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Switching body parts/clothing efficiently?
From what I can tell, the only really viable way that I know of for switching body parts is putting drivers on an armature to toggle different limb types based on the driver. While this is fine, it's often quite tedious. (It also leaves a lot of extra stuff lying around in the outliner - even when sorted into collections, but that's a minor complaint.)
I was wondering, what other ways could this be done? The asset browser seems capable of storing characters and poses, but what about switchable limbs? Specifically, limb variants. I.e. one guy may have two regular legs, and another guy may have a peg leg.
Being able to click on the person (or armature, whatever is required) and swapping a limb mesh from the asset browser would be amazing, but I'm not surprised if this isn't possible. So, what other ways have people accomplished this with ease? Perhaps any addons?
Of note, I'm searching for a way to set them differently on multiple copies/instances so they can all have different appearances.

To me, it comes down to how you want to use your assets.
You can think of it as either wanting variable assets or building assets by manually picking a few various parts.
If you want to make assets from a limited amount of various parts, and want to hand-pick them manually, and never change them again, then you don't need such a system. You could just have a bunch of well-- organized parts in an asset browser and import what you need only. If you have some variants you frequently use together, maybe make assets out of them too.
If you need to generate a high volume of variants procedurally, or be able to make changes through time in animation, or having a one click solution for premade variants for many artists to use, then often it's better to have a unique asset that can isolate variants either with a simple GUI or procedurally, possibly animate visibility. That's where making drivers in rigs is one efficient way to go.
It is good to know that, although drivers are one way to create interactions between different properties, it isn't the only one. For example, some rigs make use of some python scripts to toggle collections. The advantage being that it virtually unloads any content from the collection, which is more memory efficient.

It's really annoying that you can't turn off collections via drivers. But alas.... That's why I use view layers, but they're annoying because you can't sort them. But at least you can animate when a view layer is active via NLA.

And yeah, the thing with this is, there's going to be reusing assets for different characters so I'll have to make rig drivers for sure. I was just hoping there might've been a different way other than that since it can be a little frustrating working with the syntax. I've seen people suggesting geometry nodes but that's just overkill.


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How do I make my textures show in cycles?
I am admittedly new to Blender, and of course cycles. I am working on a scene and I have textures set to my objects that render with internal engine just fine. However, when I go into cycles, everything is greyish. I have two light sources that should be sufficient (I think), I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. This is a screenshot of the cycles result.

The problem occurs because in Cycles you have to apply the texures differently from blender internal.
To apply a texture in Cycles you have to go to the materials tab, click on the (dot)button next to color and choose Image Texture and finally open your Texture.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Modeling question, tiki torch.
I had an idea strike me the other night of modeling an exterior scene, which I know how to model except for the tiki torches. I tried the cast modifier and it does not work well, at least not with a grid object set to x=8, y=8. I can work out everything that would run the z axis, but the mesh that would weave between the "fingers" of the z axis going across the x axis (while in front ortho), I'm not sure how to achieve the correct affect. I've included a reference photo from the yard to help clarify if there is any misunderstanding. I want to "weave" my mesh along the x axis between the adjoining objects if it's possible.

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


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How to fix Imported SVG from inkscape with wrong fill
I have imported this image from inkscape SVG. One of the characters have wrong fill in the letter. I am fairly new to blender. Is it possible to fix it?

This is the SVG file that is used in this case: https://expirebox.com/download/4160aa684cea31831846ba9e69db61ea.html

Remove any duplicate segments or overlapping vertex

Clean up your drawing, the SVG file is not properly sanitized, there are overlapping segments and residual segments in your spline
There is a small circle overlapping the inner part of your R letter, it is causing letter fill rendering to fail.
See my answer here for more details


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My audio is there but how can I get back my video?
This was displaying my video and playing the accompanied audio track.
However somehow I tried moving some windows around, and now I get this, a blank video with perfect audio.
Is there any way to discover where my video is hiding and synchronize it to the audio once again?

Your preview window is displaying a histogram (technical reference image). Click on the checkerboard icon at the bottom of the VSE timeline


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Geometry Backfacing Node for Double-Sided Normals/Displacement?
I'm currently working on creating environment assets, and more specifically a vast array of plant material. As you can see in the photos, I'm using a "Geometry Backfacing node" as the mix factor between two textures which allows for a discrete front and a back to the material. The issue that I am running into comes when trying to achieve this for the normal/displacement maps. Nothing visible results concerning the normals with this setup. Any help with this is genuinely appreciated.


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Particle system in Evee only rendering in half my screen
The issue is my rain particles are only rending on the left half of the screen as you can see here:
However, I know that they are dropping as you can see here in blender:

What I find odd is that if I zoom in to view, they will disappear in the same region that they are not rending, even though I'm not changing the camera. As seen here:

I am simply zooming the window in while the camera stays in the same position. This made me think it was a graphics card issue that would work itself out in the render, but as you can see it persist there as well. I find this behavior vary peculiar and am not sure how to fix it. Any help is much appreciated, thanks!

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


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How is the vector transform node used?

The Vector Transform node  has been a bit of a mystery to me. I would presume it would be useful more for procedural textures, but I have no idea how it should be used, or where it might be most useful.  Unfortunately, the manual does not have much to say on the node, and there is not much information, or any simple examples of usage anywhere that I have been able to find.
From the manual:

The Vector Transform node allows converting a Vector, Point or Normal
  between World <=> Camera <=> Object coordinate space.

Knowing that we can convert from one coordinate space to another with this node, where might this be most useful?
To better phrase the question,  what is the correct way to use the vector transform node, and where is its application useful?

I haven't used it myself, but I found an example of its use here: http://elbrujodelatribu.blogspot.com/2013/08/blender-cycles-vector-transform-for.html

Overview
To effectively make use of the Vector Transform node, you first need to appreciate the differences between the various coordinate spaces - World Space, Object Space, and Camera Space.
You can get a feel for the different coordinate spaces by using the different modes of the Transform Orientation control in the 3D View.

Available 'modes' are Global, Local, Normal, Gimbal, and View.
Starting from the default scene, select the default Cube and press R, R and rotate it so it is no longer flat to the plane and click to accept the new orientation. With the Transform Orientation set to 'Global' you'll see that the control handles (the red, green, blue arrows) remain aligned with the world grid (the red and green lines on the grid)

This demonstrates World coordinates. If you use the Grab handles (the red, green, blue arrows) to manipulate the object it will move in World space - ie, the red arrow will move it in the X direction, green in the Y direction and blue in the Z direction.
Now change the Transform Orientation to 'Local'. The Grab handles (arrows) will swap to be aligned with the object's own orientation.

This demonstrates Object coordinates. If you now use the Grab handles to manipulate the object it will move in its own local (Object) space. ie, the Blue handle will move it 'up' in relation to its own axis rather than the world.
Now change the Transform Orientation to 'View'. The handles will swap to be aligned with the screen (you'll no longer see the blue one as it points directly away from the view - unless you move the objects away from the centre of the view - in which case it will point along the perspective line into the distance at the centre of the view).

This demonstrates Camera coordinates. Using the handles to move the Cube will move it parallel to the dimensions of the current view. Moving in the Z direction will move it closer and further from the view.
The above examples are useful to demonstrate the coordinate spaces for Location and Rotation. For World and Camera coordinates the scale is always the same - with 1 unit of World coordinate space equating 1 unit of Camera coordinate space. However, for Object coordinates, the object's Scale is also taken into account - if the object is scaled at a factor not equal to 1.0 then the Object coordinates will be similarly scaled - so for a scale of 2.0, one unit in Object space will be the equivalent of 2 units in World or Camera space.
The Vector Transform node is used to transform a Vector - whether it represents a Point, a Vector, or a Normal - from one space to another. The different 'modes' (Point, Vector, Normal) control which aspects of the space are used - useful when transforming to/from Object or Camera coordinates and the Location or Scale should be ignored - needs to be set appropriate for the type of vector being manipulated. Similarly, care must be taken to ensure the Convert From and Convert To options are set appropriately or the result will not be meaningful.
Here are some commonly available vectors :
Location - any object's Location is measured in World space, with (0,0,0) being the world origin. The Location is visible in the properties panel (N) and can be accessed via Drivers using the Transform Channel variable type or directly by using the material Object Info node.

Object Coordinates - the Object coordinates of the Texture Coordinates node returns the sample point on the surface (or in a volume) of the object in Object space. The origin of Object space is the origin of the object itself - so the vector describes the path from the object origin to the surface or volume point being considered in the shader.

The other nodes of the Texture Coordinates node (other than the Camera socket) aren't compatible with the Vector Transform node as they use subtly different coordinate spaces. Attempting to use those vectors with the Vector Transform will produce confusing results.
Normals are a bit tricky as their 'space' depends on which particular version of Normal you use - it's available on both the Texture Coordinate and Geometry nodes - with one being in Object coordinates (Texture Coordinate) and the other in World coordinates (Geometry). However, the Vector Transform can be used to translate these between the spaces (so you can use, say, the Texture Coordinate one where you'd normally use the Geometry one by passing it through a Vector Transform).
Two other interesting sockets of the Geometry node are the Position - which represents the point on the surface/volume - and Incoming, which represents the path of the incoming ray, both in World coordinates.
Vector Transform
To demonstrate the use of the Vector Transform, start with the default scene, rotate the cube some random amount and create the following material. The colours of the cube will effectively show the World Space coordinates - note that they aren't aligned with the cube and are, instead, aligned with the 'world'.

Now repeat the same but this time using Object coordinates from the Texture Coordinate node. You should be able to see the difference since the colours of the cube will remain aligned with the cube rather than the world.

