text:
Why it takes too long to make simple cuts in blender VSE?
Basically I have a gameplay video that I made it is 37 minutes.
I want to store minutes 0-26 and throw out the rest.
I did that using blender.
Then I saved the edit by pressing animate. It took 2 hours.
Of course I have tried to activate GPU rendering. It still takes a long time.
To add insult, this is not really "rendering". I only make simple cuts for the video. So basically render will simply copy and paste the first 20 minutes of the video and remove 17 minutes of the rest.
For comparison, AZScreen, an app in android, can do the same thing within seconds.
I made a video to show you what the problem is.
https://youtu.be/bcX4MPp0txI
What am I doing wrong?
Update:
The result is of poor quality. Far worse than the original that is produced while playing video games within 37 minutes.
I tried cycle render to see if it's faster because of using GPU.
The old video is overwritten. I am mad. I do not tell blender to overwrite existing video. I thought it'll make another video.

Its a common problem of movie editing tools. It will even occur in high end software like premiere or after effects. Because the video can't just simply cut the rest out. Instead it has to create a whole new video and has to render the 26 minutes again. Maybe there is a special cutting software. But with blender this is not possible. What you could do, is switching the Frame Rate from 60 to 30. This will cut your render time into half. Also maybe you want to post a screenshot of your output setting (what movie format are you using?). 4 Hours sounds high. Maybe the setup is not optimal

I totally agree with Demons. One addition: You should always think good about whether you really need to edit your video with blender. If you want to add special effects, a robot army or whatever, the answer is YES ofc. But whenever one needs to make just a few cuts (as you do) one should get some basic (and free) video editor software from the internet. Exactly for the reason you just discovered and Demons explained. The advantage of easy video editors: they can copy video files and render just the transitions - so they are way faster and more suitable for easy tasks.

Okay that's one solution. Use other software. Any idea? Also why does using GPU doesn't help a bit? The time is the same.

You can see in the video that GPU doesn't help at all.

As i know, Blender compositor does not use GPU acceleration. The cuda settings are only for cycles rendering.

So I should change blender render to blender game or cycles render?

Other softwares: http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/slideshows/open-source-video-editors-for-small-business.html
http://www.videolan.org/vlmc/
http://www.openshot.org/
to name just a few. But I never tried those, though. And ofc there are a lot more out there, so maybe it's good to search one more time also

isn't that strange that blender default to blender render

@JimThio No, changing the render engine will change nothing. The point is, that the blender video composer is a complete independent render engine. if you change the 3d render engine (cycles, internal, game) it has nothing to do with the video composer. if you are rendering a video file, you simply NEVER (under no circumstances) can user your GPU. GPU only works if you are rendering in 3D Space.

The blender VSE although powerful, crude and a integrated part of blender. It is pretty jacked up. Much easier to cut in Adobe Premiere. It should be rewritten to function more like premier from keys to behavior. It is useless on big projects and takes a lot of finagling even on the smallest of projects. I wish they would fix it so I could ditch Premiere. I cut for a living.

When "rendering" a video from the VSE, blender essentially plays all of the source videos frame by frame that will be used to make up the current frame, it then merges each video frame with any effect strips to get the final image for the frame and sends that final frame to ffmpeg to be compressed using the encoding options. These steps will always be performed even if only one unaltered video stream is in the VSE and you want it saved using the same compression settings as the original video.
If you only want to cut a part of a video and keep the same video compression settings, you will find other software better suited. The ffmpeg cli command is one fast option, when you specify that the video and audio is to be copied, it will not decode/encode the video which makes it almost as fast as just copying the file. -c:v copy will copy the video track and -c:a copy does the same for audio with -ss 00:10:00 specifying the start time and -t 00:36:25 being the duration.
ffmpeg -i source.mp4 -c:v copy -c:a copy -ss 00:10:00 -t 00:36:25 cut.mp4

Actually, you do nothing wrong. Video Editing just isn't as easy, as you imagine it.
Cutting a video stream is more complex than just cutting a piece of paper. Most video formats are compressed and among other techniques this compression uses special image sequences.
Video compression in short is done by saving pixels, thus reducing the amount of data. The best method to save pixels is to reduce them to the ones that actually change between similar images.
The common method is to have keyframe images (I-Frames) which contain all the information a still image would have. Between them you have a "prediction" of the changes that might happen in the next frame. Those frames are called P-Frames (P for prediction. See, there's a pattern here) and would contain only those pixels which change between the I-Frames.  These are followed by images that contain both the resulting P-Frame and a prediction to the following I-Frame, thus they are bidirectional and called B-Frames.
A simple mpeg(2) sequence for example would be "I-Frame -> P-Frame -> B-Frame ->I-Frame".
The thing is, that depending on where you cut the video, the software decides if it should recalculate it or not. If in the above example you would cut your video right before an I-Frame and the following cut would also be  before an I-Frame, your video gets recalculated to match the sequence described above.
Another reason why a software wants to "verify" or recalculate the whole video is obviously a change in the format. This not only concerns the video format but also the audio as well. Keep in mind to check what formats (audio and video) your recording has and choose the exact same settings to export.
If this explanation answers your question, please mark it as accepted.

avidemux can do it fast but blender can't that's the issue with the question. your answer doesn't explain why blender is so slow (compared to avidemux)

@JimThio - Yes, it does. Blender tries to do the best possible job by verifying the source material, while avidemux is programmed to work "quick and dirty". I won't go into detail any further and I hinted already that digital video editing is not that easy.


text:
Blender as a VSE - can I separate my editing into multiple scenes and render as single video?
I'm using blender just for the VSE functionality.  As such, I have created two scenes each with some movie clips.  I'm trying to render the output into a single movie using:
blender -b demo2016.blend \
        -S 01_Scene -s 1 -e 13 -a \
        -S 02_Scene -s 1753 -e 1760 -a

(From: Is there a way to batch render multiple scenes?)
In the properties window for each scene, the option 'Overwrite' is not ticked.
However, only the second scene is output to the final video.  Is this the correct approach?

In the end, I solved this by creating a final Scene (which I called 'All_Scenes') and then adding the other Scenes as Scene strips in the VSE (Header menu: Add >> Scene).  In the scene properties, I had to configure the rendering to output as mp4.
In the Scene properties, I had to ensure the 'Use Sequence' property was ticked.
I could then render the scene with:
 blender -b demo2016.blend -S All_Scenes -a

so you still had to manually append each scene to All_Scenes?

source: Stack Exchange

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

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

sort: votes


text:
Image path '.' not found, image may be packed or unsaved
I'm trying to use the Image -> Edit Externally menu option, but I get the error message: Image path '.' not found, image may be packed or unsaved.
My Image Editor preference is set to: /usr/bin/inkscape which does exist and is a regular executable file:
$ ls -l /usr/bin/inkscape
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 12406776 Jan 22  2014 /usr/bin/inkscape

$ file /usr/bin/inkscape
/usr/bin/inkscape: ELF 64-bit LSB  executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.24, BuildID[sha1]=44e349b8449f6a5de13f0224193b6157bdda0ae6, stripped

I have seen another post that asks a similar question, External image editor not found?.  However, it that question a file system link was used for the editor whereas I am using an executable.
My blender version:
$ blender --version
Blender 2.77 (sub 0)
    build date: 2016-04-08
    build time: 19:05:34
    build commit date: 2016-04-05
    build commit time: 18:12
    build hash: abf6f08
    build platform: Linux
    build type: RelWithDebInfo
    build c flags:  -Wall -Wcast-align -Werror=implicit-function-declaration -Werror=return-type -Werror=vla -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wno-char-subscripts -Wno-unknown-pragmas -Wpointer-arith -Wunused-parameter -Wwrite-strings -Wlogical-op -Wundef -Winit-self -Wnonnull -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wno-div-by-zero -Wtype-limits -Wuninitialized -Wredundant-decls -Wshadow -Wno-error=unused-but-set-variable  -fuse-ld=gold -fopenmp -std=gnu99  -msse2  -msse -pipe -fPIC -funsigned-char -fno-strict-aliasing
    build c++ flags:  -Wredundant-decls -Wall -Wno-invalid-offsetof -Wno-sign-compare -Wlogical-op -Winit-self -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wno-div-by-zero -Wtype-limits -Werror=return-type -Werror=implicit-function-declaration -Wno-char-subscripts -Wno-unknown-pragmas -Wpointer-arith -Wunused-parameter -Wwrite-strings -Wundef -Wuninitialized -Wundef -Wmissing-declarations  -fuse-ld=gold -fopenmp  -msse2  -msse -pipe -fPIC -funsigned-char -fno-strict-aliasing
    build link flags:  -Wl,--version-script='/build/blender-mzA9Fo/blender-2.77-a-1459879952/source/creator/blender.map'
    build system: CMake

UPDATE:
The sequence of steps I follow leading up to the error:

When using the video sequence editor, press F12 to open the current frame
In the image editor:

Click the Image menu
Click Save All Images
Click the Edit Externally sub menu
Error message Image path '.' not found, image may be packed or unsaved. is displayed by Blender

Note that the Save Image menu option is greyed out.

When I click on the image list, I only see the Render Result.

I think your problem is not so much the executable or the path to the application, but more the path to the image, see the message Image path '.' not found. Are you using a packed image inside the .blend file? Can inkscape reach the image you are trying to use?

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos I've updated the question with the steps I followed.

Is it a render or the current frame you are trying to edit? Did you explicitly save the render to a file? External editors can only work on files saved to disk, no external application can directly read temporary or unsaved images that only exist in memory inside blender without a file

I believe it is just the current frame that is shown in the image editor.  I have updated my question to reflect that fact that clicking Save All Images does not help.

Go through all the images in your image editor's list and check if one has the name "unnamed" or shows an asterisk in the image editor's menu.
It's almost always an unsaved image. This won't be saved by clicking "Save all Images".

As for the update (we have a screenshot! YAY!)... what happens if you choose "Save as Image"?

