text:
Where to escalate video support for Blender
Where may I escalate continuing video issues with Blender? I don't have the "status" to make a bug report.
Blender's continuing problems with video support is disqualifying. The latest release of Blender had already refused to work on three of my four machines. Only one laptop was able to run Blender at all, and then only after reverting to v2.81.
This laptop ran blender fine until last night. Today Blender wont boot and generates the all too familiar "Blender requires OGL 3.3 to run...". The last box to die has OGL4.0 and Direct X 11.
Yes, all of my boxes meet the stated video/hardware requirements, have current drivers, and OGL exceeding 3.3. It's a real problem that the only support for video problems is to parrot the OGL3.3/current drivers advice. While helpful for a few beginners, it is clear that Blender has video issues beyond currency.
Is there a contact available to deal with Blender's persistent video problems directly?
Thanks.

This site is not associated with the developers,  so this is definitely not the place to report bugs.  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1377/best-place-to-put-bug-reports

BTW everybody can report bugs on the bug tracker, you only need an account.

Also please make sure that your system fulfills the minimum requirements for running Blender, in particular check that your GPUs are supported. If you have both an integrated GPU and dedicated GPU, you need to verify the requirements for both. On Windows you can select which one is used to start Blender in the Graphics Settings (see T78799).

Thanks for the comments, but: I indicated that my systems all meet the stated minimum requirements. The last system to stop running it has been running for 3 months with minimal problems. No GPU here, running on laptop Intel integrated graphics, just fine till yesterday. Tried to file bug report for a different problem, and received message (paraphrasing) that I was too new to the forum. I didn't try to report the bug here, rather I went to a link provided by a commenter on the problem being discussed. Thanks.

If it worked fine before and suddenly doesn't anymore the most likely culprit is an automated update of the OS or drivers. It seems you haven't reported the issue on the official bug tracker, but rather some community forum. The bug tracker can be found here: https://developer.blender.org

What CPU and integrated GPU is in your laptop and what is the driver version that you're using?

After trying six different drivers, and working with Intel support for three hours, with no luck, I made some progress. First, I downloaded an update to the Opengl3.2.DLL, which allowed the .exe to run only from within the install directory...but not from a desktop shortcut. I then discovered that running from the desktop shortcut works by right clicking and running as Administrator. My account is already an administrator. Any suggestions why that is happening? I recently "upgraded" to win10 v2004, and something got changed.

I've seen your ticket on the bug tracker and replied to it. Being an administrator doesn't mean that the software is run with administrative privileges. However, this shouldn't be necessary to run Blender. Let's continue the investigation on the bug tracker.


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How to animate particle count?
I've been trying to animate the count of the particles in a Hair particle system. It is possible in the viewport display tab to animate the amount with the percent bar, but obviously this is not getting rendered.
Since you can not animate the number in the Emission tab im kind of clueless on how to animate such thing. There has to be a way to reduce the particles over time right?

Does this answer your question? How to animate hair particle growth?

hm sadly not really. I don't want to animate the length but the count. So for example I want to have like 2000 particles on frame 100 and want them to reduce to like 200 till frame 300.

Animate the children.
As intimated in question, cannot animate the hair particle count. Can however set children and animate the child count.

Sliding the child count viewport display amount, similarly set the render

So for example I want to have like 2000 particles on frame 100 and
want them to reduce to like 200 till frame 300

Example for this case, set particle count to 200, keyframe count as 10 on frame 100, and 1 on frame 300.

I tried using children but encountered some problems before. For example: adding children completely resets the rotation of the parents and u can't change the rotation of the children for some reason. Because of that it looks very uniform since the children all have the same oriention.

There is no way to rotate children seperately from their parents right?

Lots of settings to randomize. Hard to speculate without seeing other settings.  Recommend add a screenshot or sample file to your question (setting count to 1 before upload will reduce file size, can be reset after downloading).

ok I added a picture. As you can see there are like clusters of fish, meaning the children have the same orientation as the parent at the location they are generated.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How to merge faces without creating new shapes
I'm in the process of learning how to create models with Blender.
Right now I'm trying to create a circle with a hole in the middle, for that i create a simple circle and then I extrude with this result:

I then proceed to select all the faces and I press F.
I can do this but at the last face this happens

Why this happens and how con I avoid it? The goal is to have a ring with only one face, export it to fbx and import in Unreal Engine.
For reference, this is the end result I'm aiming for:

I've also tried to do the same on a vertical axis and this happens (images before and after some merges):

it's not clear what you're trying to do, if you try to fill the hole, you need to select the inner circle only, otherwise you will also create a face inside the outer edge loop that will overlay on all the other faces

Thanks for the feedback! The goal is a get a 2D ring with only one circular face. I try to achieve this by merging the single faces that the extrusion creates one by one, but with the last one, Blender automatically create one face inside the inner ring. I've updated the question accordingly.

I still don't understand what you are trying to create. Can u add an image of the thing that you are trying to model.

I think he's trying to create a ring (therefore keep the hole), then merge all the faces of the ring, except you need to keep at least 2 faces in the ring if you don't want to fill the inner circle: Blender can fill a closed ngons shape but is not supposed to fill the space between ngons, I'm trying to find the words to make myself clear...

Yes, that's pretty much what I'm trying to achieve: a single ngon with a hole in the middle. I've added another image (the third one) in which I've edited out the lines of the last remaining face via photoshop.

If you create 2 unfilled circles and press F, they will fill independently, Blender won’t fill the gap between them. If you put the small circle inside the big one, it’s the exact same situation, the same thing will happen.

This explains what’s happening with your ring, if you delete all the faces within the ring, Blender can’t guess the 2 circles are supposed to be linked to each other, it will fill both the outer and the inner circle but won’t fill the gap between them.
To do so you need to create at least 2 edges between the outer and the inner circle , then in Edge Select mode select each face and fill.

Thanks for the answer!

Note that by doing this you will end up with n-gons (faces with more than 4 vertices), depending on what you want to do with the model, this might create more problems down the line. Try to stay with quad topology if you can.

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


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Weird white fuzz around textures with transparent areas in Viewport (2.91)
More of a visual frustration since this doesn't affect the actual Cycles renders, but since I upgraded from 2.9 to 2.91, materials with a Transparent BDSF + Mix Shader have a weird white fuzz even when set to Alpha Hashed. This oddity doesn't appear anywhere in 2.9, as these files were from that version directly. Any fixes? Or do I have to put up with it?

Node setup:

You mean the troubles you have are when using EEVEE? Try using alpha-clip and manually setting the clip threshold.

@ChristopherBennett Sorry, this is the plain Cycles setup, I haven't used EEVEE at all.
What you're seeing here is the Material view, not Render.

The material preview is rendered using the Eevee engine, but it uses (almost) the same nodes as cycles. Please show the whole node tree so we can try to pinpoint the culprit. In the meantime try unplugging the normal and setting emission strength to 0 if there is any

@Gorgious
Here's my setup. Normal has been unplugged.


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How to displace an object with a texture radially?
I tried to make something like in this tutorial
but my result is like this :

how can I change the deirection of displacement?
-----edit-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for answering my question Martynas Žiemys.
I mapped this grayscale image.

But my result is

Grayscale image have positive values between 0 and 1
but I think normal vector needs to have negative values to deform radially.
Is there any way to make an image which has negative values?

Please don't make your question depend on links.  To add an image read:  how to add images to a question

Hello, this tutorial is outdated. Now you need to add a "Displacement" or "Vector Displacement" between your image texture and the "Displacement" input of the "Material Output" node. The displacement strenght is determined by what you plug into the "Height" of the "Displacement" node

Relevant: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/213041/110840

Like Gorgious indicated in the comments, the tutorial uses older Blender version where the displacement input in the Material Output node detects what it is, but in current version 2.83.4 the Material Output node's Displacement input only accepts a vector (3 values for x, y and z for displacement) so you need to use the new Displacement or Vector Displacement nodes that you can find in the Add menu -> Vector. They will let you control the displacement faster and more conveniently then it used to be before.

What you see in the tutorial seems to be because the camera is placed above the plane being displaced and a short focal length is set for the camera lens so because of the perspective the displacement seems to go outwards from the center.

For downvoters - what's wrong with this answer? Just curious :).

I think I made a mistake and somebody downvoted because of that. I am testing it and there is something different about displacement now than I expect. It seems to need vector input so if greyscale image is plugged in, the result seems to be the same value used for x, y and z as vector displacement and because of that it seems to have a direction now. I think it used to detect greyscale image before but I cannot remember.

https://imgur.com/a/hId29UY it seems to expect vector displacement even from greyscale input. I think it used to detect a greyscale input in previous versions.

Right :). Still, it'd be great if downvoters would leave a comment. We all come here to learn, after all :).

Not sure if this is a bug or a new feature or if I am mistaken and it always expected vector input... I will try to edit the answer and sort it out later when I have some time.


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How to create edges
import bpy

verts = [["a1",-2,0,0],["a2",-1,0,0],["a3",-1,1,0],["a4",1,1,0],["a5",1,0,0],["a6",2,0,0]]
edges = [["a1","a2"],["a2","a3"],["a3","a4"],["a4","a5"],["a5","a6"]]

me = bpy.data.meshes.new("")
me.from_pydata(verts,edges,[])
me.update()
obj = bpy.data.objects.new("",object_data=me)
scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.collection.objects.link(obj)

error is
File "C:\Users\owner\Desktop\blender\koch.blend\Text Block", line 7, in
File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\modules\bpy_types.py", line 470, in from_pydata
self.vertices.foreach_set("co", tuple(chain.from_iterable(vertices)))
TypeError: couldn't access the py sequence
Error: Python script failed, check the message in the system console
how can I connect verticies in edge array?
I replaced me.from_pydata(verts,edges,[])withme.from_pydata(verts,[],[])
error is
Error: Array length mismatch (expected 18, got 24)
TypeError: must be real number, not str
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\owner\Desktop\blender\koch.blend\Text Block", line 9, in
File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\modules\bpy_types.py", line 470, in from_pydata
self.vertices.foreach_set("co", tuple(chain.from_iterable(vertices)))
TypeError: couldn't access the py sequence
I understood I can't use string in vertex array.
But in Text Editor > Templates > Python > Addon Add Object there is no refference about eges.

