text:
Is there a way to insert keyframes for a group of frames using python?
I have an object that has a location driver, so the location of this object is constantly changing. I want to keyframe its motion throughout a range of frames, with each frame being a keyframe (essentially creating an fcurve). The method I have been using in python is going frame by frame and inserting a keyframe each frame.
import bpy
from bpy import *

bpy.context.scene.frame_current = 0
i = 0

for i in range(0,1900):
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_insert_menu(type='Location', confirm_success=False, always_prompt=False)
    bpy.context.scene.frame_current = bpy.context.scene.frame_current + 1
    i += 1

Is there an easier way to keyframe a group of frames via python instead of going frame by frame? The more objects added, and a bigger range of frames means blender getting slower over time to add keyframes one by one, so this method can take many hours depending on how many different objects I have involved.

related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/17919/importing-trajectories-to-create-an-animation/32151#32151 (mostly the last 4 lines of code)

zeffii's answer is better than using bpy.ops, but if you want to get closer to the metal, it gets a little clumsy.  Blender's action API is missing several convenience functions.
It boils down to these steps

make sure the datablock has animation_data
get the animation_data.action or .action=bpy.data.actions.new(name)
find the action_data.fcurves[i] that matches the data_path and array_index, or create the fcurve
make sure there are enough fcurve.keyframe_points to load our data into
assign the fcurve.keyframe_points[j].co and possibly .interpolation, .handle_left, .handle_right, etc.

There are a couple of examples embedded in http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/blender/python-cookbook/movie-card-stack.html and http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/blender/python-cookbook/csv-to-fcurve.html which I will summarize here:
def make_or_get_fcurve(obj, data_path, index=-1):
    """
    :param obj: the data block from which we'll get the fcurve
    :param data_path:
    :param index:
    :return:
    """

    # freshly created objects don't have animation_data yet.
    if obj.animation_data is None:
        obj.animation_data_create()
    ad=obj.animation_data
    if ad.action is None:
        ad.action = bpy.data.actions.new(obj.name+"Action")

    for fc in ad.action.fcurves:
        if (fc.data_path != data_path):
            continue
        if index<0 or index==fc.array_index:
            return fc
    # the action didn't have the fcurve we needed, yet
    return ad.action.fcurves.new(data_path, index)

and from the other example
def find_or_create_fcurve(action, data_path, array_index= -1):
    for fc in action.fcurves:
        if fc.data_path == data_path and ( array_index<0 or fc.array_index==array_index):
            return fc
    fc = action.fcurves.new(data_path, array_index)
    return fc

def make_eyeball_look_at(armature, frame):

    eyeball = get_eyeball()

    cns = find_constraint_track_to(eyeball, armature, "card release")
    data_path = 'constraints["%s"].influence' % cns.name
    fc = find_or_create_fcurve(eyeball.animation_data.action, data_path)

    i0 = len(fc.keyframe_points)
    fc.keyframe_points.add(4)
    kp0 = fc.keyframe_points[i0]
    kp1 = fc.keyframe_points[i0 + 1]
    kp2 = fc.keyframe_points[i0 + 2]
    kp3 = fc.keyframe_points[i0 + 3]

    kp0.handle_left = [frame - 7, 0]
    kp0.co = [frame - 6, 0]
    kp0.handle_right = [frame - 5, 0]

    kp1.handle_left = [frame - 4, 1]
    kp1.co = [frame - 3, 1]
    kp1.handle_right = [frame - 2, 1]

    kp2.handle_left = [frame + 2, 1]
    kp2.co = [frame + 3, 1]
    kp2.handle_right = [frame + 4, 1]

    kp3.handle_left = [frame + 5, 0]
    kp3.co = [frame + 6, 0]
    kp3.handle_right = [frame + 7, 0]

def add_keyframe_points(fcurve, kps):
    idx0 = len(fcurve.keyframe_points)
    fcurve.keyframe_points.add(len(kps))
    rval = []
    for i in range(len(kps)):
        kp = fcurve.keyframe_points[idx0 + i]
        kp.co = kps[i]
        rval.append(kp)
    return rval

You should avoid operators if possible and do something like this:
import bpy
from bpy import context

scene = context.scene
ob = context.object  # object to keyframe should be selected/active
# ob = bpy.data.objects["name"]  # or referenced by name

for i in range(0, 1900):
    scene.frame_set(i)
    ob.keyframe_insert(data_path="location", index=-1)


text:
Blender Python Displaying UI Table with header
Is it possible to create a Table using a template list that has first row as the description of the attributes the list contains.
I currently have something like this.

It is occupying way to much space and I want to actually put the cell description only on the top centered and have only values in the grid.

No, there is currently no way to do this.

Ok, thanks. I wonder if its possible to register a handler on mouse clicks if user clicks an item off any item?

You can define get/set/update callbacks on RNA. But we dont have Python defined UI callbacks.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Removing hundreds of duplicate images
So I've been slowly learning the ways of the "snake" and trying to create THE script that will remove all duplicate images after one has appended, shall we say, an entire library of characters, buildings, vehicles, etc.
I have seen the topics of going into the Outliner and remapping the duplicates, but imagine having hundreds of these one needs to Box-Select, then try to find the beginning of this list of eyemask.png.xxx. I have also seen scripts where one would match the name and remap to the name without the extra numbers. However, things get a little complicated when one's library of objects have the same named texture file (like body.png.xxx) but have their differences. And maybe the names got changed somehow so the first part doesn't quite match, yet they are exactly the same image (ever found duplicate textures in a game?).
I figured, why not remap the images to the first match Per Pixel? Yeah, that is definitely a lengthy process if the image is 4K... I have gone about the iteration in two ways:
# Purely based on if the images are sorted alphabetally and follow the .xxx pattern
import bpy

lastimg = False
lastpix = []
curpix = []
imgcnt = 0

for img in bpy.data.images:
    curimg = img
    curpix = curimg.pixels
    thesame = True
    if len(curpix) > 0 and len(lastpix) > 0 and len(curpix) == len(lastpix):
        for i in range(len(curpix)):
            if i % (len(curpix) / 4096) < 1:
                print(imgcnt,"/",len(bpy.data.images),"-",curimg.name,"-",((i/len(curpix)*100)),"%")
            if curpix[i] != lastpix[i]:
                thesame = False
                break
    else:
        thesame = False
    if thesame == True:
        curimg.user_remap(lastimg)
    else:
        lastimg = curimg
        lastpix = lastimg.pixels
    imgcnt = imgcnt + 1

print("DONE!")

# Double the iteration, making sure there are no other named textures that look the same
import bpy

imgcnt = 0

for img1 in bpy.data.images:
    for img2 in bpy.data.images:
        if img1.users > 0 and img2.users > 0 and img1.name != img2.name
            pix1 = img1.pixels
            pix2 = img2.pixels
            thesame = True
            if len(pix1) > 0 and len(pix2) > 0 and len(pix1) == len(pix2):
                for i in range(len(pix1)):
                    if i % (len(pix1) / 4096) < 1:
                        print(imgcnt,"/",len(bpy.data.images),"-",img2.name,"-",((i/len(curpix)*100)),"%")
                    if pix1[i] != pix2[i]:
                        thesame = False
                        break
            else:
                thesame = False
            if thesame == True:
                img2.user_remap(img1)
    imgcnt = imgcnt + 1

print("DONE!")

I have also attempted to hashlib the array of pixels to see if it is any quicker, but I keep getting errors. I have also attempted to convert the array of pixels to a string, but that seems just as slow. Who knew python couldn't handle 67MB in one second? :P
Is there any quicker way you guys could suggest to compare two images? Thinking that further down the line I could do the same for the materials (compare the nodes and their values and reduce duplicates).

quicker to access a copy img.pixels[:]   https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/3673/why-is-accessing-image-data-so-slow , or consider loading into numpy

You do not need hashlib to generate unique hashes of the pixels the hash function is enough for this.
After hashing the images it is only a matter of grouping the images by hash.
import bpy
from pprint import pprint

def duplicates(images):
    hashes = [(hash(i.pixels[:]), i.name) for i in images]
    grouped = {}

    for h, n in hashes:
        grouped.setdefault(h, []).append(n)

    return grouped

pprint(duplicates(bpy.data.images))

The output will look something like this:
{
 -6513983583712379323: ['Image1', 'Image2'],
 -2557438906662028752: ['Image3', 'Image4'],
 5740354900026072187: ['Render Result'],
 -3721407912412733414: ['Viewer Node'],
}

Note: The hash() function can only create meaningful hashes from immutable data structures. As @batFINGER pointed out in the comments image.pixels[:] is alreay a tuple (immutable) so we are good in this case. If however you want to create a hash from a list you have to convert it to a tuple first. E.g. hash(tuple([1,2,3]))

AFAIK image.pixels[:] is already a  tuple.

@batFINGER you are right it's already a tuple. I assumed it's a list because slicing on a list e.g [1,2][:] returns a list

Well, this sure was faster. The only downside is the hashes = line. Would like to move the for loop around so that I print out each image name so I know things are happening (or show progress percentage). But that's a minor detail.

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


text:
Python Create Custom Armature without ops
how do you create an armature in Blender Python 2.7x without using bpy.ops? With meshes I would use something like
mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(name)
object = bpy.data.objects.new(name, mesh)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(object)
mesh.from_pydata(verts, [], faces)

I can do something similar with armatures however how do I make the actual bone body? In the outliner I can see the armature object but there is only an origin point in the scene. When using dir on the armature I don’t see an option along the lines of from_pydata.
pivot_bone = bpy.data.armatures.new('spam')
object = bpy.data.objects.new(name, pivot_bone)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(object)
print(dir(pivot_bone))

Ultimately I would like to use Python to create a custom bone shape.

