text:
Transparent lines for a hologram like effect
I have a hologram like effect in the Cycles render engine. And so far I'm satisfied with the results.

And my node setup is this ("Emission" shader and "Transparent" shader are mixed together by a "Layer Weight" node in the "Factor" value of the "Mix Shader" -

However, is there a way to create those transparent lines that when animated go upwards like in many sci-fi movies? Something like this -

David's answer works for me now, but lets say that the object was rigged and animated, is there a way for lines to travel at the direction of the Z normal of some projector of the hologram regardless of the animation of the object? This is what I mean by a "projector" (the sphere like object is projected by a projector [the object underneath it]) - http://www.digibuzzme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/blender_3d_hologram_by_logichy.jpg

Lets say that the floor in the first image above is the projector of the hologram. Is there a way for the lines to travel at the direction of the Z normal of the floor regardless of the animation of the object?

I used a Checker Texture to make the lines, adjust the scale to make the thickness of the lines you want. The Mapping node's Scale along the Y and X to 0, stretches out the checker texture to make it a line. Then the Location along the Z is animated to make the lines move.
Replace the two Emission nodes for your hologram shader.

Thanks. I tried something. Is this ok, or I'm missing something? - http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31537

Also if possible, is there a way for the transparent part to be not completely transparent?

@Vladimir http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31538 take a look at what I did to the nodes.

Thanks (pretty easy actually). Just one last thing - Lets say the hologram (monkey) was projected by the floor underneath it, is there a way for the lines to be aligned with it (the lines to move upwards according to the Z normal of the floor)? ('cause that's why I needed the effect in the first place)

sounds like you would want to UV project from View (Bounds) to get all the UV aligned, then just stretch out the texture again.


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Holographic lighting in Cycles
Is it possible to create a holographic lighting in cycles? This is possible In the Blender Internal render engine, but I'm not going for linking lamps. Here is what I mean (the light that is holding the sphere inside it) -

Yes, this is possible using volumetrics:

Method 1:
Using a cube to scatter light emitted from a spot lamp.

Create a cube and give it a volume scatter material:

Add a spot lamp:

Method 2:
You could also fake this by modeling the cone, then using a volumetric gradient for the falloff:

It won't be as physically accurate or as flexible, but it will be less noisy:

Example .blend (for both methods)

Thanks. is the light source a "sun lamp"?

@Vladimir No, a sun lamp wouldn't work for this at all..

Would you like to post a blend? 'Cause the volume is showing the shape of the cube and its nothing like your image above.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Convert an image with black background to a black and white
Is there a way to convert an image with a bleck background to a bleck and white so that I can use it as a mask in Cycles?
Here's the idea - From this:

To this:

I'm creating this Earth scene from "blenderguru.com" (link below) howeever, the clouds in Cycles are not visible enough and part of the clouds is fully transparent -
Internal -

Cycles -

Internal material -

Cycles material -

I don't know what it does in the Internal, but I expect the same result in Cycles. If anyone can explain to me why do clowds are less visible in Cycles?
Earth tutorial - http://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/create-a-realistic-earth/

By the way, I used the same clouds texture for the Fac of the Mix Shader.

have you tried using index of object as a mask ?

not sure what you need, but you can add a color ramp to your cloud mask image (mix fac) to control cloud's transparency

I did thought of that, but isn't there a way to just isolate/remove the clowds from the mask, 'cause the color ramp wouldn't do it perfect. I haven tried index for an image. I'll see how it works.

do you need your cloud's shapes or sphere's shape as mask?

Just the image - http://www.pasteall.org/pic/84570
The part with the clouds would be pure white so that I can just use it as a mask to hide the black part.

to create a mask from BW image you can use this nodes :

you can change the threshold for different results

color ramp (constant) can give easier/more visual control.

You're right (I should spend more time on ramping). In the compositor when the ColorRamp is switched to "Constant" it separates it perfectly. Thanks for the answer.

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Mapping a terrain evenly
I haven't thought of it before, but is there a way to map a terrain evenly?
What I would do is subdivide a plane, asign to it a texture and then sculpt it to make it uniform. But, from the sculpting process the texture suffers as a result because it stretches as I sculpt. Here's what I mean (These are low poly examples just for demonstration, but with high poly count they can be made to look the same, but the texture suffers) -
What I do -

How I think should be done -

As I do it (image 3) if the terrain was flat, the texture will be evenly mapped along the mesh.

But on a bumpy terrain the texture will stretch (Image 4)

That wouldn't happen on an even topology (image 2).
Is this a topology issue or a mapping issue? Is there a solution for this?
Note - I want to map a terrain without squishing and stretching at all. Is it possible?

that  would still happen even on an even topomogy, because you are using the undistorted  UVmap for the sculpted plain

That wouldn't happen on an even topology (image 2).

Yes it would.
Sculpted surface has a larger area than the flat one, stretching is inevitable.
What you wanna do is to sculpt the surface first, then texture it with Clone Texture brush and bake the texture. That way it won't be stretched on the model but instead as a result it will be stretched/squashed in UV editor (which is fine).

I kinda thought of that at first, but I thought there would be difficulties with other maps if they have to be equally mapped. I guess its not as hard as I thought. Thanks :)

Another way to get a nice texture without stretching is to use box mapping. It basically projects the texture onto your geometry from the sides of a box with the option to add some blending where the texture's edges meet. It often works well with organic textures. There's an option for it in the image texture node. You don't need to create a UV map for this.

Projecting a texture means stretching it. Box mapping DOES stretch images.

That's correct a little bit of stretching is unavoidable. Not particularly noticeable stretching would be more appropriate.

Unfortunately, the distortion which occurs when 2D textures are applied to 3D geometry is unavoidable. When the changes in elevation in the terrain are gentle—about 40 degrees from the horizontal, or less—the distortion is usually small enough that it can be overlooked. When the slope is greater, I find it necessary to add additional geometry to deal with the distortion. This illustration shows how I dealt with an extreme case

The left half of the image shows the feature as originally modeled; the blue and yellow is a preliminary texture and will be replaced with a suitable rock texture. The right side shows the feature with the additional geometry which will be fit into the bit on the left. More information is in my answer to a related question.
In some cases in addition to modifying the geometry, it may be necessary to modify the texture, or choose a different one.


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How to model an equilateral triangular pyramid?
How to create triangular pyramid with equal length of edges?

Note - I'm not looking for a way to create one with a single click, but I want to be able to model one from scratch.

David - That is about 4 sided pyramid. This is about 3 sided.

cegaton - That question is about creating, not modeling from scratch. This other answers are explaining the modeling (I think), but I don't understand quite well. Might be my lack of english.

See here

Note: There are superior ways to perform this task, but the question asked to be shown how to model an equilateral triangular pyramid from scratch.
Step 1:
Add a plane.
Step 2:
Delete all edges except for one.
Select these two verts:

Delete Them to get this:

Step 3:
Select one vertex on the edge.
Step 4:
Hit Shift-S, and select: Cursor to Selected
To get this:

Step 5:
Hit Period. (Not on the number pad)
This icon should look like that:

Step 6:
Select The edge, and hit Shift-D then R then Z then 60.
You should end up with this:

Step 7:
Select the other vertex on your original edge repeat step 4, and then repeat Step 6.
If the edge when the wrong way, undo your last move, and use -60 degrees instead.
Once complete your scene should look like this:

Step 8:
Hit W, and select remove doubles.
Now you can see that we have the base of the primid
Step 9:
Select the base and hit Shift-D then R then X then 70.5288.
One side is now in place
Step 10:
Select the side that we have created, duplicate it (Shift-D), and rotate it 300 degrees along the z - axis.
Step 12:
Remove all doubles.
Note:
If the top vertices don't merge, select them and hit alt-M, and chose center.

Can you reexplain step 5? What do you mean by "Period"? I know this might be a stupid I ask, but I need to study some English terminology.

its the key with a dot on it: .

Ok, thanks. My English is not very bad, but I asked because in terms of Blender it might meant something else.

@Vladimir Okay, very happy to help.

And if possible some screenshots, 'cause It confuses me a little.

@Vladimir I will add them very soon!

@Vladimir Could you tell me wich steps confuse you, so I can save time

All clear. Just one thing - 70.5288 is the angle between the base and side triangle right?

@Vladimir Yes it is

Add a cone: 3D View header > Add > Cone
Change Vertices to 3
For Depth enter sqrt(2) and hit return

Thanks. I didn't know you can answer after the accepted answer, but cool. (Don't get me wrong. I really didn't know that).

Answers can always be added and up/down voted, unless the question is put on hold or closed. You can even change what the accepted answer is as questioner.

Where do you change Vertices to 3? I cant seem to find that.

It's at the bottom of the tool shelf, Add Cone. If it's not visible on the left-hand side of the 3D viewport, press T. I added a screenshot to my answer.

The vertices of a cube include the vertices of a tetrahedron, the math name of an equilateral pyramid.

From a front orthogonal view (numpad 1), in edit mode, wireframe, select the upper right vertex.
Shift select the left bottom vertex, and then f to put an edge between the vertices.
Press numpad 3 to change the view, and add the diagonal from the upper left to bottom right vertices.
Press numpad 7 and create the diagonal from lower right to upper left.
Select and delete all four unused cube vertices.
Select all (A key) vertices and press f twice.
The tetrahedron is complete but not positioned.
Switch to object mode, solid view.
From front view, rotate the tetrahedron on y axis +-45 degrees until nearest edge is horizontal. In side view rotate on the x axis until this same edge is horizontal (35.18?? degrees).
The tetrahedron bottom is in an x-y plane.

