshes in BGE
I am trying to recreate something similar to the Creative mode of Minecraft. I have added a basic logic brick to destroy a block when we over the mouse and push the left click. But the ray goes through every meshes so when i click it removes the meshes behind at the same time.
How can i avoid to destroy the cubes behind ?

it is blocked by other objects by default, You have to go to extra trouble so other objects don't get in the way.

it isn't a problem of your ray going through the mesh, it when you left click, it removes the block, but then instantly, in that same logic tick, the ray is also contacting the block behind it, etc.

Because of that I suggest to activate the deletion operation only when the mouse key was pressed (not while it is hold). This forces the user to release the button before deleting the next block.


text:
How to generate a normal map from a bump map?
I want to generate a normal map from a bump map in Blender. It is possible to do it with Crazy Bump (you need to flip it in Y to make it compatible with Blender), i want to reproduce the result in Blender.
Here is the Source:

And the result:

In Cycles, you can do like this :

create a plane and unwrap it
add a material to it, like this in the node editor, from left to right : UV input node, your source image, a bump map vector, connected to the displacement of the material.
The result image (on the right) is added and selected in order to be baked to.

Now go to the render panel, in the bake section : choose bake type = "Normal", and click "bake".
Here is the result :

The blend file :

Thank you. Also to remove the artefacts the generated normal map can be plugged to a bilateral node (image and determinator). I let the question unsolved to see if someone comes with a solution to create a normal map directly in the compositor.

@DanylBekhoucha, can you explain "bilateral node" & "image and determinator" : no idea what you mean ? (i am interested to learn)

The bilateral node is used to blur a noisy image while keeping the edges sharp, it's particularly good for baked AO. The normal map is used as determinator to indicate where are the edges and keep them sharp.

The node setup looks wrong to me. Can anyone explain it? Shouldn't the Bump node be a Displacement node? And shouldn't the image texture output go into the Height slot of the Displacement node and that's it? => https://i.sstatic.net/cJpQT.jpg  -- 1) In the attached blend file there is the needed Displacement node but it's not in the screenshot and not mentioned in the text. 2) Why is the greyscale image plugged into the Normal slot of the Bump node and not into the Height slot? The image is a height map & not an RGB normal map. 3) Why is there a Bump node at all?

I don't understand what the image on the right is supposed to be considering the second node already is our source image (nmSource.png).

Here is a solution using Blender Render:

Create a plane and resize it in Object mode to the height map's dimensions (keep proportions). After setting Dimensions apply the Scale.
Unwrap the plane mesh
Add a material and the height map texture to that material - set Influence to Normal and uncheck it from Color - this influence can be adjusted as needed and the result can be previewed now on the plane, in the 3D View when set to Material display.
Switch to Edit mode with the plane selected: In the UV/Image editor create a new image (texture) with same ratio as height map - this will be used for baking the normal map - and select it in the "Browse image to be linked" dialog.
Go to Render and the Bake sub-menu - select Normals Bake mode, Tangent space, 0px Margin and hit Bake
The normal map should now be baked to the recently created image - and can now be saved etc.

Hi, what you mean by "height map texture"?

I mean the map itself - the source grayscale image - same as 'bump map' as referred to in the question.


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Video editing in mediocre hardware
I was thinking of an idea to edit full HD videos in mediocre hardware. Firstly downscale entire video clips to a lower resolution eg. 640px. Edit and play around with these low res clips. Then let the computer repeat these on high resolution clips overnight (undisturbed).
This there such an option or is it possible using a python script ?

You should just use proxy feature (generate 25% proxies of your strips, use those for editing [by choosing them as display source], and you are done). See the manual

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/58337/2843

@mont29 this should be an answer and no comment ;-)

@samoth done :)

Proxy feature is designed for that purpose, make it easier to edit heavy video sequences. Generate 25% proxies of your strips, use those for editing (by choosing them as Proxy render size option of the View Settings panel), and you are done. Original files will be used automatically for final render.
See the manual for more details.


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Hiding files in a Blender Game
I'm making a video game using Blender's Game Engine, making a lot of progress and learning a lot as I go. Pretty much all data for a game gets packed into the ".exe" for the game when you export it automatically, however I have some scripts that I've written that need to access files externally on my harddrive and I haven't figured out a way to freely "pack" these files into .Blend/.Exe.
I want to be able to just drop a bunch of files inside of my game without doing something as messy as making up logic nodes that don't do anything that are just bound to some of these files so that they get copied in. Is there a way to just put things into my Blend project freely like it's its own harddrive?
As it is right now, I have a bunch of assets that sit outside of the game's .exe and anybody with the game could just freely snoop through some of these textures. No game designer wants that.

'No game designer wants that.' Untrue.

I quite like it when I am able to download a zip with the .exe and texture files both floating around. I find it fun to swap out textures for dank memes.  It adds a whole new level of customizability.

An easy solution is to use pythons zip module to unzip everything into a temporary directory upon request. A harder solution is to make your own filesystem (something like a .wad file) which just joins files together and stores how to seperate them. Then you can load them from the binary data.
To my knowledge no-one has done this for BGE yet, but it shouldn't be too hard to do.

Open blender, and select File > External Data > Pack All Into .blend.  This should pack all your game assets that are in use into the .blend.  Then, when you save it as a .exe, they should be in the .exe.

It isn't going to pack files that are only mentioned in scripts

I see.  Well, one thing you could do is to create a object, make it invisible, and add those textures to it.  I don't know of any regular way to do this.

That was an idea that I had too, that I've already mentioned in my question (how I could do that using Logic Nodes to hold files as well). I think there has to be a way to inject files in manually.

If they are scripts, you could pickle them.
tarfile would also be a suitable method to bundle up a dir of items.
import os
import tarfile

cwd  = os .getcwd()
listing  = os .listdir( cwd )

##  tar files together
with tarfile .open('files.tar', 'w') as tar:
  for name in listing:
    tar .add( name )

##  extract files
with tarfile .open('files.tar') as tar:
  tar .extractall()


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Stopping a character fall in Blender Game Engine
I came up with a really easy way to script climbing a ladder in Game Engine. It basically just involves colliding with the ladder (which toggles a "Climbable" boolean) and then when you hold up or down to ascend/descend the ladder it temporarily sets Gravity to 0 (bge.constraints.getCharacter(obj).gravity = 0) so that the player isn't pulled downwards by gravity while they're clinging to the ladder. From there, I was smart enough to make it so if you press a side direction and aren't touching the ladder anymore there's an "Inverted" Collision with the ladder that makes it so if you aren't touching a ladder the Climbable boolean is always False and gravity immediately returns to normal (29.399999618530273, by default). All works properly as intended.
I have a problem though. If I jump onto the ladder or if I simply fall off of a platform onto the ladder and try to climb, it won't work as intended. If my character is jumping upwards to a ladder and I hold up to climb, then he will fly upwards like a rocket (on account of the zero gravity) and if I try to climb up a ladder while actively falling. The drag of falling will keep pulling my character downwards as he tries to climb and the drag continues until he collides with the floor (zero gravity doesn't negate downward force for some reason)
I need some way to "turn off" the falling behavior of a character and the upward motion of a jump on-the-fly so that my ladder scripting works properly. I can't figure out how to get them to stop. If anybody knows some line of code I could use to get him to stop, I would greatly appreciate it.
bge.constraints.getCharacter(obj).onGround is a "read only" boolean, so I can't use that to trick the game into thinking I've landed on ground. I've tried.
I am using Character Physics for my player character.

