text:
Why are my addons are conflicting with each other?
I have a two addons, one is basically a copy of the other, however only one addon will show up at a time, even though a have both addons installed.
I have tried renaming a few things on one of the addons but I'm over my head with this. i am reposting this as my first post did not help me. also i know nothing about coding so if anyone could explain it in a way that i can understand that would great also
addon one-
bl_info = {
    "name": "The Countryside Nature Collection",
    "description": "Nature models",
    "author": "TRBRenders",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 83, 0),
    "location": "View 3D > Properties Panel",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "tracker_url": "",
    "support": "COMMUNITY",
    "category": "Add Mesh"
    }

# Libraries
import bpy
import os
from bpy.props import *
from bpy.types import Panel, Operator, PropertyGroup
from bpy.utils import previews
from bpy.types import WindowManager

# Panel
class REAL_PT_trees(Panel):
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_context = "objectmode"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_label = "Nature"
    bl_category = "The Countryside Nature Collection"

    def draw(self, context):
        scn = bpy.context.scene
        layout = self.layout
        settings = scn.trees
        wm = context.window_manager

        # Categories
        col = layout.column(align=True)
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.prop(settings, "category", expand=True)

        # Previews
        row = col.row()
        row.template_icon_view(wm, "tree_previews", show_labels=True)

        # Furniture name
        name = bpy.data.window_managers["WinMan"].tree_previews
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.alignment = 'CENTER'
        row.label(text=name)

        # Add Button
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.scale_y = 1.5
        row.operator("trees.add", icon="ADD", text="Add")

# Append
class TREES_OT_Add(Operator):
    bl_idname = "trees.add"
    bl_label = "Add Tree"
    bl_description = "Add the selected Models"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        category = context.scene.trees.category
        selected = bpy.data.window_managers["WinMan"].tree_previews

        # Append tree
        filepath = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "Blends/" + category + os.sep + selected + ".blend")
        with bpy.data.libraries.load(filepath) as (data_from, data_to):
            data_to.objects = [name for name in data_from.objects]
        for obj in data_to.objects:
                context.collection.objects.link(obj)

        return{'FINISHED'}

# Previews
def generate_previews(self, context):
    category = context.scene.trees.category
    directory = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "Icons")
    pcoll = trees_collection["main"]
    if directory == pcoll.images_location:
        return pcoll.tree_previews
    # Generate the thumbnails
    enum_items = []
    for i, image in enumerate(sorted(os.listdir(directory))):
        icon = pcoll.get(image)
        if not icon:
            filepath = os.path.join(directory, image)
            thumb = pcoll.load(image, filepath, 'IMAGE')
        else:
            thumb = pcoll[image]
        enum_items.append((image[:-4], image[:-4], "", thumb.icon_id, i))
    pcoll.tree_previews = enum_items
    pcoll.images_location = directory
    bpy.context.window_manager['tree_previews'] = 0
    return enum_items

# Properties
class TreeSettings(PropertyGroup):
    category : bpy.props.EnumProperty(
        name="Category",
        items= [

            ],
        description="Select a category"
        )

#############################################################################################
trees_collection = {}

classes = (
    REAL_PT_trees,
    TREES_OT_Add,
    TreeSettings
    )

register, unregister = bpy.utils.register_classes_factory(classes)

# Register
def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)
    bpy.types.Scene.trees = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=TreeSettings)

    # Icons
    WindowManager.tree_previews = EnumProperty(
        name="Icons",
        items=generate_previews,
        description="Select Desired Models"
        )
    pcoll = bpy.utils.previews.new()
    pcoll.images_location = ""
    pcoll.tree_previews = ()
    trees_collection["main"] = pcoll

# Unregister
def unregister():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)
    del bpy.types.Scene.trees
    del WindowManager.tree_previews

    for preview in trees_collection.values():
        bpy.utils.previews.remove(preview)
    trees_collection.clear()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

addon two-
bl_info = {
    "name": "The Coral And Creatures Collection",
    "description": "Coral And Creature Models",
    "author": "TRBRenders",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 92, 0),
    "location": "View 3D > Properties Panel",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "tracker_url": "",
    "support": "COMMUNITY",
    "category": "Add Mesh"
    }

# Libraries
import bpy
import os
from bpy.props import *
from bpy.types import Panel, Operator, PropertyGroup
from bpy.utils import previews
from bpy.types import WindowManager

# Panel
class REAL_CT_trees(Panel):
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_context = "objectmode"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_label = "Coral And Creatures"
    bl_category = "The Coral And Creatures Collection"

    def draw(self, context):
        scn = bpy.context.scene
        layout = self.layout
        settings = scn.trees
        wm = context.window_manager

        # Categories
        col = layout.column(align=True)
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.prop(settings, "category", expand=True)

        # Previews
        row = col.row()
        row.template_icon_view(wm, "tree_previews", show_labels=True)

        # Furniture name
        name = bpy.data.window_managers["WinMan"].tree_previews
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.alignment = 'CENTER'
        row.label(text=name)

        # Add Button
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.scale_y = 1.5
        row.operator("trees.add", icon="ADD", text="Add")

# Append
class TREES_CT_Add(Operator):
    bl_idname = "trees.add"
    bl_label = "Add Tree"
    bl_description = "Add the selected Models"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        category = context.scene.trees.category
        selected = bpy.data.window_managers["WinMan"].tree_previews

        # Append tree
        filepath = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "Blends/" + category + os.sep + selected + ".blend")
        with bpy.data.libraries.load(filepath) as (data_from, data_to):
            data_to.objects = [name for name in data_from.objects]
        for obj in data_to.objects:
                context.collection.objects.link(obj)

        return{'FINISHED'}

# Previews
def generate_previews(self, context):
    category = context.scene.trees.category
    directory = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "Icons")
    pcoll = trees_collection["main"]
    if directory == pcoll.images_location:
        return pcoll.tree_previews
    # Generate the thumbnails
    enum_items = []
    for i, image in enumerate(sorted(os.listdir(directory))):
        icon = pcoll.get(image)
        if not icon:
            filepath = os.path.join(directory, image)
            thumb = pcoll.load(image, filepath, 'IMAGE')
        else:
            thumb = pcoll[image]
        enum_items.append((image[:-4], image[:-4], "", thumb.icon_id, i))
    pcoll.tree_previews = enum_items
    pcoll.images_location = directory
    bpy.context.window_manager['tree_previews'] = 0
    return enum_items

# Properties
class TreeSettingss(PropertyGroup):
    category : bpy.props.EnumProperty(
        name="Category",
        items= [

            ],
        description="Select a category"
        )

#############################################################################################
trees_collection = {}

classes = (
    REAL_CT_trees,
    TREES_CT_Add,
    TreeSettingss
    )

register, unregister = bpy.utils.register_classes_factory(classes)

# Register
def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)
    bpy.types.Scene.trees = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=TreeSettingss)

    # Icons
    WindowManager.tree_previews = EnumProperty(
        name="Icons",
        items=generate_previews,
        description="Select Desired Models"
        )
    pcoll = bpy.utils.previews.new()
    pcoll.images_location = ""
    pcoll.tree_previews = ()
    trees_collection["main"] = pcoll

# Unregister
def unregister():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)
    del bpy.types.Scene.trees
    del WindowManager.tree_previews

    for preview in trees_collection.values():
        bpy.utils.previews.remove(preview)
    trees_collection.clear()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Have you tried giving the two tree-adding operators different bl_idname' values? Currently they share one, and I think Blender may assume this is a unique value identifying each operator

just tried it. unfortunately that did not fix it

to be honest "also i know nothing about coding" -> but you want to want to change add-ons is a bit like "i want to drive car" but i have no idea where the seat is....maybe you first watch some python beginner tutorials and then a tutorial about add-ons? because although if someone helps you, might help for THIS situation but you won't understand it at all.

i do understand that. and i agree. i just do not have to time to go down the rabbit hole to solve this specific problem

Hello, I think this kind of question is not really suited for this site, I feel like it's too localized to benefit other people. Things you should do at first glance : rename all classes, rename all bl_idname variables, use a different custom property name on the Scene and WindowManager types


text:
How to create a parametric wood blade facade?

How to create this kind of warped facade? Need this for an architectural visualization, it is a facade composed of wood blades that form a parametric wavy surface.

It looks like you're getting some great responses. Don't forget to tick the one that best answers your question as The Answer (click the check mark left of the post, below the up/down arrows).

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/247285/how-to-create-a-beveled-blades-that-follow-the-shape-of-a-2d-image

A procedural approach would be to scale a cube into single plank and give it an array modifier.

Next add a cube (or anything) and give it an Ocean modifier and a Solidify modifier. Ocean can be modified as you wish and even animated. Resolution doesn't need to be high but you can do as you wish.

Give the original cube a Boolean modifier with difference from the ocean. Everything is still easily modified at this point.

Thanks a lot, you made my day!!

You are welcome. Good luck with your visualization!

Had something similar in mind... with shrinkwrap project instead of boolean diff.

BatFINGER please share your answer. It's quite interesting to see how other people approach the same problem.

Here is a destructive and a non-destructive way.
Destructive:

Create your shapes:

Delete the edges on one direction:

Extrude the remaining vertices horizontally:

Then vertically:

Non-destructive:

Create a vertex group:

Give your object a Mask modifier with the group as Vertex Group:

Give your object a Solidify modifier, Mode > Complex, Thickness Mode > Fixed, Boundary > Flat:

I like your first approach because it's the only one so far to keep the tops of the slats at right-angles to their sides, which they would be, if CNC cut?

thanks, actually I don't know, would they be?

i like it both anyway - no matter what! :D

thanks Chris, what's up?

You can sculpt it.
Make a sequence of subdivided planes. Then sculpt on it.

Once happy with the shape, extrude it, add bevel, etc.

