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Exploding a solid object
I've been trying to make a cube explode without gravity in a solid form.  Just fragments, no fire or smoke.  I've watched every video I could find but I just can't get it to work...quick explode is great, but it seems to just throw paper thin pieces, not big chunks.  Anyway, if someone could post a step-by-step procedure that would be awesome.  Sorry if I'm missing the obvious.
blender file
Thanks

One way of doing this is with cell fracture and adding rigid body physics. Add a cube to your scene and Tab into edit mode and press W>subdivide and subdivide it a few times to give it some more geometry. Note that with objects having more complex geometry, you can skip this step.
Next, run the cell fracture add-on and go to your second layer to begin working on the fractured cube.
First we are going to press Bto box select the fractured cube, and select add active in the physics tab of the tool panel on the left. Press T if it's not open.

Next, add a plane below the cube and again go to the tool panel>physics since you need it to react to the fractured cube, click add passive.

Now if you play your animation your cube will just crumble and fall apart. To fix this, go to the physics>rigid bodies tab in the properties editor. You want to adjust the sensitivity margin next.
 Play with this until you like how the animation looks.

If for some reason, the cube crumbles and doesn't explode then select one of the fractured pieces, then box select the entire fractured object, and select copy from active in the physics settings in the tool panel and that should fix it. After following these steps you should be able to get something like this or better:

YES!  Finally got it to work...thanks so much Timaroberts!!!!

The cell fracture addon creates solid pieces to match the volume of the selected object. If you have failed trying the cell fracture addon you may have missed that it leaves your object intact and places all the new pieces onto the next layer, you need to change layers to see the pieces.

After enabling the addon, there is a cell fracture button added to the tools region but you may find it easier to press space and type in cell. For a simple cube you will either want to subdivide multiple times or add a particle system then run the addon.

This blender cookie tutorial covers the cell fracture addon.

Yeah I tried all of this but for some reason the cube won't explode.  Here's the .blend file if that helps

@lakerice After you use Cell Fracture, you still need to pull the pieces apart. Cell Fracture > go to Layer 2 > select fractured pieces > turn on "Manipulate Center Points" > scale

Still can't get it to work.  Not sure if it's because I deleted the cube in layer 1 and moved the cube in layer 2 to layer 1?  That's what a few tutorials suggested.  I also noticed I can't turn on physics for some reason.

@lakerice the sample you uploaded is fractured into 88 pieces, you just need to separate them a bit.


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How to make a small plume of smoke?
I've been trying to make the sphere shoot one plume of smoke (2 frames) and it doesn't shoot it in a small puff but a very large amount that fills up the entire cube in an instant.  How can I change the settings to make this happen?
Here's a screenshot of the sphere physics settings:

Here's a screenshot of the particle settings:

I realize this isn't showing all of the possible settings with the screenshots, so I will attach the .blend

I can't download file now, but I'm guessing: decrese size in emission smoke settings, set it to 0.1 or 0.01 for quick test. Also increase smoke domain resolution

That seemed to produce a better result.  Thanks!

source: Stack Exchange

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

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Why has the boolean modifier created new vertices?
As you can see in object mode there are 4 vertices that have separated the front of the cartridge into multiple faces when I use boolean modifiers on cartridge.001. How can I fix this?  I imagine it has to do with good topology.
Here's the cartridge in object mode showing faces:

Here is the cartridge with the unwanted vertices:

Attached is the .blend

I think that holed-ngons are not currently supported. Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/48779/15140

Related also: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/74656/cant-disolve-edge-and-faces/74660#74660

The topology you see in wireframe mode is real topology of your mesh if the modifiers were applied. The edges (and not vertices) are added because it is impossible in Blender (as far as i know) to have a face with an hole in it, with a connected vertex. To create a hole you need to create a cut to join the two edge loop of the new face.
The wireframe view can avoid to display some edges if the faces have the same normal, but for that you need to apply the modifiers, then go to Edit Mode and back to Object Mode.

I think once you apply the boolean modifiers you can fix it using limited dissolve.

Hm I tried working with it but it didn't do anything.

Is there a particular article on limited dissolve that would help?

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Add Object Comes Tiny Only For Default Objects
When I launch Blender it comes with a perfect 2x2x2m cube. But when I Shift+ A Mesh>Cube it appends a cube at 0.002x0.002x0.002m.
The strange thing is that when I add for example, a diamond or an empty it comes ok with the perfect size of around 2m.
As I understand the objects that are from the addons Add mesh & Add curve append perfectly. Only the default objects like sphere,cube,torus etc. come tiny.
Is there a way to resolve this and when appending a cube to be 2x2x2m without reinstalling ?

Does this answer your question? How do i change the grid floor?

Problem Solved, all i was needed to change was the Grid Scale like shown in picute here
How do i change the grid floor?

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


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Why can't I select certain loops with Loop Select?
As you can see in the attached image, I have used the Alt+click hotkey to loop select these three loops. I know the difference between these three loops; the one that is not select-able using the loop select method was created by joining a an entirely different cube on top (don't ask why) of another and then using the join feature.  The other two were used with the Loop Cut tool.
My question is what about this situation makes this happen and can I do anything to fix it?  Can I do something to this loop to make Blender recognize it as a full loop?  This is obviously a thing that happens a lot over the course of creating a mesh, so if I'm able to "repair" or "create" a loop from an edge that is otherwise not recognized by Loop Select somehow that would be incredible.  I know I could just get rid of the geometry and just rebuild it with fresh fills but even that would likely create some issues.
Thanks for your help!

Is there a internal face where the new cube was joined to the rest of the geometry? (Change Vieport shading to wireframe and have look inside). If so delete this face.

@3fingeredfrog Nope, I've checked for any additional geometry that might be stopping it, the only difference between this loop and the others is that the others were created with Loop Cut and the top one was created by snapping the bottom of one shape to the other using merge vertices, but I've also deleted it completely and then subdivied the edges to create new verts, then filled them to create the line, same problem.


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Typing G+X or R+X is not working. Instead is asking me if I want to delete
When I hit GX I'm expecting movement along the $X$ axis by an amount I type in.
Similarly, I'd expect RX$90$ to rotate the selected object(s) about the $X$-axis $90$°. Instead, the $X$ is taken as a delete command and I get a dialog box asking if OK to delete.
Is this a change in Blender or am I doing something wrong? I'd really like to be able to type SZ and a number or RX and a number.

An individual X is to delete. but R+X is to rotate on x, G+X is to grab on x, S+X is to scale on X. I can only ask you to make sure whether you are doing it correctly, making sure keyboard is working; Otherwise I don't know how to solve it because this seems extremely weird and had never happened to me. Just to run a test, if you just hit R, are you rotating the object? keep in the state of rotation, hit X, does it help?

Thank you for your reply Gertsmann. That is exactly what I'm doing G, then X but it deletes from the X. When I hit the G it puts the gizmo about the object, but when I hit X next it deletes the object. I just upgraded from 2.8 to 2.81a hoping it would fix the issue, but it does not.

What do you mean by delete from X? What system are you working with? Are you using the official build? In the worse case, can you try goes to file, default, load factory setting to see if things have been fixed?

Just did file |default | load factory settings and it works as expected again. Thanks!

Great, You may want to save startup after load factory setting. because load setting only works for the current file.

Did that. Thanks!

Most likely you inadvertently deleted the shortcut in the keymaps, or you set it to something else, overriding it. Clicking on Restore in the keymaps in the preferences should clear the modification.

I have the same issue. If I hit G then X, it asks me if I want to delete the object instead of locking X axis. Can't change angle by numbers with R either.
Solved:
You need to hold the mouse button pressed while rotating/moving, and then you can press x/y/z and numeric values. Hope it helped.

Good it works, but this shouldn't be necessary.. OP's behaviour is beginning to look like a bug?

I downvoted the answer because it is misleading. It is not necessary to hold the mouse button pressed to lock transforms to X axis. This is a workaround of other unresolved issue, maybe a bug, but not something that is supposed to happen.

Hello Gabriel :). If you read the comments, the OP solved it by loading factory settings. If it that doesn't work for you, please consider asking a New question :).

Got it guys. Sorry if it wasn't super correct. It's the work around that worked for me, but I see there's better simpler ways.


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Subdivision Surface causes distortions when extruding oder joining verts
I am fairly new to this and have a question as I always get distortions as soon as I try to extrude any verts of this cylindrical shaped part of the mesh or when I try to connect Verts of this part with other verts from parts of the rest of the model.
The Subdivision Surface Modifyer is causing the distortions. As soon as I switch it off, it's gone. I applied All, flipped the normals (and flipped them back afterwards as it had no effect), Merged by Distance, tried adding a crease around the edge loop, added additional edge loops etc.
Has anyone any idea what is causing these troubles?

I added all the faces around the Edge Loop at the back and the distortions on the outside of the cylinder are finally gone indeed, but there is a white ring clearly visible now inside the cylinder.

Is there any chance to get rid of this?
Not quite sure, what is causing this.

There is nothing wrong with that. However, you'd have to create a face (suface) to make the subdiv modifier work properly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdivision_surface

It's the expected behaviour: by extruding that vertex you're creating a "non-manifold" geometry. Check this answer for understanding what is manifold and why you should avoid non-manifold geometry.
What is non-manifold geometry?


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What hotkeys to use to preview material node result?

What hotkey should I use to quickly add "Viewer" node marked on the screenshot and preview result of my currently selected node?

Please use english language on bse. (Пожалуйста, используйте английский язык.)

Shift Ctrl LMB, assuming the Node Wrangler addon is enabled.


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Texture with UV grid not showing up on 3d object
I'm new to this. Learned a lot through tutorials, but now I am stuck at uv mapping thing.
Marked all the seams, it all shows well in UV/Image editor, but when I assign texture with UV grid on the mesh I cant see the grid on 3d object. Texturing is on so I'm not sure what I did wrong.
I tried the same with simple cube and it just doesn't show up. Checked few other tuts for this, but none helped to solve this.

What is in material setup for the cube? Is there Image Texture node added to it?