Fairly sure that mesh data is the only one that offers from_pyData for others we need to manually position items as we create them, which we can do by reading the py data.
Armatures can get confusing, there are bones as well as edit bones that contain the basic armature structure and properties and then there are pose bones that stores constraints and animation data for all the action.
Different data paths are used to access different bone data -
obj = bpy.data.objects['Armature']
obj.data.edit_bones # adding, deleting, positioning bones
obj.data.bones # adjusting bone properties
obj.pose.bones # adding constraints, custom shapes...

An example of adding some bones and creating a custom mesh then setting it as the custom shape for one of the bones -
import bpy, bmesh

arm_obj = bpy.data.objects['Armature']
# must be in edit mode to add bones
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = arm_obj
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT', toggle=False)
edit_bones = arm_obj.data.edit_bones

b = edit_bones.new('bone1')
# a new bone will have zero length and not be kept
# move the head/tail to keep the bone
b.head = (1.0, 1.0, 0.0)
b.tail = (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)

b = edit_bones.new('bone2')
b.head = (1.0, 2.0, 0.0)
b.tail = (1.0, 2.0, 1.0)

# exit edit mode to save bones so they can be used in pose mode
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

# make the custom bone shape
bm = bmesh.new()
bmesh.ops.create_circle(bm, cap_ends=False, diameter=0.2, segments=8)
me = bpy.data.meshes.new("Mesh")
bm.to_mesh(me)
bm.free()
b2_shape = bpy.data.objects.new("bone2_shape", me)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(b2_shape)
b2_shape.layers = [False]*19+[True]

# use pose.bones for custom shape
arm_obj.pose.bones['bone2'].custom_shape = b2_shape
# use data.bones for show_wire
arm_obj.data.bones['bone2'].show_wire = True

If you try to add a custom shape to the same bone Blender returns error 'key "" not found', is there a way around this? I’m only making one bone, not multiple. 'bpy.data.objects['Armature'].pose.bones['Armature'].custom_shape = b2_shape'

Actually I think I'm just confusing myself now. I put up a script based off what you have shown on pastbin http://pastebin.com/Vs5cAq9S. It makes an armature, adds a bone, creates a mesh, then tries to apply the mesh as a custom bone shape which doesn’t work.

You need to exit armature edit mode before the non-edit bones can be seen to add the custom shape. You will also find that armature_object == armature_data

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


text:
How to use multiple HDRIs
My question is, how would I make the visible HDRI/Enviroment Map be image 1 and then have reflections as Image 2? If someone can post a node setup, or a .py file that would be great <3 I was thinking maybe using the Is Camera Ray node but I'm not confident it would work, and have no idea where to start.

When you are dealing with multiple environments, the best way is to set up separate Scenes and composite them together. The compositing setup is a simple Alpha Over node.
Scene Setup
Create your "Main Scene". Place your Objects, Camera, and create a World which uses an Environment texture of the HDRi Map you want to use for your reflections.
Node setup for a World that uses an Environment Map:

For this example I'm using freely available HDRi environments from The sIBL Archive.
In your Main Scene only, set Film to "Transparent". This is what will allow you to easily composite using Alpha Over.

Next create a new Scene with the same camera settings and render settings. When creating your new Scene, you can choose to Copy Settings and then it's just a matter of changing Camera, World, and some render settings.

It may help to stay organized by labeling your "Main Scene" which will receive reflections and your "Background Scene" which will have only its environment used.

Give your "Background Scene" a new World with the Environment Map you want to show up as the background.
Your Background Scene's sample count for rendering can be set rather low (about 20) because the rays from the environment won't bounce - they will go straight to the Camera. You can save yourself some render time and drop that down.

Camera and Render Settings
Optional: In your Background Scene you can have your Camera use the same settings as the Camera of your Main Scene. This way if you change the settings later they will still match. Just change the datablock to match that of the Camera of your Main Scene (its name is probably "Camera").

Optional: You can also drop a Copy Transforms Constraint on the Camera of your Background Scene so that if the Camera of your Main Scene is animated it will follow along.

Unfortunately, render settings are specific to each Scene, so they cannot be linked. You should verify that these match in both Scenes:

Resolution
Frame Range
Aspect Ratio
Frame Rate
Time Remapping

Compositing
In your Main Scene create this compositing node setup:

You can Duplicate the Render Layers Node to get a second one (ShiftD). In one of them change the Scene source to your "Background Scene".

Add an Alpha Over Node (ShiftA and search for it or go to Color > Alpha Over). Pay attention to which Scene is connected to which socket. The "Background Scene" output should be connected to the upper input of the Alpha Over Node, and the "Main Scene" output should be connected to the lower one.
That's it! Render and save your result.
Below is a link to an example .blend, however due to the large file size of environment maps I did not pack the textures. You can use your own or download some from The sIBL Archive.


text:
Simplify rounded Edges
I have complex meshes with rounded Edges. My goal is to reduce the number of verticles, edges an faces of the meshes while maintaining the "fine-looking" of the meshes (that's why I'm not using a modifier like decimate for example). Therefore I'm trying to simplify the rounded edges. So for example, I have this edge:

and I simplify it like on the following image.

For the moment, I'm doing this by selecting "a vertical line of edges" and collapsing them. My Question is: Is there a way that allows me to do it faster? A plugin maybe? I searched but did not find anything that answer my question. My way to simplify all the rounded edges is really, really slow.

Not sure how it will work for your, since you geometry seems to have been exported from some kind of solid modeling application and is quite messy but you could try cleaning up your mesh a little bit first.

Start by removing all duplicate geometry by selecting all and W Menu > Remove Doubles
Convert all triangles to quads with Alt + J
Select all edge loops belonging to the bevel (success of this step depends on how clean you geometry will become after previous steps)
Delete these loops with X > Edge loops

You may have trouble doing so on your mesh because of the triangulated gemoetry


text:
shortest_path_select() does not work
I have a List (verts_index_list) of 2 numbers that represents the index of 2 vertices. My goal is to collapse all vertices that are on the shortest path between those 2 Vertices. I looked in the blender api and saw that there is a function shortest_path_select() that should do what I want. So I wrote :
for v in verts_index_list:
    mesh.vertices[v].select = True
bpy.ops.mesh.shortest_path_select()
bpy.ops.mesh.edge_collapse()

but it does not work. The terminal prints the following warning :

Warning: Path selection requires two matching elements to be selected

I don't understand... I selected exactly 2 vertices ([v for v in mesh.vertices if v.select] gives me 2 Elements). So my question is: Do I have to update something before calling shortest_path_select?

It works when I uses a BMesh instead of a Mesh type. When I uses the select_set(True) from BMVerts, the shortest_path_select() works fine.


text:
Mesh created with connected vertices don't create correct mesh

I started with a simple plane mesh and then continued working with by creating new vertices by selecting the edges and then subdivide them. Then I connected two vertices with F button to create a new mesh and continued working like this, but it seems there are problems in model, because all visibile meshes are not real meshes and I can't select them! The normals show those who are correct.
I searched for info about this and found that a manifold thing could be the problem, but I'm not sure how to make this model correct again?
To create meshes with new vertices on edges and also create them with CTRL button and a mouse click and then connect them with another edge or vertex, is this not a recomended way of working or how can I avoid getting this problem in the future?
Preciate some help to be able to continue with my model.

Yes; I would highly advise against modeling in this way. It would be much better to use extrude operations (E key) to create your mesh.
If you wish to continue with your current mesh, two ways I would recommend trying to fix it is by first removing any doubles (Spacebar > Search "Remove Doubles"), and then recalculating the normals in the 3D View Tools menu:

If you can attach a Blend file, I could take a look at your mesh and see what else may be able to be fixed, but I would honestly recommend starting from scratch on this one and modeling with better practices.
EDIT:
Here is an example of how you might start building a mesh with extrusion and loop tools, although for a car, I would highly recommend using Background Images of your car and start working your way around that. Here is an excellent resource to get you started in that workflow: http://darkscarab.com/view/43

I have tried to remove doubles, but it's not removing any and recalculate normals don't work, so I guess I have to start over with a new model. I have used E to extrude some of the edges in the model, but is this also bad to select edges and subdivide them to create new vertices and then connect them with F? This seems to be a nice option when you create a body of a car and things like that? Is it better to use K for the knife and create new edges then? Thanks for your answer!

Or the CTRL + R tool to create new edges/meshes?

@3D-kreativ I would not subdivide edges when creating a car, you don't want N-Gons in a smooth, organic mesh like a car body. Try to use loops (Ctrl + R) when you need new edges, and try to avoid the knife tool if possible. If it perfectly acceptable to use F to join and make faces, but only if you are creating quads.

@3D-kreativ I've update my original post with more information regarding modeling techniques, and a link to a tutorial on modeling a car.

After you extrude a vertex, what is your next step to create a mesh?

@3D-kreativ I would avoid extruding individual vertices whenever possible, but if you must you should create a face between that vertex and 3 other points to form a quad (as seen in my GIF above).


text:
Hdri sky background too close?
I'm using an image for the background, but I only see a blue sky and not the clouds in the bottom of the image near the horizon. It feels like the background image is too close? And in the world tab the preview is just blue. Should I not see the clouds also?
If I create a scen that are 10x10 meter or 100x100 meter or 1000x1000 meter in size, how does Blender set the correct scale or distance between the scene and the background?
I can rotate the background, but can't find any clouds. And I have tested different settings in the Environment Texture node, but all I can see is blue background or very close to the sun. I get this problem often with this type of images, and I don't know what I am doing wrong? Have I missed some kind of settings?
Other types of hdri images, that look spherical, I have no problem with. But this image looks more ordinary. Preciate some help!

To preview the hdri in the viewport enable World Background in the Display rollout on the Properties shelf, in order to check where are those clouds actually.

Look at this anatomy of an HDRI image:

This is how things will be mapped. So your clouds are mapped below horizon.
The texture's aspect ratio should be 2:1. Anything else and things will be placed in wrong places unless you correct with mapping vectors (correcting epirectangular mapping could be tricky).
Looks like what you have is just the top hemisphere, but you are mapping it onto both hemispheres. The easiest fix is to edit the image itself and add the bottom by extending the canvas with black.