Another way is to use math functions (Z math surface) from "add mesh, extra objects" addon.
For instance:

As we know the steps used by the addon and the subdivisions given to it, we can tune a cutting grid that will always work using a boolean modifier: simply make it so no vertices of the math shape overlap a face of the cutter object.
For instance, if X steps of the shape are every 1cm, make the cuts to be [0.9 to 2.1], [2.9, 3.1] etc.

Just use a boolean modifier with wood prank array:
Create a wood prank add array modifier

Make a cube and subdivide one face:

Add a displace modifier to the cube, using any texture you want:

Subtract(Difference) this cube from your wood pranks:

pros

easy to figure out why
easy to change wave in general using texture
no extras vertices after applied

cons

computation heavy during boolean process
not easy to fine tune with curve

Thank you so much!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Wanted: Cycles "Shadow Only" Lamp - Not a simple "shadow catcher" question
Hey BSE, thanks for reading!
I'm working on a project in which my scene is brightly lit solely by world surface emission.  This creates a stark, bright "ambient light" or "global illumination" look, with subtle shadowing in corners and tight spaces.
This was exactly what I was asked to achieve and everyone's happy - until the project lead asked for interesting shadows.
My task now is to:
1. somehow introduce shadows that can be cast by a lamp in a normal, intuitive way.
2. force those newly-shadowed areas to be darker than they should be given the ambient light.
3. ideally, prevent those lamps from adding any light to hit surfaces.
The problem is two-fold:
1. The lamp which casts these shadows should not necessarily add light to the objects it hits.
2. The shadows cast must be much darker than the ambient temperature of the shadowed surfaces.
I'm convinced there is a clever way to achieve this in the compositor, but I'll be darned if I can figure it out.
Can someone help me learn to achieve this illusion?  A push in the right direction might go a long way.
My humble thanks,
Edit: Added Screenshot: https://i.sstatic.net/7uGar.jpg

Did you already considerd using different render layers and compositing (I saw the tag)? Would they be suitable for your project or you need a on-the-fly solution?

I'm entirely open to using render layers - I'm posting because I don't know the procedure required to achieve this particular effect.
A standard "shadow catcher" setup was interpreting anything NOT illuminated in green (in the above exampe) as a shadow, whereas I need to isolate and manipulate only the shadow cast by the lamp.

Use two different render layers
Put the "lamp" on a separate layer and Exclude that layer from the render by clicking on the corrisponent box in the Layer panel.
Your scene now should be affected only by the environment's light (and eventually other light sources, but not the mentioned "lamp").

In the second render layer, uncheck the Use Environment box to remove world's shader influence. The result is a scene lit by the lamp only. Enable this this time the Shadow pass in order to acquire the info about where the shadow fall.

Finish by color mixing the Composite pass from the first render layer with the Shadow pass from the second with Multiply option. Use the Factor slider to adjust the influence of the lamp's shadow in the final image

Ah, this is excellent!  Not nearly as complicated as I thought.  I somehow completely missed "Use Environment" - having never clicked on it before.  That was the key.
I also needed to involve (render, film, transparent) and a third render layer to get rid of the black world (which was visible to the shadow layer frustum) and superimpose these results atop the original world color.  Now I have exactly what I wanted.
This is a top notch solution.  My sincere and emphatic thanks, kind stranger!

Would using a Cyles Ambient Occlusion be an option for you?
It is basically unaffected by lighting and ignores any lamps you add to your scene but generates this sort of proximate global illumination that your described in your question by itself.
If combine with a diffuse shader and you can get some sort of direct control over the intensity of the shadows/light influence. It will still react to the sun light, but it's effect will be less visible.

This looks like a novel effect - I've never seen the AO node used before, so this is new to me.  However, I'm pretty sure this will not contribute towards the desired outcome.  I added a screenshot to my question which showcases the issue / desire.

Are you willing to make a switch from Rendering engines at this point in work? You could easily achieve the illustrated type of effect using Blender Internal and a "Shadow Only" type of lamp, this is not very suited for a physically accurate type of engine like Cycles.

Aww man, that sounds tempting.  I'm hopelessly in love with Cycles though.  Maybe there's a compositing technique that could use both engines, though I seem to recall that's a huge pain to do.

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


text:
Meaning of selected object outline in 3D view
I was trying new Collections feature in Blender 2.8 and somehow can't get consistent understanding what do outline colors of selected objects mean.
Here is my scene setup:

created three "asset" objects (cube, icosphere and Suzzanne)
created several groups and linked assets into them in various combinations (AB, AC, BC, ABC)
added instances of groups to the scene (under Main collection)

Now when I select "pure" assets, everything is clear: active object is highlighted in light orange, co-selected objects - in dark orange.

But when I select group instances, interesting things happen.
For the first group (AB) it highlights instance position "dummy" and the objects themselves (which is quite logical). Strange that it also highlights objects inside other groups, but it might be by design.

For the second (AC) and third (BC) groups it highlights nothing except position "dummy".

Finally for the fourth group (ABC) it highlights position and only Suzanne.

Also you can notice that highlights in wireframe and solid modes also differ.
Could you, please, clarify what is the logic behind such highlighting.
Thanks!

Version: blender-2.80-fc182e318988-linux-glibc224-x86_64
OS: Ubuntu 18.04

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


text:
how to fix the edge of this rock so it'll look complete and not just cut off

what would be the best way to make this rock look complete or whole

You simply can't. You don't have the geometry information of that area so there is no way to display said area. However if you're only concerned with the result looking less ugly there is a number of things you can try:

Rotate or obscure the rock in your composition so that the cut places don't show in the render.
Add the missing geometry by hand. You decide how much detail/ work you're willing to invest.
Use the surfaces you already have in order to composite a new one.
Use AI-magic to create the missing surface (although I have no idea how to pull that of).


text:
Alternative ways to get low poly without baking?
I'd like to turn my 500,000 poly model into low poly to make it game usuable. However I cannot bake due to reasons. How can I do this without losing noticable detail and destroying the uv map

If baking is of the table because of the 'reasons' you've mentioned, there is simply no way to reduce the poly-count AND retain all the relevant detail. Less information to store and process means... well, less information.


text:
is there a way to only cut the outside of this seam?

used union booleen now want to get rid of excess

It's unclear what you are asking. Please use the edit link and explain what you mean in clear terms.

I'm not entirely sure that i understand what you mean, but i'll give it a try.

Maybe you could use a boolean with difference instead of union?
Since one part looks quite flat you could try to select only those by Linked flat faces (ctrl+shift+alt+F) and a small angle setting...
It looks like the flat surface has a different material, so another option might be to select by material, as material assignments are not changed by boolean operations (as long as both materials exist on the new object).


text:
how to fix a hole in a photoscanned rock?
i'd like to fix the hole in this photoscanned model so it look complete

This might not be that simple. You can fix the mesh by editing it, but then you'll need to correct the image texture UV mapping to make it work with the corrected mesh.

if it is using a UV texture you can use the clone brush in texture paint mode and copy texture from other places (using clone brush, control + left mouse button to choose area to clone, and then paint with left mouse button and drag)


text:
How to clone paint a mirrored object?
Whenever I try it paints in perfect symmetry along both sides of the object. Is there a way to stop this?

Can you add a screenshot or some other information to clarify exactly what is happening?

Sorry so I have a object that I mirror in meshmixer then exported. I want to use the clone tool so my object doesn't have such a mirrored and symmetrical look on both sides. However when I try to use the clone tool it paints both sides of the object, not just the one. I'm assuming cause the uv's are mirrored

If I understand correctly, I guess you need to apply the Mirror modifier and re-unwrap the object

I'll try to show a possible solution later, it involves applying the mirror modifier and then creating a new UV layer that involves the full mesh and a new 0 alpha image to paint on top of the existing texture.


text:
cannot import .obj into blender 2.8, but works in 2.79

i am getting this error. i've tried multiple versions of blender 2.8 but none work.

Are you sure that the path is correct? It says that it can't find the file or directory.

Ya I've tried taking the .obj out of every folder and just placing it on my desktop and still can't find it

Can you try uploading the OBJ file? Blender 2.8 candidate release can open OBJ files no problem for me

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SuKy7ZHatMfOcir6rG2HINaDT1loZjjb

Thanks for sharing the file. I can confirm something goes wrong and I have to investigate this further.

Found the problem and solution, writing the answer takes a bit of time.

BTW what program did you use to save the model? Was it MeshLab?

thank you for solving this problem for me! i really appreciate it. also the program was agisoft metashape

You would also need to edit the .mtl where the map_Kd has the filename in quotes. Otherwise it won't load the texture during import.

Bastien Montagne just confirmed that this will be patched.

This is now fixed in the master branch. Not sure if this will make it into the 2.8 release, likely it'll be 2.81.

You stumbled upon a curious problem with filename handling in the .obj format, that isn't well defined in the specification. I will discuss this with the Blender devs, perhaps the importer needs small adjustments to parse the file correctly under these specific circumstances. Since it worked in 2.79b it can be considered a regression.
TL;DR The handling for filenames with blanks isn't well defined in the .obj format specification and Blender expected a different format than what was provided in your file.

The Problem
The .obj is a text format for storing 3D models. The format contains various attributes that describe the geometry of the model. Typically the .obj is accompanied by a .mtl which describes the material and textures applied to the model. In order to keep track which files belong together, the .obj may contain a mtllib attribute followed by the filename of the .mtl.
Usually the beginning of an .obj would look something like this:
# Blender v2.80 (sub 74) OBJ File: ''
# www.blender.org
mtllib test.mtl
o Cube
v 1.000000 1.000000 -1.000000
v 1.000000 -1.000000 -1.000000

In case of your file it is:
#
mtllib "tree stump1 original model.mtl"
usemtl tree_stump1_original_model
v 4.136163 -1.200306 -10.798826 0.113725 0.152941 0.141176
v 4.140683 -1.205297 -10.794383 0.117647 0.156863 0.145098

Notice that the filename contains quotations marks. This is causing the problem. The software you used to export this model quoted the filename to avoid confusion on how to interpret the filename. While this is common practice in other file formats the specification for .obj doesn't mention quoting filenames and says specifically:

Blank space and blank lines can be freely added to the file to aid in formatting and readability.

