text:
Generate colored faces texture from UVs
I have just UV unwrapped my model and I will be editing its texture in Photoshop but it's hard to tell where each things are and I have to do a lot of trial and error. I know you can generate a grid texture as well (Color Grid and UV Grid) which is more helpful but still not what I have in mind.
What I want is to generate a texture where each face is colored differently to help me figure out exactly what is what in my image editor. Does blender have a feature to do it automatically?
Thanks

You can always paint across where the seams are in different colors, and then you'll have a reference texture to start from in your image editor. You can later refine the seams with the clone brush.

There is an addon called Export UV layout that allows you to export your UV unwrap layout as vertex and edges so you can draw over them in whatever graphics editing software you use. Not sure if that is enough or what you were looking for.
If that is not enough you could assign different materials to your object's faces with different colors as desired, bake it to a texture using your existing UV layout and the export that baked texture to Photoshop so you can paint/edit over it.
Alternatively you may also play around with cycles procedural materials, and create a setup that highlights your geometry details in an informative way (the geometry input node as some useful options) and then bake the resulting shader to a texture using the UV layout.

UV Image Editor window ..... menu UVs ..... Export UV Layout ... in the latest version of Blender this is built in.  You can show the menu if that suits you.

does not color the faces in unique colors, only creates a outline but better than nothing, thanks

No, it doesn't colorfaces, only exports a grid, but that is generally enough for most cases. The answer bellow by Mr Zak seems to provide the effect you want.

I'm not sure if this can help you, but you have possibility to create a color map where each face is colored differently using vertex colors.

This method assumes using Coloring Connected Vertices addon, so you should install the addon in order the solution to work.
Unwrap your mesh. Note that resulting image of colored faces will depend on this step, so you may want to unwrap with seams in order to get appropriate islands.
To make addon color individual faces instead of whole object you should make each face being individual. This can be done by extruding individual faces and deleting original ones.
Enter Edit mode of the mesh, select all and press Alt+E > Individual Faces. Cancel moving of extruded parts by pressing Esc.

Invert selection with Ctrl+I to select only original faces and delete them.
Enter Vertex Paint mode, in Paint menu find Add random vertex colors to connected vertices operator which is what addon is. After executing it the faces will be colored randomly.

With all selected choose W > Remove doubles; individual faces are no longer needed.
In materials node of the object add Emission node (I chose it to see clearly what the colors are when rendered; it could be Diffuse shader as well, just when baking choose to bake Diffuse Color) and Vertex Colors > vertex color name (by default Col). Connect them appropriately.

Image Texture node left unconnected intentionally; see below for the bake details.
Bake appropriate pass; with nodes above this will be Emit. See How do I bake a texture using Cycles bake for details about baking textures. Change Margin for desired result.


text:
Glossy Text shader material on soft toch paper
I can't get the right shader material for text like this:

I've used a texture uvmapped on a plane, with alpha channel, and assigned two shaders one Glossy and one Glass with IOR of 1.406 (plastic) without succes.

A simple glossy material for the text/designs would work, the lighting is what you would need to change.

It's not so simple, because the text is like a rubbered glossy plastic. Transparent on surface paper.

Do you have a reference image to work from?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
When I unwrap an object for texturing with custom seams, sometimes I get strange streaks while painting. How can I fix this?
So I have a submarine that I've finished modelling, it is low-poly, and ready for texturing. The seams seem to work perfectly, and Blender has no complaints. The patterns lay out, and I start coloring in the areas in order to lay down the final textures on specific areas. Problem! Streaks start appearing outside the UV seams, across the entire texture. This started happening with Blender 2.71, and nothing I can do seems to fix them - there seems to be no rhyme to why they appear either:

Has anyone encountered this before? What is the best way to solve this?

Oh yea , i have encountered this quiet a few times , it is either a bug or something like this : http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/18156/baking-ambient-occlusion-gives-odd-black-vortex-output

So it may be a bug. After extensive reworking of the UV's to remove specific areas and fix it again I did manage to produce a layout without the lines. With a little study, it seems to occur more often if there are intensive edge groupings.

well there you go

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


text:
fluid particles do not fill boundaries of the mesh
i'm trying to fill "pools" with water particles ( fluid ) to make a splash simulation with fluid. My problem is that the mesh i use is not filled entirely resulting in empty borders between water pool and the landscape.
i tried almost all parameters in fluid domain , increased resolution etc etc, did not work. Is the problem coming from the shape of the mesh im trying to fill?
What am i missing ?

Blend file here
thank you

is 150 really the highest resolution you tried? because i am pretty sure it is the resolution...and of course you have to increase subdiv of your "pool" as well, if this isn't enough. i tried with 300....[1]: https://i.sstatic.net/7A6sQpEe.png and as you can see it is in fact getting better. So i wonder what you really have tried....

i tried 300, i tried 500. Doesnt change anything it just increases the amount of particles but still there is an empty space not filled. Also my computer hardly supports more than 150 thats why i set it at this value for now.
I also exported the "pool" as a fbx into houdini to try in another software. it does almost the same thing or i have to increase the resolution to an insane amount that my computer cant handle.

@Chris 500 resolution here a screenshot of 500.

@Chris No, I don't think it's the resolution. It's probably another one of many Mantaflow bugs. Just making it a manifold mesh and switching off Is Planar solves the problem even at a low resolution of ~100 (In my attached example in the answer), and I believe something around ~175-200 would give the OP a perfect result.

@Chris I did the same process using FLIP FLUIDS (It is kind of available for free, however, the free, not demo, version doesn't provide you with the materials etc) and was going to post that as the best solution to this, however, I just quickly switched to a low-res bake in Mantaflow and it worked just as well

Simply go to edit mode and go to Select > Select All by Trait > Non Manifold

Next, press E to extrude the mesh, press Z to lock it to the Z-axis, and move it down until it is not intersecting with itself. Then press F to fill.

Now, you can uncheck Is Planar in its effector settings and bake your simulation again.

The most probable reason for a gap between the fluid and the collision object is Blender setting a default value for the Surface Thickness value in the effector settings when set to 0 and Is Planar. Since this is not documented, I take it to be a bug in the Mantaflow simulator.

it worked perfectly now the fluid sim fills the border, thank you so much.

@ant0 Good luck with your project! :)

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


text:
Convert animation on curve modifier for Unity

As you can see in the gif above, I have a very simple animation along a path. Basically, the snake has an unapplied curve modifier and simply moving it on the Y axis creates this animation. However, if I simply apply the curve modifier, the snake will be stop deforming and move on the Y axis instead of moving ALONG the path and deforming. Since I cannot export the path and animate the snake on that path in Unity, what would be the best way to export that animation to the game engine?


text:
Boolean modifier issues

I would like to use a difference boolean modifier on this mesh so the small branches on top "sculpt" detail into it. But the boolean operation will not work. There seems to me a problem with the bottom mesh, because I can use the branches to do a boolean difference with other primitives without any issue. I've tried pretty much everything. The bottom mesh is manifold, all normals are correct, rotation and scale were applied, no loose vertices or edges, doubles were removed, etc... I even tried to triangulate it, but nothing seems to make it work properly. As soon as I try to apply the boolean operation, I get this weird result where the branches perform a union rather than a difference and their normals get inverted.
Here is the .blend file if anyone is willing to take a look at it. If this happens to be a bug and cannot be resolved, any suggestions as to how I could have made such details into my mesh without boolean?

Upper mesh has intersecting faces

By solving the intersection with a remodeling, and after triangulating the lower mesh, you should obtain a similar result:

Yes indeed, I had help from another user on BlenderArtists a while ago. Turns out the twigs were not manifold at all and had interior faces as well. Once cleaned up and triangulated, boolean worked withtout a problem! Thanks for the input!


text:
UV unwrapping mesh with radial array modifier

I have this floor mesh which was modeled using the array modifier w/ rotation to create an hexagonal shape. I started unwrapping and marked my seams (in red). The edges selected in ORANGE are the ones on which I do not want any seams, but they happen to be on opposite sides of the mesh. Therefore I need to align them (as if they were merged) but the weld and stitch commands are no good because they are on opposite sides of the mesh. How to superpose them precisely on top of each other so there are no visible seams, or at least how do I align these islands based on the selected edges without moving only the edges and distorting the map (I need the whole island to move along).

Do you want to stitch the opposite sides of the mesh? Why are you trying to do it this way?

because opposite sides of the mesh will actually be touching, this is an array, and I don't want any seam where they meet.

Enable UV snap and change it to Vertex, then move one island till it snaps to one of the connecting vertices.

Select the connecting vertex and snap 2D cursor to its location using Shift+S Shortcut and change Pivot Point to 2D Cursor

Select one UV island and rotate it till it snaps to the other side of second UV island.

Perfect! Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

Consider creating only one section of the floor and unwrapping it first.  Texture it first.  Then duplicate it radially second.
You may want to create a frame of this radially symmetric image, save it as a pnc file, and use it a texture on an some other simpler mesh.

If not sure if I understand what you're saying properly, but this IS only one section that has been unwrapped. The array modifier is not applied. In fact if it was applied, I wouldn't have this problem at all but the whole point of my question is because I want to avoid to apply it. I'm not sure what you mean either by creating a "frame"? And I'm not familiar with PNC files, unless you meant PNG? In fact this is not radial symmetry, this is radial translation (or simply rotation). Could you elaborate on your solution?