I'm presented with the file dialog asking where I want to save the image.  Apologies for the rookie question - how do I see the list of all images in the editor?

Click on the image icon with the up+down arrows on the right side of the "Image" menu in your screenshot. Also, Blender is not very good in keeping track of images you might have deleted outside of Blender.

I've updated the question - all I see is Render Result.

when the 'save image' button is greyed out, this can mean that you haven't given the file a filename yet. You need to run 'save as' before, point to a location on your hard drive, and save. after that, the save image button will become available. It would be logic that images which have no filename (and thus no harddrive location) yet would be skipped by a save all images operator imho.

What's with "Save as Image"? Is there a file with the same name in Blender's file selector, if you try "Save as image"? If not, save "Render Result" as image and try again.

Oh, and btw... inkscape is an vector graphics editor. Blender produces with some exceptions raster graphics. You might want to try gimp.

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


text:
Object appears twice when linking it to a collection
I am creating a bone, and then a collection with a specific name if it does not exist, with the following function:
def make_collection(collection_name):
    if collection_name in bpy.data.collections:
        return bpy.data.collections[collection_name]
    else:
        new_collection = bpy.data.collections.new(collection_name)
        bpy.context.scene.collection.children.link(new_collection)
        return new_collection

The collection is linked to the master collection so it's on the top of the hierarchy, and now i try link it to the collection.
I create the collection:
root = make_collection("bat")

and later on in the code, i create a bone (although is an empty since it's a standalone bone), and i try to link it like this:
bpy.ops.object.empty_add(type='CUBE')
bone = bpy.context.active_object
bone.name = data[i].name
#bpy.ops.collection.objects_add_active(collection=root)
root.objects.link(bone)

Even though it's called root, root is not the master collection, just to clarify.
The result is the following:

It's the same empty i created, that appears twice in both collections. Although an idea would be to just delete other collections, 2 will appear still, one in the master collection, and one in the collection i created.
Also it's the same item since, if i click one, both get selected at the same time, so there's only one empty in the scene, i just can choose where to click it from.
Now the problem is i'm doing this with several objects in a loop, so i  would be basically duplicating the object list twice, and that's pretty redundant.
If i don't use the root.objects.link code at all, the objects would just be on the master collection, but i want them to be on the collection i specifically created.
Is there any way to fix this? I'm not sure why it appears on both collections and i'm very confused. I'm fairly new with the blender API, so i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong.
Thanks for reading!

There's probably a better answer, but in the meantime use unlink(bone): >>> bpy.data.collections['bat'].objects.link(bpy.data.objects['Empty'])

bpy.data.collections['bat'].objects.unlink(bpy.data.objects['Empty'])

I tried this but, wouldn't this go back to step 1? I create the empty and by default it appears in the master collection, i link it with the code, but then i undo the link by unlinking it. While it only shows it once which is good, it is not inside the bat collection which was the purpose of the code. I'm sorry if i did not explain myself properly

My bad, the second line should have read: bpy.data.collections['Collection'].objects.unlink(bpy.data.objects['Empty'])

Oooh okay, that makes more sense! Yeah i guess i'll do this workaround in the meantime! thanks!

So I'm going to give two answers: the first for the question you actually asked regarding doubling linking objects, and the second for the question you wanted to ask, that being how do you create objects in a specific collection in the first place.
Given an object called 'bone' which was created in the current collection and a collection called 'root' you want to move 'bone' from the active collection to the 'root' collection:
# use unlink(bone)
root.objects.link(bone)
bpy.context.collection.objects.unlink(bone) # this is the active collection

The better way would be to create 'bone' in the 'root' collection in the first place. In the script below I do that by changing the active collection.
import bpy

def set_collection(collection_name):
    if collection_name in bpy.context.view_layer.layer_collection.children:
        root=bpy.context.view_layer.layer_collection.children[collection_name]
    else:
        coll=bpy.data.collections.new(collection_name)
        bpy.context.scene.collection.children.link(coll)
        root=bpy.context.view_layer.layer_collection.children[coll.name]

    bpy.context.view_layer.active_layer_collection=root
    return(root)

root = set_collection('Soear')
bpy.ops.object.empty_add(type='CUBE')

bone = bpy.context.active_object

Ref: Change active collection
Ref: https://devtalk.blender.org/t/set-active-collection/2409

This  answer is amazing! Thank you so much for telling me how to also apply it better, it's way more clean by doing it the second way, but i could not figure out the API properly. Greatly appreciated!

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


text:
3D Cursor as Transform Pivot Point is not the center of rotation? Old project version fine
I'm trying to rotate around the 3D cursor but it seems to no longer be the pivot point, however it does affect where the pivot point is. I opened an earlier version of my project and it works just fine. I believe I hit a button or key combo that changed a setting I'm not aware of. I have confirmed rotating things in Object mode has the same odd behavior as Edit.
Using Blender 3.4.1
Here you can see a selection of points (orange) have been rotated more than 360 degrees in order to see where the actual pivot point is (center of that round-ish set of points).

Here we can see the 3D cursor at a new location and the pivot point affected (however still not the actual point for pivoting).

Double-checking the pivot point setting is 3D Cursor:

Actually I cannot really see what is going on there. And I'm wondering how much of an effect the activated Proportional Editing has in this case. In general I can only say, in my version 3.4.1 the 3D cursor as pivot point works so maybe we need your file to check it out.

Proportional Editing does not affect the issue at hand if on or not but it does make the issue easier to see. Points not selected but which fall in the proportional area will be transformed in a graded scale. Some of the points will be strongly affected, others weakly: it depends on the distance from  the other selected points. The project is done now. I'm not looking to share files but hear from someone who grocks blender and can say "that's a bug" or "you hit a button"

I'm not sure why you are explaining to me how Proportional Editing works, I know this quite well. What I meant is I cannot see anything in the screenshot, just a bunch of points which make it hard to see what kind of transformation you did to them and if this was in any way not working as expected, off the 3D cursor and to what extent proportional editing had any part in this transformation. And from my own experience I can only repeat the cursor as pivot point generally works in 3.4.1, since I use quite often. So if it is one, it's not a very common bug I suppose.


text:
Does anyone know how to make an expanding smoke with an almost "tendril-like" appearance?
I'm working on a cover for my book and I can't figure out how to make the smoke shape into "tendrils". I know how to do it with hair but with smoke; not so much. Please help and be as detailed as possible or I won't be able to follow. Thanks]1

I'm not sure if this is possible with the smoke system. but maybe you can fake it with a curve/tendril mesh that is set to invisible and emits smoke (particles).

Is this is what you are looking for: http://recordit.co/rS4jbEnPtN?

sure cegaton, im still a noob with blender and i just learned how to make armatures move so im confused demons fate, and not really but nice try lukeD. ill post a picture of what i want if i can find the one that inspired me. i found it last year and thats how long ive been trying to make it.

https://cdn-images.xda-developers.com/direct/1/3/4/6/5/9/8/Biohazard.jpg for those of you who couldn't view it, this is the picture, but I'm looking for more pronounced tendrils.


text:
How to create a flower unfurling effect?
The effect I am looking for is not like a simple flower but more like a plant unfurling over it's length. Like This:

I am not a beginner with animation nodes but in figuring this out the greatest problem is I don't really know where and how to start.
Here's a link to the actual video. -- By alex sirbu
Now to the question,
The effect is like the tip is moving forward while still unfurling.
So any help with understanding and executing this effect will be helpful.

It's interesting.. I don't get the impression the 'petals' are growing at all.. their spines are uncurling from the center, like the growth of a fern 'fiddle' frond

True but at the moment I just couldn't think of what to name it. Just changed the name.

It's AlexA, not Alex. She is a woman.

Create a flower petal, use the object instancer node to duplicate it and connect it to a for loop.
The key concept will be the following: Connect a Time Info into Animate Number nodes. Use this value to drive the Rotation and the Scale to make the petals flip open and "grow".
Now all object will flip open at the same time. To make them open one after each other, qdd the instance number to the Time Info.
The rest is just getting the proper timing, spacing and interpolation.
This node setup should get you started.

Thanks for the answer, just wanted to ask should using curves be able to create the curve effect. If so how to rotate the objects to the accurate angles?

@Minraws What curve effect do you mean? You can use a curve for interpolation with the animation nodes. You could also create a positional offset based on a curve with AN.

I am talking about the bezier curves and interpolation is possible but does it also give us the rotation angle?

@Minraws That's a good, but separate question. Do some research if you are still interested and post a new question if nothing comes up.


text:
How to Check How Many Frames You Have Left to Render
I've been rendering an intro for a tediously long time, and I'm wondering how many frames I have left to render. How do I check how many frames I have left to render in my intro?
Does anything from the image below indicate the number of frames I have left to render in my intro?

If you have the Timeline editor open when you start a render, you can see in its menu bar what frame you're on:

It looks like it is on frame 11, subtract that from the total number of frames (Check your timeline, Blender usually starts with 250 frames in the timeline), If you don't need that many frames, lower that number and it should finish quicker.

authors: Эрик Ларионов


text:
How would you clean this mesh up?
I inserted edge loops to create the 'windows' but I have now so many faces. What should I do to have a clean topology without changing the geometry?

If I remove the edges in the middle of the windows (Dissolve Edges option) I loose the geometry. So I don't know how I can clean this mesh up?

Here is the original geometry I want to keep.

Updated...see below

ALT select edges in Edge Mode, and X - dissolve.

Update: In response to your Sub-div issue. Instead of just removing geometry, you might look at how you are modeling. In the example below I have made the windows edge loops. The one on the left is all quads, and the one on the right has one N-gon in the window - if you don't mind N-gons. The advantage of this geometry can be noted on the sides [top & bottom] where less faces are needed.

I use a subdivision surface modifier. If I remove the edges inside the 'windows' will this not affect the geometry?

If it is only the sub-surf modifier- the shape will probably change at the corners. If your edges are Marked Sharp and have edge crease of 1 - they will not be affected.

thnaks. There can be issues with N-gones?

