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How do I mirror selected faces over a selected point?
Shift-Ctrl-M does not work because it says "0 faces mirrored, 20 failed"
I can't get mirror modifier to mirror only the faces I have selected
Select->Mirror does not work because it doesn't mirror over the selected origin

You can duplicate the faces, scale it to -1 on the x axis with the appropriate transform pivot point, then flip the normals.

How do I scale it?

With the S button.

Thank you, I figured the rest out


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Making mirrored object a real object with mesh
I can't figure out how to make your mirror into actual mesh. I want to be able to make my mirror into mesh so I can move one side of my object without moving the other side.

Apply the modifier (click on the little down arrow on the right side).

You can also click anywhere in the mirror modifier panel so that it's hilighted with a blue line and use Ctrl-A to apply it.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Can someone point me towards videos that can help me learn how to model the attached image?
I would like to learn how to model objects that look like they are melting, like the attached image. I have had a hard time finding any resources on how to do this. Can someone point me towards some resources, ideally free videos, that could help me learn? I am a blender novice but use Fusion 360 quite a bit.

try https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=model+jelly+in+blender

Hello and welcome. Asking for links to resources about X is considered off topic here, asking directly about X is encouraged though. If you can rephrase your question to focus on the specific difficulties you are encountering, rather than point you to some site, please [edit] your post so it can be reopened. As it stands it is not a good fit for this site.

Also Please use a title that reflects the content of the question. It should be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the issue so that users can at a glance understand what your post is about. Use the [edit] link below your post and avoid anything not strictly essential to the post. Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors will see, and makes your question findable for future users. See "What is the problem with posting an image or link and asking “How do I do this?""

maybe use fluid and enable the viscosity?

Or you use curves + GN, like in this question How would I draw a liquid metal looking mesh. -- Example

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


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Uneditable object only visible in object mode
I found this uneditable object, it's exactly the same size with my original hood, and I can't do anything with it.
Can anyone tell me how this happened? And what should I do to delete this unnecessary object?

Alt+H (Unhide vertices)

It's hard to know what the problem is from the provided information, but Array Modifier with edit mode visibility turned off would behave exactly like you describe:

It used to have subsurf, shrink, mirror modifiers, but I deleted them all just for testing, the uneditable object is still existing.

Can you share the file?


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Smoke/Fire Simulation simulates Gaps between Frames

Hi, i want to simulate fire/smoke and it doesn't has a smooth transition, i tried increasing Sampling Supsteps, but since the Emitter or the Domain isn't moving it didn't change anyting.
I don't know how to resolve this issue please help or give tips.
Thank you very much

You're "shooting" it out at 100 m/s, which means if you've set your scene to let's say 25 FPS, the fire/smoke moved 4 m between two frames. The Sanpling Substeps are set to 1, which means there are not sufficient steps inbetween to calculate the simulation. I would set it much higher at these speeds. How much depends on what looks good enough to you and still has acceptable baking times.

Thanks for the comment, yes I had the same idea so I increased the Sampling Sups to 40 which made no difference. But maybe I will try it again and put the framerste to something like 120 FPS and later increase the play rate in Unreal Engine. Thanks for the Idea

Or are the flames going through or past some effector objects with which they collide? I cannot see that. If so, this might create some kind of shockwave effect... and of course the effectors should have enough substeps, too. And in the domain under Use Adaptive Time Steps perhaps increase the Timesteps Minimum from 1 to 2, or even 3 but this increases the bake time quite a bit.


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Editing color of textures
I have these two textures and I want to change the white or grayish parts in the images to glowing red or normal red can anybody tell me how to change the color of textures.

And

The color I want is like this

More flexible would be to use the textures as a mask in your shader tree... probably as a Fac in a Mix RGB node

Plug Image node directly into Emission Strenght of Principled BSDF
Change Emission color to Red

Huh... why didn't i think of this :D

try to copy these nodes and change the colours and values where you need to.

In your case the secondary colour you want is red so change the 'colour 1' in the multiply node from plain white to red.
remember color ramp node is optional
HOPE THIS HELPED!!

Super thanks to you

@Avinas Your welcome!! happy it worked


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compositing mist flashing
I have a scene that I have rendered with composited mist. The rest of the scene is working fine other than this section:
https://youtu.be/9N2IVqZxa_0
I initially thought it had to do with a harsh gradient within the mist compositor as I used a colour ramp. However, I changed the colour ramp settings to B-spline which has a smoother gradient and it didn't help.
Here is a screenshot of my compositor node setup.
This project is time sensitive so any help would be appreciated.

Check the output of the Normalizer ... since it is an animation there is a chance there is a difference in depth from frame to frame so normalised output differs accordingly. Or try to mute Denoiser (I saw some glitches in work of others).

@vklidu I tried muting the denoiser and it did not work. How do I check the output of the normalizer and what am I checking for?

just connect Normalizer to output (Composite node) and render it... if it is flashing ...

Instead of the normalizer node use a map range node which will be consistent across all frames or use the mist pass. you can change the mist start end and interpolation settings in the world properties


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creating a landfill
I would like to create a large landfill in blender but I'm not quite sure how to go about it.
I would like to create something like this:

I have this low poly trash I have downloaded that I would like to be the trash within the landfill:

I have tried using the geometry node but I can't get it to look realistic. I am also working on a laptop so creating so many of these objects is causing my computer to slow down enormously. Does anyone know the best way to go about this whilst also keeping it fairly simple so my laptop can handle it?

Are you planning any close-ups or what is this going to be used for? You might not need to have a high-resolution landfill if nothing will interact with it as well.

@Luciano the establishing shot will just be a large overview but then I will cut to a close up shot of a bulldozer pushing some of the rubbish. However, I will do that on a separate document as it is too complicated to do it all in the same one. So in short, for what I am asking, no, it will not be a close up shot.

you could just use a photo that you put on a mesh and sculpt the mesh  to give it bumps, it will fake the dump

@moonboots, I need the objects in the wide shot to be the same as the objects in the next close up shot that will be using the trash I downloaded. Otherwise the shots will not look like they were at the same place.

@Gorgious, I need the objects in the wide shot to be the same as the objects in the next close up shot that will be using the trash I downloaded. Otherwise the shots will not look like they were at the same place.

maybe this helps you https://youtu.be/CQ9VmCN2EsE (at least it looks similar to image 1)

Particles might do what you need like in this answer - https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/44606/how-to-make-an-object-appear-to-be-buried-in-sand

Please be so kind and share your blend file so we can tinker further on this task specifically. As this question currently stands, it is difficult to impossible to find a solution here. Thank you!


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How can I inspect the links between DataBlocks as a graph?
For instance, how can I inspect which object instances are linked to which mesh instances in a user interface similar to the Node Editor?

While there was a feature like that up to 2.49, it was removed in blender 2.50 and has not been replaced.
While it hasn't been updated for a while blender-aid may be an option if it still works.

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


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How to pause Blender or reduce its priority on Mac OS X
I am rendering an animation in Blender that should take about two days.
I am using the CPU to render it because Blender does not support my GPU.
After one day non-stop of rendering I have noticed that my iMac (2013 edition, intel core i5 CPU) was getting hot (about 85 degrees) and I do not want it to get harmed.
Unfortunately I have chosen to render the whole animation to a video sequence directly and not to a set of images, so I cannot allow myself to stop the whole process.
So is there any way to pause or reduce Blender's activity so that my computer can cool itself before restarting?
I have already tried the commands renice and killall -s STOP but with no result.

Nevermind, I found out a pretty efficient way. kill -s STOP BLENDER_PID did the job greatly !

You really should have sufficient cooling in your system, if its only a year old take it back to where you got it from. A system should be able to use all resources without getting damaged.

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


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The animation in my timeline is not displayed when I hit the Animation button
I previously animated a short animation. I wanted to redo the animation. So I redid the animation and it can be seen when you scrub through the frames in the time frame but when you hit the animation button it replays the old animation. Can can I force blender to use the new keyframes?

That worked! I do not know understand what was happening though. Do you care to explain with an answer so you can get credit for this solution?

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/5285/599


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Spinning single component around axis without affecting the compounding units
I am currently working on my first project with Blender. I decided to make a yo-yo. I am working on the string portion and have it stretched out currently. What I have now is a yo-yo body with a string stretching down from the yo-yo ring attached to it's center axis.The issue is mechanical in nature. I would like to rotate the string around the axis of the yo-yo by just rotating the yo-yo body and having the string top portion remain locked to the ring portion at that exact location.
My goal is to have the string wrap up around the yo-yo center axis ultimately then have it unwind downwards. I understand the manual method is always there and I particularly don't mind resorting to taking the string, strand by strand, and wrapping it around the center axis of the yo-yo body.
I've already tried the method outlined here https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/26413/58522 and the one directly below it to apply delta transforms. I've also tried locking the position of the yo-yo ring in place with a key frame lock but that did not help wind up the yo-yo automatically in the manner that I would like.
I am new to blender, which is an issue as well. However, I took time to read materials outlined on the Blender Stack Exchange Tutorial page, and after studying basic concepts undertook this project.
Thank you in advance.