OK, but is there no way to use this kind of image as a background and also see the clouds? Why are there so many images likes this, if they are not usefull?

@3D-kreativ There is a way correcting with mapping math, but that is not that easy. The easiest method is adding the missing bottom part (with black). These cropped images are maybe useful in photoshop in matte painting, but not as hdri.


text:
Possible or impossible to import 3D-models with correct UV-mapping and texture into Blender?
After a lot of searching and testing it seems like it's impossible to import an 3D-object with it's UV-mapping and texture from another 3D-software into Blender. Is this really true or is there a way to fix this?
I have a potential customer that is not working with Blender. I guess they are using 3ds Max and a cooperation is only possible if I can use there 3D-models and textures in Blender.
I have tested to import .3ds and .obj files into Blender, but there are no textures visible and the scale is not correct or the 3D-models is broken or just a big mess.
I need to clarify if it is impossible to use 3D-models with correct UV-mapping and textures into Blender? If it's impossible, I must unfortunately consider using 3ds Max again instead of Blender and that's something I want to avoid!

I'm not sure about .3ds files, but .obj's only include mesh data. You'll need the textures in external images.

In fact it IS possible but not every model and its a BETA for now. Try to look at this... https://blog.sketchfab.com/import-sketchfab-models-directly-into-blender-beta/ ...cause with this (and the SketchFab account active) You are able to import SF models with textures - tested and MOSTLY working for me!

It is most definitely possible. If the models are modeled well and exported correctly to one of the huge number of formats that Blender supports you should have no problems. .obj, .fbx and .3ds as well as .dea files are among the most popular formats used. They all support geometry and UV Maps well.
The problem with materials is that they differ too much in different software using different render engines (see this answer for more detailed explanation: .fbx export why there are no materials or textures?) so you will need to recreate them and assign the image textures during this process. This is true for any software, not just exporting from 3ds Max to Blender. You would have similar problems exporting from 3ds Max to Maya or Cinema 4D or Houdini or any other software that you would use a different rendering engine in.
Regarding the models being a big mess, from my experience I can say that this very common situation very often has nothing to do with the software you are trying to import the models to. They could just be exported with settings not suitable for your purposes, but it is also very common for models that originate in solid modelling or other CAD software to have a very untidy and messy geometry making it a nightmare to work with them. This issue cannot be solved by switching to 3ds Max or any other 3d package unfortunately. My recommendation would be to check carefully if this is not the case before investing your money, effort and time into switching to another 3d package.

Thanks for your answer! If I read yor answer correct, it will work, but I have to create new materials and connect each material with a image texture and then apply it to the surface again? Do I also need to UV-mapping the surface again? But how do I know the right scale of the texture? When I apply a image texture in Blender, I can scale the image texture. And finally, which is best for importing objects? .3ds, .obj or .fbx?

It all depends on the objects that are exported from other software. Assuming they are well made, you should not need to adjust the size of the textures or recreate UVs. Unfortunately, that is a guess and it may not be so in reality. I would go for OBJ because it is very simple and very popular so most software supports it very well and there is very little that can go wrong. Since we are only talking about geometry and UV maps, OBJ is perfectly adequate. OBJ definitely supports UV maps so if there are any problems you can be sure they are because of the way the models were exported/made.

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


text:
Material emitting one way for interior scene?
I'm doing an interior scene seen from the outside through a big wall of glass. It's just after sunset, so there is still some light from the HDRI image. I want the light to flow to the outside.
I don't know how many solutions that I have tested with emitting materials. If I use a plane that are located close to the celing I get too much light upwards and to solve that I use another plane between the emitting material and the celing to stop the light. Both planes are invisible for the camera and casting no shadow, but still I get a dark och almost black celing. I guess it's because I stop the light from reaching the cealing. If I lower the emitting plane, I get shadows from the side of the plane. Nothing looks nice! :(
I have made some spotlights in the celing and given them some emitting light, but not to much, because if there are too much light, they look unreal. I have six spotlights and if I increase the value to light to interior, I get a lot of strange noise on the walls.
I have also used spheres and I have to use a plane above the sphere also to stop the light.
Any other solutions or tricks to light up an interior scene? Help is preciated? Most tutorials about interior lightning is about daylight.

It would be easier to see the problem if you add a picture of your scene

If I got your question right you can achieve it using a Backfacing output of a Geometry node.

Set the nodes as pictured below. Use Backfacing as a factor for mixing between Emission and Transparent nodes.

To make each side emit different light values and colors set the nodes in similar way.

Thanks for the help! With this nodes the result was much better, but I don't see any difference when I change the value in the mix node and I still get a thin shadow from the side of the plane if it's close to the wall. Any options to hide this shadow?

Nice to hear I helped :). To hide the shadow please see this answer: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/68278/emission-plane-is-casting-a-shadows-in-cycles


text:
Blender Displace Modifier not importing into Unity
I created an animation using the Displace Modifier. There is a keyframe for the strength.
This animation does not show up when I import it into Unity (as a .fbx and as a .blend). Does Unity not support this kind of animation?
Thanks!

you can export using shape keys for animation. better look at this tutorial
https://youtu.be/wvjwTnS6vhA

Yup, you won't be able to export that. There's no support for vertex animation/morph targets in Unity. You can only import bone-based animated objects.


text:
Generate a f-curve from another one
How can I generate a f-curve from the upper and lower points of another f-curve?
(check out the image as example, I want to generate the green f-curve from the red f-curve)

Thank you :)

Can you provide some sample data for the red curve? Is it a baked sound? I already used such points in Python for a cross-correlation, this might get you started. The rest should be some signal processing. A hint might be findpeaks.


text:
Help with texture mode in viewport
I can't see the textures I assigned to my material on my object in the 3d view port in texture mode. However I can see them in render mode. Why can't I see them in texture mode so I might be able to edit them better without the lag of trying to do it in render mode? I also think this is the same reason why I can't bake the textures that I've applied to the materials on the object to a separate texture for exporting and importing purposes. I've searched all over the internet and it's a common problem, however none of the solutions have worked for me. I've tried switching between cycles and blender render. In the shading options I've tried both multitexture and GLSL shading with all the different options. I've tried opening the image to the UV editor and manipulating the unwrapped projections to see if they show in texture mode. All of these thing's I've saw in render mode but I can't in texture mode. Also, it's not how I unwrap object either because I've done this with just a simple cube (easy unwrap). I've even gone as far as thinking there was a bug in the program, uninstalled in and reinstalled it and I still can't see textures in texture mode. I'm asking please, If anyone has some insight that may help me, please let me know. I've added a picture to help illustrate my problem. Thank you.

Did you try also opening the texture in the uv-image-editor?

I did, the image will show in the uv editor with the unwrapped pieces, however the texture will not show in the view port in texture mode, it will only show in render mode.

http://www.pasteall.org/blend/41252  here is the cube, packed blend file with texture

I have downloaded your File. For me the textured mode works fine.

That's weird it's not working for me. Thanks anyway, really appreciate your help.

Yes schustudrai said it you must link your image with the button here:

I've done this and it's still not showing in view port. http://www.pasteall.org/blend/41252 is the packed blend file with the texture.

I opened your file and your cube was shaded with the texture in 'texture mode', I didn't have to do anything for it to work, but your image was still not linked I gues you did'nt go into edit mode and select all faces before selecting the picture in the drop-down menu.

Yea, I've done that as well. It's weird it's not working for me, idk what else to try. Thanks for your help anyway!

I've had odd issues like this when I was using Blender to make a 3D presentation - except that all textures were working in Blender Render, and in Blender Game, some textures just didn't work - and what was displayed in the editor was an entirely different story. I spent hours trying to figure it out, even compared every last detail of two objects where only one of them was working, only to find no difference. I ended up just creating a new blender file and copy-pasting everything into there, and it somehow suddenly worked.


text:
How to get outer part of the mesh?
I have a mesh which has a clear outer structure but is pretty complicated "inside":

How can I separate ONLY the outside part? Is there any better way than selecting the vertices manually in edit mode?

I guess not, but you could try to see the mesh in edit mode (solid, with "limit selection to visible" enabled) from front view, and there "select"  all the visible vertices. Then repeat from "back", "top", "bottom", "left" and "right" views. Then "hide" all selected vertices. You could just be left with "invisible from outside" vertices... that you can then use (delete would be complicated)... result could depend from the model inside structure, but it could also be simpler than doing all by hand... :D

Are they two separate chunks of mesh? It looks like they are from the images.
If so select only one vertex from the outer shell, press Ctrl+L to Select All Linked and it should select all the outer part.
Alternatively in Edit Mode select all faces, press P > Loose parts and it should break your object apart by all separate chunks.
If they are not separate chunks then I'm afraid you don't really have a chioce other than manually selecting everything.
Under Edit Mode you can enable the option Limit selection to Visible in the 3DView header button, and use regular selection methods to select only the visible parts of the mesh. With some luck the 'inner' parts are occluded and wont be selected.


text:
Add Image to Blender's VSE fails to display alpha channel transparency
In Blender's VSE (Video Sequence Editor), on trying to overlay a background video or image sequence with multiple foreground images (each containing transparency, or alpha channel, information), transparency is intermittently lost. Some images are shown with a black background, others retain their transparency.
Possible reasons?
NOTE: This question has been posted so that I can provide an answer derived from my own tests. As the question relates specifically to VSE, it has nothing to do with answers addressing 'Import Image as Plane', those referencing use of the RGBA output setting (which no longer appears to exist), nor those relating to alpha over / alpha under settings - which under these conditions have no effect.

Blender won't handle an alpha channel in a codec. Alpha in a codec is largely a nonstandard practice.