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Multiple array modifiers and object offset rotation
I have this hexagonal column that I made with an array modifier (with a rotated empty offset), since all 6 sides of it are the same. I need that column (the result of the first array) to be duplicated in a circle as well. When using empties as the offset, you need to position the object's origin where the empty is. The problem I face now is that I cannot use a second array modifier with an object offset on top of the first one, because I would have to move the object's origin (which is already positioned to make the first array work, and moving it will change the first array's result). Obviously I cannot have 2 origins for the same object. I know I can APPLY the first array and then move my origin for the second array but the whole point is to try to avoid this in case I need to modify the column itself. Any way I can make this work?

Try to put the second empty  of second array modifier at the location of the column and then rotate it relative to the center of the circle where the arrays should be(360/number of columns).

Add a second array modifier to your column.
Crate a second empty at the same location of origin of the column and assign it in the second array modifier.
Set the 3D Cursor where the center of the array should be.
Set Pivot Point to 3D Cursor
Select the second empty and rotate it on Z axis (360/count number in second array modifier)


text:
cant extrude top faces with geo nodes
i'm trying to extrude cells top faces using geo nodes to mimic basaltic rocks design.
When i do it on a basic grid it works no problem but when i try to use quick cells addon to generate cells and then add same nodes it seems thats also sides faces are extruded, how can i fix that ?

Looks like the addon has added extra geometry. Try using a merge by distance node before the extrude and play around with the value.

i was thinking the same at first but i think its not extra geo , extrude node is just taking data from sides faces instead of only top faces, and it then scales them up along the Z axis.

Can you upload the file to blend exchange?

yes sure ! here is the link

It seems like that add on just creates a bunch of extra geometry by default - the top faces are subdivided strangely so even creating an vertex group of only the top faces and using that to select the extrusion still doesn't fix it.
I just ended up scaling the z to 0 and doing a limited dissolve to get a single face per island. Then the geonodes set up behaves as expected. As long as you don't specifically need that extra geo it should be fine right?

Thank you for solving it ! i just watched your file but i do not see the disolve by distance node in geo nodes. Can you show me how you proceeded so i can understand and reproduce it myself. thank you !

oh i think i get it, you just went to edit mode, mesh, dete, and dissolve faces and vertices  right ?

Yes - you can do this with geometry nodes but it's harder.
The easy thing is to scale the z to 0 and merge by distance - you can do that with a transform node and a merge by distance node.
But there are still tris that create edges. You then you need to dissolve coplanar edges. There are a few threads of how to do that with geometry nodes - but the gist its a process of splitting edges only where the edge angle is greater than zero - converting all border edges to curves, filling the curves, putting things back together and merging by distance again - a lot of work for a simple problem.

thank you for the explanation , i did it manually as it is easier and works perfectly. Still interesting tho to understand each ways of doing it.
Thank you for your help again

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


text:
Can not scatter properly procedural plant on targeted mesh
I have created a procedural plant using geo nodes that i would like to scatte on a mesh using particles system.
When i instance oject selecting the plant as a target, only the curve appears and not the leafs.
What should i do to proceed correctly and make everything appear?
thank you

blend file

you should first provide a node tree that we can read.

sure, here a blender file so you can better see

My first guess is Realize Instances.  I see one in your tree, but I haven't looked closely at what you're doing.

Of course you can scatter in geonodes as well

@AllenSimpson You do realize the question already had an accepted answer before you commented and yes, Realize Instances was the issue ;)

@GordonBrinkmann no, I hadn't refreshed the page, I think.  LOL

Your leaves are just instances, they have to be real geometry to be used in the particle system. Plug a Realize Instances node between the Join Geometry and the Group Output nodes.


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How to attach or glue metal pieces to a cloth simulation?
I'm new to blender and trying to attach or glue some metal pieces with a cloth simulation but I'm not able to do it correctly.
I want to attach some metal pieces with the cloth simulation. and want to show that the weight of those metal pieces are stretching the cloth object.
In the gif you can see a coat with some metal objects are attached.

parenting is working but metal pieces are behaving a little weird

Select the metal object, shift select the cloth, switch to Edit mode, select 3 vertices of the cloth mesh that are close to the object and that are not aligned in a row and CtrlP Make Vertex Parent:

Result:

its not working i have tried

please share your file: https://blend-exchange.com/

thank you moonboots for the help I'm able to attach metal pieces  but they are rotating or behave little weird

you can check the gif i have attached. there is a character wearing a cloth with some metal objects on it want to create something similar.

I've edited, it looks like it works better if the vertices are not aligned

thank you so much @moonboot now its working :)


text:
Slide tool in hair sculpt mode
I am using blender 4.0.2 and "new hair system". There is a slide tool in the sculpt mode for hair curves. But every time I try to use it, my hair curves jumps back to their original place...

Are you able to share some screenshots to show us what you're trying to do?

@Onyx sure, post edited

Same problem, the slide tool never work for me. So I just move the vertices in edit mode.

Are you using a tablet with pen pressure? I had the same problem until I disabled the "strength pressure" button right beside the strength slider.

TY so much! Who would have thought... Seems like a bug.


text:
Numpad Buttons Panel
A question arose recently regarding the numpad.
Below is the code that produces panel shown in the image

Have used a 3 column column flow and added the extra row and column with double sized keys.
The alignment would be better if the box layout wasn't used, however would like to keep the margins around the buttons that using boxes creates.
however, with the buttons in boxes its difficult without tweaking (double width or double height)  to get the alignment right.
Be keen to hear from UILayout gurus on how they would write this.
Note the labels are out of order can be corrected later.
import bpy

class LayoutDemoPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the scene context of the properties editor"""
    bl_label = "Layout Demo"
    bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_layout"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "scene"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        x1 = layout.row(align=True)
        c1 = x1.column()
        c2 = x1.column()
        cf = c1.column_flow(columns=3, align=True)
        for key in sum(
            (
            ("NL", "/", "*"),

            tuple(map(str, range(1, 10)))
            ),
            tuple()
            ):

            cf.box().operator("wm.splash", text=key)

        c2.box().operator("wm.splash", text="-")

        box = c2.box()
        box.scale_y = 2
        box.operator("wm.splash", text="-")
        box = c2.box()
        box.scale_y = 2
        box.operator("wm.splash", text="-")

        row = c1.row()
        box = row.box()
        box.scale_x = 2
        box.operator("wm.splash", text="-")
        box = row.box()
        box.operator("wm.splash", text="-")

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

I’m not entirely sure what this is supposed to be. Are you making code to draw a numberpad in 3D or maybe grease pencil, or are you trying to create a user interface numberpad to replace the keyboard?

One concept could involve mapping the assigned blender keymap binding operator  to the  buttons (or demonstrating that they are free, or temporarily assigning something different)..  Basically tho  the question is re getting the layout right.

In that case, I’m not sure this is the right stack to exchange this question on.

Have no idea why you think that. Basically think of it as 17 blender operator buttons laid out to look like the numpad.

OK. Then you are trying to create a user interface numpad to replace the keyboard?

All right, I understand. I just wanted to make sure I knew what you were trying to create here in terms of whether I need to tell you about grease pencil or GUI API.  As it is, I know nothing about the GUI API. Sorry


text:
Making an AnyType Pointer
Further to this question on how to mark up an any type pointer, can we create one.
How to use template_any_ID() into Ui Layout?
import bpy

class Test(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    id : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.ID)
    id_data : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.ID)
    id_type : bpy.props.EnumProperty(
            items = [
                ('OBJECT', "Object", "Object type"),
                ('SCENE', "Scene", "Scene"),
                ],
            default = 'OBJECT'
            )

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "scene"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        scene = context.scene
        layout.template_any_ID(scene.foo, "id", "id_type", text="Foo")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(HelloWorldPanel)
    bpy.utils.register_class(Test)
    bpy.types.Scene.foo = bpy.props.PointerProperty(
            type=Test,
            )

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

I arrived to this :

I couldn't make Simulation and PointCloud work since they're not really of type ID for some reason.
This is much uglier than you expected but I kind of made it work with this monstrosity. It doesn't follow python guidelines for naming attributes but I don't think anyone cares :) :
import bpy

class Test(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    Action : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Action)
    Armature : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Armature)
    Brush : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Brush)
    Camera : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Camera)
    CacheFile : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.CacheFile)
    Collection : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Collection)
    Curve : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Curve)
    VectorFont : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.VectorFont)
    GreasePencil : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.GreasePencil)
    Image : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Image)
    Key : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Key)
    Light : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Light)
    Library : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Library)
    FreestyleLineStyle : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.FreestyleLineStyle)
    Lattice : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Lattice)
    Mask : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Mask)
    Material : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Material)
    Mesh : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Mesh)
    MovieClip : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.MovieClip)
    NodeTree : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.NodeTree)
    Object : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Object)
    PaintCurve : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.PaintCurve)
    Palette : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Palette)
    ParticleSettings : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.ParticleSettings)
    LightProbe : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.LightProbe)
    Scene : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Scene)
    Sound : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Sound)
    Speaker : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Speaker)
    Text : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Text)
    Texture : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Texture)
    Volume : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Volume)
    WindowManager : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.WindowManager)
    World : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.World)
    WorkSpace : bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.WorkSpace)
    id_type : bpy.props.EnumProperty(
            items = [
                ('Action', "Action", "", "ACTION", 1),
                ('Armature', "Armature", "", "ARMATURE_DATA", 2),
                ('Brush', "Brush", "", "BRUSH_DATA", 3),
                ('Camera', "Camera", "", "CAMERA_DATA", 4),
                ('CacheFile', "Armature", "", "FILE", 5),
                ('Collection', "Collection", "", "OUTLINER_COLLECTION", 6),
                ('Curve', "Curve", "", "OUTLINER_DATA_CURVE", 7),
                ('VectorFont', "Font", "", "FONT_DATA", 8),
                ('GreasePencil', "Grease Pencil", "", "GREASEPENCIL", 9),
                ('Image', "Image", "", "IMAGE_DATA", 10),
                ('Key', "Key", "", "SHAPEKEY_DATA", 11),
                ('Light', "Light", "", "LIGHT", 12),
                ('Library', "Library", "", "LIBRARY_DATA_DIRECT", 13),
                ('FreestyleLineStyle', "Line Style", "", "LINE_DATA", 14),
                ('Lattice', "Lattice", "", "LATTICE_DATA", 15),
                ('Mask', "Mask", "", "MOD_MASK", 16),
                ('Material', "Material", "", "MATERIAL", 17),
                ('Mesh', "Mesh", "", "MESH_DATA", 18),
                ('MovieClip', "Movie Clip", "", "TRACKER", 19),
                ('NodeTree', "Node Tree", "", "NODETREE", 20),
                ('Object', "Object", "", "OBJECT_DATA", 21),
                ('PaintCurve', "Paint Curve", "", "CURVE_BEZCURVE", 22),
                ('Palette', "Palette", "", "COLOR", 23),
                ('ParticleSettings', "Particle", "", "PARTICLES", 24),
                ('LightProbe', "Light Probe", "", "LIGHTPROBE_CUBEMAP", 25),
                ('Scene', "Scene", "", "SCENE_DATA", 26),
                ('Sound', "Sound", "", "SOUND", 28),
                ('Speaker', "Speaker", "", "SPEAKER", 29),
                ('Text', "Text", "", "TEXT", 30),
                ('Texture', "Texture", "", "TEXTURE", 31),
                ('Volume', "Volume", "", "VOLUME_DATA", 32),
                ('WindowManager', "Window Manager", "", "WINDOW", 33),
                ('World', "World", "", "WORLD", 34),
                ('WorkSpace', "Workspace", "", "WORKSPACE", 35),
                ],
            default = 'Object',
            name = "ID Type",
            )