To demonstrate the use of the Vector Transform node we can take the Object coordinates and transform them into World coordinates as shown (note the Vector Transform node settings Point, Object, World) :

The results should be identical to using the Position world coordinates directly. The Vector Transform has translated the Object coordinates into World coordinates.
One potential use of this is to shade an object based on the proximity of another object (or empty). By using Drivers we can get the World coordinates of an object into a material (using Transform Channel), then transform them into Object coordinates, then perform some calculation (such as calculate distance).
For example, the following material uses a driver to capture the Torus location and populate the input coordinates via the Combine XYZ node. This is converted from World coordinates into Object coordinates (which includes the translation for Location, Rotation and Scale of the object) and the Dot Product used to calculate the distance from the centre of the Torus (actually distance squared) and set the color accordingly.

As the Torus moves the surface of the cube changes color based on the proximity to the centre of the Torus.

Taking this a step further, we can affect the surface based on the proximity in Camera space - and can use that to affect a material based on how objects overlap in the camera view :

The material of the cube is such that when it's lined up with the magnifying glass (from the point of view of the camera) it becomes transparent. It works by converting the coordinates of the magnifying glass, and the point on the surface, into Camera coordinates. and calculates the distance between them. This allow it to determine whether the point lies within the diameter of the magn ifying glass lens and, if so, shade it as transparent. Note that the Z coordinate in Camera space indicates the distance from the camera. In this case the ratio of the distances is used to adjust the X/Y coordinates to scale based on distance. This makes the transparent region larger the closer the magnifying glass is to the camera.

So far the 'mode' has always been set to 'Point'. When used in this way the transform is assuming that the incoming Vector represents a point in space - in relation to the associated origin - and this means that the Object's location, rotation, and scale are all used in the calculation. If the Vector actually represents a vector that is independent of the location of the object (eg, a Normal) then you may need to ignore the object's location and/or scale. The 'Vector' mode ignores the object's location while the 'Normal' mode ignores both the object's location and the object's scale.
One example of how this can be used is to convert the Normal into Camera space and to use this to create a Toon-style shader based purely on the angle with the camera.

By passing a known fixed vector into the Vector Transform we effectively probe the properties of the object (eg, its orientation and/or scale) since the vector can be transformed into its Object space.
For example, this answer - https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/76237/29586 - uses the following material to determine how much an object is rotated away from a particular direction vector.

Using a similar technique we can extract the X, Y, Z scales from an object.

This material passes fixed unit-length vectors (one along each axis) into Vector Transform nodes set to Vector (so that the Location is ignored but Rotation and Scale are preserved) set to convert from Object space to World space and then measures the length of each resultant vector. The length of each vector will be a direct measure of how long that dimension is in the object once it is converted to World space coordinates - ie, it's scale in that direction.

EDIT : A further use is to determine the distance from the camera. For example, in this answer the vector transform is used to convert the distance into a color.

Rich, do you have a channel? Your works here and elsewhere are awesome.

Hi @RitaGeraghty - thanks for the kind words. I don’t have a channel but you can access any of my posts here via my profile page (https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/29586/rich-sedman). On there is also a link to my github (https://github.com/baldingwizard) and BlenderMarket (https://blendermarket.com/creators/balding-wizard) for addons I’ve been developing.

It's criminal how few votes some of these answers of such high quality get.

Though I suppose I could have picked a better example...like another of your fine answers that I just saw that has 3 (!?!?) votes (one of which was from me some time back). :)

Thanks - yes - I’ve seen lots of great answers (from other people) that don’t seem to get upvoted as much as would be expected. It’s a shame as it’s that which encourages people to continue to contribute so I always upvote where it’s deserving - it would be great if more people thought the same. Thanks for your upvotes and encouraging words and sentiment. Very much appreciated :-)

You're welcome! While there may be multiple factors at play I get the impression that a relatively small percentage of Blender users visit this place. There's a lot of traffic and enthusiasm, to my eyes, at most of the other places I frequent (YT, Blender Artists, Blender Nation, DevTalk, ...). I suppose it could be that this is the least "social" of the lot but it may be, at least in part, that just not enough people realize how fantastic of a resource this is. Wish we knew the reality as we might then see how to drum up more business, so to speak. :)

Have to say this is one of the best answer I've ever read here!

"In particular, the Camera socket should not be confused with Camera space coordinates used in the Vector Transform node as it is significantly different (the origin and scaling are different)." I did some testing and did not have any unexpected results when using the vector transform node to transform between texture coordinate camera space and object/world space. Could you please elaborate further? @Rich Sedman

@tempdevnova Probably best to create a new question to ask this. Include a link to this answer for reference. This way your question can be picked up by other people. It’s a long time since I wrote this and I aren’t in the position to give it attention for quite some time, I’m afraid.

@tempdevnova - you're correct. I've updated the answer to remove the bit about the Camera space being different.

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


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Is the "Fit camera view to viewport" function accessed via the "Home" hotkey available in the UI somewhere?
I can hit NumPad 0 to enter camera view, then press Home so the camera fills the window. But I haven't been able to find this functionality anywhere in the UI.
Can someone tell me where that function can be found in the UI?
Or is it available exclusively via the Home hotkey?

Those are two separate functions, and have two separate places in UI menus:

or, you could find them through space bar search menu. like:


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Textures appears in Blender Render but missing in Cycles Render
I have the following object loaded in Blender Render Mode

However, in Cycles Render my UV map disappears

Is there a way to get around this problem?
Thanks

Blend file link? Might help to check your specific settings.

How familiar are you with the Cycles render engine? Does this related link solve your problem? @KevinLiang

You can't just switch to cycles and expect everything to still work because Blender Render and Cycles are two completely different render engines.

Blender Cycles and Blender Internal are two completely independent rendering systems with different settings and material definitions.
Your UV Maps did not disappear, you just have to recreate your materials using the Cycles material nodes system.
Have in mind that even after recreating them, the Blender viewport does not support displaying material previews for cycles, only basic preview of image based textures, so you will only get to see them upon rendering or on interactive viewport render.

Shift + Z works for a slow but quicker than a full on render though, if i'm correct.

That's correct, it will create a basic preview of UV mapped image based textures, but no other type of textures or material properties are currently supported.

UV Maps don't disappear. What's happening is that Blender Internal Shaders are very different from Cycles shaders. So if you switch from BI to Cycles, you have to set up your shaders for cycles. They're not converted automatically. For a simple diffuse shader with your image texture, you'd first need to press the Use Nodes button, since Cycles materials are node based. A diffuse shader will be created by default. Then for the color input there's a little icon to the right. Click it and select image texture. Select your image, and for the vector input select UV (under texture coordinate). That will give you a basic cycles shader setup that will render your image texture using your uv map.


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How can I decimate a mesh to remove unnecessary triangles?
I have the following mesh. As you can see there are quite a bit of triangles that are unnecessary, and can be reduced. However, if I use the decimate modifier, other triangles are also decimated and morphs the shape.

If decimate is too destructive, then while in edit mode, select all, then press X>limited dissolve to remove excess edges in your model. You can adjust the angle threshold in the operator panel as needed. Don't forget to also remove doubles with W>remove doubles.

You can also try tris to quads. Press Spaebar and type in tris to quads, and select the operation from the menu, or or press Alt + J


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Is there a way to uniformly add texture to a complex mesh without using UV mapping?
I have a large mesh with > 1.5 million faces. I would like to uniformly add a texture to the object without UV mapping (as blender freezes every time). The texture is quite simple and can be applied evenly throughout the object.

What render engine will you be using? Cycles? Blender Internal? OpenGL Viewport/Game Engine?
Yes, for the most part you can, except for real time rendering; for which you probably have little options but to unwrap.
For the other two you could use either one of two methods:

Generated Texture Coordinates - Will fit a 1x1x1 cube of the image to the object using a 3 axis box like projection. You can later adjust repetition by controlling the scale of the image or with a vector mapping node.
Object Texture coordinates Will evenly tile the texture over your object regardless of size. The texture will stretch if the object itself is not evenly scaled. You can also adjust repetition by controlling the size of the image or with a vector mapping node.

For both no unwrapping is necessary, face angles will be used to mask from where the texture will be projected. Be sure to select Box projection mode in your image texture node.

I got it working, how do I save this mesh as an obj + mtl file? When I export it directly it saves a mtl file, however the texture is note saved.

Have in mind that these are generated texture coordinates, that means  blender simulates them dynamically, they are not part of the mesh and cannot be exported into other formats, as far as I know. The OBJ + MTL is a way to export mainly geometry, some basic material properties are kept, but it is not a full fledged or faithful material export. Also textures are never embedded, the must be manually bundled in with the model as an external file.


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Can I change the format of an animation while it's rendering?
I know this may sound like a silly question but I started to render an animation, but I accidentally kept it on .AVI and is supposed to be on MPEG-4. Is it okay if I change the format while it's rendering?

no, this isn't supported, and likely wont be (does any software do this?).
You may want to render images and encode after.

I just did a test 40-frame render where I started a render with AVI and after about half way switched it to MPEG-4 and the resulting .avi file was not corrupted and played fine. It looks like it's one of those parameters like tile size that Blender only reads at the start of a render and won't switch it on the fly as it renders an animation. (In other words, you'll be getting an AVI file in the end, not MPEG-4.)
Settings like motion blur can be switched while rendering is going on and changes appear to take affect on the next frame to be rendered.
It sounds like you may be rendering frames directly to a video format. If that's the case, you should look at rendering individual frames as image files (say, PNG) and then using the Video Sequencer to put the resulting files into a video format.