How is "a1" to be interpreted as a vertex coordinate?

Look at Text Editor > Templates > Python > Addon Add Object


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Broken shadow render blender
I render my sim ripper from the sims 4, then I put it into the blender, I use a sunlight, and when I see the results of the render, the shaadow is broken, ugly. it's been almost 1 year I don't know how to fix it, I hope you can help me, thank you

https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/b/kdeyXJqk/
this link, i upload file blend

Please attach blend file

@NascentSpace If a blend file is required, it is important to explain where to upload it, i.e. https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

This is a common problem with smooth-shaded, low-polygon-count models. It is caused by mismatching of the true shape of the polygonal model and the smoothed normals.
Here are three solutions:
1. Soften the lighting.
Increasing the size of the light will:
✔ Preserve the polygon count.
✔ Preserve the shader realism.
✖ Alter the look of the render.
2. Adjust the shadow termination.*
Adjusting the shadow termination offset will:
✔ Preserve the polygon count.
✖ Alter the shader realism.
✔ Preserve the look of the render.
3. Subdivide the geometry.
Subdividing the geometry will:
✖ Alter the polygon count.
✔ Preserve the shader realism.
✔ Preserve the look of the render.
* Blender 2.9+ Cycles only

do you have video tutorial?

@RafiAkmal I don't. I can tell you that the shadow termination setting is in the object tab in the latest builds when using Cycles to render.

can you give me screenshoot? i usee blender 2.82

@RafiAkmal You must download version 2.90 or later to have the feature. There is a video that covers this now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vq_i7KqQlI&t=124s (video uploaded Aug 7)


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Apply transformations after animation
I've created a wall with the extras Wall Factory add-on. My intentions are to just break that wall into small pieces, and for it I use the Cell Fracture add-on.
What I'd like to achieve is just create the cells, break the object and when I find a suitable spot for me, apply all the animation so it's static and applied to the mesh now (like, even though I move through frames, they will stay the same so I can proceed to apply different animations to different objects).
Steps I've followed:

Create wall with Wall Factory
Apply Cell Fracture
Select all pieces and add "Rigid body: Active" (Object > Rigid Body > Add Active)
Put some objects in the scene, and add "Rigid body: Passive" to them (Object > Rigid Body > Add Passive)
Press Space key and, when I find it ok, press again to pause animation

The issue is I cannot even move any piece (part of the broken wall) because it won't respond to movement, so I cannot make little adjustments or use them as boolean or whatever, and if I apply transformations (Ctrl+A) all of the pieces then are moved and spread everywhere across the viewport (sometimes), and even in this state they still go back to their original position if I slide the timeline frame.
I've tried to apply transformations before and after the animation takes place, but I cannot seem to find a way to achieve the pieces to make their final position a static one, so no matter what further modifications are done in the timeline, they will mantain their transforms in place.
Thank you.

We are missing a crucial piece of information: How are you animating the pieces? If they are rigid body simulations then you can apply it in the modifier tab. If they aren't, are you manually adding keyframes? As far as I know the Cell Fracture Addon Only fractures the mesh and doesn't apply animations to the result.

I've edited my question so that this information is added. Thank you @IAmGettingTiredOfAliases!

It seems that applying this solution will work. However, I had to make a global collection for all my pieces (as I had multiple separated walls breaking), so I could make Select Objects from all the pieces and could remove Rigid Body (Object > Rigid Body > Remove) from all at once. Otherwise, only one of the walls would remain and the others would disappear (I don't know if this is an expected behavior).
To sum up:

Select all your pieces in the desired frame (I've done so by grouping them all in a collection, and then Right Click > Select objects)
Press Ctrl + A+ and select Visual transform
With all the pieces still selected, go to Object > Rigid Body > Remove

Now pieces can be moved and no matter what frame you go back to, they will remain the same without alterations.


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How can I make the section of a prolate ellipse like the one shown in the figure?
The left ventricle of the heart has a prolate ellipse geometry. The thickness of the wall of the ellipse has several layers. To describe these layers, it is necessary to make a section of the ellipse wall. It would be great to do it in Blender. I appreciate the help for teaching cardiovascular medicine.

You could do it this way:

Create a cube, subdivide it 3 times and in the Operator box give it a Smoothness value of 1:

Cut the top half, scale on the Z axis:

Cut a hole:

Extrude all along the normals (AltE):

Create some edge loop, both to sharp the edge and to give it different colors:

Give it the colors, give it a Subdivision Surface modifier:

Superlative thanks.


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Turning a displacement animation into a rigged animation?
I'm trying to figure out if there is a way i can convert this displacement animation into a rigged (with bones) animation in some way.
https://gyazo.com/9904508541eb7c9a092f7f1a8efe4aea
Can anyone help or is there just no way to do this?

There are always 33 ways to do something in Blender.  Please show your work as a Blender screen capture.  I am not sure why you might choose or not choose an armature.  There are so many options. Why not take a cylinder and an armature and weight painting and show a sample?  A bone moving back and forth on its axis will beform any weighted mesh.  If bones can animate facial features they can animate a cylinder.

Im a developer on Roblox, and i'm trying to import it into that platform, but roblox require's an armature to animate anything.


text:
Blender is entirely messed up
This problem has been happening for a while. Just normally creating a new Blender file, and this is what I see first:

And no, I'm not on Wireframe or anything. Just the basic startup scene.
Meshes (like sphere), looked entirely messed up...

All other meshes are messed up and not visible. I've searched a lot for the problem, but none had the same problem as mine.
I tried reinstalling Blender, resetting default settings & even installing older version, i also reinstalled my Windows.
Maybe it's with my PC? Although it used to work pretty fine.
specs: AMD A8-5500B APU with AMD Radeon HD 7560D
Loading my other Blender files, makes it even worse! Nothing you see makes sense, just vertices all around the scene.

This looks like a GPU/drawing issue. Check to make sure your GPU is  on the list of supported cards - https://code.blender.org/2019/04/supported-gpus-in-blender-2-80/. Also, try updating your graphics drivers.

Some one else asked a very similar question yesterday (for some value of yesterday, anyway).

If blender was working fine earlier that means that something in the configuration changed. Did you update the OS? (or did it automatically update?) Reinstalling blender is hardly the solution. Updating or downgrading the drivers for the GPU might work. It would help if you edit your question and at least add information on what kind of system you are using, OS and GPU (and there is no need to use fowl language).

If latest drivers installed, I'd suggest file a bug report. Help > Report as Bug.


text:
Texture will not appear on the mesh
For whatever reason, the texture I have (It's just an image of a color for now, but I need to be able to add more detail later) won't show up on the mesh. It's completely black in all views except solid, and in that view it just takes the diffuse color, not the texture. I'm not one to often ask the internet for questions, so I'm really at my wits end here. I have no clue why it won't take the texture!
Here's the Blend file. I'm using v2.79 Blender, with Blender Render, not Cycles Render:
https://pasteall.org/blend/86d2d787ccd64cfa8a631ae5060b2bb7

Hello and welcome. While providing a downloadable file may be valuable, it should be supplemental to info provided in the question. Please post images of the issue, your material and node setups, so we can take a look at the issue without requiring to download a file.

I downloaded your file, and though the applied material seems to have a reddish color in the material slot, the base color is light grey which is also what is appearing in the viewport views. When I changed it, the color of the model changed as well. Since the UV unwrap looks fine, I went one further and used nodes to add a checker texture just to test and it works fine. See below:

As you can see, the texturing seems fine. Is there something else i'm missing that is not working for you?

Oh lordy. I've never messed with the nodes before, I thought they were non-functional in blender render, as opposed to cycles render, or do i have that backwards?

Oh, you didn't mention you were using blender render. I'm not sure. I got these results from 2.83 using EEVEE, however, I was only doing this to test that things were in good working order, which they seem to be. I'm not sure why it's not working for you with your original setup.

Oh sorry, you're right, I should've mentioned it before. Yeah honestly I don't have the slightest clue. I really don't want to have to upd8 because i know 2.8 changes a lot about the program, but if my blender is busted then i guess i don't have much choice. Though I seriously find it hard to believe that this is blenders fault and not my own. I'm very much new to this, I've only really done model edits, as opposed to starting from scratch. So there's probably some interstitiary step I've missed thats messing everything up.

This is just my opinion (although I believe it would be heavily shared), but I really think you should think about taking the jump to 2.8. Sure, it changes a few things, yes, however, once you're used to it, it's like the difference between driving on a congested city street and an 8-lane freeway (if that makes any sense). When I first downloaded 2.8, I kept 2.79 around because it was familiar, and now I can't test your file because I deleted it soon after for being redundant and inferior. Unless you have some really special need for blender internal, I would suggest making the switch.

Yeah I guess that makes sense. Should probably do it before i fully understand 2.7 anyways. I just don't like the prospect of having to learn the ropes again :|

Just to be clear, I'd be able to open this project in blender 2.8 like you did, right? Is there anything I'll lose in the swap?

From my personal experience, the process of having to "re-learn the ropes" was relatively straightforward and smooth - especially because many tutorials are for 2.8 these days anyway, and the whole "drag" of the process was almost overcome by the wonder of how "cool and easy" everything is by comparison.

