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Where is "Regular Solids" option?
Following an online tutorial that uses an object named "icosahedron" from Add > Mesh > Regular Solids > Archimedean > Icosahedron. This object is not available in my version of Blender (2.74). Presenter asks me to include an add-on named "Add Mesh: Regular Solids", which again is not listed in my User Preferences dialog. What can I do about it?

You put "Add Mesh:Regular Solids" into google, like here look: https://www.google.com/webhp?source=search_app&gws_rd=ssl#q=Add+Mesh:+Regular+Solids and you click the first link, wow - instant success! There you will learn its now obsolete and the new addon is named "Add Extra Objects" with link to it.

@Jerryno: Thanks a bunch. I hate posting questions that would have taken one Google visit to get answers for. In this case too, I actually performed some searches before coming here, but it looks like I missed checking out that particular result. Thanks again.

For Blender 2.8+
First go to EDIT > Preferences >Add ons > Add Mesh : Extra Objects and then close the preferences window.
Then In Object mode > Add > Mesh >Scroll down to Math Funtion > Regular Solid
and then refer the below image

Click "Custom" then "Truncated Icosahedron" for the soccer ball tutorial instead of clicking under "Source". It is under "Custom" that it will show you different solids you may use including the Truncated Icosahedron.


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Unselected vertices and edges move along wth selected ones
I'm pretty new to Blender, but I am stuck on one thing: every time I try to move a particular vertex, or edge loop, or whatever, using the Translation Widget or the "G" key, a number of other vertices and edges move as well, as if the rest of the object is reshaping as well.  However, I want to simply move the vertices or edges that I have selected, while keeping all other vertices fixed.  How could I do that?

Make sure Proportional Editing is turned off.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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Take 1 seamless textured plane, and make a large square out of multiple of that 1 texture
I have a single, small seamless textured plane, and I want to make a large plane out of multiple of that texture. The array function is basically what I want to do, but it only goes in 1 direction which isnt ideal, and time consuming. Any help would be nice

You can use two Array Modifiers. One for direction X and one for direction Y. The setup would look something like the following. Note how the values in the green boxes are different. This allows for the object (plane) to be arrayed in multiple directions. Just remember that Array Modifiers utilize local coordinates and you can negatize (did I just invent a word there?) values to have the object array in the opposite direction.

How this modifier stack would look when applied to a cylinder (for clarity, because cylinders are easier to differentiate than planes):

As a last note, you can use a Vector > Mapping node to tile textures on a single plane. See David's answer on How to Make a image repeat in cycles.

@bexben If my answer helped you, please consider accepting it. It would help me greatly, and make me very happy!

Another alternative if I understand correctly what you want to do, without modifiers, is to bake your texture and apply it to a single large plane. Once your texture is baked, you will have the ability to add any amount of repetition you want just as an image texture. This is a simple example (in cycles, I don't know which engine you're using), using a small texture and a mapping node, it is repeated freely across a plane of any given size. This is the node setup and result:

If you are unfamiliar with texture baking, the manual has more information here and here for cycles specifically.

This doesn't answer the op's question.

@ShadyPuck  the question asked 'how to make a large plane out of multiple of a texture'. The simplest way is bake the texture, scale the plane, and manipulate the texture coordinates to get the results desired. It is not necessary to use a modifier to do that.

Perhaps, but array was mentioned.

@ShadyPuck the fact that array was mentioned doesn't make that necessary to use. More than that, the question is about achieving arraying texture which can be obtained not only with one way and nearly any problem can have multiple solutions. It's very good to investigate questions and possible solutions from larger point of view.

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


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Part of my render stage is cut off
For some reason, there appears to be a cut-off point on my stage beyond which nothing renders. I run into it when I'm rotating the camera around my objects (I keep the "camera fixed to view" option on so I don't get lost so easily).

It's as if there was a curtain or something there, impeding the view, but I can find no obvious reason for it.
Any ideas?

Maybe is caused by camera clipping: see if this helps: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/26078/15140

Camera clipping does appear to have been the culprit — thanks. I suspect it came about because I have my default measurement units set to millimetres, so the default render area shrank accordingly.


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Wavefront .OBJ Import Error
I'm getting an error message when I try to import an .OBJ file that I've generated from another .blend file. I'm pretty new to Blender, and I really don't know what it is that the error message is telling me, or how to fix it. Can you help?

At a glance, maybe duplicate verts or some other thing not supported, can you share the original file?

@iKlsR   It's here, at [link]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33836019/sideskirts.blend. File size is about 4 MB.

I think this bug has been fixed, can you try this with a recent build? Otherwise please report a bug with the OBJ and Blend file.

That exports and imports perfectly for me, Blender 2.77. However, it's as I suspected, there are a bunch of duplicate vertices which are no doubt causing the error on your end.
To fix, box select B your entire model, join it into one mesh with CtrlJ, select all with CtrlA, open special menu W and select Remove Doubles. Finally, select everything again in edit mode and use P > Separate by loose parts. You will have to reassign any materials, fix origins and groups after but that should fix the problem and give you a clean obj.

For what it's worth, the Remove Doubles process worked to clean up the file, after which an OBJ exported from it imported to another file without issues.

@PeterFitzpatrick great, next time it would probably help to try the latest version of Blender as well.


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How do I make the f curve 'non-existent', and have simple on/off motions?
I animated a bunch of blinking LED lights, and put key frames on the spots where I want the LED on and off. The LED lights have an f curve to them, currently it's on the more logarithmic curve. I am aware of how to turn the f curves into linear slopes, or how to manually edit an individual curve into a shape I want. What I want is to have the curves non-existent - once it hits the key frame that says "on" it holds this level until it reaches the key frame that says "off". For onstance:
Frame 100: on
106: off
112: on
I have twenty LED lights, almost two hundred frames and key frame changes every quarter second. Please tell me there is an easy way to do this:(
Also, is there a way to copy key frames and paste them later on in the dope sheet? Every 48 frames my animation resets, so copying 48 frames four times is easier than doing 192 frames.

Please only ask one question per post. You are welcome to ask as many questions as you need as separate posts.

You must use the linear f-curve to get an immediate jump in your values like you want. You can copy/paste the same way as anywhere else... ctrl-c ctrl-v, box-select, etc. When you paste, it shows up whever the green cursor isin the active window.

What you're looking for is the 'Constant' interpolation type for F-curves.
In the Graph Editor, select the F-curve that you don't want to have 'linear' interpolation by selecting the curve points and then choose Key> Interpolation Mode> Constant:


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How can I conveniently retime an image sequence strip in the VSE?
I'm putting together a "movie" of stills.  I would like for these stills to have animated scale and position, and to change to the next image only every nth frame-- let's say, every 16 frames.  In order to match the beat of a song.  (I am adjusting both framerate and "base" frame in order to get 16 frames equal to the length of a single, 132bpm, beat.)
My basic problem is that an image sequence displays one image for every frame, and I can't see a way to change that to every 16th frame.  I have attempted a few different workarounds.  These all create problems for me.

Speed strip, where I make a speed effect strip and specify the start and end frame and linear interpolation between the two.  This has the problem where I have to adjust all of the timings of scale/position keyframes on the base strip whenever I change the timing on the speed strip, because the speed strip reads the image on the frame specified, but the keyframes from the actual frame.  (Interestingly, position keyframes on the source strip update immediately, but scale keyframes don't update until a frame scrub.)  I can't place these keyframes on the speed strip itself, because it doesn't know anything outside of video borders from the source strip, so if I scale the speed strip down from an oversized source strip, I get alpha borders.  Speed strips are also undesirable for causing significant performance problems.

Adjusting a combination of properties/output/format/ FPS and base, and /frame range/time stretching.  The problem with these is that it doesn't seem to read my off-true-frame keys.  The only keyframes that get read seem to be keyframes at integers, so I can't use it to change position or scale of images that are, before rescaling, only a single frame long.

Adjusting the strip length.  I've tried a variety of methods, from specifying start and end time in the sidebar, to specifying a length in the import image sequence file dialog sidebar.  In every case, it starts with the first image, advance one image per frame, and if the length of the strip is longer than the number of images, it just holds the last image until the end of the strip.

Is there any other technique that I'm missing here?

is using an image sequence a "must have"? or can it be basically a plane with that image "somehow"? I think animation nodes could make this pretty easy, if i understood you right

You know, at first I was thinking VSE was necessary for convenient strip arrangement and intuitive scale/position, but I might be able to do it just as conveniently with NLA arrangement and object coords.  Personally, I wouldn't be interested in AN (but would probably use GN for material assignments, for organizational purposes) but an AN answer might be useful to somebody else in the future if you feel like offering it.

@Chris Oh yeah, I see, I can't even retime in shader nodes.  Yeah, an AN solution might be best here, and I'd be interested in one.  (It's really amazing how much faster an Eevee render does video though, it's probably easily worth it to work in a 3D viewport instead of VSE.)

maybe you could re-render the image sequence after retiming it with a speed control strip set to stretch. You'd set the end frame of the image sequence to be 16 times longer, so say, 20 images would end at frame 320 (20x16). Then render that and import the result as an image sequence strip

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


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How to make clouds in cycles?
I have a sci-fi scene with a floating platform and a camera that pans around the platform. I want to add clouds underneath. Since I am going to pan around the platform, I can't use an image texture for the clouds, However modeling a bunch of volumetrics clouds takes too long and after skimming a bunch of tutorials I couldn't find a material that worked right with my scene. any suggestions?

To model the clouds faster, use the add-on CloudGen that comes packaged with blender. It does the material for you and there are good preset options. If it is taking too long to render, render two shots: Your standard shot with the platform and then another one that is the clouds on a transparent background. Then, you can use the compositor to layer the two shots and if your camera is the same, it should look seamless.