    def draw(self, layout, context):
        split = layout.split(factor=0.1, align=True)
        split.prop(self, "id_type", text="", icon_only=True)
        split.prop(self, self.id_type, text="")

    @property
    def value(self):
        return getattr(self, self.id_type)

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "scene"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        scene = context.scene
        scene.foo.draw(layout, context)

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(HelloWorldPanel)
    bpy.utils.register_class(Test)
    bpy.types.Scene.foo = bpy.props.PointerProperty(
            type=Test,
            )

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

And if you want to get the ID value from elsewhere in the code :
print(scene.foo.value)


text:
Baby Mesh Won't Move With Rigify Rig
I purchased a rigged baby model from TurboSquid that was rigged in Blender 2.9 which didn't seem to work in 4.0.2.  So, I stripped out the old rig and created a Rigify rig for the model.  Unfortunately, the new rig doesn't control the model.  I've looked at other posts for a solution and tried some suggestions, like face orientation and merging by distance.  I've spent a week rigging and rerigging and I'm at my wit's end here.  I've been using Blender for a few months now so I'm relatively new, but I have a decent amount of experience for a newb, including following some YouTube rigging tutorials successfully. See the photo of my failed rig.  Nothing moves on the mesh, whether I'm in IK or FK mode.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thank You!

What size is the baby model? - Rigify doesn't work well (or at all sometimes) with very small objects. If you do scale it up in Object mode, don't forget to apply the scale to both it and the Armature with Ctrl-A > Scale.

Yes, I did scale it down before rigging it.   The model is at real-world scale, in inches, at 21" tall.   I need to use it in a scene that already has everything to scale.  And yes, I did apply transformations to everything.  Any thoughts?  Thanx!

You mean you scaled it up (not down) before parenting the mesh to the armature, right? Scaling up the mesh and the armature by factor 10x often does the trick. After the Parent To operation, you can revert the scale again to obtain the model in real-world size. Did you use Parent To > With Automatic Weights? Is there a yellow error message (Heat Weighting: Failed to find solution for one or more bones) in the status bar?

When I originally got the model I scaled the height down to the real-world size of 21.5" (.546m), the original was 212.24", or 17.69' (5.39m).  (As mentioned above.) Yes, you're correct, when I tried parenting at the smaller scale I got that error message.  So, now I scaled everything back up 10x and applied all transformations.  Then I parented all the meshes, body, diaper, eyes, and mouth parts, to the meta rig with "With Automatic Weights".  There was no error message, great!  However, the mesh still doesn't move in pose mode, and I haven't even scaled it back down yet.  Thank You!

As I see in the Outliner, the Baby is not child of the rig, while it sholuld if you follow the standard procedure, which is: in Object mode select the baby, shift select the rig, press Ctrl P > with automatic weights. If this doesn't solve, please upload your file.

I went back and followed the rigging tutorial courses on rigging by CGDrive using my model instead of his, and it looks like I missed a couple of steps, plus I think enlarging the rig and model helped as well.  I'm part of the way through, and I can now move the head, arms, and legs.  I still need to work on the eyes and mouthparts.   I'll finish tomorrow and report back.  Thank You Folks!

As I mentioned, I've got the head and limbs moving so far, but I'm adjusting the weight painting now and I was able to stop the arm bones from controlling the diaper with weight painting, great.  However, when I try to adjust the weight painting on the body, it appears to be covered with large white vertex points and they somehow prevent me from ALT-Clicking to select any of the deform bones.   See the second image above.  Any thoughts on how to fix this?  Thank You!

@HorganInnovation Sorry, which second image above?

Okay, so it looks like this was all caused by operator error.  I now have the Baby fully rigged and functional.  By going back and rigging my model along with the CGDive Rigging course, I was able to see where I messed up and correct it.  Thank You all for taking the time to offer your advice and tips!  It's greatly appreciated!

To make this a valuable answer to others who might come across the same problem, it would have been good to explain how you messed up and corrected it, to help them avoid the pitfalls. Just saying "do it again and try to make no errors" is as if I would always answer people who have problems with a tutorial: "just watch it again and try to make it right next time".

As Gordon suggested, I'll post a more detailed solution to my rigging issue so others may learn from it. What I messed up on was the parenting steps, in that I didn't do them because I thought the Rigify process took care of it. Even when I went back to see if did a certain operation correctly, I was just looking for that particular part in the video only. So, the parts of the video I forgot about never got viewed because, well, I forgot them. So it wasn't until I rigged my own model (instead of their sample model) along with the video, from start to finish, that I realized what I had missed. So, I would say the biggest lesson here is, if you can, use your own model to follow an instructional video rather than doing it from memory. It would have saved me days of frustration. Thanx Again!


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Simply Bendy in Blendy
Just curious, I couldn't find any answers to my specific question, then again perhaps I don't have the right words to ask it in the first place. I was in the middle of doing a low poly object when generally I'd be sculpting and I realized every little move that I make, I have to add to or adjust curvatures in each cut on the poly. I was curious if there was a way to select whole sections and any manipulation would automatically adjust each one, things such as a simple rotation if instead of everything flatly moving with the rotation, if each cut on the poly would rotate at the same time the same direction.

There's a pose brush that projects a bone with automatic weight and tries to attempt what you're saying, I think.


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creating a transparent flame
I was trying to follow this tutorial to create flames but no matter what I try I can't get my texture to be transparent. what am I doing wrong? I've rewatched the tutorial multiple times and I think I've done every step ♀ I'd greatly appreciate some help. thanks!!

you might want to use greya, a .png, saw the color ramp itll load faster

@LeeOswald Beginners might not really understand "shorthand" explanations. I guess you mean a greyscale image with alpha channel (entering "greya" at Google gives no useful results and "grey-a" gives definitely other results than what you meant here). Apart from that the only thing you tell is replacing a Voronoi texture with an image which 1. doesn't help if one has no idea what kind of image or where to get something suitable, 2. will most likely not work well with the Generated coordinates, 3. is limited by resolution and tiling and 4. why greyscale when the goal is that cartoon look?

For beginners, I can only recommend to thoroughly watch tutorials and pay close attention to what they are doing there. The answer is quite simple: you are using a Translucent BSDF in your material, but what you need is a Transparent BSDF. Translucency and transparency are not the same.

that was the problem, thank you! I didn't realize there were two different ones. there's no need to be rude though, as you said I'm a beginner and I'm trying

alpha hashed is my go to
the image does not have the leftmost node, we could help better with a full node picture! but if you make it an rgba image with gimp it works.
principled bsdf has alpha channel, try that

I added another screenshot that shows the full node setup. I don't have an image, it's a voronoi texture node

Of course there are different methods to do transparency in Eevee, but the real question here is not what alternatives are there but what is wrong with the setup, because it works in the tutorial with Alpha Clip. Also this is more a comment than a real answer... The solution is quite simple, see my answer.

For the reasons given in my other comment, this answer would be greatly improved with an illustration,  a full description of your recommended approach, and an explanation of why  you recommend it. The part that's a fair criticism of the question is not a part of the answer, and should, instead, be a comment. If this attracts downvotes, it will be because, in the  Stack Exchange environment, it's considered incomplete, and in part, not strictly relevant to answering the question.  SE sites have quite a strict structure.. I hope this comment begins to explain it.


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Move instances along a curve in Geometry nodes
I instanced cubes that follow a curve in geometry nodes, so that they fit the geometry of the building. But I want every second row to be offset by half a brick, as bricks tend to be.
Here's my setup.

I've taken this approach because all my angles are sharp. The base curve is a curve path.
I'm looking for a way to move the bricks along the curve left/right so that every second row offsets and so I can make a good offset to the the first row also, so they look better at the building angles.
For clarification, this is what I want to achieve.