Let me add by saying that I actually don't want climbing a ladder to be treated as a "onGround" state, I don't want you to be be able to jump while on a ladder. I really only mentioned it because I figure it could've been a workaround.

I don't know much about BGE, but your method sounds awfully complicated. Using gravity does make things quite unpredictable.
I'd go with the method that is described in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v--_GtSbD4
Besides... you can also use the edit link below your post to add information to your question (preferred method).

You don't see it in his video, but I'm very certain that he has the exact same problems as me. If he were to jump into the ladder and go up, he would get the same issues that I'm having. Also, do take notice to parts of the video where he releases from the ladder early, how his character cube doesn't cling to the ladder at all because he hasn't edited for zero Gravity or implemented some other way to force the player cube to stay in place. My method is more complete than his. As for Radar vs Collision, that's a matter of preference.

The way you implemented a solution is that the object has no gravity.
This is not really the behavior of an object that "holds on another object" (character holding at the ladder).
You currently discover "an area without gravity". That means when the character jumps into that area it will preserve it's motion and direction (while gravity would would do the same but adds another force influencing motion and direction).
I suggest you implement a "holding" onto the ladder, e.g. by parenting the object to the ladder [or any other way to restrict the position to the holding point].
While holding any previously active controls (like jumping, walking crouching) will not work anymore as the character is not a freely moving physics object. This is fine, because your character holds itself to the ladder.
You need other "operations" like move up/down (but not via linear velocity and such things).
Additional you should implement a "release operation" that let the character release the grip returning to the normal behavior (incl. falling).
Other operations could benefit from release too - you can combine jump and release. I suggest to first release and jump afterwards. Otherwise the exiting "hold" would disable the jump.
What problems could happen?
A) Parenting is a hard attachment. This means when you throw the ladder around, the character will not care and still hold onto it. If you really need such situations, you could release the character before (or while) moving the ladder.
B) The character ignores collisions while moving on the ladder. While parented the physics has no influence. Unfortunately there is not much you can do here, except sensing for such collisions and acting accordingly. E.g. you sense if there is a blocking object above the character before allowing the "move up" operation.
I hope this helps a bit.

I always appreciate your advice and for answering my pleas for help and I thank you for your knowledge and advice. I apologize for taking days to respond to you, as I've been working on this off and on and didn't want to bother you until I solved it. I've decided to create my own scripts for jumping and falling, to not use Character Physics anymore at all, and doing this has solved all of my problems. You just do not get enough control over your character using the built-in Character Physics and do anybody reading this, I recommend writing your own character jumping/fall scripts too.

Ran out of space in the last comment, continuing. I did take your words to heart and desperately tried to implement a "holding" mode like you've suggested, but it's not something I think can be done. There's always going to be drag on the character that pulls them down if they're affected by gravity. My way is very similar to how I started, I simply turn off the upward/downward forces of a jump or falling when I want my character to climb a ladder and he snaps to the center of a ladder while he's in the climbing state. All works dandy now. None of this answers the original question though.

When you parent the character to the latter it will become static. The gravity will not effect the character anymore. That is why you need different movement logic while on the latter (dLoc rather than linV).


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Character Physics movement = no velocity?
Using the built-in Character physics, one of the features is Jumping by using the Character Motion "Jump" actuator or using the bge.constraints.getCharacter(obj).jump() function in Python.
when I attempt to print out the character's velocity with print(obj.getLinearVelocity(True)), and also tried False, the console just repeats "Vector (0.0000, 0.000, 0.000)" on each frame as I jump around the stage with my character.
For scripting purposes, I really would like to have an accurate statistic of my character's velocity. Is there a hidden velocity stat that is associated with the Character Physics feature?
In the API, it's missing a lot of info on this subject.
https://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_77_release/bge.types.KX_CharacterWrapper.html

Problem
The "Character" Physics Type does not imply that this object uses the build-in Physics engine. Regarding the Physics engine this kind of object is still a static object.
Therefore you can't apply velocities or forces, nor can you read them. The object teleports within the scene by its own, rather than it is moving in terms of the physics engine.
Solution
Physics engine
Either you use a real (moving) physics type (rigid body, soft body, dynamic),
Character physics
or you record the position at each frame. This way you can calculate the traveled distance from frame to frame via Python. It is simply the difference between the current's frame position and the position of the previous frame.
Remarks
In my eyes

Rigid Body, Soft Body, Dynamic and Static are real physics types.
Sensor and No Collision are attributes (or attribute sets) of physics types
Character, Navigation Mesh and Occluder have nothing to do with physics and should not be at this place. These setting should be at object level not at physics level.

Thank you, this has been enlightening for me. How do you make a record of where an Object was during previous frames?

I suggest to ask a new question regarding the new topic. (Basically you write the current position into a property, so you can read it within the next frame).


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Rendering Empties
So I've tried to use blender to make an intro for a few of my youtube videos, but the images I want to use only come up as empties which aren't rendered, so is there a way to turn an empty image into something render-able, or render empties at all, without losing the keyframes that I've made. Also I'm fairly new at this, so try and simplify your answers

Please place an informative screen capture with your question.  3D View window and outliner window. Think about what you need to present in the screen capture and say in words to make it easier for others to understand your question.  IMHOIIHO your question can be made clearer.  Your question can be improved.

Any plane can have a texture placed on it.  Blender is designed to be able to transfer keyframes to another object.  [Empty] object keyframes can be assigned to a plane with a texture.  You may need to search here at BSE on the techniques mentioned.  Please specify Blender Render or Cycles render.  In general I do not think of Blender as something simple.  There is always something new to understand and something changing.  By empty I mean the Empty object provided by blender.  Please confirm that meaning.

By definition, empties will not appear in the render.
If I understand correctly and you've already animated the empties around, try importing the images as texture planes (the import images as planes addon bundled with blender is useful for doing this quickly).
The quickest way to make the planes follow the already-animated empties is probably just to Parent them. Select the plane, then the empty, and press ⎈ CtrlP.