And yes, the file should open fine. You'd have to try and see though, because I don't know what your project is "supposed" to look like, 2.8 is only ~ 100Mb or so, so it's worth a try.


text:
How can I modify a UV coordinate texture to be broken up with a texture, like the voronoi node does?
Hopefully the title wasn't too confusing. Basically, I want to know if it's possible to use my own texture, such as paint brush strokes, to break up the smooth gradient of the UV coordinates texture into flat shapes and splotches. The voronoi node's position output does something similar, but I want the end result to be more hand-painted looking, so I can use these coordinates to map any image texture to look hand painted. I've included one of the paint brush stroke textures I've made to hopefully made it clearer what it is I'm trying to achieve.
PS: One of the easiest methods I've seen and tried is just mixing/overlaying the texture on top of the uv coordinates. However, this still keeps the smooth gradient within the paint strokes, which means the UV texture just shifts the image texture around, instead of turning it into flat colors.
Edit: I've added another example of what I want to achieve, to hopefully clarify what I'm trying to do.

Are you good with python? I think shaders are not good for this task, but there is something you can do with the paint that makes it suitable (I'm guessing you generated this paint with python). If you could transform each color island into a coordinate -- X, Y -- being zero bottom left and one top right, it would fit the task perfectly. (Make R=X, G=Y, B=0) -- I think it's way easier to do this outside blender because shaders don't really work on "regions", they work on indivitual locations.

I don't know any python beyond the Godot branch of it lmao. The paint texture was made by hand in photoshop using a brush with 100% color, saturation and brightness variance per stroke.
But yeah I do think this might be outside of shaders. I've been considering doing this more as an overlay with each stroke generated like particles.

I have this method in mind. Need to experiment with Vector input

It's possible, if you use each color as a specific displacement of the mapping.
But you would need to treat the granularity of the image first, it's too noisy and creates ugly transitions. (Shaders are not suited for this, you'd need an image editing software)
There are many ways of doing this, and you're free to explore, I decided to:

Snapped the colors to increments of 0.2 (we want some steady regions)
Used R and G as X and Y displacements

Multiplied them by 10 to make the displacement more evident

Used B as rotation in Z (multiplied by 2*pi for full turns)

The problem is, this just shifts around the checker texture. What I want is for each of the paint strokes to be a flat color on the uv coordinates so that the final texture is flat colored, rather than a section of the regular texture.

Well, just add the paint texture regularly or add it with a mix color.

I can't just add it, because the smooth gradient of the regular UV will still be on top of the paint texture.

So, let me see if I understand it: 1 - you "don't" want the colors of the "painting". // 2- You want the colors of the other texture // 3 - You want to eliminate the color gradients of the other texture inside each area of the paint texture (this kills wood texture, for instance), is that it?

Yes, that’s it. The colours of the paint texture are just so I can get different variation maps with r,g and b. I still want the Color’s of the final texture this uv plugs into, but flattened into paint strokes, which means the uv coordinates also has to be flat coloured.


text:
Topology of a sphere meeting the corner of a surface?

I need help with the topology of this object. It's a sphere merged into an angled surface. It's not quite a 45 degree angle, either, technically it's 41.99 degrees (10mm up, 9mm across)
Aaand, I forgot to actually add what my issue is. Basically, with subdivision on, the sphere is completely distorted. The top section is mostly alright, apart from the pole, but the "overhanging" section on the top face isn't even close to sphericall. I think the biggest issue is the angle makes it very hard to turn into quads. I've tried using a quad-sphere instead of a UV one, but since more than half of the sphere is inside the mesh, there isn't a clean line to split it at. (Also, ignore the ngon on the top face, that will be attached in the end, but given these issues with the topology, I didn't know how many verts I'd end up having on the top, so I haven't added the edge loops there yet. The bevelled edge you can see around the sphere is stopping any issues with that for now.

Honestly that's pretty good. The one thing I'd do is connect the last two vertices of the sphere in the top image to somewhere. I'm not at my pc so I can't show what I mean. Do you have other concerns with the topology?

Can you add some detail to this question to explain what help you need?  The only issue I see is the minor one that the two front sloping faces are now N-gons, and that's remedied easily by inseting the faces.

Added the details.


text:
I Am Having Sewing Problems
I am following a tutorial and I am trying to make clothes for my character. The tutorial is saying to use sewing to make the clothes. It was kind of working but you could see gaps in the seams. Does anyone know how to fix this? Also, after it sews together is jiggles around and when it is being sewed, it goes through the mesh. If anyone can help me with this it would be much appreciated.

I tried to grow the geometry in order to stop it from going through the mesh and to give it more geometry for the seams to look better and I also changed the max sewing force to 5 in order to make it stop going through the mesh and that worked, but now it slides off the mesh. I tried to turn up the friction all the way to 1 in the collision but it still kept sliding off. Does anyone know how to fix that?
I then turned up the max sewing force to 20 to see if that would then stop the sliding, but when I did that, it still slid off. I kept turning it up and up but once I reached 50, it was still sliding off and it was also going through the mesh.
I actually tried it again and it was starting to go through the mesh at a max sewing force of 20. I then changed it to 17 and it stopped going through the mesh but still did slide off

I then continued with the tutorial and made the shirt. The high max sewing force made the shirt go through the mesh so I turned it down again. Now it has a weird jiggly movement again. It still slides off too.

I turned the max sewing force down to five in order to get rid of it going through the mesh and then I moved the shirt up but it still makes the jiggly motion and goes through the mesh.

At the end of the animation, the shirt finally comes to a rest, but the pants still slide down.
After adding a subdivision subsurface and a solidify modifier, I think I found out what the problem is but don't know how to fix it. It seems like the cloth, instead of sewing together, is pulsating. I tried to disable self collisions but it was still pulsating. Here is what it looks like with the subdivision subsurface and the solidify modifier.

If anyone can figure out how to stop the cloth from pulsating, that would be great. Other than that I think that the only other problem I have is how to keep the pants from falling off. Help is appreciated.
I managed to keep the pants on by scaling them smaller than the shirt, but it is still shaking. Does anyone know how to keep it from shaking?

Another interesting thing is, each time I make a change, it sews together just fine, but then once I play the animation a second time, it does the weird shaking thing.

A link to the tutorial might help.

Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPz5gk_AT6w&t=1103s


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Convert High Poly Mesh to Low Poly
I am trying to import a hair particle system into ue4. I followed another thread that said to convert it to a mesh, then convert it to a curve, then bevel it with a shape (I used a triangle), and then convert it back to a mesh in order to import it. When I exported it, it took a very long time, and then it took a very long time to import it but just before it was done importing, UE4 crashed. I am guessing this is because it is high poly. I checked the face count and there were 7000 some odd faces. I am wondering if there is a way to convert it to low poly now. I tried the remesh modifier but that made it look very distorted. I then tried the decimate modifier but I still got the viewport lag. I then tried to go into edit mode and unsubdivide it and windows says Blender Not Responding. Is there a way to make it low poly but not distorted and doesn't make blender crash?
Edit: Just checked I have more than 9 million vertices.

Decimate is definitely your friend here.  I'd recommend 'planar' in decimate, and tune the angle to your liking.  Remesh will often make it worse.
If you've got 9 million verts in your model, you may want to just start over because that will definitely choke your PC no matter what.

Ok, thank you! I think I will start over and if I have any other problems I will come back.

Related: How do I simplify the polygons of a 3D scanned model?


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How do I fix this Cloth simulation?
Each time I make an edit to my cloth in blender 2.9, it will sew together just fine and lay on my character mesh. After running the animation through once, it starts to shake and go through the mesh. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Edit 9/14: I found these weird lines in edit mode that were sewing the end to the thickness modifier. I then disabled the thickness modifier and the lines went away.
Extra sewing lines with thickness modifier:

No more extra lines without it:

I took away the thickness modifier and then played the animation but it still wen through the mesh.
I looked at it from the side and it looked like this:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XBwliFJtRSeqXAr41OiIiB2juPFqnjmG/view

Try increasing the quality steps. Sometimes if you have the steps set too low they clip through each other. If that doesn't work take a look at your cloth thickness, it may be too thin.

When I bumped up the quality steps to 8 (they were 5 before) and I bumped up the thickness to 0.02 (was 0.01 before) It appeared to go less through the mesh. should I just keep bumping it up until it stops?

Then I bumped it up to 20 and it started to spike out through the mesh.

You might want to try scaling everything up. the cloth might be too thin to work properly in the physics engine. You can get some weird results when you work with super small values like that. For reference 1 blender unit in 3d printing translates to 1 mm real life.

What did you mean by scaling it up? I scaled up the thickness to .1 and it still went through the mesh like that. It is really weird.

For some weird reason, it all of a sudden started to work again so I guess that fixes the problem. I am not sure why it fixed but it did so yay!

You don't by chance know what you did to fix it would you? Like what were the last couple things you did?

I think I changed the thickness up to 0.1 but I think that is it. I would like to change the thickness back down because the clothes aren't supposed to be that thick but I am afraid I might mess it up.

So if you look at my answer again I said that you should consider scaling everything up meaning that you can keep the relative thickness of the shirt. Scale both the body and the cloth to be larger so that the cloth thickness is 0.1. Also, try to select the answer that helped you solve your problem as the answer so that other people with the same question can see what helped.

I have some experience in making clothes simulation. But not in sewing. Here is my video at YouTube about Skirt Cloth simulation at the girl skirt. She is performing CatWalk.
At the end of video there are options settings for Cloth Simulation. I took months from my time, to find these values.
https://youtu.be/A3kBf1Y92J0
A piece of clothing should be attached to the body using PIN vertex group. If, for example, the camera does not see the back of body,you need to create a vertex group of points at the back, name that vertex group as BackPin and write it, as Pin Group, in the Cloth Simulation.
Find Shape > Pin > Group and enter that name BackPin.

Use for BELT for example Shrink Warp modifier.
Make PIN vertex group for less moving parts of cloth, BELT for example, and write its name in Cloth > Shape > Pin Group.