On the panel to the right click the material tab. add new material. to the right of "color" their is a tiny button. click that button. now click the button that says image texture and then for the image select the one you are already using on your UV mapping.


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Unable to save rendered image

I use Ubuntu Trusty Thar, Blender v2.69.
I'm unable to save rendered image; the only save dialog I get is the one to save as a Blender file.
I watched the tuts, I press Fn + F3 and get Save as blender file option and was unable to change.
Tried Shift + Ctrl + S and get the same panel with no option to save other than as a Blender file

Image is saved with F3 button, without any additional buttons (Fn won't be recognized as image saving). Shift+Ctrl+S will open dialog for saving file as a new one as expected.

Although F3 didn't work I found the Image menu entry located in the bottom left corner shown on screenshot.


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Deleted Smooth Brush
I managed to somehow completely delete the Smooth brush in Blender. I've tried closing and opening the project, uninstalling and re-installing the app...nothing!
Thanks in advance :)
PS: if you know how to delete that repeated brush, that would be awesome as well!

I don't really think you should reinstall the app just to retrieve back the brush, try opening that Brush.004 you want to delete, then navigate to 3d viewport footer > Brush > Sculpt Tool > Smooth. If doesn't work save the user preferences backup, then reset to Factory settings, save as startup and in new project append brush from the file you reset

This question was very well answered by Paul Gonet:
[https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/77497/brush-tool-missing][1]


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How to search through multiple Blender files to find a specific object?
Is there any way to search for an object (such as you would import using the Append option) when not in Blender?
I was a bad boy and made a model inside a .blend file a long time ago and have no idea what file I built it in, and didn't save it as a stand-alone file. Short of searching through every .blend file I have, is there anyway to locate it?

Use blendfile.py
Using the blendfile script outlined in answers to Is there a way to acces external .blend file's data with python script? to quickly read blend file and  run thru objects in a blend file without having to open it with blender.
Here is a simple demo script which prints out file name and a list of objects within that file.I've simply dumped the blendfile.py and script below as blendobjects.py in a root search folder. (rather than using sys.argv etc.. might get back to it)
# install as module or put in same folder.
import blendfile
from pathlib import Path

def get_id_name(block):
    name = block[b'id', b'name'].decode()
    return name[2:]

for file_path in Path('.').glob('**/*.blend'):
    bf = blendfile.open_blend(file_path)
    objects = bf.find_blocks_from_code(b'OB')
    print(file_path, [get_id_name(o) for o in objects])
    bf.close()

result (run in system console not blender), prints blend file name and a list of objects in that file, which can be redirected into a file and searched.
batfinger@shitbox2:~/Documents/blender$ python ./blendobjects.py
MS2Props02.blend ['Camera', 'Mesh_0449', 'Mesh_0449.001', 'Mesh_0484', 'Mesh_0484.001', 'Mesh_0490', 'Mesh_0490.001', 'Mesh_0773', 'Mesh_0773.001']
yawpitchroll.blend ['Camera', 'Cube', 'Empty', 'Lamp', 'Suzanne']
tests/snoff.blend ['Camera', 'Cube', 'Lamp']
tests/aubio_tests.blend ['Camera', 'Cube', 'Cylinder', 'Lamp']
tests/untitled.blend ['Camera', 'Grid', 'Lamp']
tests/belt.blend ['Armature', 'Armature.001', 'Camera', 'Cone', 'Empty', 'Empty.001', 'Empty.002', 'Empty.003', 'Lamp', 'Torus']

You could search through all blends with a python script. I suppose your clue to the object is its name. The following method finds all objects with a given name and returns their file locations.
Go to the top level directory, from which you want to search files in all subdirectories. (If you're crazy enough, this might just be the root of your drive.)
Create a new file name search_blend.py.
Open it and enter the following script.
import bpy
import os
import os.path

name = "Cube"
save_file = "D:/blndtmp/results.txt"

objects = bpy.data.objects
for o in objects:
    if o.name == name:
        if os.path.exists(save_file):
            append_write = 'a' # append if already exists
        else:
            append_write = 'w'
        with open(save_file, append_write) as save_file:
            save_file.write("Found " + name + " in " + bpy.data.filepath + ".\n")

This script will be executed by every blend file, which we find. You will have to change the name variable to your objects name. name = "my objects name"
Furthermore you will have to set the path in which we save the results. I save my results to my path D:/blndtmp/results.txt. The following lines loop through all objects, compare their name with the search name and write to the save_file if an object with the same name is found.
Assuming you have no python installed, lets use Blenders internal python installation. Open up Blender and save the file in the same directory as the search_blend.py script. I named my file empty_blend.
Your folder will now include these files.

In the empty_blend open up a text editor and paste this script inside.
import os
import subprocess

blender_path = "C:/Program Files/Blender Foundation/Blender/blender.exe"

searched_files = []
for root,dirs,files in os.walk(os.getcwd()):
    for f in files:
        if f[-6:] == ".blend":
            path = os.path.join(root,f)[len(os.getcwd()) + 1:]
            searched_files.append(path)
            subprocess.call([blender_path, path, "--background","--python", "search_blend.py"])

print(searched_files)

Correct the blender_path variable to your Blender path. You are now ready to execute the script. You may want to open up the Console first to see if it is running correctly. The script searches for all files in all subdirectories with os.walk(), compares their extension, and if it is a .blend file, executes is in background mode deploying the search_blend.py script.
Hit Run Script in the text editor to run the script.
After its completion, it will have created a new file next to search_blend.py and empty_blend.blend, if an object was found. It is the results path, which we entered in the search_blend.py script.
My results.txt looked like this after a test run.
Found Cube in D:\blndtmp\files\a.blend.
Found Cube in D:\blndtmp\files\c.blend.
Found Cube in D:\blndtmp\files\more files\a.blend.
Found Cube in D:\blndtmp\files\more files\c.blend.

Couple of things would use blender_path = bpy.app.binary_path.  and rather than using search_blend.py above have a look at using libraries in your second script to list object names.

Wow! Thanks so much. I'll give this a try and report how I did.


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material not showing under render, and particle not showing the way in preview
I'm truely stuck with this. First the material shows up fine on preview, but when i render it, it doesnt shows up.
And also, the particle is showing differently than the one in preview. PLS HALP!
this is the preview image on viewport. the ground texture is looks good, and the particle is emitting exactly how i want it
but now when i rendered it, the material doesnt seems to be rendered, and the particle is a mess
oh and is there a way for me to hide the originbal object emmitting the particle? i've tried disabling the collection and individual object, but it just end up not rendering in the particle to

i just realised, in an attempt to hide the emitter object, i checked the hide emitter box, which causing the texture not showing up, but im still stuck with the other two issue tho

Hi DS...it is always (just my opinion) a good idea to provide a blend file so we can check it out.

i've found that in the particle system, disabling the interpolated children helps, and you just add the number of particle itself is a better option. but thanks anyway

Recommend to play around with this settings, tho providing a .blend file would be great.


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Will Framerate effect particle emitter during render?
i made a snow particle on my scene, and i've set up everything to appear on the right time. in solid view, its moving exactly the way i want, but unfortunately when i switch to render preview mode, it appears to have a bit of a drag, moving really slow, with a bit of a lag. sometimes not appearing in the scene at all. will this effect my final render? what if i use sheepit to render, will it be effect too?

No, the render preview is live rendering each frame as fast as it can, which in a really heavy scene will cause lag. When you render, Blender will take as long as it needs (given your render setting) to render each image comprising one frame Then, on conversion to a video format, it will playback will play those rendered images in order at the selected framerate.

so the particle wont go haywire all of the sudden when i render it, like its having a rave then? what do you mean by render setting? i mean which setting should i adjust or maybe keep an eye on?

As Jakemoyo said, the render preview is not a real-time preview of what your final rendered video will look like. Eevee comes close but in practice it still takes a good few seconds to render each frame of a decent scene.
If you're previewing the render and hitting play, you will not see an accurate representation of the end frame rate (which is set here in the Output Properties tab:)

You will instead see the best frame rate your machine can put out, and each frame will not have finished render quality.
Only when you fully render your scene and view the finished result will you see... the finished result!
In practice, many animators render their animations out in reduced resolution and/or quality first in order to get a quick result that resembles what the final article will look like without committing to a long render, but I digress.


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Is there a way to make the world lighting effect certain object?
I set the world lighting to really dark, but still visible, because it fits with the environment that i want to portray, but the character themselves is too dark when its rendering, is there a way that i can darken the background without effecting the character? I could use a light source, but I'll have to put a lot of them on different area, even then, some of them didn't light up certain part of the character. Is there anyway i can light up the character like i light up the world?

hello, have you thought about the Compositor?

Could you elaborate on your node setup? What objects other than your character are in that scene? If its just the character and an HDRi background for example, there would be a pretty simple node setup for that. If your scene is more complex, the compositor would be the way to go as suggested.

You can use the Compositor:

Create 2 collections, one with the background and its light(s), and perhaps the object so that it drops a shadow on the background, one with the object and its light(s)
Create 2 view layers, one with the background collection activated but not the object, the other layers will be the opposite:

Don't forget to activate the Render > Film > Transparent option:

Do a render and in the Compositor, enable Use Nodes and Backdrop, duplicate the Render Layers node and at the bottom of these 2 Render Layers select the 2 different renders. Mix them through a Color > Alpha Over:


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is there a way to make a full uv sphere from half of uv sphere?
I was making an eyeball, at first i thought i didn't need the entire sphere, so i cut it in half. Now after finished weight painting and everything, the character is a humanoid, and it has quite a large eyes, i realized i needed the entire sphere, or atleast another quarter of it so that it'll not look weird.

In edit mode:
Select the half of the sphere then Shift D then R Z 90
To merge vertices select both halves and press m > By Distance

you probably mean R, Z, 90, otherwise you will rotate depending on your view orientation

Sure, you're right I'll edit.