This answer applies to Blender's Video Sequence Editor (VSE) on Mac (in my case Yosemite).
I have found that batch pre-compressing images using ImageOptim on Mac appears to intermittently compromise any contained alpha channel (transparency) information.
This effect is not so great that it is revealed in Mac's Preview or many other graphics utilities (confusing!), but certainly has effect in Blender.
So, if removing an image background, simply avoid any use of ImageOptim prior to adding the image into Blender's VSE.

When you pause on a frame that seems broken, what happens when you press the Refresh Sequencer button in the VSE timeline? Does it restore the alpha?


text:
make array of objects follow path via curves modifier
Im trying to follow the blender guru tunnel tutorial.
I have have a tunnel using 4 objects and added array modifiter to then to make the tunnel effect.

I add a path object and add the curve modidifer to the "arch" object, but as soon as i do that the arch object gets rotated.. i have tried all 6 angles and none of them gives the result i want as in the tutorial.
Here is the result after adding the curves modifier

Try Ctrl + A > Rotation.

See if answers here help http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/64579/why-does-adding-a-curve-modifier-move-my-object-to-the-center-of-the-curve/64581#64581

you where right, i had not appliced my scaling and rotation of the objects... still learning.. thx alot :-)

The answer was to apply my scaling and rotation of my objects.. still learning.. thx alot for helping out


text:
ImportError when loading Open3D module into Blender python console
I have installed the Open3D module using pip into the interpreter of Blender 2.79b, which uses Python 3.5.3. If I open the Python interpreter from the system console everything works fine without any error message after importing the module.
However, if I open the embedded console of Blender and import Open3D I get the following error:
>>> import open3d
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/opt/blender-2.79b-linux-glibc219-x86_64/2.79/python/lib/python3.5/site-packages/open3d/__init__.py", line 35, in <module>
    from .open3d import * # py2 py3 compatible
ImportError: std::bad_cast

Furthermore, if I include something different before Open3D (eg, numpy) the error changes into this:
>>> import numpy
>>> import open3d
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/opt/blender-2.79b-linux-glibc219-x86_64/2.79/python/lib/python3.5/site-packages/open3d/__init__.py", line 35, in <module>
    from .open3d import * # py2 py3 compatible
ImportError: generic_type: cannot initialize type "VerbosityLevel": an object with that name is already defined

So far, I've tried Blender 2.79a, 2.79b and 2.80 with different versions of Open3D and numpy, but I'm not able to find a solution. Trying the newer Blender 2.80 (Python 3.7.0) the error changes again into:
>>> import open3d
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/opt/blender-2.80-linux-glibc217-x86_64/2.80/python/lib/python3.7/site-packages/open3d/__init__.py", line 28, in <module>
    from .open3d import * # py2 py3 compatible
ImportError: Invalid character class.

What could it be?
Thanks.
Environment
OS: Ubuntu 18.04, Python version: 3.5.3 / 3.7.0, Open3D version: 0.8.0.0
Blender 2.79b is installed in /opt/blender-2.79b-linux-glibc219-x86_64.
In order to install the package I ran the following commands:
cd /opt/blender-2.79b-linux-glibc219-x86_64
./2.79/python/bin/python3.5m 2.79/python/lib/python3.5/ensurepip
./2.79/python/bin/pip3.5 install open3d

Same commands for the 2.80 version.

After several attempts, I found a solution. In order to fix the ImportError, install Open3D v0.4.0.0:
pip3 install open3d-python==0.4.0.0

Note that the package name has changed: use open3d-python instead of open3d. Probably, the latest versions of Open3D have some bugs (see also this Open3D issue).


text:
Baking PBR Metalness maps 2.8
It seems that blender still does not support Metalness baking in 2.8. This is essential to asset designers, will there be support for full PBR map baking anytime soon? and are there any Free programs or add ons that will allow me to bake out a full set of PBR textures specifically the Metalness map for a mesh?

So the issue here seems to be: there is no feature in Blender that would contain all the buzzwords like "PBR metallic map baking". Is it really needed? Sounds a bit pointless. If you have a material while using 'the PBR workflow it means that you must have already defined it's properties and used some textures and among them probably the 'metalness'. So in order to bake it, you just connect whatever you connect to Metallic input of PBR shader to an emission shader instead and bake it as emission - and that's all. Where is the problem?..

UPDATED
Partially true, it is somehow not very straight forward or obvious, but here is a work around:

remove - disable all of your lights from your scene (as you do for the rest of your bakes if you dont want to affect the baked textures)
Bake Glossy (only Direct Enabled)

As has been mentioned in the comments it seems that there is no color bleeding on the faces, but instead if any face is occluded will be affected by shadows (which is not wanted of course) as it happens on my example (see bellow)

So far I didnt find a proper way to get rid of it, in fact what I had to do was to remove the plane in order to get the appropriate result, which is a bad thing.

Nevertheless, this should do the job for now ;)

Doesn't that produce color in the map? as far as I have seen so far Metalness maps are always grayscale.

It does not if you have enabled only Direct (disable the other two "Indirect" and "Color" on the influence), although it is not the best options since I noticed that it takes in account the shadows when a face is occluded.

Just in case some else finds this like me.  The best method is to plug your metallic input into roughness and then just generate it as roughness but save it into a metallic texture.  Then reconnect back to where it should be.  Simple and effective without any shading (and roughness generates much faster than diffuse).


text:
Extruding Faces, uv messes up
So I have a uv,unwrapped cube, but when I use the extrude tool to make part of it stick out, the sides of the extruded segment have different uv wrapping, which causes issues:

It looks like that because those sides are exactly between a red and transparent pixel. Is there any way to fix this? I need to extrude about 120 of these faces.

There are no doubles there, actually. What's happening is the side faces of the extrusion have a uv map where it is directly between a red and transparent pixel. I want to extrude so that the side faces don't have a different uv map placement than the face im extruding from (if that makes sense).

If you are extruding along an orthagonal direction, you can press e to start extruding and then press g g (g twice) to continue extruding the edge while automatically updating the UV coordinates for the extruded face(s).


text:
Subdivision nothing like original
I have a lego batman model taken from LDraw. It is really low-poly and messy, and when I use subsurf, it manages to look even worse. Is there anything I can do about this?
Before:

After:

And here's a bit of wireframe:

Subsurf will not work correctly with triangle faces (tris). You can try to dissolve some diagonal edges to get quad topology or just retopologize manually this mesh.

It's not necessary. Question will be probably marked as duplicate. If you provide this mesh maybe I will be able to find some quick method to make it quad as topology is quite simple.

As LukeD said, a mesh can not be triangulated if you want to use subsurf properly. I found you can press Alt+J in edit mode to make the mesh quads and n-gons.

Ngons will not work with subsurf as well :)


text:
Make Boolean not affected by subsurf modifier
I have an object (1) with a part of it created using another object (2) and the Boolean modifier. Is there any way to make 1's subsurf modifier not effect the part of the mesh created by 2? In my case I have a mouth seperate from the head, and a boolean modifier so I dont have to modify it with shape keys. But the head seems to make the mouth smooth, even though I have creases on the mouth. I cannot remove the subsurf, the eyelids need it to be smooth, and are part of the head mesh.


text:
Import multiple non OBJ models?
I'm having a problem trying to import multiple models from a format that uses a custom plugin. I press a to select them all, but only the first is imported. I have well over a thousand models, how would I go about doing this? I tried the solution here: How to batch import Wavefront OBJ files?, but it only works for OBJs. How would I do this for .rip files?
The plugin I am using is located here:
https://github.com/Dummiesman/RipImport

I don't know enough about scripting, but my blind guess is you would replace bpy.ops.import_scene.obj with watever operator i used for importing rip files, possibly bpy.ops.import_scene.rip (?)

You can do this by calling bpy.ops.import_scene.rip() as shown below:
import os
import bpy

path_to_rip_dir = os.path.join('C:\\', 'rips') #where C:\\rips\\ has the list of rip files

file_list = sorted(os.listdir(path_to_rip_dir))

rip_list = [item for item in file_list if item.endswith('.rip')]

for item in rip_list:
    path_to_file = os.path.join(path_to_rip_dir, item)
    bpy.ops.import_scene.rip(filepath = path_to_file)

You will need to install the addon first as mentioned in the readme file of the addon:

Blender 32 Bit:
   On 32 bit Blender installations, extract the downloaded ZIP file to
   C:\Program Files (x86)\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.77\scripts\addon
Blender 64 Bit:
      On 64 bit Blender installations, extract the downloaded ZIP file to
      C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.77\scripts\addons
After you extract the Add-on, it will NOT show up in your
import/export list by default!
After extracting the Add-on, start Blender. Once Blender is
started, open up File->User Preferences, and navigate over to the
Add-ons tab. Find the add-on or search "NinjaRipper", and enable it.
Click "Save User Preferences" on the bottom of the dialog, and close
the dialog.
Now you will be able to use the Add-on.

What do the different keywords mean? I can't seem to get this to run...

@ZacPerry just remove the **keywords from the last line, try import_rip.load(self, context) instead

Still does not function, gives me 'NameError: name 'import_rip' is not defined'. Maybe you could try basing your script off the one in the addon? Its on the github page in the original post.

@ZacPerry did you install the add-on? it works fine with me

The original addon? Yes. The script you pasted in, no. I used it in the text editor. Maybe try using an actual model:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0JlgUd0NeDVdmtOTGhFRGtDUXc/view?usp=sharing

@ZacPerry what happens when you press the space bar and type "ninja" anything comes up?

Yes. The import function shows up. Does using a real model wrok for you? Here is one to test if you have none. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0JlgUd0NeDVdmtOTGhFRGtDUXc/view?usp=sharing/

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

@ZacPerry Answer updated, but looks like the add-on is not working because even if you tried importing it manually using the spacebar Import NinjaRipper it doesn't work and throws many errors.

I seem to be able to import the models fine manually. How odd. Thanks anyway.