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Cycles, weird shadows appear on baked textures
I am having a bit of a trouble with the cycles bake. Every time i bake my texture's , a bunch of weird shadows appear in the baked textures as you can see from these pic's. The weird part is that i did pretty much the same thing to a model last night and it worked perfectly. Keep in mind that i am still just a beginner when it come's to cycles rendering.
Could this be a lighting problem or something like that?
--Before Bake--

--After Bake--

Is the image you are baking into itself used for the shader input ? On the left ? If yes, you may bake on another image

Well i tried your method and i still have the exact same problem. So no creating a new image to bake on didn't work.

Can you upload your file here ? http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/. With the texture if possible (pack it into the file)

I didn't allow me to upload to blend-exchange, so here's a dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8acjg962kuv7ot8/Blender%20Sword.zip?dl=0

need to apply scale

the point is you have several objects here... so if you are talking about the right / bottom right part. It has to be baked too. Select them both, I think it is ok or there is something else you want to say ? I have this result https://i.gyazo.com/069b65a5dfebc9dbc6aac34c85c9a2d7.png

Well i got pretty much all of the "shadows" removed by rotating the sword 90 degrees on z axis. At this point i have to say i have no idea what is going on anymore. So i guess i somehow managed to fix the problem.

Dark areas on textures normally have one of the causes listed below:

You have overlapping geometry
You are baking combined textures, which means that you among others also bake the shadows.

According to the screenshots you provided we have both cases here.


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How do I achieve a particle trail effect?
So I was attempting at the "Houdini Trail Effect" in Blender as shown:

but got stumped with the whole particle system.
I managed to create the following through trial and error with the Vortex on each pole, and added Forces to the Emitter (Sphere)
& then this was the result:

I am wondering if anyone knew how to create the Swirly Trails in the Emitter, then maybe convert to spline afterwards? I  know the Ivy Generator is the closest thing but it relies on the Origin Point and etc. I'm not sure if Forces would affect Ivy, but who knows.
Anybody that has a clue, it would be greatly appreciated! I will try again but I doubt I will find a workaround with the Trails.
Thanks!

You can use trail particles, so you only have to figure out how to make the particles move in that manner.

@NᴏᴠɪᴄᴇIɴDɪsɢᴜɪsᴇ Yes, I am aware of the trail particles, but how would I go about converting them into splines? or real objects? to apply an emission material as shown above.

http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/7744/particle-trails-in-cycles

@eromod I already have that addon installed even though it's still in development. Is that really the only way currently?

you can use dynamic painting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yW4FN-C2hA

You can trace particles, but to create this effect is another story. Blender's particle system is extremely basic. You can only dream of the things and level of control that Houdini has, trust me on this one. You would have to create huge amount of force fields around a mesh (with python) to guide the particles like in Houdini or you would have to create the curves yourself (with python). I am assuming that we are talking about this effect: https://i.sstatic.net/62dUE.jpg

@jerry Why with python? Couldn't you do it normally?And couldint you use dynamic painting to trace those lines?

I got this far Now I need to figure out how dyno paint works...
https://i.sstatic.net/e7UvC.gif

@eromod Wow, hey thanks for trying to figure it out, but I think we are both close. Check out this sample I created with that BTrace add-on. https://s32.postimg.org/alr47e8ut/swirly.jpg .. Now would you happen to know how to swirl around an object?

@Jerryno Hey Jerry, thanks for the tip. I do realize that Blender is an all-in-one Swiss Army knife, but I wanted to see if it had enough potential, but I must've expected too much. Thanks anyway! I think I am finding a solution towards my liking anyway...!

@eromod The thing is that dynpaint is not curves, which limits what you can do with the result. Using python is necessary to stick curves onto a surface precisely, manually it can be also done but is more work imho. It would be really cool to convert the dynpaint into curves - that would solve the surface sticking and having curves.

@jerry yea, curves would be better.

You may want to try this solution.

@LeonCheung Bingo - implementing Houdini math into animation nodes and either tracing it with BTrace or building splines with AN is the solution. Also Sverchok should be capable of producing those splines.

@LeonCheung I think that's still too complicated of a process. I should've been a bit more clear in this question but watch how easy it is for this to be done with X-Particles on Cinema4D ..http://greyscalegorilla.com/tutorials/creating-swirly-patterns-with-x-particles/

@Jerryno The thing is, this can be done without Math (What artist wants to do Math) ...I posted the Cinema4D X-Particles tutorial above. You can almost get it in Blender, but would you know how to 1. Keep the Trails following the surface of an object 2. Convert Final trails to splines. I feel like you can do this quite easily but I may be wrong. But have a look if you can and see where Blender can't support it.

@ArtJr. Unfortunately the first point is very hard to do in Blender. The curve trail is not that hard, because an addon already exists, otherwise it would be also hard to do. I had a look at Sverchok and Animation Nodes and even they do not offer all that is needed. It cannot be done without scripted subprogram nodes (so without python code). Thinking particles is a VERY advanced particle engine, miles ahead of what blender offers even with addons.

@Jerryno I see what you mean. Yeah I had no luck searching for a workaround. Many thanks for your contribution anyway Jerry!

I think it can be done.
Unfortunately it requires skill.
In this example I used a sphere emitter
and a slightly smaller sphere that had collision physics enables, dynamic painting as a canvas, and a negative strength force field to attract the particles.
The slightly larger emitting sphere isnt rendered, and the render starts after the particles were alive for about 100 frames and had enough time to settle and get going.
So the emitter would drop all the particles and the colliding sphere would attract them and get dynamically painted on its surface.
to make the particles move on the surface, I made three vortex forces. Although in your example it looks like there are six, plus two forces(one on top one on bottom)
I also saw that your example had lots of compositing done ontop of it so I attempted a transition to a bokeh blur...
Have next to zero experience with compositing atm.

Here is the file
But you will need to re-bake the canvas for dynamic painting and set the timeline to start at frame 1.
P.S. temporarily make the particle scale(in particle panel) super tiny before dynamic painting or else you will get super wide paint marks.


text:
Rotate objects in specific relation to one another
Okay, think of an analog clock, as an easy point of reference. I rotate the minute hand 360 degrees on the X-axis. Can I somehow couple the performed rotation of the minute hand to the hour hand in such a way, that would let the hour hand rotate exactly 30 degrees every time the minute hand rotates 360? Preferably in a linear and not a constant way, if that makes sense. Meaning that the hour hand moves as the minute hand moves and not suddenly jumps 30 degrees once the minute hand made a full rotation.
Disclaimer: I know, this is highly unnecessary, as one could just rotate the hands individually at the required pace, but I am still curious if something like that is possible and in how many layers it would be, if we were not only talking about a clock, but a gear box for example.