This answer would benefit a lot from a couple of screenshots. You also seem to have duplicated part of your instructions.

I'm fond of euclidean geometry. So instead of starting with a 3 point "circle"; The interior angles of a triangle Always add up to 180 degrees.
Topview
Change pivot point to active element. Create a line along X or Y axis. Set selection mode to points. Select the line with one point active (white). Shift D copy and rotate 60 degrees. Select original line. Make active point the opposite one from the first time you selected it. Same routine. You have an equilateral triangle. Select all points and remove doubles. The edge that is aligned along an axis is the one that must have the active element point in it.
Topview
Select the point that doesn't have lines along an axis. Extrude it through the triangle. Change to object mode. Rotate object so that a different side aligns to an axis. Edit mode. Select the point that doesn't have lines along an axis. Extrude it through the triangle until it's real close to earlier extrusion (bisect line). Zoom in and move the newest point, along extrusion axis, until it directly intersects the earlier extruded line. Front view. Extrude along z axis, up higher than size of triangle. The length of it means nothing if it's longer than the triangle.
Top view.
Select triangle, active point on the line oriented to an axis.
Change view to front or side so that the line points directly away. Duplicate and rotate until upper point comes close to upward pointing line. Zoom in and line it up perfectly.
Delete the extruded vertices. There's 3 of them. You have two triangles in the correct relationship. You can use line select and make faces. Select all after correct faces exist. Remove doubles. Done.

Start with an edge of 1 meter
Extrude it along Z of 1/sqrt(2) meters
Triangulate the face
Duplicate all and rotate around Z of 180 degrees
Select the top vertices and rotate them 90 degrees around Z
Merge by distance

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About OSL shaders?
I was learning about the Open Shading Language and I found this. I know that these are codes for creating OSL shaders, but when writing them in Blender, do they have to be written as they are here or just what it is in the brackets? For example - "Diffuse (N)" or just "N"? -
BSDF
diffuse(N)
oren_nayar(N, roughness)
reflection(N)
refraction(N, ior)
microfacet_beckmann(N, roughness)
microfacet_beckmann_refraction(N, roughness, ior)
microfacet_ggx(N, roughness)
microfacet_ggx_refraction(N, roughness, ior)
phong_ramp(N, exponent, colors[8])
diffuse_ramp(N, colors[8])
translucent(N)
transparent()
ashikhmin_velvet(N, roughness)
ward(N, T, roughness_u, roughness_v)
diffuse_toon(N, size, smooth)
glossy_toon(N, size, smooth)
westin_sheen(N, roughness)
westin_backscatter(N, edginess)
hair_reflection(N, roughnessu, roughnessv, T, offset)
hair_transmission(N, roughnessu, roughnessv, T, offset)
Here is the page:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Render/Cycles/Nodes/OSL

I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you asking what OSL is? Or are you asking what the list of functions you included means?

No, just the list.

This list of functions you included is a list of BSDF 'closures' that are available in the Cycles render engine using OSL. A 'closure' is explained as follows:

OSL's surface and volume shaders compute an explicit symbolic description, called a "closure", of the way a surface or volume scatters light, in units of radiance. These radiance closures may be evaluated in particular directions, sampled to find important directions, or saved for later evaluation and re-evaluation. This new approach is ideal for a physically-based renderer that supports ray tracing and global illumination.
In contrast, other shading languages usually compute just a surface color as visible from a particular direction. These old shaders are "black boxes" that a renderer can do little with but execute to find this one piece of information (for example, there is no effective way to discover from them which directions are important to sample). Furthermore, the physical units of lights and surfaces are often underspecified, making it very difficult to ensure that shaders are behaving in a physically correct manner.

See the OSL Introduction page for more info.
Put simply, a closure is like a building block for a shader. For each pixel in the final image, the renderer passes various bits of information (surface normal, roughness, index of refraction, etc.) to a closure. The closure returns some sort of information about the reflected light from a surface based on the information the renderer passed it. They're very similar to the shaders (BSDFs) in Cycles. It's just a different language.
You can download some example OSL shaders here
and a really good introduction to OSL programming in Blender here
Note: this list of closures is available to the Cycles render engine, but not necessarily any other OSL-compliant render engine; the engine has to provide its own closures.

bytheway, are the shaders explained or you have to wright it all? For example, "refraction(N, ior)". In the Text editor you have to wright the refraction as "N, ior" or "refraction(N, ior)?"

When you want to use refraction, you would have to write refraction(N, ior), but 'N' and 'ior' need to be variables that hold the correct values. Also, you'd need to output the value returned by refraction(N, ior). Are you familiar with programming?


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How to add a specularity map in cycles?
I've seen some examples like on BlenderGuru.com and some other youtube tutorials. But, what would be considered the proper way to add a specularity map in cycles?

Do it just like blender guru. To do this see image:

To be more specific, Cycles is a unbiased ray tracing engine. That means that computer actually computes the rays of light in the scene. Because of this the specularity of a material is not controlled by a setting, but by the actual physical properties that create the effect. For this reason their is no specularity setting.
The reason why some render engines have a control for specularity is because they fake the effect.

I would use a mix node and connect the map to the factor input:

Also see these related questions:

I'd like to have portions of a texture not glossy
How does fac differ with manual control versus node control?


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How to work with parameters?
How can I work with parameters in Blender? I tried searching on Google, but I didn't find results.
When I change the parameter on the X and Y axis, it works well, but when I go into Edit mode, I can't see the parameters. And when I extrude, I can't adjust them on the extrusion. How can I work with dimensions and how to make the parameters in real world scale?

See also http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/274/what-are-some-best-practices-when-modelling-with-exact-measurements/275#275

Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/68678/28015

First set the Units in the Scene properties to Metric or Imperial. If you are using Imperial, then checking Separate Units can help make it more natural.
For 2.8x
For 2.7x
When entering in units in Object mode using the Dimensions, watch the scale. You have to apply the scale ( ctrl A > Scale ) before the same measurements will show in edit mode. When the scale of the object is applied (all three field set to 1)  then dimensions will work as excepted in edit mode.

How do you have the "scale" transforms in edit mode?

And do I have to use the "scale" or "dimensions" for modeling?

@Vladimir there is no scale transform box in edit mode, that is one of the reason that the object must be scaled to 1.

Ok thanks. I meant about the two boxes in the panel - "scale" and "dimension", the second one should be used, right?

yes the dimensions are what you will be entering.

@Vladimir it's you https://www.google.com/#q=380cm+to+m

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

how can I scale individual faces in edit mode. I have the hight of the cube 2.4m and now one face needs to 3cm higher. In edit mode when I tipe 3 it scales in meters or something. Do you know how?


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How to make a bannister for a spiral staircase?
Let's say you have a shape that would act as one stair step:

Then you add an empty and both the object and the empty have the same origin point. Then you add an array modifier to the stair step, and manipulate the empty to make a spiral staircase.

How would anybody make a railing surrounding the staircase?

When subdivision surface is used, the fence not to be straight from step to step, but round.
Here is what I mean:
Not this -
But this -
Edit: The merge option in the array modifier doesn't seem to do a good job

Does anybody knows how can I make a fence that follows the spiral in a perfect alignment with the spiral that follow the stairs and at the same time every part of it to be connected so that when subdivision surface is added to it, the fence to be rounded, like the representation in the 5th image from above?
Edit: I did it as Gandalf3 explained, but I'm having a problem.

What is that line that is visible when subdivision surface is added and how to fix it?
Note: I was having trouble with vertex groups so I duplicated the model and on the duplicate I applied the array so I could use it as a guide to align the vertecies of the end of the cylindar to the begining of the second one ("cursor to selected"-"selection to cursor"). And I edded a hook modifier and made the "Object" to be the "Empty" and on "Vertex groups" I added the vertex group. And I'm not sure if they are now connected. And I didn't parent the empty to the other empty. But they should be connected now right? Here is the blend file if someone would like to check it out -
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/29776
Its my first upload file so inform me if it can't opened.

One way is to just add some cylinders to your stair object:

Add the cylinder meshes while in edit mode with the stair object selected.
Line up the geometry on the end of each cylinder (snapping is useful here, as it leaves no doubt about which vertex should be merged with what):

What I did in the gif:

Note the Z rotation of the array empty (this is only needed for the initial setup, it will be done automatically later), then enter edit mode and rotate the end to the cylinder the same amount (in my case, ~3.1)
Enable apply modifier to edit cage on the array modifier (inverted triangle icon).
Ensure the snapping type is set to Vertex and Self snapping is enabled in 3D view > Header.
Select any part of the horizontal cylinder, then press CtrlL (select linked) CtrlI (Invert selection) H (Hide selection) to get a clearer view and make snapping easier.
With the rotated end of the horizontal cylinder selected, press G and then hold Ctrl with your mouse cursor over the other end of the cylinder in the next array element.

Now enable Merge in the array modifier to merge those vertices together, resulting in a sub-serfable railing:

By using hooks parented to the main empty, you can keep the merged parts in the right locations, no matter where you move the main empty:

To do this, select the end of the horizontal railing cylinder and press CtrlH> Hook to new object. This will automatically add a vertex group, an empty, and a hook modifier. The hook modifier will bind the location of the vertices in the vertex group to the location of the empty.
Parent the newly created hook empty to the empty controlling the array (CtrlP> Object).

Repeat the hook+parent for the bottom edge loop of the central column.