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Is grass texture or 3d object?
i'm currently making a game in 3d and i wondered how to make grass.
I've take this image as example
I would like to do something similar to this but i don't understand what exactly this kind of grass is. I always seen grass and leaves as 2d images. So is this a hd 2d images or a 3d object?
In both cases, i guess you need to make your grass repeat on a plane. Is there a function you can use for such stuff or you have to populate the whole thing manually?
Any link for tutorials that explain that, or documentation are welcome. Thank you for your help.

If it were me, i'd use particle systems and a plane, generating grass (hair) strand across the plane. But that's me though, with a gaming computer, that will lag if there's too much and increase render times. So you could try textures but that won't look nearly as nice.

@Rielight Yeah i tought about using texture when i started. But then i saw this image and it looks like those are 3d object and not textures. So as i'm new i wondered how are we doing grass today

@Tanka J. Using particles, then hair, you could perhaps achieve the effect you want. Here's a very bad and rushed example. http://i.imgur.com/faCnH7Q.png

@Rielight I'm total noob so ¯_(ツ)_/¯ how to achieve this but i will search partciles and hair.

@Tanka J. Now i'm not to expireneced on particles/hair, so i cannot give this an aswer, but i can point you in a couple directions. Try this http://www.creativeshrimp.com/5-tips-for-creating-a-wild-grass-field.html

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5577/how-do-you-create-grass?noredirect=1&lq=1 and even better, see this:  http://thenatureacademy.blenderguru.com/fe/18406-realistic-grass-tutorial

This looks more like an artistic questions than technical problem with Blender, for this sort of thing Blenderartists.org or one of the communities like Google+ are probably the right place to ask, or perhaps some community for the game engine you are trying to use.
Also you don't seem to provide enough information for an accurate answers, what game engine will you be using, on what platform? What kind of hardware target are you aiming for, high end, low end?
I am guessing that the techniques used will depend largely on the game engine you are working with. In most cases, grass like the one illustrated involve some sort of 3d geometry, even if it is a simple plane with a texture.
Depending on the level of detail you want it may range from a basic 2d mesh to fully modeled particle of grass combined with diffuse and alpha textures. Most often some clever use of simple geometry to create the illusion of volume without using many polygons.
As for the distribution part, it will depend a lot on the tool available in the engine, placing by hand is likely not practical for very large surfaces, so some sort of particle system or automated distribution tool is used. In Blender you can use the built in particle system, and some texture or vertex group driven density distribution.
If you later plan to export to an external game engine you will have to investigate which method is best supported  for it. Most likely you will have to use blender to model a few different single strands of grass, export those and apply them in engine.
Edit: Also have in mind that many of those images are digital paintings or "offline" rendered scenes, not real time interactive ones. In game engines performance is to be considered and there often are limitations on the amount of geometry that can be on screen or in a scene at a certain time.


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Masked symmetry sculpting?

What I'd like to do is make it so I can symmetrize sculpting the edges, but only the edges and nothing else. Furthermore I'd like to set it so affecting the north also does the south, the east does the west, and vice versa.
Furthermore, I'd like to make it so affecting one of the corners affects the three, that way I can ensure the normal I'm trying to create is even across the board and doesn't suffer any discrepancies. How would I do this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIFG1S7sArU
Turns out this is exactly what I wanted!


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How to clip a material and give the illusion that it is 'solid' or 'filled' with Cycles?
I am using a combination of Cycles material shaders to perform a "clipping" view for a geologic cross-section. The answers to the following question  explain very well how to achieve the cut-away view.
How can I easily animate cutaway views on multiple objects?
The difference between these answers and what I am looking for is that with these you can look inside the mesh. I would like to give the illusion of a solid or filled mesh. Even if it appears to be filled with something like colored smoke.
I'm trying to cut hundreds of objects, and cut multiple X-sections (e.g. clip the Y-axis from 90-110, and 190-210, 290-310, etc).
This is an example of an original mesh that I would like to clip:

This is what I would like to accomplish. I did this using boolean modifiers. The problem with this method is it does not scale well to many objects, nor is it simple to make multiple X-sections.

This is where I currently am using Cycles nodes.

This is the node tree with two groups:

I believe that a volume or emission node may be able to provide this effect. I have tried adding it in a variety of places.
Placing the volume absorption node right before the material output:

Placing the volume absorption node between the diffuse node the first location group results in this:

Is it possible to have this geographically clipped material appear to be solid or filled with smoke?

OSL, so CPU only, but this may be of interest: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/110078/35559

One option is to do it manually.
1) Press TAB to go into edit mode.
2) Select all the vertices bordering the hole.

3) Press 'F' to fill the selected area.

I hope this helps! -Galaxy

I'm afraid that, similar to the boolean modifier, this does not scale well to many objects.


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Blender 2.8x Save Add-on Class Instance To Scene
In Blender 2.7x in the init.py file a generic class was instantiated for the purpose of holding data:
class HoldData():
    dat = None

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)
    bpy.types.Scene.my_data = HoldData()

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_module(__name__)
    del bpy.types.Scene.my_data

In a subsequent file an outside python class is instantiated within the generic class, in this case a Pandas Dataframe:
import bpy
import pandas as pd

class OP_DoWork(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "op.dowork"
    bl_label  = "Doing Work"

def execute(self, context):
    return{'FINISHED'}

def invoke(self, context, event):
    dat = bpy.context.scene.my_data
    dat.bh = pd.DataFrame()

Finally, the object (the Pandas Dataframe) is accessible to other classes within Blender:
class OP_DataCheck(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "op.datacheck"
    bl_label = "Check Data"

    def __init__(self):
        self.dat = None

    def execute(self, context):
        dat = bpy.context.scene.my_data
        print(dat.bh.columns)

In 2.8x the registration of the original HoldData() class throws an error:
class HoldData(bpy.types.Anytype):
AttributeError: 'RNA_Types' object has no attribute 'Anytype'

How can I save a class instance to the scene in Blender 2.8x?

This is what is often referred to as a monkey patch.  Data will not be saved to blend file.
To monkey patch onto a scene type could simply
import bpy

class HoldData:
    dat = None

def register():
    bpy.types.Scene.my_data = HoldData()

def unregister():
    del bpy.types.Scene.my_data

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Test in console
>>> C.scene.my_data.dat = "foo"
>>> C.scene.my_data.dat
'foo'

In as much as can do this, would favour simply
from foo import HoldData

my_data = HoldData()

and
from bah import my_data

To save some data to blender and use a third party for other recommend a PropertyGroup and PointerProperty set up.   Not all members of the defined property group need be annotated properties.
The other issue mentioned is a typo, the class is bpy.types.AnyType (CamelCase ie capital T for type)  Not sure where you're going with this either?

I should have been more clear. My last code snippet was a copy of the error displayed in the console when loading the add-on. Thanks for the answer- I've been beating my head on the wall for two days over this!


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Loop cut straight line
I am doing a table and need to make a cutout, but when I use the loop cut tool it doesn't make a straight line, but a curved one. How can I make a straight one?

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/75915/lining-up-vertices-edges-horizontally-along-a-slanted-object-without-altering-th


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how to render still images as a movie
i already render my animation as still images i want now make a movie from them i went to video sequence editor and import my images that i already rendered and choose the video format that i want and go all over the settings and now as like a saw in tutorials i need press animation to make a movie from those images
but when i press animation its start rendering as video formart i mean its start the prosess that i already wait about 24 h
do i miss something here
please help

Something similar happened to me recently, and it wasn't my first animation rendering.
The output directory specification lacked a final backslash; there was an error message about not opening the output file, but I missed it the first few times. After I corrected my output directory to C:\Animations\ (in my case), rendering went forward properly.


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Changing interpolation to bezier makes rotation go backwards
I have this problem when rotating this gear on y axis with a linear interpolation. It seems no problems, but when I change it to bezier interpolation, the inside rotates fine, but the outside of the gear seems to be rotating backward, which is a strange effect. Even if its the same object.
And I want it to work with bezier interpolation, not linear!
You can download the blend file here:
blend file

You may be seeing the wagon wheel effect

well if its was that changing the interpolation from bezier to linear well not make any difference

As batFINGER mentioned, you are indeed seeing the wagon wheel effect. I can prove this in several ways.
If you modify the gear by adding an irregularity at one point on one of the teeth or any other way that makes one single point on the gear different from the rest of the gear, and then play the animation, you will see that the point rotates properly, meaning that all the teeth are.
This is directly caused by switching to bezier interpolation as the bezier interpolation causes the gear to rotate faster for most of the animation than the linear interpolation does. This increase in speed is what is causing the effect. If you have linear interpolation and simply increase the speed of the rotation by moving the second keyframe back to frame 190 the effect will be permanent. If you move the second keyframe forwards and backwards, you can observe all kinds of interesting results.
If this effect is undesired, you could avoid it by changing the rotation speed. However, since this is a real world effect, I personally wouldn't worry about it. It's clear at the start and end of the animation that the gear is turning a certain way.
EDIT: You mentioned that you see this effect when going frame by frame, and that is actually expected. It's simply a result of the rotational speed of the gear. The speed is such that after one frame of rotation, the gear appears to have rotated backwards slightly. What has actually happened is the gear has rotated forwards and simply ended up in a spot that makes it appear as if it had rotated backwards. I think making the gear not so perfect would be the best way for you to visualize this, at least to understand what's going on here. You could even apply a procedural texture to the gear, anything that makes the gear less perfect. Anything that your eyes can identify as a unique point on the gear will make this problem disappear.
If you are still unsure that this is in fact the issue, try adjusting the speed of the animation by moving the second keyframe around. At very slow speeds, you will see it behave as expected, then as you speed it up, the outer teeth will appear to slow down and then begin to rotate backwards. This is the wagon wheel effect, and it's just an optical illusion.

thank you for your commnet but still dosent make sense to me i know in fact that i should see this effect at  high speed rotation  so that mean if it's indeed a wagon wheel effect i should not see the gear rotate backwards when i jump frame by frame

i research in the net about this some mention gimbal lock and stuff but im not sure even that lead to other problem and i just want simple rotation with a bezier interpolation !