You can create a driver for the hour hand, right click on its rotation angle (I've chosen Y) value and > Add Driver, in the pop-up type Expression > var/12, select the minute hand as Object and Type > Y Rotation:

Result:


text:
Modifiers can't be applied due to being deactivated
running Blender 2.91.2 and am having two different blend files in which modifiers cannot be applied due to them being "disabled" and cannot be applied to Multi-User data. They work just fine, hell I even just created an array modifier and with the untouched, base settings the modifier is disabled. Am a bit PO right now because deadline is tomorrow. Any help is highly appreciated.

Which modifier is causing you trouble? Some can't be applied due to missing settings (ie shrink-wrap without a selected target), in which case you will get the "modifier deactivated, skipping apply" message.

Late to the party on this one. (I was asleep when the question was posted!)

In future, there's a quick way to get over this problem.
Go to the Object Data Properties tab (green triangle). In the Mesh data line you'll see a number next to the shield

Hovering the mouse over the number will show the following popup

Click on that number to make it disappear and you'll then be able to apply the modifier.

Have found the solution with help of someone else. There were old objects hidden that the newly created Array modifier somehow got connected to (??) I deleted those since I didn't use them anymore and now everything works fine.


text:
Save single FireSim Frame
I am currently running Blender 2.82.7 and made a fire simulation in one .blend file, which I need to carry over to another .blend file, which will be rendered as a still image, so no animation over there.
Question is:
I now have a good looking frame for the fire, is there any way I can preserve this specific stage of fire simulation forever, so I can take it around and place it wherever I wish, without having to worry of it still being a running simulation?
Thanks for reading. Stay healthy :)

it seems it's not possible: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/14443/is-it-possible-to-bake-a-single-frame-of-a-smoke-simulation?rq=1

Thanks for the link, I totally missed that.

If you don't mind, please either create and accept an answer, or accept the answer I have provided so this is marked as resolved.

If you bake only up to the desired frame, that is the easiest solution.
As referenced in the comments, this does not appear to be possible.

You can bake the simulation on the original file.
Then import or link the objects to the second project and re-link the simulation cache.
The simulation cache is in a folder called data (usually in the same directory as the .blend file), inside the folder there are a bunch of files with a number, each one of those file has the fire simulation for a frame of the animation. Just look for the one you need.
You could even copy the contents of the simulation cache for the frame you want, to all of the other frames by making copies of the cache file and renaming them with different frame numbers.


text:
How to simulate a lamp shade in the game engine
I am trying to make a lamp in the blender game engine, however, I am having a lot of trouble making the light go through the lampshade in a diffuse type of illumination, how can I do this? I have tried with the modifier "cloth" and playing around with textures, but nothing seems to work.

Something like this: (http://feelgrafix.com/838711-lamp.html)

Add some translucency to your material. The cloth modifier has nothing to do with this - it is a simulation that only affects the shape of the object.

Actually it is translucency, it doesn't have anything common with cloth simulation. Most close and simple you could make - bake Translucent shader from Cycles into texture, but result actually would be good only for one point of view, so I think it would be better but much harder to write own fragment shader.


text:
Rigify is using all Layers
I'm curious about a problem (?) that I'm having with the rigfy add-on.
First of all, I have this model with the meta-rig adjusted

Until this moment is everything normal.
But when I click in the generate buttom, all the layers are occuped:

The configuration that (I think) is responsible for the layers occuped is se as default:

I think this is a problem because in the videos I saw it didn't occurred.
Someone knows about this (little?) problem?
I'm using blender 2.74.
Sorry for my poor english and, since now, thanks.

Bone layers  are different from object layers.
As i can see from your screenshot, Rigfy has correctly put the bones in different bone layers, to help selection groups when animating, but the "problem" you point at is the fact that all object layers appear "occupied".
You can go to the outliner window (or create one), change the pop-up menu from "All scenes" to "visible layers", select one object layer at time and read in the outliner what's inside, to understand the thing, that - I don't think - is produced by Rigify.
Also, before pushing the "generate" button, apply the scale (Ctrl A) to both your model and the meta-rig.

Thanks. You helped me understand my problem :D
The problem was that all the object layers were selected.
Because of that the rigs were generated in all layers.


text:
Camera position and rotation while following path
I have a camera following a path, by using the "ctrl+p -> follow path" method. I noticed that during the animation, the camera position and rotation shown are constant (they are the ones the camera has at the start of the path). I actually need the camera position and orientation for every frame of the path. Is there a way to obtain that information?

You can bake the animation and clear parent to get the transform data of the camera.
Select the camera, and in Object menu select Animation>Bake Action

Then in Bake Action menu enable Visual Keying and Clear Parents.
That will bake the location and rotation of the camera for every frame into an action.


text:
camera animation with known distance between frames
I'm trying to simulate a camera fixed on car which is moving along a straight path. I've been trying doing this using a curve path. The problem is that I need to know/specify exactly the distance the car/camera travelled between frames. Is there a direct way to do this?

I'd set the Scene units to Metric or Imperial (or metric, seriously). Then you would take your path length (ie. 50m) divided by the frames elapsed (ie. 100f) to get the camera velocity (ie. 50m/100f = 0.5m/f). Then you know that the camera travels 0.5m for every elapsed frame. Does that answer your question?

Yes, I figured as much, but I don't get how to relate this to the camera's frame rate. I basically need an image sequence in which every image has been "photographed" at a certain distance from the previous one.

Ok, nevermind. That's all the info I need actually.


text:
Problem with Vertex Coordinates
I'm using Blender 2.74 and trying to make this part of my code work:
import bpy
from math import *

me = bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(radius = 0.5, depth = 1)

for v in me.verts:
    v.co[2] =v.co[2]+0.5

But appear the folow error:'set' object has no attribute 'verts'.
What's the problem?

If you print out the content of me in the console, you can see that it does not contain the cylinder's mesh data:
>>> me
{'FINISHED'}

The bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add operator, like most operators in Blender, returns its exit status (in our case {'FINISHED'} - signalling success) rather then the result of whatever it did.
If you want to access the vertices, you can do this through bpy.context.object.data.vertices, since after you add a cylinder primitive, it becomes the active object (context.object):
import bpy
from math import *

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(radius = 0.5, depth = 1)
me = bpy.context.object.data

for v in me.vertices:
    v.co[2] =v.co[2]+0.5

A few other things worth noting:

The vertex collection in the mesh object's data is called vertices (For instance: context.object.data.vertices) not verts. The bmesh module does call the vertex collection verts, which is probably why this confused you.
It's considered bad practice to import everything from a module, unless you're actually going to use everything you imported (from math import *). You should only import whatever function you intend to use. For instance:
from math import degrees, radians

Small tip regarding debugging in blender (and in general):
The error message you got gave you a nice lead for debugging. It says that whatever it is you're trying to use .verts with doesn't really have any attribute called 'verts'. The next logical thing is to check what the heck is inside the me variable by printing it, to see why it has no verts. This would have showed that me is indeed a set, not a mesh data object, which whould have indicated that the bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add operator returns an exit status, and not the cylinder's data.
[EDIT] And another late one. To get a shorter and more readable version of your scaling action, you can replace this:
v.co[2] =v.co[2]+0.5