Are you trying to make an animation or just a still image? If you want a still image, I've had a sort of similar situation where I resorted to a simple cheat. I needed to have a guitar string reach up to a tuning peg, and then wrap around it repeatedly.
My solution was to make 2 strings. One string reaches up to where the curve is supposed to begin, then cuts off. Where that string ended, the other string starts.
The other string is made by just creating a single flat circle, positioned right at the end of the first string, whose size and number of vertices was the same as a cross section of the first string.
Its face is perpendicular to the top of the peg, and I positioned it close to the peg. Then I added the screw modifier, chose the peg as the axis object, and messed around with the iterations, steps, and angle settings to create a coil.
The modifier can be a little confusing. If it doesn't seem to wrap exactly around the central rod of the yoyo, make sure that rod has its scale and rotation applied in object mode (ctrl+A). Then make sure the origin of the rode is in the middle of it (ctrl+alt+shift+C). For the string itself, you can reposition the origin (same command) to different spots to control how tight the coil is. If you move the small disc that creates the string up and down in edit mode (well, in my case it's up and down) then the coil gets more compressed. If you tab into edit mode and move it, the entire coil just moves vertically without getting tighter or looser. So to get the modifier to cooperate, you have to pay attention to the position of the origin of everything, and whether you're moving things in edit more or object mode.

hi, thank you for the quick reply. I would like to make an animation but I think your answer is perfectly suitable in either case. I'll be updating this as soon as I do so @CreeDorofl.


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Geometry nodes not offsetting position by normals properly?
I'm trying to do a simple noise displacement on a sphere in geo nodes, but cant seem to get it to work properly.

notice the blue normal direction, yet the displacement only seems to be diagonal. what am i doing wrong?
thanks :)

You see the link going from Normal to Multiply ? It's a 3d vector at first (violet color) but you are plugging it to a 1d math operator (gray color). This destroys the normal vector down to a scalar value. See John Eason's answer for the correct 3d math operator.

Use a Vector Math node instead of a normal one!


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Texturing objects with tiled textures
I am attempting to texture an object with a repeating texture which is intended to be 1m x 1m in physical dimensions. So for an object 30m x 20m, the texture will repeat 30 times in the longer dimension and 20 times in the shorter dimension.
I know I can scale the UV map of an object to match the dimension of the object, but this seems tedious to do for every single object, and should I tweak the size of an object I will then have to similarly tweak the UV map scale. I also know I can set the Vector input to the Image Texture in my material to Geometry | Position to get the intended effect on all objects which use the material. However, this strategy does not export to glTF files, and I need to export my environments to glTF files for use in the game engine I am using.
I am fairly new to Blender so it is highly probable I'm missing something very simple, any assistance in finding how to apply tiled textures that can be exported to glTF files would be greatly appreciated.

I'm not an expert for this, but gltf material is based on PBR that use only UV coordinates for image texture (if I'm right) so I dont think you have other chance than to manipulate UVmap in blender (there was some addon to matching all UVmaps across blend file to global scale) ... or set coordinates as global and when finised bake all textures, but it will generate biggeramount of data then tiled texture of course.

@vklidu is correct, the glTF exporter (and the glTF format) only accept UV maps as texture coordinates.  There are many ways to automate things in Blender, so you should search for an option, addon, or script that will auto-adjust UV maps to world coordinates.


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Sculpting fingers problems
I separately sculpted the hands and fingers for a model, then joined mesh with the body and did voxel remesh in sculpt mode.
Then the problem appears:
 The vertices of separate fingers kind of merge with each other in a messed up way, where there should be no mesh. There seems to be not enough space between the fingers.
Are there ways to fix this? Is my sculpting workflow wrong?
Happy about any help!!

it must have happened when you remeshed because the fingers were too close to each others, you need to correct thatin sculpt mode for example

The simplest way would be to try to run voxel remesh again with higher precision. However it may not be possible as you would need way too small voxels to make it work.. another solution would be just to take sculpting, select some brush, use dyntopo and tweak it a little with it, nothing too hard if it is just those 3 places + other hand

Thanks, I will keep that in mind for next time!


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Adding Material/Texture on Sculpt does not work?
I tried adding material/texture to my mesh for the first time, and while it works just fine on geometric objects like a basic Sphere, it does not work on my sculpt.
To prove my point, I tried adding tree bark as a material on my sculpted figure - strangly, only the eyeballs (which were seperated UV spheres before but I did join them with the whole body) seem to accept the material, the rest of the body just dyes browny without gaining any texture at all.
This is the case with a couple of objects inside my project, and I can't put my finger on the reason.

What step did I miss? Did I make a grave mistake? I tried finding videos on this problem but without success.. So I would be very thankful for any help!

This is because you are not using mapping nodes and the UV of your model is not unwrapped, for example, sphere works because it has default UV that works with your texture, but your body sculpt doesn't have a UV map or UV map is distorted by sculpting, try to add these two nodes:

Before your texture, does Generated or Object option work? Then you need to fix your UV before applying texture to it and change it to UV input in texture coordinate...
If I don't use mapping:

If I use mapping:

After UV unwrap with Sphere projection:

Wow, thank you so much!! This saves me a lot of stress :)

Oh and btw don't forget to apply scale before unwrapping, Ctrl+A and select Scale before unwrapping

Done, I appreciate it!!


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Bending Mesh Around Another Mesh
I am running Blender 2.93 on a Macbook Air. I am trying to bend one mesh around another mesh as shown in the photo (wrapping the text around the face of the cup). There is no manual for Mac that shows what keystrokes I need to use in order to do this.
Is there anyone that can point me in the right direction that shows how to do this ???

hello, you can try the Bend mode of the Simple Deform modifier

I tried that, but the gizmo that i have seen in videos does NOT show up. I am running a Mac.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6226/whats-the-simplest-way-to-wrap-extruded-text-around-a-cylinder


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How to add additional info on rendered video
Let's assume we have a simple scene with a rotating cube.
I am looking for a Python way to put additional info in the right bottom corner (like rotation angle for example) on the rendered video that I have as a result.
So I need to write the cube rotation angle on each frame or each keyframe.
I was trying to use something like this:
bpy.context.scene.render.stamp_note_text = str(cube_obj.rotation_euler[2])

but this cannot add metadata to each frame.
Here is my simple scene code.
import bpy
from math import radians, degrees, pi, cos

def clear_scene(fps=24):
    for coll in bpy.data.collections:
        if coll:
            obs = [o for o in coll.objects]
            while obs:
                bpy.data.objects.remove(obs.pop())

        bpy.data.collections.remove(coll)

    for obj in bpy.data.objects:
        bpy.data.objects.remove(obj)

    for material in bpy.data.materials:
        bpy.data.materials.remove(material, do_unlink=True)

    bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = '/home/vkudak/test_cube'
    bpy.context.scene.render.ffmpeg.format = 'MPEG4'
    bpy.context.scene.render.image_settings.file_format = 'FFMPEG'
    bpy.context.scene.render.ffmpeg.constant_rate_factor = 'LOWEST'
    bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_x = 500
    bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_y = 500
#    640×360   426x240
    bpy.context.scene.render.ffmpeg.format = 'MPEG4'
    bpy.context.scene.render.fps=fps

    bpy.context.scene.use_gravity = False

    bpy.data.worlds["World"].node_tree.nodes["Background"].inputs[0].default_value = (0, 0, 0, 1)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    FPS = 5

    clear_scene(fps=FPS)

    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(size=2, enter_editmode=False, align='WORLD',
                                    location=(0, 0, 0), scale=(1, 1, 1))
    cube_obj = bpy.context.active_object
    cube_obj.name = "Cube"

    TIME = 60
    times = list(range(0, TIME+1))

    bpy.context.scene.frame_end = TIME*FPS

    ##### Create CAMERA
    cam_data = bpy.data.cameras.new('camera')
    cam = bpy.data.objects.new('camera', cam_data)
    bpy.context.collection.objects.link(cam)
    # add camera to scene
    scene = bpy.context.scene
    scene.camera=cam
    cam.location=(7, -7, 5)
    cam.data.lens=50

    # tracking
    cam_constraint = cam.constraints.new(type='TRACK_TO')
    cam_constraint.target=cube_obj

    # Add light
    bpy.ops.object.light_add(type='POINT', radius=1, align='WORLD',
                                            location=(6, 5, 2), scale=(1, 1, 1))
    bpy.context.object.data.energy = 300

#   period of self rotation
    rot_period = 10

    frame_num = 0
    for t in times:

        bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame_num)

        cube_obj.rotation_euler[2] += radians(360/rot_period) #sat_axis_rot
        cube_obj.keyframe_insert(data_path="rotation_euler", index=2)
        frame_num += FPS