@montif See the edit I made to my post. Hopefully that clears it up a bit for you. You have the bezier interpolated rotation that you want, it just doesn't appear that way. If you want to get rid of this effect, try playing around with the animation speed or giving the gear some sort of unevenness, perhaps a metal texture or something similar.

indeed i try it by my self i assign a different material to a single gear tooth and appears that was true is was an illusion after all    even though knowing the problem doesn't solve it   the problem that i want match a sound track with the rotation of the gear and the sound is like this ( goes fast and slows dramatically at the end )   i watched many gear rotation videos but no one of them have this effect even they rotate faster but in blender just making the gear rotate more than 360° you start saying that funky rotation i cant say none realistic because it seems that how things goes !


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Blender Object Glowing in Dark with no Emission Shader?
For some reason an object in my scene glows in the dark no matter what I do (including removing all its materials) any suggestions?

[EDIT]
Here's what happens when the materials are removed:

Check your World settings as well as the world/environment shading

throw the .blend file on here please - not enough info to be gleaned from the two images...


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Mirror viewmodel for Source engine, ends up horribly deformed?
I don't know if it's a problem with Blender or Source, but I need to flip a viewmodel in Counter-Strike (it's lefthanded in game, I want it to be right handed), but when I flip the model (by scaling by -1) and export the reference and animation files, it ends up horribly deformed in CS, but it looks fine in Blender. Also, when I export in Blender I get the error "Warning: Armature has non-uniform scale. Mesh deformation in Source will differ from blender" Is there another way to mirror a viewmodel, am I doing something wrong, or is this a source problem?
Blender:

Ingame:

It is really hard to keep with the expectations of the Source Engine while in Blender (I do Dota2 workshop stuff, I should know), so this is some stuff that you should check from my similar struggles:

Do the animations play right? Do they look right in blender?
What does the source model viewer show?
Is the scale, location, and rotation applied (correctly)?
Did you consider that Source is sensitive to bone labels?

Example:  If you simply mirrored the model and animations, Source will still attempt to align bone labeled "right" to the right hand side for IK purposes, and vice-versa for the left hand side.
If your model looks wrong in the Source Model Viewer, try creating a custom, unused animation.  If that imports correctly, your animations are mirrored incorrectly.

Are you able to export the model/animations and directly re-import them successfully without modifications?

Failure to do so suggests something wrong with your tooling or process.

Without more to go on, I can only provide these generic troubleshooting tips.

Animations play fine, yes. HLMV shows the same as in-game does. Scale/rotation is applie correctly from what I know, yes. Yes, that's why I'm doing it. (ingame left handed is set to right hand and vice versa, I'm doing this to fix it), and I don't understand exactly what you mean by the second point. So I this time only changed the animations and not the reference files and it works but instead of flipping it on the X axis like in blender it flips it on both the Z and Y axis, however flipping the Z axis in blender does nothing (it stays the same).

Flipping the Y axis in blender also flips both the Y and Z axis in source. And to answer the last question, it imports as how it looks in source, not blender (Z and Y axis flipped in blender instead of just being flipped on Y axis when exporting)


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Why are my custom wire bone shapes' lines thicker when in Pose Mode?
The wire bones on the right are thicker than they should be. In my other blend files the custom wire bones are like the left picture when in pose mode. I have tried almost every setting that I can think of, but I can't get this fixed. It seems like the wireframe display lines are 3-4 pixels thick instead of 1 or whatever the default is. This is pretty annoying visually and makes the rig look less clean. I feel like this is a bug or else I have activated some obscure option or hotkey.

Probably to help show selection and to differentiate between armatures that are not selected/connected

It was not enabled in a previous autosave of the same blend file and in my other projects the wire frames all display correctly in pose mode. I'm trying to figure out how to turn it off. I guess I should have worded my question differently.I meant to find out which setting is causing this.


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Is there a way to lower the viewport resolution using eevee?
I'm using blender 3.0 and I have a 5k monitor. I'd like to reduce the resolution viewport to get better performance in eevee, not cycles. Is this possible? I don't want to make the viewport smaller, I just don't need the viewport to be rendering in 4k+.

Untested (I'm in same boat, use a lower res additional monitor for fast rendered preview), but I'd recommend using a smaller viewport and looking into screen magnification software.

It could be a thing, to suggest the devs to implement Cycles' Pixel Size into Eevee.


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Can I change the camera to spin on axis to turn instead of rotate around an object?
I've been working on a game where I make all my assets in blender and transfer them to unreal engine. I've come to prefer the unreal engine viewport navigation and was wondering if there is a way to get blenders viewport navigation as close as possible. All too often in blender I would hit the maximum zoom and be shifting my rotation point around until I could get a better view. Basically I find that I'm spending as much time correcting my viewport as I do actually building the asset. I would like to have an infinite zoom and the viewport to rotate as though it's just turning in place like it does in unreal engine. Is this possible? (I think it's similar to the "walk" or "fly" navigation but I want it at all times when building)

I'm not sure that there is an easy way to replicate this. Especially because WASD keys are used for different operators. But Walk mode on tilda (`) key works perfectly

I dont mean to use wasd keys to move, I just meant similar to the walk or fly navigation. I'd like it to be the exact same as UE4 if i could. in their editor the scroll wheel will move forward and back at a consistent speed forever whereas in blender it will slow and eventually stop when you reach the center of your pivot point. and when you click and hold the scroll wheel it will move the camera up/down/left/right just like blender when you hold the shift key while doing it. and finally (and most important to my needs) when you hold the right mouse button the camera will turn in place.

Blender keymap is fully customizable, so you can set up a navigation in Unity/Unreal style (camera rotates in place, not around objects) if you want.
You can use Walk/Fly navigation, but assign it to the middle mouse button, so that it will enable on mouse press and disable on release. And you will be able to use WASD keys for moving camera and other keys are available also, while you're holding middle mouse button.
This guide uses the default keymap settings. If you are using Industry compatible keymap, some settings may look differently.
1. Setting up the rotate in place using Walk/Fly navigation.
First, I personally recommend Walk with disabled gravity.

Then in keymap open up 3D View ⇾ 3D View Global section and turn off default navigation by middle mouse (Rotate or pan depends on your settings), then set up View Navigation (Walk/Fly) to middle mouse press:

Then you should leave View Navigation on mouse release, right? So scroll down 3D View section until you find View3D Walk Modal. Disable Teleport because it  will override middle mouse action. Then add new - select action Mouse, type Confirm, Middle, Release.

Once you get it done, you will be able to rotate camera in place and navigate using WASD while holding middle mouse button.
2. Setting Shift+middle mouse button to pan view.
This is easy. Find Pan View in the 3D View ⇾ 3D View Global section and set it like this. Shift must be enabled:

3. Setting up the dolly zoom.
Once you get this, you might find that Blender still zooms at a certain point. So to avoid this, let's set up a dolly zoom instead of the default one. Again, 3D View ⇾ 3D View Global section.
Find Zoom View with Wheel In and Wheel Out shortcuts and replace text view3d.zoom by view3d.dolly. You will see that the title will change from "Zoom View" to "Dolly View". Don't forget to return Delta values, which is reset when command changes.

On my screenshot, zoom might be inverted. If you feel so too, try to replace "1" and "-1"
4. Get back the rotate around on a different hotkey
So this is up to you. You can get back the rotate around if you want. Just enable disabled "Rotate View" and set hotkey on Alt+Right mouse button, for example:


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Why are rigify controls not following the bones weight paint?
I'm rigging a character following this:https://youtu.be/tzJ39ZOhfQ4 and all seems well until i try and move my characters hand (or any part really) and it doesn't move according to where the bones are weight painted. For instance, when I move the hand the hip moves with it. I'll include some images to illustrate this point. the only difference I made from the video is when he pairs with the weights and his figure moves, mine does not at all until i select under the main meshes parent type and switch it from "object" to "armature" this allows it to move but in the way I'm describing. Am I supposed to switch the parent to armature? and whether I am or not then why does my rig either not move (while parented as object) or move as depicted in my screenshots (while parented as armature)?

That happens when you have unwanted parts of your mesh assigned to the current bone OR any other bone that is influenced by it. That includes for example child bones and IK chains.
An easy way to check to which weights is a mesh area assigned, is to ⇧ Shift RMB a mesh area while in weight paint. It will show you a list of all the weight groups found where you clicked, and allow you to switch between them:

You can also got in Edit mode and see in the sidebar the list of assigned weights for the selected vertices:

Edit mode has the advantage of giving you the ability to completelly remove a selection of vertices from a vertex group (which is slightly different than removing weights: having no weights only means the weight is zero, but still part of the group)

I do use shift RMB, thats how i showed my 3rd picture to get an idea of how the weight paint is affecting other areas. i've checked many bones and the weight paint looks perfect. no spill over to other areas at all. from my basic understanding the rigify controls control the armature and the armature weight paints to control the mesh. problem im having is the rigify controls control armature perfectly and the armature is weight painted perfectly to the mesh but the armature does not move the mesh. there seems to be some disconnect between the armature and the mesh that I can't figure out.

share your .blend file then

grrr, it won't let me upload it. every time i try it just tells me there is an internal error.  The best i've got is that i know the problem is weight paints arent affecting the mesh. I've done it automatic and manually and no matter what i weight paint they are not moving with the armature. this only happens with the rigify armature. i've made working armatures before, but it's when using the rigify human meta rig is when things dont work. i'll keep trying to upload the file, maybe it will eventually stop giving me the error message.

try different file sharing websites

Figured it out! I am setting up a rig of a child, because she is being exported for use in unreal engine i need to keep scales accurate. because of this my girl is smaller than the default metarig. when i scale the armature  to her I APPLY the scale then generate rig. this was my problem. instead i DO NOT apply scale then it generates the rigify controls larger at its default size and i scale it after and still do not apply the scale. It seems strange because every tutorial about everything blender always say TO apply the scale, but that was the problem that was causing it to not work right.