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How do i edit the light spread on small scene? Or how do you increase the scale without ruining animation?
I made a small scene without realizing it. I already animate everything when i realized i made my scene too small, and now whenever i add light, it spread further than i wanted. what value do i edit to decrease this? or is there a way for me to increase the scene scale without ruining the animation?
for example, i added a backlight to my car
and it spread until the inside of the car, this doesnt happen on previous scene, where the scale of the scene is bigger
even when i added a new light and put the value to really low, it really spread so far
what value do i edit to decrease this?

For EEVEE it is ok to set the light radius to 0. From your screenshot, I don't see that it is an issue, so thy limit light distance.
You can limit the light by setting custom distance, which limits light rays by this distance.

i turned down the radius, and i crank down the power to really really low. Like uW low(i didnt even know blender can do that)., That seems to work. thanks


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Origin point different in editmode / objectmode
Edited due to comment by Serge L.
I'm following a tutorial to make a worm shaft - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVTOSOKpx6I
In objectmode my object has it's origin set to the 3D cursor, which is 30cm to left on the x axis. If I rotate on Y, it rotates around the 3D cursor point - which is what I expect/want.

When switching to editmode however, a 3D manipulator jumps into the object like this...

So if I try to rotate the mesh on Y, it just rotates around on it's own axis, instead of using the origin from the object/3D cursor.
If I search Manipulator 3D - I can turn it off, but the object still ignores the origin set for the object, and rotates around its own center.

Oirigin is defined by orange dot, not manipulator with axis. You should change pivot mode to 3D cursor to rotate around origin.

Rotating in Edit mode won't be done according to origin point of the object. Enable 3D cursor as pivot point and switch between Object and Edit modes to position it correctly or rotate in Object mode

Serge L - So i'll edit the post to say Manipulator with axis instead of origin, but even of I turn off the manipulator 3D - the mesh still rotates around it's own center, instead of using the 3D cursor - which is set for the object.

As said in the comments by Serge L and Mr Zak, if you want the vertices to rotate around the origin in edit mode, you have to set the cursor to the origin (Shift+S cursor to selected, if the object is selected) and then set the cursor as pivot point, so that every rotation and scaling will use the cursor location as pivot point.
Turning on or off the manipulators is only a visual utility, which doesn't affect the rotation behaviours.
The logic behind this is the fact that the default pivot point is the median point: in object mode you have only one object selected so the median point (pivot point) is the object origin. In edit mode you select all vertices of the mesh, and the middle point will be a location which will have the average coordinates of all vertices, and this (often empty) location will act as pivot point.

3D Cursor Rotation Pivot
Just hit >.(period) (NOT NUMPAD .*) while in edit mode.

To switch back
(DEFAULT) Bounding Box Center
,(comma)

You may want to read THIS ANSWER, it will help you understand the different pivots in more detail.

You can click with your left mouse button on the object to set the 3d cursor on it, then switch to object mode, go to the tool panel on the left and click "Set Origin" and then select "Origin to 3D Cursor", otherwise you can press the spacebar (while the mouse cursor is on the 3D view) and type "set origin" to look for it. To be really precise though, you can adjust the position of the 3D Cursor in the transform panel on the right, where you can find the 3D cursor coordinates if you scroll down, then you can do the set origin procedure.
Otherwise selecting "origin to senter of mass (surface)" after pressing the "sSt Origin" button, should solve your problem too in this case.

I want the object to rotate around the 3D cursor which is about 30cm away from it's center. In object mode it rotates around it, but in editmode it rotates around it's own center. You cannot set origin in edit mode AFAIK.


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Blender Cycles - Transparency Issue
While working on the texture of a model I found a problem with my render.

As you can see here the mesh outline for the eyebrow can be seen and everything I've tried, I just can't seem to fix that one thing.
I used Blender Cycles and Blender 2.78.

Edit: Packed textures in .blend file.

Well I am stumped. It doesn't seems to have a solution apart from pulling the eyebrow geometry slightly away from face. It seems the intersection created by the 2 meshes is causing the black lines.
Other things I've tried:

Alpha Premultiply/Straight settings
Render bounce and transmission settings
Turning off all ray visibility expect for camera rays
Texture clipping settings

Also scaling object up seems to resolve it. Why though - I don't know.

Thanks for the help everyone, just pulling the geometry 0.00001 on the Y-Axis is enough to fix it.


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How to cover a surface with cells (Biological tissue)
I am looking for an efficient way to cover a mesh with cells (spheres) to obtain results similar to the image below (i.e. a realistic biological tissue).

It's a problem I have struggled so much and I have tried many things but I am probably missing something. The closest I have ever got to it was by sourrounding the mesh with a particle emitter (the wireframe sphere in the image below) and having the cells fall from it and stick to the mesh, like here:

The problem with this setup is that I have little control on where the cells land, and it seems I need to generate so many more than required because many overlap. Moreover, when I try with more complex shapes, cells have a hard time reaching all points and leave empty gaps:

I have also tried with the tesselate function of the tissue addon, but it leads the pattern that is generated is too "regular" (EDIT: added picture for clarity), I would need cells to be all offset to each other, and possibly adapt to each other's shape at contact points, like in the example image above.

Do you have any solutions I could try?
Thank you very much in advance!

Normal tissue is regular. Real biological systems don't pick random points on a surface exactly because it leads to overlap and leaves holes behind...

@JohnDvorak Sorry, I must have used the wrong words, I have added a comparison picture between the tesselate result and a real tissue to illustrate what I meant. In real biolgoical tissues there are no gaps because as cells divide and grow thay adapt to the available space and to the shape of neighbouring cells, which is a process I find very hard to mimick in Blender. Regardless, I think we would both agree that the arrangements in the original picture is far from regular no?

We do agree on that, yes. Do you need separate objects, or would a single texture suffice (possibly as a displacement map)? If it's the latter, play around with the Voronoi texture node.

I agree, micro displacement texture might be the best way to get regular coverage. But your UV will have to be good

Final:

Overview:
I think the best option would be to use Metaball as a Hair object.
This method will need a little bit of experimenting as it could highly differ between meshes.

Metaball settings:
In Edit Mode set Resolution as low as possible, it will be better looking while rendering, as preview resolution is always a bit lower.
Really low Threshold along with high Stiffness will give more defined Mballs. As well as scaling Ellipsoid on Y axis. Higher scaling, more noticeable bumps.

Particle System settings:
Nothing fancy here.
Tweak all settings as you like. In this example I've used ones below.

Well I am not sure this solution is suitable, one of the other answers may be a better bet, but so you have options to play with here is another way to go.
Rather than using a particle system, you could try a displace modifier (or several displace modifiers).

The example image you provided is rather voronoi-ish, adding two voronoi textures at different scales provides details that seem somewhat like your image.  A rather high level of subsurf is needed to make out fine details.

I would say that this example might not be "organic" enough for your purposes, but it is perhaps a concept that could be worked with if the particle system solutions run into problems?

I'd suggest using a hair particle system.

You'll need a rather high particle count (depending on the size of the base cell object) to completely remove any "holes" since the placement is random, but the result seems to be more controllable and close to what you're looking for.
Open the image above to see my particle setup.


text:
How to make sunken grooves?
I know this seems like a rudimentary question, but I can't seem to depress faces and vertices to look like they do in the picture.  Here is what I am trying to model:

Here is my screenshot of the cartridge so far:

Every time I try to extrude, it makes weird distortions and just looks so crude compared to the uniform look of the original picture. How can I do this without causing these problems?  Keep in mind I want this to remain solid, so hopefully that isn't complicating things :)
Here is the .blend

How do I mark as duplicate?


text:
Plane is not solid in cell fracture, but explodes
I'm trying to make fractured glass from a bullet from the Blender Guru tutorial Make glass smash animation and I'm not sure why my plane explodes when it should be solid.  I tried messing with the margin in mesh data in cell fracture, but no matter how far apart or close together, the shards explode.
As you can see from the plane on the left, it's totally unstable.

Here's the .blend

Finally figured it out. Had to reduce the source limit.


text:
No texture when in render mode?
Forgive me if this is a silly/easy to figure out question, but I couldn't find anything... I tried the clear all restricted render option and had no luck so figured I would inquire here as google was of no help.
Camera view:

Post-rendering:

Thank you in advance.

Yes, just one and I just added a bunch of modifiers to it

@airy, it can be very helpful to those who might want to try to help you, besides including the screenshots, to upload a copy of your file to Blend Exchange, or a similar file hosting site, and provide a link to the uploaded file in your question.

@airy, welcome to Blender. After reading one of your comments in an answer, I suggest that you go to this question, and in the first category, "Learning", click on the item "on line courses", which contains links to two different on line courses covering blender, with the same cost, free. The material covered is substantially the same, and you can proceed at your own pace. I won't say that these courses make the learning curve for Blender any less steep, but they do add stairs and a handrail.

Right click on your material,go to texture and check the empty boxes.Hope it help.

For some reason, right-clicking on it closes the whole program without and warning or anything.

Welcome to the site :) This answer is being flagged as low-quality. Could you add some more detail? Perhaps a screenshot indicating the location of the boxes you mention?

I have none of those boxes to even check D:


text:
How to create/make UV coordinates for polyhedron
I am using Blender version 2.74 and I am using an OpenSCAD file someone else made. I am new to Blender.
The OpenSCAD file comes from this website:
http://kitwallace.co.uk/3d/solid-to-scad.xq?id=Tetrahedron&scad=shell
I picked "engrave" for the OpenSCAD option.
I am trying to create UV coordinates for the shape after I import the OpenSCAD file in Blender, so that I can dynamically display a unique image on each face of the tetrahedron as an exported or "finished" JSON file using JavaScript. Whether I export into whatever format using some type of technology such as JavaScript - I don't know if that part is relevant. But the question I have is how to compute/make the UV coordinates for this shape in Blender to make this eventually happen.
Below is the JSON file, the blend file couldn't be shown in text format:
{
    "name": "Tetrahedron.001Geometry",
    "uvs": [],
    "faces": [32,0,1,2,0,1,2,32,3,2,1,3,2,1,32,3,0,2,3,0,2,32,3,1,0,3,1,0],
    "vertices": [-2.42416,0,4.19877,-2.42416,-0,-4.19877,4.84832,0,-0,-0,6.85655,-0],
    "metadata": {
        "type": "Geometry",
        "version": 3,
        "vertices": 4,
        "generator": "io_three",
        "faces": 4,
        "uvs": 0,
        "normals": 4
    },
    "normals": [-0.471389,-0.333323,0.816492,-0.471389,-0.333323,-0.816492,0.942808,-0.333323,0,0,1,0]
}

Have you searched the site⸮ See this question

Can each face be UV mapped separately or do you need to keep the mesh unwrapped as one joined uv island via seams?