Yes and no. Nice explanation here http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/89/when-should-n-gons-be-used-and-when-shouldnt-they


text:
Is there an Evaluation time/Speed graph for regular xyz location /rotation properties inside the graph editor?
In programs like After Effects you can select a speed graph to edit the speed/velocity of your animation. i.e pixels/sec:

In blender I’m attempting to do this in the graph editor, but I’m accidentally changing the actual start/end values of the object’s location/rotation rather than editing the speed/velocity/influence of the object’s key frames. I’m only looking to edit the speed between the keyframes.
I’ve read about “evaluation time” of paths in blender. Is there something similar to this for solely the speed/velocity of the object? I guess it would be easiest to call it “custom easing”
Thanks!

The overall speed between keyframes can be only changed in the dopesheet or graph editor moving them, there is no built-in function to use a curve to control the timing.
To get this behaviour, you can use the action constraint: a single channel of a "controller" (like X loc of an empty or a bone) can be used to trigger the action of one or more objects or bones (like moving X loc 10 units means perform the action from frame 20 to 80).
Once the constraint is created, it can be easily copied to others objects or bones involved in the action to be retimed (i.e. select all objects involved, shift select the constrained one - last selected is active - and use the "copy selected contraint" function.
If the action is based on bones, the constraint has to be copied to all involved bones.

Another method is to load a rendered image sequence and retime it using  a curve to control.
To do this, add an image sequence as plane, create a custom property, edit its name and its limits (in my example "timing", and 1 - 80, the number of images on the sequence).
Then hover over its value and right click "copy as new driver".
Paste the driver on the "offset" value of the image sequence node in the shader editor.
Then edit the driver changing its result form "Average value" to "Scripted expression", tyiping in "var - frame# + 1" (in my example, as the name of the custom property is set to "timing", the expression becomes "timing - frame# +1).
Now you can animate the custom property value and edit its curves in the graph editor.

Animate NLA strip time.
SImilar to evaluation time in a path

Red without and  blue with animated strip time. Green scaled from 1:250 to 1:100
For example sake I have an animation

that moves a cube from -10 to 10 in 250 frames, (by simply setting x locations inserting kf at frame 1 and 250)
That's the animation. Now will drop this action down to the NLA editor.

Check and expand animated strip time. Keyframe the time to use in the action.
As an example, instead of slowly crawling from -10 to 10 across 250 frames, will get to 250 frames in 100, then go "backwards in time" in the next 150.

Scale the strip.
(Note for wholesale linear speed changes can instead alter the strip's start and end frames.)

eg scaling  the action to 100 frames


text:
Delete particular polygon of a mesh
I'm trying to do something with scripting in Blender 2.8.
I have an stl model of cube. It has 12 polygons (12 triangles). I access them by using:
cube = py.data.meshes["Cube.001"]
polygons = cube.polygons

In some loop i select some of polygons:
for polygon in polygons:
    if some_condition:
        polygon.select = True

How can i delete them using code? May be I'm doing something wrong? I'm new to blender, do not be angry for this silly question.

As i understood bpy.ops.mesh.delete can delete only 'VERT', 'EDGE', 'FACE', 'EDGE_FACE' and 'ONLY_FACE', but not MeshPolygons

Have you tried with 'ONLY_FACE'?

@lemon Now i tried, but it did nothing.

authors: Андрей Подопрос


text:
Extrude shape on a path from illustrator?
I have an illustrator path that I want to bring into Blender3d and extrude a circle on and close the shape at the ends. Almost like a long skinny balloon that is used for balloon animals. Or a tube with rounded closed ends. Is it possible to bring a path in from illustrator (It is a company's logo basically) and extrude a path along it as described prior? If so how would I go about it? tia.
Updated with an image. So far I have not figured out how to get my illustrator path into Blender to be able to extrude from. The blue line is the path I am trying to import. The stroke thickness applied is to illustrate the effect I am after but I of course and wanting it in 3d with rounded end caps.

hello, please show some pictures of what you want, share your logo or at least something that is closed to your logo

https://www.google.com/search?q=blender+extrude+along+path+from+illustrator There is quite a lot out there. If you need something more specific update your question with images and what you have tried.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/47217/extrude-and-bevel-an-imported-svg-curve/47227#47227

@moonboots I added a picture to hopefully clarify what I am after

Try this out, similar concept if you place the stepped circles together and try object > blend > replace spine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcBBDN8PKqU&t=117s&ab_channel=GraphicDesignHowTo


text:
Is there a way to control the driver using a weight map?
Is there any way to read the weight map value of a given object using the empty object.
You can control the shape key with the distance driver between two empty, but this solution has a serious disadvantage, in the moment when there is more empty, there is no proper mixing of the shape key, analyzing it I came to the conclusion that the best solution would be to use some object, and use its grid and weight maps, exactly their values, I have no idea how to read these values so that you can control them with the controller.
That's exactly what I mean, "https://vimeo.com/246108083" just instead of texture, I want to use waight maps.
" https://d1a9v60rjx2a4v.cloudfront.net/2013/10/02/23_14_46_471_screen1_4.jpg "
I found a similar idea, but the problem was not solved, maybe someone here will know how to solve it.
" https://blenderartists.org/t/driver-based-on-vertex-weights/664337 "


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Visualize Speed Control Effect Strip
Is there a way to visualize the effect of a Speed Control (SC) in the VSE? For example if I use a SC with a Multiply Speed value of 1.5 I want to see in the movie strip or maybe with a marker where the "new" end of the strip is. I know I can do this manually with cursor keys to check when the strip is over, but this is not very useful.

You have two options:

Manually place a marker.
Use (the default) Stretch to input strip length with Multiply Speed to 1 and set the Trim Duration (soft) end point of your footage to length / 3 (for 1.5 speed).

The first solution is what I'm currently doing (and what I meant with manually), but the second seems the way to go.


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How to import a collada model with textures?
I have found very good collada model here. It comes with the texture files.
But, when I import it into Blender, it has no textures at all.

So, how to import collada model with textures into Blender?
Thanks a lot!
UPDATE:
I know for the similar question. but I don't need to add textures after, I need to import them properly...

Nope, I have read that one first. I don't need to add textures after, I need to import them properly...

Does you model have any materials? Do the materials have any textures? Do the textures show when rendered? Is the viewport in the correct shading mode?

Also see my answer here interchange file formats are not meant to export textures/materials


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The armature does not move with the mesh
Hy I am making a video game character and I'm on the animation part, specifically rigging. I am sure I did everything necessary and looked at similar questions to. As the title says the mesh does not move with the bones. Sorry, I'm used to 2D, but I REALLY want to get into 3D and know everything necessary to start except for rigging of course. The rigging part is hard and I don't know why.

Hi, as first: armature should not move with mesh. Mesh should move with armature. This is very important diference. As second - if you give us link to your dropbox from your browser, it does not work. Upload image directly to your post and for .blend use:  http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ and add ling to your post also.

Hy, Thanks for the heads up, I added the pic and am just waiting for my .blend to upload

ok the .blend is there.

your geometry is unsuitable for rigging. Imagine, that bones moving with vertexes. In your case is impossible bending mesh by bones correctly, because mesh have really bad topology for animation. And this is the reason why Blender can't assign vertexes to bones and give error message.
Normally you can use "Automatic weights" feature in Blender. Select mesh, press "SHIFT+LMB" select armature. After press "CTRL+P" assign mesh to bones. But this doesn't work in your case.

This is how mesh must look for use in animation:
..as you can see, it work

You can control, how armature move with vertex by "Weight paint". Every bone have vertex group with the same name. Here you can set how strong are vertexes controlled by which bone.

I hope this help you. Also you can find a dozens tutorials about this theme all over the internet.

Hy, I appreciate this. Truth is I did not know that my mesh was terribly built and had bad topology. In fact I don't even know what that means so I will look it up. Thanks for the extra info to, I will be sure to keep this post in check. This really helped


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odd vertex behavior when translating or editing
I have a woman 3d model that I've been working on for a while. After I've fully  meshed, skinned, morphed, tweaked and textured for third time, I'm getting this maddening glitch:

The hand has 4 vertices that jump to that same location. Notice that its just the hand model and I've removed all modifiers, weights, vertex groups and shape keys.
I'm trying to figure out how to fix this. It would be very disappointing to have to rework the mesh yet again

Turn off X mirror under options and all is well.
...or turn off Topology mirror if you need the X Mirror.

That worked! Any idea why the problem is on just those vertices?

It is trying to create a mirror across the X-Axis but why it chooses the ring finger I have no clue. If you create a mirror duplicate across the X-Axis then it all behaves as you would expect. Compliments on the topography by the way.


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How to create a shape in the UV image editor for using as a mask in VSE?
I'm using Blender for editing desktop recordings that I make using Open Broadcaster software.
I would like to highlight areas of the screen to draw attention to them by surrounding them with a red rectangular box.
I've created a previous post that asks: How to highlight areas of a desktop recording in video sequence editor
The answer to that post is fantastic, and I would like to now understand how to create an image in the UV editor for using as the mask. How can I do this?
I'm a complete Blender noob and have not used any part of Blender except for the VSE.

What you want to do is split a screen and open a UV/Image Editor, or just open one up through the bottom, lefthand icon:

Load in an image with the Open button (you can screenshot a frame of your video) so that you know where to put your mask.

Still in the footer of the UV/Image Editor, add switch from View mode to Mask mode.
 -->
Add a new mask:

Now there are three keys to remember:

Ctrl +  LMB adds a Control Point where you click.
Once you have three or more points, use A to select all/deselect all.
If every point is selected (yellow), use Alt + C to connect the points.


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Generating jigsaw pieces from svg curves
I have generated the laser cut of a jigsaw in Inkscape.
After importing the svg in Blender I am now trying to extract each jigsaw piece into it's own object.
The problem is that my SVG is made of multiple overlapping bezier curves and I cannot I use "separate" > "loose" to extract the pieces
I have tried  Boolean modifier on a plane but it doesn't seem to work with a flat opened loop ( even if I extrude it)
When I extract the pieces, I would like to control their name (like r1c1, r1c2 ... ) to identify their original position.