#    # Iterate over all the objects animation function curves
    for fc in cube_obj.animation_data.action.fcurves:
        fc.extrapolation = 'LINEAR' # Set extrapolation type

```

what about adding a simple text, parent that to the camera and then change the text via python? should be easy

@Chris You might add that as an answer, as it seems a reasonable solution.

@Chris I have such thoughts, but I change camera focus during video rendering, so this method will require to change also text size. I was searching for another way to do it


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How do I reparent an entire model (and accompanying objects) to another armature?
I have a model composed of several objects: the main one is a body parented to the armature using vertex groups; there is head parented directly to the head bone, and there are also supporting objects for attaching other props, also parented directly to bones - the model wasn't originally made in blender and that's how it's imported. Props attached to the support objects are parented to them using constaraints.
Now, I obtained a modified skeleton that has added IK for arms and legs. Apart from this one thing, the names of deform bones, their locations etc. are all the same. Is there a quick way (or a script) to reparent everything - main body, head and the support objects - to the new skeleton without the offsets blowing up? If it was just one character, I would do it slowly by hand, but there are lots of them - all with the same structure.
Thanks in advance for any help.

This does indeed sound scriptable. Here's some docks.
Python API on parenting: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.Object.html?highlight=parent#bpy.types.Object.parent
Parenting Inverse explained: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/scene_layout/object/editing/parent.html?highlight=inverse%20parenting
The process sounds simple enough, though I don't know for sure without seeing the direct file.


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Build interconnected armature
I'm fairly new to blender and am trying to build a collection of bones that move depending on the rotation of one bone.
I have three bones (as seen in the screenshot). There are two fixed points (A and B). There should only one roational axis (Z). My goal is to only rotate B around the Z-axis and have all the other bones follow, while point A stays fixed.
In the screenshot the left picture shows the original position and the right picture the position after a rotation around B. Note: The bones A and B are not necessarily parallel.
How do I need to connect the bones? And what constraints to I need to set?
I'm using Blender 3.5.
Regards

3DBear's answer works fine, but I'll suggest an alternative way, using only one constraint: the Inverse Kinematics constraint:

In this set up, all the bones follow the same direction in the chain. Also, there's an extra bone at the tip of the 3rd bone, that is the IK target. After creating that last bone, select it and press ALT+P to unparent it, so it's a loose bone. But don't move it, keep it's location at the tip of the 3rd bone. Rename that extra bone so it's easy to find (I renamed it "IK Target", but you can rename it however you want).
Then select the 3rd bone and add a bone constraint called "Inverse Kinematics". In the target slot select the armature and in the bone slot select the target bone (in my case, the one I named "IK Target". Increase the "chain length" to 2 (so 2 bones down the chain are affected by the constraint). If your bones are all aligned in the same 2D plane you don't need to worry about adding a 'Pole Target'. Also uncheck the "Strech" checkbox so the bone doesn't stretch if the target gets further than the length of the bones.
Now, with this constraint the 3rd bone will always follow the target (in pose mode). If you keep the target still you can rotate the first bone and the tip of the 3rd bone will stay anchored to the same point (where the target is):

First of all, I'd suggest keeping the main bone as the parent. If you gonna rotate B bone then let it be the parent of C. If I understood you right, you gonna need only two constaints: Copy Rotation (with the Local sapce for both Target and Owner) on the A bone, and Stretch To (with Head/Tail parameter = 1) on your C bone:
The result
P.S. You may need to press cross near the Original Length (Reset original length) in the Stretch To constraint if the C bone looks messed up after the setup.


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how to avoid the seamless loop texture for a rope?
hello guys I'm new in blender, I wanted to make a old ship and when i started to make ropes then I faced this issue, anyone can help with that.

Hello, is your image seamless? It should not happen if it is. But you could also use a procedural texture with a Wave Texture node...

Please pack the image (File > External Data > Pack Resources) and share your file


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Inverse Kinematics - Bones doesn't show up
I'm very new to blender.
I did some tutorials building and rigging basic characters. Last week I decided to built my first charcter on my own. It took a long time but I'm happy with the result.
I followed this tutorial for character rigging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYgznqvbisM
First time I did this rig with my first character, everything was great.
Now I'm trying to rig my new char, but it doesn't work.
Problem is when I try to setup the inverse kinematics the bones won't show up. I can`t select any of them.
I guess this might be a setup problem. As far as I know, I didn't change the basic setups (but maybe by accident...?).
Maybe one of you knows what I did wrong.
(I use blender in German - hope this is not a problem. Armature = Body. I was working in pose mode)
I hope my character can be saved and I doesn't have to start all over again... :(

You have added a mesh as target. You have to add the armature instead, then you can select a bone.
Based on the screenshot, seems like your armature is not called "body", it is called "skelett"

Oh my gosh.... Yes! Problem solved. Thanks a lot (I have to learn a lot I guess... xD)


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Modelling of building interior and exterior for scene
I want to model the interior of a house, inside the house. By this I mean that I have a scene where the outside of the house is modelled but the inside of the house also needs to be modelled. What is the practical method to do this?

If in all one file, one important feature to use is the organization of Collections and scenes and views, so that you can hide interior furnishings while rendering exteriors and visa versa.  This will reduce render times and memory requirements that can otherwise overwhelm your machine.  I even hide all bedroom furnishings when rendering say, the kitchen or entry foyer.  Also with differing scenes, you can adjust animation of a door opening only where needed for a camera walk-through, or in having lighting changes (animate time of day or control light groups).

Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer.


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How to turn procedural skin normal map => image texture
I have I procedural skin shader (applied to a human character mesh) with a couple of voronoi nodes that I connect to the 'normal' of the Principled BSDF shader which is cool, but I was thinking if it's possible to turn the generated bump/normals into a proper normal map so I can export to Godot?
I looked up some guides on "baking" textures but i can't seem to be able to do it.
Basically, I just want to tell blender: Hey that Bump node? take the output of it and create an 4k image texture with this UVmap for me.

What you can do is plug your texture directly into the Base Color of the Principled BSDF (or even into the Output node), create an Image Texture with a new image, keep this node selected, make sure that the unwrap of your object is correct, then in the Bake panel choose Bake Type > Diffuse, uncheck Contributions > Direct and Indirect and bake:

It's not clear if you want a bump map or a normal map, as Tsybe says "in case you want to bake a normal map, you can just leave the nodes connected to the Normal socket and set the Bake Type to Normal".

In case you want to bake a normal map, you can just leave the nodes connected to the "Normal" socket and set the Bake Type to "Normal".

@Tsybe Oh yes of course thanks I'll edit

@Tysbe when I set bake type to 'normal' and then select the new image in the shader editor and bake, it bakes an empty blue normal map to the diffuse skin texture :\ Maybe disconnect the diffuse?

The other approach didn't work either - the image is saved over my skin diffuse image - not the new blank image (I have the new image selected in the shader editor). Also the resulting image looks wrong.

@PetterThowsen It's hard to say what is the reason behind it. If you could share the blend file, we'll take a look at it. https://blend-exchange.com

Or if you could just share some images about the process and the bake settings

Clearly feeding black and white data into a Normal socket won't result in anything. If you want to bake your Bump as NormalMap you need to connect your data to "Emission" socket (bc it will not interpolate your data) and bake as "Emit". Then you duplicate your object, you add Subdivision Surface (will surely need more than 2 subdiv). Then you add a Displace modifier and use your baked Bump texture. Then you proceed with the Selected to Active baking workflow using your displaced object as a High Poly


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How do you wrap large images to a 3D Body model to make large tattoos that span from different parts of the body (back to arms to legs etc)
I've been looking around at tutorials to use stencils for tattoos on body models and so on but I find if say, have a design of a koi and I want it to span a large portion of the back, leading down to a leg and ending on the inner thigh, I get the feeling that stopping to rotate the model manually and then re-sizing and aligning the stencil to match up with the previously applied stencil isn't the best way to go about such a task. Is there any way to fully wrap a model with a picture?
Eg.
define the path the image should be wrapped along on the model and then clean and finish in the texture editor or Photoshop.
^^^^
Is something like that possible?

Hello and welcome. Did you try UV unwrap and export the UV to photoshop?

I would recommend using the Bake function to bake an image that is imported as a plane and highly subdivided and snapped of the surface faces of the intended target. Possibly bake to a separate image that can be adjusted to be transparent where the tattoo is not.

@Emir -  Thanks for the suggestion but, I understand that method but what i was trying to do was apply a large image of the mesh of a character body which has UV sector of varying size so cutting and resizing then ensuring that they all line up in photoshop seems to be even more difficult than what im doing right now.

@CraigDJones - Ok, new to blender but i'll look up those functions and give it a shot. thanks


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What workflow would you use to model a pendant like this?

Some cool pendants I came across online, what would be the best workflow to use to get this type of result?

it depends what's the final goal, do you need real 3D or can you use a normal map? You could convert this photo into a normal map, or sculpt and bake the normals. Or you can model it but it will take time.

Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/122460/how-do-i-convert-a-3d-model-into-a-bas-relief-using-mist


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addon lily surface scrapper problem
I have been trying to use the addon lily surface scraper and for some reason it does not upload some of my texture URLs, and I keep getting a error.
I get this error using CCO textures

and this error using cg book case textures

for some reason texture haven is working fine.
does anyone have a idea for why this is happening and BTW I am on blender version 2.91

Please add a link to the addon page.   Can copy error message from system console and paste as text, much easier to read.  What url have you copied to clipboard?

You? https://github.com/eliemichel/LilySurfaceScraper/issues/134  The addons maintainer has replied and asked for same.

give me one minute

i dont know how to copy error message from system console

https://www.cgbookcase.com/textures/black-tiles-06

https://cc0textures.com/view?id=Wood047

i tries some other textures they dont seem to work either

from the same websites

Re system console: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6173/where-does-console-output-go  If that is your issue on github page recommend replying there.

ok i will reply on the github but what should i do with the link on the last comment?