Which can be interpreted as blanks in filenames can be stored as is, which is precisely what Blender does. Unfortunately Blender's importer doesn't expect the quotation marks in the filename therefore misinterpreting the correct filepath. This results in the aforementioned error in your question.

The Fix
Open the .obj file in a text editor of your choice an remove the quotes and save. It should look like this:
#
mtllib tree stump1 original model.mtl
usemtl tree_stump1_original_model
v 4.136163 -1.200306 -10.798826 0.113725 0.152941 0.141176

The file can now be imported by Blender.

The ticket for this issue can be found here: https://developer.blender.org/T67266


text:
Is it possible to mirror a model using only rotation?
I need to mirror a 3d model using a game engine that only has rotation (no flip function). Is it possible to mirror a model using only rotation (X Z Y)?

I don't know about rotation, but scaling an object along any given axis by -1 causes a mirror flip along that axis. Example: Scale(S), X, -1 will mirror flip on the X axis.

yes that works thank you

you can only mirror with rotation objects that have an axis of symmetry, but yes, what chris said is the way to go


text:
Strange lighting on model

So as you can see there is some very weird lighting on the body of my model. My initial thought was that it was the normals, however after recalcualting and checking manually that they were facing the correct direction, still nothing changed.
Thoughts? Also, sorry if it's an obvious answer, i'm new to blender

How to smooth shade an object while retaining hard edges? will be helpful.

It looks like you have smooth shading enabled. To switch to flat shading, select the mesh and on the left side menu, go to the tools panel and choose flat shading.

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


text:
Bokeh - From Horizontal to Vertical
Hi guys I want my camera to display vertical bokeh stretch instead of horizontal. The rotation option in DOF settings of camera, doesnt rotate the bokeh.
Horizontal stretched bokeh (low res render just to illustrate)

What I want:

Maybe there is a simple solution to rotate it?


text:
Render looks "brighter" than in viewport preview
Somehow my viewport preview shows darker result than what comes out in render (check out in corner of the pic)
World strength is at zero and ambient occlusion is also disabled.
Floor is using bump and roughness from picture. Wall has adaptive subdivision surface  modifier.
All lit using planes with emission shaders.
I wanted to play around with render layers and maybe I screw some setting there, hope this helps.

Look at your outliner, you have (at least) 1 object (probably a light) set to render, but hidden in viewport (camera icon active, but eyeball icon greyed out) it's named BMWRim .  I'm guessing it's a rim light.

it's just a car part, normal material, not light, but I know what you mean. I keep checking outliner for some error there

You can clearly see a row of lights in the center, in the ball's reflection, that are present in the render but not in the preview.  Look through your whole outliner (they may be parented to another object) and not easily visible without expanding the widget.

I found an extra array of planes, in outliners that were not visible but renderable, thanks again!

I would check your Film > Exposure settings.

it is set to 1.00, default. I'm also using filmic blender

Filmic Blender is decent. I wondered if you were using it.  Glad you solved the prob.


text:
Optimizing Mesh to Quads only
Often when I model objects with circular areas, I run into trouble converting ngons and tris into quads. The selected face is a quad, but it has this "open" vert, and those often causes problems when e.g. beveling. Any tips on dealing with such tricky situations? I'm pretty fresh 3D user. All help appreciated!
I could make this one, big ngon face, but I really want to get into good modeling habits.

solid view of the model

This may be helpful http://topologyguides.com/

You should expect to have more geometry on the surrounding shape to get a hole with that many verts. You usually don't need that many verts, a subsurf can smooth the circle better than the extra verts. This answer shows some examples that may be of interest.

Link provided by Duarte Farrajota Ramos is great place to find topology tips (I'm using it by myself) but sometimes you can't find technical aspects of how to create particular topology.
Before I start I want to encourage you to look for good topology without focusing on specific app. Good topology is good, no matter which software was used.
You can achieve it in several ways, I'll show you the quickest one I've found, possible with LoopTools addon (you can find it in User Preferences) wich is shipped with Blender.
Final result:

Quick method:

Press W > Subdivide to subdivide a Plane.
Delete center Vertex.
Select Edge Loop.
E to Extrude then S to Scale it.
W > LoopTools > Circle.
Add Subdivision Modifier.
(Optional as needed) Use Bevel or Mean Crease on edges.

In my example I've used Bevel with 3 segments on inner circle edge and corner edges of shape, also I've used Mirror modifier. Everything was made from simple Plane.
Extension (technique without addon):
I've thought that maybe for some reason you don't want to use any addons so here is a method without it.

1-4 steps are the same as in first method.

Press Alt+M > At Center.
Press Ctrl+Shift+B to Bevel only Vertex and scale it as needed.
X > Only Faces to delete central face.


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Camera "Jitter" When circling around object
So I made a simple camera rig (camera clamped to nurbus circle and parented to an empty, dead center in middle) but I get this unwanted jitter, not sure what causes it, if someone knows solution, I would be grateful, thanks!
Problem shown in a Youtube video attached
Youtube Link

Sounds like there is a conflict, two constraints fighting for control of the camera - the path and the empty.  To avoid this, have an empty follow the path, and parent the cam to the empty.  This will allow independent use of the cam, i.e. 'look at', rotation, etc.

I've used an invisible cube here to illustrate.

Thanks so much for your troubleshooting, yea I think I might used like two constraints and they were conflicting together or the circle resolution I was using was way too low.


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how to connect two nodes to one displacement output?

I need to connect the math node to  the displacement output but its currently being occupied by a height map. how can I connect both of these?

Connect them before the displacement. Each is a value indicating the displacement. Can use math or mix rgb, for instance.

Use a MixRGB node (more control) or a math node and select how you want to combine them.
Use clamp option if the values get to high (for example if you add them and you get higher values than 1).

I think scale from displacement is better than clamp


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i have 2 textures, how can i turn one the textures on and off?

I have a snow image texture, and a dirt image texture. how can i set it up so I can control how much of the snow texture is showing? for example if i set a value to 0, no snow will be showing on the dirt. if i set it to 1, snow is all over.

You've almost done it. What are you missing here exactly?

i'm not sure but i think i'm missing something. i want to be able to turn the snow off and on but i'm not sure what to use for that.

you mean a straight cut? if yes either make the two stops of the color ramp very close to each other or replace the color ramp by a math node with a less than

ColorRamp node between MixRGB and Principled BSDF?

One simple method is to add a Maths 'Add' node between your texture and the color ramp. This allows you in set an offset to the texture to raise or lower it so it's more towards one texture or the other - ie, negative values will be more one texture, 0.0 will be an even mix, positive values will be more of the other texture (with larger values pushing the mix more in that direction).

You could simply connect to your single texture node to the principle BSDF Base node. or can try color ramp very close to each other with minimum of texture you don't want or maximum of texture you want to look.


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blank white square appears only when rendering
Whenever I render an image that appears. It shows up nowhere else in my scene or view port.

You may have hidden an object in your viewport, but not in your render. Take a look at: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/152955/how-to-disable-in-render-just-one-object-and-not-the-entire-collection-in-blende

When part of an image is transparent, a checker board pattern is shown.
With the background set as transparent, you will see this in the render, This can also be visible in the viewport when it is set to render preview.

In evee and cycles, the transparent background setting can be found in the film panel of the render properties.

It is also possible to get the same effect for a single object. For this you need to use a holdout shader for the object, or setup compositing nodes to cut it out.


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object particle system not transfering with object
i have an object(tree) that uses a particle system (leaves). but when i try to spread the trees with another particle system on a plane, the leaves don't carry over with the tree

You have to use a special modifier called "Particle Instance" in order to use nested particles. I'll link the blender docs :
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/modifiers/simulate/particle_instance.html
And an up-to-date tutorial on Youtube :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpvNJvsq-FU&


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Rotate objects around Cylinder With Geo Nodes?

I need to rotate these objects around the cylinder and have them stick straight out. but I'm using a Wave Modifier So I can't Apply rotation the way it needs. I also need to angle the objects downward randomly after.

I'm not sure about the Wave modifier part, but to make them stick straight out, you need to align their rotations along the normals of the cylinder's faces using a Capture Attribute node. I also used a "not-equal to a vector in the Z direction" to stop it from distributing points on the caps of the cylinder.
Once they are aligned to the surface normals sticking out straight, you can now align them downwards, along a X:0,Y:0,Z:-1 vector. Insert a Random Value multiplier in between, and it'll vary their rotation.

I copied your node setup and unfortunately I'm having the same issues. did you change the rotation of your instanced cylinder?

I didn't. You can see the axes of my instanced cylinder ("Thorn") in the middle window of my screenshot. You might want different Align Euler to Vector axis modes of yours is oriented different. If not, you can share your file so we could take a look.


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Best Ways to Achieve this organic look?

Specifically the holes in the mesh. Not sure the best way to approach this. I've tested using a Voronoi Texture with Displacement but to even get a somewhat similar design the polycount becomes too extreme.
Any Help is appreciated, thank you!

don't you want to simply fake it with a Bump node?

i would prefer real geometry, don't think I'll get the depth i am looking for with just a Bump

So many ways to go about it that it's hard to give a definitive answer, but here are some methods and resources you might wanna look at:

Just trial and error with various modifiers. Here's the default monkey with some modifiers on it I just put together in about 45 seconds:

The Tissue add-on (free). It can look intimidating at first, but it's actually relatively straightforward and really flexible and powerful once you learn it. It comes with Blender already, but the Github version is usually a little ahead in terms of updates. The documentation is very helpful.

Geometry Nodes. Not entirely different from using modifiers, or Tissue, but it can be more performant and flexible, not to mention future-proof, than both. The example below is from Benny Govaert's Twitter. There's a YouTube video by Jimmy Gunawan which takes that node setup from Twitter to recreate and expand upon it. It mostly revolves around the Dual Mesh node, which is also a feature in Tissue.