Can you upload your .blend file to Blend Exchange?

I've edited the question

Knife project curves
The main problem with your object is that the pieces are not defined by a boundary. The curves are not intersecting each other: they are just drawn lines, and expecially in the "crossroads", there is't a common point between them.

In order to get the intersection, I would suggest to take advantage of the Knife project tool to a plane object (Shift+A Add mesh: Plane) of the right size. It has some degree of approximation but should be good enough for the provided example. Remember to keep the whole mesh inside the 3D view and run the command in ortho top view as it is view dipendent.
You don't need to convert your objects to meshes or join them: just select them all and run the command in edit mode (it might take a but of time to complete).

Finish by:

calling  the Edges Split operator (you can find it in the Crtl+E menu) in order to disjoin the faces
and then finally run the Separate by Loose parts (P) command on the remaining faces.

Note :  this technique allows to keep the curves' control points clean and I could drop the resolution of the curve before converting to mesh.

Nice method. It's also possible to separate pieces after cutting with Ctrl+E > Edge Split (a bit faster).

Tremendously faster @MrZak! I'll write that in the answer, that's the right way to do that.

You will never be able to do this inside Blender, at least not without some serious loss of quality and information, you'll have to do it in Inkscape, and even then it wont be easy.
Not only are Blender's Bezier curve tools not refined or full featured enough to deal with this, Boolean operations won't work on bezier curves nor on open non manifold objects.
Quick and dirty method
In Inkscape use the bucket fill tool and fill in the spaces to automatically create the jigsaw pieces.
Re-import only the new curves as SVG into Blender
Pros: It is very quick and easy
Cons: This is a geometric approximation method, the precision is zoom dependent and leaves a lot to be desired. It will always lead to serious loss of quality as shown bellow. Zoom in for better precision but it will never match precisely.

Slow but precise
Join the end nodes of all paths on pairs so they can become filled in such a way that you end up with the whole jigsaw puzzel filled with all possible strips

Make copies off all strips (you will need several of each for multiple operations) and start combining them with Boolean operations like Subtraction Ctrl + - or Intersection Ctrl + * so that you end up with all combinations and hence all pieces.

In the end break them all apart with Shift + Ctrl + K and reimport into Blender as SVG.

This technique is certainly a lot more troublesome and involved to work with, but it will give you the most accurate results, without any loss on information. You pieces will remain clean editable bezier curves without converting to mesh with thousands of points

While I'm leaving carlo's answer as the valid one, over 200 pieces, knife project is seriously slow on my laptop. That said, it seems to be the only way to do it within Blender, and it produces acceptable pieces with 64 vertices ( at 4 in the curves' ures) and it's easily scriptable.
For over 200 pieces, Inkscape seems to be more suitable, the method that I found (http://tuts.ahninniah.graphics/how-to-make-a-jigsaw-puzzle-with-gimp-and-inkscape/) works well with the extension I use to generate these curves in the first place (https://github.com/Neon22/inkscape-jigsaw)
The only drawbacks is that it adds more control points and you end up with around 110 verts per shape.
Method :
Generate the curves using the extension.
Make sure the svg curves are not grouped by pressing Shift+Ctrl+G several times
Group all the curves but not the border : Select all Ctrl+A, Shift+clic on the border shape and combine  Path > Combine (Ctrl+K)
Make sure that the grouped curves object is on top : Object > Raise to Top (Home)
Select the two objects Ctrl+A and go to Path > Division (Ctrl+/)
You can then import it in blender
To answer the second part of my question ( correct naming of the shapes ) I made a python script that changes the name of the shape based on its position :
for obj in bpy.data.objects:
    row = math.floor(obj.location.y/size)
    col = math.floor(obj.location.x/size)
    obj.name = "shape-{}-{}".format(row,col)
    obj.data.name = obj.name

note :
I had also tried X_ALL https://github.com/zeffii/mesh_tiny_cad to connect the curves but it was way to slow and a bit unreliable. So I didn't pursue it further.
conclusion :
I still prefer carlo's way, and I will try to use it to generate the complex jigsaws on a powerful computer. But ideally I would like a script capable of merging/connecting intersecting edges on 100,000+ edges.


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Addon button for picking material
I'm having a difficulty trying to add a button to my add-on Tools menu for picking a material. Currently I'm doing it by bpy.props.StringProperty() so the user has to write the correct material.
Is it possible and how would I make a material picker box like this one? (from Render Layers menu, material override)

I don't even know what is the name of this so excuse me if this is a duplicate question.
P.S. I would also like to have an object picker, but I'm assuming that once I figure out how to make the material, the object is just next door.
Thank you in advance!

For most of the UI right click "view source" will reveal  python UI code.

That I did, but I only found col.prop(rl, "material_override", text="") ... is that it? I guess the actual definition of the button is in some other class somewhere?

That looks like the thing I was searching for, thank you! I don't really understand how to use it yet but that's a different issue that I need to learn. Thank you very much.


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Car AI Blender Game
How does one go about creating an AI of a Car that can find the shortest route around a track?

That is my track and the cube is a placeholder for a car.
Any help is appreciated :)
P.S.: I'm a little new to this
Edit: I've tried How to make car AI in my game? , but for some reason it doesn't work on a circuit - only works on point A to B.

It doesn't work with a loop, cause the car try to find the shortest path to target : so when it reaches it, it just stop.
One solution is to split the circuit in two parts (two Steering actuators*, two navmesh, two targets). When the car reaches the first target, she stops using the first Steering and start using the second one, and try reaching second target.

At start, a property "part" is set to 1. The first two sensors are then True, so they will activate the first  Steering actuator, and try to reach "first target".
To detect that it reaches a target, you can use an invisible collider : a Static object, with "Ghost" checked (so the player can pass through it), and "Invisible" checked. The object has a unique Game property : ie "first target", "second target". On the car, a Collision sensor with the same property activate a Property sensor and change the value of "part".
When the "part" changes to 2, the first two sensors are now False, but the second couple ("Always.001" and "part 2") are now True ; so the second Steering is activated.
When it reaches the second target, "part" become 1 again, and so on.
In the example, I enabled "Check physics visualization" and showed the property "part" during the game ; so it's easier to understand.
It will be cleaner to use two States (you can see them as "behaviours"), but you mentioned you where new to that, so I tried to keep it simple.
It's probably possible (and easier) to use only one navmesh, and just switch targets

It does work, but I want it to move independently because now it's going to target the center of origin of the mesh; instead of finding the shortest way around the track it finds the shortest way to the segment and then sharply adjusts to go to the next segment

See this: https://i.imgur.com/hFwUaG0.png  The line should be a good curve, but it's got that jittery-ness at the end cause' it's trying to move to the origin of the empty.


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Making a bone match another bone's rotation on a single local axis
I've been trying to solve this problem for a very long time, but I've only ever come up with partial solutions.
I'm trying to do the following—please use the example rig in the attatched file to follow along. The bones (from top to bottom) are "Head, Neck, Torso, Base." Head and Torso are parented to Base, Neck is parented to Torso.
I'd like bone "neck" to rotate on its local Y axis as bone "head" rotates on its local Y axis, regardless of what other rotations on other axes bone "head" may possess.
I'd like this to work even if bone "torso" or "base" are rotated as well—this is the part I get tripped up on. In whatever setups I've managed to create, rotating the bone "base/torso" makes the neck rotate too much, creating annoying artifacts.
Could somebody please present me with a solution to this troubling dilemma?

Did you mean to link a file?
The simplest thing to do is try a copy rotation constraint in local space.  For what you're trying to do, this sounds like good enough.  Here's how to set it up:

You can see that the neck, even though it has no transformation, is following the Y axis rotation of the head, regardless of rotation of the torso.
If you rotate head, the neck will rotate with it; if you rotate torso, the neck will rotate with it as well.  That means that neck might rotate too much for your taste, but then, you really have to put more thought into how you want neck to behave.  You could always use transformation constraints or drivers to rescale any rotation to a certain desirable range.
I said this was the simplest thing to do.  Copying rotation in a single axis is dangerous, because Euler angles aren't really cleanly divisible into axes: by rotating a bone in its Z and X axes, you can create Y axis rotation, and there are places where one axis of rotation seems to turn into a different axis.  This can create unexpected behavior and poor interpolation.  Copying rotation from a single axis is really only safe when both bones involve only ever rotate on a single axis.
What's better is to think instead about where you want your neck to face, and to use a locked track constraint (locked in Y in this case) to face that point.  But that requires rethinking the problem slightly.


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How to extrude a face parallel to another?
I'm wondering if there is a fonction to extrude down the faces selected to put them on the red dotted line, while maintening them parallel to the vertical edge?

Possible duplicate of How to extrude inwards without leaving faces?

Here is how to set transformations from "Global" to "Normals" http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/3413/is-it-possible-to-move-parts-of-a-model-along-the-selected-normals

I've just read your link and tried it but it doesn't work or I'm doing something wrong. If I extrude the faces selected the reference of the axis aren't the vertical plane so it can't be parallel to it.

The fast, inaccurate way

Select one of the upper edges and the lower edge, which you want to connect.
Subdivide W > S
Use the edge / vertice slide by pressing G > G
Enable the Even checkbox in the edge slide operation settings.
If necessary enable the Flipped checkbox in the edge slide operation settings.
Adjust the Factor slider estimating the slide position closest to the upper vertex.
Merge the upper vertices.

The slow, accurate way

Delete the face, which you want to split with the edge (loop).
Select the edge, which you want your new edge to be parallel to.
Go into Normal transform orientation mode, then (in the Properties Panel under Transform) press the + icon.  This will add the orientation of the edge as a possible transformation orientation.
Place a new vertex by subdividing the lower edge.
Snap the 3D cursor to the upper vertex, from which you want the edge loop to start.
Enable 2D Cursor as Pivot Point.
Select the vertex on the lower edge and scale it to 0 (with the 2D cursor as a pivot point). Limit the scale operation to the X and Z axis. Select the transform orientation of the edge, which we added earlier.
Make the new faces.