See this example .blend to explore it yourself :)

Thanks. The thing is that, what ever the fence is made of, I want it to fit the spiral shape using the empty. Any ideas?

@Vladimir If you add the cylinders to your stair object while in edit mode, so that they are both part of the the object with the array modifier (as shown in the image), it will follow the empty automatically.

Thanks. I see that now, but the height of the horizontal cylinders would have to be adjusted manually so it doesn't follow the spiral shape of the stairs perfectly. And the horizontal like cylinders have only one cylinder to connect to so if you add a "subdivision surface" modifier it will not be a smooth/round shape. The horizontal cylinders would still be straight horizontally. Any other ideas?

If my last comment was confusing, I edited my question, check it out.

I like your last explanation, but Is there a way to make a curve to follow the spiral formation made by the empty resulting in a fence?

Gandalf3, I tried your approach, but some funny distortion of the mesh happens and when it merges, only some vertices merge. No matter how I play with the merge value, I can't get even close to your result. What am I doing wrong?

@Vladimir Can you upload your .blend or some screenshots?

The subdivision surface modifier is added after the array.

@Vladimir Your vertices aren't very aligned.. (I'll update my answer)

Ok. I never used merging for the array modifier very often, because I always like clean and fixed results, but I'll try to handle it. Thanks.

I just saw your blend file in your answer and figured out that you were using a "hook" modifier (that I never used before) so, the empty should be at the center of the end of the horizontal cylinder right? Why are there two Hook modifiers? Does the "force" control the merge limit?

@Vladimir I'm updating my answer, hopefully it will be clear in a second..

Sorry if I'm a bother, but how did you parent the empty 001 to just the handle since its not a separate object from the stairs?

@Vladimir It is a separate object. It's not possible to have an empty which is part of any other object (even another empty).

Sorry, I just don't understand something. When I select the object, everything highlights yellow. When I tab into edit mode, everything is editable at the same time, like one object. There is no other object. And how did you parent the empty 001 to the fence? I know how to make parent, but this is just on one part of the cylinder. How? Sorry, I just don't get it.

@Vladimir I'm not sure what you mean entirely.. The empty isn't parented to the fence/railing, it's parented to the empty controlling the array. If that doesn't answer your question, could you upload your .blend?

It is about your blend file. You said the fence is a separate object, but there is only one object in your file. However the "empty 001" is controlling one side of the cylinder and the other remains stationary. How is that achieved?

@Vladimir I meant the empty is a separate object. The empty is the target of a hook modifier, which basically parents a vertex group to an object (in this case, an empty). So there is a vertex group of one side of the cylinder, which is hooked to empty.001.

Ok. I'm really a sort of nub in blender so, now its clear

Guys, try to use the chat.

@DantheMan Yeah.. Sorry. Vladimir said he couldn't log on though.. :/

I'm sure I typed the correct name and password, but it says repetetly "no account found with that name", so I'll try not to type a lot in the "comments" (if that's some kind of violation or something).


text:
Spherical emitter does not illuminate very well?
I remember when I was recreating my bathroom and I modeled the lamp and gave it a glass material, but when I came to the lighting it got confusing. I modeled a sphere in the lamp because in real life the lighting comes from the lamp obviously. And then when I render the scene, no matter how strong the sphere light is I always get a pretty low light.
Is Cycles a realistic or close to realistic render engine? Or what lamps should I use? Do I have to fake the light? How can I replicate the lighting as in real life?
Edit: I'm not sure if the spherical emitter will light up the room better if it is not inside a glass material

Could you provide a link to your .blend-file and post some screenshots/render-output so one can see what is wrong? Your description of the problem is not very clear about what has gone wrong except "something with the light, it's too dark", thanks

So you have a lamp object inside a mesh object? or have you used an emission node on the mesh material? a mesh around a light object will block light emission like an object casting a shadow.

See http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/2558/599. The glass object around the emitter will make it very difficult for the emitter to illuminate objects, as a ray must bounce off an object and through the glass in order to illuminate the object. While this approach might work okay with Bidirectional PT and MLT, you probably want to use some tricks to render this with backwards PT as cycles uses.

Also related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8645/reflecting-direct-light-on-glossy-surface-in-cycles. If you want to be as physically accurate as possible, you might want to look at using luxrender.

The problem
The issue here is that cycles, which uses backwards path tracing (tracing light rays from the camera to the light sources), is not very good at rendering caustics in these  kinds of situations.
This is because it's not very likely for a ray to bounce off a surface, transmit through the glass bulb, and hit the element within. Multiple Importance Sampling (MIS) usually helps with this by guiding more rays to hit light source(s), however the glass bulb surrounding the light source effectively prevents this from working.
From left to right: Element with MIS, Element without MIS, Element with MIS and glass bulb.

To properly render such a situation, solutions like Bi-direction path tracing and Metropolis Light Transport (MLT) exist. Unfortunately, cycles does not yet have this functionality, and it is considered "not a priority" according to the cycles roadmap.
Even so, there is a working patch for MLT (and adaptive sampling/stopping) which is being actively developed as of the time of this posting. You will have to compile blender yourself (it's really not hard) to use this patch.
There is also an older patch for Bi-dir here.
Here is an example render of the element and bulb with the MLT patch:

It's better, but not at all the desired result (I don't really know any of the MLT related settings yet, so it's possible this could be improved some more).

See also:

How is Cycles different from Blender Internal?
reflecting direct light on glossy surface in Cycles (this is a similar problem to yours, but with reflection instead of refraction)
When should MIS be used and when should it be disabled?

Workarounds

Use the fake glass setup (see How to illuminate the darkness inside glass objects in Cycles?):

Basically, if the incoming ray is a reflected ray and/or a shadow ray (A shadow ray is a ray that hits a light source), it is sent straight through as if the glass wasn't there (via the transparent node). This allows MIS to work as it normally does, so you get a nicer result like this (there are some fireflies, but you can probably clamp them out, or combine multiple renders with different seeds, etc.):

Use Luxrender, an open source, unbiased, spectral renderer which has Bi-directional path tracing and MLT support. It also has support for GPU rendering with OpenCL.

Use a point lamp for doing the actual illumination, and make the bulb and filament only visible to the camera by mixing the glass or emission shader with a transparent shader based on the is camera ray output of the light path node.

Notes:
There are a few things which can prevent indirect bounces from transmitting through objects entirely:

No Caustics enabled in Render Settings > Light paths.
MIS disabled on lamps (does not apply for mesh lamps, see What is multiple importance sample option for more details).

Make sure No caustics is disabled and any lamps which you want to shine through or reflect off transmissive or glossy materials have MIS enabled.

thanks. Since I'm a sort of beginner to blender it confused me a little but I'll catch up.


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Why does the wire-frame material fades across the object?
Why does the wire-frame material fades across the object?
Here is what I did - I created a new material and I selected on "Wire" and I made it shadeless. Then, I created a new material and assigned the new material on the on the object. However, doing it that way, it allows me to render both materials - "Wire" and "Surface". Then I get a fading result like this -

But I want all of the edges to be shown, not a fading result. How can I make that?
Here is the blend file if anybody wants to check it out -
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31021

Could you post a .blend?

I was, but I forgot the website, how was it called?

I think this is because of the Z offset. See http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/2784/599

I was playing with the Z-offset, but the same result continues.

@Vladimir http://www.pasteall.org/blend/

Enable Z transparency and increase the Z offset:

Thanks for the answer. I did try play with the offset, but I didn't go that extreme with it.


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How to model a wireframe globe?
What would be the way to model a globe with a wireframe that is formed from face loops and at the same time to have the continents that are not a wireframe shape, however the continents to have outlines of the countries. Just like on the image below  -

Note - Whatever the approach,the end result to be a continuous geometry. By that I mean - I don't want the spherical shape with the wireframe face loops to be a full sphere underneath the continents, but I want them to be in a continuous geometry with the continents. How can I achieve that result?
When unwrapping a sphere on to a black and white earth map, is there a way to turn the white on the mapped polygons into a geometry?
Or if I use the displace modifier, is there a way to remove the non displaced area (the oceans)?
Or maybe when using an alpha map, can the oceans be removed?

Do just want the sphere, or the continents too?

I made an update.

Maybe someone here could point you to the page on how to UV map the Earth onto a sphere.  From there you will have a sphere with a visual template from which to model the continents.  I'd start with a single vertex and the magnet tool set to "Project individual elements on the surface of other objects"  then Ctrl-Click new vertices all along the edges of the continents.

You will need two separate techniques for the above image...
1) A wireframe sphere - follow this quick-tip tutorial from blenderguru
2) For the continents - Apply a height map of the world (just a black and white - continents white, oceans and borders b/n continents black) to a high-poly sphere, as a displacement modifier, and the continents will emerge, being displaced (make sure outwards).
Here is an example of a texture, but this doesn't have the borders b/n countries. Also get a better resolution.

After this you will have something looking like this:

Then you create a new sphere at the same position and scale it, just a slight bit, so that it covers the 'oceans' of the first sphere. Then select the first sphere, create a boolean modifier >> difference >> sphere2.
This way you will have your continents cropped out quick and easy, like so:

Then simply overlay that geometry onto your wireframe sphere model that you have created earlier, and voila.

The displacement idea does not work well in practice. I may be missing somethings, so can you show us a example.

I'll update it in a minute. Sorry for the confusion.

"....to a high-poly sphere and the continents will emerge, being displaced.". By this you mean using a displace modifier, right?