With this:
v.co.z += 0.5

Nice explanation @TLousky! The tips will help me a lot! Thanks ! :)

No problem @Jimmy, added another small tip for good measure ;-)


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How to save an animation using python
I have written a python code to build a simple animation. I need to save this animation (.blend) in a specific path. I used Save(path) in Blender 2.49b but I don't know how to use in Blender 2.74.
Any tips?

related, and same answer: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8577/save-file-inside-an-operator?rq=1

This works, you can even name the file during the save:
fp = "/home/username/SomeFolder/doubles.blend"  # or whatever you use.
bpy.ops.wm.save_as_mainfile(filepath=fp)


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Ipo module in Blender 2.74 using python
I need to update a 2.49 blender code to 2.74 but I can't find in Blender 2.74 a module named Ipo. Someone can help me? Below, part of my code in 2.49 version.
  obj = Object.Get('obj'+str(visNames.index(ni)))

  ipo = Ipo.New('Object','obj'+str(visNames.index(ni))+'.ipo')
  obj.setIpo(ipo)

  curveTime = ipo.addCurve('Time')
  curveTime.setInterpolation('Linear')

  curveLocX = ipo.addCurve('LocX')
  curveLocX.setInterpolation('Linear')

  curveLocY = ipo.addCurve('LocY')
  curveLocY.setInterpolation('Linear')

  curveLocZ = ipo.addCurve('LocZ')
  curveLocZ.setInterpolation('Linear')

From 2.50 Ipo's have been replaced with Actions. While you can create an action with bpy.ops.action.new() you can also just add a keyframe to a property and the action will be created for you. Instead of Ipo curves we now use f-curves.
Starting with getting an object by name
obj = bpy.data.objects['Cube']

You can then use keyframe_insert to key all 3 axes of the objects location with
obj.keyframe_insert('location')

To key just one axis you can specify an index (X=0 Y=1 Z=2)
obj.keyframe_insert('location', index=0)

You could add multiple keyframes from a list
x = [1.0, 2.0, 3.0]
xframes = [0, 10, 20]
for i in range(len(x)):
    obj.location.x = x[i]
    obj.keyframe_insert('location', index=0, frame=xframes[i])

For the interpolation, each keyframe has it's own interpolation setting. A simple loop can set each keyframe to use the same interpolation.
objCurves = obj.animation_data.action.fcurves
for curve in objCurves:
    # here you can also test curve.array_index to find
    # the curve of a specific axis
    # array_index matches the index used in keyframe_insert
    if curve.data_path == 'location':
        for k in curve.keyframe_points:
            k.interpolation = 'LINEAR'

From blender v2.76 you can use objCurves.find() to get the specific curve that you want.
objCurves = obj.animation_data.action.fcurves
for i in [0,1,2]:
    curve = objCurves.find('location', index=i)
    for k in curve.keyframe_points:
        k.interpolation = 'LINEAR'

Thanks @sambler, this explanation was very useful for me. But, there is an error in curve = objCurves.find('location', index=i) that appear the following message: find() takes no keywords arguments . I didn't understand this.
Finally, in 2.49 Ipo's version I have: for i in range(len(x)):                                                         curveLocX.addBezier((xtime[i],x[i]))
Can I add Bezier using keyframe_insert after that linear interpolation that you showed for me?

My bad fcurve.find() was added in 2.76. You have one fcurve for each property, it contains a point for each keyframed value. You use multiple keyframe_insert with different frames to animate the value.


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Can you repeat a portion of a texture across a face?
I'm currently trying to texture a series of walls, all different lengths, but wish to use the same portion of a texture to cover them all.  I know that I can split up the walls into roughly equal panels, or spread out the wall UVs to various sizes until they repeat as necessary, but my goal is to keep the polycount low, as well as keep the texture usage to a minimum.  My goal is to dedicate a strip of my main texture (say 128x1024 of a 1024^2 texture) to a repeating wall panel, and then tile that across my walls using different materials.  Other portions of the texture will cover windows, floor tiles (which similarly need to repeat, though in two directions), posters, and fake room renders I'll be scribbling in myself.
tl;dr:
Is it possible to repeat just a portion of a texture map across a large face?

You can use some math nodes and keep simple proportions for you texture parts (for instance working with 1/2 or 1/4... easy to multiply or divide).
Here is an example :

Each face is assigned to a material composed of nodes like these ones (this material is for the red triangles) :

Amount of repeats
Shift U as the triangle starts at U = 0.5
Don't shift V as the triangle starts at V = 0
Modulos : here the texture is divided in 2 (so modulo = 1/2)
Shift back U to 0.5
Shift back V (but V starts at 0)

For the blue square, you may invert the roles for U and V.
For the green circle, just don't shift anything.
To reach the upper right quadrant, shift both U and V 0.5.

Great, this helps immensely.  It's going to take some twiddling with numbers to get things exactly like I need it on every wall, but I can already confirm it's tiling properly across two of them.

Just learning the node system at the moment.  Cycles too, apparently, since I couldn't find the nodes you were using right off.  I managed to group everything up so it makes more sense to me.  I also apparently fail at basic stackexchange inline image linking.

@Feynt, most of the nodes to do that are "math" nodes. It self is found in "converters".

Something I've noticed sadly is that when I repeat the texture I get odd lines to either side of my repeats.  I've done the math and my normal settings are exactly where the portion of the texture should begin and end, but even if I fudge it and go inside of those boundaries (so using a space narrower than the 1/2 I'm using now) I still get the seams.
Nodes modification for grouping
Seam issue

@Feynt, can you upload the corresponding file (at least a mesh, the material and a texture) ?

I seem to be too late to add additional info each time.  Link to .blend and .png texture.  I believe the materials will be in the file.  There might be a linking issue because I'm not including some furniture I added as links, but the room itself is what's important.  Wall Texture 1-4 make use of this repeating panel idea.  Wall Texture 5 and Floor are just using flat colours and so I stuffed their UVs into corners of the map with basic materials.  Better naming conventions forthcoming (I'm a programmer  >V  )

I think this is because the calculation assumes that UVs start at some point remove it / module / add this point position. But this point is at the beginning of the UV part. Here in your file, it can start in the middle. So that does not match.

What do you mean start at the middle?  It's ending at the middle for the repeating portions, so it should be like your circle example except it's 100% of the height of the texture instead of only 50% both ways.

are you talking about the bottom part (wood like) ?