@ZacPerry have you tried the new script? I updated my answer

Welp, it hasn't thrown me any errors, and blender froze, so its safe to say that it is working, thanks!


text:
Set one new origin for a group
I have a group of objects and I need to set a new origin to the corner of the group. Is this possible?
I have tried to set the cursor in edit mode to one of the objects in the group and then in object mode move the origin to that cursor and then shift G Group to select all the other objects in the group.
I want to move the group to a new location in the scene. I set the cursor at the new loacation and then I select Selection to cursor, but then all the objects own origins in the group move to that point. I just want one origin for the group and be able to set the location of the origin where I want.


text:
How to rotate objects in array along path
When I apply the array modifier to the object, it follows the path "standing" up, I want the object to follow the curve "laying" down. The object is created in a "lying" down position. I have tried to rotate and change, but it's not working as I want. Is there a setting for this I have missed or how could this be done?

What happens if you rotate the object into the correct position? Also have you tried changing the follow axis in the Curve modifier?

An array modifier duplicates the object multiple times, the curve modifier can then control the direction of the duplications. The curve modifier uses the chosen axis of the object when it does the deform, the offset dimensions of the array modifier need to match the axis that the curve modifier is using.

Each point in a curve has a tilt property. You can use this to align the objects second axis to point the direction you want. You can use CtrlT to interactively alter the tilt in the viewport.


text:
Rendered image over background image looks over-exposed
I want to render a 3D model on a background image and I also use shadow catcher on a ground plane. It all looks perfect when I do a simple render in the viewport (Shift + Z), but when I do a real render with the node setup as in the image below, the background image seems to be over exposed with to much light!
Is it the light from HDRI-image that affect the background? If so, is there a way to prevent the light from affecting the background image? Or are there other better options to handle this?

Your image node is cannot be affected by what you put in place in your scene, unless you adjust it yourself by setting up brightness node


text:
Robot arm move a box
I'm doing a simple robot arm that turns the arms around and do different movements. But I can't figure out how I should do if the robot should pick up something like a small box?
Should the box be connected in some way to the armature to be able to follow the  movements of the arms? Perhaps I want the robot to pick up the box after some time and not from the beginning, how do I connect it then or what is the best approach?

Is it a simple clamping-action where you want the box/clamp to have friction between them when clamped?

@bertmoog It's the thing after, when the robots claw has the boxin it's grip, I want to know how to do? I want the robot arm move the box from one side to another and put i down. I just wonder how the box should be able to follow and stay within the claw and follow the robot arm movements/animation? I preciate if you could explain that for me?

You could always parent the box to the arm if you're just going purely for animation, or you could possibly use rigid body physics and friction to accomplish this.

@bertmoog Thanks for your answer! But if I parent the box to the arm, then the box will be follow along all the time? I want to "pick" it up after some time? Is this still possible?

Yes, that's true.  Another way of doing the same thing is to use the "Copy Transforms" Constraint on the box and select the clamp as your Object.  You can animate the "Influence" with keyframes.

OK, I have to test and search for more info. Perhaps not that easy!

I would use the childof constraint.

To do an animation of this (without using Rigid Body physics) you would simply need to constrain the Box (object being acted upon) to the Clamp of the Robot.
The problem happens when you sit it back down.  You must somehow apply the new transformation but as far as I know, you can't animate Apply (I haven't found a way).
The solution is somewhat fiddly and inelegant and there may be a better way (apart from rigid body), but it works.

1.) Add a Copy Transform Constraint to the Box and select the Clamp as the Object of influence.

2.) For this demo, I set the Clamp's Origin to the location of where I want the Box to be when "clamped".  This is basic so I won't go into detail.  (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + C)
3.) I animated the Clamp to descend onto the box to that point (Shift+S
4.) (gif anim frame 49) At this same frame, keyframe the Constraint Influence to be 0.00 by pressing I.  You could also keyframe the "Eyeball" instead (enable/disable constraint).
5.) (gif anim frame 50) On the very next frame, keyframe an Influence of 1.00.
6.) (gif anim frame 202) Animate the Clamp however you want and sit the box back down, keyframe the Influence to 1.00 on this frame.  Also, with the box selected, press I and select LocRot.
7.) (gif anim frame 203) On the very next frame, select the box, then Shift Select the Clamp.  Right-Click on both the Rotation and Location Transform menus and choose "Copy All to Selected".  Select the box only in 3D View and press I and select LocRot.  Keyframe the Influence back to 0.00.

This sounds more complicated than it is, I just wanted to get everything in here in case you weren't clear on something.

Thanks for the interesting answer! I will try it and return.

Because parenting cannot be keyframed in Blender 2.77a, a simple method of transposition is employed instead.  We swap the parented object for one that's not.  This gives us complete freedom to animate the stand-in object as we wish when it's not in the claw's grasp.
Senario -
A robotic claw descends and grips a cube, lifts it to another position where it places it back on the floor again.

Method:
Animate the claw as required.
Create the object to be lifted, in this case a cube, in the jaws of the claw and whilst the claw is in it's  'at-rest' location.  Move it temporarily to layer 2 and do any texturing or material setting required.  Do this now!  When textured, move it back to layer 1.
Parent the cube to the claw and check it follows the claw's animation.
Slide the timeline cursor to the frame where the claw and cube are first lowered to the floor.  Get to the exact frame where the claw stops descending.
Make a duplicate of the cube and move that to layer 2.
Unparent the duplicate from the claw (ALT-P) and also goto the duplicate's Outliner strip to clear any animation or links to the claw or original cube. (right click on these and unlink, clear, etc)
You don't want to remove the material link though.  Both cubes are to appear identically textured etc.
At frame 1 the duplicate cube should be sitting exactly where the claw is to pick it up, but sitting in layer 2.
Slide the timeline cursor back to frame 1.
-=========-
Now we set keyframes for each cube's visibility -  i.e. the switch over.
At frame 1 switch off the original cube's 'eye' in the outliner panel and with the cursor still in that box, press  i to insert a keyframe.  It should turn yellow.
Goto layer 2 and do the opposite with the duplicate's eye.  Make sure it's on and press i to make it also turn yellow.
Move the timeline cursor to the last frame where the claw first descends to pick it up.  This is where we do the switch.
Go to the original cube's 'eye' in the outliner strip and switch it back on, press i whilst hovering over the eye.  Got to layer 2 and do the opposite with the duplicate.  Switch it off and press i.
Run the animation with both layers active. (press 1, then SH-2, make sure both have turned dark in the layer indicator at bottom of window)
The claw should be seen holding nothing, descend to pick up a cube, and lift it to another location.  It is in fact holding the original.
We do the opposite cube switch at the destination location, and at the very frame where the claw stops descending.   Also goto transparency mode (press Z to make things easier) and move the duplicate to exactly match the original cube's position.   (use Ortho view and position your viewpoint with the numpad's 7, 1, & 3 keys. Zoom in for accurate results)
Don't forget to keyframe the move with i key and in the dope sheet, set the frame -= prior =- to the move as a switch - Highlite it, press T and select "Constant".  That'll make the move instantaneous.
When the claw rises again, it will appear to be leaving the cube sitting on the floor when in fact it still has the original in it's grip.  It's the duplicate we are looking at.
To avoid light and shading differences between the two cubes, move the duplicate back to layer 1 and set the lights in all used layers to "This layer only".
-=====-
Should e.g. the cube need to be 'dropped' mid journey, simply do the switch with the Outliner 'eyes' there.  Animate the now visible duplicate as required.  The claw will appear to have lost it's grip and allowed the cube to fall.
The gif here shows a cube parented to an empty, and the original cube switched for a duplicate cube at the release frame.  The duplicate isn't parented to the empty and therefore free to do it's own thing.

Thanks for the interesting answer! I will try it and return.


text:
Value for Z-axis affect the Y-axis
When I create a simple cube the objects blue Z-axis is ponting up, but when I'm still in object mode and want the change the dimension in the N menu, it's not working like when I create a new file.
I want to change the hight and enter a new value for the Z, but it affect the Y axis! I compared with a new file and there it was all OK, but not in my current scene. It worked well from start. I think I have activated some settings without knowing and I'm a bit lost and not nowing how to reset this setting or what it could be?

It sounds like you have rotated the cube at some point and you either have scaling set to local, or you just need to Ctrl-A the object and apply the rotation.

@bertmoog Thanks for your comment! Every new cube I create act the same way, but it works when I use CTRl + D and select rotation. But I can't do that for every new object. There must be some other settings?

Can you post a few pictures?  You're saying that the arrows are oriented the correct way, but when you scale it, it doesn't scale in the direction of the arrow?  Did you mean Ctrl-A?

@bertmoog I'm not scaling, I just change the Z value below the Dimension options in the Transform menu. A new cube has a Z value of 2 meters and I change it to 1 meter, but it affects the Y axis instead!

Yes I mean CTRL-A.

Are you going to "Add->Mesh->Cube"?  If so, on the left hand side of the screen, it has a tool-bar with the title "Add Cube".  What is the rotation set to?  It should be x=0, y=0,z=0.  Press "T" if it's not there

@bertmoog It's 0,0,0

Is that the method you're using to create the cube?  In other words, you're not using Shift+D to duplicate the same cube, right?  If so, the new cube will carry the same rotation.

I crete a new cube with SHIFT + A then Mesh and Cube. But it seem to be working now! I don't know how many cubes I have created and none of them worked, but when I changed the Align to World instead of Align to view in the User Preferences, it works! This is strange! How could that affect the axis if I create a cube in front ortho or User Perspective?

Good deal... in View mode, it's always X & Y,  no matter the view, because you're looking through a 2-D screen

Yes, but if I create the cube in user perspective it's 3D and Z value affects Y value, is that really correct?