Yes, sorry for not being very clear. I meant using the map in the displacement modifier. But you might need to use a fine resolution on the sphere so you get more details on the edges of the continents.
Also when cropping them out instead of doing that manually use a boolean operation... I will update my answer to show you.

Thanks for the answer. I figured that out my self, but when you retopologyze it with the boolean modifier the outline continents turn to ngons, but still pretty usefull.

Yea, just run a triangulate mod and that should fix it...

First I did a quick Google image search using the key words "map of Earth" then copied one that was in square format.
Second, I added a UV Sphere then unwrapped it with the following settings.
I then drag and dropped the image from the hard drive folder into the UV image Editor and scaled the UV Islands up along the Y-axis to get the image to fit better.
I have Blender Rendering set to Blender Internal and there are some settings on the right that will help you to see the image under the Shading Tab

Now I went back to Object Mode, then clicked over the sphere model to position the cursor onto the surface and added a plane.  In edit mode, I merged the vertices into 1 by using the keyboard shortcut Alt+M and selecting At Center.
In the image that follows, you can see one little orange point hovering near the surface of the textured sphere.
Now look at the bottom of the 3D View and activate the magnet Tool

You can use Ctrl + mouse click to quickly extrude out new vertices all along the continents on the reference model.  (I wrote 'mouse-Click' instead of left-mouse or right-mouse because people use different defaults for the right and left click)

After you have the outlines done you can start manually choosing sections and adding in faces using f Make Face.
You'll have to be careful about this part because the model is curved and making one big face will cause problems because it will be a flat surface trying to fit a curved profile.  Try and make the faces in smaller chunks.
After the continents are filled in, you can use e Extrude to give thickness to the model.  Or you can use the Solidify Modifier.
Now you can delete the reference model with the map on it and replace it with the model that has the Wireframe Modifier on it that is shown in one of the other answers.
If there are any steps that you have problems with then come back to this site and start a new Question for that specific area.
//============================================================================
Update based on comments.
//-----------------------
To make a height map, I used the downloaded picture of Earth mentioned above and loaded it into GIMP and used the Color/Area Select tool that most programs have and selected the ocean color which selected all the ocean area using default settings.  I then flood filled this area with black.  Then I used color contrast to get the following image.

Now I added a second set of UV Coordinates using the following panel,

I did this because the coordinates for the Spheres poles did not fit into the image area properly and I wanted to paint the poles black to hide the errors that were showing up there form bad mapping.
Then I added the height map made in GIMP as a material texture and baked it to the new coordinates.

Then I added this in as the material texture and used texture Paint mode to paint out some of the other problems.
Now I added this texture in as a height map for a Displace Modifier which came after a Sub-D Modifier and at the end I added a Decimate Modifier with the settings in the following image.(You can right-click the image and choose 'View Image' if you can't see the settings from the preview)

Now I applied the modifiers and and used Circle Select to select all the ocean faces.  Once they were all deleted I was left with the following.

Next I added another Decimate Modifier to clean up the mess and reduce the poly count down to something easily manageable.  I was mostly concerned with cleaning the jagged edges at this point, this produced the following.

Next came the Shrink Wrap Modifier with the following settings.

And with a simple lighting setup, the final render.

You could use Texture Paint to paint in dividing lines then bake a normal map from this to get a bit more detail.  That would be far more straight forward than actually creating geometry to divide various countries, states, provinces, etc...

I think the displace would be a good way to go if you de-colorize an image since ground terrain is rough and the low-res height map would not be an issue.  I guess you could do that and then use the circle-select tool to select all the ocean to be deleted.  This will cause you other problems but they can be cleaned afterwards.

You can create a wireframe sphere pretty easily:

Add a UV sphere (ShiftA> Add > Mesh > Sphere)

Add a wireframe modifier:


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How to make a crystal material?
How to make a crystal material in cycles with the node editor?
Much like this -
Not exactly like the image because I'm trying to make an object with a light that is emitting from the center of the object lighting it towards the surface of the object as the light fades. And the object to be crystal like looking (the back faces to be visible too, like a real crystal). The "layer weight" node does something like that, but it shows the materials according to the camera angles and I don't want that. How can I achieve that?

Using volume rendering, you can emit light from inside a glass object. If you use a procedural gradient texture to control the strength, you get a nice effect:

If you bump up the IOR, it helps make it look more like a crystal:

Also see
Controlling volume density

Original answer:
You can make a glass object emit light on other objects without affecting the appearance of the object to the camera with a light path node:

If the incoming ray is a

Camera ray

Transmission ray

Glossy Ray

Then the glass shader is used. If it's not any of the above, then the emission shader is used. If the ray is hitting the back of a face, it always uses the glass shader.
If you want you could also add some emission which is visible to the camera, to make it appear more glowy:

If you want light to be emitted from inside the object, you can use the new volumetrics features:

@Vladimir Not sure why that would be.. Could you upload a .blend or something?

@Vladimir I'm not sure I know what you want.. The layer weight node gives a value between 1 and 0 based on the angle of the incoming ray and the face. The second example uses this to emit more light from faces at grazing angles, but I used a fresnel node instead of a layer weight node. You could use the fresnel socket of the layer weight node to get the exact same result, only the input units are different.. To control the amount of emitted light regardless of angle you can just change the strength of the emission node.

@Vladimir No, only in the last example is light emitted from inside the object. As far as I can see your question doesn't mention anything about emitting light from inside an object, so I didn't take that into account for the first few examples..

@Vladimir Does the third example work for you? If not, Is it possible you could make a mockup/example/reference image of exactly how you want it to look?

@Vladimir What about the last example?

(I was making a change of the comment and a half got deleted) - Your last example is good, its just that I want to be able to control the amount of emition and I want the light to emit from the center of the object lighting it outwards as the light fades toward the ground. Maybe something what the "layer weight - facing" node does, but the issue with it is that the materials are shifting from one to another depending on the camera angle as the camera rotates around it and I don't want that. What can I do?

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

It requires me to log in again and it won't log me in for some reason. Its like this - When you have two materials plugged in a mix shader and then a "layer weight" in the factor value. When a face of an object is facing directly to the camera, it is 100 % the first material and when that face is rotated 90 degrees it is 100 % the other material. That's not what I want. I want simply a glass or crystal like material where there is light emitting from its center outward, lighting the object as the light fades away. The last image in the chat is a lot like what I want. How do you do it?

@Vladimir Something like this?

Much like that. How?


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Texture behaves weird on a plane
I'm in a making of a video game and I have an alpha texture on a plane. The plane is subdivided once (without smoothing). However, when I deform the plane symmetrically, the texture doesn't deform symmetrically even though the plane is symmetrically deformed. By any means of logic this appears very strange to me since the UVs are symmetrical with the image as well -
Flat -

Deforemed -

And as I move the bottom left and top right vertices on the Z axis, the texture remains still as if the plane is not deformed

What seems to be casing this and how can I fix it?

Every Quad is in reality 2 triangles and the behavior you observed is caused by this. Triangulate your mesh with Ctrl+T and rotate the created edges like you want with Ctrl+E > Rotate Edge CW / CCW.

This only happens to non planar faces,  AFAIK


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Object appears jagged in final render?
When I try to render a glass material, in rendered view it looks good, but when rendered, I get this wavy effect and black outlines.

Polygon detail:

The scene is just a glass object with a glass material, background with a texture with a Diffuse shader and a lighting setup of two plane emissions.

Glass: 4 levels of subdivision surface modifier.
Background: 4 levels of subdivision surface modifier.
2 plane emissions, with no modifiers.
80 samples.

What is causing that and how can I fix it?
Here's the file if anybody wants to explore it.

The subsurf modifier on the glass object is disabled in the render.
Make sure the camera icon the subsurf modifier is selected:

Thanks for the answer. The icon is selected, but the object renders as if it is not. I get the same result when I uncheck it, It renders as a low poly object regardless of the icon setting, pretty weird.

@Vladimir It's not selected at all for me in your file, but selecting it fixes it just fine.. Are you sure you have the right object selected?

Yeah, I just saw that. I selected the background instead, my mistake. Thanks.


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Repeat a generated texture in Cycles?
What is the way to multiply a texture across one axis?
Lets assume that I have a plane. How can I multiply the "Gradient" texture in the node editor (Shift A > Textures > Gradient) several times across the plane surface?
Here is what I mean -

I'm aiming for a holographic like effect so that texture will be used for something like this -

I tried using the "Mapping" node, but I still can't figure out what to do. Here's my node setup for the hologram like effect -

The results from the node setup -

My aim is to replace that texture with a "Gradient" texture. What would be the approach?
Update - Is there way of using my own created tiled texture to achieve that effect?
I tried something using the tiled texture above - http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31547
Basicly, I want the darker parts to be used by the one node group and the lighter parts to be used by the other and all in between to transition from the first to the other. Am I doing it right?

This is what I have so far (holographic lines with a checkered texture) - http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31542
My aim is to replace that texture with a "Gradient" texture. What would be the approach?

Does Wave Texture satisfy you any way?

Thanks for the suggestion guys. Wave texture really adds some holographic touch. But, I I still want that gradient effect (as shown in the first image above).

I updated my post. Am I doing it right?