Most of the walls make use of the entire span of the texture from top to bottom, using the wood slat portion as the bottom portion of the wall and the top portion as a generic wallpaper.  I'll be adding more texture to that eventually, but for now it's just flat colour.  The wooden slats are the important repeating segment.  Since that segment of the texture is 50% of the width and 100% of the height, it should be pretty straight forward calculating the nodes, but it's like the UVs are reaching beyond the texture boundaries, or it's blurring the edges and grabbing the other side.

@Feynt, I have tested with another texture and all is ok : the same texture as in my answer where I add a colored vertical line at 511 then another vertical line with another color at 512. No color overlaps. You can gain a little precision also using snap to pixels in the UV editor. I think you may tune your UVs using a grid on a texture to be sure all is ok


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How do I import Unreal Models? (smite)
I'm new to the program so this is probably much easier that I think it is but I've been trying to import into blender the smite god models, I used UEModel to extract them into .psa and .psk files (as well as some other formats though I'm not sure what they're for) however when I try to import any of them into blender, no matter what import 'mode' I select, I can't see any of the files, only the sub folders.
What am I doing wrong?

So you are trying to import .psa/.psk files? Are you using this add-on: https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Import-Export/Unreal_psk_psa ?

Right now I realise I needed to enable the add-on... which is done now but I get an error message http://i66.tinypic.com/35hkck0.png and I don't understand what that means at all

If you're using the default addon that comes with Blender, this is why you have errors. It's outdated, you want to get and use befzz's updated importer, though it does have issues with bone names and animation on some models.


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What'd be the best way to make a rim?
So I'm making a lid to a jar and want it to have a slightly rounded rim that would visibly notch into the indent of the jar itself (think how a cookie jar's lid sits nicely) Though I'm unable to make a nice looking rim what'd be the best way?
I've tried extruding and scaling though that wound up insanely difficult to tweak due to the size of the tweaks (Should I just scale up the whole lid and then scale it back down when I'm done?)
I've tried making a bevel object but couldn't get it to line up not look right.
I also need to make an inside to the lid but that's fairly easy (to make it look like it has thickness)
What method'd be best for a complete novice?
Here's the model in question, if you want I could update with a version in wireframe/edit mode or add info if that'd help just tell me what you need to make recommendations!

I think this sort of thing is much easier to work in the flat, keeping the vertex count low, and working under a Subdivision modifier
So, I've made a nice pot, and a lid. But the lid doesn't have an inside, and needs to fit a recess in the pot.

In Edit Mode CtrlD steal (duplicate) a profile loop, lying in the XZ plane, from the original pot, and P split it off into a new object.
Do the same with the lid.
Join the new profiles CtrlJ into a new object.
Assign a Screw and Subdivision modifier to the new combined profile, to make it back into a pot-with-a-lid.
You can now edit the profiles in place -  if you don't show the modifiers in Edit Mode, you can flip back and forth Tab to Object mode to see how your work is going.

The picture shows the original profile in the vicinity of the rim, and 2 steps in the edit - using E extrusion on vertices to draw out new edges. Still in Edit, to make the inner dome,I created a new Circle mesh (unfilled) to add to the profile, moved and scaled it into the right place, deleted most of it, and O (Connected) proportionally edited it to keep it smooth inside. (Always keeping everything flat in XZ)

You have the choice of if or when to apply the modifiers, add bevels, whatever you like.

In short, this recommendation is: edit the profile, not the pot.

I don't know how familiar you are with modifier settings and so on.. if you do try it this way, and get stuck, let me know.

I never heard of editing profiles before so I'm honestly not sure how this works I'll try it out and fiddle around so I might figure it out on my own but that seems easier than how I was doing it (Which was zooming in so close I could hardly pan the view)

@Jeff How did you make the pot in the first place?

Made a bunch of rings in a cylinder primitive and shaped them gradually that way, then I made another primitive to make the handle, duplicated it, rotated it 180 degrees and slid it into place after which I joined the handles and urn

by gradually shaped it I mean I mostly scaled them in and out to make the curve

OK, this is a whole different way.. 'lathing'..'spinning' using an outline and rotating it around an origin.  Blender uses the 'Screw' modifier, to do it non-destructively. I personally think, where you have non-trivial thicknesses, etc. it's an easier, and in the end quicker, way to go.. easier selections, moves, easier to edit after the fact.... in the profile, you only have to move one vertex at a time to change the whole shape.

Okay so I need to look into "Profile editing" "Screw modifier" "Subdivision surface modifier" and "lathing/spinning" I think (Based on both replies on my post) I figured I was doing my pot a really bad way that created way too many faces but since it's my first model I figured learning the software was more important than a perfect first try. Thanks for the help!

@Jeff you probably won't find the phrase 'Profile Editing' but the other 3 are good. Typically beginner's modeling tutorials on lathing will start with making a wine-glass, or a chess-piece. Subdivision isn't the only approach to modeling, but it's pretty central. The 'Screw' modifier, as its name suggests, has the option of incrementally translating down an axis, and/or scaling,  while turning, but you don't want to use those here. Just turn. :)

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

The basic way to do it is to extrude down the rim then create the inner faces with successive extrusions, and put some extra edge loops close to the rim to make it sharper.

To make it smooth give it a Subdivision Surface modifier, and in the Tools panel (left of 3D View) press on the Tools > Edit > Shading > Smooth button

Okay I want to give it a rounded shape so I guess I'll need to make a bunch of rings would scaling the model up to do the changes then back down work or are there problems with that?  Also how come your model looks so smooth with so few faces? Mine's a mess

I've edited my answer, you need to use Subdivision Surface modifier and Smooth shading


text:
How do I add a bump map to a texture I made in blender?
This is more of a theoretical question. I was looking around on youtube and saw a video on texture painting and was wondering if I could make it more realistic. I don't want to use the Internet for this because I want to challenge myself and two I just started learning about blender and three my wifi like my imagination is obviously terrible.

so you hand painted your texture, now you want to make a bump map? Why can't you just paint a bump map too?

CYCLES
In Node Editor Add two color textures (Image Texture nodes), set one as Color and the other as Non-Color Data. Connect the second one to the Height input of the Bump node (set the Strenght as you like). Plug it then to the Normal input of your Diffuse node.

BLENDER INTERNAL RENDER
Add two identical textures to separate texture slots. Call the second one BUMP. Under Influence uncheck Color checkbox. Check the Normal (set its value) and RGB to Intensity checkboxes.

You can totally do that!  I am using a normal map here, along with a texture I already created.  So you should already have a texture set up on your object, looking like this:

Select the next texture slot down, and click "New."

Open the image you want to use as the normal map.

Scroll down to the section titled "Influence," and disable the Color, and enable the Normal portions.