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Mouse Click alone takes precedence over "Regular Key Pressed as Modifier"+ Mouse Click
I'm trying to setup my hotkeys so I can more easily sculpt with a tablet. As a part of this I tried to change the hotkeys for invert and smooth sculpting. By default this is done using normal modifier keys, in this case control or shift + left click. This works. But I wanted to use a regular key as modifier, A and S in my case.
So under Blender User Preferences > Input. Then 3D View > Sculpt there are three Sculpt options: Regular, Inverted and Smooth. There's a bunch of normal modifier keys, but there's a blank field where you can enter 'Regular keys as modifier'. But when I changed the settings for invert and smooth to A+Left Click and S+Left Click and tried this, they both only did regular sculpting. After fiddling with it for a bit I noticed it's not that the hotkey doesn't work, but that the left click sends you into regular sculpt mode regardless of what regular-key-modifier you press. You can notice this when you disable the regular sculpting tool (the one that only uses left click).
I assumed the regular key as modifier should work similar to the normal modifiers, but it seemed not to.
Is this a bug? Can someone reproduce this? Can someone help? I would really like to use a regular key and not control/shift/alt for this.
Thanks :)
PS. In sculpt mode S is linked to the smooth brush, so you need to disable this hotkey if you want to reproduce this.

DerekWatts over at BlenderArtists answered my question in this topic.
Apparently it's a known issue and it's fixable by changing the order in which they appear in the hotkey list. Disabling the original left-click-only hotkey and add a duplicate at the bottom of the list fixes it.


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Scaling A Newly Made Cube
So I've very new to Blender coding. Here's what I'm trying to do:
cubeobject = bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add
cubeobject.scale = (-2.2,0,0)

I can't get this to work. I've tried SizeX settings and other translate functions, but nothing seems to work. I'm sure that reference method is wrong, but I've combed the forums for 20 mins with no progress.

What to do
You need to play around with the python console for this stuff.
Here is probably what you want (sets the value directly in the properties panel, absolute method):
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()
bpy.context.scene.objects.active.scale = (-2.2, 0, 0)

You may also want to scale like this (scales object the same way as pressing S in the 3D view, relative method):
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()
bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(-2.2, 0, 0))

When an object is created, it is selected and set active so my examples will work in a simple case like this without a reference to the object.
Why your script won't work

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add doesn't do anything useful (it won't create an object)
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add() only returns {'FINISHED'} not a reference to the new object.

I think what you need is transform.resize. It's not scale :)
https://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_77_3/bpy.ops.transform.html?highlight=size#bpy.ops.transform.resize

What's the easiest method of examining the class tree maps? As in one path is used to create an object, and another path is used to modify that object. I see great docs on individual commands, but no master tree diagram. Still searching.


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Blender Python Origin Adjustments
I'm new to Python programming in Blender. I have a need to duplicate a series of cubes and slowly rotate them edge to edge. I therefore need their rotation origins to be moved from center, to the edge butted against their neighboring cube.
I've been using:
bpy.context.scene.cursor_location = (x,y,z)

What I really want are coordinates that simply say, "move the x,y,z to the relative right (or left) of a particular cube. My understanding was that the origin point is relative to its last position, and that I merely needed to calc the difference.
I'm setting the origin AFTER creating the cube that needs it origin moved. My code order is:

Create cube
Rotate cube x and z
Set new origin for final rotation based on radians
Rotate cube z with differential

I've reviewed several functions for rotation, but not quite in line with what I'm trying here. I need all the x,y,z to match side that needs to rotate. I'm open to better ways. Like I said, this is new to me.

Are you trying to create a concertina. ie a set of hinged tiles?

I hadn't thought about truly hinging them, but that would probably be a good idea.


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Render doesn't match Camera View
I have a single camera. I've set it up in camera view and it looks perfect. When I render, the view is skewed to the left. The scene has just a few objects in it.
Any ideas?
Camera View:

Render Output

Could be a couple things, Check to make sure you dont have 2 different cameras, and also check to make sure you dont have animation on your camera that is being reset to beginning when you go to render.

Holy crap! You're right. It was an animation. TY!

That happens to me all the time, drives me crazy. lol.


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How do I "show" my UV Map after loading a new image?
I've had this happen to me several times. I'm using the UV Map tech perfectly fine. Then I need to load another image. I load the new image, and now my UV Map overlay disappears and the new image is in its place with no mesh.
I've looked all over the web, and I can't find the command to go back to the mesh overlay of my UV Map within the UV Map window.
Help!

If you leave Keep UV and Mesh selection in sync option disabled then (as by default) mesh has to in Edit mode and all selected to see UV map. If you enable that option the UV map will be shown regardless and selection / editing will be synced between UV editor and viewport

I'm adding this to show the gif below. This should not happen, imho. You enter the mesh edit mode, and in the UV/image editor, you see the uvmap and the current mapped image. Then, you simply select another image.

I think I found the toggle for my situation. When I first lost it, I selected UV local mode, and that kept it from showing up. Thank you! Your GIF helped!


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How does one create a looping animation on the Z axis in Blender 2.8?
I've read a dozen posts on loop animation, but nothing seems to work in version 2.8 of Blender. I have a simple need to rotate a UFO 360 continuously during an animation with other things going on.
My goal is to setup a 360 loop while moving it through space and perhaps other Y and X rotations. I've been trying to use the F-Curve Generator, but it instantly changed the Y and X rotations even though I've clicked the LOCKED button those axis.
What is a viable way of doing this in Blender 2.8?

because I guess the local Z axis of your object must be a little bit tilted compared to the Z global axis, so you should make sure your object is aligned on the Z global axis, make it rotate, then parent it to an empty, and tilt and move the empty

see: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/129834/how-do-i-rotate-an-object-along-its-own-axis-windmill?noredirect=1&lq=1

Both of your suggestions did the trick! Ty for the thread link!


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How does one limit path animation to selected frames?
I have an object that needs to follow a path from frame 440 to 500. Regardless of what I do, the animation starts at frame 1. It is my understanding that "In Range" limits this action UNTIL the start frame is reached, and it concludes at the END frame. Is that wrong?

You can animate your object with the Offset value of the constraint. But if you've pressed on the constraint Animate Path button, it will automatically move the object, in that case if you need to set the animation manually you need to remove the curve's Generator modifier in the Graph Editor and keyframe the Evaluation Time of the curve in the Object Data > Path Animation panel, is it what you want?

Thank you for the quick response. I created the "follow path" animation by selecting the cylinder, then the curve, then clicked CRL-P -> Follow Path. So I don't have modifiers as a result of this action.

it automatically creates a constraint, not a modifier, check your constraint panel

I'm running 3.1, I should have mentioned that. No constraints were created. I'm adding them manually to follow your suggestions.

Oh ok my bad, actually Ctrl P > Follow Path automatically creates a modifier for the curve, you can remove it in the Graph Editor, in the left panel select the Evaluation Time track, then open the N panel > Modifiers > remove the modifier

Once you've removed this modifier you can instead give a Follow Path constraint to the object and play with the Offset value

Worked like a charm! Thank you!

CtrlP > Follow Path automatically creates a modifier for the curve, you can remove it in the Graph Editor, in the left panel select the Evaluation Time track, then open the N panel > Modifiers > remove the modifier. Once you've removed this modifier you can instead give a Follow Path constraint to the object, with the curve as Target, and play with the Offset value.


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Camera Messes Up Textures When Zooming
So I've had this problem for a long time, and what happens is that the camera, when zooming in or out, makes textures very jumpy. It is always adjusting and it's very weird. I don't know if this is because I've set the clipping to the max (End clipping being 10000), but it looks very bad. Any ways tp fix this? Thanks!

What is you start clipping? If set too low, it will result in clipping errors.

Near and far clipping values should be as close as possible for your scene

My start clipping is the default 0.100.


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(Internal) Easy Way To Focus?
so I was wondering if there is an easy way to add camera focus to your scene in internal? I have tried adding nodes and a plain axis but it just is really hard to control. Is there an easy way to add focus? Thanks!

Could you clarify what you mean by "add focus" and "scene in internal", it is not clear what you are trying to achieve. Please edit your question and provide some screenshots and feedback about why "adding nodes" doesn't work for you.

I mean defocus, like when you focus a camera. The nodes don't work for me because the settings I use and the plain axis just doesn't make for a good focus setting. I don't know what to add screenshots of :/ Scene in internal is just the scene set up i have.

Well a screenshot of your scene and node setup and scene might be useful for starters. Also state why non of the previously provided methods work for you  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/36145/depth-of-field-f-stop-not-doing-anything or https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/71563/depth-of-field-is-not-being-rendered-in-blender-internal Also see https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?143815-How-do-you-DoF-with-Blender-Internal and https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Tutorials/Composite_Nodes/Setups/Depth_Of_Field


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(Blender Internal) How to time Cell Fracture?
I have a really simple question that I've needed the answer to for a while now but couldn't find it. Is there a way to make the Cell Fracture times longer? What I mean is that is there a way I can maker it last longer then stopping at the 250 mark on the timeline? Thank you!

related : https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/31486/rendered-animation-is-incomplete/31487#31487, maybe duplicated.