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Combining normals
I have two textures, one that goes to a bump node and one that goes to a normal map node, so just to clarify one is black and white and the other is a normal texture. I was wondering how I could combine both of these together to form one normal. If anybody has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated

So long as you have only one normal map, this is easy:

The bump map includes a "normal" input where you can supply a normal to apply the bump map offset to. By default this just uses the mesh normal, but you can plug a normal map there instead. You can also chain multiple bump nodes together this way if you like.
If you have two normal maps, it gets more complicated, see the answers here for a variety to methods: How to Combine two Normal Maps?


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Blender quits automatically
I got Multiple objects using (array) after that when i click anywhere in the blender window my blender quits automatically.

Well, the first reason for quit / shutdown / crash while working with 4,5 million faces most likely are 4,5 million faces. Either find a way to work with less geometry somehow or find a way to increase RAM (or both maybe).

first of all reduce the number of sub surf modifiers on the view to 1 or 2 but be sure not to get to 3 b'cos blender will be calculating alot of vertices or geometries and will definely quit on its own when its too much for it to calculate


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How to copy everything from one object to other

OK guys first to tell you im new with blender and i found this really cool.
I made one Pakistan flag and applied many things on it like wind, subdivision, keyframes to make it waving,
now i made another American flag and i want to apply all same effects on.
Do i have to make it one by one like i did for Pakistan flag? or i can copy all the applied modifiers from one flag to other to save my time?
( I imported images as planes to make flags)

It is dependent on what you have exactly done on the Pakistan flag. But you can try to duplicate it and change the flag texture (as I don't think there is an easy way to report the first flag geometry on the second)

since it seems only the flag appearance (texture) is changing here, I would try to duplicate the Pakistan flag, then duplicate its material and rename it to "Usa" and make it use the "Usa" texture instead of the "Pakistan" one (you'll need to edit the image used by the flag's uvmap)

You won't be able to copy applied modifiers, but you could try looking through your backups to find a blend file with the modifiers unapplied.
You can read about this on the manual here.

From the manual:

You can also check the folder where your blend file is for .blend1 and .blend2 files, etc. These are just backups that Blender will automatically make every time that you save your blend.

Here is what I mean in my comment above, I bet it is not understandable without an example:
I started importing two "images as planes" (the two "flags"), then I deleted one of them (this deletes the object but the image is still available to blender. Otherwise you can import just the first, and load the second image later.
Then created a cloth-sim for the other, which looks like

then I duplicated the object as is

then i duplicated its material and renamed

finally I edited uvmap for the second "flag" and simply assigned to the second image: if you imported it before ("as plane") just select it,otherwise you need to load it now, and assign it to the uvmap.
As you see it keeps the cloth-sim identical to the first "flag" object. Cloth-sim is just an example, any transform you made on the first flag is still there on the second one.

Hth.


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Is it possible to make a character putting my own face or some other specific face into it?
Is it possible to make a character putting my own face or some other specific face into it?
I mean i wanna see myself as a 3d character.

Yes. A common way to do it is called 'projection painting'. Have a look to https://www.google.fr/webhp?ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=0kUsWNnhG8TI8ge2q4WoDQ&gws_rd=cr#q=blender+projection+painting&tbm=vid&*

If you mean: use a 3d head model and change its appearance (textures) to make it look like different people... it is possible as in the above comment, but obviously the 3d shape of different people's head, although similar, it is quite different. Your "head texture" will look much like "you" only on a 3d head model that is much like "your real head". A 3d scan could put those things together, scanning both the shape and the "texture" of a particular head.


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Glass is white, independent the light
hello i have this crystal, and is white rather transparent.Do you have any clues?

My final result,want to be like this:

now a changed my materials, i use two different materials,the first is the prism shader of eric adelo

and the second is a glossy material with texture:

here is the output

Hi, could you please edit your question and use the post "add image" command to add the linked image? It would be permanent and much easier for everyone here to understand what you mean... thanks.

Maybe related - https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/31888/alpha-channel-through-glass-material-instead-of-background-cycles. Node setup is required for questions like this and more description about what is your desired result.


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Make limb grow like tentacle
i would like to make a limb grow, like tentacle, the model has already an armature.I didnt find any reference- tutorials.
Thanks in advance.

Like, actually animate it growing out of the body?

Yes.but also keep the armature,or it would be better animate it, and then put the armature?

I would actually use the armature for that—try scaling the bones along their local Y-axis. If you need them to bend smoothly, you can increase the Segments value under Bendy Bones (Bone tab, Properties panel).

I tried it but did not work, I can not choose the armature parent, only the bone armature, and when I choose it, the armature is only modified it in edit and pose mode, which are doing nothing to mesh

It work, i was doing something wrong, you can post an answer if you want, i think there is also an other post, with the same answer.

You can animate the local Y-axis of the bones (SYY).


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Prodecural ring texture
iam trying to make a procedural ring texture animation, i have managed to make the ring texture but the animation is not infinite. I use the mapping scale values but the textures just scales. Do you have any idea for different set up?
Here is an image of my node set up:

why 'modulo'? That only produces a repetition... Do you have any image of what you're trying to achieve?

Yes. You can see the effect here:http://paperjs.org/examples/radial-rainbows/

After you answer in the comments, here's a simple setup:

The square root of the dot product is the distance to the center (in this case, the distance to an empty object).
Adding some value to it before the module operation will just make the colors to cycle.
Scaling the rings loop is also possible by multiplying the distance with some other value, before the add node. Values less than 1 will produce wider rings, and values bigger than 1, thinner rings.

It works, thanks a lot, a small question, how i make it also work for negative values?

plug a math-Absolute node between the value and the add node.

I tried it, it just stops and goes from the other side, but i will find it thanks alot

So you want it to start from the center, and then grow into a loop? Then you must use more than just the modulo function... for example: If val<0, then fac=[1-mod(abs(val+dist), 1)], else fac=[mod((val+dist), 1)]

I was thinking about something like that.i think know I will check for meatball effect.


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I am creating a waterfall and I want to have the fluid physics loop over a set of frames
I am creating a small waterfall for an animation. I have the ground texture and rocks all created. I am specifically wanting to create an 8 second long animation that will be an endlessly looping video file.
I am well aware of how to work the fluid physics - create the realm where the fluid sim takes place, identifying an object for inflow, labeling the ground and other objects as obstacles, etc.
I found a number of guides and forum posts on blender.stackexchange on how to create a looping ocean, but not a stream.
I am assuming that I would take the fluid physics, duplicate, then scale back to earlier in the keyframes. I would then interpolate the meshes of both fluid physics at a point where its indistinguishable to the viewer. Since the waterfall itself would be the most dynamic aspect, I would assume that I interpolate the mesh before it falls and once it hits so the falling water streams don't show any glaring changes mid-fall.
I am unsure how to change the timing of a physics simulation along the animation strip, and how to interpolate the streams.
I know that I can add a Cyclic F-modifier to simpler animations, but would something as complex as a stream be able to have that work without a glaring seam?

Your best bet would just be to render out a 10 second sequence (ie. 8 seconds plus a little extra), and then cross fade the clips in a video editor. I don't think you're going to be able to actually loop the fluid sim files with any sort of precision.
You can physically duplicate the fluid sim files that you've cached. If your cache folder contained: fsim1.bobj, fsim2.bobj, fsim3.bobj, then you duplicated them and renamed them fsim1.bob4, fsim5.bobj, fsim6.bobj, then you would then have a 6 frame simulation with the original simulation repeating twice. Figuring out how to blend them would be the difficult part.

After a lot of internet scouring, thats what it is seeming like. Thanks for the confirmation!


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Any simple way to apply a color index (to achieve things like 256 color range) across an entire render?
I am wanting to make some animations that have a reduced color range (similar to 80s/90s CGI.)
I know of ways to reduce that for still imagery such as in photoshop, but I know of no ways to do this within Blender. The only color options change the color from 8 to 16 bit.
Is there a compositor node to do this, or would I have to batch edit every frame separately than compile later into a movie file? Or is there another program better suited for this like Final Cut Pro?

Posterization and quantization are tricky beasts.
You could do a simple quantization hack via a script to reduce the display referred output range, by dividing the display referred output by a value and forcing quantization.
Mapping colours to a more limited sampled set would be more challenging, as it would require evaluating the display referred output for clumpings of values, then aligning the other values to that set based on distance.

Although marked as answer. The answer is not really describing how to create a reduced color animation; "you could script that" isnt an answer, provide example by code then. Answers like these can be put in comments.

@user3800527 the core of this answer is the last paragraph. a true quantization which properly maps that ranges is impossible to achieve in blender. my answer below is just a hack, which might suffice for one or the other user.