Depending on your UV mapping, you might want to switch to Generated instead of UV (if you where using UV, you also have to select the UV map you want to use).  That's what I did here.  Then, change to Material mode to see your texture with the normal map.  Keep in mind that this does not add any geometry, it just changes how it calculates the lighting to make it look 3D.  You can see the effect on the bottom portion of the 3D view.

authors: เกียรติศักดิ์ วงศ์น้อย


text:
Applying per-vertex colors to new Bmesh
I'm having trouble applying vertex colors through Python to a mesh. The mesh is imported from a file which has vertex info, face info (vertex indices), and a list of colors that corresponds to each vertex.
Creating the Bmesh mesh is fine:
bm = bmesh.new()
[bm.verts.new(v) for v in verts]
bm.verts.ensure_lookup_table()
[bm.faces.new([bm.verts[f[0]], bm.verts[f[1]], bm.verts[f[2]]]) for f in faces]
bm.faces.ensure_lookup_table()

However, I can't seem to find a way to apply colors to each vertex. Doing
color_layer = bm.loops.layers.color.new("color")
...
bm.faces[i].loops['color'].vert

just yields a Bmesh vertex with an index of -1...
Is there anyway to get back the correct vertex indices in this way?

Loop over face loops.
import bpy
import bmesh
from random import uniform
context = bpy.context
mesh = context.object.data
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(mesh)

color_layer = bm.loops.layers.color.new("color")
# make a random color dict for each vert
# vert_color = random_color_table[vert]

def random_color(alpha=1):
    return [uniform(0, 1) for c in "rgb"] + [alpha]
random_color_table = {v : random_color()
                      for v in bm.verts}
for face in bm.faces:
    for loop in face.loops:
        loop[color_layer] = random_color_table[loop.vert]
bm.to_mesh(mesh)

Should your table be indexed by vert index use something like
color_table[loop.vert.index]

If you notice that you are getting -1 for index value run
bm.verts.ensure_lookup_table()

Related
How to get random color variation on a single mesh?
set a specified vertex color to black via python

This is great. Just to note that I received an error with the added bm.verts.index_update() at the end, but everything else worked fine.

This worked great ! Just one thing, I guess now the vertex colors expect an aplha value too, so one should replace "rgb" with "rgba" to add a 4th channel. Or just append the value 1 so the vertices stay opaque.

Thanks, edited.


text:
No audio playback in VSE but rendered file has audio
I can not get audio to play out of my speakers whilst using Blender 2.77a in the Video Sequence Editor. However when I rendered out a file (mp4) it contains the audio and can be played back on VLC. Plus when I use mediainfo it reports the file as having audio. I need to be able to hear the audio in the VSE whilst I'm editing the images.
When selecting Draw Waveform in the Sound menu a waveform is drawn on the clip that matches the audio (highs and lows are in the right place). Below is a screen shot of my Blender User Preferences.

I have tried all the Audio Device options under Sound but none of them have worked. Each time I changed the Audio Device options I restarted the computer.
Below is a screen shot of my Output and Encoding options from the Render menu.

From some of the threads that I read some people were pointing towards sound card configurations. I am fairly new with using Blender so I am not aware of more advanced configuration options. I have spend one whole day trying to solve this problem by following similar post found via Google but have had no luck. If you need more information please ask.
Thanks very much.
System information:

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Blender 2.77a

To enable the sound in my Video Sequencing Editor, I had to change the system setting for audio device from OpenAL to SDL. Doing this seemed to jar loose the sound so that it would play.  I was even able to change the setting back to OpenAL and the sound continued to be enabled.  Strange, huh?  The sound works fine now.
Go to File> User Preferences> System> Sound: Audio Device.

I have solved the problem. It was not a Blender issue it was an issue with the sound server (I think that is what it is called). I installed a program called pavucontrol which stands for PulseAudio Volume Control. This program enables the user to assign which audio device a program can be associated with. Below is a screen shot of pavucontrol being associated with Blender using the SDL option.

In my case I choose Built-in Audio Analogue Stereo which works fine for me. With this selected I can now hear audio out of my speakers when I am in Blender.
I hope this can help someone. Thanks.

In the timeline window go to Playback > Audio Muted and disable that.

You may also want to turn on audio scrubbing, its very handy BTW

Hello pycoder, Thanks for the response. I have tried Playback > Audio Muted checked and unchecked and either way I get no audio out my speakers. If have also tried Playback > Audio Scrubbing checked and unchecked and still no audio out of my speakers. Once again the sound clips do have audio present because when I render out a movie file it has the audio. Also as a test I placed keyframes onto the volume of the audio going up and down and the rendered out file played the audio with the volume going up and down where I placed the keyframes.


text:
Modeling Waffle Shape of Cone
So I have completed a model of an ice cream cone, but I'm stumped on how to achieve the waffle pattern. What would be the best way to go about this?

Is Sculpting with an alpha good? Or can you achieve this with the poke tool? I tried leaving criss cross edges but it just didn't want to work.
Any help would be appreciated!
(If you need Blend file, let me know! I don't know how to upload .blend files here yet)

@cegaton Okay, cool...and do you think it's able to be achieved with the preset Textures Blender has to offer, or should I create / look for one? Totally forgot about displacing it!

@Art Jr. If you want to upload .blend files in future use Blend Exchange (http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/)

@PaulGonet Hey Paul! Thanks for the tip, definitely will be sure to use it in the future! Thanks!

You may model it using poke and bevel tools.

Select the faces you want to put the pattern on and hide the rest of the mesh with Shift+H. Press Alt+P to poke faces. Select vertical edges (select one of them, go to Select-->Select Similar-->Face Angles), then dissolve them (except for top and bottom ones) with X-->Dissolve Edges. Do the same with horizontal ones. You now have the pattern base.

Select all the faces, press Ctrl+B and drag the mouse to achieve the desired patern's thickness. Inverse the selection with Ctrl+I. Extrude and scale faces inwards (E,I,Shift+Z).

Unhide everything (Alt+H), select the pattern except for very top and bottom edges. Go to edge selection and press Shift+E to crease it.

Finally, you may bake created pattern to the low-poly version of your ice cone (bake normals) and apply it as a normal texture.

Personally I would go with Bump.
Here it is setup with uv and nodes:

I've created this texture in Adobe Illustrator with Rectangular Grid Tool.
UPDATE:
With closer look I've found that some of relief is squashed so I've added some loop cuts to control it with UV maps.

Wow! That's also Amazing too! Thank you so much for the contribution!!


text:
How to simulate miura-ori tessellation?
I'm super new in blender, but have a difficult task to figure out.
I saw another question and its answer about how to simulate this tessellation. Eventhough the answer looked pretty precise and kind, still the way too far to follow for me. For example I could not go to the tab or menu for add bone constrain blah.
Could anyone explain how to make this structure and simulate it step by step? The images below are what I made with the shape tool, but I need better one based on correct physics. It would be greatly appreciated if someone can help me. Thx in advance

The challenge here is the physical correctness, which many posters demand / strive for. Blender was made for animation purposes, which means - in plain English - it has been designed to make things look right, not make right. That's why many solutions in this direction are complex. As long as the constraint is to have it work exactly like in reality, please don't expect simple answers  :)

Hard to tell without knowing what question you found and how the answer was lacking. Could you edit your question and provide a link to the original and point what parts you could not follow exactly?