Oh my god it isn't. I'm talking about making the Cell Fracture longer, that question is asking about the timeline itself.

And did you try to just increase your timeline?

As far as I remember, Cell Fracture can utilize Particle System. So, default Particle System has emitting end frame at 200 and lifetime for another 50 frames. That is exactly 250 frame limit you have. Just go to Particle settings and change frame bounds.

If your cell fracture is using rigid body physics, you could decrease the speed of the rigid body simulation I believe in the 'rigid body world' settings, under the scene tab.

Ah I found it, under Rigid Body Cache. Thanks!

Go to Properties Editor Type, in Scene context, check Rigid Body World on. Once done, go to the Cache options, and set the amount of the cache stored for your simulation, usually the same amount of the Time line, i.e. if you increase the number of frames on the Time Line, do the same in Cache options.


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(Blender Internal) How to apply chroma key to videos playing on planes?
I have a greens screen video of smoke and want to make it green screened on a plane so it's just the smoke, is there a way I can do this?

As far as I know you apply chroma key to the video before applying it to a plane. When you apply it to the plane it should already be pre-processed.

How would i go about doing that?

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=vid&q=chroma%20key%20in%20blender


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(Blender Internal) Ambient Occlusion With Lamp and PNG/Smoke Domain Creates Weird Effects
I've been having this problem for a long time and haven't gotten to figuring it out. I work in Blender Internal, and I love using Ambient Occlusion. But my projects involve using PNG images with alphas (I use the Images as Planes importer) and Smoke Domains, and usually these need light for surrounding objects to be illuminated by it. So I put a lamp where it is and it creates this weird blue effect. Here are some examples on Imgur:
http://imgur.com/a/Y9u4W

I can't post more then 2 images


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How to select multiple images when importing textures?
Is there a way to select multiple textures when applying them to a mesh? I have many maps I'd like to select at once instead of selecting them individually.

I am not sure what do you mean by "applying images to a mesh" but you can import multiple images for later use.
Just switch to UV/Image editor, click Open and select multiple images by any of these methods:

mouse drag (lasso select)
ShiftLMB for selecting multiple
or CtrlShiftLMB for select from the first to the last clicked

I mean applying multiple textures to a material, it's simple. But I'm on a Mac, so I don't know what LMD is


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How Do I Combine More Than 2 Normal Maps?
Hi I've been looking everywhere and I found an answer but it still doesn't apply to what I'm asking. I'm new with Cycles and have trouble with it, but I was wondering how I can combine more then two normal maps? I have different image textures and want to apply them all to a model without having to adjust a factor or whatever, and this is my set up so far:

If I can get some help and get an uncomplicated node set up that would be amazing, anyways thanks guys!


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Blender Internal How to slow down and crop movie textures?
I asked this question: (Blender Internal) How to apply chroma key to videos on a plane? and was wondering how I could crop the texture or slow down to footage? Thanks!

You might consider an alternative - load the video into Blender's video editor and producing a copy, reducing it's framerate and cropping it at the same time.  Use the new video instead for the texture.
I'm still using Blender Vers 2.77a and find when reducing a video's speed in the VSE (editor) it's best not to use the editor's 'Speed Control' effects strip.  It's output is jerky-jerky.
Instead, go to the render properties panel at right in the 3D window and set the frame rate to half or whatever rate you need.
You can if you wish, select "Custom" for the frame rate and use the 'Divide-by' slot that's below the frame rate entry slot.  It's marked with a "/" divide symbol.  Enter a 2 in there for half speed, 4 for quarter and so on.
The results are reasonably smooth when you consider that a half frame rate is only 15 or 12 fps.

Render the video and use that to texture the original plane or object.
-==========-
Cropping -
Whilst you're in the VSE you can also crop the new video.
Cropping a video is only a matter of making sure the video strip (not the sound) is highlited.
Press N and tick the "Image Crop" box at right and adjust the cropping sliders
-==========-
If you prefer to crop a textured plane in the 3D window, it's only a matter of placing another plane over the section you want to cut out and adjusting it's Material--> Transparency tab to .008.  Set both it's specular values to zero.

Make sure it's actually closer to the camera or viewpoint than the original plane.   This will render any part of the plane that's underneath, invisible.  See pic.
If you have trouble with this method, I can do a quick video.  It does have advantages over the VSE's and Compositor's cropping.
It's downside might be the need to render using "OpenGL", not the internal Blender render, but there is a way around that also by "filming" the cropped video and using that for the texture.

you can crop an image or video in this way:

see https://docs.blender.org/manual/fr/dev/compositing/types/distort/crop.html for reference.
I know no way to set/alter a video texture fps using nodes, you should perhaps first convert it to the same fps of the animation render...
2.4x manual says "The video needs the same - or an integral division - number of frames per second (FPS) as the animation, to run at the same speed." (https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Textures/Types/Video), and I guess that is still valid.
Still, that page has a few examples to use the texture "frames" setting to achieve some basic speed changes, just below this text: "Fields per Image: The number of fields per rendered frame. If no fields are rendered, even numbers must be entered here. (2 fields = 1 frame). This sets the speed of the animation"
In current versions, this is where it should explain how to use frames: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/editors/uv_image/image/image_settings.html?#movie


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(Blender Internal) How to apply chroma key to videos on a plane?
I have these really cool green screen effects that can be applied to a plane (they are videos), but I need to chroma key the green out of it so it only has the effects themselves. How can I do this? Thanks!

This is a simple node setup in Blender's Compositor.  If you're unfamiliar with this part of Blender, leave a comment and I'll add step by step as to how to get into it.

If only wishing to remove the green and not overlay a background, i.e. have a video with just the effects, delete the BKD movie Node. Replace the Alpha Over Node with a "Set Alpha" node.  Connect it as shown below.

You'll end up with an alpha layered output.  If not needing the alpha layer, render in H264 AVI (RGB).  (or your favorite format)
If you do want the Alpha layer, you'll need to render the video as a series of Alpha layered .png images.  Make sure to create/select a special folder for these.  There'll be a lot!
These can be compressed into a single file for storage.
I've found it easier if the key colour isn't as bright as it's shown in the top pic.  (bottom of the keying node)
-=====-
Getting the resultant movies onto a plane -
Simply texture the plane using "Generated" mapping for starters to see how it goes.  You can revert to UV mapping if you prefer.
In the image properties "Image" tab, make sure to click on "Auto Refresh" so the movie or image sequence will play.

Thank you for that, but I'm still kind of confused. All I want to do is have an effect on a plane and take out the green. Does this explain it?

Also idk what BDK is.. sorry for my lack of knowledge!

@GodzillaDude, It can't be done in the 3D window in Blender Render that I'm aware of.  You have to use the Compositor.  Use the 2nd node setup and texture a plane with the rendered series of alpha layered pics (video frames) that it produces.   The abreviation "BKD"=Background. Sorry for that, old habits die hard.  See 2nd paragraph after 2nd pic. - I'll make a video for you if you're still confused.

@Edgel3D you can do it 3D view but the quality and ability to edit the key won't be as good as the compositor. See my answer below.

Yes Edgel if you can make a video for me that would be amazing, man again I'm really sorry I've been using Blender for years now but I kind of have trouble when it comes to these sorts of things.

Thank you so much man! How would I go about looping the video?

Because I'm trying to have videos like Fire particles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWOyMXya7Cg)

In the image properties (at right) and under the "image" tab, is a box under the 'Auto Refresh' box, called "Cyclic".  Tick that for looped replay when texturing the plane.

Thank you man, how would I also crop the video (not trim, but crop)? And how would I do the fire particles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWOyMXya7Cg)

And how can I slow down the footage

@GodzillaDude I'd suggest asking new questions regarding video adjustment etc.  It's not really what's been asked here.  If this question has been answered, just mark it as such and I'll also clear it off my computer.  Good luck with the project.

Hi Edgel, it's me again. So I've been getting into Cycles and was wondering how I would go about doing this but this time with nodes and stuff. It's been working perfect for Internal but I'm confused how to do it with Cycles, thank you!

Only used Cycles once and found it too slow for video work.  We only live for about 80 years! :0

You can isolate a specific colour as long as you have good separation between foreground colours and background colours. This method wont be as accurate as the proper Keyer node available in the compositor and there are no blur functions to erode or dilate the mask. Also there is no easy way to add a mask shape to the key, unless you edit the geometry using a boolean modifier or some UV projection trick.
Here I have used the node Separate HSV to grab the hue channel. I tweak the input hue using a HSV node to target the green grass.

Finally I modify the alpha by increasing the contrast using a Ramp node.
*Note that I am using an emission node to make sure that there are no shadows, but you may want to cast a shadow on the background image.

I'll note this one down, thanks!  How would it go for a movie sequence though?  Light and shade changing as the cam moves etc?  I've used frame by frame masks in the past.  That works very well for extracting objects from existing video, but it's a lot of work.

Masking requires a slight modification to the image mapping. Then you edit the vertices and animate shape keys. Youre right though the key wont be anywhere near as good if the colour is to similar to the foreground.

@Edgel3D I have not used any masks to create this key. I have simply altered the colour profile of the source image to generate an alpha image. You could make a mask with a boolean modifier as well. Of course its best (quality) to do all the keying in the compositor then apply the generated alpha key to the material in 3D view, but its faster my way ;-)


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How to render from Eevee in Blender 2.8?
I have the Blender 2.8 version from the 21st Sep 2018
I was looking forward to render a test sequence but cannot find a render button anywhere?
Does anyone know where to find it?

You can press CTRL + F12 for that.