I assume from your question that you're just seeking to emulate a certain look, and you're not seeking to actually output that data into a file format with reduced range. In other words, it shall look like it was an image with reduced bit depth, but in fact it's a normal 8 bit jpeg or png that you're outputting.
If that's the case, that look could somewhat be emulated using node groups. I've put together a little demo with a Suzanne head and a random image (Agent327 header from the Blender.org homepage), which run through a custom node group:

Please keep in mind that the node group does not do any sophisticated range mapping. There is no analysation of surrounding pixel data to produce an image which is as close as possible to the original. It really just tries to add the - usually unwanted - fake posterization.
To do this, the image needs to be split up into its individual channels, as we want to work on the mathematical values there:

You'll see two things in this tree:

using separateRGB and combineRGB nodes, I split the channels into its individual components, and then run each through a custom node group
There is a Power function involved (Gamma). What I'm doing here is mangling the Display Referred pixel values instead of the scene linear ones. The mapping to target values looks more natural this way. You can mute both gamma nodes to see the difference when testing with the photo. This also means for you that you need to take care what you feed the node group with, as it expects the input to be within a 0.0 - 1.0 range

The channel node group itself looks like this:

The user outside of the node group sets a number of colors per channel. But the range the group works on starts at 0, so a 0 - 7 range = 8 colors. That's why I subtract 1 at the beginning of the tree.
Then comes the actual trick. The values are multiplied by the number of colors. So now, the channel values range from 0.0 to 7.0. But usually they are something like 3.76622. Now, that value is going through the Round node. There, 3.76622 becomes 4.0, while 3.422 becomes 3.0. By that, the channel values are spread apart, the smooth interpolations disappear, posterization happens. The result is divided again by the number of colors, to get back to 0 - 1 range.
Result:
Input:

Output (with 8 colors):

This is a very impressive and flexible approach. By using HSVA it grants a strictly limited set of hues; using it also with saturation reinforces the effect. Very nice indeed.

@aliasguru This is amazingly good! Can you please clarify if it's okay if I include this node group in a file that will be published under some free license (Creative Commons?)? With crediting you obviously. I'm working on a .blend template for conversion of 3D models into sprites that will be used in a new tileset for Cataclysm DDA game, both CC BY-SA 3.0.

@int_ua Sure, go ahead!

Thanks for the given answers!
This is what I did:
I also used the separate RGB and Combine RGB nodes, and for each channel I used a grey-scale color ramp (with constant interpolation) inbetween.
After and before I played around with RGB curve or contrast nodes to get the right colors and balance.

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


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How do I assign a color ramp to a 360° axis?
I know how to assign a color ramp to a single dimension (I.e. How to make a color gradient from red to white along the x axis)
What I am stuck with is how to make a color gradient based on a circular rotation.
For instance, if I had a circle, 0 would be red, PI/2 is yellow, PI is green, 3pi/2 is blue with the gradient working its way around.

You can set a Gradient Texture to Radial for this. Here i combined it with the Object Output of the Texture Coordinate Node, but depending on your geometry you might have to put a Mapping node behind it.

Looks like you'll have to convert to polar coordinates using the math nodes. Doesn't sound fun, but it is possible. Here's the equation.
θ = tan-1 ( y / x )
Actually that would be around the z axis, but you get the idea.
If you need help figuring out how to do it check out this tutorial from blender cookie https://cgcookie.com/archive/custom-uv-transformation-nodes-cycles/

Welcome to the site. Answers here should be more then a link. As an example your answer would be great with a picture of the math nodes needed for that equation. Also you might want to explain how to use polar coordinates.


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Is it possible to blend from two textures based on XYZ coordinates of object?
Quick texture/materials question.
I know you can set up a ColorRamp to respond to XYZ coordinates - for instance, I can create a ColorRamp that blends from blue to red and control it with XYZ, so however higher or lower the object is on the Z axis the color changes.
I am curious how I could do something like this with two separate textures. For instance, having a waterfall blend from a material like sand to a water-node setup.

I am guessing I use a coordinates node on a mix shader's "FACTOR" input, just not sure how to make the object respond appropriately

Yeah, it's pretty much the same as your blue/red example, except instead of blue and red use black and white in the colorramp and then that output goes into the fac input of either a mixrgb node to mix two texture colors (the two texture color outputs go into the two color inputs), or the fac of a mix shader mixing two shaders.


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Making first intricate mesh on my own after tutorials, need some pointers
I have done a number of Blender tutorials and feel confident in making my first complex mesh. I am attempting to model a drum machine that I own. It's almost all simple shapes, nothing with a lot of contour or texture, so I feel confident about this as a first project. I am using background images from renders that the company use as promotional photos as I model, so I know everything is roughly to scale.
I am not wanting step by step directions from anyone, but rather general tips and advice to help me move forward. I have done tutorials that are more complex than this, but obviously I wasn't using my noggin for those :)
The drum machine is an Analog Rytm
I have created the body and faceplate as separate objects. I have modeled the nuanced beveling that the body case has under the faceplate through subsurf + mean crease. The faceplate also has a subsurf modifier. I created the drum pad indentations with a mixture of loop cuts, mean crease on certain surfaces and extruding them downward to make pockets. I am running into a road block on how to progress next: my idea was to tackle the sixteen buttons along the bottom

I am wanting to clear up the subdivisions that using loop cuts has created. When I click on edges I want to clear and use "dissolve edge", it removes the edge but it also turns the faces into warped textures that I can not use loop cuts on anymore. Here is a small screenshot that illustrates what I mean. From what I've seen on other forum posts, dissolving the edge is making that face no longer a quad so its unable to interact with loop cuts anymore ... do I have that right?

My dilemma: how do I keep cutting into the faceplate to make room for the buttons in a way that won't make the faceplate increasingly difficult to work with? Also, what would be the best way to make circular + oblong cuts into the faceplate for the rounded buttons? Also, have I gone about making the faceplate the wrong way entirely? I was basing this off of a laptop tutorial I followed since it handled building the keyboard in a very easy way, and since this has a number of buttons it seemed like a good guide to emulate

Usually when you dissolve an edge, it creates an ngon because there will now be more than four edges to the resulting face. You need to take that into consideration when choosing which edges/vertices to remove. It's sometimes useful to temporarily add extra mesh to get something in place, and then strategically remove some of the extra mesh.

You can temporarily pull your buttons up ands away from the faceplate while you model them, then place them back when you're done. You can also selectively hide parts of your mesh by assigning them to vertex groups and then hiding all but those you're working with.

I would have started the faceplate the same way you did.

One element of the eventual solution might be to model each button group as its own mesh and then join the different button groups into a complete object at the end of the process (and keep a copy of the separated versions in a second .blend file in case you need to make some tweaks).
Loop cuts are not the ONLY tool available to you.  Subdivision (of faces or edges) can be of considerable utility as well.  However, it can lead to inconvenient temporary situations if you do things in the "wrong" order.  Expect to do things inefficiently for many many tries until you get a feel for the "right" way to do things.  It is just part of the learning process.
Yes: non-quads can be inconvenient when dealing with subsurfs.  Their problems are mostly concealed when they happen to be coplanar will all their neighbors, so you can exploit that.
Another thing you can exploit is that loop cuts try to be straight across, but you can relocate some of the edges of the loops in another part of the mesh to deal with different button dimensions or spacing.

In the actual drum machine, the holes for the buttons were cut out of the face plate. I am trying to recreate that. The drum pads light up (I will be using this for an animation), so I think having the gap for the pads is most important so that little detail can stick out. It certainly stands out live. I am wondering if the other button holes are as necessary, especially if this is my first real attempt ...

Many ways to do this I’m sure. I started in Top View with a plane the width of the space between two buttons and the height of the overall model. Tabbed into Edit Mode and added three vertical Loop Cuts in the center of the plane by pressing “CTRL” + “R” Left Click then Right Click. Then scaled them in on the “X” axis establishing the width of the button. Then added two horizontal Loop Cuts to establish the top and bottom locations of the button and also forming a square. Then added one more horizontal Loop Cut in the center of the previous two Loop Cuts.

Now select the five vertices that represent the button and press SHIFT + ALT + “S” and drag your mouse to change the square shape to a circular shape Left Click when done.

Add a Subsurf Modifier.
Press “E” and extrude down a little bit then Left Click. Press “E” > SHIFT > “Z” and extrude in a bit (This is forming the width of the gap) Left Click when happy. Press “E” again and extrude up to create the height of the button and Left Click.
Add Loop Cuts to tighten up the corners.
Add an Array Modifier and move it to the top of the modifier stack set the count to 16 and check the box next to Merge.
Add a 4 Loop Cuts around the button and bring them close to get rid of the stretching. There will still be a slight amount of stretching above the button. You can add another Loop Cut above it now or wait until the next steps where you’ll be adding more anyway.

Tab out to Object Mode and select Smooth Shading (It wont hurt anything if you want to do this sooner).
Note: I usually make a duplicate of the mesh (SHIFT + “D”)  and move it to another layer as a back up.
In Object Mode apply the Array Modifier the tab back into Edit Mode. Select the left edge and press “E” > “X” extrude it left to create the left edge of the model Left Click when satisfied. Repeat this for the right edge. You may need to add loop cuts around the edges to tighten up the corners.

You can then add additional edge loops and reposition them in the locations of other buttons and knobs as Mutant Bob mentioned.

This looks great, and an education in and of itself! I have decided to make the buttons first, use "Boolean - Difference" to use the buttons to cut holes into the faceplate, slightly scale the buttons down, then reposition in the holes to get the diecut look of the faceplate while having all of the buttons able to animate/texture differently:)

Since the plate is mostly planar with wholes have you considered using a Bezier Curve object instead.
It will definitely not give you a clean topology if you later whist to subdivide or unwrap, but will sure be easier to work with for meshes with a lot of wholes.
It's advantages will become particularly visible once you get to the round buttons part.
It will also allow you to create a non destructive beveling for extra detail, and you wont have to worry much about the top and bottom topologyor tessellation to match loops.

Have in mind that it may cause trouble later if you plan to subdivide, use multiple materials or unwrap your mesh though, otherwise it could be a cleaner modeling alternative.