Sorry, the gif is a bit too fast. I have modified step 3 and 7 explaning how I added the Transform Orientation of the selected edge. Is it more clear now?

It's cristal clear now!


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How can I join these two meshs together?
This question refers to my previous question 'How to transform a plane into a honeycomb?' I'm trying to join the hnoneycomb with the face surrounded by a red border. Thanks for your help.

This can be done using the Pivot Point, Snapping, and View Transforms.
We start with the honeycomb, and the target mesh in random positions (the line of green faces are the target faces):

Next, we want to do a little setup.
Set the Pivot Point to cursor, and set the snapping to vertex, and change the type from closest to active.

Note: You don't need to enable snapping, when you want to use it simply hold down Ctrl while doing a transform.
The first step is going to be getting one corner of our honey comb to match up with one corner or our target face
to do this, select the honey comb, and then Shift select on vertex along its one of the outer edges so it appear white:

Now using G-Ctrl, move the mesh to align with one corner of the target:

Next, select one of those two vertices, and use Shift-S>Cursor Two Select to bring the cursor to that vertex. Now if you use R to rotate, you can see that the mesh pivots around that point.
In order to make this a little less visually confusing, free hand rotate the mesh around the cursor until it is roughly in the right place. This doesn't have to be exact.

Next select a face along the target row of faces:

and then hit Shift-Numpad 7. *Whoosh* you world has been turned upside down.
What has happened is that the view port as been aligned to the face. We can now use R to rotate around the view port axis, and snap our mesh into place along that axis (carefully note which vertex is active):

Select that face again, and this time use Shift-Numpad 1 to go into a view that is aligned to the front of the face.
Repeat the similar steps as above:

Finally, the honey comb now lines up along the back of the line of faces, however, it is still at an angle. TO fix this last one, select one of the faces along the honey comb that runs paralleled to the line of faces:

Try Shift-Numpad 1, or 3, until you get a profile view, and then snap into place:

Your honey comb is now aligned.
Note: I used View Transforms for this example. I was originally going to use Transform Orientations, but realized that they were needlessly complex. However, if you do lots of this kind of stuff, they are worth learning about.

authors: Никита Афиногенов


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How can I make a groove in a sphere?
How can I make grooves in a sphere. If I use the Subsurf modifier, the edges don't keep sharp. And if I use a crease of 1 I loose the smoothness of the sphere.

Here what I get using crease at 1.
Here the illustration of the problem I encounter. Left is only 'Mark Sharp' applied, middle is only 'Edge Crease of 1', right is 'Mark Sharp' and 'Edge Crease' both applied.

Artefacts appear.

Could you describe better why creasing the edges is not satisfying solution?

Because artefacts appear. What is the best way to shape these grooves?

You could try micopoly displacement from a texture map.

Using Crease in this case assumes extruding area of interest and then creasing its edges. Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6425/keep-sharp-edges-when-using-subdivision-surface

Post blend file?

Could anyone explain to me how to create a groove in a sphere? This can be usefull for other newbies...

You can add a sharp 'crease' to a model by using the edge split modifier. I see in your screenshot that you already have the modifier applied.
The edge split modifier will treat sharp edges as qualified to split, regardless of the Edge Angle specified in the modifier. Edge Crease forces a pinching effect to be applied to the geometry generated from the subsurf modifier. By combining these two, you can get a sharp edge while maintaining the smoothing effect of the subsurf modifier.
In edit mode, select the edges you wish to effect and press 'Ctrl+E' to open the Edges menu. Select 'Mark Sharp'.This will split the edges to create sharp edges in the shading.

Afterwards, select those same edges and the edges connecting the corners of your grooves. Use 'Ctrl+E' again to open the Edges menu and use the 'Edge Crease' option to pinch the geometry into a sharp profile, effectively ignoring the rounded edges from the subsurf modifier.

Here is a sphere showcasing the different effects. Left is normal geometry, middle is 'Mark Sharp' Applied, and right is 'Mark Sharp' and 'Edge Crease' applied.

Very usefull.... It allows a control of the edges with the Subsurf modifier. How to apply this to the model I'm trying to reproduce? I tried to extrude the edges marked as sharp but the vertical edges don't keep their sharpness.

I rewrote my answer to better reflect the issue you are trying to resolve.

What is the use of  selecting 'Mark Sharp'.before applying the Edge Crease? Maybe I'm doing something wrong but applying an edge crease in the corner raise the intersection of the edges creating a point.

You can apply the 'Mark Sharp' and 'Edge Crease' in any order. Mark Sharp splits the edges to provide the sharp look. Edge Crease allows you to pinch the subsurf geometry to follow the sharp edges instead of smoothing them out. Keep in mind that unlike Mark Sharp, Edge Crease takes a number value to set how intense the crease is. After selecting Edge Crease, and before you click to confirm the crease, you can drag your mouse to increase or decrease the effect, Or you can press the number one and click to apply the maximum crease.

I updated the post. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but as you can see there is no difference between the 'Mark Sharp' worflow and the 'Mark Sharp' and 'Edge Crease' both applied. Thus some artefacts appear on the intersections between edges.

I cannot see the update to the post. Perhaps you can upload a new screenshot to imgur.com and share the link?

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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How to use Scale and Extrude together?
I'm trying to create this shape. I don't understand how does it work. If I use E+S I can't get the faces forming the perimeter with an angle less than 90°?

Not sure if it's clear, but you cant really do it all in one go, it's a two step procedure. First you extrude, finish the extrusion only then scale it down.

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

This can be done with insetting the faces. First select the faces you want to extrude. Then hit I button to bring Inset operator. In the operator panel, thickness value changes the scale and depth value you changes the extrusion depth.


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How can I keep hard edges with this shape?
I'm unsuccesfully tryning to keep the edges blunt, not too sharp for a more natural render by applying a Subsurf modifier. That's why I don't use the crease of 1. I tried to add an edge loop (CTRL+R) but can't on the top face. Thanks for your help.

Both answers work perfectly except for the following shape. I would like to soften the hard edges of the mesh. Thanks.

The easiest way would be to delete top faces, extrude rim and close the cup in different way, but if you want to keep quads, use bevel edge, by selecting outer edge and pressing CTRL+B and moving mouse to set bevel size.Her are both ways:

You don't need Laplacian. I just opened this panel by accident and closed it without using any of it. After closing this panel, I just extruded the edge and scaled it down, then extruded again, scaled down and CTRL+F >Grid Fill to fill empty space in the middle.

Remove the edges on the face

Add a loopcut on the edge like so

Select top face, press E and scale it inwards a bit

Join the face's edges again

And apply SubSurf!

Probably quicker to use Inset (I) I think, or bevel with a profile of 1. Many ways to skin the cat :)

@Greg Zaal. what do you mean by Inset (I) I think, or bevel with a profile of 1?

Inset is a tool you can use on faces. In this case it's the same as extruding and scaling it in, but for more complex shapes it maintains the contours better. Bevel has some options if you hit F6 after using it; one of them is the profile, which adjusts the shape of the bevel; a profile of 1 means a 90° angle (usually) so it's the same as adding edge loops on each side (or insetting both face sets) but quicker.


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how to resize a panel?
The panel surrounded with the red line (I don't know its name) has become very small. How can I resize it?

Numpad + key while the mouse cursor is over this panel to zoom in. Or Home key to restore it to default size.

That's called Last Operator panel. Available for opening by F6.

This panel can be resized by dragging. Hover with the mouse over the line between the upper and lower part until the mouse pointer turns into a black two ended arrow. Then click and drag up or down. You can even hide the Operator panel completely. Then you will see a little plus sign. Which you can click to reveal the panel again.

actually the fonts of thsi panel have bcome too small and I don't know how to bring them back to their normal size.

In this case move with the mouse over the panel and press Home key (german keyboard Pos1). This will reset the scale. To scale it bigger or smaller, hover with the mouse over the panel, hold down ctrl, hold down middle mouse button, and move the mouse up or down.

I guess you intend "resize" as to gain more space availeble for that panel...
You need to put the mouse cursor at the top of it...  here

When the position is right you'll get a vertical up/down arrow that allows you to resize it (my screenshot tool doesn't get itso you see a regular pointer arrow there), like this:


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Lighting is not the same in 2 different blend files
I downloaded a tutorial blend file.
I wanted to have the same lightning in my own template file, but even I compared those two files they look different.
I disabled the "Sun" so you would only have the world emission light (EEVEE)
Left is "tutorial" file (I would like to have it like this) and Right is my "template" file.

Edit
This is the tutorial file:

This is my template file:

What settings (or another system setting??) might I possible look over?

please provide both blend file so we can compare it. Your screenshot doesn't help unfortunately. And please give the good names like "target" and "mytry" or so.

Unfortunately you cut off the top menu of the windows so I can't see the settings. At first glance it looks like the left is in Rendered View mode while the right one is in Material Preview mode. But that's just a guess.

@FGoqy To share your files use https://blend-exchange.com/ copy-paste given code and place it into your Q via edit

@GordonBrinkmann Both screens are in rendered mode.
I do not use material preview at all.
I will try to upload the 2 files

Your question was closed because it needed more details for clarification. As you can see in the comments, with the provided information we could all just have guessed and speculated. Btw, you don't have to edit the question to tell you will upload the files. Just edit in the uploaded files. Your question will be re-opened when it contains enough information to solve the problem.

@GordonBrinkmann I was already asked to upload the files so it is not needed to close the question to begin with.  It is kind of disrespectful tbh.
Just ask for more info and respect the person asking the question.

It is not meant disrespectful, as soon as a question is closed it is not accepting answers. This avoids getting speculative answers and showing up as answered when this might not be the case. Many other questions are closed at first and people simply provide more information to get it re-opened. Yes, you have been asked to upload a file, but since we do not know how long this will take (some need hours up to days to come back here and edit the question) it's better to close it meanwhile.