The link answers how to see system console. Select and copy error message text from there.  If it is you that brought up the issue here https://github.com/eliemichel/LilySurfaceScraper/issues/134  add the details there.

ok thank you for the help


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How to use mesh as a mask?
I'm trying to do an animation where a desertic road scrolls like a treadmill.
I have a long road designed like this :

as the road scrolls (moves) from right to left, I'd like to show only the center square of this long road.
What I mean really is to show only what's inside this cube (without actually seeing the cube obviously) :

I tried to use the mask modifier but I can't really get to what I want. I was thinking that instead of displaying only what's happening in the cube, it might be easier to mask everything that is inside these ones :

Either way I can't really figure out how to use the mask modifier in that case, to use these cubes as masks without seeing them in the render...
I hope I'm clear enough, sorry if it's not.
I'd appreciate your help, and wish you a great week-end.
Cheers

With a boolean modifier
You had it right with either of these solutions. I would use the first one. But as you noticed, the cube mask hides the part you want to show. Select the cube and go into object properties and set the viewport display to "Wire". also don't forget to uncheck "Render" in the visibility so it doesn't appear in your animation.

Then Select the road object, add a boolean modifier set to "intersect" and pick the cube mask.
Now you can either move the mask or the road to get the desired effect.

With a custom shader
You can limit the visibility of the road with a custom shader. You then don't have to use a mask object, and you won't have boolean artifacts, but the drawback is the mesh doesn't get "cut" on the edges of where it needs to stop displaying.
Select the road, go into the shading editor and add a new shader. Let's say you want the
road to display between y = - 1 and y = 1.
Add this setup to visualize the alpha of the material (1 is white, meaning the material is opaque. 0 is black, meaning the material is transparent):

Plug it into the alpha input of a principled bsdf shader and connect the bsdf to the material output. In the right hand side panel, go to options and set the blend mode to "Alpha Clip".

Result :

Wow thank you so much for the very detailed answer, it's really cool. I'm gonna test it right away :) Thanks again !


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How do i rotate a Gradient relative to the Camera position?
So i need a Gradient on a disk to rotate in such a way that it follows the Camera. This is what i got:
The Gradient and the blue line towards the Camera. And this is what i want:
Now my idea was to use Trig. Since i know the lenght to the Camera and the Y or X depth i can theoretically calculate the relative angle between the disk and the Camera depending on the Location. Like this.
However when i go to impliment this angle i get this
With these nodes:
And i dont see where the problem is. The math is correct, i have the right axis and so on. And i can clearly rotate the Gradient manually. All i do is plug the node setup above into the Input for the Gradient Z Angle. If i do it manually it works, put with the Node set up i get this weird result.
My suspicion is that Blender does the Angle calculation for all pixels of the Disk and thusly arrives at widly differnt angles for each point. Instead of Rotating them all as a group they get rotate individiually.
Now yes i could keyframe this but i would like to have this gradiant track the Camera a bit more precisly. Also i cant rotate the disk, it has to be the shader.
So are there any other ways ? What am i doing work ?
For those wondering why i need this, i am building a Black Hole Shader that tries to impliment all physical effects. This shader graident tracking stuff is to account for Doppler effect. Preview seen below:

Well here is how I would do it. The Doppler effect fades as the camera becomes more parallel with the disk's normal which I think is accurate.
The key is, the object is flat in the z = 0 plane in object space. Then I take the cross product of the object coordinate position with (0,0,1) which yields a vector representing the rotation of the object. Then I take the dot product of that vector with the camera vector which yields a value that increases when the vector points towards the camera and decreases when pointing away. I use this value to control the hue shift by connecting it to a color ramp and a hue mix node.

Holy hell, my plan was to adress the Z change of Doppler later but you mad man solved 2 issues at once :D Works perfectly !
And it even accounts for camera rotation, so if the camera flips 180 degress the doppler effect flips as well. This is perfect ! :D

Your nodes look like you're trying to get the angle of the sample.  You're basically doing this right, but you're not doing any quadrant correction.  The sin of 45 degrees is the same as the sin of 135 degrees, so arcsin(sin(135 degrees) = 45 degrees.
If you want the angle to a sample, my preferred method is atan2:

atan2 does the quadrant correction for you (and outputs an angle in radians, ranging from -pi to pi.)
Now, as for creating a gradient that follows the camera, there's more than one thing that can mean, but it sounds like you're after something like:

Notice the object axes.  The direction of the gradient follows the camera, but remains centered on the object.

Thank you very much for the answer ! Your implimintation seems to give the exact result i  was looking for as well. I went with the one of the other answer but it helps a lot to understand what the issue was, so thank you a lot for that !


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how can i get a 2D image taken at an angle to sit right on a mirror
I am trying to use blender to create some product photography which features a 2D image of a product taken at an angle, sitting on a reflective surface - this reflective surface + background is made in blender.
As the image is 2D and taken at an angle the bottom edge doesn't 'sit' on the surface right - if you were looking at a mirror, the reflection would meet exactly at both corners on the bottom edge, but because blender is interpreting the image as flat with a funny shape - rather than 3d at an angle - the bottom edge looks wrong
I could be completely wrong but it seems like there should be some way of mapping the 2D image onto a 3d block at an angle so blender will recognise it as 3d not 2D
i'm completely new to the program but am willing to go away and read - please be gentle but firm in your answers :)

"Gentle, but firm" - You are setting some high standards. The workflow you need is probably to (1) create a geometry for the photographed object as well (2) project the image onto the geometry (3) all 3d objects are going to use the geometry with the image as a texture for reflection / lighting

Reflecting a 2D photograph as if it is 3D is something that will only work at one particular angle (and camera FOV.)  At that point, it becomes something you can do as easily (more easily) through emission rather than reflection: simply setting the "mirror" to emit the photo, at a fixed arbitrary strength (1 is good).  What else do you need from your scene?

Leander - so far i have created a geometry from the image but how do i go about projecting the image onto the geometry? That sounds like what i expected but i dont know how to do it..
Nathan - all i really want is to be able to give a watery reflective floor and back to the image (as if the product is in a corner), to import the image into the scene i used 'import as planes', are you saying i should use an emissive material? and where is the mirror setting?

I would use Blam to calibrate my camera, and Project from View to project a texture onto a model of the product.


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Compositor spitting out inconsistent noise
So I have a scene that I'm playing around with, and it was working exactly how I wanted until I rendered an animation. About ten of the frames had some odd white blocks appear on a certain portion of the scene, so I re-rendered them and they went away. Guess my computer was dying or something. Then I was down to the last three frames I had to re-render, and the white blocks didn't go away - they started appearing in more places.
It's not consistent (which makes me even more confused), but for these few frames I couldn't get the original white blocks to go away. Images. It's actually kinda funny - I checked the color values in the image viewer, and every channel is in the trillions. Anybody know what could be wrong?

I guess you're using your graphics card for rendering. I had the same problems sometimes. The GC is just not able to finish some buckets. Do you do some other graphic intense things at rendertime? Try CPU rendering to see if you could reproduce the error.


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How to change modifier after applying? And is it right to apply modifier before UV mapping?
Sorry for my simple question first. I'm new to blender.  Now I encountered the problem that I want to delete the modifier after applying. I wonder if there are ways that can delete the modifier. Or after apply, the modifier can't change?
And I've learned that I should apply the modifier before UV mapping.  Is it right to apply modifier before UV mapping? If not, what is the necessary or best time to apply modifier?

If you apply the modifier it will be deleted in the Modifiers menu, but sometimes you should better keep it, for example it's better to keep a Subsurf modifier as it will save memory. I guess it's necessary to apply it if you want to export to other softwares. Some other modifiers like Mirror need to be applied when for example you have to rig your object with an armature. About UV mapping: you don't need to apply a Subsurf but you'd better apply a Mirror modifier.

plus keep in mind that if you apply a Subsurf, not only it will weight much heavier,  but it will be much harder to rework the topology if necessary, so if you do it for some reason, keep the original version with Subsurf not applied


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Where can I find or download ANT Landscape?
I'm using blender2.79 and I have looked for ANT Landscape for a long time (it doesn't exist in add-ons). I have also searched the question and I found the link:
https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Add_Mesh/ANT_Landscape
but it writes"There is currently no text in this page."
So I wonder does anyone know where can I download ANT Landscape. Thanks!

I don't think it is supported anymore, the last version for it was 2.77 and the script is here: https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/BA/browse/master/add_mesh_ant_landscape.py;0891ff2efcfe371d932b5b377b02ab9af7c46680?

@ Jaroslav Jerryno Novotny I download what you provided but it can't use in blender 2.79. Maybe it was the problem of the version. Still thanks a lot! :)


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How to render a background image correctly?
I have followed this tutorial:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua7K4HvbfzA
And everything looks great in rendered view. But when I rendered image, it rendered the object first but put the background image in front of the object in the end. So what I could see after rendered image was the background image. Does anyone know what I ignored or what happened?

My guess would be that You missed to check the "transparent" checkbox under "film" in the "render" tab. Furthermore, You, perhaps, have switched the inputs in the "alpha over" node. See image to find critical settings marked with red circles.

Thanks for your reply. I have solved the problem accidentally... I just reconnect the two connection to "alpha over". I didn't know why but it solved.  So I wonder does it matter which connect first? Or do you know what happened? Thanks a lot!!

Yes! If you switch the two inputs in the alpha over node, it will put the background on top of the render, instead of the render on top of the background!

1 Load your image as a texture
2 Check Horizon in the texture tab

3 In the World settings check Paper Sky
4 Press F12
Done
OR
Import your image as a plane (the add-on is included). Scale it, proportions kept, so that it's a bit bigger than the lens area. Put the plane scaled behind your object(s). Press F12 to render. This way is better in that the image is not stretched on a sphere as it is in the first case.

Thanks a lot. I wonder to know what you recommended--import image as a plane. But I didn't see it in the add-on. Can you tell me the whole name of it? Sorry for asking such a simple question... :)

In the add on tab search for Import Images as Planes.


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When change view into rendered, the object turning grey.
I have followed this tutorial recently:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLUAp4lSxLI
But I had the problem at 30:12. When he changed viewport into rendered, the object is clear:
However, I did the same as he did, but my object looks grey:

Had I skipped something important?? What's that???

In one of the previous videos he had assigned an HDR image as a light source.
In the world panel click the button right of the dark grey colored box

Then choose environment texture

Then load Your HDR image:

You can find these HDR images for free at HDRIhaven
An HDR image is basically a spheric image with awesome light information

Thanks a lot. I have tried and the problem solved. You really help me. And thanks for providing free HDR images website :)

@C.Mar No problem:-)

By the way, is it necessary to use HDR images for objects?

@C.Mar No not at all! It is just a very easy method to get a realistic light setup. You can add other light sources, Sun lamp, spot lamp, point lamp or make a emmisive material and assign object, to make them light sources! Check this video for a run down of the basics https://youtu.be/m-N149FMlWk

Oh, thank you for answering my questions and sharing the tutorial. Now I understand how to make light! I'm new to blender and still learning from others video. Your answers really help me. Wish you have a nice day!


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When and when not to use subdivsion surfaces?
I am new to 3D modelling and wondering if someone could break down when and when not to use subdivision surface modelling. I am thinking more in terms of hard surface stuff. Why wouldn't you always just use a subdivision surface as it looks to me like it produces nicer looking models.
I understand how they work and the way you can make edges catch light and so on. It's not an explanation of this I am after.
For example, I've watched people model realistic architectural visualisations and they won't use subdivision surfaces for the table tops or windows, even though in my mind wouldn't it create more realism to use a subdivision and have the nice edge catching light.
Or
Lot of props, building and cars for 3D renders or games and stuff seem to not always use subdivision surfaces. Is this because of poly counts or because it's easier to get good topology flow without the subdivision or maybe something else?
I realise that it's probably personal to each individual modeller and their preference, but was hoping to maybe get some peoples thoughts on this.
Cheers!

Sub-d surfaces generate a parametric surface with "infinite" quality that are easy to adjust (shifting holding edges, changing creasing,..), but this is what you pay with:

polygons are subdivided everywhere, even where detail is not needed (this is not true for adaptive subdivision)
most of the times the surface is not perfect:

Adding detail will pull the surface closer to the control mesh altering the original shape. Either the control mesh has to be dense enough to start with, or has to be projected with Shrinkwrap modifier back to the original surface. The first requires too much geometry to comfortably work with, the second does not produce perfect result anyways, it only lessens the issue.

It's always about quality vs. time (both render and production). If you can get away with beveled mesh, that's the method to use. If the mesh is not too close to camera, you cannot tell if it has been beveled or was sub-d modeled. Also the Meshmachine addon makes adjusting bevel easy like changing creasing on sub-d mesh (sometimes you find out you would like to catch more/less light on that edge after-all).

Imho the best hard-surface technique is to use sub-d and Modo's MeshFusion to get single shape with all edges rounded from procedural booleans. This offers great flexibility and exactly accurate results. You can create complex shapes without the complex topology and without the inaccuracy. Drastic adjustments are very easy to make.
Houdini has this addon for soft booleans and Maya has the Hardmesh addon for the same workflow.
There is also a Blender addon in wip state called Bevel after boolean, it's workflow is destructive for now but looks very promising. Another approach in Blender could be to use shader utilizing the Bevel node, however this increases render time significantly.

I am new modeling too, I want to know if game modeling don't use subD and just use bool modifior, don't care about Ngons? but if I want to create a production level modeling for Advertisement or movie, I need use subD, because the final modeling has better quality?

@HuangJie sub-d modeling and bevel modeling is used in both productions.

The main reason is that subdivision adds verts.
No matter how good your project, no matter how much time you're willing to spend on rendering, everyone has a limit.  Each level of subdivision multiplies your face/vert count by 4.  So three levels multiply it 64-fold, 4*4*4.
Okay, but let's say you can spare a 64-fold vert increase.  Is there any reason not to subidivide everything 3 times?
First, not everything is going to need the same level of detail.  Things that are focal points will need more of it.  Things that are further will need less of it.  Smooth, planar things will need less of it.  So you might put 4 levels on some things and no levels on other things.
You could also just create that many new verts and actually sculpt some detail into those verts so that they're not just bland, procedurally-generated verts, but contribute something more to your model, things like surface texture, micro-occlusion, UV detail.  After you've done that, you won't have the vert budget to afford further subdiv.
In practice, some models benefit very little or not at all from subdivision, but for many models, subdivision is a great way to improve the silhouette without much work, and you'll probably get a lot of use out of it.

Hey guys! Thank for your answers. Much appreciated and some good helpful ideas.


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How to bake using Principled + cycles under reasonable time? GPU + CPU = Instant crash
Here is the deal, I'm using principled shader to bake a simple object, it works is great but I've waited 36 Hours and it was at 70%.
The object is a car with only 13K polys and I've separated the materials for each object that uses it, and I try to bake a single object/material per time.
I have a Ryzen 1600 and a RX 580 with 8GB, I have tiles at center and at 512px,
Light Patch at 6 bounces (max) and render samples at 256. Caustics Disabled.
Not sure why it is taking ages to render on 2.79B and why it crashes intantly when trying to use hybrid CPU+GPU OpenCL render on newer 2.79 and 2.8.

I have also tried with only roughness and diffuse and nothing changed.

OK, looks like todays (07/07/2018) Blender 2.79 is baking using GPU + CPU without crashing. Plus I've unchecked the square samples and now it baked the same file with same node setup in 40min instead of 44 hours.
very nice!


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Blender bake texture is black
This previously worked fine, however now any time I bake, I just get a black texture and I have no clue why. I tried looking for answers but their proposed solution didn't do anything for me.
Here's the node setup:

It looks like this on my model:

Then, I select the object and select this image:

Here are the bake settings:

And the render settings as well:

After hitting 'bake', the image just turns black:

Thanks in advance.

Solution was to open the console (window > toggle system console) and look for errors.
In my case, I had errors where blender tried to open a file in a directory that didn't exist. Creating the directory manually solved the issue.
The error looked like this:
E0504 03:11:14.022554 27532 tile.cpp:464] Error opening tile file: Could not open "C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp\blender_a42480\cycles-tile-buffer-6356-1883955203000-12-0.exr" (No such file or directory)
Error writing tile to file

The solution is to open terminal or cmd and execute:
mkdir C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp\blender_a42480\ and try baking again.
Or, just navigate to the folder through explorer or whatever.


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Prevent blender GLTF exporter from adding Shape Keys as animation tracks?
When I export my character (with several meshes: body, eyes, eyebrows etc.), some - though not all of my meshes, end up having their shape keys as animation tracks. As seen through the Godot Import dialogue at least. When animations are being played, they prevent me from manipulating the blendshapes directly, since the animation tracks keep setting them to 0.
I'm not sure if this is a godot issue or a blender issue, but I thought I'd try asking here.
Thanks in advance.

If Drivers have been created, they will cause blender to export them as animations, so deleting the drivers solves the issue.
In my case, I was only using the drivers to more easily preview Shape Keys that need to be synced between different meshes (body, eyes, eyebrows etc.)

Good find here.  Note there are also animation export options in the right-side panel of the glTF export dialog.  Expand the "Animations" section and there are options for shape keys in there.  Not sure if that helps in your case.


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How to add a 'buffer' to lines on a mesh?
I have 3D mesh here:

And I would like to add 'buffers' to those lines over the top face.

What's the best way to go about 'buffering' those lines on the top surface?

Do you mean that you want to add some parallel edges to the existing ones, like a kind of bevel?

Yeah! If I could add some edges like where those red lines are. That'll be great.

Kind of... I have attached a picture for you to see what I've got. I would like the 'blue' lines that I've drawn to be the same distance if possible.


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Can't see objects properly in Material Preview
For business reasons I found myself having to install Blender on my office computer to view 3D files.
Now it is no longer necessary but this program and its potential intrigued me a lot, so I proceeded to install it on my home computer.
Once installed I started to see some tutorials on the web and when I got to coloring objects (or assigning materials) I ran into a problem.
Basically once I create the material to assign to the object and its "Base Color" if I go to the "Preview Mode" window I get a completely dark object.
At first I thought I had something wrong with my custom object but I also tested the startup cube and I get the same result.

Rendering the final image with Eevee I get the following image.

Instead if I try to render with Cycles I get the right image, but I have read that Cycles doesn't work well with AMD graphic cards, and it is also slow.

My hardware is as follows:
Motherboard: MSI B450 Gaming Plus Max
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600X
GPU: XFX AMD RX580
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2x8GB 3200MHz C16
AMD drivers are the latest recommended, so 20.11.2
The version of blender I installed is 2.91.0
Please tell me if I was exhaustive with the explanation of the problem or you need more details.
Thank you very much!

It's an issue with the latest AMD Adrenalin drivers - happening to tons of people. Roll back to an earlier driver version.

It works!
Thank you very much, I have uninstalled the drivers and installed the 20.Q4 for tests and they work properly.


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Adding texture detail to a lowpoly model for 3D print
I'm working on constructing 3D printable models from an older game for my brother's birthday. I have the base STL to work with but since this is an older game it's lowpoly and I would like to bring out the "details" from the texture in-game into the printable model. Pretty much I want the printable model to have the appearance of the fur. Any tips or advice on how I may do this would be helpful. I've utilized subdivision surface to make the model smoother and not so lowpoly however it's still very basic. I did some research into displacement mapping and attempted this using a fur texture, however I wasn't able to tweak it to anything usable just a blownup blob no matter what settings I used.
P.s. I am new to 3D modeling but am willing to invest the time to learn techniques required.
Thank you for all your time and help!

Have you tried turning down the strength of the displacement modifier?

Yes, I changed the coordinates to UV and tried the strength modifier down to even 0.01 and it still just distorted the model into a blob unfortunately

Could you share the blend? https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/


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Unwanted reflections when rendering
I'm pretty new to blender and especially new to working with materials and lighting as I have done rendering in other programs previously. My problem is the reflections from the objects under the glass as seen below.

But when I am in the shading viewport I don't get these relfections and it looks just fine.

Thanks for any help you might provide :)