That will attach cloth to the body and cloth will not fail.


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How to model a burger package with beveled edges?
I am trying to model a burger box. I used a plane and extrude it for each side. After this was done, I fold the edges to fold the box. As you can see in the image below, it doesn't came perfect out of the box. I think the problem is that the angles of the beveled edges are not the same.
I start all over again, but thought maybe there are some good tips how to achieve a correct burger box. Especially for the angled corners as they should be aligned correctly to each side.

In reality, the paper bends to hold the box closed.
In 3D no bending occurs, the paper clips through instead.

Some pointers for modeling:

Model only one half and use Mirror Modifier to generate the other
Use Solidify Modifier to add thickness
Make use of Pivot points when rotating (Active element works well)
Use Custom orientations to rotate angled parts

Using Pivot Point > Active Element to rotate around selected vertex.

Using a Custom orientation to rotate an angled flap.

I don't want to split your full answer here :) So just a suggestion to use armature in like one click https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/161399/2214 Bones are automatically generated along face and already limited in rotation, so easy to animate (some test from 2011 https://imgur.com/ShLOtUm )

I'd say that actually deserves a separate answer :). I didn't mention armatures, because I have no experience in that area :). But it seems more convenient.

You already covered key points. Addon is just an extension in this Q to anim - you just select a face of object and run addon that creates a whole rig, there is not much to say and you dont need experience here I would say. If you would be interested to explore it fill free to extend your A.


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Volume material disappear when I move further
I was trying the volume material and when I move my view further, volume disappear.
My camera will set further than this so this is a problem to me, I googled about this issue but I couldn't find answer.
Is there a way to display volume material from further away? About 5000m ~ 10000m.
close

far

fog node

I am using 2.91 and this is my file:
My file
THX!
Edit:
volume has its own distance clip.

im not sure but this could be a viewport problem and the volumetric can bee visible in render , try doing a single frame render from far away where volume not visible in viewport

read also: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/4946/where-can-the-viewport-clipping-parameters-be-changed

Thx!  There is a bar speical for volume, I attach in edit.


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Why Can't I Parent Armatures?
In every tutorial I've looked at, it says that to parent an armature to another one, I select them in the order I want them to be parented and then hit CTRL+P or right-click and select "Parent", "Bone" then  not "keep offset".
But when I try to do this, nothing happens.

Does anyone know why this is?
(In Edit Mode:)

You're in pose mode. Parenting must be done in edit mode.

I tried using Edit Mode, but I had the same problem (just with many fewer confusing options). can I attach a picture to this comment? (I jsut added the new recording to the initial question)

Don't select them until you;re in edit mode.

Parenting of bones is in edit mode.  Parenting of armatures is in object mode.

I tried unselecting them in object mode and then selecting them in edit mode (@Ninja Tommy Lee), but it seems like I can't select objects in Edit Mode that I didn't already have selected in object mode, and it autoselects whichever armature i most recently selected or created when I go into Edit Mode.


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Can I Put Multiple Animations on a Single Skeletal Mesh?
I have a skeletal mesh I want to use in an Unreal Engine game, and I've made a running animation for it.
Is it possible to create multiple animations (e.g. attacking, resting, etc.), and store them all in the same skeletal mesh?
Should I put only a passive animation in blender, and then the create the other animations in Unreal?

what do you mean by "store them"? If you go in the Dope Sheet, you can switch from Dope Sheet/Dope Sheet mode to Dope Sheet/Action Editor mode, and create new actions or load old actions... I don't know how you import them in Unreal though

Also If you don't use the action in your scene don't forget to click on the little shield icon on the right of the action name, so that it doesn't get deleted when you close the file

As Moonboots said, you have to turn a dopesheet window into an action editor and store every animation as an action, pressing the shield icon to enable the "fake user" function so that you won't loose your stored actions when the software is closed. Then, while exporting in Fbx format you have to enable the "all actions" option, so that the Fbx file will carry all the actions to UE.


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How do I render a shiny metallic or chromed material?
I really thought I got this but I can't seem to get this material right.
I'm trying to achieve this:

In case, anyone wants to see more photos of this, it's the Dior foundation cap.
But I cant seem to get it to shine like this.
Although I've tried various nodes, this is what I'm doing currently:

And this is what I'm getting:

My roughness for the above image is at 0.192 and reducing it further isn't looking great. I've also tried using principal BSDF with metallic at 1 but that didn't look similar to what I want either.
This is the HDRI I'm using: https://hdrihaven.com/hdri/?c=studio&h=photo_studio_01
Any tips on how to come closer to the reference images would be really appreciated!
Edit for Jachym:

Your HDRI doesn't have enough contrast.

Use default Principled BSDF shader with Metallic = 1, and Roughness = 0.1
Add a contrasty HDRI
Done.

Wow, this HDRI really made a difference. Thank you! However, now I have a pink/ purple tint on the metallic surface, do you make a box around this to reduce its influence?

Hey :). I simply lowered the camera a bit, and used the Camera Y shift to compensate. But that's more about general photography and less about Blender :).

I'm sorry if this is very basic but lowering the camera certainly changes the reflections but how do you make them black and white? The colour of my background seems to have changed to a hue of pink as well (adding a screenshot in my original post at the end if you have time to see it)

Sure :). Simply add a Hue/Saturation node after your HDRI and lower Saturation to 0 :). You can also increase the contrast with a Contrast node.

I've always been a bit wary of nodes but this was relatively easy. Thanks a bunch!

No problem, good luck with your project :)

Also, if you want the reflection lines nice and straight, use a long lens (200-300mm) :)

Thanks again for all your help and tips, theybe been super helpful!


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My sculpt tools are doing opposite of what they're supposed to
I clicked on 'Inflate' tool and made sure I was on + and not -. Yet, my tool seems to be removing the mesh (is that the right term?) instead of adding it.

I was experimenting with a few things (including 'dyntopo') but as far as I remember, I went back to my original settings.
edit: it took me a few times to get it right but the solution given by @Blunder seems to work.

have you checked the face orientation of the mesh? There might be flipped normals then inflate has the opposite effect. You can check it with the overlays

yea, it sounds like a problem with your normals, to reset normals, select an object, and in edit mode, hit shift+n on your keyboard


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How can I get the translucent material right for the product?
I've been struggling with this bottle's material. Especially the cap and the base.

The cap seems to be a translucent material so I've been experimenting with IOR, Alpha and transmission in the principal BSDF. The spirals used for closing the cap is almost visible.
Whereas the base is more clear but heavy.
I'm new to Blender and materials so I've been able to make this model. Should I use the solidify modifier to give it some thickness and then give the inner material colour but keep the outer material transparent?

Not sure why the base is pink when I've chosen white as it's base colour.
Please excuse UV wrapping of the text.
Any suggestions/ feedback would be very helpful at this point.
Edit 1: Adding my light setup. There are some more objects and materials in the scene that I've removed for this post.

Edit 2: Thank you for all the helpful comments! I will work them into my model.
Edit 3: Youtube link to the bottle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXHziIt9MUE
Edit 4: No one is probably reading this anymore but you guys are THE BEST!

The first thing to do would be to light it in a reasonable way. You couldn't see the material even if it was perfect in this light, so how can you make it better?

@MartynasŽiemys I actually have considered this. Currently I have a small spherical (area) light in front of the subject, a top light and one strip (area) on the side. The background is lit by one area light as well. There is a HDRI as well. Do you have any suggestions to improve this light setup?

First of all I would get rid of this ridiculously high IOR of 176(!), the default of 1.45 (or I think 1.5 in latest versions) is totally fine and as long as you keep it in a realistic range between 1 and 2 it will not make much of a difference (and definitely not matter much for translucency). About the bottom material: sorry to ask, but has it really the white material assigned? It looks exactly like the part above it and with an Alpha value of 0 it would be invisible (not transparent, translucent or anything... just invisible). For realistic results, do not decrease Alpha, leave it at 1.

@Der8, I think it depends on what lighting you are after. I would recommend looking for some inspiration for lighting specifically online and getting some reference images and then try to replicate lighting that you like. It is relatively fast to try, so you can try a few different versions, a few different HDRIs and see what you like. If you are using Filmic or AgX, maybe try different contrast presets as well.

@GordonBrinkmann Thank you!! I was using the slider to see what is getting me a good result and may have gone wild. Thank you so much! Its definitely the base (i tried removing the cylinder) but there is something wrong going on there. I will recheck.

I've tried to create something useable as well. Admittedly I did not just use a simple Glass BSDF. The jar is made with a Principled BSDF with a very slight pinkish color and Transmission > Weight set to 1 for the glass part and 0 for the text by plugging a mask texture into the Weight input. I made the glass not totally clear with 0.1 for the Roughness.
I could have used the mask to also give the text a different color than the glass, but it looks almost white so I left it like that.
To slightly increase the pinkish color where the glass is thicker I used a Principled Volume node with a pink color and a density of 5. (Actually for a simpler and quicker to render volumetric effect I should have used the Volume Absorption node.)
Glass material:

The lotion material is very simple, I gave a Principled BSDF some peachy color and set the Subsurface > Weight to 0.8 but the effect is not so really good visible.
Lotion material:

For the lid I tried to combine transparency and translucency. In the Principled BSDF with pink color I increased the Roughness to 0.3, made it only half transmissive with a _Weight _ of 0.5 and also gave the Subsurface a Weight of 0.5 and then mixed it with a Translucent BSDF of the same color, giving a little more priority to the translucency by setting 0.7 as mix factor.
Lid material:

And these are the resulting renders:

For me personally this would be good enough, but of course there are lots of ways to tweak here and there to get it better. Another thing than the material itself is of course the environment/lighting, it can make everything look completely different (see my examples of a simple gold material under different HDRIs in my answer here: How to make a liquid gold texture)
One thing which is often important when creating a glass material to make it look good are the light bounces. People tend to have low numbers of bounces, however especially with a glass material the glossy bounces are important - inside the glass, between the "walls", the light can bounce around very often. With a low max bounces value, this often leads to dark areas in glass objects.
I would recommend going to the Scene Properties > Light Paths and under Max Bounces set the value for Glossy to at least 16. Higher values might improve the look, but not necessarily. Beyond 32 it is usually hard to notice a difference.
For Transmission (and glass is a transmissive material, not transparent) I would recommend a value of 64. This way you make sure that even more complex glass sculptures or things like that do not have parts where you cannot see through anymore because there are too much layers.
A Volume value of at least 1 instead of the default 0 will be good too, otherwise using the volume in the glass material might look bad (but it is not necessary when you use only the Volume Absorption node).
Now you only have to make sure to set the Total bounces to the max value you have there as well, otherwise it will clip those values to the total number of bounces while rendering. The thing is, many tutorials suggest to keep all bounces low for render times and that's why many people think the standard glass material in Blender is not so great. But it just looks much better with higher values and actually it doesn't even take much longer to render. By the way, my Transparent value is set to 128, that's more than the Total value but this one is independent from the other bounce values. It is used for alpha transparency and also for volumetric materials (like smoke simulations).