The Vector Mapper came to mind as the first place to look, but it does seem to have the necessary capability. It's still useful for scaling and rotating textures, so we keep it anyway.
The repetition can be done with a conglomeration of simpler nodes.  Being able to assemble simple nodes in all kinds of ways to accomplish anything is what makes Cycles so poweful.
Use the nodes Input -> Texture Coordinates, Vector Mapper, Converter -> Separate RGB and Combine RGB, and Converter -> Math (two of them).
Send "Generated" (or whatever your favorite) texture coordinates into the Vector Mapper, so you can control the orientation of the repeating texture. (Make sure the Min and Max checkboxes are off.)  The Mapper's output is split into separate x,y,z using the RGB splitter. The Splitter doesn't care if the given data is a geometric vector or a color, as long as there's three numbers.
The three outputs feed into the three inputs of a Combiner, except 'X' (aka 'R') goes to a Math node set for Multiply. Put a number in the second slot, like 7, or 20.  The output of this goes to the second Math node, set for 'Modulo'. Its second slot should be 1.0. This feeds the 'R' of the RGB Combiner.
The Combiner's output is the mapped texture coordinate with 'X' made repeating, like a sawtooth wave, ramping up from 0.0 to 1.0 then dropping to 0.0 each cycle.  Feed this as the 'Vector' of the Texture node, Gradient or otherwise.  Behold, the texture repeats!

Welcome to the wonderful world of math!

(note that the top face gets a little screwed up if it's perfectly flat, but that's easy to fix just by adding or subtracting a small value before the Modulo math node)
Modulo is a math operation available in the Math node. It gives the remainder when dividing two numbers (e.g: 5 mod 2 = 1, 9 mod 3 = 0, or 2.3 mod 1.0 = 0.3).
In this case, we divide the coordinates (which range from 0.0 to 10.0, since the mapping scale is on 10) by 1.0, and thus for every whole number the math node shows black (remainder is 0.0), but as the decimal increases it'll get lighter (bigger and bigger remainders) until we reach the next whole number and it turns black again, restarting the cycle.
Since a gradient texture only changes on one axis, we only need to do the modulo operation on the X axis, but in other cases you may want to do it for the Y and Z axes as well.

Thank you. I haven't used the math node so often so that I did not try to multiply a texture with it, hehe.

Smart idea on using Modulo, and very good explanations.

For the mapping node to work properly you need to tell it what the existing mapping coordinates are.  To do this simply add an input > texture coordinates node and plug the UV output (the model must be unwrapped) into the vector input on the mapping node.
Here is what I came up with in terms of making the horizontal lines.

Obviously there is a lot of tweaking to do, this is simply mixing two different colored emission shaders.
Here is the node setup:

Click to enlarge
The texture coordinate node gives the mapping node the mapping coordinates to work with.  Window coordinates are aligned with the view.  I would suggest instead of using window coordinates, go into front view > edit mode > select all (A) > U > Project from view
The mapping node scales the coordinates in the y direction by 100 (looking at it now, that seems a bit too much).
The image texture is this one I created here.  Unfortunately the generated gradient texture does not behave desirably when tiled.

The color ramp is simply to give a little more control of the final mixing.
Instead of two emission shaders you can use the two shaders you have already created.

This is what I have so far (holographic lines with a checkered texture) - http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31542
My aim is to replace that texture with a "Gradient" texture. What would be the approach?

Have you unwrapped the model?

Thanks for answering. I thought it would work on "Generated" so I didn't made any unwrap. So basically, there is no way to tile a gradient texture in some way, right?

I updated my post. Am I doing it right?


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Is there a way to have faces with equal thickness?
When I extrude a face in an angle, the thickness is different according to the angle that the face is extruded. Is there a way to have faces with same thickness? Here is what I mean -

The blue lines are showing the lenght from one edge of the face to the other. They are all the same lenghts. I can acomplish this only by using tricks and it takes me time to do it. When I do it traditionally, I would rotate the edges on every extrusion and of course, the faces are no equal -

What do I have to use to achieve equal thickness of faces?

This is a good place to use a Solidify modifier:

I tried it on edges, but nothing changed. I'll try to play with the settings, thanks.

@Vladimir You can't solidify individual edges, you must have faces.. But in this case you can just extrude a plane and then delete the bottom faces after applying the modifier.

I don't know what I'm missing, but the edges remain to be edges. How did you achieve the above example? I tried all the settings from the modifier

@Vladimir I started off with a plane. You can't really see it, since it's being viewed edge on, but at the end I rotate the view a bit..

Hah, works great (funny I didn't thought of that), thanks.

Just a thing - Is there a way to avoid this overlapping like effect where the last plane is getting in the mesh? - http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31299

@Vladimir You can use the clamp option, (see http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/13680/599), but then they won't be even.. How would you expect the faces to be arranged? I'm not sure there is a solution here.. oh. nvm then. I'll leave this comment in case the link is helpful.

Yeah sorry, I rushed with that comment. The solution would be to lower the thickness, because the mesh would be ruined otherwise. Thanks for the post.


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Is there a way to render an animation that looks like as if it is rendered with the OpenGL lights (View-port lights)?
The view-port lighting is very useful for me for viewing objects and I like its lighting system, which made me wanting to replicate it into my animation renders. For example, I would use this when I want to render a scene with view-port lighting results and at the same time if I want to display some features from the blender internal or cycles render engine. For view-port render there is a view-port render button -
However, the view-port rendering does not feature features from both render engines.

Is there a way to replicate the view-port rendering so that an animation looks as if it is rendered with the view-port rendering button?

If you use sun lamps which don't depend on location, then zooming with the camera won't affect the lighting.

Is there a way to do it in a way that I can preview materials when in rendered view? (same user, different account)

Can you tell which part is Cycles and which is viewport render? ;)

Unfortunately blenders normal ball widgets don't have any way to set values numerically (yet), so you'll have to use some python to get and set the values.

Get the default openGL lights from the user-preferences. To do this, run the following in the python console:
for light in bpy.context.user_preferences.system.solid_lights:
    print(light.direction)

It should print something like
<Vector (-0.8920, 0.3000, 0.9000)>
<Vector (0.5880, 0.4600, 0.2480)>
<Vector (0.2160, -0.3920, -0.2160)>

Create a material and add three normal nodes, then run
bpy.data.materials['openGL'].node_tree.nodes['Normal.001'].outputs[0].default_value = (0.5880, 0.4600, 0.2480)

Where openGL is the name of the material, Normal.001 is the name of your normal node, and (0.5880, 0.4600, 0.2480) is the direction you want to set it too. Do this three times, changing the the node and direction until your three normal nodes look like the light widgets in the user preferences.
Copy/paste the diffuse colors from the user prefs into RGB nodes in your setup:

Note that you can copy/paste colors by pressing ⎈ CtrlC/⎈ CtrlV while hovering over a color field, but make sure the correct window is focused when going between multiple windows.
Setup the rest of the nodes, and enjoy your path-traced openGL renders :P

I'm a little new to coding, but where you say "run the following in the python console", you are referring to the text editor or something else? I've read about python coding, but how do I run the script?

@Vladimir I mean the python console inside blender (It's the last one in the editor list). You could use the text editor, but it will be printed to the system console instead.

Sorry, I'm stuck on "2". What are the 3 normal nodes? Is there a site or tutorial that covers all this?

@Vladimir You have to add three normal nodes to the cycles material (Shift A > Vector > Normal)

Ok, thanks. Do you know something that covers of this so that I can relate to the answer?

Not really.. If you need more clarifications, we can talk in chat (assuming chat working for you now..)

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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Object turns gray when rendering
I made a simple object in Blender but when I go to Render > Image Render the object turns gray. I tried a lot of different things but I am using Blender for the first time and don't even know the basics or where different settings are located. Do you have any idea how could I fix this?

I have lights (sun) angle 11.4 specular 1.0 strength 1000

It would help if you could add your blend file to your question so we can see. (Grab the URL of the question.
Go to https://blend-exchange.com/.
Select the blend file.
Add the url of the question.
Grab the url that results.
Go back to the question and edit it.
Add the new url to the bottom of the post.)  But mainly I suspect you need to add a shader to set the color of your object.

Screenshots would really help. Please [Edit] your questions and use the 'Image' icon to attach images.

Hwllo and welcome, please add some screenshots to see the issue AND my question for you will be... Did you add any lights to the scene?

I added more info and included .blend file. Is the question now visible because it says it is closed?

@Lea add some screenshots of your settings, the issue and verything that you consider useful, the Blend file should be the last resource or support. THe more info you add, the better for your post

@Lea The object with the "gold" material is duplicated. You have two objects in the exact same space. The one that's called Cube.007 has a gold material, Cube.008 has a light gray material and they are the same objects at the same location. You should delete one of them or move one aside. Nevertheless, without any environment or HDRI for the world background, the object will still look quite flat, because there is nothing to reflect apart from a plain white color around it.

I see, I removed the object and I included another screenchot. What can I do to make final render look like it does in display render preview?

As Gordon said....just put e.g. a checker texture before your background in your world shader and choose a red color and you will see "something"

I don't really know how to do this, I am using Blender for the first time..Is there any way I can add the same 'world' as I can see it in display render preview?

You need to add an HDRI image to the world background, or use a sky node

Thank you very much! That worked:)

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


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Type of Shading Maps
I am texturing maps in blender and am using some models ripped from games. I came across some maps that are Black, Green, and Red. I don't know what they are used for e.g.roughness, metallic, normals, etc. All I know is it is named "W". Normally AO is Ambient Occlusion, CS or Diffuse for base color etc., but I can't understand what "W" would stand for.

Game textures usually use a technique called Channel Packing.  If you use a separate rgb node it's likely that each color is a different map.

Yes, since a roughness, ambient occlusion and metalness map are all black and white, it saves memory to put all three of those into one texture. Sometimes a studio might but a Height map into the alpha channel as well.