BY-GEN add-on (free, with some paid presets).

In order to keep a rather low-polygon mesh, you could create an icosphere, bevel all in Edit mode:

Select one of the resulting hexagons, then ShiftG (Select Similar) > Polygon Sides and AltE > Extrude Faces Along Normals:

Shade Smooth your object, give it a Subdivision Surface modifier:

In Sculpt mode, deform it with the Grab brush and others:

From Kuboå's answer I realize that you may need hollow holes, in that case remove the hexagons, give your object a Solidify before the Subdivision Surface:

Then deform:


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Flickering In VDB Animation?
I'm getting this very odd flickering in my VDB Simulation. I originally thought this was because of the denoiser. but upon further testing it is still flickering without the denoiser. I've tried cranking up all the light paths, increasing samples to 4096, but still no change.
The Flickering is right in the middle where the red flame is.
reposting this with better video evidence.
VDB Simulation

Well, if it's not from the denoiser what I would have suspected - how many bounces have you set for Transparency under Light Paths? Usually a value that's too low will result in dark flickering, not bright... but it won't hurt to check it ;)

I've tried bumping all the light paths to over 100 and the issue still persist

For the smoke only the Transparency bounces are important, but as I said, that's usually causing dark flickering, not your effect. Without a file it's hard to tell. Apart from cranking up the samples, have you also disabled denoising or just increased the samples? And if it's flickering where the flame is... is it maybe just a very noisy flame that's flickering?


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how to make objects point in the direction they are travelling With Geometry Nodes?

I would like the objects to face the direction they are moving in.

What I did was calculate the next position along with the current and use those two to create a direction vector.

You may need another Axis in the Aling Euler to Vector node.
I'm not very happy with this solution because there may be a obvious method to do this that doesn't require two similar calculations... or maybe there isn't. To this moment, i didn't think of another way.

A bit late to this discussion, but a way I found to do this was to use math nodes to find the angle of a vector.
The angle of a vector to (x,y) is the arctangent of (y/x).
Since arctangent (or tangent inverse) is limited from -pi/2 to pi/2 radians, which is -90 to 90 degrees, we have to add pi (180 degrees) to the angle if x < 0 (the vector is on the left).
This leaves us with the following node setup:

The output can be plugged into an Instance on Points node, or any rotation field.
This above does only work for 2d vectors, but with some more trig you can find the x and y angles as well.


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cannot join shapes as shape keys

I have two meshes that I've decimated to have the exact same number of vertices. but when i try to join them with shape keys I get this error

Some types of shape keys may have added vertices. Did the objects in question already have shape keys?

no, they did not

I'm guessing that error is a simplification of the requirements. If only the number of verts is the same, but the vert indices are jumbled so that vertex x on one mesh has connected edges but vertex x on the other mesh has no connected edges, or the edges are connected to other vertices, I can easily see that being a show-stopper. Shape Keys count on you providing the same fundamental topology, and then Shape Keys can deform from one set of vert positions to another. As soon as you run your mesh through a modifier like Decimate... well, look up the definition of "decimate". ;-)


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Blender3d Baking Animation Problem
I have 2 Armature in my scene.The first one is for my rigged rifle,and second one is my arms, also i'm animated it(i'm baked animation).When i import to unity3d my model,That's what i see in animation tab
There is a lot of animation clips and no ones is my animation.

If you want only one animation in an export just disable the "All Actions" and the "NLA strips" options in the export menu.

Thank you It works,but if my rifle had more than one animation,what i should do then ?

Unity supports multiple animations strip, but we can't  figured out how it really works. Also if you want animating with IK or other constraits in Blender you can export it only with the mentioned method. If we need multiple animations, we cluster them into one long strip in Blender then cut them apart in Unity. It's not too elegant but works fine.


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Mixamo Rig And Mesh Problem
i drawn a cubic style character and i set weights properly from blender. But when i upload and autorig my character from mixamo, i'm getting weird issue that my mesh is stretching as you can see from belowed image.

I think rig effects to vertices try to add loopcuts bending areas and reupload to mixamo again probably it will work

I had same issue, Id advise using FBX for mixamo - upload and download.


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Keyframe Transform Problem
Hello I'm making a rifle reload animation, so when my animation ends, my rifle should go default transform but when i copy first keyframe and paste as a last keyframe, i see they are not same transform. What are the possible reasons?

because https://www.mic.com/articles/147150/physicists-have-new-proof-that-backward-time-travel-is-impossible or because the first keyframe does not cover all the transform/op/axis that have been transformed in between?

On the first frame, have you keyed all your selected channels with 'i' pressed -> Location/Rotation or whatever transform you are animating?


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Sub-d stuck to some edges
I've got a weird problem, made a circular shape to create a sub-d surface. First drew half the edge ring, mirrored and then extruded the edges to make faces. Making sure to either Merge or Remove double Vertices. The sub-d surface always sticks to two edges, as seen below.

What's weirder is that when I dissolve a problematic edge, the problem jumps to another edge. These  problem' edges I cannot bevel btw, the bevel only goes one way apparently on them.

I know I can fix this by replacing the ring with an inset cylinder face ring for example, but I want to know whats going on. It's important to understand the inner workings of these things imo.
Thanks for any tips and advice.

Gah! Two minutes after posting I got it fixed. Needed to get all normals in the same direction. Is it better to delete the question or should it stay here answered for information sake?

Yes, you can answer your own question, no problem. It might help someone else, there's no harm in keeping it.


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How do I rig retracting cylinders so that I only need one control bone?
What I am trying to do is to move the three bones in the middle in and out, and I can do that right now, but one by one because it's an FK chain
However I want the bone in red to be the controller and move them all and I am not sure how to do this.

and this is how it should be when it's in

A pretty easy solution, I think, is this:

Add five bones like this. Name the last one Controller. Unparent Controller

Rename Bone.003 to IK, go to Pose mode and give it an Inverse Kinematic (IK) constraint with target controller like this:

With the Controller you can move the armature, if it is in pose mode.
The IK let's Blender calculate the movement and rotation of the bones automatically. The "4" means, that these number of bones will be included in the calculation. This is counted backwards along the parent chain from the constrained bone (IK).  In this case that means all the bones except Controller are included.

give inverse kinematics settings like this to IK, Bone.002 and Bone.001, (all of the target bones of the IK constraint, except the root) setting IK Stretch to 1.0 and locking axis movement.  The first makes the bones stretchable rather than fixed length. The second makes it easier for the IK solver to keep their movement in a straight line.

Since none of these bones, nor the controller will be used to directly move the mesh, it's also useful to Clear Deform on them.

Now these bones will become "stretchy" and not have a fixed length anymore. If you move now the controller in pose mode you get:

now add 2 bones like this (in Edit mode):

Because we renamed Bone.003 before these will be called Bone.003 and Bone.004.
We cannot use the "stretchy bones" as deformation bones, because if we would parent them to the object, the object would be scaled too. That's why we add now two bones which "move" with the stretchy bones, but won't be scaled. If we then parent that two added bones to the objects, the objects will just move but not be scaled.

now parent bone to your lowest mesh -> type bone. Parent your 2nd mesh to bone.004. Parent your top mesh to bone.003.

Enjoy your piston:

video tutorial:
https://youtu.be/s-X_Ie9uHGc

There you go Chris.  I fixed most of the remaining errors in your explanation; removed an unnecessary step; and made the answer's use of bone names internally consistent.  It's close enough to right now to remove my downvote.

There are several ways you might accomplish this.  Here's one that I like to use, if the cylinders are to retract at the same time:

For my example, I'll only use 2 cylinder movement bones.  You should have no trouble adding a third.

Create your deformation armature of 3 bones, assigning one bone to each cylinder:

Make sure that each bone is parented to the bone below it, but is disconnected from the bone.

Add your controller bone adjacent to the top bone.  Parent it to the bottom bone but keep it disconnected. Set it to not be a deforming bone.

Make sure its bone roll is zero, because we're going to move it on the Z axis.
Enter Pose mode.
hover over the Z location value of the controller bone, right click and select Copy as new driver.
hover over the Y location value of the top bone, right click and select Paste driver.
edit the driver and change the type to Scripted Expression
hover over the Y location value of the middle bone, right click and select Paste driver.
edit the driver and change the type to Scripted Expression
Lock everything but the Z location of the controller bone

Lock everything but the Y location of the top and middle bone

You can add constraints to the Y locations of the top and middle bone and the Z location of the controller bone, or leave it to the animator to not overdo it.
Why it works
The controller bone is oriented so that it's Z axis is aligned along the axis of the  cylinders.  By locking it so it only moves along the Z axis, we limit its motion along that line.
The loose bones, on the other hand have their Y axis aligned along the cylinders, so we want the Z axis position of the controller to drive the Y axis position of the other bones.
The driver will cause this to happen in local space, so that the two cylinders will collapse at equal rates.  Here's what the driver looks like in the driver editor:

Variations
You can adjust the scripted expressions to handle variations.  For example, if the cylinders aren't the same length, you'll have to multiply the Z location by a value to compensate.
Another adjustment might be to change the way the cylinders collapse.  Perhaps you want the lower cylinder to close first and then the upper, or the other way around.  You do this by modifying the scripted expression, or, if you want more complex motion, by editing the driver curve.
EDIT: It is very straightforward (if you're comfortable with drivers) to modify the drivers so that the controller will collapse the cylinders from either end.

Add a root bone.
Unparent all of the other bones and parent them to the root.
Add a driver to the bottom bone in the same way as the top, middle, and bottom bones were given drivers above.
Each driver should have a scripted expression
top location if location <=0 else 0
middle location if location >= -1 and location <= 1 else -1 if location < 0 else 1
bottom location if location >=0 else 0

Now if you move the controller up, the cylinders will collapse from the bottom and if you move it down, they will collapse from the top.
I've left it as an exercise for the interested reader to modify the top and bottom expressions so that the cylinders stop moving when they've fully collapsed.  The middle expression is a sort of hint.
Here's my blend file:

+1, but it's always a mystery to me why people use bones at all for non-deforming meshes, where IK chains are not wanted, either?