You're very welcome, I just added some pictures to maybe clarify

In Align to: View mode, the cube is created as the user has the view oriented:

Whereas in World mode, the cube is created aligned with the world axes (irrespective of the user's view):

Also, make sure your transform orientation is set to Global is you want to transform your object based on world axes:

Aligning added primitive to view is also possible via Last Operator panel once object is added, see https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/editors/3dview/object/types.html#common-options


text:
Select object menu
I'm using Blender 2.78c and I read about some useful tips, like the Select object menu with the shortcut ALT + right mouse button. This is very useful when there are a lot of objects in the scene, but since I have changed to left mouse button to select objects, I wonder if there are any alternative to use the Select object menu ?
( I also tested to change back to right mouse button for selection in the user preferences, but I can't get any Select object menu that way either )

The select object menu works with left select enabled, but it is ⎇ Alt LMB. It doesn't specifically use the  RMB, it is set to use the select mouse button which changes to match the left/right "Select With" option.
As you are adjusting the input preferences and finding it not working, I expect you are seeing the finicky way that input works. If the preferences window is active and you press ⎇ Alt and then click in the 3d view which is another window behind the preferences, it won't work. You need to activate the window with the 3dview, then press ⎇ Alt and then click to get the menu. It is the active window that gets the keydown event, as you then activate the background window while the key is down it doesn't get a new keydown event to know that it is being held.

Thanks for your answer, but it doesn't work! If I click on the background in the 3D-view it's active. Then I press ALT-key and left mouse botton, but no menu appears! Any other ideas what could be wrong?

It doesn't just "show" anywhere, you need to have multiple items overlapping under the cursor in the 3dview where you alt-click. If there is only one object to select there is no choice to offer.

OK! I got it! It's working now when I press ALT-key and click on left mouse button on the overlapping objects. I didn't know that I had to click on the objects, I thought it was enough to just click somewhere beside the objects. Thansk for the help!


text:
Export model transformation matrix
I need to know if there is a add-on or a built in function that could export (all)  objects model transformation matrix (the matrix that contains the models scaling, rotation and translation information)in one code.
Thanks!

This question is overly broad. As it is now, a simple save to a blend file already answers your question, as this contains all object transformation matrices. However, that's probably not the answer you're after. At least specify in what way you'd like the matrices to be exported.

Object.matrix_world

From my quick and superficial testing both 3Ds and Obj seem to apply transformations and discard that information. DXF discards it too.
Collada DAE however keeps transformation matrices non applied, and even keeps instancing information. That is if one object were linked to the other using the same object data that relationship is maintained.
FBX also maintains both transformation matrices and instance relationships

Sorry I am no coder, my programing skills are very limited, I wouldn't be able to help if I wanted to. See if this helps http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/39677/how-do-you-get-an-objects-position-and-rotation-through-script


text:
Brick texture does not look realistic
So, I am playing around with a brick texture with normal map, gloss and displacement. I have also added a HDR for lightning.
However, no matter how I tweak the brick material I don't get the feeling that the bricks looks realistic. I don't know what is missing, but something feels off. Any idea what I am "missing"?
Thanks for any tips and guidance!

I agree with @Robert, below, to tweak the texture under familiar neutral-daytime lighting conditions. But a lot of what's throwing this image is the lighting in your scene. For example, each brick casts a shadow upwards from a non-existent light-source..?

There are multiple thing that contribute to it looking unrealistic.

The lighting is very harsh. It seems like the light is coming from below, which results in the shadows being cast in an upward direction.
The bricks seem extraordinarily large if the camera is supposed to be at eye height.
The walls are extreme in both length and height, which doesn't positively contribute to realism either.

I'd suggest to develop the look of your brick material in a daytime lighting on a small plane. That way you know the material looks right, independent of scale, placement and lighting in the final scene. If the results looks good to you, apply it to your nighttime scene.


text:
Is it possible to weight paint across multiple meshes at once?
I have a project in which I need to be able to move facial structures in about 8 different head meshes. The faces are a bit low poly which makes them difficult to work with well, but with a lot of trial and error I can make them look alright.
Doing 8 of the exact same thing on items that aren't that different is frustrating though. I have tried transferring the weights from the completed mesh to the new one, but it doesn't work very well, and fixing it is sometimes more work than just starting from scratch. I would like to have all 8 or so heads in the same 3D space, and just paint them all at once if possible, or at least multiples at once if possible. Then I can go in and fine tune.
I should also mention that the biggest problem with these meshes is that there are a lot of duplicate vertexes, which cannot be cleanly removed with the "delete duplicate vertexes" option. Doing so tends to completely break the normals, UV map, or both.

Duplicate vertices may give you unwanted results. You will probably have to clean up most of the duplicates and UVs, recalculating normals should not be difficult.
Paint over multiple head would work out the same as transfering the weights, isn't it? What would be the difference? Why is this supposed to work better.
Other than merging the objects, there is no way to weight paint multiple faces at once.

The meshes of the heads are different enough that transferring didn't work well. Cleaning up the UVs is tedious since it fragments and every individual face goes somewhere incorrect.

@ohgodzilla could you share your .blend file so we can help you?


text:
Properties Tab only showing World Tab
My properties tab on the right is only showing the World tab and nothing else.
I'm new and don't know how to solve this.

There's no active object. Select an object in the 3D view

I've tried that, it didn't do anything.

Nevermind I have fixed the problem by myself.

I just needed to click the small pin-looking icon in the top left corner of my Properties panel

I have posted one now.

By the way, sorry for not really knowing the rules of posting on this forum. This was my first post I have made as you probably can see.

You have to click on the small pin-looking icon in the top left corner of your Properties panel.

Wow wasn't even aware of that feature


text:
Creating Wind/Dust storm effect animations with cycles?
Currently i am into still images, but i am starting to get into animation and i was wondering is there a way to create a dust storm like effect with the particles moveing so that it could give the appearance of flight? and is there also a way to create the effect of the fast spinning Propeller. Thanks Guys

It would be really great if you posted this as two separate questions. You can post as many questions as you like.

Particle simulation with turbulence force fields is one way, also consider using the smoke simulation.  And for the prop, just spin fast and turn on motion blur if you're using cycles.

Firstly, I would like to mention that the plane looks amazing :D
For the propeller, you could use motion blur and rotate the blade extremely fast. You could also simply download a photo from the internet and rotate it every few frames.
The dust/wind, that is going to be more complicated...
You will need to create a plane and give it a particle simulation. Disable the gravity and give it some Brownian for more effect. Stretch the particles for motion blur (or just enable it under Render Settings).
For added effect, Create a massive cube and give it a Volume Scatter node for the Volume, whilst disabling the Surface node.
Since I had nothing better to do, I created a .blend ;)

Didn't focus on the material that much...

A blurred prop image may be faster to render, But if you're using cycles motion blur already in your dust particles, just animate the prop rotation fast (in curve editor) that'll look better from all angles too. For the particles, nice. Though I would test using a turbulence force field so particles flowed together more, vs Brownian which goes a random direction. Perhaps place limited ones near the end of the wings/props and behind the craft...Also experiment with smoke simulation. BUT before all this, start with reference images/video of what you're trying to emulate, then we can help better.

Thanks for the advice. Only been using Blender for 4 years now

You could use particles to simulate this.
This YouTube video is bound to help you as well as this dust tutorial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjI9hTWQxV4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmrCoGj9m2Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr5jKazOT94
Best wishes.

I'm pretty sure this isn't the type of particles he wants. He wants the plane to be in a sandstorm, not in a room calmly collecting dust


text:
Is it possible to paint a texture over another texture when they both have different displacement maps in Cycles?
I've always wanted to create a scene where I could have a grass texture with planes as grass and then a dirt texture side by side with their own separate bump maps and displacement maps. If not what would be the best way to achieve something similar to this.
Thanks


text:
Realistic metal textures
So guys i'm not the greatest when it comes to metallic textures, any other textures i can do. I can easily create a silver(Natural) metallic texture, But i cannot create a Green(Painted) Metallic texture. I am currently working on this Renault and I just cant seem to find the right way to create a good texture for it. What texture should I use to create the Metallic body of the Tank and how do i achieve this or apply it to the tank, do I create my own diffuse and glossy shader with a normal map or do I use a texture and give it a normal map and a glossy map. And how would I set this all up in the Nodes correctly with glossy shaders and Bump maps.
Thanks Guys.

You probably just need a normal silver metal shader mixed with a paint shader, using a modified noise texture or any convincing pattern. So the material is either metal or paint, but not both.

Do you have a reference of what you hope to achieve? Adding an image to your question would be useful.

This tutorial by Andrew Price shows a great method of creating Photorealistic Metal textures, and the best part is you only have to do it once, then you can save the Node group into your default file so you'll never have to create the material again. It is highly recommended you follow his first tutorial that teaches how to create photorealistic meterial to use with nonmetals, so you're caught up and not confused.

Metal materials are pure gloss and if you want it painted then
1-It's metal that have been painted (like it's been sprayed with paint)
which is gloss shader mixed with a paint material using a mix shader and the Factor is an image texture made to tell blender where is gloss and where is paint
2-It's like metal that is factory painted
which is gloss with an image texture
note that metal has a colored rim light
for the best realistic result look up PBR materials
I recommend blender guru's tutorial ..2 videos that explain PBR materials the second one is about accurate metal materials but you need to see the first one

Hi Leo, Sorry I have already worked out this question. I did look into blender guru's tutorials and have come up with my own node set on PBR materials/shaders. Thanks for the assistance anyways


text:
Need help with 2D shooter (blender game engine)
I am trying to make a 2D shooter in the blender game engine just trying to get used to blender. My characther can move jump and shoot but I can't find out how to make him shoot to the left (instead of always right) if he moved to the left. Thanks in advance

do you have your character turn around when he reverses direction from going left to going right? or does the character's rotation stay constant?

Currently it just stays constant I know that i need to make him turn but I just can't find a way

you could have a property, call it "left" set to Boolean. when you push the left arrow to go left, you can assign that property true, and the right arrow will assign it false. You can use that property to control the rotation of the character, or you could have two empties - one parented to the left, and one on the right of your character. Then, depending on the value of "left", one or the other empty could fire.