Just to be sure: Is the blue spot a censor bar? The first screenshot uses the Cycles render engine. The reflections are probably caused by light and the glass material. The second screenshot is the material preview. It uses the Eevee render and a HDR image, and it fakes a lot of the light to give you a quick overview of the materials. That's why the look different.

The shading viewport uses Material Preview mode which uses a hidden HDRI for lighting and reflections. To add this to your own scene, click on the box that says "object", and change it to "world" (world shading). Add an Environment texture and connect it to the background. Blender's built in HDRI's are in ../2.92/datafiles/studiolights/world. You can also download your own from online - a popular place is HDRI Haven. To view your HDRI, you must be in rendered preview mode (press Z in viewport and select "rendered")

@Blunder probably some branding

Also, if you're talking about the "double reflections" in the Cycles render, this is a result of refraction. The shading tab (Material Preview) uses a render engine more similar to eevee. If you're using cycles, you should be able to get away with just using a Glass BSDF instead of the Principled/Transparent combo. You may need to adjust the IOR a bit because of it's "thinness".

Reflections are part of what makes glass look like glass. The issue is not so much with the material (making a shader with no reflections completely is quite easy, but will make the glass look like there is no surface at all).
Look at images of watches and do a search on how to photograph them. The important thing that you will notice is how the surrounding elements play a crucial role in the scene. You want reflections that show the glass, but you want also some black (or dark) elements reflected on the surface that make the transparency more evident. So you have to be strategic about how objects and lights are placed around the watch.
Read: How to turn off reflections on glass
Also, when dealing with elements behind glass, the thickness of the glass will play a crucial role. If the glass has no thickness (like a a plane) then the glass material will behave like a single glass solid, as if the insides were encapsulated completely in a glass block instead of being behind a thin piece of glass. The glass has to have a realistic thickness.
To create a shader for elements behind glass in cycles read:
How to illuminate the darkness inside glass objects in Cycles?
Objects behind glass appear too dark
As a final note: a plain HDR of trees as environment is not the optimal way to light a scene like yours.


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How to add text to surface without causing a shadow
I have a render of a soda can that I did here:

I added the text using a curve modifier to make it wrap around the can. However, there is a shadow that shouldn't be there (Take a look at the star for example).
What's a better way of adding text to surfaces to make it look like it was 'printed' on the can?

Hello, it would be easier to integrate the logo into the texture

Correct way to deform curved text by curve ... But as mentioned by moonboots - it would be easier to handle this by image texture  mapped by UV

You could go into the Material Properties tab for the text and under Settings, set Shadow Mode to None. This is assuming you have a special material for the text.


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Smart UV project is ordering my faces incorrectly
I have a png texture which I am trying to paste onto a soda can:

but when I UV uwrap, it looks like this, the logo is in two different parts of the can, and its upside down:

I suspect this is because my UV unwrapping is not 'numbering' the faces correctly and 'flipping' faces randomly for no reason. The screenshot below shows I have selected consecutive faces. But the UV has ordered them in the weirdest way possible.

What can I do to fix my UV unwrapping?
Here is the blender file if you'd like to investigate:

I'm not sure how it determines where to cut for a cylinder but it looks like Smart UV Project will give separate UVs, which is not what you want. For this kind of object, choose the front view and unwrap with the Cylinder Projection instead and scale on Y in the UV Editor

You should mark edges as seams on your model(Ctrl+E -> M), then unwrap UVs(U->U), then move and rotate the UVs on your texture to get desired results.
If you had a more detailed soda can with the form getting narrower at the top, unwrapping would not produce UV island that is straight. UvSquares add-on is very helpful in situations like that.

If you haven't already solved the problem with the other answer, here is a hack that should work. There are probably a lot of unnecessary details.
In the UV Editor of your .blend file, turn on UV Sync (1) and Vertex Select Mode (2). Then select the top row of vertices (3):

In the 3D viewport you will have this. I used Shift->Z to make it easier to see:

I put the 3D viewport into Front Orthographic view and selected all the edges:

The pressed Delete, but deleted Faces:

Select the top edge of what remains:

Shift->D to duplicate it. Press ESC to not move it. Then separate it by pressing P and choosing Selection:

Go into Object mode and choose the separated BezierCurve.002. Then Edit Mode, select the edge and E Z 10 to extrude a new section for the can.
Select all of what was just extruded and assign the Red Metal Material to it as it originally was:

Then select an edge and Mark Seam. Select all and for this unwrap, I used the Unwrap method:

It gives this result. You can select a line of vertices to see which is the top and rotate it accordingly, after selecting everything, if you want the top at the top:

In the UV Menu I checked Constrain To Image Bounds and moved the unwrap onto the image. I turned on Display Stretch:

Then S Y to fill the image:

If you want a bit of a margin around the unwrap just scale it in a bit.
In Object Mode you can join this new part to the base Ctrl->J


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How to randomise carpet texture to make it more 'real'
I have imported a carpet texture onto a plane, however the particles of the carpet look extremely large in relation to the stool:

I have tried to scale it down, however the carpet looks 'repeated' and unnatural:

How do I randomise my carpet to make it look more real? Or is there a better technique for implementing carpet in my scene?

This addon could help you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNnuZjD9bK0


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How to add special characters as text to Blender
I would like to type special characters like stars as text to my blender project ★.
However, I am unable to copy symbols and paste them into blender like I can with normal text.

What steps do I need to take to be able to type special symbols?

i guess you need to create a second text

could you please elaborate on that? do you mean create a second text object?

yes, that's it, if the common keyboard shortcut doesn't work to create the symbol, i don't see another solution

Hmm.. There supposedly was a solution many years ago found here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/10918/font-special-ascii-characters-in-2-6 But I can't for the life of me figure out how to open that 'insert text' window. Would you know by any chance?

That was in the 2.6 version of Blender but that option seems to have been removed. As @moonboots says, create a second text object and change the Font under Text Properties > Font > Regular to Windings Regular (under Windows). Then you can add any character in that font but you may have to do it by selecting and copying it in Windows Character Map then Edit your font object in Blender and Ctrl-V to Paste it.


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Improving the look of my glass and water
I have worked on and improved my glass since last time and even added some water to it:

The glass on the left has 'water' in it, and the glass on the right is an empty glass.
I am still however, having some weird patches at the bottom of both glasses. I suspect this must be because the bottom of the glass concaves upwards slightly (I was advised to not have flat glasses) and I've missed a step somewhere or have unsuitable values in my nodes.
The glass with the liquid also has light interacting with it weirdly. What parameters should I modify/change to improve it?
I have attached the blend file below if you'd like to investigate:

That looks pretty good, a few issues I noticed, firstly the glass with water looks like the waters top blends into the glass, this is because your water object doesn't have a top surface. secondly the jagged refraction at the bottom of the glasses, is because the bottom of your glasses (and water object) have the "star burst" shape (what happens when you subdivide tris) so I'd suggest adding an extra edge loop there and shrinking and smoothing out the "star burst" portion so it doesn't cause that.

thirdly what is exaggerating the previous issue is that your water object is scaled up penetrating into the glass allowing them to effect each others refractions, making that jagged "star burst" shape way more noticeable than it would otherwise be. and finally not so much an issue just a suggestion add a tiny little bit of volume scatter into your water shader (added along with your current vol absorption) this is slightly darken your water to help distinguish it from your glass.

For strict PBR,  check out this answer

There are many ways to do water, depending on the context, I've tried something that is a mix between the Glass node and a Glossy with a Layer Weight as factor, it will create additional reflections, and also a Volume Scatter instead of the Volume Absorption. I'm sure that there are better solutions but it creates the illusion:


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Fluid sim does not show up, even after baking
I have a fluid sim set up with 2 inflows, and 2 out flows. The particles do not show up. I remade the inflows and the domain, but it still doesn't show up. I deleted a bunch of other stuff around because the file was over 500mb.
.blend file

Have you baked the mesh?

@Mysticreator sorry for the late response, yes.


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Smoke isn't rendering in cycles 2.92
I was trying to make a smoke sim but noticed after baking that the smoke doesn't render, the sim shows up in wireframe view. Any help?
[https://pasteall.org/blend/0cc1f3837ff24ccaa43e8c4e6ee1c080](.blend file)

give this material setup to your domain:


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Wireframe texture not rendering
I tried to make a texture with a wireframe but noticed the wireframe texture doesn't render. It acts like it's not there. How can I fix this?
.blend file

you put the wireframe in the roughness...if you wanna really "see" the wireframe, plug it in the shader...or in a colorramp:

I have the wireframe in the roughness to create that sort of pattern, im not trying to get those solid lines. I replaced the wireframe with a brick texture and that worked, idk why wireframe doesn't.


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Fluid volume disappears inside of a moving object?
I've noticed that with the flip fluids addon and the built-in fluid simulator in blender, if you have fluid inside of a moving obstacle/effector, that fluid volume will eventually disappear over the course of the animation when the obstacle/effector is moving. And it seems this is a well-known problem that's been around for a while and is still not fixed. I've tried increasing resolution, timesteps, but nothing works.
How I have my scene is with a wine glass being filled with fluid, before being twirled around to make the fluid fly out of the top, with time keyframing to slow it down and speed it up. Is there any other way to create an animation like this, or work around this problem?


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Is there a way to keyframe time stretching?
Is there a way to keyframe time streching? I'm trying to make an animation with a fluid sim, and want to have a "slow-mo" effect without having to render it twice and slice it together. Any ideas?

you can do this in the vse...but depending on your frame rate and your rate of slow-mo it might begin to "flicker" but if you slow down only a bit you can hardly see it

@Chris I'm using flip fluids and after a bit of digging found out you can keyframe the fluid sim in there, so I just slowed down the animation to match. How I have my scene set up is fluid falling into a glass, then having that glass move, but the fluid doesn't actually move with the glass, it just acts like the glass is still in the same spot.

is the glass the domain or an effector object?

@Chris the glass is an obstacle with the domain surrounding it. Since the glass is thin, I added a cube with the glass cut out of it to add more of a wall around it so the fluid stays in, and parented that cube to the glass so it moves with it.

on the obstacle in the properties: mesh data export: did you check "export animated mesh" on your glass?

That worked, thank you!