This example problem is to small to justify it, but consider a model of a helicopter-thing that can store its blades in its body by folding them against the rotor shaft and then pulling the shaft into the body.  As an animator I really don't want to hand animate all that motion when a clever rigger can give me a single control that does all the work for me that I can then quickly turn into an NLA action strip with only a handful of keyframes to raise and lower the blades.

I'm no expert.. I guess you're right.. if the rig involved IK, I would use bones and bone-parenting for something like that but if it didn't, I think I'd  just use parenting, constraints, maybe a driver.

@RobinBetts thinking about it some more, I think it might be a convenience thing for a lot of animators.  If 50%+ of your animation of an object requires you to be in Pose mode with the armature, it's just more convenient to do everything in the armature.  That may be why so many face rigs use shape keys but have bones to control the shape keys, for example.

And when you link a character or a prop into a new scene, you create a proxy of its armature, so controlling everything with armatures and bones becomes essential.

Would the people downvoting good working answers please have the courtesy to at least comment why they're downvoting.  It's impossible to improve an answer without such information and smacks of revenge voting.


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How to model a microphone metal mesh texture
How can a microphone mesh material texture be made in Blender?
Can it be made with textures, or is it made from some type of technique using modifiers? It has a weaved metal pattern with overlap, but I'm confused how I can even start to do this.

I've made a tuto on this here, inspired by Yacine3Dz tuto here.
Basically, create this pattern of 4 intertwined edges:

Give your object an Array on X, another one on Y, and a Skin modifier. Enable the Smooth Shading of the Skin, select the tip of each edge and press on the Mark Root button of the Skin modifier. CtrlA to increase the thickness of the vertices (also N panel > Item > Vertex Data > Radius):

Create a circle that you put on your grid object, subdivide it a bit, give it a Subdivision Surface modifier:

Give your grid a Surface Deform modifier with your circle as Target, click on the Bind button, now you can move your circle away, and edit it in Edit mode to give the wanted shape:

You can bake the normals if you want a lighter object and convert to a texture.

Magic!
Thank you!


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How can I fix this UV mapping
How can I fix the UV where it shows the surrounding borders are double? its like a tiled pattern.

pls provide blend file because we don't know how your uv mapping/geometry looks like.thx.

No need for a file. Your texture has no gap between the circles and the outer border, while inbetween them there are gaps. So when this texture gets tiled, where two borders meet there is no gap between circles. You need to expand the border to (gap/2) pixels all around, so that when they tile there is (gap/2)+(gap/2) = gap pixels between the circles.

What you really want to do in a situations like this is to stop wasting RAM or VRAM without any good reason with repeating the same information in the texture image. It's one dot, just use one. You can have way higher resolution of the texture and use way less memory at the same time.

Going procedural with this is also extremely easy since Voronoi nodes got updated with all the fancy new features a while ago now. Just one Voronoi node with Randomness set to 0 and a Math node after that in Less/Greater than mode.

Hi Martynas. I did a node set up, like your nodes, I also added a bump node, but not getting any result.
https://ibb.co/p1c9jVK

Here is an exaggerated example of what your texture looks like, let's say it is just 4 circles, each one 130 pixels in diameter with a gap of 70 pixels between them. If you leave no gap to the left, right, top and bottom and your tile is therefore 330 × 330 pixels, then tiling it results in this:

But if you now expand the texture around the border by 70/2 pixels = 35 pixels so that the tile is now 400 × 400 pixels, the tiling result looks like this:

Of course Gordon is right - as he mentioned in the comments, you can improve your png and add the correct border.
But there are nearly always multiple solutions to one problem.
So another way is this:

It is not the most elegant solution, but it works (if that counts to you) and if you don't wanna edit your displacement png.
So first change the image texture to single image.
Add the nodes as you can see in the shader node tree.
What it essentially does is "rebuilding" the repeating pattern manually "before" the image texture. Therefore i am using the modulo and the scale of the mapping.
The scale after the combine node is just to make the use of the combine node easier by sliding the values.
By playing around and eyeballing you can get other scale values (changing scale in mapping and changing values in combine xyz)

Hi guys, thanks to both of you for your information. Gordons reply got me thinking, so I tried this method in Illustrator, as seen the in the screenshot, by cutting off the edges off the circles, so they can adjoin in the UV mapping, and the result was good. Also with Chris's method with the node set up, of course, I saved this screenshot if I need another method which requires only Nodes.
https://ibb.co/hcBymDm
https://ibb.co/Ky4xTpS


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Shrinkwrap modifier leaving small gaps when applied
I'm applying the shrink-wrap modifier, but I have noticed it's not completely wrapping onto the mesh, its a few pixels away from my target object.

Please don't post essential information like links, file downloads or additional details in the comments section where it can be easily missed. Instead edit them into your original post with the [Edit] button above. Comments are transitory by nature, are hard to index or search for, and may be erased at any moment.

it is because your vertex weight of t2 is just 0.8 which means: Don't use it full, just change the outer ring to weight 1 and it will work.

I do the same, and increase it to vertex weight 1, but again I get those small gaps when I zoom in. When its viewed from an angle those small gaps are not visible, so it meant to be that way? https://ibb.co/KbdSx0f

can u pls upload the repaired file again? thx

If you don't mind, can you send me back the file you edited so I can see if I get the correct result or if it's doing the same error on my Blender.

Here it is:

there are not all set to 1. Just select single vertices and you will see that. If you set one vertex to 1, use this button here to copy to the other selected:  [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/Y4w2O.png

Great spotting, It worked. I don't know why each vertex was set to 0.8, when It seems like 1 in the vertex group. Thanks for the help!

you are welcome


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How to make spiral vase in blender 2.8?
I'm looking to build a simple vase for 3d printing and I'm keen to understand how I can do this.

I've tried the screw modifier, however it appears to be lacking the right level of detail to work properly (I've create a simple shape and then applied several subdivides to it in order to increase the mesh density)
There's bound to be a smart way to achieve this, appreciate any pointers/tips!

does this answer help?

Perfect, will have a look!

Tissue addon
You can start by using the Screw modifier on a Curve profile in order to build the main shape.

Then build a "component" for the Tissue add-on made of 3 ridges like the one shown below:

Run the Tessellate operator chossing the component ad the surface. Activate the merge option.

This is amazing. Thanks for sharing your knowledge :).


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Help with curved groove on curved surface
Been struggling with this for awhile, and finally decided to ask for help from the experts.
I have a cylinder onto which I'd like a groove at goes across it diagonally and also vertically down the cylinder. I'm having trouble visualizing how to do it, and still have good topology.
I've tried knife, knife project, moving individual verts, etc. Something tells me there is an easier and cleaner way to do it, so that I have clean topology and no shading artifacts. Am I right?
I've added two pictures of this scenario for reference.

If the model is complex enough / unpredictable enough to be worth a non-destructive approach, you might consider this

As your shape is a cylinder, you could greatly simplify your work if you use a Simple Deform modifier:

Just create your shape as a flat map, avoid any ngons, make a topology that will allow you to add some edge loops when you'll need to sharp the angles.
Extrude what needs to be extruded.
Give it a Simple Deform modifier/Bend mode, with a Deform Angle of 360°.
Give it a Subdivision Surface modifier and a Smooth Shading.
To make the joint at the 360° junction, you'll need to apply the Simple Deform and then W > Remove Doubles.

Thanks for the response, Moonboots! I’m new to Blender, so unfamiliar with everything those modifiers can do! I’ll give it a whirl. I really appreciate your help!

I've edited to give a bit more details about the modeling, in a way the modifier part is the easiest  ;)

I've been fooling with this approach, and it looks like the groove's width widens as due to distortion/stretching as it wraps. It's hard to tell from the pictures...is yours doing the same?

...and thanks for the added modeling details! Very helpful!

no it should be the same width all around, hard to tell what's your problem


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How do I change where imported objects appear in the world?
All objects I import go the center of the grid. Is there anyway to change this.

all you gotta do is simply remove the location keyframes from the imported objects.

when you find the above doesn't work for your animated FBX, just use Delta Transform to move stuff around away from the world origin... thank goodness for Delta Transform

For some reason blender positions all imported objects at the center of the World Origin no matter where your 3D cursor is positioned. But you can move the object to the 3D cursor after it has been imported by making sure it is selected and pressing SHIFT+S and then pick Selection to Cursor. The object will then move to the 3D cursor.


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Does an external eGPU or GPU take the lag in blender away while working in the UI?
I have a IMAc with the M1 chip, but when working with some more complicated models the UI render lag is getting pretty annoying. does a eGPU fix the UI render lag? or is it just the ending finished render that it speeds up?

maybe you should turn on "statistics" and tell us, how many vertices you have? [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/jSNQJ.png It depends on your model and (!) your computer. Even the fastest computer of the world would lag if you have a complicated model with 10 Billion vertices...So i would say: it depends...But for sure we cannot tell you with the information you gave us.

The M1 doesn't support any eGPU's... (M1 here, tried it already btw).

@brockmann To be precise the M1 hardware supports eGPUs via PCIe using Thunderbolt 3.  Apple's M1 Mac/OS drivers are also perfectly capable of using an eGPU.  Apple simply disabled the ability.


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surface patched in Layout
suddenly the faces of the model became patched when i Layout: in the other worspaces it doesn't happen.
Does anyone know what is causing it and how to solve it?

It's best to share the blend file when you are asking this kind of questions. Are you sure there is no overlapping objects? Have you tested on other computer to be sure it's not a problem with the graphic card?