What about creating the buttons, then using the "Boolean - Difference" modifier to edit the faceplate? Would that work? I am wanting to give that look where the buttons are protruding from an empty cavity in the faceplate, like in real life, rather than having the buttons sit on top of a solid faceplate

You can't use Booleans with curve objects, at least not without first converting to mesh first, which would defeat the purpose anyway. But that is the thing, you don't need to. When using curves just create two separate objects, one for the plate that includes the wholes for the buttons and one for the buttons which is an exact copy of the plate curve except the rectangle around it. You can then use an offset value for the buttons curve so it is always slightly smaller than the wholes so light can pass through. You dont even have to do it manually


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Any way to control light halos in the compositor based on emission level?
I am wanting to animate a row of LED lights. I have separated the LED lights from the rest of my object with the pass index/ID mask functions; currently all of my LED lights are on pass index #1.
What I want is to have a minor halo effect around the lights, but only when they are active. Currently, when I add a halo effect to my pass index #1, all of the LED lights have a halo effect regardless if the LEDs are emitting light. All LEDs are diffuse and emission shaders, so I can animate by controlling the mix amount between diffuse and emission.
Is there any simple way to have the halo effect created through recognizing light emission values, or will I have to just animate each LED as its own layer of compositing?

Have you tried the Filter > Glare node instead? It works based on per pixel light intensity

I had tried that as well, but it wasn't working. Is it based off of theshold levels?

Since it is not listed in the manual I am unsure how to use it :/

Cegaton answered most of my questions, but I was running into another issue as well. I had set the glare node to work off of an object mask ID, so rather than reading the render's per-pixel light emission it was simply applying a glare effect evenly across all LEDs in the mask ID.


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How to create an Eevee-only light?
I have a scene that I'm trying to make work in both Eevee and Cycles. When rendering with Eevee, I need some additional light objects to fake some of the lighting. Is there a good way to set those lights to be Eevee-only so that they aren't rendered when using Cycles?

You could add a collection with just eevee lights in it.  That way you could toggle them all off in the render.   Or if you really wanted to do things differently, you could create a new scene at the top of your outliner.  It could have all the same objects, but just Eeevee lights and settings.

Summary: setup the light as desired in Eevee then switch to Cycles and disconnect its Light Shader Node output (which is ignored by Eevee).
Steps:

Add the light in Eevee
Switch to "Cycles" Render Engine in the Render Properties panel
Select the light in the Outliner and in the Light properties, click "Use Nodes"
Go to the Shader Node Editor
disconnect the Surface input socket from the Light Output node
switch back to Eevee mode in the Render Properties panel

Nice trick. Though the OP need a light that works on eevee only, not cycles only.

This is Eevee only. The light is disabled in Cycles by disconnecting the Surface input of the Light Output node.

That isn't what I understand when I read your first line :o

ok let me rephrase... and let me know if that's clearer!

crystal clear now, thanks

This works! Although I am worried that it will break if/when Eevee adds supports for lighting nodes.

indeed, in which case you would hopefully have to switch to @l0lock version.

You can disable objects and lights in the Object data tab → Visibility → Ray Visibility (Uncheck all items in the list):

These options only affects on Cycles, and they are available only as long as the Cycles is active.

If you set the lamp to use nodes, you can specify in the Light Output node for which render engine it will be used. By default, it is set to All, so what you can do is to duplicate your node tree, have one Light Output for each render engine, and set the Cycles one to use a zero strength Emission shader. Like so:

Have you tried it? Eevee doesn't support nodes on lights

This "intuitively" should work but it does not. Check it out.

It works in 2.93 but not on 3.0, I guess that's a bug :/

This is not a bug. It doesn't work because EEVEE ignores nodes in lights. https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/eevee/limitations.html

Interesting, because I have been using this trick for a while now. I guess I will have to make sur to not open my old projects on v3  The manual does say it's not supported "as of now" so hopefully it will be restored at some point!

@L0Lock Technically, your picture works, but explanation why is wrong. You are showing the same trick that Bruno shows. Try to delete two bottom nodes, and you will get the same result (or try to set red and green colors).


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How do I prevent a physics character object from sliding down inclines when they are no longer in motion by the player?
I have a 3rd person character that continues to slide down hills if I stop providing move input. The blender file bellow is a stripped down example. Essentially I am trying to stop on the hill without sliding down.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bt1iv5e1gx616qt/FIXPLAYERSLIDING.blend?dl=0
I tired the solution suggested here but it does not work.

what i already tried
http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/24034/sliding-down-slopes


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Why are my dynamic paint wave bake maps looking so weird?
I'm working on a scene of rain falling onto a car. Now  I want the reflective shader's normal to be influenced by a dynamic wave displacement map, but when I bake the dynamic paint map I get these really weird patterns for some reason instead of smooth gradient like images.
These are my settings

Am I doing something wrong? What setting should I change? Any alternative ideas for creating realistic rain drops on the car?
Thanks!

here are some images of the scene and the renders without the dynamic paint wave maps:
scene
render 1
render 2
render 3


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Blender Game Engine - Jumping help for 2.76
so I am trying to make a 2D platformer game, but I can not get the jumping right at all. I have tried using Linear Velocity, but all that does is jump slowly and I can't seem to speed it up and have full control over the physics.
What I am trying to do is make a jump using Dynamics in the game engine that will be so you can just TAP the space bar to jump and the longer you hold it the higher you jump until of course you fall back down like always, that way you can make smaller jumps basically. Linear velocity can do that but the problem is that it takes way too much to fall down and I can't seem to speed any much of the physics up, it's really slow.

The way you describe is good.
You apply a velocity as long as the user holds a key. This turns the character into a rocket (constantly firing the engine).
Keyboard sensor -> AND/OR -> Motion Actuator [LinV (0,0,1)]

Another way is to apply a force. The advantage is that it adds to the current velocity rather than replacing it.
Keyboard sensor -> AND/OR -> Motion Actuator [Force (0,0,1)]

Hint:
Regarding slow falling - Are you aware that the default cube has a size of 2x2x2meters? If you box-modeled your character from that it might be a giant of 10+meters. It will surely fall slower as it travels a large distance.

I need it to fall faster but not resize it. And I dont wanna change the gravity of the entire world

So your problem is not jumping, but falling?


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How to render videos for twitter?
I'm trying many configurations to upload a video on Twitter.
Twitter displays the following error message:
"Your media file is not compatible."
Which is the right format and encoding to upload Blender videos in twitter?

Possible duplicate of save as a video as .mp4

even after following all the advice here the only way i've gotten twitter to accept my videos is if i run the file through this website https://cloudconvert.com/mp4-converter i have no idea what the difference is since i'm just converting an mp4 to an mp4. it's funny but it works lol

I have just downloaded video into Twitter with next rendering settings. On the picture below I marked significant properties. Some of them can be set with other values according Twitter documentation I guess. For example fps can be till 40.
In my case it looks like the problem was in audio codec. I did not have any sound so the codec was none. But Twitter require audio codec anyway.

That works! :) Thanks a lot Сергей Солуянов! I guess the issue for me was the sound codec...

The solution works, but in my case I had also to select Lossless in Output Quality settings

Worked with these settings! Even though my clip was originally 752 frames and didn't get accepted, but when I doubled the speed to 376 frames, it was accepted - very weird stuff...

It happened again, no matter what settings I used, it didn't work at first - but when I sped up the footage and kept it at 30fps and reduced the length of the clip from 626 frames to 313 frames, it was finally ACCEPTED by Twitter, whee :) (What a weird system they have)

I rendered some videos for Twitter and they worked.
The configuration I used was:
Frames per second: 24
File Format: FFmpeg video
And in the "Encoding" panel I just used the preset "H264 in MP4"

Hello mugnozzo, thank you for your reply. is it to much if I ask you to upload a .blend file with your configurations? I tried the specs you mention without success.

Same issue here, these configurations don't seem to make the difference :(

For me, no matter what settings I used, it didn't work at first - but when I sped up the footage and kept it at 30fps and reduced the length of the clip from 626 frames to 313 frames, it was finally accepted by Twitter, yay!

I'm not sure about the exact settings, but Twitter Developer pages has a list of requirements and recommendations for video uploads:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/media/upload-media/uploading-media/media-best-practices
See from the "Video specifications and recommendations" header in the middle of the page. Maybe your video doesn't have the right framerate or resolution, which aren't a part of format or encoding settings.

Unfortunately following these guidelines does not seem to give a successful result; there's something missing from this list.


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How do you hide UV seams?
I made a simple low poly rock and want to do the textures with blender and export everything to UE4. However, when I apply a texture to my rock the UV seam is very obvious. I have tried using the clone tool in texture paint mode to hide the seam but it doesn't help. Is there a way to hide the seam?

You probably need to extend UV edge bleeding to avoid that problem. Can you add a snapshot of the UV/Image Editor with the texture?

I'll try to add a screenshot soon when I'm back at my computer. It's not seams coming from texture painting its a seam from where I UV unwrapped and the texture is a rock texture that is different colors where the seam is.

You might want to make that texture tileable so the seams won't be seen. You can do that either by yourself using Stamp tool in the image editor or using image editor filters.

Could you please upload some screenshots or put the .blend file on Blend-Exchange and post the given link in your question.

"I have tried using the clone tool in texture paint mode to hide the
seam but it doesn't help". Just curious, have you saved the modified texture after the modifications? Blender does not do this for you. I was trapped by this also a few times before. Painted the seams away in Blender, forgot to save the modified texture, and wondered why the seams were visible in Unity then ^^

Select your rock, in edit mode clear all seams, mark another set of seams different from the previous set, create a new UV map (name it "target"), unwrap the mesh, in the image editor create a new blank image and save it to the HD.
Go to the render tab, Bake tab: Bake Textures.
This procedure creates a 2D image - with visible seams - that can be doctored with a 2D image editor and then used as texture with the "target" UV map.
Make sure not to touch the borders of your new image while doctoring, or you'll create new visible seams.