Last but not least, my blend file:

your model and materials are excellent! I will study your comment + blender file (thank you so much for sharing it with me!)
Not sure if this conversation is allowed but if i wanted to learn Blender the 'right' way, how should I go about it? I watch youtube videos as much as possible and i started a couple of months ago. Would you recommend to continue using Youtube tutorials? Thank you again!

Even the font is so good! I really struggled with it.

@Der8 I learned mostly from tutorials, so yes that's definitely not the worst way. The rest is learning by doing, playing with settings and see what works best. Trying to understand how things work and drawing conclusions from that how to tweak settings. And for some tutorials: thinking the shown method/explanation cannot be the best/correct way and trying to find a different or better way. Conversations are not so good here...

I completely understand, thank you again!

I think there are few important things when it comes to any transparent/translucent materials:

Shape of the geometry is way more important than it might seem.

Environment and lighting is way more important than it might seem.

Observing reference is very important. You should have it on screen when working(PureRef is great for that)

As soon as you have good lighting and detail geometry it all just comes to playing with PrincipledBSDF shader until it starts looking similar to your reference:

This is just an example. The more time you spend on it, the better it tends to get.

i personally think, you make it way tooo complicated.
Glass can be very easy rendered with the "perfect" material: glass.

But...you have to use cycles so that it really looks good.
result looks like this:

by the way: i "stole" the image from BlenderKit (free add-on) which has tons of models, scenes, materials where you can learn from.
I would guess that the bottom part is just glass, but the filling is another color.
So i would model a filling (the model in Blenderkit did that as well):

and with the easiest material possible:

and i think, it looks great.
Just make sure the glass and the filling won't overlap.
Rest is lighting. I would watch some beginner tutorials for that...or....you just use the delivered free add-on  to light it.

My thoughts exactly! I think the OP makes it way too complicated. I do not know why so many people avoid using the Glass BSDF when they want to do glass. It's all a matter of the right settings and also the right lighting/environment. The Principled BSDF with Transmission = 1 is good for glass too, I also like that it allows to set a surface roughness and a transmission roughness (which can be very different in reality). But often I do not color it very much at the surface and do this additionally in the volume, because colored glass is often imbued and not just coated with color.

@chris thank you! I hadn't heard of these add-ons, they seem very helpful! Using glass bsdf with default values seems off to me somehow. I saw the bottle again (I actually own this product), the body and the base are one single object but the bottom/ base has a bevelled and indented bottom. (I'm adding a link to a YouTube video although I'm not sure if it'll be helpful.) Thank you again for all the helpful info!

Edit: Tweaking the roughness in glass BSDF has helped!


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How to create a clamshell without sculpting?
(Reposting this question after re-doing my clamshell. If i can be completely honest, I think I messed somewhere this time and it doesnt look as nice as my previous try.)
I'm trying to create a clamshell model similar to the one in the image below, but I'd like to avoid using sculpting. Does anyone have tips or techniques for modelling a detailed clamshell using other methods?
The reason why I'm hesitant with sculpting is because I've not really done this so much in the past.
I'm looking for something with a similar smoothness and shell thickness. It doesn't need to be very realistic; in fact, I'd prefer it to have a blend of cartoon-y and realistic.

This is what I have at the moment after following this video (as you can see, I messed up somewhere and it looks a bit wonky):

Note: I'm not very concerned about the materials at the moment
Edit:

First draw the shape:

Pull the edges to create the relief:

Bevel the edges (1 segment only):

Create these horizontal edge loops:

Activate the Proportional Editing option and pull the central vertices to make the object concave:

Extrude the whole mesh to give it thickness:

Bevel the outter edges:

Give it a Subdivision Surface modifier and shade smooth:

I got a decent shape following your steps, except that I used the mirror modifier to get the left side of the shell. I ended with a strange line in between. Is there a way to get rid of it or would you recommend that I make the whole thing without using the mirror modifier? Thank you once again!!!
I'll make an edit with the screenshot of the line and also the blend file.

You don't need the Mirror, or use it at the beginning but you'll need to apply it when you'll create the vertical bevels

got it, thank you!


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Issue with independent metaballs in Blender
I want to create three meta balls that move independently. As someone new to both metaballs and Blender, I tackled this by creating each meta ball separately in different Blender files. Then, I used the 'append' function (*) to bring them together, each colored differently (blue, red, and green), into a new file.
Yet, an issue arises: all three balls appear red, and when I select one, all three are selected.

(*) I'm appending 3 objects

Mball
Empty
Cube

What might be causing this? Should I not use the append function and perhaps make them in the same file since they seem to be fine in independent files.
Edit: Adding screenshots for more details

What do you mean with the "Append" function? The one from the File menu where you append objects from a different file? And for the color: when the metaballs are interacting with each other cannot have different materials.

@GordonBrinkmann yes, i meant using the append option from the file menu. They aren't exactly touching but share the same space. Would that be considered an interaction? They continue to move differently (they have different empties and values) but their colour seems to be an issue

Do they merge when you move them together? If so, they interact with each other. I cannot see all the names, but metaballs belong to each other by sharing the same "family name". I see the selected one in the screenshot is named "Mball.002". All metaballs named "Mball", "Mball.001", "Mball.002" etc. share the same family and therefore they get the same material and will merge if you move them closer together.
So, if you want to give them different materials, you have to give them different names. However, this also means they will not be merging with each other - and that's what's you usually do with metaballs, so I wonder if you really want to separate them.

Thank you for your response! I want the 3 of them to move individually to show 3 different movements. I've added some layer details (probably not the right term) for all of them as well as one of them.

@Der8 I do not know why exactly you added the screenshot now since it does not give any new information which I did not already suspected in my answer - it shows they all have the same name, only distinguished by the suffix. If you want to give them different materials, give them different names... maybe in relation to the colors you want to give them "R-ball", "G-ball", "B-ball", or just "R", "G" and "B"... or "red", "green", "blue", whatever you like.


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Animating an object entering, pausing and then exiting a bottle
I'm new to animation and feel like I may have taken on more than I can handle. In this animation, I have an object that enters a bottle and gets stuck inside (with the cap of the bottle closed). Then, the cap of the bottle opens, and the object comes out. So far, I've managed to animate the object entering the bottle with the cap closed.
However, I want the object to pause while it is stuck in the bottle, and then, once the cap reopens, I want the object to resume and exit the bottle.

The orange outline is of the object and at this scene, the cap has reopened for the object to exit.
I'm really struggling with getting the object to exit. Do I expand the existing path or can I create a new path (can an object be linked to multiple paths?) ?
I'm also getting slightly confused - When I add a key frame, do I add it to the object, the curve or both?
Temporarily adding the blend file for clarity. I want the object to leave at 148th or so frame.
Edit:

On the Follow Path constraint there is an Influence value which can be animated. So, yes you can use multiple paths. First you have the influence at 1 for the first path, then you switch it to 0 and for the second path the other way round from 0 to 1. But notice that if you would have the Influence at 0 for both, the object does not stay on any of the curves, it moves to its original place. So you have to combine them in a way that the end point of one curve is the starting point of the other or at least that you get a transition that does not reset the object in a weird way.

maybe the simplest would be extend your curve but you'll need to change the Evaluation Time because extruding your curve will change the position of the bee object on the curve. Also you'll need to duplicate a keyframe so that it stops before leaving at frame 150:

Result:

I was able to get the object to pause and exit. I duplicated the keyframe from 90 to 140 which is where it pauses and at 150th frame, I set my evaluation time to 85.8 so that it exits. However, the extruding still made my object upside down. Should I try not to extrude at all? Adding a screenshot in the edit. Thank you for all your helpful responses!

could you please share your file? Generally for this kind of animation give a Follow Path constraint to the object then keyframe the Evaluation Time of the curve

Also maybe for your curve choose Twist Method > Z-Up

thank you, i added the blend file under edit 2. I could be missing out something very simple.
Thank you, i will check out twist method!

to reorientate your object, either change the tilt of the curve vertices (Ctrl T or in the N panel > Item > Transform > Tilt), or keyframe the local X axis of the object (R to rotate then double X to rotate on its axis, then i to keyframe)


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How to animate a sphere gradually transforming into a crescent shape?
Is there a way to animate my sphere transforming from completely round to a crescent shape?

If this were a still image, I would use a boolean modifier to cut out the shape, but since it's an animation, I'm wondering if there is an easier method to achieve this effect?
Edit: my scene

do you mean that you want to do the exact same animation as the one you show?