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

Hi :). This can happen when your viewport clipping range is too large. Search this site, it was covered many times before ;)


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Grease pencil Issues
Does anyone know how to fix this? When drawing on an object with Grease Pencil and I go to render it, the drawing on the other side shows through?

I solved it in the end. You just go to 'View Layer', just below 'Output Properties' on the top right and click the box that says 'Z'.

Sure, that's why we closed this question as duplicate, because that's the solution given on the other question.


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cylinder has a weird shape
I' having a trouble with a shape of my newly addded cylinder. It's just not round. Problem might be a huge and complicated mesh near it, but I need it there for a reference. In picture you can see that the edges are rough.

Looks like floating point precision problem. Make sure your model isn't very far from the origin or very large, and change the camera clip distances in the view panel of the N panel

@Gorgious that comment would be better as an answer


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How to set texture interpolation for Empty Images?
You can change the texture interpolation for images used as textures for objects in the Image node under the Shader Editor.

Here you can change it to various interpolation method, in this example I've changed it to closest from linear.
But how do I do the same for Empty Images? I don't seem to find any settings related to it.

Sorry, I don't think you can change interpolation for empty images. May I ask why you are using an empty image in the first place? Empty's contain essentially no data and do not appear in renders. Would using Image(s) as plane(s) work better? You could still disable it for renders if need be, and at least you would get the image options back.

@Christopher I need to model something with very high precision, snapping to increments or the grid won't work as some pixels are not on the grid. The linear interpolation makes it even harder to eyeball the position. Using 'Images as planes' would solve the interpolation problem, but since it'd be opaque it won't be the right choice, going to x-ray mode will also not work. I dunno I'm running out of options, Blender should add this feature for empty images too...

"something with very high precision" doesn't sound very serious when talking about pixel interpolation. Sounds like you need better reference in any case.

I can't get higher resolution blueprints, it was a big image with multiple blueprints for different objects. I just cropped out the one I needed. The original file was a .dwg file then i had to convert it to .png(which may have reduced the quality), and then i cropped it out... but still, blender should add this feature for empty images too

If you have DWG file, convert the drawings to DXF format and import them to Blender. It is a big mistake to convert vector drawings to bitmaps and then use that for reference.

If you have a DWG file, you should definitely forget about any bitmap formats and import it as geometry to Blender. Blender supports SVG and DXF formats. Most CAD software can export technical drawings in DXF format. If you choose the correct unit size for exporting to Blender which is 1m, they will even import the correct size.
Then you can have the drawings as geometry:

You can keep the actual exact measurements and snap stuff to the drawings without worrying about numbers, or even use parts of the drawings as starting geometry for modelling stuff. It would be a nightmare to work on complex projects requiring technical drawings if they were in bitmap formats.

Yes, I do have a DWG file, but it's just a plain drawing of the model on different axes. I viewed it on an online DWG file viewer as I currently don't have any CAD software. I then screen-shotted and cropped it with pixel precision, so that when Blender interpolates the texture it'd be subtle. Not a big fan of this method, but it works ok...


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Is there a way to quickly assign vertex groups?
i have a plane with 1024 different faces on it. i am attempting to set each 1 of these faces to a different vertex group is there a way to do this via script?

Of course there is.  This script requires that you've already made the grid your active object:
import bpy
import bmesh

# Get a mesh from an object and make it a bmesh
object = bpy.context.object

if object and object.type == 'MESH':

    # Create a bmesh from the object
    if object.mode == 'OBJECT':
        bm = bmesh.new()
        bm.from_mesh(object.data)
    else:
        bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(object.data)

    # Validate bmesh data structures
    bm.verts.ensure_lookup_table()
    bm.faces.ensure_lookup_table()
    deform_layer = bm.verts.layers.deform.verify()

    # process each face in the bmesh
    for i, face in enumerate(bm.faces):
        group = object.vertex_groups.new(name=f'GRP_{i:02}')
        # Assign each vertex in the face to the face's vertex group
        for vert in face.verts:
            vert[deform_layer][group.index] = 1.0

    # update the object's mesh from the bmesh
    if object.mode == 'OBJECT':
        bm.to_mesh(object.data)
        bm.free()
    else:
        bmesh.update_edit_mesh(object.data)

replace object = bpy.context.object with whatever means of selecting the object you want to do this with.
Also, replace GRP_ with whatever prefix you want your groups to have and the 2 in {i:02} with how many digits you want. For 1024 faces, I would use 4 so that the groups will appear in numeric sort order.
This script

creates a bmesh from the active object, if there is an active object and it is a mesh object.
validates three data structures, the verts and faces lookup tables and the deform layer, where the vertex group information is stored in a bmesh
For every face it creates a new vertex group and adds each of the vertices from that face to the group.
finally it copies the bmesh to the object's mesh data.

A suggestion of how to sort the faces in order
The problem is that because a mesh with many faces was probably created as a simple mesh and then subdivided, the faces don't have a particular order, nor do the vertices.  Here's a simple mesh showing the vertex indices.

You do have the advantage that the mesh is all quads, so the outline of the algorithm is fairly simple:

Find the upper left corner, for whatever orientation you want.  Here it's vertex '3'.

Find the face that contains that vertex.

Create the face-based vertex group and fill it out with the four vertices

Pick one of the two vertices attached to 3 by an edge, either 9 or 12 in the example.  Remember the other one.

Find the face containing the new vertex, say 9.

Repeat the process above until you've finished the row.

Start over with the vertex you  remembered and do it again.

Continue repeating rows until there aren't any left.

i see thank you tho this sets every vertex to its own vertex group in looking to set every face to its own.

Doh.  Give me a few minutes.  The faces code is similar, but requires one more loop.

sorry to ask. but if possible i also noticed that it dose not do consecutive faces so it will put vertex group 1 & 2 on either sides of the object, is there a way to make then be next to each other?


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Blender crashing when opening file on Mac
I'm having an issue while trying to open an otherwise perfectly fine project in Blender 2.83 on my iMac Pro (macOS Catalina). The file worked perfectly last week, now, when trying to open it, Blender crashes. Another similar project (duplicated) works perfectly. I haven't changed anything and the last time I had Blender open was with the file that is now crashing. How can I fix this issue, as this is a client project that I cannot access any longer?
Thanks!


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How to prevent bleeding on UV image textures in blender?
I created an object in blender and created a UV texture as PNG. However, even though I so carefully line up the edges of the object in the UV editor, I get this bleeding artifact (below). How do I prevent this?

This may be caused by the image quality. How large is your texture?

Seems to be a beveling issue, apply bevel modifier at first.

Thank you both! After exploring it a bit more, I realized I forgot to make room for the gap between faces in my UV.

I forgot that my object has "gutters" between each face. Therefore adding additional space between each face in my UV fixed the issue.


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Weird Render Issue that doesn't match Camera
Following on from the Coffee Cup tutorial by Blender Guru, I had a go at making an insulated glass coffee cup modelled on the reference image below.

I modelled the cup, it looked fine in the Layout view, but when I hit Render, I get some really weird results. I've literally only just started using Blender this week, so I'm a complete beginner. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. See Layout View vs. Render below.

It looks like you are using a subdivision surface modifier on your "glass". Under the modifier settings, there are 2 subdivision values - one for render and one for viewport. My guess is you have the render value turned down to 0. Look at the modifier settings.

Aha. Thank you. I do have a subdivision surface and a solidified modifiers on the glass. I put the solidify first but I’m not really quite sure what difference it makes. Will check the render on the subsurface.

Ok. It turns out that Viewport and Render were both set to 2. I put subdivision surface modifier above solidify and it gave a different but equally weird render.

Strange. I'm not sure then... Any chance you could upload your blend file, so I, or someone else can have a look? You can do it here - https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Thanks Christopher. I don't know what I did (I got rid of a hidden object and renamed the cup object), I hit render one last time, and it is now rendering properly. Sorry! I have no idea what fixed it!

It must have been the hidden object - hidden from viewport, but not the render. Glad you got it fixed.


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I want to convert a terrain mesh to a displaced plane so i can add google maps image texture
I want to make a game which is a bit like GTA but in my home town.
I'm making the map in Blender. I found a 3d model from my towns website for geological data, it is CAD file, consisting of polygons.
I also have a high res Google maps image which I want to put onto the terrain so I can see where the roads and trees are so I can continue making the map.
I've tried to convert the terrain mesh into a heightmap, put it on a plain and then applying the texture but that gave me weird results and I tried it multiple times with different settings. I've also tried projection painting but I don't really understand how to do it and when I just followed a tutorial it didn't work.
Blender GIS addon doesnt give me high enough height map or texture resolution I need a way to turn my terrain mesh into a heightmap or better yet directly into a displaced plane.

This is just a screenshot of the high res image, the original has a much higher resolution and is a bit bigger

Are you using the Displace Modifier to apply the heightmap to your plane?  Perhaps yes as you mention "applying texture"

@james_t i would do that but i do not have a heightmap yet. I need help baking a high-res height/normal map from the mesh i do have from the geo data


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dark glass/liquid problems
the small project I'm working on involves a glass cup with large variations in depth, but has a square of really darkened liquid/glass, and I can't seem to fix it. I've tried the many suggestions from other posts to turn up the max light bounces, but at 1024 it makes the rest appear to glow slightly, and the center is still dark. this was based roughly on blender guru's coffee cup tutorial.

that looks like it might be a case of flipped normals or duplicate faces.  Select the mesh that the dark spot is in, go to edit mode and try SHIFT-N to recalculate normals.  If that doesn't work, maybe post your blend file in your questions (How to add a blend file)

The biggest influencer here is Glossy parametr ... 0-1-2-3-4-5

Light Paths > Preset > Limited Global Illumination

Light Paths > Preset > Full Global Illumination

Things that makes a differens ...
... if Glass penetrates a solid object (like a floor) or not ... left T is above / right T is bellow.

... World environment ... left white color / right Image Texture.

So what worked here for Limited GI ...  Total 128, GLossy 128, Caustics enabled.