The ability to move bricks along the original curve path.

pls provide blend file so that we can check it out. tbh i cannot really believe that your node tree produces the result of the image

I'm not sure that I can upload the .blend file here? But the whole node tree is in the picture. You can easily recreate it by copying every node to a curve object.

you can open https://blend-exchange.com/ and follow instructions to provide a blend file

I think you should accurately describe what you expect for "ends" of segments and for "small" segments parts.

I'm not sure what you mean by "small" segments. I have a connected curve path. I just wish to offset the bricks along the curve/s.

Here is a solution for bricks on a curve:

Thanks for your answer. But all my angles are sharp, and this approach will make all of the bricks rotate a bit. I've added a .blend file for clarity.


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Should underwater materials have lower roughness values?
I'm make an island scene in Blender. The islands are small and they have a sand texture.
I was wondering about sand that's underwater. Would it be more physically correct to leave the texture roughness the same for sand that's under the water or to lower it?
Something like what you would do if you wanted to make a material look wet.

maybe change the Roughness but you need to also change its color, the wet sand is darker

Oh right, I forgot about base color.
But my question still remains... I know you should do this for materials out in the open that you want to make look wet, but what about materials that are actually underwater; so if you have a water layer on top of them. Should the same rule apply then?


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How to Make Water Rooster Tail
First time poster here. I have a rendering project I’d like to give a water spray effect to, such as that seen behind high-speed boats under power (see reference images or see here about 3 min in). I’m trying to think of how to achieve this effect in Blender without melting my video card.
My first thought was to use a sprite particle emitter and cast out a lot of particles influenced by gravity to get the parabolic shape of the spray. This is most similar to reality, but I think that’s going to take a ton of particles, unless I devise a way to make smoke effects fill in the majority of the spray.
Is there some more elegant way to do this that anyone might know of? Just looking for suggestions before I go barking up the wrong tree.
For now I’m just going to do a static image, so this doesn’t need to be animated.
Thanks in advance.


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I am getting an error message like 'Trace Back Error' while i try to enable a addon in blender
I am Using Blender 4.0 and i installed Mixamo Auto rigging addon in it. but when i try to enable the addon, an error message pops saying "TRACEBACK" error. the addon is showing in the preference addon menu, but i am unable to enable it. Please someone help me in solving this issue. I have attached screenshots of the situation i am encountering.

It doesn't look as if it's been updated to cope with Blender 4's APIs yet. There's a thread here on the Adobe Community forum.


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Geometry Nodes Split a Curve at Control Points and Instance Along Each Segment
I'm using Geometry Nodes for some complex manipulations but I'm encountering a challenge with the final part of my workflow.
Here's what I've achieved and where I need help

Splitting and Scaling Curve Segments: I have successfully managed to split a curve at each control point and apply a scaling parameter to reduce the size of each new curve segment. This part is working as expected.

Issue with Object Instancing: The challenge arises with the third step - instancing an object along these scaled and separated curve segments. Currently, when I use the 'X_Curve_Deform' node to instance along a curve, the object gets stretched between each segment of the curve, which isn't what I'm aiming for. Instead, I'd like to have a distinct, non-stretched copy of the object at each segment, with a clear space between each instance.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to prevent the objects from stretching across segments and ensure that each instance is a separate, intact copy of the object with space between them? I suspect there’s a specific node or setting that I'm missing.
I've been experimenting with various nodes but haven't found the right solution yet.

EDIT :
Maybe I was not clear enough : The goal is to instanciate a curve with random scale and position to get a fully random wall and then to duplicate it verticaly. Then, instead of getting the same stone at control points, I would like to get a specifif one, designed to be an angle stone. The .blend file of my Geometry Nodes is linked in this edit. And then, instead of realising the instances, my top (but not the most important) goal would be to be able to instance the object to get a light scene.

Seems like a very simple problem to me: just convert the curve to mesh, you can then use "Split Edges" node and convert back to curve if you want to have it as separate splines, but also you can easily instance on the middles of the segments by converting edges to points:

looks like a similar objective as this one: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/309716/move-instances-along-a-curve-in-geometry-nodes ...

Thanks for your fast answer ! But maybe I was not clear enough, I have edited my post to give more explanations

@EtienneSommer I tend to answer titles... I read the posts as an explanation of the title. If the title was "How to build a wall of bricks", I probably would have just linked to this


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Blender trying to bake the Color with Shaders(Cycles)
I connected a few nodes in “Shading” to create an interesting gemstone-ish texture for my object.I chose the baking type “diffuse” because of the color input.
Sadly everything came out black.

Hi. Please use a title that matches the content of the question. It should be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the issue so that anyone searching for a similar problem is likely to find it. Remove anything superfluous, avoid using words like "this", "help with", "issue" or "question about", instead describe what "it" is. Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors see, answers you get depend heavily on how insightful it is. See What is the problem of asking “How do I do this?"

Please [edit] your post to replace the duplicated screenshot by a full screenshot of your shader, as well as your baking settings, so that we can see what's going on.  Please do your best to make readable screenshots, no low resolution nor zoomed out stuff that wee need to see. Unrelated, but there's already an emission component in the Principled BSDF node, you shouldn't need these extra Emission BSDF + Mix Shader nodes.


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Fitting objects in a landscape model?
I need to make a model of different water body types in a valley. Therefore, I wanna use a standard valley model from the landscape add on and put three objects in this valley. Sadly, I did not find how to fit these objects within the valley mesh (bad drawing of how it should kinda look like are included).
Maybe one has an idea, or maybe there's an easier way than with the standard valley thing?

Could you provide your Blender file using https://blend-exchange.com/, including an example of "the three objects" you would like to put ? I could not figure out of your drawing what these look like. Could you also explain what do you expect as "fitting" ? Is it about position, orientation, position, ... ?

Hey, thanks for your answer, I will upload the blender file - here another drawing maybe more clear? I want to fit the objects to the landscape valley so that the objects follow the natural edges of the valley and dont have sharp corners.

@Mirai This text is supposed to be edited into your question. I took the freedom to do that.

@GordonBrinkmann , sry, thank you :)

(Using Blender 3.6.5)
Objective
To model the water surface of a stream flowing downhill, coloured by types of flow.

Approach
Extrude a Bezier curve following the bottom of the stream, after a slight vertical shift, to generate a surface larger than the valley.
Procedure
Step 1: Visualise the slope

1. In the Shader Editor:
1.1. The vertical coordinate Z of the landscape is recovered by combining Texture Coordinate and Separate XYZ nodes.
1.2. Z is input in a Wave Texture node which Scale parameter is adjusted to sample the valley of interest.
1.3. The result is iso-elevation contour lines.
Step 2: Draw the curve following the valley

2. In Edit Mode/Top view:
2.1. Add a Curve/Bezier object above the landscape.
2.2. Add more control points above the landscape also. Move these in (X,Y) directions and adjust tangents to follow the valley floor, using the contours as guideline.
2.3. To put these control points on the landscape mesh, add a Shrinkwrap modifier. Set Wrap Method to Project along Negative Z Axis. Select the landscape as Target. Check the Apply on Spline icon to project the control points rather than the curve.
2.4. Duplicate this Bezier curve, to keep a copy before destructive actions, and Apply the modifier to the copy.
Step 3: Extrude the duplicated curve to model water surface

3. In Edit Mode, using the Curve Context Menu:
3.1. Select Set Handle Type/Aligned if the projection at step 2 misaligned left and right handles, to keep a smooth water surface whatever the underlying landscape slope variations are.
3.2. Set the Tilt of all control points to 90 degrees.
3. In the Object Data Properties panel:
3.3. Set Twist Method to Z-Up to keep extruded segments horizontal.
3.4. Adjust the Geometry/Extrude value, avoiding overlap of extruded faces in regions of small radius of curvature. Otherwise, stairs are generated instead of a smooth surface.

3. In Edit Mode:
3.5. Move each control point in Z direction, or perpendicularly to the landscape mesh, to adjust the width of the apparent water surface.
3.6. Adjust tangents to keep the surface aligned with the underlying landscape slope, or to create horizontal lakes.
3.7. Using the Curve Context Menu, adjust the Radius at control points where the extruded distance is too small/too large according to the local stream width.
Step 4: Specify different materials/colours

4. In Object Mode:
4.1. Convert the extruded curve from step 3 to Mesh, keeping the original.
4. In Edit Mode, using the Material Properties panel:
4.2. Select faces sharing the same type of flow.
4.3. Select a material and Assign it to the selected faces.
4.4. If a mesh per type of flow is required, from the Face Context Menu choose Separate/By Material.
Resources

Thank you very much! I will try this - and is it possilble to divide this area (with coulours f.e.) into three different sections?

@Mirai: Would you like to apply different materials to the same mesh, or would you like to split this surface into three distinct objects ? In any case, do you have a criteria (elevation ?) to position the cut ?

good question - I now tried to reproduce all your steps - and it worked - I dont know what makes more sense, maybe three dif. objects? This is for a project in ecology to showcase specific types of flow through wetlands in a valley - I want to have them in different colours.

thanks a lot - one more question, if I render the thing as it is, weird stripes appear in the colored areas.

Could you check that in the Outliner, only the last mesh is enabled in Render mode, and that the shrinkwrap and extruded objects are disabled in Render mode, before rendering the scene ? In the provided Blender file, I forgot to disabled both, so these are invisible in the 3D Viewport but show in rendering. Sorry about that.

all right, thanks a lot :) :)


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Blender freezes when adjusting editing materials and value slider
Been having this issue for a long time and can't seem to find the answers. While in Render View any material value slider adding nodes/removing etc blender will freeze and viewport goes grey while it thinks about what you just changed then will display your result, the freeze is usually about 5-10sec depending on the scene... to wait 5-10 sec every time you touch something is insane. Once in a while I'll watch a tutorial on something and amazed at how responsive the viewport is while shading in render view.
I am on a 2019 Mac Pro, AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo., 96gb ram. Any help would be appreciated.