@GordonBrinkmann  Got it :-) Thanks for clarification

Could be the World shader or Color Management

Your "Template" file

Your "Tutorial" file
Go to Render Properties > Indirect Lightning and Delete Lightning Cache ...

... plus change under Shader Editor > World > Background > Strength to 0.500.
Now both looks the same with Sun enabled ...

To get the same lightning as the "tutorial" file you would have to find original Environmental texture that was used when Indirect Lightning Cache was Baked.
Visually it looks like blenders default "sunrise.exr" file delivered with app ... it has yellowish tint, but it is my guess ... lightning is not from the same direction act.

Note: And I don't think there is a chance to transfer just a Indirect Light Cache to another file ... that probably dent make a sense since this cache is based od current 3Dscene setup.


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Can dynamic lighting on meshes be translated onto a video clip?
Is it possible to procedurally affect the appearance of a video clip depending on the luminance of an area of a mesh?
Question detail:
The process I'm trying to do is explained below.

import and track a video clip (for ease of explanation, it is the corner of a room, as in the attached image)

set up a 3D scene with the camera solve from the video clip via 'setup tracking scene'
model the room corner in 3D
the video is going to be used day for night, so parameters (brightness, contrast etc) will be adjusted to make it appear to be a night scene)
dynamic lighting elements will be introduced in the 3D scene, which will cast light on the meshes used to model the room corner

What I want to do is use the luminance of the meshes to adjust the brightness (and other parameters - if there are coloured lights I would like to tint it for instance) of the video clip so it appears it is being illuminated by the dynamic lighting elements. Is this possible?

If you need interactive lighting you are going to need to recreate the geometry and project the lights into it, and combine that with the video background.
Note that to successfully reconstruct the geometry with motion tracking using the video as a source, you will need to move the camera in a way that shows parallax, a stationary camera will not work. If your camera is stationary and just rotates, reconstruct the geometry using fspy and match the camera move in blender using tripod solve.
Do a search to understand how a shadow catcher works.
The light from the video will have to be recreated in blender to affect whatever objects you have in the virtual environment and have the shadows and reflections of said objects affect the virtual geometry that will work for shadows and color. So make careful notes of how the lights are set up in the real world.
Also, keep in mind that you will need to mix several passes together to pull off something that looks realistic. The interaction of light, specially indirect light (that caused by the reflection of light on the surfaces of the objects in the scene) has to be carefully examined. For example, anything that moves will change the shape and color of the shadows and reflections. Pay special attention to the shiny surfaces on the lamp, as those will have to reflect real and virtual objects at different degrees, the metal and glass will behave differently.
The ratios of the lights in the real world and those in the virtual environment have to match as closely as possible. If you have access to a real camera (not a dslr or a phone) shoot using log encoding so that you can record values as scene referred and not as display referred. Having linear information will make the integration easier and more convincing.
In short you are in for a lot of fun if you decide to do this. Know that there are no real shortcuts, a shot like this requires careful planning and attention to detail.
Suggested links:
How to get reflections from 3D to show up on real images
How can I get better results when doing camera motion tracking?
Realistic rendering of mesh together with image?
Render shadows over a transparent background in cycles
Add color to shadow catcher
Cycles: Shadeless "Shadow-catcher" Material for Rendering onto Footage

Set on the right path by the answer above, for anyone else looking this is a good answer to what I was asking:
Is there a way to utilize emissions in VFX?


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Why is my UV Map in separate parts?
I have a simple shape that I want to add a texture to. But when I unwrap it, it shows in separate pieces rather than one whole square like the tutorial shows.
Incidentally, when I first came to ask this question, I had a different problem — my lines where all shooting out of bounds and going all over the place. I found the answer to that (Smart UV Project) but that's when it gave me the separate shapes. It's probably easier to just recreate the shape, but I am curious to know what I did wrong to end up like this.

This is how Smart UV Project looks like.
I never checked the donut tutorial, so I don't know what's the base mesh you worked with, but when you start with blenders base mesh Torus object, it gives you nicely unwrapped UVmap into square already.

Basically to get more control over Unwrapping, you have to

Mark Seams Ctrl+E to let blender know where to split a net
(the edges marked by red color in screen, just select two edge loops with Alt+Shift select)

select all faces and Unwrap U > Reset
select only one face and Unwrap U > Follow Active Quads

I appreciate your help. I must of done something along the way to distort it so it no longer lays as one large grid. I tried what you did and it didn't seem to make a difference. If I select part of my Torus, the UV Map shows the area I selected all over the place. So its impossible to try and paint around it shape.

Distortion is not a problem and from your screen it seems like even grid. If you want, upload your blend just with donut object via https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com and paste given code into your question, so we can check it.

Here you go. I actually am sending what the mesh originally looked like before I "fixed" it using the Smart UV Project.

Works for me with your file as well https://imgur.com/hI7ByBk Note - in your UVmap are pinned vertices, they aren't the issue, but would be better to UnPin (Alt+P) them.(BTW I asked you to place code into your question (left down - edit), not into comments. Thank you to keep this site organised.)

nice! Thank you vklidu. Appreciate your time.

If answer helped you solve the issue consider mark answer as accepted so others can see it as solved from main list. https://blender.stackexchange.com/tour


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Make white molecular particles on the outside and red on the inside?
I have been struggling to try to make the inside of my molecular mannequin red (to sort of representing blood) and the outside white. For a reference ...

I have now aimed for a collection of white/red spheres, have tried count, random, and so on without coming close to what I want.
I want to render it in Eevee any suggestions? Something I can do in the shading tab?
Here is my try ...

@ChrisAnderson Do you use molecular add-on for some simulation or a build in grid distribution. Do you plan any animation or physics simulation?

Hi yes, I use the molecular add-on for the simulations for particals, and I have assigned a group of sphere as particals. Is that I want white particles on the outside and red on the inside.

Yes, it is an animation where it spits the mannequin. with collision.

thanks for your answer. want to achieve this effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itp5TyTO2Mc and been bugging me for a couple of days now haha

I'm not sure if reference object in your linked video is done by the same way, but you can try ...

for outer particles - add Solidify modifier to your object
for inner particles - copy outer object, Apply modifier, go to edit mode select one outer vertex, select Linked L, delete, Recalculate Normals Shift+N

Like this you create "inset" object without overlapping particles.

Enable under Collision

Activate Collision with others
Enable under links
Activate Particles linking with others

Id did finally make it work, did ended up with doing to models, and putting the outer layer on the face and making the inner model set to volume. But think that thickness would probably make it easier.
Here is the result :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA6bcbLOUkw
Cheers and thanks for the help.


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How can I smooth a triangle fan?
As a picture often speaks better than words, here are the two images of my problem. I'm trying to get a smooth render on this object. I tried many options but no way I always have these artifacts. Is it possible to have a smooth rendering with a convex surface?

Here what I'm trying to model

The Subsurf Modifier doesn't work well with Triangles.
Ideal topology consists of mainly quads (faces with four vertices) and each vertex is connected with exactly four edges.
I created the following quarter sphere by smooth subdiving a cube (edit mode: w > u), shaped it to a sphere (edit mode: Shift + Alt + s) and deleted the excess vertices.

EDIT: After requests and additional info in the question, I will provide a step by step workflow.

Create a cube Shift + A > C, then go into edit mode (Tab). Make sure the pivot stays in the center of the cube.

Do a smooth subdivision operation three times. (W + U)

Select and delete the unnecessary vertices.

Select the outer edge loop (Alt + rightbuttonclick) and scale it to zero along the Y - axis. (S > Y > 0). Make sure to enable proportional editing for this step, so the topology stays even.

With the edge loop still selected, do the to sphere operation.(Shift + Alt + S > 1 > Enter)

Select all vertices A, enable 2D Cursor as Pivot . and do the to sphere operation.(Shift + Alt + S > 1 > Enter), the last edge loop will still be on two axis.

Delete the additional vertices, then select the lower edge loop.

Extrude, scale according to the reference, insert edge loop to make the edges clearer.

Thanks Leander but I  tried unsuccessfully your method. I can't medel your shape. You use the "subdivide option first"?

Thanks Leander but I tried unsuccessfully your method. I can't model your shape. You use the "subdivide option first"?

I updated my post. I finally understood how to transform a cube into a sphere but the geometry doesn't match to what I'm trying to model (cf image).

@Grobby I extended my answer with a step by step explanation.

Thanks Leander for your full tutorial. I don't know why (I enable the proportional editing) but at the step 4 only the edge loop turn into a circle shape and I don't have the protuberance on the back like you.

Double check the settings of the scale operation (on the left in the Tool Tab). My Falloff is set to Linear and the size to 1.33

That was the reason but also because i  was selecting the edges of the edge loop not the vertices so that the deformation was not based on the vertices,


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How to build a rectangle with convex edges and rounded corners?
I am trying to build this shape. what is the more efficient way to make these blue rounded polygons? I would like to create rectangles with convex edges and so rounded corners.

I suggest you this: if the exact shape is important, trace the bitmap to svg, then import the svg and import it to Blender, convert to mesh, clean the mesh... done! Here it goes:
Open Inkscape, paste the png and trace it like this:

you need to clean the traced paths, delete whatever is not your desired shapes...
then delete the bitmap, save the svg and import it in Blender: scale the imported curve enough (I did 50x), and put "geometry to the center" using the toolbox function (left panel).

then, convert curve to mesh, and change material color if you wish:

Then, convert all mesh triangles (many) to simple ngons, using limited dissolve:

there you are! Of course you have many vertices...

Of course you could also just keep the vector/curves....

I was also wondering how to simply build a rectangle with convex edges . I tried to bevel the edges but doesn't work (CTRL+B).

to do that, you could use subdiv modifier or bevel on a (at least slightly) subdivided plane...

eg: see this answer: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/63815/919


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Why can't I add an edge loop?
I'm trying to add an edge loop on the first raw of the vertical squares. Why doesn't it appear on the last one and how can I fix this? Thanks.