If the file import is not the issue, perhaps post the blend of the already imported tetrahedron mesh object.

{
"name": "Tetrahedron.001Geometry",
"uvs": [],
"faces": [32,0,1,2,0,1,2,32,3,2,1,3,2,1,32,3,0,2,3,0,2,32,3,1,0,3,1,0],
"vertices": [-2.42416,0,4.19877,-2.42416,-0,-4.19877,4.84832,0,-0,-0,6.85655,-0],
"metadata": {
"type": "Geometry",
"version": 3,
"vertices": 4,
"generator": "io_three",
"faces": 4,
"uvs": 0,
"normals": 4
},
"normals": [-0.471389,-0.333323,0.816492,-0.471389,-0.333323,-0.816492,0.942808,-0.333323,0,0,1,0]
}

The JSON won't really help us. You'll have to upload the blend file elsewhere and post a link. This is a good option: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

Here is the URL for the blend file:

You can unwrap the tetrahedron in one of 2 ways:

You can create seams (CTRL+E > Mark Seams) running along the 3 edges from the base to the tip. Then select all vertices and press U > UV Unwrap.

You can create seams on all edges  (CTRL+E >Mark Seams) , and overlay each uv island on top of itself. Then select all vertices and press U > UV Unwrap.

Please note the tetrahedron shape in my example is an approximate shape only in order to demonstrate the unwrap technique.

How do I create seams in Blender? What is the purpose of creating seams - sorry I just don't know much about this.

@ACoder Select the edge(s), Ctrl + E > Mark Seam

Updated my answer to include mark seam command.

Adding seams is just like seams in a fabric pattern for a piece of clothing. If you want all the faces to be connected in the UV map, they can't be connected on every side to unwrap flat and undistorted.

Thank your for your ongoing explanation and procedures in doing so. I do have a question about 2nd way of unwrapping the tetrahedron. You said to select all edges and mark the seams on those, and it was the second part of that sentence I had a question about: overlay each uv island on top of itself. I'm unclear on how to do that. What or how do I do that? Sorry for the constant questions - I'm just curious.

Hover over the uv island and press L to select, then G to move and S to scale. You would overlay them if you will be using different texture for each face but you want the uv island in the same location for each texture. If you 're just going to use one texture to cover all the faces, you don't have to overlay the islands.

What is a UV island? Is it the face or side of the shape? Do I create one? I am doing exactly that; I am trying to use a different texture for each face on my shape.

A UV island is just a group of connected vertices/edges/faces in the UV editor. You can have multiple islands within the UV layout for a mesh.

Thank you. I was wondering, even though I am eventually doing this in a website through JavaScript (a website); are blender files or the Blender program used to make movies (e.g. making a 3D character to move around)?

Absolutely! Among other things...

Blender's advantage is that it is a fairly full 3D production suite. Modelling, texturing, animation, lighting, UV unwrapping, rendering and compositing can all be done with the one application.

I'm sorry; but I need to go back to the question of UV islands. Suppose I want to overlay each uv island onto itself so I can apply a different texture to each side of the shape, but I don't want to move or scale it; I just want to leave it as is (untarnished so to speak). Do I still need to go about the business of selecting each face and not modifying it? Then I'm wondering, then how will it know that I'm making a UV island for each side? This is before I go through the step of selecting all vertices and unwrapping of course.


text:
Tracking and Monitoring Shortcuts, Commands and Actions
Is there a way to track what has been done during work? What buttons/shortcuts used, actions done, tools enabled etc. in sequential order.

Not very effecient but screencast is one way I suppose.

In 2.7x the Object mode Tools include a History panel and clicking Undo History or History gives you the list of all your actions, with the most recent one on top. It doesn't include shortcuts. If you want a separate History editor you must wait for the next versions.


text:
Hair particle problem after rendering
Good day guys.
I want to ask why my hair particle kind of messed up when I render it?
I provided the blender file below.
Thank you guys!

Calvin reporting.
I figured it out why.
Under Children > Interpolated.
The Display Amount and Render Amount must be of the same value.
:)


text:
How can I change particle size by id of an already cached simulation?
I imported several simulations I made in Realflow and Maya, because I found out that Blenders wetmaps are much faster than other packages and I need to make a lot of them.
I'm completely new to Blender but I can grab the hang of it quickly, and already have everything setup. I just need to change each particle size randomly depending of their id, I'm thinking with python. In maya I already made similar things, yet I still haven't learned any commands for blender yet, can someone help me please?
Also, would it be possible to delete particles depending on their speed and/or age?
Everything is already cached from the other softwares and I'm just importing them to blender using the realflow addon.
I'm thinking something like this:
particleSystem="nameOfParticles"
particlesList=particleSystem[particles]
frames=xrange(1,100)
for f in frames:
    currentFrame(f)
    for part in particleList:
        randomSeed(part.id)
        setAttribute(part.size,rand(0,1))
        if (part.velocity>5) or (part.age>2):
            delete(part)


text:
Cycles viewport is dark compared to EEVEE
When I look at my scene in the EEVEE viewport everything appears fine. But when I turn to cycles, everything turns grey (total silhouette, no light whatsoever) unless I am looking through the 3D camera.
Why is this?

Problems like these are usually related to the GPU. What is your GPU, and have you done a recent update?

As you can probably tell I'm a brginner... I'm using my potato-PC's CPU and haven't made any changs


text:
Merging three parts of a model for eventual 3D printing
I'm currently trying to take a 3d model I ripped from a video game and prep it to 3d print it for a costume's prop. My problem is that the game's model is obviously made for being virtual and not physical, so it's not all in one piece.
For some reason (I'm no game designer or modeler), the model has a lot of unattached edges. All the methods I know for merging meshes aren't working, unassumingly due to these un-closed parts. I don't even know what exactly to search for to resolve this; thus I'm coming here. I have a sculpting plugin (sculpt tools) that has a nice union option, but it's not working and causes chunks to disappear. I'm using blender 2.79
The model below, and it in its three separate pieces. You can see how there's single face parts that would connect to one if it was a solid unit:

Have you tried joining the parts into one object and removing doubles?

@HISEROD Unfortunately that still keeps all the internal parts of the mesh. Some elements that stick inside of the other pieces, which I'm pretty sure will cause issues with 3D printing, and I don't really know how to eliminate them.

You may be able to make all of the parts manifold/watertight by manually editing them and then join them with booleans.


text:
Ruler/Protractor tool - change text color
I use Blender 2.78 . How can I change the text color for the Ruler/protractor tool results in the blender user reference ( theme), e.g. shown below.

I added screenshot of the text I assume you'd like to change; if it's not this one feel free to [edit] the question with your own. As to customization I have found only one way to do that, in User Prefs > Theme Space Settings > text option will change it

Hi, yes you are right, but in user prefs I only managed to control the color text of the themes windows but not the dimension text color. can you be more specific? thanks

The property changed here is what I meant. Note that it might affect some other text color in 3D view (I didn't find though)

Hi, Found the Text color control thanks. will it be too mach to ask how I can change the back ground tor this text?

It's totally ok to ask it but I don't really know the answer regarding the built-in Ruler. You can customize colors with MeasureIt addon, BA thread, it's bundled with Blender now so just enable it. Controls to add measurements in the Toolshelf, to customize colors - in the Properties shelf.


text:
How to deform a plane according to the shape of other objects
I have 2 planes: 1 with Displace modifier (so random hills and valleys according to a cloud texture) and another flat of different size. My question is if it is possible to deform the flat plane according to the first plane.
Depending on where I place the second plane regarding the first plane it'll take exactly the same shape the first one has at the position where I place it. Think of the second plane like a piece of cloth that when I put it on top of a rough surface, depending on where in the other surface, it would deform and take the shape of the irregularities it is placed on.

Either Lattice modifier added to the second plane together with Shrinkwrap modifier so Shrinkwrap will stick the lattice to the plane, and second plane will follow lattice or add a Cloth modifier on second plane and run animation. Note - all possible solutions here most likely will depend on the geometry (should be pretty high).

Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/44758/emboss-text-onto-curved-surface

Thanks for the reply and edit. I followed the lattice on the given link, but the 2nd plane just got stick to the first without deformation. I tried to change lattice U, V, and it got even weirder shape. Maybe the geometry is not high enough?

Probably, not enough geometry might cause that, though It's hard to tell without screenshots.

I think in this case, the lattice is not needed and may keep the plane flat. Try to shrinkwrap directly without lattice (but with enough geometry for the plane)

I can do Shrinkwarp to the first plane, i.e. deform the first plane to attach to the flat one, but not the other way around. Maybe I did not know how?

You should edit your question in order to show what you obtain, what is wrong and how is your setup (modifiers or others)

If the base terrain plane is deformed by a displace modifier why not just give the second plane the same modifier stack?
If I understand correctly this is the effect you are aiming for, kind of like a manta-ray wavy hover motion

Just add a second plane above the first one, subdivide it accordingly, and link the modifiers to the original one. Select new plane > select terrain > Ctrl + L Modifiers.
Make sure both objects have the same displace modifier or most importantly share the same displace texture and with the both Texture Coordinates set to Global

Thanks a lot, this is just what I want, with a little modification. I didn't think it would be that hard when I see your answer. The problem is the second plane has it own Displace, of another different terrain type. I would just overlay one on the other so that I can have different type of terrains on my landscape. But as you say they must have the same modifier stack, I guess, I cannot go this way?!

BTW, do you think there're not really fit, the corners of your blue plane, to the white plane?