Wow! so after a year trying to figure this out, late last night I discovered the issue. I have 4 monitors, 3 side by side and one above the centre monitor which I use specifically for the shader/node editor. Last night I put my web browser up there to watch a movie while I work and moved my shader editor window to my right monitor. The viewport became responsive with no freezing or delays editing materials/nodes. With a bit of experimenting this issues I was having only happen on that one particular monitor, works fine on the other 3. Curious to what would cause this? Monitor driver, Duo graphics cards with 3 connected to 1 and 1 to the other, will need to test that out but if anyone has any suggestions that would be great!


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How To Fix Naming Conflicts Causing Broken Clothing/Shader UI?
Novice Blender user here
I downloaded two models from a popular character modeler online. The models use the Character-UI add-on by nextr3d to manage clothing/shader options. They are great models, however, I have noticed an issue with the scripts from the add-on whenever I try to use more than one model at a time.
The file names for the clothes/shaders are the same for both models, so when I append the model with another model, the add-on script finds it difficult to find the correct clothing and shaders so I can edit their appearance. What ends up happening is I can only edit clothes/shaders for one model (whichever one was appended first) versus editing them individually.
I reached out to the creator about this. They explained that I have to go into the original file, rename the clothing files so they do not match, and then update the script in the add-on so it remembers the new names. This is beyond my Blender knowledge. It also does not explain how to fix the shaders, only the clothes. Do I have to rename the shaders as well?
I would GREATLY appreciate any help showing me how to fix the clothes/shaders!
Links:
Model found here
Character-UI add-on


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Neck Seam/Head and Body Skin Different Tones
I downloaded an XPS model and imported it into Blender. I am trying to fix what appears to be a clear line where the head meets the body, even though the entire model appears to be only one mesh, already joined. I have tried using Mix RGB Node > Multiply > Hue/Shader to try and make the materials "blend" together seamlessly, but it doesn't work.
I'd like for the body and the head to blend into one. Not sure where to start.
Here you can see the line around the neck where the skin tone changes

This is how the material looks when I use shader editor

The line also continues around the back

Blend file with external data packed
EDIT
I followed the answer instructions and ALMOST fixed the seam, however, when I join the two meshes together, it recreates the seam. What happens is they become one object, but the faces become blurry, and when I select Shade Smooth, the seam is recreated and I am back at step 1. I'd like to rig the model for posing, but I cannot do that with 2 meshes. Is there a way to join the two meshes without recreating a seam?

You didn't include any textures.  And the materials have different names than your pics.
Your character is one object, but not one mesh (edges are split, aka vertices aren't welded.)  It looks like several islands have different materials, and if you edit one material, you need to also edit the adjacent materials, or else, they won't look the same.  Recommend: pack textures; use same names in pics as in file (just use the file to make the pics); if you've already made edits, like deleting what appears to be redundant geo, we need the original file.

Sorry about that! Very new to blender. I edited the post with the packed file. Please let me know if it works. This is the original file. I was making edits on a copy, but will use the original going forward. Yes, there are many vertices that are not welded. Will welding them fix the seam?

No, welding won't fix any seam.  Hoping that there's some info in the original file that makes that unnecessary, but haven't looked at updated file yet.

Okay, let me know if there's anything else I can provide!

Looking at the original file:

We've got a mesh with edges ripped along its UV seams.  I'm showing one UV island with this linked selection.  There is a visible difference in texture color.  This might be the fault of the original model maker, but it's not impossible it's the fault of some importer that merged vertices that shouldn't have been merged-- this whole structure kind of looks like some techniques I've used to keep heads and bodies separate for convenience, but with some lost data that made it stop working.
Around the selected border, we've got three different mats.  The head uses one image texture, this ring and the body below it uses another.  But we can see that there's a healthy margin on the head texture, which means that this might be solvable:

Pic shown after moving head UV down a unit so we can see what we're doing.  Tiling texture, so the only thing that matters is UV modulo 1, can move things in increments of 1 unit and nothing changes.
So, first, we'll reselect that original ring and separate it and the head above to a new object, then add a new UV map to this new object:

Merge vertices by distance-- careful, there are a few verts that have acquired a bit of distance greater than 0, that should still be merged.  The head seam runs down the back of the head, so leave that edge ripped (or seamed) on the border faces.  Pin the head vertices in the UV editor, then re-unwrap:

Some adjustments to eye to bring it into UV bounds:

Now we'll create a vertex color layer and paint the margin black, and everything else white:

Some shader editing.  We'll use the new UV map for the face image, and for the old material, we'll mix between old mat and face mat on the basis of our vertex color layer.  We'll specify the old UV map for the old body image texture so that we don't have to worry about which UV map is "active".

Perhaps add an RGB curves node to tune the interpolation from body texture to face texture:

Compare to original:

We're smearing that border out by the size of a face.  (In other circumstances, we might be able to do more, but here, that's about all the extra detail that exists on the texture images.)  Any further blurring of the border, you'd want to do with texture painting, but doing so would likely blur some of the texture detail as well.
Can rejoin meshes if desired, that was just for convenience.  Could look into the normal map to make sure it's okay, but I don't think it's a problem.  If we wanted, we can bake this texture to a new map on whatever UV we want-- if you're interested in that, you'll want to be reading about texture baking.

I'm very grateful for your answer! This has helped me a lot already, but I think I am having trouble mirroring exactly what you did to achieve that. Is it possible you could edit and add what keys you selected for each step? I can get as far as separating the head and ring to a new object, but once I do that, I lose the UV Map and cannot select the head/ring vertices to merge them by distance.

The problem with adding hotkeys is that they depend on initial interface choices.  I use 2.79 interface but most new users don't.  You might be better off asking new, focused questions: why can't I/how to merge by distance, for example.

Hi, I edited my post after trying to join the 2 meshes. For some reason, joining them recreates the seam problem.


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Persistence of element tag and select using bound bmesh
For bmesh code I often used  tag to flag a visited element.  On noticing the tags persisted it was required to "detag" the entire bmesh element collection on each run, for consistent results.
Have used a workaround of tagging via a default dictionary as demoed here https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/199075/15543
Below is a little test script to run in edit mode. Randomly tags and selects. Does not have a call to update the edit bmesh so the selection does not show in the edit window.  Run enough times and all edges are tagged.
If the object is toggled back into edit mode the selection persists, all tags are reset to default of False
import bpy
import bmesh
from random import choice

context = bpy.context
ob = context.object
me = ob.data

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

print("Selected", len([e for e in bm.edges if e.select]))
print("Tagged", len([e for e in bm.edges if e.tag]))

for e in bm.edges:
    e.tag = e.tag or choice((True, False))
    e.select_set(e.tag)

Is there a way to quickly discard any selection made or tag set without iterating and resetting all elements?


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Instancing a space theme with a draw callback

In a somewhat tongue in cheek answer to https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/197340/15543 have come across the possibility of having one instance of a 3d view showing a different theme than another.
Updating  a space theme color within a draw callback, and again,  is setting the colour for an instance.   Any  bgl required is being done for us. (Not the right one, shows the concept.  Code was cobbled together for a question revolving around a scene property (same scene per screen))
Feel this could be useful https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/161773/15543 in finding a combination of region and event type.
The question.
How can I harness this to show another theme (or one colour of as above will suffice)  based on a space property correctly. per instance.
My particular use case is being able to "theme" a particular script in the text editor


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Spot lamp rotation and dupliverts

Looking at the image above, I would like to replicate this setup but with spotlights rather than cones. Basically I need an "array" of lamps, but lamps do not support modifiers. So by looking a bit online, I found that the only way to do an "array" of lamps was to use dupliverts. Now dupliverts would work well if I needed them all to point in the same direction, but they point away from one another. Usually with a mesh, I would set up my tracking axes correctly and then rotate my child object and apply its rotation, to get the result you see on the picture. However with spotlights, even if you CAN rotate it, you cannot APPLY its rotation (error message "Objects have no data to transform").
How can I achieve this setup?

THIS particular setup may be achieved by duplicating (linking) a spotlight, rotate by 360/6=60° with the 3d cursor as pivot point and repeating the steps for 4 more times. Anyway it would be cool to find an "automatic" way to do it. (I'm still thinking about how can this can be done..) Why do you need to APPLY a spotlight rotation? What would the advantage be by being able to do it?

Because you cannot get the result as seen on the picture with duplivert and rotation without applying a rotation. Try playing with the tracking axis and object rotation and you will see what I mean (however, maybe there is a way if using object constraints on top of that but that it point is becomes completely counter-intuitive when trying to adjust the angle). I thought about simply using linked duplicates, but any adjustment the location with necessitate reduplicating.

Probably I don't get what method you are referring to. Could you post a blendfile with your usual setup with a mesh instead of a lamp?

I was going to say that my question was already answered, but noticed you were the one who actually posted the solution with duplifaces. The question is: are you able to achieve the same setup you did with duplifaces, but with dupliverts instead? If not, then surely you understand what I mean? I must say I'm a bit confused now by your request.

But since you requested it, here it is. You can see the setup that I aim for in scene 001, for which I had to apply the child's rotation. Now go to scene 002 and try to replicate scene 001 by tilting the child cone on its X axis, without applying the rotation. See how they all move in the same direction if you don't apply the rotation? Once you apply it, they point away from one another, like they should. If you succeed in making them point away without applying the rotation by playing with the tracking axes, please do tell me! I never suceeded.