you are welcome


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Textures show up as black in cycles
Here's the .blend file. Rock texture used I have the edges of the plane set to emission and tried to set the bottom face to a rock texture but when I added the texture it showed up as black in cycles. It works in eevee. How can i fix this?

Connect the normal map with a Normal Map node

it seems to me that you forgot to plug in a bump node with the bump texture
check the vid
https://youtu.be/HUDOU7gSOwE

That fixed it, and a few other black objects. Thanks!


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Joining objects together causes textures to change
I have a cake I have made which are three different objects:

I would like to join these three objects into one, but here's how it looks when I join them:

What can I do to prevent the loss of detail (especially for the strawberry)?
I have attached the blender file if you'd like to investigate:

In your 2 materials you're using a Musgrave Texture but with no Texture Coordinate node before it, by default this kind of procedural texture will be projected as Generated, which means that the proportions of the objects will be taken into account. When you'll join the objects the new object will have a different proportion (it will be higher), therefore the deformation of the texture. To fix that, create a Texture Coordinate and a Mapping node before your Musgrave Texture nodes, choose the Object output of the Texture Coordinate (which won't take the proportions of the object into account), tweak the Scale values of the Mapping node.


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How to apply brick texture to rectangular (yet irregular) object?
I have a brick texture which I have made here:

And I would like to apply it to the red faces of this object:

However, this is the outcome of my attempt:

I would like to keep the bricks on that rectangular object the same as on the cube (first picture).
What approach should I take to handling this issue?
I have attached the blender file if you'd like to play around with it:

Have you tried properly UV unwrapping the structure? And are there supposed to be multiple textures (like the red one) on the structure?

Not on that particular object, no. I also intend to put a separate object on the countertops (like a marble tabletop) so I only need to show the sides. I also haven't UV unwrapped this object at all, I'll take a look at that.

First thing select all the faces and assign the good material:

As you see in the Shader Editor, you're using the Texture Coordinate UV output, but as you see in the UV Editor the UVs of your object are not correctly scaled and rotated:

So you need to unwrap again (keep these faces selected and press U), select the UVs in the UV Editor, rotate and scale like that for example:


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Why is the edge of my object red?
I have modeled a marble countertop here:

Upon rendering it however, there is a red lighting along the edges:

I am using the Cycles render engine. What settings do I need to enable/disable to avoid this red lighting from occurring?
I have attached the blender file below if you'd like to investigate:

You've given Subsurface Scaterring to your marble material, you need to either lower it down to 0 or, in the Subsurface Radius, lower down the first value, it is the red color value that is scattered in the volume, the 2 other values are green and blue:


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Texture not rendering in Cycles engine
I have a scene which I have made:

But when i go to render it in Cycles. The table loses it's texture (which I custom made through Blender's shading workspace.

Why is my table texture disappearing in the render?
Here is the blend file if you'd like to investigate:

Look into the Outliner, you have an object that is disabled in preview but enabled in render, disable it in render as well:


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How can I use the result of Vertex Weight Mix Modifier as Vertex Group input of Particle System?
I have a Vertex Weight Mix Modifier and a particle System. I want to control the density of the particles with the result of the Vertex Weight Mix. Is this possible?

Yes, it is possible:

A few important notes:

in the Particle System > Emission > Source section the checkbox [X] Use Modifier Stack must be checked
the Vertex Weight Mix modifier must be above the Particle Settings modifier
the group for the mixed result must be defined as Particle Settings > Vertex Groups > Density and as Vertex Group A in the Vertex Weight Mix modifier settings
you need to change the default values of the Vertex Weight Mix modifier to proper values, especially the Vertex Set and Mix Mode
you can see the modified weights (Vertex Group A) in Weight Paint mode, and with help of the Vertex Group Weights overlay in Edit mode (make sure the modifier is enabled for Edit mode; check the icons right next to its name).

The faces of the cube in this example have been inset (I) and each of the inner faces has been assigned to a vertex group (Modified Top, Bottom, Left, etc). The modifier modifies the group that is specified as Vertex Group A  (=Modified Top) depending on the other settings:

in the 1st screenshot the modifier adds the verts of the bottom group to the top group
in the 2nd screenshot it replaces the top group with the left one

Thank you for your detailed answer and that is pretty much exactly how I thought it would work. I want to animate a transition between two groups. And what threw me off was, while I could see the transition while in weight paint mode, it doesn't seem to affect the particle system. At least not in the viewport. The rendered animation on the other hand looks as expected.


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How to add more faces to triangular mesh
I need to add more faces to this selected part. I have tried adding edge loops but that won't work. I have tried the knife tool but that will take too much time to make, any suggestions?

It is not that big object, I would suggest you to separate this part of the object from the rest of the object, then take some cube and remodel it with quads, this way you can get your desire better... or one idea, try to press F3 and search for "Tris to Quads" It may not work, it may not change all triangles to quads, but maybe you will be lucky

Why knife tool takes too much time? How many more faces do you want to add? What's the logic behind added faces, that is, why do you need to add them?

if your right click > Subdivide it will add triangles, but do you want to keep triangles?

@MikoCG tris to quads didn't work but my problem solved with subdivide

@MarkusvonBroady I need a smooth face for 3d printing

Adding more faces without actually moving the geometry around won’t make the surface any smoother. If you use the Smooth operator however, it will smooth, but you’ll have to restrict the axes or something to keep the knife from them becoming dull.


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Rendering an object at different locations with different rotations
I need to render 1000-2000 images. There is 2 object in this scene. One of them should be in different positions each image and apply boolean to other object. How do I automotize this action Is there any script for this process

and what did you try so far?

I've tried some nft generating techniques to produce images but none of them worked. Boolean modifier don't work with them

How to define the location and rotation of the object? random?

Select the moving object, on frame 1 add a LocRot Keyframe, then in the graph editor select the 6 transform channels one by one and add 6 noise modifiers, one each, tweak the values to reach a random Loc and Rot into the desired action field.

Thanks that will work


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How to make an object follow path and face the same direction as the other object
I have an object that follows path. Path shrinkwrapped to bigger object. I want to make the object follow path while facing the same direction as the bigger objects surface, not intersect while following path.

If I correctly understand your question, you can give a Follow Path constraint to your object with the curve as Target, then a Shrinkwrap constraint, with the surface as Target, enable the Align to Normal option and choose the right angle:

Here is what it gives:

Keep in mind that it will be the object's origin that will be taken into account by the Shrinkwrap so you may want to move the origin to the bottom of the object if you want it to stay on the surface of its target.


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How I Can Attach Object Into Mixamo Animation & Model
I have question, i downloaded an a animation and model from mixamo
But i cannot attach my gun & object into the animation can anybody help?
I tried to "track to" modifier but its brokes the object and i cannot join them its says "no mesh data to join"
Here is video for my problem, i tried to make parent with bone but eventually it's broke the animation;
Video

Holding rifle - These two answers might help -
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/198580/animation-issue-in-sniper-gun-reload/198961#198961 - and this one -
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/226867/parenting-and-animating-bone-to-an-empty-without-going-to-pose-mode/227026#227026

Hello and welcome. While files, images, and external videos or links may be helpful additions they should not be the only way to obtain information about your issue. Don't make understanding your question rely on downloading a file, watching a video or visiting an external site. Use the builtin tools to upload images or gifs, along with thoroughly explaining the problem in written form so it can be indexed and searched for thus helping future visitors with similar issues.

I'm so sorry im new at this forum but thank you so much for explaining.

Select the specific bone you would like to attach your object to. Then in the constraints tab for your object, select "Child Of". Select the armature, then the specific bone you want to attach your object to. At first it may appear in an odd position, but if you select the button 'Set Inverse' this usually fixes it.
Hope this helps!


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Fast moving smoke simulation trail is patchy? How do I make it a consistent line?
just working on this extremely fast moving smoke simulation, which is a trail of smoke
emitting from a cylinder constrained to the back of a drop pod flying towards a planet.
And, the smoke comes out in puffy stuttery line like this,

which is not a continuous stream of smoke. How would I get the smoke simulation to be a consistent trail behind the drop pod?
Thanks!

Apart from the things in my comments under the answer which have to be considered, maybe it is best to upload the file (reduced to the parts relevant for the smoke simulation) here: https://blend-exchange.com and edit it into your question to inspect it further. However I have no more time to check it today, have to do that tomorrow.

in the domain, increase the minimum time steps.

Setting a minimum of 10 is unnecessary when the maximum is 4, the tmesteps will not exceed the maximum. So if the cube was smaller (for example so that it fits 5x into the distance it travels between two frames) then there would still be gaps and they will remain no matter if you increase the minimum to 20 or 50...

Instead of increasing the Timesteps > Minimum in the Domain, I would increase the Sampling Substeps on the Flow object. The reason is, even with less computational effort (i.e. shorter bake time) you'll get better results. This is especially true when you have fast and slow moving objects within the domain - the higher amount of substeps would mostly be required for the fast objects, but the timesteps will be used to calculate all objects regardless of their velocity.

Here are some comparisons, a cube as Flow object moving quickly through the Domain. First at the top, the default settings with Timesteps Minimum at 1 and Sampling Substeps 0. A lot of gaps between the smoke puffs.
Next the timesteps increased to 2, unsurprisingly there are now puffs of smoke in the gaps between. The result is still not good, but the bake time already increased by almost 50%.
At the bottom, instead of increasing the timesteps, I set the Sampling Substeps to 10 on the flow objects. The result looks now smooth and the bake time only increased by 10%. Even if I wasn't satisfied with the smoke yet, doubling the substeps to 20 would only increase the bake time by 20% compared to baking with default settings.

Nevertheless, increasing the Timesteps Minimum can be useful, too. Because even though for quick moving objects the substeps might be more important, a higher Timesteps Minimum value can result in more detailed and therefore better looking smoke (personally, I always use a minimum of at least 2 instead of the default 1). But you have to keep in mind that it increases the bake time significantly.