Sorry, but to me the two shapes are not in phase... am I wrong? I still think that a shrinkwrap (negative and project) is better for the blue plane

@AugLe The modifier stack doesn't have to be exactly the same, it only has to use the same cloud texture on a Displace modifier set to Global. You may even have additional Displace modifiers on the plane if you so wish, as long the one of them uses the same terrain cloud texture.

@lemon now that you mention it they may net be exactly in sync since the cloud texture is a "volumetric" "3D function", and the plane is offset in Z yielding slightly different displace. The closer they are however, the more in sync they should be though, I just offset them for clarity purposes here. In anyway, a Shrinkwrap would also work well here too.


text:
Why the dark objects won't be differenced from the base object?

I made the objects by creating a cube in Object mode, going into Edit mode, deleting the vertices, clicking shift+LMB new vertices, making a face and extruding.
On the light colored objects, I can add a Boolean modifier and set it to Difference, and it would make a hole in the base object the shape of the new object. However, inspite of these dark objects were made the same way as the lighter ones, when I try to apply a Boolean modifier, it deletes the base object.

In Edit Mode select all of your vertices and Recalculate the Normals. The option is in your Tool Tab in the Shading/UV's tab

In Edit Mode select all of your vertices and Recalculate the Normals. The option is in your Tool Tab in the Shading/UV's tab (Press the "T" key to toggle the Tool Tab on/off).


text:
smooth brush is destroying my model,what is happening?
I am following this tutorial"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZnUgt659oI", however, when he smooths his dinosaur it's pretty tame, but when I do it, it devours my model, like below:
before:

https://i.sstatic.net/f4htk.jpg
after:

https://i.sstatic.net/u33Mc.jpg
I have read in some threads that you have to apply subdivision vertices with the clay first, and then smooth out, but that isn't working for me, can anyone help.
also if someone knows why my dinosaur legs are completely glitchy please tell me.

Are you sure that the strength of your brush is just right, and are you using the right brush?

I found out how to fix it, I will post it in the main post because my answer is too long for a reply, unfortunately.

you should post it as an answer.(You can an answer yourself)

I found out how to fix it, the sculpting that is, gods knows what happened to the legs, as it happens the model is unable to sculpt because it has a to low number of polygons, which as it happens when you smooth it, it will try to smooth all the polygons together like normal, but the problem is, that the polygons are so big that when blender tries to smooth them, it just ends up smoothing very aggressively, and so the model is eaten, in other words, the bigger the polygon, the more aggressive the smoothing will be.
so to fix this I pressed TAB, while in sculpting mode, and added in the add section "subdivide", which made the model have a lot more polygons, which made most of the mesh more intricate, and the polygons much smaller, which made them possible to work with.
then all you need to do is to use the clay brush, and sculpt normally, putting clay on the model, and smoothing it later, which since the polygons are much smaller, the smoothing will be much more gentle.
it should also be noted that I am using a sculpting addon for blender, so I don't know if the subdivide option is there in the vanilla one, so I am linking the addon just in case.
https://github.com/MadMinstrel/blender-sculpt-tools
new dinosaur :3 https://i.sstatic.net/vZusD.jpg


text:
Is there a way for a text object (curve) to contain more than one font size?
I have a javascript rich text editor (like the one I write in right now).
I have to take the rich text and write it some how with a single text object in blender (through python script). It will contain strong text, colours, and different font sizes.
I can manage extracting the info for each line, word, letter and pass it to blender.
My question is:
Is there a way to have a text object containing multi text boxes with different colours, text-alignments, font sizes?
If not, I'm going to have to generate text objects. In this case:
Does anyone know of a way or a script to reproduce the layout (including text-align)? or would I have to write a script to generate 1 object per letter and then re-arrange them accordingly? I would have to re-create words, lines and then place them so it matches the alignment.
Here's a picture with what I'm trying to achieve, Thanks!:

Text size is per Text object. You can have multiple text boxes and multiple materials/colors on a per-character basis. You may want to go through the Blender Manual on text object capabilities

how about generating svg from javascript and import this in blender instead?


text:
Placing Particles along the median line of a letter
I'm supposed to place a bunch of lights along the median path of a letter.
What I mean by "median path" is if you were able to negatively offset a letter so much, till it becomes just a line describing the letter in question.
In other words, what I call the median path of a letter should look like what someone would write on a paper. A letter written with a simple line. In the picture below, in red.
The text is a regular blender text (curve) generated through python so I can't place the particles by hand. It needs to be dynamic so I have to do it with python. Of course, I can convert the curve into a mesh if that helps...

My question is:
How do I get the median path of all letters in that text and how do I place particles at non-random intervals along that path?
Any help is appreciated. If you don't know python, it's ok, I can figure out that part later.
Thanks in advance!

Please only ask one question per post. You are welcome to ask as many separate questions as you need.

Also how is this letter generated? Is it a Mesh object? Is it a bezier curve? Is an actual text? What is it's topology like? Do you already have this "median path"?

Am I right that you want to recreate the old ad signs on roof tops, something like that?

That's exactly it!

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos
The text is just a regular curve text object into which the content is injected by script. No, I don't have this path. I need to calculate it depending on each letter. I don't have the size, the font nor the content either. It's set through script.
It's basically an automatic sign simulator. (...for signs like the kind you find on top of a shop)

The thing is this is not at all trivial to calculate. I mean first and foremost it is largely font dependent, each font would have a different "median path" for the same character. Most characters again depending on the font may have variable width, so if you just offset from the borders, this will yeild either an area, or a self intersecting solution. You also can't just guaratee the creation of this path, most fonts have a relatively regular shape, but there may be bulges, serifs, rough outlines and all sorts of irregularities that make it non trivial to relate two opposing borders.

One workaround might just be to manually create your set of characters pre assembled with their own path and light setup, then use said collection of objects as a font


text:
Confusing problem when I'm trying to mix Diffuse with Glossy shader
Alright, so I have a confusing problem when I'm trying to mix together a Diffuse and a Glossy shader. To be more precise, this is how the scene I'm trying to create looks like with only the Diffuse shader active:

Then, when I'm adding the Glossy shader, it looks like this:

Is this normal? I mean, it seems to work somehow, but why is everything grayed out? I mention that I have a specularity texture that I'm using on the factor socket on the Mix shader. This is how my node setup looks like:

The only way (that I know) to fix this issue is to connect the default image texture (the one that I"m using for the Diffuse shader) to the Glossy shader as well. But from what I learned so far this isn't a good practice.
Am I doing something wrong or that's how it is supposed to look like? Is this the correct workflow?
I've tweaked a lot of settings here and there and I'm thinking that maybe I've messed up something. Do you have any clue on what's going on? :)
Thanks!

This is how my node setup looks like: http://i.imgur.com/t53pJM3.jpg

The setup seems fine - would add some roughness to the diffuse, but that's not the problem. Try add an invert node between the spec image and the mix node. Guessing you are trying to add specularity with white, where it should be black.

It looks like scale of the specularity map is too high.

I agree with @MrZak. The specular map is blown up and pixelated.

The problem appears to be that you're trying to apply techniques common to older raytracing software like Blender Internal to a physically-based rendering engine - cycles in this case.
It's a real problem if you come from a world of specular maps, shadow maps, bump maps, displacement maps and so on.
Some of these maps are simply there to help the fake the look of objects in the real world. Indeed, I use maps in my own ubershader which allow me to include metals, paints, glass and even holdouts all in a single (albeit complicated) map image.
It's really hard to wrap your head around physically-based rendering, but once it clicks, you won't want to go back to the old methods.
For basic specularity the following:

The two shaders - diffuse (also called albedo) which is your colour and only the colours.
A mix shader to make sure that the light leaving the scene does not exceed the amount of light entering it.
A fresnel node to keep the mix looking as it should.

Try a setup like this:

and experiment with the IOR value in the fresnel node: values below 1 are not physically accurate and values above 2 are getting outside of a reasonable range too - but you can use them if you like the effect!
That's really all there is to it. You can feed the colour input of the diffuse node with your image and let Cycles do the rest.
If you're doing metallic objects, remember that they don't have any colour of their own (by and large) and get everything from their environment. There are a few exceptions like gold, but metals are so hard that pretty much all light bounces right off them. There are also fresnel effects for a very few metals such that the fringe around the object (a sphere is great for experimenting on) changes colour.
You can see these effects here. An IOR of 1.25 gives a nice effect (and is reasonable for objects like this but as we push it higher you can see how the light appears to creep around the edges. When I push it to ridiculous levels (5 in the example) you can see the entire surface looks unreal.

One area where you might want to use a specular map (or at least, the equivalent) is where you have a wet surface such as a road with puddles. The puddles are reflective and the road is a dielectric (a fancy word for non-metal).
I get around this using the fact that the colour in real-life is limited so that no colour should be darker than 20% or brighter than 80% (0.2 to 0.8 in your Cycles engine.)
This allows you to cheat by putting areas of 100% white or 100% black on the image and then filtering using a value node to switch to a different shader group.
Here's a simple node setup - not that where I've used a chequer texture to make the effect visible, you'd plug in your albedo/specular map and area that's 100% black or very dark using these values, gets the glossy treatment. I left the fresnel out of this to keep the node setup cleaner.

and the result:

I think the problem with your material setup is that it's missing Fresnel (surface is more reflective at grazing view angles).
Good tutorial on how to correctly setup physically accurate materials by Andrew Price: https://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/pbr-shader-tutorial-pt1/


text:
How to see texture on the mesh in viewport
I can´t see the test texture placed according to the UV unwrap I made for the mesh. I preview mesh in Texture shading mode. These are screenshots in Edit mode showing unwrapped mesh:

To preview texture on the mesh in Cycles add material for the mesh, in setup of that material add Image node with that image selected in its dropdown list. Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5283/how-to-show-textures-in-the-3d-view-editor

now I understand, in the script I followed the uv would apply automatically, ty for the response


text:
How to set bone rotation in Python script by an absolute value?
I am writing a simple Python script that creates an animation. In order to do this, I am using the following code:
def RotateBone(boneName,rotDegrees,rotAxis):
    boneSelect = bpy.context.object.data.bones[boneName]
    boneSelect.select = True
    bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value = radians(rotDegrees),axis = rotAxis)
    boneSelect.select = False

It rotates a bone and then I use lock key frame command.
My problem is that if I run it twice, it will re-apply the rotations on the animation sequence. That makes the process of development tedious. I am deleting the human model and re-loading it from disk by using the UI, then I use Run script command.
I've also checked this answer, it does the same - relative rotation. I've also tried setting the rotation_euler property of the bone directly, but it does not seem to do anything. Any of these might solve my problem:

Find a command that resets all rotations in all key frames that I did.
Set the bone rotation values in an absolute way
Find a command that deletes an object and a command that loads .mhx object from disk.