The answer may depend partly on what kind of rocks you are wanting to texture, and how you anticipate those rocks being used in the game. On the one hand, if you want large rocks with sharp edges, such as some of those that you can see used as "rip rap" at (33.607470, -97.953118) [Zoom way in, or go to street view] , I've had some preliminary success modeling these, applying a procedural texture, and then making my own image textures from screen shots or the originals. In these cases the seams fit neatly along the sharper edges of the boulders.
In my experience, there are some mesh-texture combinations where there is no possible unwrapping of a mesh to a texture that avoids an unwrapping of the mesh to the texture in a way that does not produce an ugly and unsatisfying seam. In these cases, I've take refuge in the old marketing adage, "If you can't hide it, make it a feature." What I do in those cases where there is no satisfactory place for a seam, is to intentionally make the item, in this case, the rock, of two different (real world) materials, so that there has to be a seam. Consider the four rocks pictured in this collage:

Each is composed of more than one material, or at least, is composed of several visible layers of the same material, and affords convenient places to hide a seam.


text:
Diamond Material on Blender Render engine?
Is there a way to create a convincing diamond like material on a render made with the Blender Render engine?
On the internet it seems to be dozens of tutorials for the Cycles Render engine, but as unbiased path tracing engine it's just way beyond what i'm looking for. Instead of realism I'm looking for a cartoonist looking refraction.
Something akin to THIS instead of THIS.
Thanks.

EDIT: I will make this into an answer if you want to mark it as solved.
You could try creating a gradient of the type you find by googling "gradient". Then UV unwrap your mesh and move (and rotate) the individual faces randomly around (with overlaps). Then simply apply the colors to the material. I haven't tried it, but you could give that a shot.

As suggested by user277143 I created a Gradient Texture using Photoshop and then overlapped the mesh to give an internal refraction effect. The effect is very subtle but is there.
On the screen shot you can see that I added (perhaps too many) flat meshes as light sources, additional to a Sun and Hemi lights, in order to create some additional reflection. (The Material reflective is 0.25)
I think it looks marvelous, just like I wanted it. :)

Edit: user277143 also suggested using Shade smooth (Ctrl+F > Alt+H), which I did, and the results on the borders are marvelous, albeit for some reason it changes the reflections on the flat areas. ;)

Also, use Shade Smooth on the diamond. It should do a world of good to those bevels.

You could try ro leave the flat surfaces shaded flat. If this really matters to you, you could beam up a screenshot of the polys.


text:
How to rotate a mesh around another one?
I have a certain combat airplane model and i need to create all the animations to be able to use it in a game. I've got this:

I need to rotate the elevator mesh (The one not selected) around the selected mesh. I've tried using the rotate tool but it always ends up moving the elevator mesh (rotating and translating around the center point/3d cursor) and that is not i want. I want the front of the mesh to go up and the back to go down, taking the little mesh as a pivot, so the mesh moves like an actual elevator would.
How should i go about this?

This sounds like a job for armatures.

At a guess you want to select the elevator mesh then Shift-select the pivot or controller mesh. With the elevator selected and the control mesh selected and active press Ctrl P to parent the elevator to the pivot or control mesh. The first choice in the drop-down list should work: 'Object'.
However, do you need the pivot mesh? Perhaps you should use an empty object instead to control the rotation.
You can also move the center of rotation of an object. In edit mode select the front vertices of your elevator then ShiftS then U to choose "Cursor to selected". Tab out of Edit mode back into Object mode and then ShiftCtrlAltC to bring up the Set Origin dialogue and press shortcut T to move "Origin to 3D Cursor".
An absolute must-read is Witold Jaworski's excellent reference work Virtual Airplane which can be found on his site:
Virtual Aircraft
Here is a quick blend file showing one way to control a surface:
controlled_elevator.blend
Under the Properties tag you can lock rotation in the x, y, or z axis:

Under the Constraints tab you can limit the rotation of the controller (the empty):

As a follow-up, and keeping within the aeronautical theme, here is a link to a blend file of a variable pitch propeller, controlled with bones and drivers:
pitch_control_bones.blend

The attached blend is describing a possible solution quite nicely, i'll try to emulate it fitting my needs and report back

I did not use exactly your method but something really similar. http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/16045/how-do-i-create-a-hinged-door. Given the similarities i will mark this answer as accepted. Thanks.

Thanks. Blender Cookie may also be a good place to learn some useful tips.


text:
Black Outlines After UV Test
After testing out Blender's UV functionalities all my edges have a black outline which I can't seem to get rid of.
There is no material/texture and freestyle is toggled off.
Here is a screenshot:

Thanks for your time,
neelcor

Hello and welcome to BSE. The dark dots correspond to faces centers. You are in edit mode but editing faces. Press "Ctrl + tab" and choose what you want to see : vertices, edges or faces

Regardless of what selecting mode I choose, these black outlines prevail. See here

is that an array ? if yes how is the original object ?

Are you just talking about the edges? If so press Tab to leave edit mode.


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How can I fuse a lot of cubes?
So, I made a mesh with a lot of cubes ( I've created a cube, and copied it, pasted it to make figures ), And, when I've done it, I tried to smooth it, but it looks wierd because it's made with a lot of cubes, so a lot of faces, I already tried Ctrl + J, but faces remain, Is there anyway to fuse those lot of faces in one?

please upload your .blend

Hi Carl, do you mind clarifying your goal?  Would you like the cubes smoothed, and that is all?  Are the cubes separate objects?

You need to delete the inside faces of the cubes. Change selection type to faces and select and delete the unwanted faces.

You could try Boolean operations, but the way you are doing things is probably bound to give trouble sooner or later. You should learn to model properly, try watching some tutorials

If I understand right, you need joining cubes without inner vertices.
You can do it in second using Bool Tool addon:
Just select all cubes, (one of them must be active) in BoolTool menu click on "Brush" -> "Union" -> "Apply All" - done
Download Bool Tool


text:
Save Cycles Materials as Open Shading Language file
we currently work on a project, where we want to use the Open Shading Language to reuse shaders and materials in other programs/renderers (who also support OSL like Arnold)
For that it would be great to write a osl-file out of a cycles material.
I found a plugin who creates an xml file from your cycles material containing osl
http://peter.cassetta.info/material-library/
but that's not platform independent.
Is there any posibility to save all cycles nodes from a material as an osl-file, without the need of scripting shaders?
Cheers Martin

Currently this is not possible.
Gladly Blender is OpenSource and all OSL files for OSL supported nodes can be found in the git repo https://git.blender.org/gitweb/gitweb.cgi/blender.git/tree/HEAD:/intern/cycles/kernel/shaders
There are some nodes that are Cycles specific and will not be able to run correctly in other software packages as needed variables/context might not exists in those packages or named differently.
But it should be possible to create an overall function for your Material to simulate a Cycles material graph to a certain extend.


text:
NSFW Soft body breast acting odd
I have been struggling all day with trying to figure out why the collision is not working on the right breast when the right arm or hand touch it.
I threw together a real quick animation and as you'll see, the left breast reacts while the right one does not.
What i didn't animate was when the left hand interacts with the right breast, it reacts correctly, and when the right hand interacts with the left breast, it reacts correctly.
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what is causing the right arm and right breast to have no reaction.
here is the rendered out animation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oiXVblYNU0&feature=youtu.be
and here's the whole file in a zip so y'all can fiddle with it. It's probably something obvious that I'm just not seeing.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/nic33h5jpbn9hq0/Unfinished%2C+need+help.rar

I can't check the blend right now, but do you have a mirror modifier active? it might not be compatible with the soft body until you apply it.

no sir, mirror is already applied. only modifiers are armature, soft body, collision in that order from top to bottom.


text:
CubeSurfer Replacement for 2.8?
CubeSurfer add-on by Pyroevil currently does not work with Blender 2.8, so I am searching for a good replacement, but my searches have come up dry.
OR
If any of ya'll have figured out a way to force CubeSurfer to work, I'd be really happy with that as well.
I'm currently just using the metaball method, but the results aren't nearly as clean as CubeSurfer when making fluids with particles.

I found it in case you still need it. You can download a zip from the GitHub page at https://github.com/porkminer/CubeSurfer, but it gives you an error when you try to istall it in Blender. I fixed it by changing the line from cubesurfer import mciso just to import mciso. The download link is https://gofile.io/?c=sEWqb3.


text:
Exploding an OBJ file for export to 3DS
I have a file created in Delftship that I want to import into Sketchup. I exported it to a 3DS file but the file (3.27mb) crashes Sketchup every time. This has happened before and there is a part of the file that Sketchup does not like. I tried exporting to OBJ but the entire file takes forever and never loads into Sketchup. In the past I've been able to export to OBJ in pieces and that loads fine into Sketchup but I can't see how to explode this file. Selecting the model selects the entire model.

See http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/31852/12 ?

Are you using blender for any of this?


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Blender 2.6 rock cycle render nodes problem in Blender 2.73
I just bought a texture cookbook tutorial of how to create realistic textures using blender cycles and I was doing a tutorial on how to create a realistic stone. However, I ended up with something I really don't expect. The book showed the supposed finished product however, my finished product don't looked as nearly as it should be. I did everything else fine, just the stone. Here is my finished product.

I am using a different version of Blender so that might be the problem, however, it feels like I made a mistake somewhere(remember, I am creating a different stone colour using the book's instruction). Here would be the nodes for this stone according to the book.

If anyone has any suggestions on improving this rock, please tell me. It would also help if someone has the same textures cookbook.(its Blender 2.6 Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook by Enrico Valenza.)

There should be CD with this book included, which containes Codes archive. Opening it you can find folders with starter (..._codes)  and complete (..._blends) files.

Ohhhh, I bought it from a secondhand shop. Its in mint condition though. I think that might be the problem.