Same as https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/65877/how-do-you-make-a-torus-telescope-open/ ?

@moonboots sorry, i should have been more clear. I have a coloured environment and a sphere that I'd like to vanish. I'm just adding a screenshot of the scene (with unrelated objects hidden to keep it simple) to show the angle - it is not straight on like the gif above

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Oh! So I make a sphere using curve and then play around with bevel factor for the animations? I dont know curves too well but I will give it a try, thank you!

If you want the crescent to be black and transparent so that you can see whatever is behind the sphere like this

you can do the following:
EEVEE: Select one half of the sphere in Edit Mode and press Alt+N > Normals > Flip, so that the Face Orientation overlays shows them red instead of blue.

Then create whatever material... mine is simple black because I started before you edited your question, but it works with a "pearly" material as well, and in the Material Properties enable Backface Culling and that's it.

CYCLES: No face normals need to be flipped, instead give one half of the sphere a material that is just a Transparent BSDF with full white, this will make that half invisible. For the other you need a black (or pearly or whatever) material and you mix it with a Transparent BSDF, as mix factor you use the Backfacing output of a Geometry node.

THANK YOU!! I'll give this a try, it seems like the right solution!

Create a UV sphere, give it 2 materials (black and white) and make it turn 360°?

Thank you! I'm sorry for the lack of information and have edited my original question by adding my scene. This sphere will be a part of a larger scene and the material of the sphere is 'pearl-y'


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How are rainbow-liquidy artworks like these modelled?
(I dont use Blender very regularly and am currently quite rusty)
I've been seeing art like this a lot lately (maybe some algorithm has discovered I like such things) and have been wondering how people do this. I understand that the material in such artworks are going to be tricky: refractive-glass, i think? But I was just wondering how are such sculptures modelled? Is this a flat plane with some bumps? Is it a completely different shape clicked up-close that we cant see?
For the below photos, the artist listed Cinema 4D, Octane and Photoshop but I'm sure Blender can achieve this too.

I think for a lot of these images the modeling could just as well be some procedural displacement on a relatively simple object, most of the work is in the shader.

Not exactly the same, but I just took a cube and subdivided it a couple of times, then used Mesh->Transform->Randomize and moved some vertices around. I added a Subdivision modifier to smooth it out and then applied a Glass shader. Then I chose "Environment Texture" for the background and downloaded a random swirly color image from a Google search:

Then zoom in so you can't see the shape/background.
You could also do crazier things with the shader but really the refraction of the glass can do the work for you.
Here's one using a different background, and just Suzanne - so zero modeling work at all!


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How to give a PNG (image texture) some sheen/ gloss?
I'm trying to make a sticker (PNG file) and they tend to generally have a plastic film on top that makes them look glossy.

At first, I tried to modify the principal BSDF node by setting roughness to 0 and tried playing around with sheen and coat. I got no gloss from it so I tried something else, currently looks like this:

which hasnt been helpful either. Is there any way to get some glossy layer over my image?
Edit: my light setup (there's also an HDRI but I might change that at some point)

Sheen is for fabric or dust. Do you have anything to reflect in your scene and show the coat ?

@Lutzi I've included a basic lighting setup in the edit. I also have an HDRI in, which I may change later when finalising the scene.
Should I set the coat weight to 1 and add a light for the stickers when I create the environment?

Having an HDRI or lights won't be enough in itself : do you have something bright on the part that is reflected through the stickers reflection ? For your question, basically yes, set Coat Weight to 1, then either move your camera to get a light reflection, or move your lights & HDRI. Then you can tweak the coat down if it's too strong. Coat is exactly what you want, it's a thin layer on top of the material (which can be rough) : https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/shader_nodes/shader/principled.html#layers

@Lutzi thank you! Exactly what I needed


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Is there a better way to model thin pipes around a larger cylinder?
I want to model this (edit: this is a podium/ stand for placing objects)

I'm new to Blender/ modelling and decided to manually make thinner pipes around a larger cylinder, like this:

I was just wondering if there is a better way to do this?
Edit: To add more info on what I'm doing - I'm making a thinner pipe and putting it outside a larger one (Image 3 - the highlighted circle represents the top view of one of the pipes).
Then, I copy the pipe and move them manually around the edge of the larger cylinder, making sure that half of it is sticking out. I'm trying to keep everything looking symmetrical as much as I can.
Edit 2: I was able to finish this manually and am quite happy with the results

Your way of doing it isn't bad. For a lot of cases, it would be sufficient. Do you want to do something else with this object after that ? It would guide our answers.

@Lutzi glad to hear that and thank you for your response! This is supposed to be a podium/ stand and I'll probably keep an object (a bottle perhaps) on top of it.

If it's only a secondary object in your render and you're new to Blender, I would suggest keeping your workflow. Keep in mind you won't be able to easily change the small cylinders.

In geonodes you could use a mesh circle and use every point to spawn a smaller cylinder

You should describe your way in addition to the screenshot. A single screenshot does not tell us much - imagine if someone posted a single image to describe a modelling workflow as an answer...

I think you should really edit the question and provide full information about what and how you do. I tried to write an answer with suggestions of how you could improve what you do just to realise I am just guessing what it is that you do...

@MartynasŽiemys I added some more details in the edit. If it's not sufficient, could you tell me what kind of information will be helpful?

This question is more suited for Blenderartists.org forums than BSE. It can not have one definite answer and is in my opinion too broad for here, because it requires general modelling tips on various techniques. I would recommend seeking for guidance on blenderatsists.org. You can duplicate and rotate around 3D cursor, then repeat last(R) or use an array modifier, or work with only a few edges to make it simpler and then extrude for example.

There a number of ways to accomplish the task of positioning tubes around a cylinder as in shown in your screen captures. The fastest and probably the easiest way in my experience would be to do the following:

Add the initial cylinder mesh
Go to the cylinder's edit mode and turn on x-ray view
Go to side vew of the cylinder and box select all of the vertical edges of the cylinder
Hit Ctrl + D to duplicate the selected edges and then right click the mouse to bring up the object menu
In the object menu scroll to the bottom and select seperate by selection.
Hit Tab key and select your new object of vertical edges
With the duplicated edges object selected, right click the mouse again to bring up the object menu and select convert to curve
In the Data tab go to the Geometry section go to Bevel and select Round
When you click the arrow of the Depth button you will see the edges turn into pipes.
Set the pipes to the appropriate diameter desired and check the Fill Caps box.

From there you can either right click on the newly created pipes object and convert them back to a mesh and then join them to the cylinder or leave them as curves.


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GPU memory issues with cloth inflation animation on MacBook Pro
I hope this question is allowed on this forum. I am currently using a non-ideal setup for my renders, specifically an Apple MacBook Pro M2 Pro. I've been learning on this system and plan to upgrade soon. Despite its limitations, I've managed to render complex environments in the past, albeit slowly.
I am encountering some difficulties with a specific project: rendering an inflation animation. Although the scene is relatively simple, it involves cloth inflation (approximately 20,000 vertices). I'm also using the Gscatter addon, which is why I'm not able to use SheepIt. Even after disabling the Gscatter collection and rendering only the cloth inflation, my GPU still runs out of memory.
I'm struggling to understand why my GPU lacks enough memory. I have ensured that all other applications and software are closed + I have restarted my laptop. I've attempted to optimise the scene as per my understanding.
Could I have unknowingly changed a setting that is consuming a lot of memory / something else? Any tips on how to manage this, or is it best to wait until I have a better system for cloth simulations?

My subject has around 20k vertices, which is likely on the higher side but should still be manageable. Also, the materials for both the plane and the subject are node-based. I can simplify nodes (since a lot of the details from my cloth are blurred out) but I'm not sure if that'll help GPU either.
I'm making this post to ensure that I'm not making a fundamental mistake and that the issue lies with my current system's limitations.
Edit: I also have 300 samples per image and 150 frames but as far as I understand, this doesn't use GPU. Just takes longer.
I tried using my CPU overnight and it was able to render 9 frames in 8ish hours.
Worst case scenario, i will look up rendering in layers since my grass layer remains the same (unfortunately) while only the cloth expands/ inflates.

You have a scene that requires a lot of memory, because you have a lot of things in it. It's that simple the way I see it. Memory runs out quickly when you have a lot of something(like instances). Instancing is a clever way to save memory when rendering and it does save enormous amounts of it and makes things possible that would otherwise not be, however, saving memory doesn't mean not using any at all and instances do still use a lot of memory.
Don't forget that information is not only stored, but also processed so various processes(like rendering) may require considerably more memory than just what it takes to store the geometry. If you want to render scenes that have lots of things like grass, hair, fur, particles, trees, leaves, surface displacement detail and things like that, you do need a lot of memory and it should not be surprising you are running out of it if you have things like that in your scene.
It's difficult to know exactly how much memory a scene will use(and you have not even provided any specific detail about yours) so it might not be a bad idea to base your decisions on tests. You already have tested your current scene and the result is that you run out of memory. That's it. It is for a fact too big for your hardware. No need to doubt it. The only thing you can do from here is to attempt to optimize it. A few things to consider:

Open viewports use VRAM. If you have Material Preview mode, textures and shaders and geometry and all the other stuff in your scene is also loaded to memory. Some things are also cached and that memory is not fully freed if you simply switch to wireframe mode(I have tested). You could save the file with viewports closed, close Blender and reopen and then less VRAM will be used. But this is a bit inconvenient, so you may consider not having Blender's UI loaded at all when rendering. You can do that with Command Line Rendering

Textures may use lots of memory. You could inspect image files used in your scene to see if you could maybe use lower resolution. If they are from many different locations, you could pack images (File -> External Resources -> Pack Recources) and then unpack them to one folder. Keep in mind that images may be compressed on your storage disk and they do need to be uncompressed in VRAM when rendering, so you should direct your attention to the resolution, not to the file size. Note that HDRI lighting is one very commonly used thing that usually requires or at last may have one very large high dynamic range(32bit per channel) image file - worth to check that one. When deciding the needed resolution, it's helpful to consider the size of the textures or parts of them visible in your rendered image relative to its resolution.