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Why I have to wait for several minutes in order to save a render image in cycles?
I'm using blender 3.3 on a MacBook to render an image with Cycles. When the render window appears, I have to wait several minutes while the render progresses and finishes in order to be able to save the image (The save and save as menu items are greyed out). This is annoying, becase the image in the window doesn't change at all during this time. Is there a way to avoid the waiting?
Thanks in advanced.

The render status will be shown in the top left corner of the window while it's rendering. The image can't be saved until that is complete. The number of Max Samples is usually set to 2048 by default in Cycles under Render Properties > Sampling > Render. Depending on the quality of the image I want, I usually set that to around 128 to speed things up.

And a bit more to the bottom is a field "time limit" where you can define how much time you will give Blender to render it. Just try 3 sec, and check whether the quality is good enough for u. If not, increase it and try again.

Thanks, for both comments. I have reduced the Max Samples from the default value of 4096 to 1 (Yes, one) and the time to complete is now just a few seconds. But the most surprising for me is that the image is identical to the one that lasted minutes to render (I compared both images visually alternating them quickly and can't find a pixel that changes).

Thanks, for both comments. I have reduced the Max Samples from the default value of 4096 to 1 (Yes, one) and the time to complete is now just a few seconds. But the most surprising for me is that the image is identical to the one that lasted minutes to render (I compared both images visually alternating them quickly and can't find a pixel that changes).


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Access main menus without using the mouse
I am new to blender and there is something I couldn't find in the documents. How can I access all the main menus and sub-menus just using the keyboard? I read the documentation on menus and there it is very well describe how to access all sub-menus, but I couldn't find how to open the main menus in order to use the underscored letters the key-pad, the mouse wheel or the arrows. Is there a way to activate, for example, the File menu without using the mouse, so I can then press "I" in order to open the Import sub-menu and then "T" to import a Stl file?

You will in some ways be disappointed if you are someone who prefers short-cut keys instead of a mouse, in this very arcane 3d modelling world (blender, 3ds Max, etc).   You can visit Edit -> Preferences -> Keymap to investigate shortcuts.  I'm not sure if there is some cheat-sheet somewhere (I gave up looking).  Export to Python script is not what you'd hope for.  Each manual page shows the Shortcut for that command.

Unfortunately this isn't the answer you are hoping for, but the answer is that it is not possible to open the top menu in blender with any sort of keyboard short cut key.
It would be nice if this feature was added in my opinion, there has been discussions about it in the past, but one of the issues is the limited number of available hot keys, hot keys like ctrl-f or alt-f are already taken, and the developers have a rule about not taking away hot keys from existing projects if something has already been taken because that would be showing some sort of favoritism.
Normally the short cut to open the top menu would be the letter that is underlined, but as you can see, in blender none of the letters of the top menu are underlined, because there is no short cut key to open them directly.

It is possible to simulate this using just one extra keypress to bring up the Quick Favorites menu but you do need the mouse to set things up initially!
Right-click on each top menu item in turn and choose "Add to Quick Favorites"

When you subsequently press the Q key you'll find that all your menus have been added to the Quick Menu including the conventional underlines for the hotkeys.

Pressing the hotkey then brings up the submenu as usual and you can use key presses to access the submenu items.

So once things are set up just press Q F I to bring up the Import dialog. - No mouse clicks at all!


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Copy animation data from one armature to another with Python
I've been trying to write a script to copy animation data from an armature to another one, unfortunatly without success so far.
My situation is that i have :

A mesh with it's armature that doesn't contain any animation, loaded from an fbx file
An animation with the same skeleton definition as the fbx file, loaded from a bvh file

Script attempt
From what i understood, as the two objects doesn't share the same rest pose, i need to :

Add COPY_TRANSFORMS constraints to the source armature for each of it's bones
Loop over each target armature bone and copy rotation data from it's corresponding source bone

Here's what i tried :
def copy_anim_data(source_obj, target_obj):
    for bone in source_obj.pose.bones:
        ct = target_obj.constraints.new('COPY_TRANSFORMS')
        ct.influence = 1
        ct.name = bone.name
        ct.target = source_obj
        ct.subtarget = bone.name

    for i in range(0, 10):
        scene.frame_set(i)
        for bone in target_obj.pose.bones:
            source_bone = source_obj.pose.bones.get(bone.name)
            if source_bone is not None:
                bone.rotation_quaternion = source_bone.matrix_basis.to_quaternion()
                bone.keyframe_insert(data_path='rotation_quaternion')

Which seems to copy the rotation data properly, but the target animation looks distorted : it seems like the constraints doesn't have any effects.

Any help will be greatly appreciated
Thanks


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I want to create wet trails from an image sequence. Is it possible to use an image sequence as a brush? Or are there other alternatives?
I created an image sequence in After Effects to use as a bump map for a texture.
I also want to use that image sequence as a 'paint brush' so that I can get wet 2d streaks that are left behind and evaporate / fade out.
I could use AE to make these trails but I think wet maps would be more realistic and much easier on processing compared to the method I'd use in AE.
Currently the only idea I have would only potentially work with flat surface. The idea would be to use the AE image sequence as a bump map on a plane and set it close to the canvas object. Then set the plane with the bump map as a brush and play and export a wet map as usual. I'm not sure, however, if this would work at all.
Is there any better / other way to do this in Blender?

you can use dynamic paint for that.

How? How do I use an image sequence as a brush?


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Video Sequence Editor rendering a grey video
I've looked at multiple videos and I can't seem to get my video to render properly. My settings are: File format: FFMPEG, Container: MPEG-4, Video Codec: H.264, Output quality: High quality, encoding speed: slowest, Audio codec: AAC and I have no idea why it outputs into a grey video. Please help!

Okay guys I found out that if you go to the view panel and turn off render REGION, that allows you to actually render with the 'sequencer' option clicked. It's kind of absurd that the notification says Render Border yet the actual option is render region, I understand they have the same meaning but generally these things are very specific.


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Blender crashes when render call back calls render
I am trying to hook up an additional blender script after the rendering is done, to render the same scene with different parameters and to do some additional processing there.
I have simplified my code, to make it easier to understand the problem but still keep it reproducible:
import bpy

bpy.app.handlers.render_complete.clear()

render = True

def my_handler(scene):

    # prevent recursion
    global render

    if render:
        render = False
        # render something else with other parameters
        temp = bpy.context.scene.render.filepath
        bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = "H:/folder/img_2.png"
        bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)
        bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = temp
        render = True

bpy.app.handlers.render_complete.append(my_handler)
bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)

This code works fine, when I execute it, it will render automatically, since it is triggered in the last line bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True) and will render the original scene. Since it is hooked up with the handler render_complete it will then render a second image.
This works like a charm.
But if I try to trigger it using F12 it crashes (almost every time) at this part bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True) inside the my_handler function.
I can't manage to figure out why, since when it is triggered through the script there are now problems. It this small example nothing is shown in the Python-Console, Blender just crashes.
But in my original code, that does some more processing there is an error that is in the crash log too:
ExceptionCode         : EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION
Exception Address     : 0x00007FF7EBC994CF
Exception Module      : blender.exe
Exception Flags       : 0x00000000
Exception Parameters  : 0x2

Do you have any pointers for me?

I can't reproduce the error on my end. You could try testing it on a fresh install of Blender in a fresh project with no settings altered and see if the problem persists - if not, perhaps it's related to your configuration, otherwise it might be related to your operating system. There could also be some compatibility issue with some addon that e.g. also subscribes to the render_complete event.

@MarkusvonBroady, what devices are you using for rendering if it works? Doing stuff after render in a script has always been difficult because of multithreading and other stuff I don't understand. Is it no longer the case?

@MartynasŽiemys I just tried on 3.4.1 on Windows. Running the script would save one image based on my settings, and another image (well the same really in regards to contents) in the path given in the script. Pressing F12 would open the render result window but also save another image in the path given in the script (I deleted the image before the test), no crash happened.

OK, so the problem here could be: the handler seems to execute when rendering is complete correctly, but the code in the handler starts another render and there are commands after that. If I understand it correctly, there will be issues if you try to start rendering and run other Python code immediately after because the script will not wait for rendering process to be finished correctly as rendering happens in other threads and even on other devices. The script somehow works for me as well without crash, but that's the thing I find more surprising than it crashing.

Of course, the question itself might still be an XY problem. If you need to start another render after one, why not use View Layers to render whatever you need in multiple layers?

Thank you for your comments. Since you told me it is not reproducable for you, I tried it again on a fresh project.
Turns out that it works with the fresh project so far.
I hope I can figure out what the problem with my original scene is, since it is still weird that it should do the same thing in both cases but one of them crashes. I will try to keep you up to date

Update: even with the new scene, when I pres ctrl + F12 instead of F12 it crashes.
Does it crash for you? @MarkusvonBroady

@AMGEBEE it does crash for me. Perhaps once you start a rendering job, some render-specific resources are frozen and you're not allowed to use them before the rendering finishes.


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why is my aimation drifting away?
I have a mixamo animation that I am retargetting to another rig. however when I try, the models start to drift randomly in a direction after retargetting. how can I fix this?

Does the new armature has the exact same bones?

No, different rigging


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render view not working in camera view/blank render
I can't see my project in the rendered view (ctrl+z) when im in camera view but it works when I exit camera view. This is what it looks like before and after I press CTRL+Z

and when I render my animation all I get is a blank black image. It was working before but I think I might have accidentally pressed something that made it this way and have no idea how to fix it. Please help.

I figured it out I pressed shift+B in camera view and accidentally selected a really tiny area..... yeah im dumb.


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Displacement map creates gaps on the corners of a wall
I'm able to create this bump effect using a brick texture on a plane with a displacement map, but when I tried to apply it on my current model it creates gaps or "holes" on the corner.

What I want is that on the corner the texture connect like it should be in real life, if that makes sense.
I already tried to add bevel on the corner but it didn't solve the problem, there's still a hole in it.
Here is screenshot for the node and uv unwrapping.