Edge loops work only in clean quad topology, when they reach a triangle or a N-gon (your case) they stop. To add one more edge to your loop you can use the knife tool (shortcut K), then select the last vertex of the loop and click where you want the final vertex.

But i don't understand why the topology is not clean. I updated the post. As you see the row ends with a quad. And remove the ease of 1 doesn't changed anything.

Have you tried to delete the face and recreate it?

You can check if you have faces inside geometry like in this photo. I had the same problem, after deleting inside faces, everything was fine with adding loop around all geometry.


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How can I create a face with a rounded edge?
I'm trying to fill the empty face. Is there another way than to add vertices along the outlined edge to connect them with the face of the half circle?

I tried to connect only the four angles of the polygon but the face of the half circle overlaps it.

Fill with ngon?

How can I create a ngon with so many faces?

Box select portion of curve you want to join to straight edge, then add select that edge and F-key fill. Continue until complete? Sorry I'm not much of a modeller

Have you considered retopologizing the top part of your object?
If you align the top loops in a perpendicular direction they can perfectly match the remaining half circle border loop and maintain a quad based edge flow.

Edit A little more detail:
Place the 3D Cursor correctly aligned at the right depth in relation to the face to be filled.
Erase you top existing faces, select the remaining top curved edgeloop, extrude it with E but cancel it immediately Right-Click.
Afterwards, with with 3D cursor already placed as described above, press the . (Period key) to transform relative to the 3D Cursor position, scale the edges in the Y axis only with S > Y > 0 (zero). That should flatten it directly and the right position.
Add one extra edgeloop along the height of the object, connect the two first segments of the bottom circle with the loop, and then you can fill the whole height of the object at once with the Bridge operator by selecting only the top and bottom edge loops (not the two large vertical bridging edges).
All done

This is a really good solution! Could you go into a little more detail?

very efficient... How do you extrude the edges forming the curved edge?

@Dontwalk Certainly, updated answer above, hope everything is clearer now, if not just ask, I'll update as soon as I can

After adding your glitchy-overlapped polygon, you can press space and look for "Split Concave Faces" (it will only act on the selected faces)
the problem is that the final topology isn't that predictable.
but it will render nicely, though.

whoops. This must be done after Eric Huelin's answer.

Select all the edges your face needs to be connected to then press F.


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How to use boolean intersect with two plans and the mirror modifier

These are two plans I want to cut to only keep the outside of the vertical plane. There is a mirror modifier applied on z axe. I tried to use the
Boolean Intersect Tool. So my question is how to use one plane (object) as a cutter to cut away from another plane (object).

I removed the mirror modifier and tried with 3D object but nothing happens as I hit CTRL+ F key Intersect(Boolean). I tried with the Intersect knife tool and "No Intersection found" diplays.
Thanks for your help.

It's quite hard to tell from your screenshot, where exactly the mirror modifier is. Either add another screenshot that shows the mirrored object in Edit Mode or consider uploading your file to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ and adding the given link to your question.

Finally I found the problem: Boolean Intersect (and Knife Tool)  work only if the objects are joined.

Actually, that's not the case. Boolean works just fine with two separate objects. The result depends on how exactly both objects overlap.


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Stick a plan on a mesh
I am wondering if it's possible to stick the orange plane on the face made by the three columns? I tried with the tutorials showing how to snap objects together. but the plane is never parallel.
Thanks

Is it really impossible to do? I tried to snap with Face active mode but it doesn't turn the orange plan parallel atthe face of the columns.

Align rotation in Face snapping
Blender has a tool that is capable of aligning the local axis of an object to the target surface normal. You can find that right next to the snap settings:

Unluckly, as I said, it works with objects, so it's not available in edit mode, and it requires the local axis of the plane object to be already aligned with the plane faces's. So, in your particular case, you should separate (P) the plane mesh and work on the orientation before snapping to the surface (if your plane has a "random" orientation, you can use, for example, the Precise Align add-on, as shown here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/36787/15140.)

nice trick, haven't ever seen an explanation to that button  :)

Snap to Face will allow you to project the elements onto other faces, similar to what a shrinkwrap modifier would do when set to axis projection mode. However, if you want to snap every vertex onto the target, there is two buttons to enable. Face Snapping (marked on the left), and project individual, marked on the right:

Then, a source geometry which looks like this...

...would snap like this:

Thanks a lot Aliasguru! A little button (project individual) but a big power that makes all the difference. It works perfectly now.


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Everytime i load my project, the material is missing
I just started to learn blender few days ago,I follow BlenderGuru and made some donuts, but everytime i load my project, this donut bread material is missing. I did save a UVunwrapped texture and ColorTexture in jpg type, but I can't seem to load the texture back to my project, is there something i need to do to fix the material on the object?

Looks like the bread texture is working just fine on your donut material, according to your screenshot. Are you concerned about that matte-black object in the background? Select it in the viewport and click the top tab that says "Shading" to look at the material nodes for that object. You will see what looks like a few menus (nodes) connected by "noodles". Go through all the Texture nodes and re-locate the image files manually to ensure the program is looking in the right place.

Whenever you load a .blend file it gets rid of un-used materials / images. You should make sure something is actually using those materials, otherwise you can click the F button to save them even if they have no users.

Can't you locate the texture image in your file browser?

@hatinacat2000 oh sorry, that 1st image is my main project that i havent exit since morning, the bottom one is what happen when i load the project

@InTheBeef I tried that just now, the material is saved in the project but the object still appear as purple.

@FFeller I can't, even though I browse and linked the texture back to the Material Base Color slot, the material just appear as white color and my viewport donut appear as purple. The purple color will go away only when I remove the Image Texture in Shader Editor

Did you save the picture after the texture painting?

@FFeller I did save it into jpg

You can "pack" the image into the .blend file so that you don't have to worry about the external files moving around. You do do this from the image editor, under the "image" dropdown menu (pack is the last option).
Keep in mind that it will actually save the image into the blend file, so if you did this with, say, a 10mb png file, and you save multiple versions of the blend file, they will all include the 10mb png as well.

You can also do this from the main menu: "External Data" -> "Pack Resources"


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Dynamic paint does not work on canvas in paint mode
EDIT!.. Ok my problem is now very small as i appear to have figured everything else out so far.
I dont seem to be able to use any object as a dynamic brush on any other object setup as a canvas. I can use the wave mode just fine... but paint seems to be completely unaffected. I can even use particles a brushes in wave mode.. but i just wont respond to color change.
Any ideas??
OLD,,,,,,,
Im pretty new to the particle system in blender and I am attempting to follow at tutorial on using particles as dynamic paint.
I have two issues.. the first is that my particles show simply in the viewer but never appear in the render.
the second is that I have confirmed the particle settings and the dynamic paint settings (brush and canvas) several times..
The particles are to move from left to right across a text object which has been converted to a mesh. Gravity is set to zero and the text as the emitter. The particles behave as expected and travel for 65 frames from left to right... but they do not affect the object nor do they paint it as a canvas.
Any pointers would be fantastic guys!
EDIT: I setup a whole new simple scene with a plane sub div to 100 and a UV sphere above emitting the standard amount of particles. If I use the particles as the brush i can treat the plane (canvas) as a wave.. however.. when I switch the mode to paint nothing is happening. I also can NOT see the particles during a render at any time. Please help guys!

I had this same problem, then stumbled on the solution after watching ~10 tutorial videos.
Solution: The "+" button needs to be pressed, next to "Paintmap Layer" item, under "Physics > Dynamic Paint > Output" menu.
Before:

After:

Also make sure that you have an "Attribute" node feeding into "Base Color" in the Shader node tree for your canvas object, with the name of the the "Paintmap Layer", like so:

@Lukasz-40sth Why did you remove the sentence about root cause (Blender UI design flaw)?  I have submitted a bug report to Blender development.  I think this sentence adds value to explain why the OP had problems in the first place. You and others may have a different opinion, but if so, put it into a comment.

FWIW -- the root cause is a flaw in Blender (>2.8?) User Interface design.  The "+/-" button should never be used for "on/off".  That is what a checkbox is for.  "+/-" is used throughout Blender to add or delete elements of a list.  I have submitted a bug report on this flaw.

Hmm! followed your instructions using 2.91 and I get no color from the brush on the canvas.


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One object turns gray in rendered/cycles view
I know this has been asked before, but my issue doesn't seem to be the same as anyone else's. One of my objects renders just fine in the viewport and under Eevee, but disappears into the solid gray background when rendered with Cycles. It's still clipping the viewport grid that it sits on top of, but not the other objects in the scene.

There is no texture on this object, it is simply rendered as a material with a base colour and material properties.
So far, I've confirmed that:

The object's viewport display settings in the context menu are correct. (set to textured)
Changing material properties doesn't make any difference, and the material works fine on other objects in the scene.
The normals are "normal"
The lighting is adequate
The object ("Engine") is enabled in the view layer for rendering, viewport, everything.

I even deleted the object, loaded an old save, and copypasta'd it back into the scene. Same result. Really frustrating.
Does anyone know how I can get it back?
File: http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=52552

I was able to fix this after watching a few YouTube videos.
Above "Viewport Display" and within "Visibility" in the properties tab, there's special settings for "Ray Visibility" which is essentially for Cycles' ray-tracing algorithm.

Helpful to know about if you want coarse-grained control over rendering. (Use nodes/shading for fine control).


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Weird Normals Issue
So I tried applying the normal map on this Zenith 10mm from Deus Ex, I simply went on the textures tab and loaded up the normal map after which I edited the UV so everything fits.
This is what happens on one side:

while the other side is completely normal:

What am I doing wrong? BTW I am a beginner in blender so sorry in advance if this is something majorly stupid.

Upload your file to blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com, so others can  take a look. Use the "pack textures"option.

Never mind I found the mistake:

I forgot to check the "Normal Map" box under Image Sampling in the textures tab.