Hey, Thanks for your response! I've actually got 200 sampling substebs, and 15 timesteps minimum. Yet It still looks like the image that I posted. I'm actually not sure what to do, I've reset my domain multiple times, baked the MAX sampling substeps, MAX timesteps yet it continues to provide the same result.

@Falrte As I mention in my comment under Chris' answer, increasing the Timesteps Minimum only helps if you increase the Maximum accordingly, because the steps will never exceed the maximum value no matter how high you set the minimum. The other thing is: where is smoke emitted? All around the object? At the front? At the back? If it is at the front and it has to move around the object, this will have an influence too since it looks like a kind of "shock wave", which other than my example has no completely empty space between the steps.

@Falrte You can see in my first bake with timesteps 1 per frame, the distance between the smoke puffs is the distance the cube travels between frames, and since its size is a lot smaller than the gap, it will take as many substeps until it looks like a smooth flow (in my case 4 would have been enough). So how fast is your object? How large are the gaps between the emitting areas from one frame to another? If everything seems as if a smooth flow appearance should be possible, then it's probably more like a shock wave effect as mentioned in the last comment. Is there an effector object as well?


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Retarget error from Mixamo to readyplayer.me

I created character from readyplayer.me and rigged it using Auto Rig Pro.
When I tried retargeting a mixamo animation, the arms always end up in an incorrect orientation.
Any way to fix this. I really don't want to manually fixing this for each retarget in the graph editor.

You can fix this issue by resetting your model into a T pose. The auto rig pro won't work unless you have your model in a T Pose because of offsets.


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Interface changes with stock model files
When I open a a Stock 3D model I downloaded, the entire interface changes. I see a "Default" layout option, but I don't see the stand "Layout" option at top of page. Is it possible that the model I have was created pre 2.8 & needs to be converted?
The model also does not have a Camera, & I can't see to find the "Add Camera" option that I see in basic tutorials.
I have attached screenshot of the UI as it appears with my stock model. Total Noob thanks you

How about this? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/822/how-do-you-return-to-the-default-view-the-one-you-see-when-blender-starts/855#855


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How to use Image Maps with Stock Model
I would like to know how to open a 3D stock model with all supplied image maps in place. I believe the model was created in Blender. I made a quick render and the image maps don't appear to be on the model. Perhaps my render settings or viewport settings are not optimized to actually show the image maps? Either way, I will ultimately need a high res render with image maps visible. thanks.


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Difference between Blender 2.8’s camera and world HDRI
Does one of you know whats the difference between Camera HDRI and World HDRI

Blender 2.8 now have these options to import Viewport HDRIs
I've noticed that if i import a file (either .hdr, .exr, .png, and .jpg) as "camera HDRI", it only is shown as a Studio Light on Solid Mode

While importing as "world HDRI" it works both in Solid Mode's StudioLight and LookDev (Material) Mode

So...
What's the purpose of have those two ways to import HDRs? Is it a bug, that, being each import mode work only for one Lighting type, make "World HDRI" work for Solid mode too?

edit
This question was also posted on Blender Artists
Got an awesome answer there, and make it clear
Here's the link to the topic: https://blenderartists.org/t/differece-between-blender-2-8s-camera-and-world-hdri/1117783

Well since you seem to have cross posted this I'll just shamelessly plagiarize Brecht's answer for completeness sake.
Camera HDRIs are basic studio lights meant for fast performance with non realistic shading.
They will behave like matcaps in the sense that they are viewpoint dependent and will rotate along with the view angle.
World HDRIs behave as realistic environment maps like the ones you would use in Cycles World environment textures.
They are convenient scene lighting replacement suitable for quickly testing your model and viewing it under different lighting conditions.
Both can be easily easily user customized by adding new entries to the menu either from the user preferences by pressing the small Wrench icon, or by manually adding files to the folder Blender-2.80\2.80\datafiles\studiolights, either under a Camera, Matcap, or World subfolder.

By Brecht
Camera HDRIs are like matcaps or solid mode lighting in 2.7x, in that
  they rotate along with the camera. This ensures objects are always
  well lit and you can see their shape clearly, even if it’s not
  realistic.
World HDRIs are the same as environment textures in the world, with
  light coming from the same global direction. This is the more
  realistic method, and the only one that can be efficiently supported
  for features like Eevee indirect light and light probes. For that
  reason camera HDRI’s are not available in LookDev shading mode.
Naming of these features could be improved.

Yeah. The conversation had really well there. Now i understand it.
For those who want to see, here's the link again:
https://blenderartists.org/t/differece-between-blender-2-8s-camera-and-world-hdri/1117783


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Created contour lines do not show up in rendered image
I'm not really familiar with blender yet, though trying to create a render of a imported DEM through the GIS addon gave me some nice results now trying to create a fly-through my created contour lines do not show up in the final render/animations. After checking most settings I can not find out why this would happen. Any help would be appreciated.

How did you create the contour lines?

maybe you should convert the lines into curves (select the object in object mode RMB convert to curves). Then in the object properties panel for the curve you can add a bevel under the bevel menu you change the depth.

I managed to fix it, @gladys thanks for the info. I had tried this already before but the objects data panel would not should after searching in the search bar I managed to change the bevel and I am able to render it!


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How do i fill or connect these vertices to create a face?
How do i connect these vertices? i've already tried using the Fill tool and also merging but none of them work

Maybe try this kind of topology:

look at all those ngons.  ;)

ngons are not always a problem  ;)  plus I was just showing the way

More like hinting at the way than showing it, I think. ;)

sure, but it would be very long to do the whole thing

about 6 paragraphs, with a few bullet points, I think.  About 15 minutes of typing, but what would I know?

you should be lazier, like I am  ^^

When you're lazy you get upvoted. When I'm lazy I get downvoted. There's just no justice ;)

sorry for that, being lazy is very difficult by the way, and I'm also downvoted sometimes!!!!

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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Edges staying during subdivision

Total noob here, been messing around with this for a while but it seems like the faces are stuck to this one edge. Everywhere else they have been smoothed nicely, any help would be greatly appreciated!

hi, I think the normals of the faces are not in the right direction. Go to edit mode select the object and press Shift + N to recalculate the normals.

It could be an extra interior face, as well. Select one of the sharp faces in edit mode and press h to hide it. Then look inside and see if there is an extra face... When you're done press Alt+h to unhide the faces.

Unsure how to mark it as the answer but Gladys solution worked instantly. I don't understand what you mean by the normals of the faces but Shift + N solved the problem. Thanks!

In the example above, the sharpness is an extra interior face.

Select one or more of the sharp faces in edit mode and press h to hide it.

Then look inside and see if there is an extra face... When you find it, delete it!

When you're done press Alt+h to unhide the faces and head back to object mode.

@goose An helpfull tool to see the orientation of the faces is to click on the the little arrow for the overlays (1) it can be done in object mode and also in edit mode and then check face orientation. It then gives a blue color or red color to the faces. The blue color indicates that the normals are pointed outwards this is the right way and the red color of the faces indicates that the normals are pointing inward. alt + n gives you a pop-up menu for the normals.


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How or where can I register for blender competitions?
I wanna further improve my blender skill and I feel participating in competitions will help. So I just wanna know where I can register for these competitions and what I should be aware before I do participate.

Competitions are fun, but not always happening... if you want to improve your modelling skills, try challenging yourself to model something you think is almost impossible (or at least far above your "perceived" level).

Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer.


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Changing the bone position with a shape key
I've been looking and I haven't been able to find this anywhere. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I want to create an animation where a human character morphs into a monster. The shape I have in mind, the fingers would extend into a more nightmarish claw shape where the fingers extend along with the fingernails. The character is rigged, so how do I change the bone positions so they match the geometry shape that I've created? Is there a means to reposition the bones so that they still work properly when you activate the shape key? Has someone done a tutorial on this sort of thing?

I dont think this is possible, because this must modify the weights which is not animatable. Probably you have to swap the model and the rig after the transformation.

I've seen it done in the video for Universal Human rig on Gumroad. I'm not sure if it'll let me most a link to the video but it seems like this person accomplished it. link


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how can i fix my bones and the mesh connected to it?
Hi I'm trying to rig a character from Mixamo (I swapped out the default rig for a more complex one) all the vertex groups are in the right place but when I use automatic weights or empty weights, it moves my mesh out of the way so the bone isn't even touching.
does anyone know what's happening and how to solve it?

hello could you please share your file? https://pasteall.org/blend/

Sorry, the file's too big


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How to optimally reduce the poly count on a model with decimate modifier
I have a very high poly glass that I would like to reduce the poly count on:

I could use the Collapse option in the decimate modifier, but I don't like the solution it gives. I get poor geometry like this:

My best bet seems to be using the Un-Subdivide option in the decimate modifier. That gives me better geometry, but I don't want to make my glass into an octagon shape at the rim:

What options for reducing the poly count do I have?

Is it what Un-Subdivide gives with 4 Iterations? You could also use un Checker Deselect tool

Rather then to reduce a polycount of existing I would take a profile loop converted to curve and use screw modifier. like that you have controll over whole topology. For even distribution you can use Remedy, but it will degrade shape. The only Decimate reduce polys at places where they are not needed while keeps surface shape ... Just topo became messy.

If Un-Subdivide doesn't give the expected result, you can dissolve some edges this way: Select a ring of edges (AltCtrlRMB), then Select > Checker Deselect:

Choose the ratio of deselect in the Operator Box (by default it will be 1 out of 2), then Select > Select Loops > Edge Loops:

Then press X > Dissolve Edges or CtrlX:

Result:


text:
Alt+Left Click selecting incorrect faces
I am trying to select the faces that wrap around my object like this:

But i would like to do it for these areas:

But when I try to do Alt+Left Click, this is the result:

If I'm lucky, one in ten times, I will get this, which is what I want:

What buttons/settings am I supposed to press/have to be able to select the faces I want more reliably?

Pay attention to the closest edge when you ⎇ Alt LMB to select a loop of faces. The closest edge determines the direction of the loop.