It definitely looks like a channel pack. Now the issue is, there isn't really a standard as to what kind of data is stored and in which order, anyone does pretty much whatever they want, and it's usually a bunch of rules set on a per-production basis for consistency, or it's hard coded in the softwares made to produce these channel packs.
That being said, one common packing is "RMA": Roughness, Metallic, Ambient occlusion. Though, again, while people might indeed pack these three data, they might not do it in that particular order. Especially when for example they have no metallic parts on a model: they often will just have another map instead.
So, the first thing you could try to look up to is any kind of documentation from the game. If it has a strong modding community, chances are: modders already figured it out or have at least wild guesses as to how things are usually structured.
A good example of this kind of "community studies" could be Technical Study: Overwatch [Image heavy] — polycount.
Which, by the way, I really encourage anyone doing 3D to read through. It's simply interesting, and it showcases well executed examples of how to obtain HQ-looking stuff at a low resource impact. And these are techniques anyone can use anywhere, not just video games, and for great benefits.
Now, trying to find the answer someone else already found for your specific case is usually the safest, but if you are experienced with textures, it might be faster to just load up the texture in an editing software like GIMP or Krita and look at the channels individually by yourself. Some textures are somewhat easy to differentiate, especially if you know how the original model reacts to light.


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changing/removing hotkey for annotate in industry compatible keymap?
I'm using industry compatible mode, but I can't find the annotate draw section in keymap option to change it. It's set to  D key by default, but I don't think I will use annotate often and don't want to use  D key for it.
I want to set it to Origin (kinda like in Maya, you can use  D key to change pivot).
I can see it when I set keymap preset to Blender setting, but not in industry compatible mode.
I tried assign the function I want to use with assign shortcut, but since  D key is already used for annotate, it doesn't work and didn't overwrite it.


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When I Try To Render My Image It Comes Out Blank
Every time I go to render my image it comes out looking like the image provided. I even tried to copy the model from one scene to another to see if it was my scene that was bugged.
I only have one camera in the scene. I'm rendering with Eevee.


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BlenderGIS: importing georeferenced .tif DEM into Blender
I am new to Blender, and I am just trying to put a Structure from Motion produced DEM .tif into blender, but keep getting this error:  struct.error: unpack requires a buffer of 4 bytes.  What do I need to do?
Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Max\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.91\scripts\addons\BlenderGIS-master\operators\io_import_georaster.py", line 445, in execute
    grid = GeoRaster(filePath, subBoxGeo=subBox, useGDAL=HAS_GDAL)
  File "C:\Users\Max\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.91\scripts\addons\BlenderGIS-master\core\georaster\georaster.py", line 69, in __init__
    self._fromTIFF()
  File "C:\Users\Max\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.91\scripts\addons\BlenderGIS-master\core\georaster\georaster.py", line 125, in _fromTIFF
    tif = Tyf.open(self.path)[0]
  File "C:\Users\Max\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.91\scripts\addons\BlenderGIS-master\core\lib\Tyf\__init__.py", line 479, in open
    elif first in [0x4d4d, 0x4949]: obj = TiffFile(fileobj)
  File "C:\Users\Max\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.91\scripts\addons\BlenderGIS-master\core\lib\Tyf\__init__.py", line 310, in __init__
    next_ifd = from_buffer(i, fileobj, next_ifd, byteorder)
  File "C:\Users\Max\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.91\scripts\addons\BlenderGIS-master\core\lib\Tyf\__init__.py", line 99, in from_buffer
    _read_IFD(obj, fileobj, offset, byteorder)
  File "C:\Users\Max\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.91\scripts\addons\BlenderGIS-master\core\lib\Tyf\__init__.py", line 83, in _read_IFD
    else: tt.value = unpack(fmt, fileobj)
  File "C:\Users\Max\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.91\scripts\addons\BlenderGIS-master\core\lib\Tyf\__init__.py", line 11, in <lambda>
    unpack = lambda fmt, fileobj: struct.unpack(fmt, fileobj.read(struct.calcsize(fmt)))
struct.error: unpack requires a buffer of 4 bytes
location: <unknown location>:-1

Try contacting the developers of the BlenderGIS addon directly (https://github.com/domlysz/BlenderGIS/issues) I doubt you will find answers here to such specific question.

thank you. I will try that

I’m voting to close this question because it is an issue with a third party addon and should be reported to the addon author


text:
How to export without Normals
I was advised to export a model - which I'm using in a THREE js website - without Normals.
How exactly do you do that? I'm not seeing that as an option when I try to export it (it's a ".gltf" file - but I also have it as a ".obj" file.)
I have a model that has 4,832 Vertices in it and I was hoping to display maybe 3,000 instances of it on screen at the same time. It's working - but its severely slowing down my machine - sometimes the browser crashes. So I'm trying to figure out solutions to this - and that's where the suggestion to export without Normals came in. I'm quite new to 3D Modeling - just downloaded a free version of Blender a week go.

For some reason, at some point, Blender versions started hiding the relevant section, displaying it in the export window as collapsed by default, leading to its options not being immediately visible at first glance. The section in question is called Geometry. Expand it, and you will see the Write Normals checkbox.

I see. It is indeed well hidden. Thank you!

Is there a way to do this with Collada dae files?


text:
Can I only use "Materials" to color the model?
People usually use uv map to color their models. But I found videos where people only use "Materials" for coloring.
For example: https://youtu.be/jBeRreVLtE4.
On 9:35 they used only "Materials" to paint without uv map.
Or https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhEFRhEnz05sfcqDU_stZR2gxoP2cTzj-.
She also used only materials for model.
As I know people use uv map/textures/shader to diversify their models' view and uv map is necessarily used for importing in games.
So can I use only "Materials" to paint my models if

I will use only flat colors (as the videos above)
I don't need to import a model in the game
I want to share model on social media like illustration/image
I want to export model in .fbx file format to share with someone
I want to render model in Blender Cycles (on the second YouTube video she used Blender Render)
I want to rig model and maybe to make animation

Absolutely.  The UV map is just one tool in the kit.

Especially if you only use a single colour.

A "Material" is basically instructions for a renderer, and in most cases the materials are very specific to a certain renderer.  In the case of Blender, Eevee might render the same as Cycles, but not always.  In general, a Material will not work outside of its native program.  These Material instructions tell the renderer how to color and shade the surface.  The color can be either a simple flat color, or a complicated set of nodes that make detailed surfaces like wood, scratched metal, or simply an image. The Material settings typically define things like color, reflections, or how bumpy something is.
UV mapping is a set of coordinates to relate a 3D model to a flat image.  In essence you're just saying "this point here on this model maps to that point there on that image."  That's how the 3D program knows where to put a texture map on a model.  Otherwise, the program has no idea how to wrap a texture around a 3D model.
UV coordinates, being simply numbers, are easily translated when you export a model from Blender to, say, .fbx, or importing a model INTO Blender.  The coordinates of all the vertices and the UV mappings keep their relationship, so you can apply an image in a game or other program and it still looks correct.
However, as I mentioned before, a Material doesn't translate easily.  Unity has no idea what to do with Blender materials.  Blender has no idea how Mental Ray, Octane, etc. work.
In your list:
I will use only flat colors (as the videos above)

no.  You can make quite complicated Materials in Blender without using textures or UV mapping. For example:

I don't need to import a model in the game

yes. a game will have a different renderer than Blender and won't know what to do with your Material settings.

I want to share model on social media like illustration/image

depends.  If you share a model on a Blender site like BlendSwap, you can use Materials, or if you know your consumers will use Blender.

I want to export model in .fbx file format to share with someone

no. You could only use a UV-mapped image.

I want to render model in Blender Cycles (on the second YouTube video she used Blender Render)

yes. Cycles can handle complex materials.

I want to rig model and maybe to make animation

yes, as long as you render it within Cycles (or Eevee, or Blender renderer)

HOWEVER - you can certainly "bake" a Cycles material into a UV mapped texture and then use it as if were an image.  The material won't, by default, stay on an exported model.  See this answer for detailed info on baking: Export cycles material to unity

Yes you can.  In blender, materials created that was are called procedural materials, and there are many many tutorials available on how to create them.  There's even an entire Facebook group dedicated to procedural materials -- sometimes called procedural textures.
You can even mix the two approaches.  Here's a screen shot of a material I've created a few minutes ago:

Don't worry about trying to understand it, except to notice that it looks a lot harder than it really is, because it is an unfamiliar way of doing things.  Here's the object the material is applied to:

The eyes, nose, "rivets" and mouth are all from the "Head decal" texture, using the UV map.  The spotty gray areas and the slight yellow around the edges are from the procedural part of the texture.

Yes, you can definitely colorize a mesh using only materials. I recommend checking out this video on the cycles node editor. You can also use the right panel materials tab. Using materials with no UV map might not render as photo-realistically, but since you said you would be using flat colors, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Good luck!

I have another question. If someone wants to open the model in another software or blender, will the color remain on the model?  Or color will disappear if uv map is not used?