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Can I use an image sequence with offset frames as a texture on array items
I'm creating an animation of a film bed with a film strip running through it. The film strip is basically just an array object with a curve modifier. What I want to do is use an image sequence for the material that is being tiled along the array object, and offset 1 frame for each duplicated array object. Thus giving the effect of moving images on the actual film strip.
I hope this makes sense, and I'm just assuming that this is a python requirement, as I can't think of anything to do it with in the Blender toolkit.

You could try unwrapping the UVs of the film strip, and then put together a really wide texture of all of the frames lined up side-by-side.

To expand on Dan the Man's comment, one way to do this would be to use an external tool to append the image sequence into one wide image.
One tool that might be good for this is Image Magick.
instructions for installing Image Magick on Windows
to append an image sequence on Linux, one way would be like this:
cd /path/to/directory/with/images/
convert `ls -v -w 1` +append /path/to/output/file.png
# this assumes the images are named in alphanumeric order

Once you have your image strip,

Apply the array modifier on your film object.

unwrap your film object with U > Project from View (Bounds).

which unwraps the strip nicely, provided your original array object matched the aspect ratio of the image sequence:

Add a simple material with the strip as a texture:

Instead of using the the Array modifier

Link the material to object.
Create a individual linked duplicates.
Select the duplicates, Object | Make Single User | Materials+Tex (or UT)

You might want to setup a nodegroup first to make future changes to the material easier.

Now increment the texture offset for each material.


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How to insert key to a constrained bone with "child of"
I have a character with a sword, sword is inside the same armature of character, and i want to be able to add keys to everything.
An example would be:

The character moves to the sword is at the ground, so the sword is static and character moves, now the sword does not need keys.
When character gets the sword, I would like to bind the sword to the hand, ok I can do it with the "Child of" bone constraint and everything seems fine.
I do more animation keying and everything seems good except if I go the animation begining the sword is not at the ground even if I added keys to be there, because of the "Child of" constraint.
So then I think: ok, now if I delete the chain of constraint, it would fix the begining of animation because I added sword keys when it was on his hand.
Delete the constraint but it seems the keys when character had the sword on his hand have not been recorded properly, now the sword stays static.

Is there any way to record a key with the help of a child of constraint and then delete it but keeping the positions of that constraint did?
I cant bake the constraint because is inside the same character's armature.
And I need to be keys, not modifiers or NLA strips, I want to export the animation to Unity.

Insert "Visual LocRot" keyframes. See this answer.

The "Child Of" constraint is a tricky one to get right. I would recommend using multiple parent objects, and adding a "Child Of" constraint for each parent.

Create a parent empty on the ground at the "pick up" location.
Create a parent empty on the ground at the "put down" location.
Create a parent empty that you parent to the hand bone.
Create three "Child Of" constraints, one for each parent empty.

Now you can animate the influence of each constraint. When the sword should be at the "pick up" location, that constraint has an influence of 100%. When the sword is picked up, the "hand bone" constraint gets 100% influence. When the sword is put down, the "put down" contstraint gets 100% influence.

Yes, it's a very good idea, but the empty constraint influence is not transferred to the sword bone key, it's a separate "key" and for Unity I need the sword bone key location and rotation.


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Alpha Transparency Lightening and Volume Scatter
I am using png images and the Images as Planes add-on to create background trees for a scene. This works fine until I try to combine this with Volume Scatter for a mist effect. The alpha portion of the images lightens, showing the rectangular outline of the image against the sky (hdri). I'm using Cycles Render. I have the density set to .02. If I set it to .005 the effect is not too noticeable, but the mist effect is minimal. Edit: I may have figured out a solution. In the side box of the Add Images as Planes add image window there is an option called Premultiplied, when I chose that, the effect seems to go away.

The outline shows up against the sky with the Volume scatter set at .02. It appears that where the two alpha images overlap the effect cancels out. Maybe a work around would be to add a large alpha plane over the whole scene.

The trees with no volume scatter.

Could you please edit your question and provide some screenshots of the described problem, and material and fog settings?

I added two images, I apparently don't have enough reputation to add more. Note that the effect can better be described as lightening not darkening as I first stated.

You should post that as an answer bellow instead.

It still isn't perfect, I'm trying to figure out why many of the images still show a line on top of the image.

The line above the image seems to be a problem with the png I made in Gimp. Thanks Duarte,  for cluing me in on how this board works.

I deleted my earlier "answers" as they turned out to be mostly useless. The answer seems to be to use Branched Path Tracing in the cycles render settings. This eliminates the effect of the alpha transparency outline of the images as planes showing up when using volume scatter.
Blender HD has an excellent tutorial on all the obscure settings in cycles render, explaining with great examples what each one does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhOdnOow6DY&t=394s


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Blender growing polygons
I wanted to make an animation, on an modeled object, that it doesn't just appears like in the "build" modifier. Instead, the object should appear in small parts and grow fast. (So it builds together the model).
Is that possible ?

I'm not sure what exactly you need, but I can gude you to look for "animation nodes" addon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCghhlMOwRg

You could use a boolean modifier with an animated object to slowly reveal your model.

Is this what you mean? http://i.imgur.com/ckWAT24.gif

kinda. If you go into blender, scale the cube, use cell fracture and use the build modifier, i kinda want that but if you use the build modifier it just appears and it should slowly pop up and not just appear.

There are many ways you could achieve "build" effect. The simplest one that mimic the Build Modifier, but does not simply "pop" the polygon faces are of course by using Add-Ons like Animation Nodes.
You could probably use Blender's own Particles as well to kind of reveal each polygon face slowly one by one?
One idea, using Animation Nodes Add-Ons:
1) Install Animation Nodes (AN) Add Ons.
2) Study a little bit a bout AN. Get a hang of it.
3) One of the Template provided to transform individual polygons will be perfect. The idea here is instead of appearing like a sudden pop, you want to use some kind of transition. The most obvious is probably to animate scaling of each polygon.
4) With a little adjustment you can get a more elegant "reveal" of your 3D model, perhaps in this case is basically polygon by polygon, as they are scaling from Scale zero to one.

Remember the way it is being revealed is also important and there are limitless way you could do this from basics to more sophisticated effects.
Here is basic:

pls tell me what the last modifier is called after Transform Polygon, i couldn't read it.

The last bit there, is the Polygon List slot that you get from New Generator Output.


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What does the Term Ragdoll mean?
I wonder what the term Ragdoll in BRIK - Blender Ragdoll Implementation Kit means.
Wikipedia defines: "The Ragdoll is a cat breed with blue eyes and a distinct colorpoint coat."

Apart from the article you linked to, rag doll physics refers to the ability of a character in a video game or simulation to be able to react to falling over or being hit in a more dynamic way.
Rather than having to create specific animations for falling you could let the character fall and determine how it moves based on how it's limbs collide with each other or the ground and how they drag each other (as long as a correct hierarchical skeleton is present) when a force is applied.
These are calculated on-the-fly in the game engine when the game is run rather than having been predefined beforehand (though they could have been limited to only have a certain amount of effect or be set to mix with a key framed animation).
The addon appears to help with the setting up of the collision boxes and game logic for the limbs that are necessary for accurate collisions.
The term rag doll is used because as the character or object falls it may have the appearance of a doll as it loses stiffness and collapses.

Imagine you have a puppet with easily movable joints. If you throw it around, the puppet will move it's arms and legs according to the forces applied to it. Kind of like an unconscious person.
Here's a simple example I made to answer the question in a visual way. This is a ragdoll:

I have no idea why he is showing one last sign of life trying to sit up again. I didn't animate that in.
Wikipedia does have an article about the topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragdoll_physics


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What are the new 3D cursor features introduced in 2.73?
Just noticed that while dragging the 3D cursor values for constrained axis can be entered, and the cursor can snap to faces. The status header shows MEDIAN,Global,FACE how can these properties be influenced?

Check : http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.73

I think you would probably find a good answer if you checked the release notes.

@iKlsR I installed 2.73 and didn't expect that it keeps the add-ons. Therefore I couldn't find anything in the release notes.

This feature is added by the Enhanced 3D cursor addon it is best to read it's rather long usage entry to learn about it's functionality.


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Which tool allows bending a mesh?
In the feature video of version 2.72 the mesh intersection tool is introduced. Which tool is used to bend the scaled and loop-cut cube here?

It is the Bend Tool, Mesh -> Transform -> Bend
Shortcut Shift-W.
It is documented as operator in the API

Bend selected items between the 3D cursor and the mouse

The Warp function that used to be on Shift W is from 2.70 replaced by the Bend tool. The Warp Tool is still there, but you have to search for it. In the feature video you can actually hear the commenter telling he is using the Bend Tool.

Is it mentioned in docs? I couldn't find a reference?

The Bend Tool was introduced in Blender 2.70. To my knowledge it is an undocumented feature, or at least a very well hidden one.

The Warp function that used to be on Shift W is from 2.70 replaced by the Bend tool (Mac). The Warp Tool is still there, but you have to search for it.

Thanks, I hope my edits are ok for you (restored the comment from a deleted answer).

@user1374 You dont have to search for the warp too, its in Mesh -> Transform -> Warp

I know this is an old question, but for those who still need help, you can go into edit mode>Mesh>Symmetrize.

This is not an answer to the question.

this question is asking about the bend tool, not symmetry.


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What options should be selected to export a blender object to three.js json file?
I am trying to export blender object to three.js json file. For this I am selecting "Vertices", "Faces" and "Face Materials" but I am not getting full object in Json file. So what option I should select to export complete object in Json file? Also when I am selecting "Scene" option then blender gets crashed.

There has been some changes on the three.js side that seem to have broken this process somewhat the last time I checked. I would recommend getting onto the latest version of Blender and trying again.

@ashish, did you find the solution to that? I am also facing the same problem I the json is showing only white shape. and not the color I have chosen while creating that object.  Here is my question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/40755646/issue-with-getting-colors-in-a-blender-imported-mesh-to-be-shown-using-three-js

If this is still occurring, this is really a bug in the three.js Blender exporter. I would report a bug on GitHub. As it is, the question seems too broad to answer generically.