While the pre-release builds of 2.80 were setup with Alt-F12 as the render shortcut, the final 2.80 release returned to using F12 to render an image and ⎈ CtrlF12 to render an animation.
You can find each render option in the render menu at the top left of blenders window.

The render buttons previously found with the render settings are no longer there in 2.80, although it is possible to replace them with an addon.

In case anybody who comes here is annoyed by the change I have a tiny addon that adds the Render and Animation button back in.
Blender2.8-RenderButton


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Grease pencil not viewable to Fisheye camera
I think this may be a limitation of the grease pencil as it currently works but I live in hope there may be a way to do this.
The issue is that grease pencil objects are simply not visible to fisheye cameras. For normal perspective cameras it is fine.
Attached in an image showing the same scene with different cameras - the blue box is a standard object which shows up, the squiggly lines are a grease pencil object which only shows in the perspective view.
I suspect that work going on to make eevee work with VR may help here.
I am trying to create a storyboard for a dome environment and was hoping to use grease pencil so if anyone knows anything to help it would be much appreciated.

Eevee doesn't support fisheye cameras. Make sure you're in cycles.

This is in cycles. As you can see, in the viewport on the right you can see the grease pencil which is viewed through a normal camera. The one on the left is a fisheye camera which shows the mesh object - the cube but no grease pencil object. These are 2 camera views of the same thing.

my apologies, I assumed you were using Eevee since you mentioned it in the context of VR.


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Best way to adjust parts of sculpt?
is there a way to edit a specific part of the object in sculpt mode? (rotate, scale)
I have sculpted my mouth too small and would like to scale it up. So my method right now would be to go to edit mode and select the part I want to scale with c and then scale it. However the C select is not symmetrical and also not smooth but just hard.
Is there a better way to adjust parts of a sculpt? For example putting a mask on the are in sculpt mode and then scaling it up somehow?

You could try the Inflate brush. If it doesn`t work, you can try the pull brush.

Yes, it's better to avoid messing with Edit mode when sculpting is already done, move those in sculpting. There are Grab brush (doesn't change topology with Dyntopo), SnakeHook (this one does change), Nudge, Thumb (default ones).


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Is there a way to control Emission values using an empty's movement?
I want to animate the brightness of an object using an empty's movement, or something like this. I don't see any ability to animate (directly) the shader attributes in the dope sheet / timeline, but I've seen other elements changed (UVMap Projector) using any object.
Is this possible?
I've searched Google and either couldn't figure out the right keywords, or couldn't find documentation on this.
Thank you for the help.

You can animate the shader emission attribute directly. You can just hover over the attribute you want to animate and press i or right click on it and click Insert keyframe https://i.imgur.com/DVfYn01.png

To animate emission with an empty movement you can use driver. To create it, click with right mouse button on numeric field of Strength property of the shader, choose Add Driver>Manually Create Later (Single). Then open Graph Editor, change mode from F-Curve to Drivers, click on one of frames on the curve you'll see, go to properties panel on the right (press N if closed), go to Driver, choose Scripted Expression as Type, in Expr window type var,for Object choose Empty, and for Type and Space choose X Location (or Y or Z, doesn't matter), World Space and done. Check gif below to see the process.

Could you maybe use some formating in this answer like list for steps, cursive/bold for key features or something? It is really hard to fallow along with it (for me).

Sorry @LukeD, no time for aesthetics, but I see you have enough reputation score to edit it, so be my guest.

@Mzidare just make it when you will have time.

Ok  @LukeD, no problem.


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Why does Blender slow down when I duplicate a model repeatedly?

Why does Blender slow down when I duplicate a model repeatedly, as in the above screenshot?

What do you mean by " repeated versions of the models"?

If repeated versions = make more copies of model, than the answer is easy: more models = more geometry = more system load.

Have you tried using the Array modifier instead?

Blender's viewport is a more or less simplified 2D representation of what your 3D scene looks like from a certain point of view.
This representation needs to get updated in real-time (if possible) if you rotate a scene and that update needs to be calculated by your GPU as well as your CPU.
As Shubol3D already hinted, duplicating a model also duplicates geometry. Even further, if you have assigned materials and modifiers, they get duplicated as well.
Mathematically every vertex in your scene is described by three vectors, x,y and z. But there is more data behind a vertex than just the geometrical coordinates. Color and light values are only two of them. Imagine a long list of those values in a spread sheet. The more geometry, the longer the spread sheet, the more time it takes for your hardware to update the information that needs to be changed to display your scene.
If this explanation answers your question, please mark it as "accepted".


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Staircase Shadows / Shadows look like faces
right now I am rendering a scene with an environment map and some point lights in Blender 2.79.
I just noticed that a part of my bowl has some weird "staircase shadow".
The mesh should be high poly enough and it is also set to smooth.

i guess there is something wrong with your shader, maybe with the bump/displacement. You could re-rendern the image with a default diffuse shader, without any displacement and see, if the artifacts are still there. if they are still there, make sure your mesh has "smooth shading" activated. if it is gone, you know that the problem is within the shader.

Okay. Thank you. I will try that as soon as my render is finished.

The artefacts are rendered due to low subdivision. I reproduced them on a poorly subdevided sphere. Just add another level of subdivision and you should be good to go.


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SSS turns black when mixing with diffuse with map
when I apply a SSS to my material and mix it with a diffuse which has a texture and i use the alpha of that map in the mix shader then the part of the SSS turns dark.

I kind of fixed it when I put my Image Texture with an RGB value of the SSS into a mix color set to linear light but the pinkish part is much softer that way and i want to to be more strong.

How many render samples are you using there? It looks quite grainy and the SSS doesn't work well with very low samples. Try increasing Samples and see if that helps.

I used 20 for that one. But thats not a problem. For instance the object next to those black ones looks normal and has the "fixed" shader. and there is clearly a difference between the black and the white one.

I'm guessing you have a transparent PNG and there's no color data in the transparent region, however you're sending the shaders both color and alpha data.

That was the problem! Thank you. I used a png and it was transparent.
I were thinking that with the mix shader and the alpha in it the sss shader will be applied to everything that is not overed from the alpha for the diffuse.
Now i made the background white and my object looks like it should. thanks.


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UV Map gets broken / distorted
it's me again with a UV problem.
(I was able to solve the Problem with Smart UV Project but I still dont know why it doesnt work with Seams and normal Unwrapping)

So here you can see the Object with my seams. One edge loop in the inside and one at the outisde. When I unwrap it it distorts one side heavily while the other one is ok. Also there are 4 Faces that get seperated.
I have tried to remove doubles, adjust the scaling of my object to 1 and tried to look if there still is a doubled face or sth. beneath the seperated faces in the UV. ( 2nd image )

Like I said I was able to go on with smart UV project but I still try to figure out the problem here and it seems that I wont get to an answer.
Have you guys an idea what I could try to fix that issue?

This is just a problem of the smart UV project option. It isn't perfect. In this case you'll have to do some manual mapping.

If you can upload the blend file with the shown or similar mesh and include the link here. Note that Smart UV Project takes seams into account as well and that might change the result although not that dramatically, maybe there are some other problems.

Like I said, smart UV is ok. Manually unwrapping is doing that problem. I will upload the file.
Notice that it is 1 object which consists of 2 seperate objects. The problem is with the frame. Here is the file:
link


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Object doesnt render with diffuse
today I was working on the look of a bowl in my project.
It is UV unwrapped and I created a material for it.
Now I want to top border to be in a different color. When I now mix the 2 colors together that I want my mesh to have and put it into my diffuse color it will turn out white in the render. Which is confusing me since I do not even use white for the bowl.

and when I just put the Diffuse to black everything is fine.

Do not mix shaders (in this case Diffuse) with MixRGB node, use Mix shader instead. See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/33915/what-is-the-meaning-of-the-color-of-the-node-sockets-in-the-node-editor. Mix colors either with 2 Diffuse shaders and one Mix shader or with 2 MixRGB nodes + 1 MixRGB node for mixing and 1 Dffiuse shader

To clarify/expand on what Mr Zak said: that PBR dielectric group node is expecting RGB data in its Diffuse Color input socket. You've sent it BSDF shader data instead. And if it were me I would download the release candidate for 2.79 and use the Principled BSDF for PBR - much easier.

Oh yeah. I didnt notice that I used a Mix rgb.

But I am somewhat confused now. The Mix shader also just has a green output. When I put that into the diffuse channel it renders it black but still without the red part.
But I now know how I can change that. Instead of using 2 Diffuse Shader I just have to use 2 RGB inputs with the Mix rgb node.
Thank you guys.

Can you use Blend Exchange to post the .blend?

Of course.

Your problem is that you mix two shaders (diffuse nodes) using a RGBmix node and then send this to a color input. The diffuse color input of the PBR node is should be a color (yellow dot) not a shader (green dot).
You should not use diffuse node to define the black and red colors, but use a RGB color instead.


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Layer Manager like 3ds Max
so my question is if there is a plug in for blender changing the layer manager of blender to somewhat like in 3ds max? i think its kind of hard to deal with the grouping system in blender.
Is there a drag&drop option for the layer manager?
Or the best would be a plug in which is implementing a layer manager like in max or maya. I searched but cant find anything.
Thanks

Maybe the problem is also that i am just used to the 3ds max outliner.
But any kind of improvement to the blender outliner would be helpful.
Thanks guys.

I think it would be helpful to specify what you are having trouble with regarding Blender's layers (though in the question you seem to be talking about the outliner). Also, a lot of people might not be familiar with 3ds Max's layer manager, so best to explain what features you're expecting.

Okay.
So in 3dsMax for example you have all objects visible like in Blender when you choose "All Scenes". But one can also see groups which are displayed in an hirarchy way (like "groups" in blender).
The problem in Blender is, that when one creates a new object, you have to switch to all scenes again. And you cant just drag&drop it into the group you want. You have to select the object, click add to group and find the right group. It's timeconsuming for me and in my opinion not really practical. Thats the biggest issue i've got with the Blender Outliner.