If you have the material in the .blend file (like default) and you share the .blend file, someone else opening it in blender will be able to see the color in texture/render views.I don't personally use other 3D programs, but I believe that you can import the materials as well as the model and it should automatically connect. Again, don't quote me on that.


text:
Curved Ceiling with Depth
I am trying to figure out how to get to this shape of ceiling but failed to figure out what is the technique or how to approach it.
Attached is an image on how I want it to appear (Done through Sketchup) using Arc, Offset (Inset in Blender), push/pull (Extrude in Blender)

Scale a cube on Z, bevel one of its edges:

Inset (i) the face:

Extrude (E):

Cut an edge loop with the knife (K to activate, Z to cut through, C to cut perpendicularly):

Extrude the small protrusion:

You are my hero, short and to the point you have yourself a wonderful weekend


text:
Render problem in EEVEE
I have a problem with rendering.
Textures are spoiled or underlying textures are spoiling the top layer textures.
I have tried to play with settings but I could not find the reason.
It looks good in render mode if it is looked without camera, but when it is looked under camera texture looks spoiled or overlying each other.

Can you attach your .blend file? And also, you did not provide two images.

I could not upload second image. So how can I do it here?
The lines in the Trench disappear when it is looked without camera. these are the sides of the cubes and this distortion becomes even bigger when the camera much farther.

Try uploading your .blend file on this link and follow the instructions: https://blend-exchange.com/


text:
How do I change facial expressions on a V3 or V4 model imported into Blender using the DAZ Bridge plugin?
I have exported several V3 and V4 model from Daz Studio into Blender using the Blender\Daz Bridge software supplied with Daz V4.15.
I can import the base mech and the rigging, and everything functions correctly for the body and hands, but I cannot locate any controls that would allow me to adjust the facial expressions once I'm in blender. There are no drag handles for the face in Pose mode, and I cannot find any menu options or sliders in the Blender GUI.
Now that I'm in blender how do I change the expressions?
My aim is to be able to re-use content I already own from Daz Studio rather than having to purchase or sculpt new models.
This is a question about what to do with the models once they are in Blender, not about the models, daz studio, or the bridge software.

According to the Daz Bridge manual, you can't, using the armature that comes with the import.  It looks like you have to replace their rig with one of your own in order to do facial animation.  Maybe ask on their forums to see if there's a rigify option?

In the latest version you can use the armature as well. The models arrive fully rigged for movement, but not for morphs.

This is a blender question, not a daz one


text:
How to prevent holes that makes the displacement modifier?
I made a displacement texture and it looks fine, but when I apply it with the displacement modifier, there are this hole outlines that is surrounding every object.
How to prevent the modifier from making those holes?
This is the texture -

I know that baking the objects with another plane object undernith will probably solve the problem, but is there another way?

I'm not sure what you mean by "holes".. Where are the holes?

It seems like your talking about the chunky borders along all of the displaced elements?
This is the trouble with using the displace modifier for this sort of thing.  Where I you, the first thing I would do is ask myself "Do I really need the displace modifier?"  The trouble is: you have to add so much geometry in order to get good results.  Also, the higher resolution the image the better the results.  Looking at the attached image I can see that the edges in your image are far to low resolution to get good results.
So the next step would be to look at using bump/normal maps or displacement on the material level to fake the results your after.
If this isn't good enough and you really need to have geometry, your probably better off to model this shape as a mesh. I guarantee you'll end up with a lower poly count.
If you try all of this and you still determine that you have to use the displace modifier to accomplish your goal, then I recommend you go back to the graphics program you used to make the image and reproduce it at 4K or greater.  Get ready for a long render time though.

The least thing that I need for this model is the displacement modifier. I asked of curiosity, why the displacement modifier does that, but I solved the problem. Good advises, thanks.


text:
wireframe render over an object with the subdivision surface wireframe?
Is there a way to render an object with a subdivision surface modifier with a wireframe which is the original geometry as well as the wires that make the subdivision surface?
Example:

This wireframe here is curved. What if there was displayed the straight wireframe. The wires that make are made by the subdivision surface. Thats what I want to achieve. How to do it?
What I mean is - How to render the curved wireframe (which is the original geometry with the straight wireframe (which is the wireframe the is made by the subdivision surface)?

Are you saying you want the head to be rendered with the wireframe showing? If so, that is possible.

@ThomBlairIII I think he wants to render the high-poly head, with a quasi-low-poly wireframe; the wireframe should look pretty much like the edges of the low-poly head, but with nice curves like the high-poly head.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/2372/599

Rendering curved wireframes:
Blender Internal
You can either use freestyle or a wireframe material, see Rendering with wireframe.
If you use a wireframe material, make sure Optimal display is enabled on the modifier, otherwise all the edges generated by the subserf will be rendered as wires (they won't be curved).

Cycles
To do this in cycles, you could use two scenes, one for the cycles render and another to render the wireframe with one of the BI techniques.
To get a BI wireframe material to render with a transparent background (for combining with a cycles render), just set the second material to Masking alpha:

And set Alpha to Transparent in Render settings > Shading:

Original answer
OP clarified the question, making this no longer relevant. As far as I can tell, that is..
If you want to do this in the viewport/opengl render, just enable Draw All edges in Properties > Object > Display:

And make sure Optimal display is disabled in the subserf modifier:


text:
Is it possible to render an object just with the normal map?
When an object with a normal map is rendered, there are always artifacts of the polygons of the original model on the outline of the model. Is there a way to make them invisible?
Here is what I mean -

What I get (notice the outline) -

What I'm aiming for (notice the outline) -

I think that this would impossible because if the outline polygons were invisible, the model itself would be invisible.
Any ideas?
Question Update: I thought of this idea because when a model with normal map is rotated, the outlining polygons are not shaded by the map. I was thinking of making that area invisible. Is it possible?
Here is a render with more extreme example to show what I mean -

I don't think this is possible. There's no true substitute for high-poly details.

A normal map will allow to simulate high poly details on a low poly mesh (using light) but won't change the shape of it. You won't be able to remove the visibility of the topology on borders with good result. You can try a fresnel or layer weight node to mix a transparent but this will make holes. This could work on a volume but not on a surface shader.
All you can really do is adding a subsurf to add some topo and smooth the borders.


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Is there a way to display the geometry of the Subd. surf. modifier together with the original geometry?
Is there a way to display the geometry of the Subdivision surface modifier together with the original geometry in solid view in edit mode? Lets assume that the image below is a screenshot from that view. It is pretty usefull when modeling with the subdivision surface modifier, so that you can always see how the geometry flow is going. Is something like that possible to achieve (I couldn't make the grid floor in the image, but assume it is there.)?

Something like that is possible in 3DS Max.
In 3DS Max -

Nope, AFAIK this is the closest you can get: http://www.pasteall.org/pic/76063. IMO seeing the subserf wires would get pretty busy..

@Vladimir What about just toggling applying the modifier to the editing cage when it edit mode? It should show the smoothed model and the actual mesh.

Edit mode in solid shading only draws the editable mesh. In wireframe shading you can also see the subdivided edges but it isn't very clear. In object mode you can enable wire drawing for the object and toggle Optimal Display in the subsurf modifier to show/hide the extra geometry as an on/off comparison but the same colour is always used for drawing edges.

I knew that, however thanks for the information. Sometimes it is handy when the two wire-frames are visible, for example - if I have to extrude some polygons after applying the subsurf modifier, I struggle knowing when there is enough detail from the modifier and it saves time toggling "on" and "off" the "wire" display in Object mode.


text:
Lighting per polygon
Is there a way for an object to be rendered with a one tone lighting?
When I render a low poly object, it is illuminated with a lighting gradient -

What I need is one tone lighting on each polygon, where the lighting quality is highly depended on the poly detail of the object - lighting per polygon instead of lighting per pixel. Which means that every polygon would be illuminated by a one tone of lighting so that the pixels on each polygon are equally colored -

Is that possible to achieve and possibly in Cycles too?

What about flat shading?

That's the term I was gonna use, but its one of those things when I just can't remember. I'll make an update. How to do it?

But would flat shading work in your case? http://www.pasteall.org/pic/77631

Of course. I have low poly models that would be rendered without the need of that gradient like shading. And that possible to do in Cycles?

Cycles supports flat shading... Primitives are flat shaded by default.

The point is about the light casting on the object in the render. I made an update.

What about using OpenGL viewport render and a sun lamp in textured viewport shading (using flat shading/Blender Render(or Game)+GLSL)? Can't think of an easy way to achieve per face lighting in BI/Cycles right now... example

@user2859 Thanks for the suggestion. I'm aiming for an actual render with the shadows in play and possible light bouncing (cycles) and GLSL does not block the light from lighting other objects.

Ahh, ok. Well.. shadows are somewhat supported example. Bounce light would need some custom glsl code though. I thought you where looking for oldschool flat shading, where a face has constant color distribution.

heh, it looks like you thought it good. Basically, if the color of the polygon was depended of the light, then that polygon is equally colored (lighting per polygon instead of lighting per pixel).

You might be best off doing this in the compositor somehow.

There are tutorials on that, but the main purpose is to reduse the render times, because light calculations would be faster, I think. Thanks for the suggestion.

If your goal is to reduce rendertimes, I think other things things can be done which will affect the visual result less. It depends on your particular case though..


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Materials defined by a texture
I have an Earth object where the surface would be with a Bump map and the ocean without it. However, the bump texture is for both and I want to block the parts for the ocean using a black and white texture. It would look something like this -

This is easily accomplished in the Cycles render engine by just plugging the texture into the Factor input of the Mix Shader –

How is it done in the Internal render engine?
I tried the same in the internal render engine, but there are some issues. here is the blend file -  http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31825

Using material nodes. This tutorial is a good example, matching your use-case exactly: http://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/create-a-realistic-earth/

@Gandalf3 Thanks. That's where my Earth is from, but he has the Bump map on both - surface and ocean. I even tried by mixing two materials (one without the map) and then a material with a black and white texture in the Fac, but no results. What would be a good approach?