I could write an answer going into more detail if you want.

Its ok. I still didnt try it because I dont have any free time. I will tell you if it worked when I get to try it

@X-27 hi, sorry for not asking this earlier but how can I make my empties react to the left property if I applied that property to my player. I tried sending a message from the player to the empties but that didnt help because a message is only sent once.
Just to simplify my question: Can you make a property global?
Thanks again


text:
physics type to No collision using python
How to set the physics type to No collision in bge using python?
I need a script to change the physics type to No_collision in game, please help me

You can't change the physics type.
You can replace the object with another one, that is of the desired physics type. Do not forget to copy all necessary attributes from the previous object (such as linear and angular velocity).

hmm try using
cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
obj = cont.owner
obj.suspendDynamics()

if it doesn't fit your needs you will have to replace the object by another one which has the collision type you want in-game.


text:
How to modifiy interface font size?
Absolutely new of Blender, I do have great difficulties to follow tutorials, because the size font appear on my screen 3840x2160 too much small, and I (myope) have to unwear glasses and approach the screen to read.
How I can change the font size of the interface ?
I couldn't do by the usual Windows screen Tools.....
Many thanks...
Bruno

Related http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/27016/make-blender-usable-on-high-resolution-screen

In the menu bar, access Edit > Preferences (Control+,)
Then select the Themes tab, and then Text Style on the sidebar:


text:
Animated Deep Zoom-in. (Drone style)
New guy here,
My question is of a workflow nature. I am trying to animate a "fly-in" zoom shot (similar to the shot in Sintel) that zooms in from the air over a landscape ultimately down to a close up of the character's face, much like a shot from a drone.
 Would a good workflow be to do it in several .blends getting more detail in each one progressively while deleting more and more geometry as well, or, to try and do it in one .blend file?

Hi Jay welcome to the Blender stack exchange.  If this is a single, long zoom-in shot you're talking about, I think one .blend file would work.   Are you concerned that the .blend will get too big?

Just concerned it will take forever to render the300 frames or so, because it is a heavily wooded mountainous landscape. Trees done with particles. (either bilboard UV, or low poly tree shapes) Zoom in to a clearing with the character climbing.... all the way close to his face. I got several progressively increasing detailed (from low poly to high) characters to replace the previous one as the zoom shot closes in.

To reduce the render time of a large scale scene like that there is a nice new option for object camera culling (Cycles only).
It will remove the visibility of objects from the scene as they move outside of the camera's view, saving rendering computation. If the object moves back in frame the object comes back. It only does this for rendering. The objects will not actually be removed in your .blend file or 3D viewport.

Switch to the Cycles render engine
In the Properties panel go to the Scene tab.
Check the box for Simplify

Then select an individual object:

Go to the object properties panel
Expand the Cycles Settings section
Check Use Camera Cull

Warning: You will have to deal with problems like having shadows and reflections suddenly disappear from the camera's view, because the culling only detects the actual object in the camera's view; not any of its influence (shadows, reflections, etc) on the rest of the scene. Some of this could be fixed using the "Camera Cull Margin" option near the "Use Camera Cull" option in the scene properties (Image 1). The rest will have to be fixed by just being selective about which object you check the cull option on.

Thanks I think that will help a lot. I didn't know about this option for the camera. I have the camera tracking to a curve, and lots of great looking trees on a billboard particle system, but last night it took all night to render 20 frames. Maybe culling will help.

@JayMcAllister No problem! I wouldn't expect miracles from just culling, but it should help. Don't forget to give my answer some points if you think it deserves them! Go to blender.stackexchange.com/tour if you're not familiar with how Stack Exchange works.


text:
How do I make a fur for my teddybear?
I want a fur like the picture below. How can you do this in Blender?

this guy have a REALLY decent tutorials: Fur tutorial

I see you have a good answer to this question, but please keep in mind that questions should show that you have researched the problem before posting on [blender.se].  Please read [ask] and [tour].

You could easily do this with Blender's particle system
The key thing here is that the hair seems to be forming clusters or gathering to form small clumps of fur.
This effect can be achieved with the particle children and activating the Clump parameter. This will create this bunching effect.

Add a new particle system to your object
Check to use the modifier stack
Active the Children option
Use a high value for the Clump setting like in the 0.7 to 0.9range

Adjust the number of children to be enough so that the hair clumping effect is visible, but not too much that it looks like a solid spike
Increase the particle count to a higher value to look dense enough (how high will depend on the actual size of your object), and not too high as to hide the "clumpiness" of the children

With a particle system. In the particle properties select hair.
Also https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Tutorials/Simulation/Hair/Using_the_Particle_Mode

Thanks for the posts. This is not a regular forum, according to site rules links to answers are not answers if the link goes missing your answer becomes an empty shell without content. Answers should be substantial and stand on their own without relying on external data like links, videos or images. Instead of having users go through external links, either transcribe essential parts of the process here, linking the source, or posts these in the comments section instead.


text:
Running Blender Game Engine in background
I'm currently using the blender game engine to simulate robotics.
In order to evolve quickly in my research, I'd like to start simulations running with the Blender Game Engine on a distant cluster, get some feedback in a script ("is there any collision?", for example), use this feedback to modify the model in the script, and iterate...

At the moment, I can start it along with the GUI interface:

blender model.blend --python start_script.py

Where start_script.py is just:
import bpy
bpy.context.scene.game_settings.use_auto_start = True
bpy.ops.view3d.game_start()

However, when I try to run it in background:

blender model.blend --python start_script.py -b

This fails with error:

wmSubWindowScissorSet 0: doesn't exist
Writing: /tmp/test_ge.crash.txt
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Any idea how I can avoid this?
Thanks a lot!!

I do not think the BGE (or any other game engine) is sufficient for such a purpose. --- If you need a physics simulation I suggest to look for Bullet. It is the Physics engine the BGE is using. I'm sure there are (non-game engine) applications that support simulations much better.


text:
Different animation lengths for each animation? (For FBX Export)
So I have a few animations I'm working on for a game I'm doing. The Idle animation is about 915 frames so it can be a nice long loop, and the walk animation is about 30 frames so as to be concise. However, when I am previewing and tweaking my Idle animation, and I want to switch to my walk animation, it sets the preview length as 915 frames. This of course leaves me with 885 frames of my character sitting in the air before the walk loop completes.
Example
As I'm exporting to an FBX for UE4, I'd really like to ensure each animation has a set length for proper looping in-game. Any ideas on what I missed to get this to happen? Thanks in advance!

As far as I know the timelines range won't change based on how long your actions are in the action editor, but when exporting as an FBX the actions will retain the correct length based on where the first and last frames are so your walk cycle should show up as an animation clip with the 30 frame length this is how it has worked for me with Unity I am not familiar with Unreal though. I would also recommend saving your actions to a data-block otherwise you risk losing them.

I am sorry but I am having a really hard time understand what you are asking.
If I understand correctly you are exporting it and it is just doing nothing for 845 frames before starting the walk anim? If this what the problem is then I will let you know exactly how I expect my anim's to ue4 to prevent this.
Ok so first make shure each animation you have is in its own nla strip aka an action. So the idle would be in one action and the walk would be in its own action. Then you would set the keyframes equal to that action and export it with selected only check and uncheck the multiple nla strip thing in export settings (sry for not knowing the exact setting off the top of my head I am doing this from my phone). When you open it in ue4 it should be fixed.


text:
light split along texture in cycles
I recently applied a normal map to a model I'm using in cycles. I then added a lamp to get a better look at it. Then this happened:
Here are the nodes:
How do I smooth the light on the mesh?

Set the normal map to non-color data. This means that Blender will read it in linear space, which is what it expects for a normal map.
Also, please disconnect that alpha from the strength of the normal map unless you've got a good reason to have it there. It's (slightly) slowing down your render for probably no benefit.
If that normal map is ripped from the game, you might need to flip the green channel for it to show up correctly in Cycles. The fastest way to do this is to add an RGB curves node in the Cycles material (Add>Color>RGB Curves), click the G on the node so the curve only affects the green channel, and move the points at each end so the one on the left is at the top of the box and the one on the right is at the bottom of the box. This will make normal maps formatted for use with Unreal Engine 3 work better with Cycles' tangent space, although not perfectly. In the end the node should look like this:

Of course, you can also do this in a bitmap editor like Photoshop, Krita or GIMP.


text:
how to make good rust
So I'm trying to do a sword for a scene:
It's set in a forest, in which the sword has been exposed to the elements and is starting to rust. I'm trying to not have too little corrosion, but also not have so much that it becomes gaudy or unrecognizable. I've found it rather tricky trying to strike that balance.
Then there comes the trouble of making the rust itself look convincing. I've been operating mostly off of the methods found in Andrew Price's Blender Guru rust tutorial.
I also mapped the smaller specs by running a bare metal texture through a color ramp.
In addition, I've tried tinting the whole blade texture a slight rust-color- though I'm not certain about that working.
The details are in the nodes (for the blade only, since I don't have the permissions for more pics.
Blade material:

Could you be more precise about what exactly does not satisfy you in this material set up? If your aiming for a realistic scene, a diffuse-based shader with bump map for rust it's already good start in my opinion. If the rust is wet, you should introduce some glossiness, if the rust has been scratched, you should have less bump map, and so on...it depends. Maybe you should add some references (you can post links in the comment section), try to see how it looks with the whole scene or visit http://www.blendswap.com

that could help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37oBqhjDtBI. Concerning your nodes, I think it is hard to understand without knowing the textures you used.