Geometry may use a lot of memory. If you have lots of it. Try having less. Maybe you don't need some objects in your scene, maybe some are too small on screen and don't need as much detail. Consider modifiers as well - Subdivision Surface modifiers can increase the amount of geometry drastically very quickly and they also have different settings for the viewport and for rendering, so it may not be apparent. Another example is Geometry Nodes modifiers - they can do anything including completely overloading your scene with geometry with only a few "right" nodes.

Particles, instances, hair, fur, displacement use a lot of memory. Maybe lower the density or the complexity. Maybe a transparent triangular plane with 3 verts with a picture of it is enough for a grass strand or even a clump of grass instead of something that has hundreds of verts.

The result of the image being rendered needs to be stored in memory as well. This is not a problem in most cases, unless you are rendering large resolution images with lots of render passes. 4K or larger images with 10-15 render passeses(like light passes + a few extra like denoising data, cryptomatte, Z...) will add up to quite a large size in memory, all the passes are in 32bit float format after all. If that was the case, it would be logical to consider enabling "Use Tilling" under Memory section, Performance tab in the Render properties(Properties Editor). This can significantly reduce memory usage in those cases. Persistent Data setting also influences memory.

Thank you! All of this is very helpful, I'm going to go through them one by one on my scene to improve it.


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How to fix misaligned objects that look fine in viewport but not in render?
I'm experimenting with a new style that involves linking objects to a surface using the magnetic icon (snap) --> centre, faces, and align rotation to target. It looks fine in the viewport, but when I render it, elements like the eyebrows, blush, and even the eyes appear off.
I've definitely come across such an issue before where things look fine in the viewport but not in render but I dont recall how to fix it. Should I be applying my modifiers?

How can I fix this?

Edit 1:

Hello could you please share your file https://blend-exchange.com? Remove all the useless objects and do a File > Cleanup.

The levels for preview and render are not the same in your Subdivision Surface modifiers, align the render value with the preview:

I cant believe I missed it. Thank you for your help as always!


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Placing scattered objects on surface properly
Edit: I've taken out the additional content that's not relevant (add-on related). My apologies for not realising it was off-topic, but it makes sense now, and I completely understand. Thank you for the helpful suggestions! I'll work on adjusting the steps for the origin and particle system as advised by the fantastic users below. Many thanks!

I recently got back into Blender after not using it for years. I've been trying out the Gscatter add-on, which has been very useful in creating grassy environments. While using low-poly mode, I liked what I saw with the round balls. Can I recreate this effect somehow?

I don't know Gscatter (and it's off-topic here, being a third-party addon), but it's possible that you'll need to set the origin of your balls to their bottom to get them to sit on the surface. Try going into Edit mode with one of your spheres selected, hit A to select all then G Z and move it up until the bottom is level with the object's origin (yellow dot). Then see if that sphere color is sitting correctly.

Hi, Der8 .. John Eason  is right, strictly, this post is off-topic here, we can't hope to deal with the full range of 3rd-party add-ons. There's been a vote to close.. but I'm  holding off,  with the suggestion that you revise your question, simply to ask how to achieve the illustrated effect. If your question definitely has to be  about how to use Gscatter, you will have to ask its own developers or community.  I hope you understand, we do want to be helpful.

@RobinBetts Apologies for not realising that this content was off-topic. I've removed the add-on details and added a note at the beginning of the post. You may consider closing the question as I intend to focus on adjusting the particle system and changing the object's origin (solutions suggested in this thread). If I have any further inquiries, I'll create a new question. Many thanks to this incredibly supportive community!

Your addon probably uses Instancing, you'll have more control on how the particles are orientated if you use a particle system (or geometry nodes):
Put your particle objects in a collection, rotate their mesh -90° on X (and remember that their origin will determine their location on the ground). Select your floor and give it a particle system (Hair), activate the Advanced option, choose the number of particles, activate the Rotation option, choose Orientation Axis > Normal, randomize a bit if you don't want your particles to be completely aligned with the normals, tweak the Randomize Phase so that the particles rotate on their Z. Under Render choose Render As > Collection and under Instance Collection select your collection, tweak Scale and Scale Randomness:

Edit: You need to disable the Whole Collection option, it uses the whole collection as one object so each object’s origin won’t be taken into account, also, if you want the spheres to be precisely placed on their base, put the origin at this position on each sphere (see image, it’s the side view) and set the Randomize of the Orientation Axis to 0:

So, I positioned the origin for the spheres at the base of each sphere and followed your provided screenshot (ty!) However, despite this adjustment, the spheres still appear to be half way on the plane unless I select 'whole collection' under Render -> Instance -> Instance Collection. Upon doing so, the spheres are properly aligned (no longer halfway within the plane), but now many of them are clustered at the bottom of the plane.
(Sorry, i have very few characters left and no way of adding a screenshot it seems!)

Could you please share your file? remove all the useless objects, save and use https://blend-exchange.com/ or another platform like workupload

I've edited, the main problem is that you've enabled the Whole Collection option

Thank you!!! Your instructions fixed the issue!
Some spheres appear to be merging together. Is there an option I can adjust to prevent this from happening? Also, do you have any suggestions on how to cover the entire field with spheres? I'm currently experimenting with the Emission -> Number settings.
Apologies if these questions are off-topic or not allowed. Nonetheless, I appreciate that my main issue has been resolved. Thank you once again!

just wanted to make an edit to add that I was able to unmerge the spheres by playing around with 'number' and 'seeds', I'm not entirely sure why it works but it did the trick for now. Thanks again for all the help!

Seed just change the pattern, it won't really prevent the intersecting between particles, but some seeds may work better than others. You cant really avoid particle intersecting, except with some tricks (maybe with Emit particles, I can't find the tutorial)


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Animating active object issue in motion tracking project
Why won't my 'meteorite' continue forward follow-thru even though set as an active object in the Physics tab?
• Project for school - to VFX a meteorite striking building
• Must finish by this coming Sunday night! (3/21) if at all possible
• Using Blender v2.83 on desktop PC with Windows 10 - Blender version is what school uses
• Any / all help welcomed :D
Thank you!!

“Animated” is checked. The sphere will follow its animated coordinates when this is checked. If it becomes checked after the sphere has physic-ed around, it will snap back to those coordinates.

Thank you so much for your help.

@CrystalKaulbars Ur welcome, TYL I just discovered this the day


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Cell Fracture Issue | Some cells material is weird - need help! Blender v2.83
Motion Tracking anomalies in Blender v2.83--My class project for animation VFX. Am attempting to crumble a building via an animated meteorite hit VFX, but after using Cell Fracture, the Image Texture used as the Material is acting weird.
If I delete the odd blocks, that leaves holes in the structure before the meteorite hits Cell Fracture.
I tried 'Flip Normals' but that didn't repair the anomaly.
Any/all help appreciated. Working in Blender v2.83 on my home desktop PC with Windows 10.
Need to finish project by this Sunday night 3/21!! Eek!!
Thanks to whomever is able to help :-)

Hi and welcome. Please [edit] your question so that all textual information is contained in the text of your question. Text that is in images becomes difficult to read, and is not searchable, thus becoming less useful to future visitors or users who would answer. As your question is currently written, the text alone provides no hints as to what your problem is, and therefore is not useful to providing an answer to your question or for a future visitor to find your question and an answer to theirs.

Timaroberts I have edited this question as I really need help. Thank you.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/15924/timaroberts would you be able to re-open this question for me? I promise not to only put the texts in my pictures. Have changed my other question as well :-)

Thanks for your edit. Just some pointers, when asking, it's already assumed  help is needed :) And mentioning a deadline won't necessarily get a faster answer. The fastest way to an answer is a well asked, well formatted question. The more detailed you are with your research, and sharing what you know now, the better. See here for instance. :)

@Timaroberts Thank you for the pointers. I'm new to it all but will take these to heart and use these guidelines going forward.

Cell Facturing textured objects can do that.  It's because you are dealing with a host of new separate objects. Make a duplicate of the model to act as an outer covering.  That's done before any cell fracturing or physics are used. The duplicate won't be affected when the original is segmented. It's also expanded a whisker so there's no Z fighting (shimmering).  The result is no fracture cracks and the original texture returned.
cont...

...cont from previous - At frame 1 the duplicate is visible and optionally, the fractured version invisible. At the impact frame or thereabouts, the reverse is the case - duplicate invisible and fractured version visible.  (the eye and camera icons in the Outliner will do that)

A quick & dirty demo below... Your bursting wall or section would obviously be different to the clip but note how the texture and building is fine before the blowout.  The cell fracture murdered the texture when set up but it's not
visible so it doesn't matter.  The clip -
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtkhCKZLZs_Pg2ofySayjHmaoRBD?e=8mIu2J

Thank you Edgel3D - got it and is working now :D

That's good to hear,  hope you get a good mark for that! :)


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Why is my image sequence exporting to a black and white mp4?
In order to make mp4 made from an image sequences, I chose:

ffmpeg video
container mpeg 4
video Codec h264
output Quality: lossless
encoding speed: slowest

Result: black and white mp4
Blender version: 2.83.4
The source is a video that I convert to images in Blender in order to increase video quality.
When I choose a setting other than lossless, I get the colors in the mp4.