I believe this is not possible using node based displacement. You may have to use the displacement modifier instead.

enabling auto smooth solve this problem apparently, thanks for your comment

@Hilmy if auto smooth fixed it please add an answer (perfectly fine to answer your own questions) and show how.

I can confirm that enabling "Auto-Smooth" fixes it.
Before:

After:


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Node setup for transparent wire fence PBR texture
So i downloaded a PBR texture for wire fence but i don't know how to properly setup the node to make it transparent like in this preview

Usually for PBR i only use diffuse, roughness, and normal, sometimes displacement, but with this wire fence texture there is "mask" and "met" image and i don't know where to put them
Any help would be appreciated!


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Blender-exported GLTF vertex structure
I'm having a hard time undestanding how to read the vertex array properly when GLTF is exported with/without normals, uvs.
For the start, I've exported the basic Blender cube without any normals or uvs. As expected, the position vertex buffer consisted of 24 floats (96 bytes), representing 8 vertices, and the indices buffer consisted of 36 ushorts ranging from 0 to 7. By this far everything is very intuitive.
Once I've added UV's to the export, the position buffer became 168 bytes long, consisting of 14 vertices. As well, a TEXCOORD buffer was added, having 112 bytes. Indices buffer remained of same count (36), but now ranges from 0 to 13.
Once normals were added to the export, the position buffer count grew to be 24. I understand that it is now representing 3 vertices of same position with different normals to allow rendering sharp edges. As well, a new buffer was added to represent the normal vector of each position vertex. Now the indices have range of 0 to 23.
Now, if I remove UV's from the export, the position buffer remains with the same size including normals, having 24 vertices. The indices have the same range. The only thing that changes is that there is no longer a buffer of TEXCOORD present.
Except for the primitive case of position vertices only, I can't figure out how the indices map onto the position buffer. Why the position buffer for POS + UV + NORMAL == POS + NORMAL, but POS + UV != POS?
I've gone through the GLTF spec, but couldn't find any info on this regard. Also, I've tried to look at threejs sources (GLTFLoader, Mesh, BufferGeometry, etc.), but it gave me no clue either.
P.S.
I'm new to 3D, have no prior knowledge of 3d data arrangement, mapping, etc. If there is too much to explain, please advise of a good resource/book to read.

I think what you're seeing here is that some vertices in Blender's default cube share UVs without sharing normals, so exporting with POS+UV requires at least 14 vertices. Normals have more variance than UVs, and require 24 unique vertices when normals are present.
The maximum number of vertices that could be required for a particular mesh is (triangleCount * 3), or 6 * 2 * 3 = 36 for a basic cube, if each triangle has unique data associated with its vertices.
Ultimately this question is linked to specific data in this specific cube. Modify the UVs and you'll get a different result. Or another exporter could choose a different vertex layout, e.g. with interleaved vertices, or duplicating vertices with shared normals out of simplicity. The glTF specification allows flexility to optimize the vertex stream, or to fully unpack it, at the exporter's discretion. Various tools can also post-process a glTF file to optimize the vertex stream after export, which would again change the structure.


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RuntimeError: Error: Image too small when setting render region, rendering in python
I'm trying to write a python script that automatically sets the render region, like so:
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.use_border = True
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.border_max_y = ymax
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.border_min_y = ymin
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.border_min_x = xmin
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.border_max_x = xmax

However, upon trying to render the image from the script (bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)), I receive an error: "RuntimeError: Error: Image too small" (no matter the size of the render region).
When I instead try to render the image by hitting F12, it says "Report: Error -- No border area selected".
The errors do not occur when I adjust the render region manually.
I'm using Blender 2.90.1.
Thanks for any help!

Inverted min, max, maybe?

@lemon Good god, that really was it. Thanks!


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Adding extras property to exported gltf .glb
The GLTF specification includes a top level extras property for application specific data.  How can I inject my own top level extras property data when calling the bpy.ops.export_scene.gltf method?
https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.ops.export_scene.html#bpy.ops.export_scene.gltf
https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF/tree/master/specification/2.0#reference-extras

The glTF exporter doesn't give a way to write to that.

Thanks @scurest!


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"Haunted" Shape Key Issue!
This might be a bug, and I've spent all night hunting it. I think my solution will have to be rebuilding some of my file and animation, but I was wondering if anyone had run into this problem:
I have a basic walk-cycle for a character for a unity project, along with 3 shape keys. The last shape key is a king of growl/grimace. In blender everything is fine, the walkcycle "walks", the shape keys shape, all is good. In Unity the character comes in with only the first 2 shape keys, and the last "growl" shape key as part of the mesh.
Interestingly, Unity wouldn't let me import this as a .blend file.
So, I start deleting bits and pieces (the shape keys and the animations) and finally ended up with a FBX file with a new 3rd shape key and a new animation, with a normal face. I tried to recreate this with no animations (to start fresh animating in Unity), and all my imports still had the "growl" shape key as part of the mesh (and yes, this is well after I've deleted the offending shape key).
Here's where it gets weird! Back in Blender: When I added a shape key, and brought my new shape key from 0.0 to 1.0, the growl came back as if I sculpted it. There was already information in the shape keys when I added them. I added another 3, the growl was in all of them.
So, I thought this was Unity messing up, but somewhere in Blender, after shape keys were removed and animations were cleared, the memory of that "growl" shape key still exists, and I can't get it out. AND... all the FBXs files I export from there have the growl.
Any ideas how this is happening? Is it some kind of buffer? Can I clear it out?

Have a look in the Dope sheet, see if therre's a hang-over strip called "Key" for the object.  I've encountered this problem several times and it can be eradicated by deleting this strip as well as the shapekey itself. You may have to save the file, exit Blender and reload it.

You could always use the built-in tools to upload images or upload your file to blend-exchange, if you want to take us a look at it.

I'm getting an error uploading. The whole file is having issues now.
I looked for the Key strip in the Dope Sheet and didn't find one. Luckily, there were a lot of animations I have to do, and I need to add some components, so the loss of one walk cycle is not the end of the world. Thanks for your advice, I'll keep a look out for that as a solution if this happens again.
My theory is I was sloppy with the keyframe recorder, and left it on while I was adjusting or making a shape key.

I solved this problem as follows:
I created a blank shape key from the basis (by "new shape key from the mix"), and I selected every vertex of the basis, then the Vertex tab Blend from Shape and select the blank shape key and check Add.


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Booleans: Where is the "Apply" option in Blender 3.0? How do I activate the boolean modifier?
While following this tutorial, I encountered a problem where after applying the boolean modifier, the modifier's effect isn't apparent.

If you look at the third image, where I've hidden the objects used to carve holes into the gameboy, you'll notice the boolean difference effect doesn't happen.
I appreciate the help.

Have you tried applying array modifier and then the Boolean?

@Nand27 I tried applying the modifier twice and still no result.

@moonboots I just did https://pasteall.org/blend/47b86247ac3241d3966891d9ea6a20ea

The Apply button is available here, you can also select the modifier and press CtrlA:

In your case, flip the normals of your array object (Cube.002), or choose the Fast instead of the Exact option for the Boolean of the big object (Cube.001), and it will work fine:


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Sculpting: What happened to the auto masking options in the Options?
While watching this sculpting tutorial, I came across a problem at 5:46, which is that there are no automasking options under the options tab. Where were these options moved to?

Have you selected the Grab brush?

It's been moved to the centre of the top toolbar in Blender 3.4 and above:

What is this toolbar add-on on the right of the Face Sets button? I've seen it everywhere but don't know what it's called.

It's for the popular Blenderkit addon: https://github.com/BlenderKit/blenderkit/wiki. The readme file for it is here.

New icon in blender 4. Dot inside square.


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Why did Blender remove the "Add Image" option?
In the top left corner of the viewport, underneath "add" there used to be the option of adding an image (among other options) as seen in the screenshot below:

And now he option has been removed, as seen in this recent screenshot below:

You asked that 4 days ago and it was answered then! https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/299464/how-do-i-add-a-reference-image-in-blender-3-6/299465#299465

Do not ask questions multiple times, especially not if you already got an answer.

You are in the edit mode of some object.
Switch back to object mode and you will be able to add it. To switch back either click Ctrl+Tab to open a pie menu OR use the dropdown menu from the header.
Since it's the edit mode of some mesh, you will only be able to add meshes while in the edit mode.
Basically the option is still there, but you are in the wrong mode.

...or just hit Tab to toggle between the two modes!


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How can I see through the mesh without going into wireframe mode

Constantly switching between wireframe mode and solid view mode (if that's the right term for it) is somewhat of a pain, but I remember seeing a tutorial where someone had the mesh transparent while the wireframe in edit mode was still visible. So how do I make the mesh transparent in edit mode?

Are you looking for X-Ray mode? Alt+X or the button just left to the wireframe mode button.

@taiyo You mean Alt Z

As @moonboots says, it's Alt-Z to toggle x-ray mode. but you can also toggle between wireframe and solid mode with Shift-Z.  Z on its own brings up a pie menu where you have all the options and, once you've got the technique, you can just flick the mouse in the direction of the option you want  to switch modes.

@moonboots no i mean Alt+X (Industry Compatible), yours is Alt+Z (Blender). To avoid confusion for others: changeable under Edit > Preferences... > Keymap

@taiyo That is not helpful for regular Blender users who expect the default keymap!

@JohnEason ok, got it. Thats why i added the clarification.

Click this. It will turn on x-ray mode.

Oh, sorry. I must've misunderstood

@JohnEason where do you read that? OP says he is switching between Wireframe and Solid viewport mode and is looking for that transparent option, which is most likely X-Ray on/off. I think Pineapple's answer is right.

@taiyo Ah. Ok. My bad. I'll delete that comment.

Ok but the problem with the X-ray mode is that it's either 100% transparent or nothing. I tried adjusting it even to 0.999, but it's only giving those 2 options.