Please add this additional information into the question using the [edit] link.

Not everyone here uses 3Ds Max or Maya so it would be a good idea to actually describe what you want instead of just saying "I want feature X from software Y".
What are you talking about really? Render Layers? Some sort of Scene graph like the Outliner? Scene Layers?
There is an addon that allows you to still user Blender's native layer system, which has the advantage or integrating with Render Layers, but allows better organization and management.
Layer Manager addon allows naming toggling display, renderability and selectability from a simple list interface.

There is also Blender Object Library manager addon that allows for actual "CAD like" unlimited layers
Future Blender 2.8 based versions of Blender will bring a decent modern layer system called Collections that will replace the current Layer Bits system.
It will integrate with a revamped Render Layer system, manage through the outliner, and have a friendlier drag-and-drop worflow with flexible visibility toggles, per collection overrides for multiple settings, and decent organization features.
It is still far off, you don't mind waiting. Please avoid using 2.8 builds for the time being, they are not ready for general public testing yet.


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Painted Scene with Lighting
I have a more general question about lighting a scene with painted material.
Since I have created a scene in which I want to paint all the textures I am now confused after watching some tutorials. People always draw lights and shadows on the objects. But when I decide to change my lighting setup wouldnt I have to start over? I can not really describe what I am meaning so I will explain it in a picture.

Lets say I was painting my cube like in case A. Now the lighting changes and comes from the right like in case B. Sine I painted the object like the light would come from the left.. it now wont fit when the light comes from any other angle and casts shadows in a different direction.
So when I am doing a full scene do i just have to accept that it is just used for one lighting setup?

Really people are doing it that way? I'm looking at YouTube tutorials about Texture Painting and can't find anyone who are doing that. For me it's kind a  pointless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7ALfRw6I5I
He puts shadow at the bottom of the thing at the top. And when the light would now come from the bottom it would be totally senseless having shadow there. so I am wondering ..

In addition to Mzidare: depending on the context you use the object in, some baked lightmaps might be no problem. For a RTS game the main light source is usually the sun. The more dynamic the lightning gets, the less lightmaps one should use, especially with hard shadows.

Painting lighting information on texture would only make sense if lighting does not change. This may provide some stylized look but it would be better to paint diffuse/albedo/(even AO in some cases) on to the textures and leave lighting calculations for the renderer.

If you look closer to this tutorials, you'll notice, that they don't really paint lighting conditions but more like Ambient occlusion and some highlights, that are similar for each side of the object. In the tutorial you linked to, you can see the same amount of shadow under the top part on each side, The same with the highlights on cracks and tiles. The same on each side.Try to copy this effect while creating your painted textures. This will suggest some details, but won't interfere too much with added lighting.


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Is there a way to hide parts of an object?
I currently am modeling a roof and the roof plates are overhanging at the corner. I marked the parts I want to hide.

Is there maybe the possibilty to place a Box or another object on those parts and tell the mesh that all parts of the object that overlap with the Box should be hidden?
Thanks

You can use boolean modifier to cut volumes with other volumes.
(In the pictures below, the black object has faces and is set to wireframe display for better overview.)

It would very helpful if you could add some explanation as to how to set up the boolean  modifer; those pictures aren't very descriptive.

I know they aren't, but I think it makes no sense to give a complete introduction of the boolean modifier every time some ask about it. This post shows what is does and how it is called, not how it is used. Anyone can look that up in lots of sources elsewhere.

@Dimali sure, there is a line, I know:) But mostly it's about balance, imho including the modifier panel in the screenshot would increase the value a lot with not so much extra work. It makes sense to include the info that the user likely does not have (sometimes with link to another answer or including it fully). I've seen some answers from you even with gif animations, so it's not like you don't know how to put up quality content:)

I think this is a relevant concern (see my recent post on the meta). Is it better to mark it as duplicate than to give a short answer?


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Slow Viewport in Big Scene
I recently am working on a scene in Blender Cycles which has a relatively great number of objects. Some are more detailed and need more subdivide but the small objects are all just subdivided once.
So the problem is that my blender gets slow when I move the camera in the viewport.
In 3ds Max you can choose objects that you dont need to look at right now and select "Show them as box", which will let them be displayed as a wireframe box and therefore wont stress the scene that much.
My question is if there is a function like that in Blender? (exept hiding objects)
And do you have tips on working on bigger scenes in blender too keep it fast? For example I have a lot of chopsticks in my scene. Should I merge them together to 1 object instead of individual objects and then just give them different materials?
thanks in advance :)

Regarding the second question generally you should keep only one question per question and explain everything in more details, it's not entirely clear what's exactly the problem. 2000 objects in the scene will be slower than 1 object with 200 meshes so you can adjust according to that

Yeah its similiar. Should i delete my question now?

It's your solution but I don't think you should. The wording in your question can help someone else to find that one.

you can change how your object is drawn by changing the "Draw Type" in Properties panel -> object -> display.
To my experience, less objects you have in your scene better blender run, so it's a good idea to merge them in 1 object.


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How can I apply textures in Blenders UV Editor
so I guess I have a really basic question here. I wanted to apply a texture to my mesh trough the UV Editor. I opened a new Image but here comes the first problem already.
I can't move/ scale the image.
I need multiple textures on the same spot (Specular, Diffuse, Normal). Once for the front side and once for the back side.
Do I have to do that in photoshop or is there a way to move images around in the Blender UV Editor? When I am looking for tutorials I only find how they export the UV out and edit it in a seperate software.

what kind of mesh are you using? A Plane? Use U in the 3D View for unwrapping the mesh and than position it in the UV Editor by using G (grab and move). The UV Map can be used for all textures but you have to use the textures in the material (nodes/setup). Which Render Engine are you using (I would recommend Cycles for things with maps)

You can't edit an image in the UV editor (unless just painting on it) and it's not supposed to be used in that way. If you want to edit the way how this image is assigned on the mesh edit its UV coordinates in UV editor which will be used for wrapping that image onto the mesh. To change scale of the texture on the mesh either scale the UV map or in the Node editor add Mapping node.

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/39943/how-to-scale-a-uv-image-texture and https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/8697/1245

You may try using a Stencil mapping option. In UV Editor set the mode to Paint. Add two textures in a Texture panel using the '+' button. Change the brush mapping type to Stencil.

Your texture stencil should appear. Press Image Aspect button to get the original picture dimensions. Hold Ctrl+RMB to rotate stencil, Shift+RMB to change its size and RMB to pan it. Then paint.

Click on the texture preview window, choose your second texture (Up/Down Arrow, Enter or choose it from the textures list) and paint again.

You can use the same method in a 3D View window. It's very useful for blending/hiding the seams btw.

Hey. Thank you a lot. That was somehow what I was looking for. Not perfectly because I wanted to have more Textures at the same place but i guess I will have to use Photoshop for that then. hehe ^^
Btw. When I use the stencil mode and I want to apply a character onto a plane. I choose it and scale it the way like I want it. I have everything like you and my mesh is also unwrapped. Now when I paint on it it will be painted multiple times and also on the same objects (which have another material though) .. I will post screenshots asap

http://imgur.com/a/MNUeE
I hope in the screenshot you can see what i mean. It gets tiled even if i scaled the character into a big one so it takes like 50% of the UV of the model. Also it goes on on the other models which even have another material. (I copied the one i want to add the stencil and made the material a new one). It really is not a duplicate anymore


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Set active layer for created objects
I noticed when I add objects to my scene they will be created in the layer 3. It isnt like that from the beginning but it suddenly starts to place new objects into the third layer after some time working.
I dont have any problem with that since I just can use the third layer as "main" layer. My question is if there is a possibility to set an active layer where new objects get placed into? So that I have control over the objects placements in layers from the beginning. For example when I know I place a lot of "unnecessary" stuff I choose one of the last layers and dont have to manually drop them into that layer after i created them.
Thanks in advance

Uncheck and check on your "active" layer with Shift.
Objects adds on last selected layer, so if you turn off and on the layer, it will be  "active"
Also, you can read about it: Active Layer Indicator

Yeah thanks that did it. Now I know why it suddenly started to use the 3rd layer as active layer.. because I always used shift to select more layers to see all objects..
thanks a lot. :D


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UV Map - Changes direction midway
I hope that will be my last question about UVs in blender.
I now have an object unwrapped. The Quads are sometimes not exactly squares. On one site they get smaller so its a trapeze. Therefore when the UV is a normal square the uv tiles should get smaller to the smaller site of the square but in my case they are randomly changing direction like it can be seen in the image.

Here is my blender file so that you can look up my UV:
BlenderFile

That is a consequence of straightening UV maps. They are straightened so ratio of UV island doesn't correspond to ratio of the face. Try unwrapping Project From View and you will see the difference. You can go with less geometry by using Project from View for both top and bottom of the mesh (other way for the middle) or by adding seams in the corners of the mesh.

This is a problem related to uv coordinate interpolation. It is inevitable when working with very low mesh density. To avoid
this kind of problem increase mesh resolution by adding few extra loops.
As you can see the distortion runs along triangles - this is the way uv is interpolated in quad polygons.

Okay thank you. That kind of fixed it. Not perfectly but I dont want to add 10 loops to each side jsut to get rid of it 100% .
Sadly this is adding far more polys (with subdivide) for such a simple object.

Yeah thats true. For any model the less distorted the triangles would be the better it is for uv interpolation. Very narrow triangles tend to turn ugly in uv maps unless you keep the overall shape of the unwrapped face as in project from view