Please post a screenshot of your output settings or include the .blend


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While rendering, after a few seconds my screen glitches out, then my computer BSOD's
My PC is custom built, it has a Ryzen 5 1600 14nm and an AMD rx 570 with 16 GB of ram on a gigabyte b450m ds3h motherboard. Nothing is overclocked and I can run games just fine and with blender it seems to have the same power draw so I don't think its a power issue. In games, I have not experienced anything like this, even with max power draw. https://youtu.be/B6w_vKzFH6Q that is a video of the issue. I have tried limiting the power draw of my GPU and that doesn't help. My drivers are up to date, I'm using open cl with my CPU and GPU checked and under cycles settings, I have my GPU as my compute device. Even if I render with CPU as my device, it still happens. Didn't used to happen. Temperatures are just fine usually around 60-70 while under load.
This is a link to the project I am trying to render https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pgYE_1C1TcLQLkrghEq8Nac6qNlHIWAD?usp=sharing
the images were rendered on a different computer.

Screen/ graphical issues are almost always gpu problems rather than blender ones. Please revise your question to include information about the scene you are rendering. Start blender from command line with --debug-all --factory-startup flags and see if issue persists.

It's your graphics card for sure. I suggest install the latest drivers and if that doesn't help for whatever reason, please file a bug report. Help > Report a Bug

I have found that when I have instant replay on and record desktop on in radeon settings, it crashes. If turned off, I have no issues at all. Thank you for your time.


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Glass text on bottle
I want to create a text on the glass bottle like this:

I wrote my text, converted it to Mesh and added some modifier:

Solidify
Simple Deform
Shrinkwrap

But my text won't get out of the bottle. Also my Solidify mod looks flat.

Any idea?

The order of the modifiers matters: Put the Simple Deform at the top of the stack, then the Shrinkwrap, and at last the Solidify


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How to change X location axis for particle system?
The carrots aren't properly placed to the ground. These carrots were created via particle system.
I want to rotate my particle system X location axis 90 degrees.
Is it possible?

There is a rule to give the proper orientation:
The particle object is considered along its Y axis and this is the axis that will give you the Z (say Z for now, but see below) on the mesh the particles are.
So if you want the carrots to be up (Z), you'll need to change them in edit mode so that what will be Z as particles is Y for the carrot mesh.

On the image above, all particles are well oriented, but the monkey that is used as particle object is oriented along Y, with no rotation.
Once you have this rule in mind, you now can play a bit with the particle orientation options:

As shown above, the orientation options are accessible if you check 'advanced' on a hair particle system.
The main option is 'orientation axis' (10 possibilities). Each of them is to indicate in which direction of the emitter the Y axis of the particle will be.
For instance, 'normal' is to say the Y will be along the normal of the emitter faces. 'Global X' is to say Y will be along X world axis, whatever the emitter orientation is. 'Object Z' is to say Y will stay along Z of the emitter even if it is rotated.
I let you experiment about the other options.
Now, as said previously, you need to orientate appropriately you model in edit mode:

In the image above,

On the left, Suzan oriented as usual: but it's top is along Z
On the right, Suzan rotated in edit mode so that its top is along Y (Y is the axis we want)

Also, the particles will be emitted from the object origin. So eventually, you'll need (still in edit mode) to adjust the geometry to that the origin is placed conveniently to your needs.
Other options that may interest you:

Randomize is to random above the Y axis (so randomly rotating using X or Z axis too)
Phase is to give an initial orientation around the Y axis
Randomize phase is to random around the phase
Scale and scale randomness is to adjust the scale and to give randomness to it (so that all carrots are not exactly the same)

Thank you kindly, very appreciated @lemon

An easy way to do this is just to go into edit mode on your carrots and rotate them until they look correct on your particle system.

It works, but I'd like to know the other ways

@Blender Blackened your clearly mistaken. His particle system instantiates a collection of 3 carrots as you can see. You would only need to rotate those 3 carrots, and the rest would change. But lemon's answer is much more efficient and clean

I wouldn't spend time doing that unless you want to get better at python, because @lemon 's answer is much easier

@user58715 Even if I had 100 objects I wouldn't do it in python, I would simply select all, rotate with pivot point "Individual Origins" and then apply rotation.


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How to change Sun strength/specular/angle value via python without using nodes?
I found bpy.types.SunLight(Light), but I don't know how to use it.
Can someone explain please?
I need to change some of the Sun's settings (strength/specular/angle) with python
Not a duplicate of how to GET a lamp, as this is a completely different question

Even this is a different question, you should post your first attempt (some code) at least.

You can access the lights either through bpy.data.lights where all lights of the .blend file can be found or bpy.context.scene.objects which contains all objects in the current scene, including lights. For the latter you need to access .data for the light settings.
If you have a light called Sun in the current scene you could use either one of the approaches to modify the properties, as shown in the following example.
import bpy
import math

sun = bpy.data.lights["Sun"]
#sun = bpy.context.scene.objects["Sun"].data

sun.color = (1.0, 0.0, 0.0)
sun.energy = 5.0
sun.specular_factor = 0.5
sun.angle = math.pi * 10.0 / 180.0  # In radians

Thanks, it works! @rjg

One little question, how do I rotate sun?

I've tried it says AttributeError: 'SunLight' object has no attribute 'rotation_euler'

Right. Use bpy.context.scene.objects["Sun"] to get the object and set the rotation with bpy.context.scene.objects["Sun"].rotation_euler

Yup, thanks a lot!!! @rjg


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Help modeling this dome
I am very new to blender and still using 2.78, I have this idea in my head and but can't think of how to model a dome shape with a cross on top if that makes sense. I attached a sketch of how I want it to be, sorry if it is hard to understand. I don't care a lot about size or measurements.

I've tried this. It's made with bevels, mirror, extrusions, join and knife. I corrected the final extrusion as, as Lemon has pointed out, it looks like I inverted the cross.

I think you have inverted the extrusion of the cross

ooh ok, actually I thought it was flat, but anyway it's the same process  ;)

Have tried to do it in a minimalistic way.
First noticing that the shape is a double mirror (and that helped to make regular edge loop or knife cuts when needed):

From that, the mesh is the following:

The main point is the pinched extremity of the cross. The cross was extruded first, then the extremity has been merged to the edge it was extruded from. We so first obtain a triangle.
Edges are then marked as creases, and the creases (pink edges) are supported by edge loops as visible below.

The base mesh and how to set the mirror modifiers:

Above, from left to right:

Add a plane
Poke the face (menu 'face/poke face' in edit mode)
Select all and bevel ctrlB
Add edge loops at the diagonals CtrlR for each diagonal
Keep a quarter
Split the quarter in half

From the image above, the mirror modifiers setting (left and right):

Add a simple (default mirror on X)
Then add a second mirror on X and Y and base the mirroring on an empty placed at the origin (which has not moved so far, normally)
Rotate the empty 45 degrees.

Extruding and give the base shape

From left to right:

What we have done before
The cross extruded
The extremity down and merged with the base
The global shape for the not extruded part

From that, add some loops, mark the crease, add some loop agin and cuts as described above.


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2.80 Cycles Render Devices Tab empty
Just installed the latest release 2.80, July 30 2019, under System the tab Cycles render devices is visible, but empty. So Cycles is not available.
Win10 64, GTX1050ti and onboard GPU, latest drivers.
I tried the installer and the zip-file, same. In 2.80rc is no problem.
What is wrong?

sorry mixed it 2.80rc got the same problem, 2.80b still running with no problem

You mean 2.79b, right? There isn't a 2.80b release yet.

@rjg, Uh, blender 2.80 beta was released a long time ago, and blender 2.80 stable was released in July.

@Millard a release marked with "b" has nothing to do with beta. It's a patched release. For example there was a 2.79, 2.79a and 2.79b. Alpha, beta and release candidates aren't official releases that get their own version number with letters attached.

ok, sorry for my lack of knowledge, :)

Go to Add-on and write "device" on search space.
You'll see the option Render: Cycles Render Engine. Select this and you will see the options you want!

No idea how it could have gotten disabled, but this fixed my issue exactly. Thank you! :)


text:
Can someone explain how to fix this visibility issue
In the first pic I have two objects in a scene, same layer, and side by side, they look fine, but when I move my view so one is in front of the other, the one in front becomes invisible where it overlaps the one behind it

It sounds like you have switched on 'In Front' for the blue object.
That's located on the right column (Properties Editor), on the Object Context tab (orange square icon) in the 'Viewport Display' category. There is a checkbox option for 'In Front'.

That was it! I knew it was some simple little thing...thank you


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Loop tools Bridge not joining three joined circles with the same vertex count in Blender 4.2
Trying to bridge three identical vert count circles, using loop tools bridge, however, instead of bridging them, it just bridges two.
Joined all three, middle one last to join, tried different ways of joining, still wont bridge them. What am I doing wrong?

Admittedly, it is a bit confusing that when you hover your mouse over the two tools, the Bridge tool and the Loft tool share the same tool tip: "Bridge two, or loft several, loops of vertices."

Nevertheless they are two different tools that only share the same settings in the tool options and if you change them for one, the changes apply to the other as well:

But as the tool tip clearly states, Bridge only connects two loops, for several you need Loft. However, as you can see in the follwoing example with 4 loops, Bridge can connect more than two as well, but only in pairs. So when you have three like your example, the third loop is missing another one to build a second pair.

Thank you Gordon - i shall hover more.

@PenelopeSaladfingers Glad I could help. Please read: What should I do when someone answers my question?


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Normal Problem in Unreal Engine
I have applied scale, recalculated normals, properly unwrapped my models, but no matter what I do, when I export it, and open the model in substance painter or UE4, the normals are all messed up.
The tower is meant to be comprised of planks of wood, from the inside the planks look fine but from out side the sides go invisible.
Is anyone else having this issue? It's only been happening since the 2.8 release.

You probably will need to upload you blend file.

please only use blend-exchange to upload blend files.

Every normals are facing inside. Just select everything in edit mode and use "Flip Normals".

@FFeller ur suggestion didn't work at first, turns out i was on Vertex Select not Face Select, so it wasnt recalculating my face normals.