Any idea?

I think I managed to find a solution. rotation_euler property does seem to work (and it is absolute). It didn't work before because rotation_mode was quarternion, so it didn't affect them.
Thus, the solution is:
def SetBoneRotationDeg(human,boneName,rotEulerDeg):
    lastMode = human.pose.bones[boneName].rotation_mode
    human.pose.bones[boneName].rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
    human.pose.bones[boneName].rotation_euler[0] = radians(rotEulerDeg[0])
    human.pose.bones[boneName].rotation_euler[1] = radians(rotEulerDeg[1])
    human.pose.bones[boneName].rotation_euler[2] = radians(rotEulerDeg[2])
    human.pose.bones[boneName].rotation_mode = lastMode

Your problem was using the edit bones, not pose bones.
A function I used was like the following:
set_rotation(ob, bone_name, rot, axis='X'):
     mat_rot = mathutils.Matrix.Rotation(radians(rot), 4, axis)
     bone = ob.pose.bones[bone_name]
     bone.matrix = mat_rot

This has the added benefit of using a quaternion I believe. I will need to look into that. axis can also be a Vector.

Thanks for your answer. What is the difference between edit bones and pose bones?

edit bones is like selecting / moving / scaling bones in edit mode. Pose bones would be the same in pose mode. In edit mode the changes are permanent. In pose mode they just affect the pose and can be "reset".


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Why won't smoke appear?
Been trying to get smoke to appear on my "plane" object, but it won't seem to emit on that or any other object.  What am I missing in my settings? Not sure if there are changes to the newest version of Blender, as most tutorials I've been watching are for older versions.

I see in the file that you have more than one smoke emitting objects, there's a separate cylinder under the wheel
Try to

enable for the domain both "adaptive domain" and "high resolution" (with "show high resolution" to see it in the viewport)

set lower density for all the smoke objects, since they are pretty dense (unapplied screw modifier helps in this respect) in the example below I also changed smoke color to see better...

Since smoke simulation is a difficult topic in itself, I suggest to experiment with a simpler geometry before, and since your scene has complex geometry, you could also "fake" the result emitting smoke from a simpler (but invisible) object, in the end.
Remember, CG you see in the movies is very much about cheating...

Thanks so much!  It worked.  And that's a great idea about using a simpler object to emit the smoke and then hide it...haven't seen that trick in any tutorials.


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Lamp is not illuminating
I'm not sure why my lamp isn't working.  Here are the screenshots:

Your lamps are working well. The problem is the plane (on which the joystick lies) has the Glossy node Roughness value set to 0, which means it reflects the World (which has a very dark color) in 100%. The joystick has a Glass material, which reflects a very dark World color as well. Try to set the World color to something brighter or set up the HDRI image for Environment Texture.

See http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/3594/599

Thanks @Gonzou I never knew that roughness on the texture played a role in light reflection.

Thanks @gandalf3 that was a great explanation of this issue in the link you provided

@PaulGonet OMG. I searched for 1 hour why my scene is dark with portals. It was because the world-color was set to a very dark color. In all this tutorials no one is talking about the world-color. Thank you very very much!


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Can somebody explain the shadow setting?
The cube size, cascade size, high bit depth, soft shadow and threshold.
Does putting the setting on the highest better? or it depends?
its seems that i've tried to put the setting on the highest and the light doesnt emit anything at all.
but when i reduce the cube size, it seems to work fine. also when i render. the light seems to be flicker on certain frame.
this is the 2k cube size with high bit depth. works fine
this is the 4k cube size with high bit depth
this is 4k cube with high bit depth turn off
yes, the render display the same as all of this. can someone give me a bit of an explanation whats happening here

The way EEVEE works is not actually by casting light rays like Cycles, but by approximating light and shadow by "looking" out from the center of each Light Object and checking if any objects stand between it and other objects. If so, it casts a shadow behind that object.
The cube map resolution is essentially the number of times in each direction that the light will look. We could conceuptualize this by surrounding the light with a wireframe cube, where each vertex represents a pixel on the cubemap.
Lower resolution:

Higher:

Bit depth can be thought of as the number of decimal places the values can be calculated to.
Like if an object is, in reality, 1.0008m away from another object, using a lower bit depth might force EEVEE to make some decisions about rounding, like it might pick between the object being actually  1.0m or 1.1m away and drop the ".0008m". which we know is not 100% accurate.
Real location, no rounding.

Rounded down:

Rounded up:

This is not exactly how this works, but merely serves to explain the concept.
Higher bit depth means we allow EEVEE to use more decimal places for more accurate shadow casting.
All of this comes at a cost though. Increasing these values dramatically increases memory usage. From the docs:

A 512px cubemap has ~1.5 million pixels in it.

This will increase exponentially the higher resolution you go.
So if your scene has 30 lights and you set your cubemap resolution to 4k it means you have a total of 6,039,797,760 pixels to check light casts for each frame. Checking High Bit Depth essentially doubles that memory footprint.
I'm inclined to believe that the reason the lights don't show up when you check both is that you don't have enough memory to handle this load and EEVEE  essentially gives up.


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Can a hook be a parent of a bone?
I have a curve with a hook and want the vertex of the curve to follow the rotation and movement of the bone. I can snap a mesh using Ctrl+P and "Snap with empty groups" and then assign a group vertex to parts of the mesh, but I can't do that with curves and hooks.
Binding an object to a parent doesn't work either.
How can I attach the curve to the bone?

Parent the empty, which is the target of the hook, to the bone, using bone or bone-relative parenting.  Or, replace the target of the hook modifier on the curve to reference the armature and bone instead of the empty.

Thank you so much! It works.


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Tried to fix wholes in mesh, getting purple and no idea how to go on
I'm a newbie and totally lost.
Started to sculpt my first little project. There was a rough edge that I couldn't get rid of so I deleted some points and tried to fill this up with selecting the edges and press F.
Now, in sculpt mode, there are some purple polygones and nothing works like it should.
Please heeeeelp... No Idea what I did but obviously it war a big mistake.
Is all of my hours of "sculpting" lost?
Thank you so much, if anybody can help me out of this...
Best regards, Rose

“Holes” you mean. Hmm, well, the areas where the topology basically died will probably need to be cut out somehow, but I think this is salvageable.

Create an object B that will be a kind of bandage. Give your head a Boolean modifier with this bandage as the boolean Object, choose the Union type of boolean:

Apply the Boolean, remove the original bandage, sculpt the head with the Smooth brush in order to merge the bandage with the head:

As for the colored area, these are face sets, it's a kind of mask, to paint face sets use this brush:

To remove, go into the Face Sets panel > Face Set from Visible:


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Need help wrapping my object
So I've been working on a project and I'm trying to wrap my object with a camo color but for some reason the camo wrap is looks glitchy. Here's a photo, can someone tell me what I've done wrong.

Change tris to quads and then unwrap.

I'm guessing it's because of wrong or no UV mapping.
try to select the parts where you want your texture to be in edit mode, then press "U" and "Smart UV Project".
Otherwise you need to place some seams around the edges like this:

In edit mode select the edges you want and press "U" and "mark seam" after you done with placeing your seams select everything and "U" - "unwrap".
In the UV-editor it should look like this and your texture will be fine.


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Image Sequence issues
So Im working a on project where I have a image sequence playing on a 3d object, The sequence plays on the 3d object on the layout tab, but when I try to render the animation it only renders the 2d image sequence and not the image sequence and the 3d object together. Can anyone help with this issue.

It sounds like the image sequence is also in the video sequence editor. The render will default to anything in the video sequencer.


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Help with Rigging Robot Characters legs
Im relatively new to blender and rigging and I'm trying to pose a model but when I am moving the legs (Thighs and Shins) the legs deform to account for the position on the shin and makes the mesh of the model bend when my character is a robot made of metal and should not be able to move like that. I have tried to follow along with other post to no success, if anybody would be willing to look at the model for me or be able to guide me through how to do it myself it would be greatly appreciated -CE
Link to the Model https://drive.google.com/file/d/19skyk1ReAXNoNhuREYS70_0W9RbWoewH/view?usp=sharing

For an object like a robot, don't parent With Automatic Weights, which is made for organic objects, it will bend your mesh because the vertices may be assigned to 2 vertex groups or more, and therefore may be deformed by several bones.
Instead you can use the Parent > With Empty Groups mode for example. It will create as many vertex groups as you have bones, but your vertices won't be assigned to any of these vertex groups for the moment, you'll do it yourself:
Apply the Mirror modifier, select the vertices you want (use L to select each limb faster), for example thigh.L (except your leg is only one mesh instead of two, maybe you should correct that), go into the Object Data panel > Vertex Groups, select the vertex group to which these vertices are supposed to be part of, and click on the Assign button:

Thank you very much for your help :) you're an absolute legend!


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How to emit only one hair particle from each vertex?
How to emit only one hair particle from each vertex on mesh?
Can't believe such simple thing isn't implemented.

I don't think theres a way in vanilla blender. Usually the number of vertex of a given mesh is fixed. Can you make an example of usage?

@Carlo for example I want to make tiled roof. The idea is to create simple roof plane and emit from each vertex a roof tile, so you can create all kinds of tile variations and control how many tiles you want by controling vertecies on plane.

Why do you think it is not implemented? BTW another option is "instancing". Parent "tile" to "roof plane" and under "Object Properties" > "Instancing" enable "Verts".

You absolutely can.
Make particles come from verts, uncheck "random order" and input on the "number" the exact number of vertexes you object has.
8 in the case of a cube.
Crazy shape? No problem!