I asked because you talked about "tracking axis" and that led me to think that you would take advantage of constraints, so I wanted to be sure of what your previous thoughts were. I posted that answer as it was because it was the "more flexible-full controle" solution. Now I've added two more options that may be useful for your case.

1) Dupliverts + Origin offest
For your particular situation, where your base geometry is made by vertex and edges only you can obtain the effect by shifting the object's origin from the geometry.

Since you don't have faces but ony edges and vertex, vertex normals (which is the vector that the lamp will follow, blue in animated the image below) is always directed as the origin-to-vertex vector is, letting you achieve the desired result.

2) Duplifaces
As moving the origin may not be suitable for all the kind of workflows, you can duplifaces instead of dupliverts. You'll have more controle on the faces normals, which is the vector that your lamps will point to.

In the picture below you can see the target shape in orange, and in vivid yellow (active object) the shape parented with the lamp. It's the same shape, rotated by (360/6)/2=30° and scaled a bit to get the center of the face overlayed with the target shape vertices. Faces were created by extruding the edges.

Adjusting the Z difference between the innee and outer boundary edgeloop will give you full control of the lamps orientation.

3) Particle System
Emit particles by mesh's vertex, one for each (in your case the number must be 6) without any randomness (we must be sure to have one, and just one lamp for each vertex). Set Size=1 and Rotation checkbox enabled. Than rotate the Lamp on its Y axis by the choosen factor:


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How to make an operator to access custom screen, scene, brushes, etc
I want to make an operator (to put in a menu) to be able to select custom scenes, screens, brushes, etc.  I look in the info panel when I switch to one, but Blender doesn't display how it switches to these items.

just a note : your questions have been confusing and not clear so please try to be more descriptive and precise

I found the answer screen operators at http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?246232-Screen-Layout-Hotkeys


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Custom Menu to access Custom Brushes, Scenes, Layouts, etc
I want to make some menus (that I can call with a shortcut) that will give me shortcuts to custom brushes, scenes, layouts, etc.
For example
Menu
Custom Brush 1
Custom Brush 2
or
Menu
Custom Scene 1
Custom Scene 2
or
Menu
Custom Layout 1
Custom Layout 2
etc.
I have made some menus for operators and even to do things like switch render engines, but this is beyond my understanding of python scripting.  From what I have read this has something to do with variables.
Thanks for any help.

there is a template for pie menus Text Editor -> Templates -> Python -> Ui Pie Menu. Also see this video tutorial: https://vimeo.com/103321600 Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/9109/2271

I'm OK with making the menu, but I'm having trouble with finding the operator or creating an operator that will allow me to switch to a custom brush or to a custom scene I have created.  If I wanted to make

Sorry for the above.  I know if sculpt mode that pressing x will do the following: bpy.ops.paint.brush_select(paint_mode='SCULPT', sculpt_tool='DRAW'.  I want to do something similiar, but want to be able to call a brush I have customized, for example "MY BRUSH 1" or "MY BRUSH 2."


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Viewport does not display full image
I have a relatively simple blender image (walls of a house), and my computer is reasonably top-shelf.  However, blender is not showing me the entire image while I'm editing it.  What's worse is that the part it's not showing is the part that's closest to me, so I can't even get to the part of the image that I'm trying to work on.  I've includes two pictures: one of my system's specs and one of my house design with portions of the wall (nearest to you) that are missing from the image.  Video card is NVIDIA GeForce.
This seems to be a memory issue to me, like blender is not using all of the memory my system will allow it to use.  I have the memory limit (userpref/editing) set to "0" (which my system says means "unlimited").  Any thoughts as to what I can check/look at/etc. to keep it from doing this?  Thanks in advance for your help.

BINGO!  Thank you, cegaton, I think that was the key ... :)


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Mesh Separation
So I just finished fixing an obvious neck seam between my model's head and body, thanks to this answer to a question I asked yesterday. There are 2 meshes total: 1 for the head, and 1 for the body + some vertices in the head. I am now trying to fully rig my model. I was able to parent both meshes to the armature just fine, and any loose vertices in the head (the teeth, eyelashes, and the eyes), I assigned to the head bone with a weight of 1. Although I can now move the model's head, the mesh separates from the body whenever I do. Also, for some reason, even though I assigned them to the head bone, the eyelashes still lag behind when I move the head. I checked the weight paint, and it is all red, so not sure why they aren't in sync.
Here is what it looks like when I try to pose the head:

The meshes will separate even if I move the chest or an arm (whatever is near the seams). I have tried joining the two meshes into one, but when I do that, I recreate the problem I had before, which is a seam between the head and body (covered in this question/answer). I am not sure what is the best way to proceed. If I join the meshes, it creates an ugly seam, and if I keep them separate, I cannot pose the model.
I'd greatly appreciate any help at all. Here is a link to the blender file for reference.
*Update on part 1 of answer: when I join the 2 duplicates, the textures on the feet and groin area of the model change. I've attached a picture below:

I don't think it's a good idea to have two objects for something that in reality is one especially when they would have to be deformed as one. I would follow a more standard approach and work on the character model first and only then I would move to the next stage of rigging and animating. It should be a single model, single object. I would advice, not attempting to rig it, until you have a fully usable model. You simply need to join the head to the body and take care of the model's topology so it's suitable for rigging. This what you are attempting to do is not how it's done.

You need to solve the seam problem and you should do it before rigging. That should be done by joining the meshes, merging and modelling needed topology at the seam, then you should address the materials if how it looks is a problem, only when the model looks OK and it's topology is suitable for deformations, you should do rigging. So I think this question makes no sense, because the problem is not rigging, but the model and possibly texturing it. It seems you have not yet solved the issue presented in your first question and you should not attempt moving forward before you do.

3 things:

You forgot to specify a color layer for your color attribute node.  This isn't causing a problem at this point (it's being inferred properly) but it would be wise.

I forgot to tell you to plug "UVMap" in as an explicit input for your normal map node.

Somehow, you've lost autosmooth on your body mesh but not on your head mesh.  Enable this on your body mesh (before or after joining.)  This is necessary for your mesh to use its custom normals, which this mesh definitely needs (its normal map is baked relative to customs.)  Note that you've somehow changed all your custom normals on the body mesh since the last question you've asked, I think unintentionally, and you may wish to roll-back the body to an earlier version-- these don't look like the right normals.

"Autosmooth" is the answer to your question, "Why does it make a seam when I join these objects?"  But the implicit question here, your actual goal, is "How do I parent this to the armature with automatic weights?"  Joining the objects together isn't going to help with that.
Automatic weights work great in certain circumstances.  One of those circumstances is that you are weighting a single, manifold mesh.  This particular mesh is not a single manifold mesh.  Even if we join objects and merge the neck vertices, it will still not be a single manifold mesh-- there's the hair bits, the eyes, the mouth...  And if you roll back to your version with proper normals, it'll be ripped all along its seams.
Rather than focusing on the rendering model, let's make a new model that is a single manifold mesh, weight that, and then transfer weights.

Duplicate head and body to a new object.  Join these duplicates.  Hide the other meshes so you don't get confused.

Select a body vert and a head vert, then select linked.  Select inverse and delete all other geometry.

Select all and merge by distance.  Default values will work here.  We now have a roughly manifold mesh (eyes and mouth are holes, but without face bones, that doesn't really matter.)

Parent this new mesh to your armature with automatic weights.  Then, mute the armature modifier that this operation has created.

Unhide your other mesh objects and hide this object.  Create "data transfer" modifiers for your original (joined or unjoined) objects.  Enable "vertex data" and "vertex groups" and set mapping to "nearest vertex."  If using this modifier in a different context, you'll want to read further on it, but here, that's all that you need to do.  Test the armature out:

If everything is working, apply those data transfer modifiers.  Once applying the modifier, you can delete the duplicate you made if you want-- it's no longer doing anything.
The weights are autoweights, not perfect-- the chin has too much weight to the neck, a typical problem.  You could paint the source-- your duplicate-- before applying the modifiers, or paint these afterwards.  But the overall problem, of rips appearing in the mesh, is gone, even with separate objects.

Wow, thank you so much for taking a second look at this and providing new instructions, it is so helpful! I will try this when I get home today. Does this interfere with rigging his face at all? I do plan on rigging it for facial expressions later on.

Yes, if you want to rig the face, you'll have to do more work on weighting.  Odds are that this will have to be manual weighting work anyways however.  Really, you want to have a complete plan for what you want to do before you even begin asking questions-- I originally didn't know you wanted to rig; in answering this, I don't know that you want to do facial rigging.  Ideal solutions depend on the final plan.  But, you can always treat anything learned as just that, a chance to learn.

I understand and apologize, I'm very new to Blender. My plan for this model after fixing the mesh is to rig and pose for pictures (undecided on animation but probably not). With that in mind, would restarting with an unedited file and following the instructions you gave in this answer and the last answer still be the best course of action?

Oh, I don't know.  I think you should treat this all as a learning experience.  Because of the way this model was made, with normals based on split normals, I don't think it's going to be great for rigging.  If you want something perfectly suited for what you want, you make it yourself (or you hire somebody to make it to spec.)  But if you're interested in learning, and are flexible about your final output, there's certainly nothing wrong with continuing along.

I am learning a lot, thanks! Not sure if this is supposed to happen or not, but when I join the duplicates, it changes some of the textures. I edited my post to include a pic. Did this happen for you too?

I didn't pay attention to the feet.  I'd say, look at the material assigned to the feet and make sure it's the same material after joining.  If not, make it a new material, like the old material.