Thx for the comments! Yes I'm just missing some knowledge. The solution I could not follow was actually what @aliasguru posted before in this link. http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57976/how-to-simulate-miura-fold
I figured out how to connect armatures, but still need to know how to set the controller armature(?). Another question is that why do I have to put intermediate bones. Maybe in my project it is not needed? since my unit is triangle? Thx in advance!


text:
how to simulate origami properly?
I have super struggled with this model and rigging for a month without weekend. I made this rigging object combining copy rotation + transformation. Because I thought some hinges should go faster than others to keep them stick together.

But as you can see in this file above,it does not work. The centre fall apart during the animation. How I can make them get together during the animation?

Still have not solved this problem. please any advice..?

I don't know much about animation or rigging, but I don't really understand the problem. Could you please describe the issue more in-depth? Other than the ends self intersecting this seems fine to me.

Simply subdividing a plane and rotating and translating selections could work, with enough patience.

Look at it in Front View (Ortho). Note that with the rig you have it is designed so it will fold into a square, ignoring the end pieces. If you want something else like a pentagon maybe you should start with that shape and work backwards unfolding it. Or just change the shapes of the end pieces to be more like the rest.

It looks like these are tiny math inaccuracies that add up as they go along the edge of the strip, which is why it gets wider towards the end.  The 'tail' of your DEL and EL bones are at 5cm and -5cm, and if you make those 3cm and -3cm, the center stays together a lot better.  You may need to tweak the size of other bones to get it exactly perfect.


text:
How can I assign a mesh group to an armature?
I have a mesh group which is not allowed to merge but has to move together.  Now I am assigning each part to the same armature which controls all the parts together. It takes insanely amount of time to connect every single peace to the armature. I really wish I can just connect a group to an armature. Is this possible? Thx in advance!

Select all your mesh group
Then select your armature
Press Ctrl+P
Select Parent with Automatic Weighting

Now your mesh should be linked and moves with your armature nicely.

Thank you for the answer, @Tak but this is what I have tried. After press Ctrl+P I still has to assign the each vertex group to the armature in edit mode, otherwise it won't connected together, isn't it?...?

@Poa no, after pressing Ctrl+P then choosing Automatic weighting, it will automatically create vertex groups and assign vertices with weights to them.

I just followed what you said, and it ended up all parts in the group moving slightly different :( so they detached during the animation. It doesn't happen only when I make them with empty group. :/

@Poa Could you provide your file on https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com and post the link to be able to have a look and help you?

Here I uploaded. The file could be really messy ^^;;

@Poa I've checked the file but it's hard to understand what you want to do. Before following the steps mentioned in my answer, go through each mesh in your mesh group and clear parents and delete all armature modifiers, then follow the above steps and see how it goes.

yes I did, and I found my model is really bad (which exported from Rhino) and the groups were totally messed up. :/  I'm modeling again in blender now and will go through your steps again. I will let you know if I succeed! Thank you a lot!

@Poa no worries, let me know how you go.


text:
How to keep two objects to stick to each other while animate them?

I'm trying to make a miura-structure and this is it.

But the problem is that since this movement is in spiral there is a gap between two units. How can I keep them sticking to each other while the movement? Thx in advance

Would basic parenting work?

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos parenting between armatures? or objects? Could you tell me more precisely? Thank you.

Parenting is generally the most elementary way of attaching any two objects, object to armature or vice versa depending on what you want to achieve. I know little about animation so I can help much here, try to clarify what you are trying to achieve

My first instinct is that this requires a fair amount of math to maintain the connections between the objects as you animate them.  Blender can help you with some of the math if you arrange your armature correctly, and inverse kinematics can help with a few types of constraints, but it is not hard to come up with some origami that exceeds blender's tools and forces you to do some of the math yourself.  In truth, I suspect that there's a hill to overcome where you work hard to gain a great understanding of the math and it enables you to know if and how you can exploit blender's options.

I really want to add more images, but it says I need more reputation. Anyway, I made this model to be movable by one controller, and I used copy rotation. of the controller armature. that means each units moves exactly same way (But inverted). To maintain the columns to each other, some armature has to be rotated more than others. Thats what I figured out. and it needs some calculation... but I'm really bad at mathematics... Is there any solution, or function in Blender which I can use to solve this problem? :(


text:
Is this possible that one objects follows the other object's transformation?
I'm trying to make an animation of tessellation structure.
Since I have to edit bunch of units at the same way, I wonder if it is possible to edit only one object and set others just follow the first one automatically. I have tried Parenting, Grouping etc but I haven't found any solution yet. Thx in advance!

Make a copy using Alt+D (original and copy will have the same shared inner geometry)

Also the "copy transforms" constraint could be useful, maybe.


text:
Why some objects are not mirrored?
I copied original objects and mirrored them. But one object never be mirrored. Why does it happen?

The black colour is the original object, and the selected meshes are what I duplicated, and mirrored. However, the middle triangle never get mirrored. I do not know why? every object has the same pivot point (Center) what should I adjust to solve this problem?

How exactly are you mirroring these?

plz attach the file for detail investigation

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos I just selected objects, and pressed Ctrl+D, and clicked [mirror]button on the left side panel (which shows up when I press T), and pressed 'Y'

@ateks I just put the file here, really don't know why it does not work....

@Poa are you using mirror modifier

If yes then delete the half. And the part which you want to mirror is loose or say separate parts so join Ctrl+L and make it one mesh and then mirror it

2 ways you can mirror
1st method : If yes then delete the half. And the part which you want to mirror is loose or say separate parts so join Ctrl+L and make it one mesh and then mirror it.
or if you do not want to join and keep separate
2nd method : Just group the half you want to mirror. with selected half group press shift+D and without moving just rotate 180 on x axis. (As the 3d cursor is set)

Oh the second method is really good for me! Since I have to keep the object separately! Thank you a lot :D

Hope it is helpful for you and others

@Poa if the answer solved your problem please consider marking it as accepted, or if it helped you at least upvote it.


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How to find lost image in uv/image editor?
I was rendering my model in cycles render, and I zoomed out and panned away (in the uv/image editor), and now I can't find the rendered image. How do I center it in the image editor?

use the "Home" key. Alternatively, you can also save it to disk (even if not visible).

If you're in object mode Shift C should get it back into view.

Use:
View > View Fit
Or View All
Or use a hotkey like lemon mentioned (provided you are using blender's default hotkeys):
Home or Shift + Home