Just match verts and number of hairs.
Wanna use a collection of objects? No problem!
Just make sure the origins are all consistent.

But with using an object collection instead of path?

CORRECTION: it works just fine even with collections, I just screwed the locations of the instanced objects.


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How to fix hair particle shading/topology issue?
There is no way to describe the issue, that's why I'm just going to show the rendered image:

Those are 4 planes with no modifiers, the same dimensions, the same particles, and the same material. The only difference is the topology. All planes are hidden - only the hair is visible.

Number 1 is a simple plane

Number 2 is a plane with loop cuts (Ctrl + R)

Number 3 is extruded (I started with a small plane and made it bigger with extrusions)

Number 4 is the same as Num.3 but the cuts are made with "Knife projection"

Numbers 1 and 2 are good, the issues are in 3 and 4
All faces have the same normals. I tied recalculating the normals, I also tried flipping them - nothing worked.
Just in case anyone asks - I'm making a big project and the model with the hair is very complex (I used extrusions, knife projections, and more) that's why I need to fix it without retopologizing the whole mesh. Because the project file is big I made this .blend file with the planes where I recreated the same issue.
Here is the .blend file:

I'm not sure I entirely understand it, but what I think is going on is that the hairs are set to have "children" and blender is applying a slight rotation to the kink direction of the child hairs via the "Amplitude" value of the kink curl. Setting the value to 0 removes the strange patterning, as does changing the kink type to "nothing", "radial" and "spiral". The other options still show artifacts. I still can't fully explain it, but at least this should make it "go away", if that's what you're after.

Thank you very much. But there is no curl now


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cannot delete keyframe, seems to be unattached to any object
I'm making an animation in blender using some vrms I imported from vroid. I'm trying to delete a keyframe, that keyframe appears in the animations timeline and the top of the dope sheet. But if you scroll down the dope sheet this keyframe corresponds to no keyframe on any object, also there is no keyframe in the action editor either.

There is nothing anywhere else in this animation, just the hand and arm moving right there which I have pointed to with the red lines.
below is the same animation viewed in the timeline (incase that is helpful).

How can I delete that last frame?
What are the highlighted frames at the beginning and end?

edit
extra info
The keyframes I cannot delete are always yellow. They always appear to be selected and I can't seem to deselect them. They also cannot be moved or copied.

I had a similair issue before. For me there were two possibilities: 1) You might want to check if your bones have values that are locked by finding the bones that are keyframed, using the drop-down-menu on the left. Or 2) The rig object itself has values that are keyframed: Like location or other settings. Just a guess.

can you add a blend file that shows the problem to your question? (How to add a blend file)

Just in case anyone else stumbles upon that quite misleading UI behavior (always selected summary keyframes without any actual object keyframes visible):
In my case, there where keyframes for hidden objects and the show hidden button made them accessible.
The show hidden button is located between the only show selected button labeled with a mouse pointer and the only show errors button labeled with an exclamation triangle.
All keyframes should be visible when only the show hidden button is on and the other two are off.

Try tabbing into object mode, selecting your armature/rig and press 'alt+i' on your keyboard and press the 'delete keyframe' option.
This might solve your issue

didnt do anything, thank you though :)


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How to get my uv mesh to show?
Okay so for a week now I've been trying to get this one area in blender to work so that I can finish making the outfit that I made in MD. I've watched tutorials over and over, doing every step that they say to do and I'll be darned if it still doesn't work for me. (pulling hair out) I've even remade different outfits, but when she joins hers with the s4studio_mesh_1 her uv map appears above the uv map that was edited. Mine on the other hand just disappears. Here are a couple of pictures to help show you what I mean.

perhaps : https://blenderartists.org/t/picture-map-disappears-from-uv-editor/455538/5

Your mesh is present. Easy to miss, because all of it is at the origin: 0,0. (you can see an orange dot. That's all of your vertices stack on top of each other)
Why that is is a different issue. The most likely culprit is different UV slot names that are improperly merging.
That is, if you're certain that before the merge you did have UV data.

Yay! Thank you SOOOOOO much!!!


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Armature not deforming mesh in pose mode
the problem is simple: I have a human meta rig (that I have no intention of using the generate function on). I'm using that rig as the base for a custom rig for a character with wings. Now I've already added the wing bones. The model itself is complete with no active modifiers apart from the armature modifier. I have also used remove doubles to get rid of any duplicate verts. Now I parent the mesh to the rig with automatic weights.
Now comes the problem: When I enter pose mode, the mesh does not deform and the bones don't even move. The only bone which has any effect is the hip bone, but only when I grab it. I've also checked the bone weighting by going into pose mode, selecting a bone and then shift clicking the mesh, then pressing tab and the weights look good.
Here is the blend file https://db.tt/v64hnHnC
I appreciate any help and advice.
Edit: problem solved. I simply copied and pasted the moddel and rig in a new blend file
Edit: problem solved by copying and pasting model and rig to a new blend file

Welcome to BSE. Please use http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ to upload your models whenever possible. The URL you provided for instance is blocked by our firewall, so downloads won't be possible on my end. Also consider editing your question and attatching a screenshot of the crucial part: what the weights look like, plus the vertex groups panel.

Thanks for the reply. I will edit my question. As for the file it seems mine is a bit big.  106 mb but I will try to shrink it.  As for the problem itself I feel like the bones in pose mode are locked somehow


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How do I export material preview scene data so I can render it with my own engine?
I am implementing RenderEngine.render_preview(self, scene) and want to export the scene data, to then render it with my engine. I wrote the export script myself, so modifying it is an option, if that helps.
Any ideas are greatly appreciated!
PS: I tried:

Overriding the context for the operator: seems not to be an option, since it needs to contain active_object from the scene the material preview scene was created for. Results in a Blender crash, actually.
Adding a scene attribute to my exporter: cannot be passed to bpy.ops.export_scene.foo as blender properties would be.
bpy.props.PointerProperty: not an option, since you cannot point to Scenes. Usually you would pass the scene index, but in this case the material preview scene is special enough to not show up in bpy.data.

What exactly is your problem?

It's a little unclear what you're trying to accomplish. Keep in mind that this is a CGI site, so we're not quite as familiar with code as you seem to be ;-) It sounds like you're wanting to "extract" or otherwise access the scene that Blender uses for previewing material settings (in the Preview panel). Does that sound right?

:
I kinda though Blender specific coding problems might be fine here, too, sorry! I misunderstood :/ Any idea where I should go for coding questions?
I will try to ask the question somewhere else then, thank you for pointing it out!
<Does that sound right?>:
Almost. I have access to it, but in a slightly different way as opposed to a normal Blender scene and therefore cannot export it. It is pretty coding specific, though, as you noticed.

Two options:

If you really wanted to go the route of exporting the material preview scene, which would allow for forward compatibility in case the preview scene should ever change in blender, the only option would probably be to create a temporary scene, copy all the data from the scene received in the render_preview function and then export that.

But this is probably not worth the hassle, so I recommend to anybody who needs something like this:

Get the material preview scene as a .blend from the blender code repository and export that once. Finally in the render_preview method, just manually serialize the material properties to get those into your custom engine.

I hope this helps somebody else struggling with this.


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How to export 3d object as a .tri file? blender 2.77
I am trying to use raydium game engine but i cannot find a way to export my 3d images as .tri files can anyone help me?

There doesn't appear to be an english version of this page - translate.google provides the following -

Export of creations made with Blender to Raydium is possible using the Python script triEXP * comes with sources Raydium.
Use:
Load this script into Blender (BlenderChargerScript), "triangulate" the object in Blender (CTRL + T, in edit mode, after you select all the point with the key), and run the script (ALT + P in the window contains the Python script). This operation performed, a file dialog appears where you can choose the export and the name of the file directory.
You will have a little more information in the console from which you started Blender, especially in case of errors.
!! Warning !! verify that you are in object mode before running the script.
Note: This script does not export the path to the textures, and therefore considers that the textures are always in the same directory as the exported .tri.
See also, for other import / export solutions ImportExportTri

If you look in the source download you will find a blender folder that has several scripts, the startup/tri_import_export_264.py can be loaded in blender's text editor and run to add the .tri import/export options. A simple test shows it to work, if it fails with your models than ask for help improving it with info and examples of what fails.


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White borders on semi-transparent hair/eyelashes in material view
I added hair and eyelashes textures to my character. They are PNG images and are partially transparent. I got white borders on the edges, but they appear only in Material view. If I switch to Rendered view, everything looks perfectly fine.
Here are screenshots of Material and Rendered views:

Question #1: Is there a way to remove those white borders in Material view? My settings for eyelashes are shown on the second screenshot. I already tried to use Alpha Clip option as it was suggested in similar topics, but it removes only part of the white border and part of it still stays.
Question #2: While it would be awesome to get rid of them, is it critical to remove those white borders at all since everything looks fine in Rendered view? When I eventually export this model to Unity, will it look like rendered version?
UPDATE: Looks like the problem was in partial transparency. When exported to Unity if I use "Transparent" rendering mode in material properties I get the same borders but I found the way to get rid of them. Solution in Unity: Use "Fade" option in rendering mode menu. This will remove the white borders and make both eyelashes and hair look normal.

This shouldn't be critical as long is it's only in Material shading mode. As to Unity you could check if it's actually lagging, likely it should work as it did when rendered, still this depends on how textures are baked (since you can't transfer Cycles materials directly)

You say you tried "Alpha Clip" (I assume this is in the Viewport Alpha setting).  Did you try "Alpha Sort" or "Alpha Blend"?  Might not help but it's worth trying.

@risingfall  I tried all of them... No changes.

@MrZak Ty for the info. I also have a feeling that it won't be affected since rendering looks ok. I'll try it later in Unity (need to learn more about "baking" first. gonna be my task for this evening..).

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/13508/how-do-i-bake-a-texture-using-cycles-bake for general setup on Cycles baking. In your case you should choose Emit pass (since it's easier to catch) and plug your maps separately to Emit shader (Node Wrangler here), then bake one by one

@MrZak Cool, thanks. I'll report later if everything works fine.