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Not able to use controls of the rigify rig
I've managed to parent the object with the rigify rig.
However, the only controls I'm able to use are the gumball.
I can rotate the rig, but the leg doesn't follow. Around the knee for instance.
I can drag the big handles at the end of the limbs, but my object just stretches out.
It is if it's just parented with the metarig, which it's not.
My result 1

My result 2:

Desired result. Screenshot from YouTube (where everything seems so simple):

If you hit N in the 3D view with the rig selected you should see lots of settings for the rig including some labelled IK>FK. This is the section in the Blender manual and there are many YT tutorials on using Rigify with human characters online.

Thank you! (I have to read and try later today before saying it's resolved.)


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Weird lines while baking Ambient Oclusion
I was baking some AO`s on my pc for some parts for an obj model.
The thing is that, when you finally end the ao bake, some weitrd lines appear in the middle of the piece without the possibility of being removed.
Also they didn´t appear on my ao image, that´s weird.
If someone is wondering for my config, I did not change anything on it, I use the "standard config", I provide some pics of the results below.

First thought.. (not necessarily the fix).. your UV unwrap does look as if it could be cleaner, with less stretch, and clearer separation of islands?  I just think that might give you  an easier starting point, for a diagnosis.


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Unwrap failed to solve 2 of 52 islands. edge seams may need to be added error
Noobie here, I'm trying to unwrap this helm to put on a texture but Im running into this "failed to solve island" issue, I've tried adding seams but nothing changes. I've been at this for over 2 hours and I'm about to call it quits. Any help would be appreciated.

Error message says:

Unwrap failed to solve 2 of 52 island(s), edge seams may need to be
added

And that is exactly the answer. You need to add seams. At the moment there are no seams at all on the model, just some edges marked as sharp. I assume you mistakenly marked them as sharp instead of as seams, could this be it?
What you could do in this case is go into edit mode and select one of the sharp edges that is supposed to be a seam, then Select Similar( Shift  +  G ) by sharpness and then mark them as seams( Ctrl  +  E   ->   M ):


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Blending in or Fading-out /Falloff of Geometry nodes Displacement Modifier
I define a region of a mesh via a vertex group, to which I add a displacement set-position node with a Voronoi texture. As can be seen, the displacement takes effect immediately, meaning at the first point the displacement has a 100% strength. How can I add a gradient so that the start of the vertex group  0% strength of the displacement is applied and the strength ergo the z-height of the displacement reaches 100% at a defined distance from the loop (blue grease pencil marked with 1), to gradually blend in the Voronoi texture
I tried proximity modifier node, but that didn't work out, I tried weight painting but even though there can be a gradient painted in, it does not take effect.
what I try to accomplish is an even transition between the 2 meshes one with a displacement which changes the z-height

you can smooth and optionally normalize the vertex group data in weight painting mode. Just look in the menu in that mode.

true, but the set position node is not influenced by vertex weight it seams, any idea how to solve that?

(Using Blender 3.6.5)
The following approach is computing the distance of painted points to the boundary edges of the painted region. The Z-displacement is then adjusted through a Map Range node. The weight intensity is not used.
1st edition

Resources:
2nd edition

1. By setting the first Separate Geometry node domain to Face and adding a Merge by Distance node after the Join Geometry node should restore connectivity between the two regions, painted and not painted.
2. A Float Curve node can be use to smooth the transition. The Map Range node in this configuration is mapping the width of the transition strip between 0 and 1. Then the Float Curve node is defining the Z-elevation across this strip.
Resources:
3rd edition

1. A Voronoi Texture node is added to modulate the elevation.
2. The Width of the transition region is controlled through the Group Input node. Its smoothness is controlled by the Float Curve node.
3. The Height of the elevation is controlled through the Group Input node.
Resources:

big thank you for your effort, separate geometry introduces a disconnection between the surfaces, is it possible to create the proximity target edge without separating the mesh? since the transition between the 2 faces is not planar like in this example but are G3 and I cant rebuild it manually in blender to become Class-A again. Also now, we map it linearly, is there a way to pipe in an own transition curve into the map range?

brilliant...the only thing where I cant wrap my head around is, how you define the distance of the transition zone, only as a value input in the map node to max? here should go the voronoi Z-Displacement max value I think, to map between 0 and max voronoi displacement? Also I cant really understand what`s happening at the 2nd separate geometry, we take our splitted out face and get rid of the subdivisions?

Could you explain what you are using the "Voronoi Texture" node for ? To make bumps ? 2) The 2nd "Separate Geometry" set in "Edge" domain is to collect only the boundary edges of the painted region. Such an edge is connected to only one face (i.e. "Face Count == 1"). These edges are input to the "Geometry Proximity" node as "Target" geometry. So the "Capture Attribute" node set in "Point" domain is computing the distance of the painted vertices to these boundary edges.

yes voronoi to texture a part of the surface and the whole blending spiel to transition smoothly into the texture without having a sharp edge. to 2) i think i got it, its a way to selecting the outer most edge but wouldnt that mean, that the transition length is 0 since the the edge from the 1st and 2nd separate geometry node are the same? I guess it takes the length of that 1 face as transition length. So it should be possible to feed a 2nd vertex group(edge loop) some face distances away from the 1st separate geometry loop to define a transition zone length into the capture attribute...

... thus clearing the inputs into the map range for the voronoi z-displacement and having a parametric way to a) define the transition zone length as well as strength and curvature

(NB: This comment will be deleted after the answer is stabilized: I will add more detailed explanations when stabilized).

From comments:

the set position node is not influenced by vertex weight it seams, any idea how to solve that?

You're currently using the vertex group as an input to a selection, which is a Boolean type of variable-- it's either true or false, yes or no, 1 or 0.  Any number you send to it that's larger than 0 gets cast to "True".
Because you've created your GN "selection" input by dragging a noodle from this Boolean, you've created a Boolean input, so even if you connect that input someplace else, you'll still be using Group.001, cast to a Boolean at the very beginning of your nodes.
To use a different kind of variable, we'll change the type of variable of the input on the sidebar, and rather than using it as a selection for a set position, we'll use it to mix between offsets sent to that set position:

Now, that selected, 0.2 weighted vertex is only getting displaced a fifth as much as the fully weighted vertices.

Using a vertex group as a boolean is a plague in the Geonodes world...

@Nathan...great explanation, never thought or heard about that, but makes total sense and the most important thing, it works as described...very valuable. I will accept SteFLancien answer since the blending result is better, this has nothing to do with the above described approach but with vertex painting by itself, now that I see the results manually establishing a gradient is less controllable(at least for my skill level) than the accepted solution


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Rigging a Martian tripod - Leg struts

I am fairly new to Blender and finding my way around. A project I have is to rig and animate this model. I do own this legitimately.
So far I have rigged the body, upper legs, lower legs and feet however I have not found a way to rig these supporting struts shown selected in the pic.
For clarity the body is the large bulk of the model with the green 'eyes' section. You are looking at the front view and the leg in question is the left L. You can just about see the bone label Leg_L going from the body to the 'knee'. Going down from the knee is the lower leg bone. Bones are Displayed-As 'B-Bones'. The orange selection is an expanding strut which will pivot at each end and extend/retract as the Leg_L and LowerLeg_L bones move.
I had expected to be able to add a bone through the strut and parent one end to the body and the other to the lower leg but it seems you can only attach to one parent. Im not sure where to go from here.
There is also the matter of the blue/purple flexi hose near the 'knee' joint which I am hoping can be rigged as well but again to me it looks like I need to attach it to both the Leg_L and LowerLeg_L bones.
Each component of the model is a separate part at the moment, as you can see the strut is made of two parts itself and neither linked to the leg or body.
Any advice on how to achieve this would be appreciated.

I'd have thought that searching for a tutorial about rigging pistons on YT should find what you need. For the hose see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/252060/rigging-flexible-hose-connected-between-two-objects.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/86804/rigging-an-umbrella-like-object/86921 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/102990/how-can-one-rig-a-stirling-engine-piston/103000#103000


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Animation bending problem when exporting from blender to UE5
I animated a simple blob using an armature using very basic rotations and scaling. It looks fine in blender but when I export it to ue5 the mesh bends inwards breaking completely the animation. I add 2 pictures of the key frames of the animation in blender as intended and then a picture of how the right side vertices of the mesh move inwards in the animation exported to ue5. I also add a picture with the settings used when exporting. I want to add that I tried baking the animations in blender before exporting to see the result in case something broke in the process but after baking it keeps looking the same in blender.
My best guess is it might have something to do with the vertex bone weight distribution in UE5 somehow being different to blender and/or the interpolation between frames having issues with rotation but I am a complete newbie to making and exporting animations so it's more of a wild guess than anything else.
Edit: The reason I think it has to do with rotation problems is that when going frame by frame on the affected area, it shows that the vertices around the top right area close to the top right bone start rotating to one side until completely inverting and going inside the mesh as shown in the added image.
Edit2: It seems like the bone hierarchy has some transform issues when exporting/importing because the deformation only happens when both parent bones and their children are rotated together. It also looks like the problem only occurs in the interpolation between frames while the frames defined in blender are represented correctly.


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Where do I find the metaball panel?
In the manual it says press F9 but I have tried that, and it doesn't work. I am trying to find this for the negative feature that meta-balls have.

When in edit mode open Metaball panel and scroll down to Active Element section.


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Blender Scale Issues with MakeHuman and Mixamo Fuse
I have imported the Mixamo Fuse default female character and a MakeHuman MHX2 file. I want to project the UV map of the Fuse default onto the MakeHuman character because Mixamo Fuse has a strict and different UV map in order to import to Fuse. (Is that possible, someone said to use the Shrinkwrap Modifier?)
See Here: https://community.mixamo.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/205090387-UV-Map-Frustration-from-a-disabled-designer
I have a major scale issue (yes, I did change the MakeHuman model to meters before exporting) It does not matter which model I import first or second. The first model imports to the correct scale. The second model imports as a tiny and I mean almost not visible from any angle or zoom  factor model.
Is there a solution to this issue?