The .blend files are available here, but don't expect them to match the explanations given in the book (which are on the other side limited to boring "connect this output of this node to this input of this other node", without the reason for). Be prepared to investigate any problem on your own. After hours of tweaking, I found the scale in the mapping node has to be changed (e.g. from 1 to 3), else the material is closer to mud than to stone.


text:
Fresnel has to be above 1?
When I'm doing something with metal node groups, I noticed something with the Fresnel node. When I set below 1, I get a strange result, not the result that really reflects but only a part or none reflects(or refracts). I'm using Blender 2.73 by the way.

This is correct, the index of refraction of any given material is pretty much always above 1. Values below 1 will be weird (as you have noticed)

IOR values less than 1 are physically impossible, so you will get strange results.

Then. how to create ior values that are lower than 1

But the IOR of gold is 0.47?


text:
Slow down audio in VSE
In my VSE I only have a audio strip, no video strip and I want to slow down the speed of the audio, because  I'm making an animation and want to get the lip-sync correct. Is there anyway to do this without the changing the FPS or anything like that?

The only way to do this in Blender is to change the Audio Strip's pitch value. Its in the Strip's properties panel in the VSE (N key). But it won't change the length of the strip nor will it change the waveform for you to see where the sound has stretched to. I would suggest doing an Audio Mixdown after the pitch change and re-importing it.
But honestly the sound will change to much, why not use Audacity free Audio editing software, it is open and there are portable versions available. It will do speed changes much better than Blender.

I used audacity to record my audio, but I didn't know the capabilties of it.

It has many features but beware of changing the pitch along with the speed as it might change the nature of your character to much, and a small change goes a long way.


text:
Python Create an array of vectors
Basic question but I'm new to Python and I'd like to create an array of vectors. Unfortunately arr.append() isn't working...
Here's what I have:
for i, p in enumerate( someArr ):
    if x < y:
        locationArr = []
        location = obj.particle_systems[0].particles[i].location
        locationArr.append(location)
    return locationArr

Not sure what the location vector at obj.particle_systems[0].particles[i].location is ... object? Array? Output for an example is:
Vector((1.0000001192092896, 0.9654528498649597, -0.4224875271320343))
Thanks.

Duh, was defining the array in the for-loop

Yep.  Duh.  Reminds me of my very first scientific job right out of high school, at the Geophysical Institute.  Landsat images came down so fast it was striped across 4x 9-track tape drives then they sent us the tapes.  So on my first day they handed me a 3-inch stack of that 14 inch green-bar sprocket-fed line printer output of the FORTRAN program that put it all together into a single file.  And there was one particular situation where an entire line would take on the same value. It took an hour, but I found a variable being initialized right after the DO loop statement instead of before it.


text:
Using python itertools groupby
I have an array that i'd like to apply the groupby recipe described here to:
https://docs.python.org/2.6/library/itertools.html#examples
Here's the code I have...
from operator import itemgetter, attrgetter, methodcaller
from itertools import groupby

myArray = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89]

for k, g in groupby(myArray, lambda (i,x):i-x):
    c = map(itemgetter(1), g)
    print(c)

Unfortunately this is resulting in the following error in the blender console:
location: <unknown location>:-1
Error:   File "/home/anon/Desktop/objects/dev_space.blend/Text", line 666
for k, g in groupby(enumerate(myArray), lambda (i,x):i-x):

What am I missing? I'm assuming Blender ought to support this recipe out-of-the-box(tm)

I found the answer here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35181413/find-runs-of-consecutive-numbers-using-groupby-in-python

https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/itertools.html?highlight=groupby#itertools.groupby  - recent versions of Blender are not Python 2.6 compatible.

@zeffii thanks, where does Blender record this kind of info.

the python console view will show the python version


text:
Script to add a number of Objects, Cameras to a scene but cannot rename data objects?
I am adding a few objects to a scene. Super basic stuff.
import bpy
import bmesh

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_circle_add(radius=6, fill_type='TRIFAN', location=[0,0,0])
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(radius=1, location=[0,0,5])
bpy.ops.object.camera_add(view_align=False, location=[0,10,20], rotation=[0.436,0,3.1415927410125732])

bpy.data.objects[0].name = 'Plane1'
bpy.data.objects[1].name = 'Object1'
bpy.data.objects[2].name = 'Object2'

This works for renaming items: 1 and 2 in the bpy.data.objects array, but not item at 0? i.e. the circle primitive is not renamed ... this happens with whatever is at [0]?
Investigating this I have also tried the following:
if 'Cube' in bpy.data.meshes:
    bpy.data.meshes.data.meshes['Cube'].name = 'Object1'

In this case the 'if' condition doesn't seem to get satisfied at all and none of the objects are renamed.
What am I doing wrong with my approach to the 'Data API' is it Async? ... I think not? But it feels like things are not as procedural as I might be assuming they are? Wishing the Data Api docs were more fleshed out.

After running a primitive_add operator the context object will be the newly created object.
import bpy
from math import pi
context = bpy.context

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_circle_add(radius=6,
                                  fill_type='TRIFAN',
                                  location=[0, 0, 0])
plane = context.object
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(radius=1,
                                location=[0, 0, 5])
cube = context.object
bpy.ops.object.camera_add(view_align=False,
                          location=[0, 10, 20],
                          rotation=[0.436, 0, pi])
camera = context.object
plane.name = 'Plane1'
cube.name = 'Object1'
camera.name = 'Object2'

If you want to rename the data part of above objects
plane.data.name = "blah" #  rename plane mesh
camera.data.name = "blah"

Using indexes from the collections is IMO not the way to go.  Running
[o.name for o in bpy.data.objects]

in the py console, indicates the objects in this collection are internally sorted by name.  A "better" approach may be
[o.name for o in bpy.context.scene.objects]

but still wouldn't recommend this approach.


text:
fac value in bmesh.utils.edge_split
Not massively familiar with blender and looking at:
https://docs.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_current/bmesh.utils.html?highlight=edge_split#bmesh.utils.edge_split
It's not clear what the value of the 'fac' argument is supposed to be?
Is it a 3d coord? (x, y, z) or something else, like a fraction of the total length of the edge?
What's a good way to calculate it? As examples there's this:
https://github.com/lijenstina/mesh_extra_tools/blob/c90634a024ab8d531751df873d33dbe905d0ca13/mesh_extrude_and_reshape.py#L217
But want to confirm calculating the distance between the edge's two vertices is necessary.

'fac' is a percent of the edge length, considered from the vertex indicated in the call.
For instance, if you run the code below on an edge suite, you'll see the growing percents applied on a length of 2 meters:

import bpy, bmesh

obj = bpy.context.object

if obj is not None:

    prevMode = obj.mode

    try:
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT', toggle=False)

        bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh( obj.data )

        edgeCount = len(bm.edges)

        for i, e in zip( range(edgeCount), sorted( bm.edges, key=lambda e: e.verts[0].co[2] ) ): #Indexes and sorted edges from bottom to top
            fac = (i+1) / 10
            print(fac)
            ne, nv = bmesh.utils.edge_split( e, e.verts[0], fac)
            print(ne,nv)

    finally:
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode=prevMode, toggle=False)


text:
Fade out reflection in mirror with cycles
With Blender Internal Renderer I can set the max distance of reflections in the material of the mirror object.

How can I achieve the same with cycles?

I don't think this is possible. Cycles is a physically based renderer and is not really suited for this, especially since it is a 'reverse ray tracer' (so it traces rays from the camera to the scene and on to a light source). It would need to determine the length of a ray to control the mirrored surface before it had actually traced that ray (since the path is reversed to that intuitive to the physical world). There may be a way of emulating this in the compositor after tracing both paths but I do not think this is possible with available Cycles nodes.

Just to note: the physical situation this effect tries to emulate is that of a rough reflector. That one is very easy to do in Cycles.

I originally discounted just adding Roughness as the result is not as sharp as the BI sample image but on reflection(!) you’re absolutely right, @JohnDvorak - that is the Cycles equivalent. You should add it as an answer.

EDIT: As mentioned in a comment above, using a glossy shader for the mirror and simply adding a small amount of roughness will give a similar result, although you will lose some of the definition in the reflection that you can get with blender internal. My solution is a way to get defined reflections that still fade out.
As far as I know, there is no 'proper' way to do this, as in there is no setting that will allow you to make the reflection fade out a certain distance from the material.
However, there are some ways to fake what you are doing, and in the case of replicating the image above they work quite well. However, if you try to scale this up to larger, more complex models or a non planar mirror you may have some issues (I haven't tested this).
The way to fake this in Cycles is to modify the material on the object being reflected, and leave the plane with just a glossy shader with a roughness of 0. Any roughness will work just fine, but 0 will make everything much easier to preview as you set up. In my file I gave it a bit of a blue color as well.
For the cube, we'll use a combination of a gradient texture and the light path node. Using the light path node, we can isolate the reflected cube by using the Is Reflection Ray Output. If you use the node wrangler addon, you can CtrlShift click on a node to preview it. Which will look like this:

We can multiply the reflected cube by a gradient texture, which will produce a gradient on the reflected cube. You will have to rotate the gradient texture by 90 degrees using the mapping node, and I used a color ramp to adjust the falloff. Again previewing this step results in this:
EDIT: If you replace the Texture Coordinates node with a geometry node and use the position output, as well as set the x location value of the mapping node to 0.5, the result behaves more like the blender internal method, with less reflection the further away the cube is (you will also want to adjust the color ramp to get a nicer falloff as well).