To the first reply, I'm concerned from a perspective more artistic than technical; regarding how the amount of rust I've already painted conveys the time in which the metal has been exposed, and, if so, where and how to balance said rust with lighter colors of corrosion across the rest of the material (similar to how Andrew Price painted streaks in the aforementioned tutorial). As for the second, I used the "Grunge" texture found in the Blender Guru tutorial for the rust. To map the smaller bits, I used the seamless metal texture found here: http://www.textures.com/download/metalbare0234/57525


text:
Some difficulties with hair materials
I'm a beginner. Currently I'm modeling a Pikachu. I'm having some difficulties with the materials of my pikachu's hair.
Here's a quick render:

Only the edges seem to be on point.
I'm aiming for something similar to this:

The hair is very subtle and almost unnoticeable unless directly hit by a light source. My approach was to add lots of thin and short particles, but it hasn't turned out well. Any help will be appreciated.

I think it's material doing this subtle look. Are you using Cycles or Blender Internal?

I'm using Cycles.

Could you provide blend file? http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ I'll try do something with it.

Unfortunately, that only accepts <30mb files. Mine is 40. Here is a gdrive link

Ok, I'll try on simple sphere. Give me some time.

I guess the original is not done with hair particles... probably textures, normal map, fresnel...

@lemon It doesn't have to be exactly like the original.

Particle edit - Comb, smooth, etc...
The greatest difference I can tell is probably caused by the lack of editing of the hair particles. They are currently pointing outard the faces normal (the default behaviour) like small spikes.

As you already noticed, the fur look quite short, but in my opinion reducing the lenght can't alone do the job. You'll need to bend it toward the skin by to combing the fur, in the right direction. Take for example the pokemon's forehead fur where you can clearly see that hairs are pointing upward.

Don't forget to add some variance to the children (e.g. with curl, wave, spiral... kink setting). In the following image you can see the same fur ball combed and with a Curl Kink of 0.002.

Not the same as original but it's most subtle I can get with my specs.
Hair settings:
This is what I can get without Blender crash.

Material setup:
With Transluscent brigtness you can control shadows between hair.
UPDATE:

I'll update it with Diffuse changed to Hair (I didn't know about it o_O) it looks better. Try to comb it, I can't, too slow pc.


text:
Understanding Checker Deselect
I don't succeed in selecting a group of faces and deselect with Checker Deselect.
Consider a cube that has been looped cut ...
Select all the faces of the top side ...

Click on Checker Deselect ...

What does it mean ?
(I am using v2.78c)

You need to have an active face. This is a way to give an indication to Blender in order to control which faces will be kept selected:

If no face is active, you obtain the message mentioned in your question.


text:
Blender Rigid Body Physics Trapdoor Effect
I'm doing an animation in Blender where a bunch of cans are falling in an enclosed space. I give the cans a rigid body and enable collision on the bottom plane that they land on.
What I'm trying to do is make it so after the cans land on the platform there's a trapdoor that animates open causing them to fall through the floor. When I tried to do this by detaching part of the plane and animating it the cans don't fall through.
Can you guys help me figure out how to achieve this effect? Thanks. I feel like i'm missing a key element in these physics.

Check your Collision Bounds in the Physics properties - you need to be using Mesh rather than any of the others. This way the collision is based on the actual mesh rather than a simplified box or convex hull wrapped around it.

I think u have used the convex hull type property
use the mesh type property to get the required effect

For completeness, far fetched problem sources are included.

The cans should be set to active and dynamik. Since they are cylinder-shaped, I will set the shape to cylinder.
The enclosing platform should be set to passive. The shape property is set to mesh.
The trap door should be set to passive and animated.

This is amazing! Thank you so much Leander, exactly what I was looking for AND you added a blendfile to mess around with. I can't express how much I appreciate your answer.


text:
Is it possible create this text effect?
was wondering if it is possible to recreate this text effect in Blender. I've been playing around but nothing is coming close enough. Can't figure things out like the bevel, perspective, & material. If anyone can help guide me to get closer it'd be much appreciated, thanks.

I'm not sure people here are able to tell you how to precisely tweak the various settings to get something that looks good to you.  But in general you could use the following techniques to get the result below:

Choosing a suitable font is your call.  To give it thickness, use the Extrude setting under Geometry-Modification in the Font tab of the Properties window.  To give it a bevel, choose the Depth setting under Geometry-Bevel.

To curve the text, one way to do it is using the Mesh Deform modifier.  Here I've used it with a subdivided cube:

Finally, the material and textures are really going to be an aesthetic choice by you. I will however show you a quick way to texture different faces of the object differently even while it's still a text object:


text:
Hair Particles Not Working

i'm trying to add hair onto this model I got and for some reason when I use hair lab to create the hair no matter what I change the particles to it is not showing up like normal... It ends up looking very thin and practically not there. This doesn't make sense because when I add a cube and create hair the particles show up normally. Hope someone can help, thanks.

Look into manual weight painting and vertex groups.


text:
UV map not showing up for new additions
Alright So I'm working on something that already had a UV map and I'm adding onto it. I opened up the UV editor to see what I was working with and low and behold the UV map for the new additions are not there I worked on seams for the new addition but I really do not want to redo the seams for the whole object. What do I need to do to be able to open the additional object AND the old object in the UV editor should I make them separate objects or is there another way?

The safest is to create a new UV Map via the Data tab in the Properties window within the UV Maps section, and then prepare and unwrap your additional geometry.


text:
How long will a 10 second youtube intro take to render? I have had it rendering for hours upon hours and it all seems too much!
I am not asking for a solution to speed it up, i simply want to know how long it should take!
I would also like a way to speed it up but not something technical, im new to Blender!

It depends a lot on the scene you're rendering and your hardware, therefore, it's off-topic.

We cannot say how long it should take since that depends on what you are rendering. It could be a minute, it could be a month. However, it is possible to give a rough estimate of how much longer you have to wait for your animation to finish. Wait for a frame to finish, and look in the upper left corner to see how long it took.

Multiply this number by the amount of frames that are left to render and you know how much longer you have to wait.

It depends a lot on the scene.  As a starting point, I would recommend rendering one frame and see how long that takes.  If your animation is 10 seconds and you are rendering at 24 frames per second then your whole animation will be 240 frames.  If it takes one hour per frame then your whole animation will take 240 hours or 10 days.  Of course, I'm assuming a lot without knowing about your scene.
The actual time it takes could vary greatly from my estimate.


text:
trying to create this texture with blender for 3d printing
I'm trying to recreate this texture on blender for 3d printing however I am having difficulty achieving the raised parts of the hollows.The below image is the closest I am getting. Any tips?

Somewhat related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/42640/is-it-possible-to-use-a-displacement-map-without-having-real-geometry. Generally you probably want to use Subsurf modifier to enlargen amount of verts and then Displace to make those hollows.

Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/41030/deforming-a-maze-mesh-into-a-hole

You can use the Tissue add-on for this.
Create a quad mesh with the contours you want, then create a tile object that is a pit.
Select the tile object, then the contour object and press the Tessellate button. A new mesh will created with your perfect pits where each quad face was.
You'll want to keep the Scale value low, and enable the Merge option so each tile will be connected.

You can then smooth the shading and add a SubSurf modifier to get something very close to your reference photo.

@SarahONeill Good luck, and happy blending!

@SarahONeill Glad to hear it worked out for you! :-)

Just like Mr Zac said you should add more resolution with a subsurf modifier and then add a displacement modifier and find an image texture to use as the displacement value. the image needs to have highs and lows in the correct places in order to get the effect you want. if what you need is so specific then you might need to create a custom image.
Example image:

Resulting Effect

Same mesh in edit mode... as you can see it is a simple low res plane. the subsurf modifier adds the resolution you need. the displacement modifier does the bumps.

EDIT: if you don't understand how to setup textures for displacement ask and i can help.

sorry about that... as i was working on my answer another person posted one.

Hi I tried it too.. but the mesh im working on has to be 20cm by 20cm and when I place the texture on the plane it looks tiny.I tried scaling it up on the mapping section but still too small.I also tried scaling up the texture image too but still same size on mesh.

Can you give screenshots of the process?


text:
Trying to render a .mov file in Blender's video editor
I'm trying to render a small clip from a huge video I recorded via a screen recorder. However, I can only render it as an AVI file. Is there a way to output in other formats? What I'm doing is choosing the H.264 codec but no luck. Specifically, I am trying to render it as an MOV file.
Thanks for the help!

You also have to set the encoding settings correct.
The following settings will output a .mov file with h.264 codec.

Thanks for responding! Just another question... if I have audio in my video, do I still have to do the Audio Codec as None for it to render as a .mov file?
EDIT: Nevermind, tried it out for myself and it seems fine. Thanks for the help!


text:
Blender keyframe metadata
Most engines that support skeletal animation have some concept of keyframe events. Essentially, a keyframe can have arbitrary metadata associated with it that is inspected by the code that is driving the animation in the engine. This data is then used to perform actions at the appropriate times when the animation is rendered.
As a simple contrived example: An artist might create a walk cycle animation and on each keyframe where the walking character's foot touches the floor, the keyframes are annotated with a FootStepEvent string. When the walk cycle is rendered in the receiving engine, the engine sees the FootStepEvent string on a given keyframe and knows that it should play a footstep sound each time that particular frame is reached.
The engine I'm developing has support for this, and I have written various addons to get animation and bone data out of Blender. Specifically, for each action, I'm recording all of the action's FCurves and taking a snapshot of the skeleton at each keyframe along with data such as the curve's easing and interpolation settings.
The problem: How do I actually author per-keyframe metadata in Blender? What I would like to be able to do is associate simple strings with particular keyframes inside actions. I can't see anything in Blender's data model that would allow me to do this.

Blender provides property definitions that we can use to add custom properties to objects and bones. You will then want to define a panel that displays the property so that you can easily edit it.
As we can't animate strings I expect you will need to use a collection to define a string and frame number or range of frames that it will be applied to. Another option may be to assign a number to each sound and animate a custom integer. You can use an EnumProperty to create a menu that lists available sounds but stores a numeric value instead of a string.

Can I apply properties to actions? The event data is action-specific, not object or bone specific.

To answer my own question: "Custom properties can be added to any subclass of an ID, Bone and PoseBone." and Action is a subclass of ID. So... Yes!