Without seeing a ~.blend file containing both imported images, this is a bit of shot in the dark, but the first thing I would try is to open the file, select the model that is in the smaller scale in object mode, then switch to edit mode, and scale the model up until the proportions approximate those of the first model imported. Then switch back to object mode, and apply the scale of the object using CTRL - A.
Of course you could use the same technique in the reverse direction to scale the larger object down to the smaller one.

I will try to save the issue as a bled file so you can see, but I will try what you said first. Thanks for your help. Do you have any insight as to if Shrink-wrapping the UV maps from Mixamo Fuse to my MakeHuman character will work?

Sorry, I don't. The shrinkwrap modifier does not figure into my workflow very often.


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How come my mirror modifier messes up when I apply subdivision?

Ok, when I applied my subsurf modifier my mirror modifier messes up... how can I fix this?
Here is the mesh before I applied the subsurf modifier.

The order of stack modifiers is very important. When you apply the Subsurf Modifier the result will be as if it was first in the stack.
The solution is to apply the Mirror Modifier first and then Subsurf Modifier.
If you still want mirror modifier then you can delete half of the mesh and add the modifier again.


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Is there a method to shift vertices along an edge loop while maintaining their spacing?
In my scenario, I have a horizonal edge loop with equally spaced vertices along it. I am seeking a way to shift the vertices around the loop path where they maintain their spacing.
In this cube example, I manually moved each vertex to achieve the effect I am looking for:

This resulting cube maintains the original vertex spacing but has been shifted over by an increment or two, retaining its cubic form:

My goal is to maintain the original shape but skew the vertical edge loop paths to create interesting patterns on the surface of my mesh.

I have tried using  the "Simple Deform" modifier to twist my mesh but since I'm not working with a circular shape it doesn't produced the desired result. I'm currently exploring geometry node operations in hopes of finding a more straightforward solution. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Edit: Here are the cubes with index labeling to better demonstrate the transformation the vertices are performing.

One solution I found that would produce a similar result is to use "bridge edge loops" and increment the twist value so the vertical edges pair with an above vertex that may be clockwise/counter-clockwise to it rather than directly above

This is the shape I intend to perform the desired actions on. However the final version may be a stack of 300 edge loops

To clarify your need: it seems to me that you are not shifting vertices, because these remain at the same position. It looks more like if you change the edges connecting these vertices. If so, could we assume that in the original mesh, the edges to change are aligned with Z-axis ?

@StefLAncien Within a single, horizontal loop, he shifts each vertex to the position of the next vertex on that loop. It would be more readable if the screenshots showed vertex indices (which do move)

@MarkusvonBroady That correct, I've gone ahead and added some more detailed images exposing those indices for better context.

@StefLAncien One solution I have found since posting, uses the twist parameter when applying a Bridge Edge Loop. In that case the vertices remain in their original position and the edges transform. I'm experimenting to see if that will give me the desired result on more complex geometries

The cube is an example, but you're interested in an algorithm that works for other meshes? I ask, because a simple solution would be to e.g. use 4 switch statements based on normal to determine the offset. But what if you want to do it e.g. on a cylinder? No longer works. A horizontal loop can be extracted, converted to curve, and the next point on the curve can be found. But what if the cylinder is rotated? So if you're not fine with an overfitted solution, maybe add another example?

Does the "Bridge Edge Loop" approach fulfil your need, or would you like a Geometry Nodes based approach ?

@MarkusvonBroady Yes the cube is just an example, the shape I am working with has clover-shaped edge loops. I just added a photo that shows the shape I intend to perform the actions on.
When mentioning switch statements are you referring to a scripting solution or does switch statement logic exist within geometry nodes as well?

@StefLAncien A Geometry Nodes based approach would be ideal as the "Bridge Edge Loop" operation is more tedious and less flexible. Depending on the shape the twist incrementation can also be unreliable

Knowing, that your actual geometry has horizontal loops, I can work with that, by separating them into curves, alternating the curve direction, and use the next point in curve's position:

Some other techniques could be used, the arbitrary numbers avoided... But that's the gist of it.

With 2 more subdivisions, some numbers divided by 4, some multiplied by 4...

Amazing, this looks like a really promising solution! I have one question about how you are able to finely slide the points along the horizontal loop in your demonstration. Playing around within the Blend file, I am only able to snap to every other point using the Add node within the "Next Point's position".

@SebaYoung "Mix" node to interpolate between current position, and target position.


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Import Alpha Videos to blender but the frame rate keeps dropping
I imported 4K aplha video to blender and set the frame rate to 60 but the frame is under 30.
Could anyone solve this problem?
Here's the link of video.
https://imgur.com/a/DlWH4qi

Hello and welcome. While files, images, and external videos or links may be helpful additions they should not be the only way to obtain information about your issue. Don't make understanding your question rely on downloading a file, watching a video or visiting an external site. Use the builtin tools to upload images or gifs, along with thoroughly explaining the problem in written form so it can be indexed and searched for thus helping future visitors with similar issues.

the fps you see in viewport has nothing to do with the fps you choose as framerate in output properties because the fps in viewport just show the current fps the animation is played. This rate depends on the complexity of your scene and your hardware. Only in "optimal" conditions the two are the same. If you render the animation, you will get the animation you have chosen.

What does two mean in the sentence 'the two are the same'?

the fps which is shown in the viewport and the fps you set in output properties

Then how to set to optimal conditions?

that's another question. see here https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/68335/i-was-wondering-if-my-render-time-is-slow-for-what-i-have/68358#68358 or search for "how to optimize render time". you can open as many questions as you want


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(geo nodes ) Have multiple concentric rings move as one relative to a bigger ring
sorry for the vague title, I don't know myself exactly what I'm looking for.

So I have this setup from this video of ryan king https://youtu.be/H_Ipk9yLXl0 but i want to make the rings move with geo nodes instead of keyframes. In this setup the first rotate instance rotates the outer ring, and everything moves with it since not in local space which is great.
But the second rotate instance which i want to use to rotate the second ring makes every inner ring rotate on it's own axis, not the rings as a whole. Is there a way i could make that happen? (and then ring 2-1+sphere move relative to ring 3, ring 1+sphere move relative to sphere and finally sphere move relative to ring one)
I have tried to separate geometry have the same problem, I don't know if I don't know of a node that could do that or if it's just not possible.
Thanks in advance
edit: I have played a bit and got a setup like this, I thought the capture attribute would give me the rotation of the first ring and apply it to the second, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Another possible way (some kind of bones parenting in gn).

Iterate over the collection of ordered rings and sphere (outer ring first and sphere last: name them appropriately to obtain this order).
Use a mesh as guide, indicating each rings/sphere orientation axis, from the outer ring to the sphere.
Sample these axis accordingly to each instance index in the collection of the elements to rotate.
Iterate over each, transmiting at each loop the previous calculated rotation (in local space).
The guide mesh is as follow:

as we want Y, Y, X, X and Y as axis (axis length can drive the rotation speed).
The ordered instances:

 (Blender 4.0)

For anyone interested I got an answer on blenderartist, this is what they gave me.
Start from the outer ring - rotate everything, then rotate everything except 4th ring and so on. Some rings should be rotated on X axis (it depends on where the holder is located).
I’m storing the same attribute for all objects to sort them easier.


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Why are these faces bent with no edges in the center?
I was trying to model something that had the classic low poly look but this face spoils that. How can i fix it and why does it happen? This happens with a ton of other faces. I cant find any helpful videos or explanations. I checked for double vertices but this face has just 4 vertices]
[
[
Sorry I'm so vague about this - I am trying to understand what sort of approaches could be taken.

Hello, what bothers you exactly? It's not clear...

"...but this spoils that", "this happens..." - what exactly is "this"? We have no crystal ball to know which face should look how... you say "this face has just 4 vertices" - which one? And what is wrong with it?

@GordonBrinkmann i have updated the picture with the face in question circled

You mean the one with the sharp bend in it? Well, I do not know "why" this happens because I do not know how you created this object or why you created it with this sharp bend - but this is messy geometry. A quad should be planar or at least almost planar. I would either select the two vertices where the bend is and press J to split the face there, or select all and then go to Mesh > Clean Up > Split Non-Planar Faces. Apart from that, since we don't know what the result should be we cannot give you any tips what you could have done better.

@GordonBrinkmann will it help if i share the .blend file

It is simply a not flat face

As @lemon said, it is simply a not flat face. What you can do about it I told you already, but even better it would be to simply not create such a face in the first place.

@lemon how do i make it a flat face

Gordon said it above. But in this case you could also split it, change the topology, etc.

Hi. Please use a title that matches the content of the question. It should be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the issue so that anyone searching for a similar problem is likely to find it. Remove anything superfluous, avoid using words like "this", "help with", "issue" or "question about", instead describe what "it" is. Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors see, answers you get depend heavily on how insightful it is. See What is the problem of asking “How do I do this?"

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/56755/flat-quads-or-why-is-my-mesh-so-funky/56764#56764

The comments shared have answered the question, but since I recently did some experimenting I thought I'd give my 2 cents.
Quads and N-gons are worked on as triangles. Since there are many ways to split up a triangle, graphics programs have to 'guess' how to do it if the geometry doesn't tell them. So for example:

Now if we take all of these quads and lift a corner vertex, only one of the quads (top left) is bent differently.

The quad at the top left has an edge running from the vertex we raised to the opposite vertex. So we have specified with geometry how WE want the shape to be, so Blender does not have to guess.
As was said in the comments, select two vertices and 'J'oin them to create an edge where the path guiding the bend should be.