Then we simply use this as a factor for a mix node that combines a diffuse shader and a transparent shader. Which gives this result:

Do note that you will want to disable reflective caustics if possible, as leaving that enabled causes a huge amount of noise and fireflies.
Here is the final node setup for the cube:


text:
Fluid obstacles ignored
I am learning the fluid physics function. Blender primitives like cube and sphere work for obstacles but if I make a 3d part in inventor and import it as an fbx file and make it an obstacle, blender fluids ignore the object. Any idea what I might be doing wrong or does blender not recognize 3D objects not native to blender?

Hi, welcome. Have you checked the most obvious reasons: old caching, transforms not applied, inverted normals...? or, can you share an example file  (eg: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/) ?

Hi, Ok I am amazed at the quick response.  Thanks!  I am really new at this.  Can I upload the blender test.  (It is really low tech test...nothing fancy)

Ignore my question of the obvious  I will try uploading it thanks.  Val


text:
Python: proportional editing vertex move
I'm new to scripting in blender. Is there a way to proportional-edit a vertex through python?
I want translate a vertex along z, with all vertexes between that and local_Z=0 moving accordingly like they would in proportional editing
This is a graphical representation:

look at the doc: http://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_76_release/bpy.ops.transform.html?highlight=proportional#bpy.ops.transform.transform
By the way you can look in the 'action log' of the info editor (window header). enlarge it, sroll down, select entry it with your select mouse button and use CtrlC to copy the command for your action

Doesn't seem to be working. I just get the dreaded: convertViewVec: called in an invalid context whenever I try using a function like this in my script: bpy.ops.transform.translate(value = vtrans, constraint_axis=(False, False, False), ...

@toddoeh Proportional editing needs to be run in the context of the 3d view. The text editor or python console is not a 3d view.  Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/75960/python-what-is-the-right-context-for-bpy-ops-transform-delete-orientation-ope


text:
Import/Export Rhino's 3DM format to/from blender
Is there a plugin to import/export rhinoceros' 3DM files to/from blender?
If there's no plugin yet, would it be possible to write one or are there technical limitations to do such a thing? I suppose somebody would have written something by now...
I'm asking this because I swap files with people who only work with rhinoceros, but most of them only know basic modelling and panic when I start speking about STL file-format.
Thanks in advance

I have successfully imported a 3dm file into Blender on manjaro linux using following plugin : https://github.com/jesterKing/import_3dm

Worked great, thanks for sharing!

It seems there's no direct way to import .3DM files.
However, according to this tutorial you can export from Rhino as .LWO (Lightwave) or .3DS (3D Studio). Both can be imported to Blender. .STL export is also an option, I suppose.
Importing to Rhino from Blender should be easier using same formats.
Even if you don't posses a copy of Rhino you can download and use a Full Trial for 90 days.
I'll update if I find a better way of importing to Blender.

Rhino Blender Mesh Bridge to import and export quickly
A time ago I have made a python Blender bride to Rhinoceros 3D.
And a Rhino mesh bridge to Blender. To help the community now
You can find it on GitHub "Blender 4 Rhino". With it, I was able to do all these models.

LINK

DESCRIPTION
It is a mesh Blender bridge for Rhino. Let you export the selected mesh from Rhinoceros 3D using a (custom) button. Import that mesh quickly inside Blender (using this plugin script). The python file for Blender let you import and export using one button. In Rhino, pressing right-click on this custom button will import back the Blender mesh.
Hopping that it is still working, please consider improving it.
LINKS

GitHub Blender 4 Rhino
Free License
Rhino forum thread

A student at GSOC was working on .3dm import into Blender with nurbs capability, but it doesn't appear that there has been any work on the branch since then. It's available on graphicall and it's for mac only.
Otherwise, there are multiple formats that you can use, depending on what you would like to import.
The simplest format to use is obj export from Rhino. However, it doesn't handle blocks/linked data.
If you need to handle blocks, exporting as collada(.dae) works well enough in most cases, although all objects are parented to empties, so if you have thousands of objects, it may slow things down significantly.


text:
Project mesh on surface (or clip face with rotation)
Is there a way I can "project" a mesh on another mesh's surface?
I know clipping, but it doesn't align the faces that are touching and doing it manually can be very time consuming.
Is there an integrated function or addon to do such a thing?
In case not, can somebody please point me in the right direction to write a py script? (I regularly code in python, just never wrote anything for blender)
Here's a real-world example to explain things graphically:
I want to go from this

to this

To place cube onto the surface of torus in this case, you should:

Enable Snap during transform tool with Shift + Tab. Turn on Face snapping mode, along with Align rotation with the snapping target. Switch snapping part onto the target to Median:

Grab your object (cube) to the desired place. Switch Transformation orietnation to Normal (with Alt + space). Turn off snapping and grab your cube along normals so it moves out of the base mesh surface (in my case it was Z axis):

Thanks @Mr Zak! :D
Eventually solved by clicking the two buttons near the snap tool with face-snapping selected. When I move an object it automatically gets projected on the surrounding mesh's surface :)
Here's a small screenshot:


text:
Random sized cylinders with no intersection/gaps
I'm trying to find a way to achieve an extruded version of what the image below shows without having to manually scale every cylinder.
I tried particle systems (hair, both vertex and face modes), but I seem to be unable to reach a satisfying compromise between gaps and intersections. My cylinders, in an ideal world, should not intersect at all, and every cylinder must be touchng at least another one.
Here is my reference image:

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance :)

One try would be rigid body, like https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/63839/1245. In this case you will want all the cylinders to be laying on their sides (if ref image is from side view) and not changing that while falling down. It will not provide you with no gaps at all (depending on physics setup though but it's better to have some space there).

Here is a basic way you can fake it.

Create a new box mesh object that should be large enough to encompass a simulation covering an area big enough to produce the desired patterned area.
This Box would ideally be flat, narrow in one direction and large in two others (like say 10 x 10 x 0.2 units).
In the physics tab set it to Rigid Body, Passive and Shape two Mesh.

Then create a Cylinder mesh, rotate it in Object Mode 90º about the X axis so it lays flat. Set its physics properties to Rigid Body, Active and Shape to Cylinder. Make sure the physics bounds cylinder aligns properly to the mesh geometric shape.

Now add some constrains to it, so it won't rotate about an axis we don't care about. Add a new Limit Rotation constraint, then turn on the options Limit X and Limit Y only, and change the space to Local Space.

Clone-duplicate the cylinder around and place all copies in an array-like grid, along the top of the box, making sure they all fit completely inside the previously created box.

When seen from the top the cylinders should be tall enough to barely fit the box, and the box should be narrow enough so the cylinders are tight but not too close, which would cause problems with simulation precision.

To make cylinders have random size by selecting one of them, turn on Proportional Edit, switch the Fallow Type to Random, then scale one cylinder with S.
While scaling press Shift+Y to exclude scaling along the Y axis (so the cylinders all maintain the same height and still fit tightly in the box), and while editing scroll the mouse wheel to control the influence radius so it encompasses all cylinders. Make sure you hide or lock the box beforehand so it is not affected.
Adjust scaling as desired to create the amount of variation you see fit. Scale multiple times if necessary to achieve a larger range of sizes.

Now play the animation with Alt+A, to cache the physics simulation. You may also need to adjust the Rigid Body World properties in the Scene tab of the Properties Window, like increasing the Steps per Second and Solver Iterations.

Let it play for a while after falling, so the simulation settles down. The end result should be what you desire.
You can then optionally apply physics if you want static objects with actual position, or join them all into a single mesh. You may also remove one end of the cylinders so you get a "2D" flat pattern.

Duarte, I'm always impresed by how smart your solutions are. I'm thinking about an alternative answer right now. It may be hard after seeing yours though :)

@PaulGonet Thanks mate, glad you like it :) Took me a few tries with different techniques including particles. This is not at all my area though, but that's what I love about BSE, it forces us to try new things and learn outside our comfort zone. If you find any alternatives be sure to post them, and feel to poke me, I'm definitely interested in seeing what you cook up :)

..it would be tempting to shake the box in X a little to see whether the cylinders settle any more.. annealing.. but I guess it might create as many gaps as it would fill..

That is impressive!


text:
Two viewer nodes, switch between output images
Is it possible to switch between the output images of two Viewer Nodes? To get the rgba values and the z-depth, i linked a Render Layer node to two Viewer Nodes (one for rgba and one for z-depth). Even if i change the name of the node, i can only access on the picture with:
bpy.data.images['Viewer Node'].pixels

I tried to select the other node (and deselecting the previous one), but even then i get the same results (bpy.data.images['Viewer Node'].pixels[0]) as before. I noticed, if i select the node manually in the node editor, then the result changes, but also the python log was not helpful.
Is there another way to solve this? Thank you.

Can you not just use the Split Viewer node to do what you need?

It doesn't look like you can set the active viewer node from Python. Viewer data will always be in that image datablock ('Viewer Node') so you'd have to change the node. What are you trying to do with this?

Do you remember how you solved this?


text:
Drag select with mouse
Is it possible to select the objects by dragging left mouse button like in other CAD or 3D softwares. If i change the keyboard shortcuts to Maya in the settings I could do that. But I dont know which key is mapped to that. This could be done with box select but i want to achieve something by clicking on blank screen and dragging the mouse.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/5004/599

I believe that you are looking for B. B allows for exactly what you describe -- Box Select. Upon its being pressed, the cursor turns into a crosshair and awaits your  LMB dragging. Note that you can additionally use  MMB to Box Deselect.
It works as an additive or subtractitive tool, only selecting more or less, never affecting ones already selected or deselected. It works in every editor that you can select something (not just the 3D Viewport but the UV Image Editor, Graph Editor, etc.)

Thanks a lot for your answers. I am aware of Box select B but I figured out the shortcut it is mapped to.
So this is how I did it I went to
File > User Preferences > Input > 3D view > 3D view Global and  the settings of
view3d.select_border to Tweak + select + any then I could select the way wanted it to be.
Its really useful at time while working with a lot of meshes.