Use the color output of the bw texture, not the value output. Somewhat like this.

@user2859 Thanks. I didn't know how to apply the texture in the node, but there's still something missing. Here's the blend file if that's the case - http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31825

Hmm.. Works for me, when I add a texture (earth.png isn't packed in the file).

@user2859 How do you put a texture in the "Texture" node? When I click on the name, there's only "Tax" and that is non specified texture.

It's better to append the texture to a material that is resident in a material slot (not as a node), otherwise it's a lot harder to edit the texture (e.g. doesn't show up in texture paint mode with multitexture enabled, resets the image source in the uv-editor). Not sure it's intentional though.

Ok, thanks for the info. I'm not much of a standard materials user so I'll play around and see if something works.


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Blender game: How can I make a ball roll while moving?
I'm making a game where a robotic ball moves, collects objects and passes obstacles, and my question is :

how can I make the ball roll while it is moving ?

l'm familiar with how to make collectible game objects and with in game animation but l just don't known how to make a ball roll while moving. l understand how to program with the logic bricks.

Torque causes rotational motion; therefore, applying torque will make the ball roll. This can be done with logic bricks or with python.
For both ways start out on the ball's physics, set Physics Type to Ridge Body and adjust the radius to the the size of the ball.

Logic bricks
Then on the ball add a Motion actuator. On the motion actuator, uncheck use local torque (the L on the right) and set the torque on one of the axes.

Connect keyboard sensors to the motion actuators with corresponding torque for the axis.

Python
Using python, create a text block and add this script.
from bge import logic, events

cont = logic.getCurrentController()
keyboard = logic.keyboard.events

x, y = 0, 0

if keyboard[events.UPARROWKEY]: x += 1
if keyboard[events.DOWNARROWKEY]: x -= 1
if keyboard[events.LEFTARROWKEY]: y += 1
if keyboard[events.RIGHTARROWKEY]: y -= 1

cont.owner.applyTorque((x, y, 0))

Then connect an Always sensor to a Python controller and activate TRUE level triggering.

Result
The logic bricks or script will roll the ball. *This is a monkey shaped ball.*

Is applyTorque only accessible via bge? I mean, is it possible to do anything bge can via bpy? I've started learning it, and it seems to me bge exposes other functionalities that I don't need for my animation.

bpy and bge are completely separate modules. The first is made for blender, the latter is only for the game engine. The functionality from bge is almost always reproducible in bpy. However there is plenty that is not accessible through bge.

Thank you! In this case, what would be the bpy equivalent to applyTorque? Actually, should I create another question about this?

@Yamaneko probably a good idea to make a new question. (I do not know off the top of my head).


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How to reset hook position

The image above shows a simple hook modifier setup with the hook object (the empty) moved. At the end of the line there is a small black dot denoting the rest position of the object. How can I get the empty back there?
Note: The options "reset" and "recenter" both don't accomplish what I want. Reset will put the object back into it's original state without moving the hook. Recenter will put the origin of the hook to the 3D cursor, but once again not move it.
Why do I want this? Well, I have an object rigged with hooks that has already been transformed and don't want to change the rig by changing the rest positions of the hooks. It seems like the rest positions are not centered around the hooked vertices so selecting the geometry and placing the hook there is not an option :(

If I understand you correctly you want to get the position of the hook centre. I looked into the source and unfortunately the variable HookModifierData { .. float cent[3]; ..  for the hook centre is not exposed as a RNA property. My guess is that it is not yet possible without a very minor patch to blenders source code. Actually just 4 lines of code will do the trick. Ill probably provide a patch to the blender tracker.

Diff available here https://developer.blender.org/D529.

Wow, applied the patch and I can clear the hook location using Python :) Thank you!

Cool, can't guarantee the patch gets into trunk though. Might be best to poke one of the core devs first. Regarding your question on the tracker.. have a look at trunk/blender/release/scripts/startup/bl_operators. You would need to add a new file(module) and add the name to __init__.py's _modules.

I changed the patch by @user2859 by adding an operator that resets the hook's position back to it's center: https://developer.blender.org/D530

The patch has been applied by Campo and will be part of Blender 2.72 - thank you again for your efforts!

Empties have no rest position. It is privilege of bones.
Bones can be used as Hooks targets.
All you have to do is replacing empties in your rig by bones and use them in pose mode.

Smiple:
(Alt-G)
This works since the "Black Dot" shows the location of the empty with out any transforms.
It is also worth noting that if you hit (Ctrl-A), location it will jump back.

Tried it, neither is working :( Empty jumps back to scene origin...


text:
Force redraw / update of curve object
I have written a script that syncs the position of a bezier curve handle to an empty via a handler (bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_post):
def curve_handler(scene):

if bpy.data.objects.get('curve_name') is not None:
    curveOb = bpy.data.objects.get('curve_name')
    if bpy.data.objects.get('empty_name') is not None:
        e = bpy.data.objects.get('empty_name')
        curveOb.data.splines[0].bezier_points[1].handle_right = e.location

My problem is that the curve does not get updated. When I select the curve, go to edit mode and back, the handler jumps to the position of the empty. But not when I move the empty in object mode.
My current workaround is the following:
bpy.context.scene.objects.unlink(curveOb)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(curveOb)

But that is apparently a super ugly hack. Is there a sane way to force redraw of a curve object in Blender?

What you are trying to do is already possible using a hook modifier. Manually you can go into edit mode, select a point and press ⎈ CtrlH->Hook to new object. This is also available to mesh objects which hooks the new object to the selected vertices.
We can create hooks using python. I'm not sure we can do this without the hook_assign operator, so we need to select the specific point and be in edit mode when we assign the point to the hook.
import bpy

obj = bpy.data.objects['BezierCurve']
# select and make it active (for later edit mode)
obj.select = True
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = obj

b_points = obj.data.splines[0].bezier_points
for p in b_points:
    p.select_control_point = False
    p.select_right_handle = False
    p.select_left_handle = False
b_points[0].select_right_handle = True

# create empty to hook to
hook_obj = bpy.data.objects.new('Hook', None)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(hook_obj)
hook_obj.location = obj.matrix_world * b_points[0].handle_right

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode="EDIT")
hook_mod = obj.modifiers.new(name='Hook',type='HOOK')
hook_mod.object = hook_obj
bpy.ops.object.hook_assign()
bpy.ops.object.hook_reset() # needed if handle is not a 0,0,0
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode="OBJECT")

Actually I was trying to manipulate the handles, not the control points, so I modified your example code. I was not aware that hooks can be tied to handles as well, should have tried it before using an event handler. Thank you!


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Using the 3DS file export in 2.93 - how to export with textures?
Dear Blender community,
I do have a .blend file that includes textured models with UVs. The materials are set up like in the screenshot (texture into base color of principled BSDF):

After exporting using the new 3DS exporter from addons-contrib (https://github.com/blender/blender-addons-contrib). After exporting, the textures are gone. The UV maps get exported, but it is missing the textures. After re-importing using the same addon, the material looks like this:

It changed the name of the material accordin to the name of the texture, but the texture itself is gone. According to https://developer.blender.org/D7454 the addon now supports texturing, even PBR. Am I doing something wrong?
I have all the textures in the same folderas the .blend and I save the .3ds to exactly that folder.

Filenames are limited to 8 letters plus suffix, means the maximum characters is 12.
3ds only supports filenames in DOS 8.3 format

Wow. Welcome to 2021, Autodesk ! Other pros of using 3ds (from wikipedia) :     All meshes must be made of triangles.
The number of vertices and polygons per mesh is limited to 65536.
Accurate vertex normals cannot be stored in the .3ds file.
Object, light and camera names are limited to 10 characters. Material names are limited to 16 characters.
Directional light sources are not supported.

Sounds like Autodesk is taking downward compatibility very seriously... I mean sure, a lot of users swear on their 1990 first edition. Filenames limited to 8 characters... the 3ds files or the textures or everything?

Thank you, this is crazy o_O

The 3ds filename is not limited, only texture filenames. Directional light is possible if you use spotlight
It is also possible to create meshes with quads, but they will be converted to triangles during the export process

On the exporter file, search for [:12] and replace it with [:999]
That should allow huge names on objects and textures to be used. At least it works in older versions, we use that a lot here. I don't know how 3DS Max would deal with it.


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Converting an obj sequence to a .bobj fluid sim cache?
I'm wondering if there is any way to accomplish turning an obj sequence exported from realflow into a .bobj fluid cache that I could then trick blender into loading as a native fluid sim cache. So far I've managed to find some old (2.4x) docs on a .bobj import script, but nothing on exporting to .bobj files. I can't find anything in the API docs either so far so I'm not feeling to hopeful, but I thought I'd try.
All that I really require is a way to export to the .bobj format (which as I understand is a Binary encoded .obj file). I don't know enough about the internals of these files to write an exporter myself, but I was hoping that there would be something in the API that I could use.
Any ideas?

There is a script to manage obj mesh sequences in blender. This doesn't convert anything to .bobj, but you might want to have a look: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?252844-Script-Meshfoot-OBJ-Sequence-Manager-%28revised-for-Blender-2-66%29

What export options does realflow have? Have you tried blenders mesh cache modifier? It would appear to work with PC2 and MDD.

@Gandalf: Tried this, but it loads every frame into the blendfile, which quickly becomes unmanageable for a decent length fluid sim sequence.

@sambler: Both PC2 and MDD only allow for meshes with the same vertex order on every frame. Fine for rigged meshes, but no good for fluid sim where the mesh is different every frame.