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For VRChat specifically. I have the head from one model and the body from another. Character is floating in unity when scene is played
I used the body from one model and the head from another. I manually placed them together as well as I could and it looks fine. I kept the bones for the respective models, deleted the ones I didn't need and merged the armature and re-parented the bones. I had a feeling it would be more complicated than this, but I figured I could just merge the two armatures and it'd be fine, but in Unity when I play the scene out, the character while in the T-pose just slowly floats away. I think the important part is the T-pose, because no animations are playing when the idle animation should be.
Is this problem too complicated or is there a fix?


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How to make a ui element without using a blender property
Is there a way to make a float field or a int field slider like
layout.prop(a, "my_prop")

I want that but without using the prop field is this possible?

This is a example of what I mean.

Could you please add an example of what it would look like (code-wise)  and how it would be used?

The gui field depends on the property type (StringProperty, FloatProperty, EnumProperty).. but I added a image for you any of them...

Still unclear to me what you are asking. The UI source of your example can be investigated by right clicking and choosing "Edit Source".  UILayout.prop has a number of options including for ints and floats  slider=True and text="" to markup a slider like render %age above.

Im not asking that I want to create a gui field like the float fields and enum fields WITHOUT bpy.props?? Does that make it more clear?

You can use any Blender data to get a GUI field.  For example: layout.prop(bpy.context.active_object, 'location')


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Some Polygons disappear, when import to Unity trough FBX
Today i was working on a lightsaber for my unity project, but after i was nearly finished I saw, that there were some polygons not visible in Unity. I searched for that problem and found, that the reason could be that those polygons were N-Polygons, but after cutting the two polygons into tris, it still wouldn't show up.
While writing this i also found out, that my materials are not being exported correctly, that all worked half a hour ago.
octagon -> cut into tris (the flat thing is a bone)

octagon missing (on top too, not only on sides)

materials in blender project

materials in blender trough FBX ex- and import

how it should look like in the end in unity

how it should look expanded

EDIT: all disappearing polygons would be inside the object, if it had no pose, maybe that's why they are not visible in Unity, but there has to be a fix for that somehow.
EDIT2: importing through .blend to Unity does not take the materials or those missing polygons

The normals of the ngons are not facing outwards: you'll have flip them or make a double sided material in Unity.

Maybe this one is a better question to reference: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19325/why-is-my-mesh-inversed-when-imported-to-unity

thanks, how do i mark this question as "solved", etc.?
For others: There seems to be no way to import those materials to unity, so you have to make them in unity; Unity materials are not that difficult

There is no need, the question is marked as "duplicate", that means it has its solution in another thread (see the top of the page, before the links to other answers)


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on fbx export my model gets destroyed -> see image. why and howto resolve issue?
After some minor changes on the model all of a sudden the mesh of the main body is copletely destroyed. The only things I changed were, that I connected two seperated parts of the mesh (with alt+M) and a bit of material, texture and UV changes.
Has anybody experienced this before? what could be the reason?
all vertecies seem to still exist... the connections inbetween then is completely wrong tho.

Are you using shapekeys? This could be part of the problem, after changing the geometry (joining meshes). This question is easier to answer, if you uploaded your file to www.blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

it alwyas was one mesh. there were just two not-connected parts inside the mesh, wich I connected with eachother.

As the model is rigged any geometry edits (in particular merging with Alt+M) can cause behaviour like that.

This answer is valid for FBX 6.1 ASCII.
You have non ASCII characters in shapekey names, which the fbx format apparently doesn't support.

As it seems, two characters can't even be displayed in my Blender.
Rename these shapekey names with ASCII characters only.
You also have some missing weights on Body.

Exporting in FBX 6.1 ASCII works correctly.

that does not work.I have used that model with theese shapekeys for over half a year now without problems. When i rename them I still get that wierd export.

@SupraLP I have exported in FBX 6.1 ASCII. This must be the reason, why it required ASCII names to work. In FBX binary, I also get errors. I'd suggest, you use FBX 6.1 ASCII. Blender doesn't support FBX ASCII import, but most other applications do and I don't think you simply want to reimport it into Blender. If you explicitly need to export it as a binary FBX, then edit the question to receive a more fitting answer.


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Making a Sail-Shade-- Plane with curves
So here's the thing. I'm trying to make a sailshade. I'm going to be making many of these over time, so I want to find a fast and accurate way of doing this. Basically, a sailshade is normally 3 or so fixed points with a curve between the fixed points.
That's how most of them look, although some are more complex.
What i'm trying to do is make a plane that i can shape and stretch to how it needs to be, that way i don't have to constantly modify all the vertices. Sadly, i'm not an expert at Blender yet, and was wondering if there was some way to 'control' the curves that i put on the plane? For example, i could have a square plane with 8 'control points'. 1 on each point (4) and 1 between each point (4) to control the curves.
I'm pretty sure his is possible... but I haven't quite figured it out yet... Anyone able to help?
Please and thank you!
That isn't exactly the solution i was looking for, using a cloth modifier doesn't really work for what i'm doing.

Also see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/75952/create-a-sail-with-cloth-and-curves-acting-as-softbodies

In addition to Duarte's answer, I'll  add another method. It will use the subdivision surface modifier as well, but another method to create the sharp corners

Add a plane. Subdivide it once. Add a solidify, bevel and subdivision surface modifier.

Since the sail would have a thickness anyway, the bevel modifier comes in handy. Otherwise just scale the value down untill it is no longer noticeable (but no 0). Use a high number of segments and a high angle. The angle has to separate the corners from the sides. The corner angles are going to be > 90 in your example, so I entered 80°.

You can now easily edit the shapes. Other shapes (not just quads) are equally possible as long as there is a distinction between side angle and corner angle.

You could also use NURBS surfaces. Add a surface, delete the standard additional points and close the endpoints, by checking Endpoint U and V.

This is exactly what i was looking for! Thank you!


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Text object alpha BGE python for fade in/out 2.79
I am working on a "display name" with a text object added from a inactive layer to the current scene.
I startet just changing the visibility, then i wanted a "scaling visibility". For that (since the base class of the text object is game object) i try texObj.meshes[0].material[0].alpha but found that there is no meshes.
Then i put a plane.color =[0,0,0] behind the text and meet the colors (text.color=[amount,amount,amount]), amount = amount + or - 0.02 between 0.0 and 1 to slowly make a "scaling visibility" of the text, But this requires the plane as background of the text which i want to not use if there is a way to do it without a background.
Also i have google "bge python text to mesh" trying to found a way to convert the text to mesh so i could add the text object then edit,remesh,show,hide, endObject but only found the bpy reference which not work in bge runtime.
And of course a dont want to convert the text to a mesh (Alt+C) since i will unable to change the text.

Animate the alpha of GameObject.color
Tested using gamelogic module template, with a mouse sensor on text object. Clicking 10 times makes the text object "fade away".

def main(cont):
    own = cont.owner
    # color vector xyzw  ~ rgba
    own.color.w -= 0.1
    own.text = str(own.color)

LOL I did not think about the color alpha, now i can change the color too, thank you it work perfectly.

Assuming you already know about the limitations of text objects in the game engine: pixelated text, no materials, does not look the same in game as the real text object, depth buffer issues, etc. and still want to use a text object batFINGER's answer is pretty much what you want to do object.color = [r,g,b,a].
However I would recommend you use the Font Drawing module blf.
The example on the documentation page is almost all you need to know to start writing text using blf. Here is a very similar example.
import bge, bgl, blf

def init():
    """init function - runs once"""
    global scene
    # create a new font object from external ttf file and store the font indice - to use later
    bge.logic.font_id = blf.load(bge.logic.expandPath('//Roboto-Regular.ttf'))

    # set the font drawing routine to run every frame
    scene = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()
    scene.post_draw = [write]

def write():
    """write on screen"""
    width = bge.render.getWindowWidth()
    height = bge.render.getWindowHeight()

    # OpenGL setup
    bgl.glMatrixMode(bgl.GL_PROJECTION)
    bgl.glLoadIdentity()
    bgl.gluOrtho2D(0, width, 0, height)
    bgl.glMatrixMode(bgl.GL_MODELVIEW)
    bgl.glLoadIdentity()

    # BLF drawing routine
    font_id = bge.logic.font_id
    blf.position(font_id, 10, (height - 45), 0)
    blf.size(font_id, 40, 72)
    bgl.glColor4f(.02,.2,.6,.8)
    blf.draw(font_id, 'Hello BGE!')

Some key things to note from that script.

expandPath('//Roboto-Regular.ttf') is looking in the same directory as the blend for that font file. Replace with your own.
The position is in the top left with 10px margin-left. The position's origin is bottom left, so height-45 brings the text to the top minus the height of the text.
bgl.glColor4f this is how you set the color with an alpha value (r,g,b,a) all 0 through 1 values. (I have it to a semi-transparent blue color)
blf.draw what actually draws the text! to make it more useful use a string type game property.

This is what I needed from the beginning?... it's a case study, thank you!. This is way better if can get it work as i want, but i done some test and was unable to change the text, found that the color need to be in the string and i couldn't  "make copies", etc. the only thing that worked was shadow fade in/out
, i will work on it when i have some time. For the moment object.color = [r,g,b,a] is my answer.


text:
Blender inset faces not working with small angle

I want to inset face in it but after I press "I" it went like the second pic. Anyone know how to do it properly?

Why not just try to add some geometry manually here before insetting?. Like with the knife tool.

I tried it but the same problem occur...


text:
Rokoko retargeting problem
I just started using Rokoko's retarget tool and I'm having trouble pinpointing where the issue is coming from. I made an animation and exported it as BVH and it was fine. But, as soon as I retarget it to another rig, the mesh glitches out. I do not know if it is because of my animation or just how Rokoko retargets them. Any solutions to this?
Thank you!

UPDATE: I figured out that the way it is exported messes up the retarget. My only problem now is how to export it so that it doesn't mess up the bones. I have used stock BVH files from the program I used and those are the ones that do not break. Anyone know what I did wrong?

Make sure to set Use Pose to Current instead of Rest.