I have set up a similar hotkey. To expand it further, I have also create ctr+drag to deselect.

Yes, you can set this yourself in the user preferences.
Navigate to File > User Preferences > Input > 3D view > 3D view Global
Navigate to the end of the list and add a new operator. The operator you are looking for is view3d.select_border
Then change the event type to Tweak, Select, Any
Add as many as you like for modifier keys like Shift, Ctrt or Alt
Have in mind that you may have to manually clear any other operators using the mouse tweak event so there are no conflicts which may cause the new hotkey to fail. Use the search function at the top for Key Binding to find conflicts


text:
Materials in the game engine have no shadows
I am trying to make a game in blender, but any material that I add to anything in the game has no shadows

Switch to material mode before starting the game

i tried that but only the land had shading, the house stayed all white even in material mode, i appended this house into this scene, could that have anything to do with it?

Maybe. Did you assign a material to it?

i did, but it didnt work

Use dynamic shadows. Check the shdow propery of your lamp object.

Or bake your shadows in blender render or cycles, what can lead to better performance, however they will be static.

thanks for your help, but i found out that if i just appended the meshes in material mode i wouldnt have the problem

@K1320 what do you mean by "appended the meshes in material mode..."? Turning on shadows in Game mode is exactly as atevm described. Unless you are not interested in the models casting shadows but rather show shading on the surface of your model?


text:
Blender exporting sharp edges to mesh file
Is there a way to export blender file to any of the mesh file format with sharp edge information? In other words, is there a mesh file format which supports sharp edge information in Blender?

It might really help us to understand what software you are expecting to export to ... 3dsmax, maya ... etc. Usually I would just used the "edge spilt" modifier and apply it before exporting, if I really need those sharp edges to showup in other software packages.

One solution is to:

Go to properties panel
Add edge split modifier and apply it.
Export your model to any format that behaves well with the target software.

Use edge split before exporting your file.

Which format you are talking about? What about .obj file?

@Abdul Kadir I think you misunderstood my sentence. What I meant was any format that behaves well with the target software you are exporting to. You have to test that yourself since you never did say what software you are exporting to ... eg. 3d studio max, Maya, Softimage, Autocad 3d ... so I wouldn't know how to advice what is the best format. Once you apply Edge split the sharp edges will appear in any format you export to. since what it does is to separate the model joined faces at the sharp edges you define in blender.

So even if you apply smooth shading on the model in other 3d packages the affected faces will never be recognised as one whole but 2 different elements.

If you want to export your mesh while keeping the sharp edges these are the steps you will need to take:
EXPORTING

In Blender you need to make sure that your 'Sharp Edges* aren't actually Creases.

In the event that they are Creases then go into Edit Mode (with the desired object selected).

Select 1 of the creased edges and go to the top left and click Select > Select Similar > Crease.

This should have selected all the 'similarly' creased edges (if not then you can manually do it, or find another way to select em all.

Then press Ctrl +  E > Mark Sharp

Once we now know all desired edges are sharp, go into your modifiers tab, add an 'Edge Split' modifier. (I know nobody really uses this modifier so bare with me).

Then you want to deselected Edge Angle and Keep Selected Sharp Edges (This basically says "Yeah I wanna split the edges that I have marked sharp" and forget the rest)

Now you can apply the modifier and begin with your exporting. (File > Export whatever format you want)

Then you can send it to someone or do what you want with the file, throw it in the trash a few time I don't care

Importing

This part is also annoying so bear with me, import the file into blender
Then you may not notice it at first but if you put a subdivision surface modifier on the object you'll see pretty easily where the edges are.
You will see all the edges you HAD marked sharp are now split, wow, you are doing great, keep it up.
So from here, you want to select one of the (cyan/blue) sharp edges and go to the top left and click Select > Select Similar > Sharpness
With these all selected you now want to click  M > By Distance
Then you will see you have the edges joined now but they aren't sharp anymore (thanks blender) to fix this you should have everything still selected, if not then click Select > Select Similar > Sharpness and all the desired edges should be selected again
Then you want to press ⇧ Shift +  E > press  1, this should mark everything as creased again and the edges should be nice and pointy, just how you like em

Pretty sure you can mess around from here on in.


text:
Where are the Motion Blur controls in 2.76b as shown in the Manual?
Under the Render tab (Cycles Render), the motion blur options are very simple compared to what I see in the Manual:  https://www.blender.org/manual/render/cycles/settings/motion_blur.html#options
Where can I find these extra motion blur controls?

Looks like they already updated the documentation for the the upcoming 2.77 release. The test builds do have these extended controls.


text:
All object transforms are at 0, 0, 0
So, I have a bit of an interesting problem.
To cut a long story short, I've had to export an OpenFlight model to Collada, then import that into Blender so I can export it into FBX and use it in Unity. My problem, however, is when I get it into Blender, the positions of all the objects in my scene are at 0, 0, 0.
Basically, it's like if someone modeled a chair, but instead of modeling it in the middle of the room and then moving it to where it needs to be, it's like they modeled it right where it needs to be, with the geometry offset from the origin.
Is there some way, in all of Blender's infinite power, to move the transform to where the geometry is?
And not move the geometry to where the transform is, because, if I did that, I would basically implode the entire model.
Thanks!

not 100% sure why your problem is, but try this

Select all the objects you want to change the transforms.
Then open Object menu, select Transform>Origin to Geometry.
That will change the origins only and not the rotations of the objects.

I knew it. I knew there was some crazy wacky "does exactly what I needed" button somewhere. Thank you!


text:
nodes missing from node editor
The default defuse node missing from node editor - i have tried repairing / did a reinstall -- changed the cycles render // chose use node editor from the material tab. Blender 2.78c. I cannot insert or create a new node.
here is the screen shoot.

ahh... my bad.. the use node check box was not ticked.

Diffuse shader node (if you were looking for it in the question) is material node whereas your nodetree is displaying Compositing nodes. So which nodes did you want to use?


text:
how do I keep my videos from speeding up?
When I am saving videos in the Video Editing part the video itself is going at twice the speed while the audio stays the same. I  can't seem to fix it and have no idea what to do.

Possible duplicate of Why will audio and video not sync in rendered video file?

Check to make sure that your framerates line up. If the framerate of your imported video is different from your scene settings, that could cause this.


text:
How to make a model hold a gun?
How do I make a character hold a gun? At the same time, if I want to have a cutscene where one person is holding the gun and gives it to another, how would I do something like that?

Look into the Child Of constraint: https://docs.blender.org/manual/ja/dev/rigging/constraints/relationship/child_of.html

BornCG has several tutorials about this here is the link https://www.youtube.com/user/cgboorman

You animate the influence of the constraint to switch it from one person to the other.

Alright, thanks. I'll have to look into those.


text:
can't find light linking branch for 3.6
Is there a way to find the light linking experimental component for 3.6 (mac)?
I can't upgrade to 4.0 because of hardware.

Does this answer your question? Are previous branch builds saved anywhere? I'm looking for the 3.0 viewport compositing branch that never made it to main The problem might be, as stated in the answer, not every branch is kept so you might have no luck. But if you want to search somewhere, I would start at the given link there.

thank you! I have seen this and looked through this section in the bender website before posting.

Oh, okay... so when you already know the official repository I'm not sure what you were asking for... "a way to find" any other site that's not official would be to ask Google and hope there are inofficial/private archives for unfinished branches, because Blender will surely not provide multiple archives for abandoned branches.

Hello. yaelblender. Thanks for your research before posting. I think Gordon is right, though,@Marty Fouts has answered this question as comprehensively as any of us can, and it's fair to close this post as a duplicate. This must be frustrating.. I wish we could do more.


text:
How to add embroidered elements to a cloth
Is there a simple way to add embroidered elements to a cloth simulation? I want to recreate the fabric in this photo. Thanks in advance

Please help me understand why this q was downvoted. I have researched it prior to asking it here and did not find a solution to this specific issue I had in mind.

There is no point to simulate with embroidery, because it just follow the cloth
UV coordinates are constant and stable even after simulation and subdivision, so if you know geometry nodes, you can wrap it.
There is surface deform modifier, that can make embroidery to follow the surface with deformation
You can make only points deformed by surface and then instance threads over them

offset:

How did you create those raised dots?

Just transfom, move along Z initial sphere or translate instances or Normal as offset vector. Added pictures

authors: Вячеслав Кобозев


text:
animation-like cloth simulation

I am trying to recreate this illustration in blender. So far no luck with simulating the bottom part of the paper where it folds while also lending on the character.
I tried cloth simulation, and also proportional editing the creases with keyframes but they seem to dissolve with the cloth simulation. Any idea how to do it?

I found a way.
Added a Curve Modifier (using a path curve) that created wave-like distortions, then simulated as Cloth.


text:
How to smooth extremely dense mesh?
I have an imported model (which actually is a surface projection of an microscope Z-stack image, exported as STL) which is extremely grainy, composed of almost 1M verts. Is there any way to reduce number of verts/faces and smooth it to recover the general cell shape? I tried smooth and remesh modifiers, but it didn't help a lot :(
Thanks for any ideas!
Art.

Use MeshLab for this kind of work. It's free. Blender is not the right tool.

I would try to export a less detailed model to begin with - might be much easier this way

Try shrink wrapping a simpler geometry to the object.

Try scaling it on the Z axis to 0 in edit mode to get rid of all the bumps if thats what you are asking.

Note that this will not minimize amount of geometry and resources required to handle with it, rather create quite a bit of overlapping faces even in your example and a horrible mess of overlaps in the OP's example.