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Material doesn't cover extruded circle?
I made a triangle by creating a circle and then reducing the vertices to 3. Then i changed to positions of the corner points using edit mode. After that i extruded the triangle to be, what I assume to be called, a mesh. But now, as you can see in the screenshots, if I want to apply a material, only the extruded edges get covered with it, not the triangular surface itself. I tried UV Mapping it, but that didn't change anything. I'm fairly new to Blender, so I don't know a fix.
What can I do about this?
Screenshots:

Hello, your screenshots didn't make it into the question.  You can [edit] the question to add them

When a Mesh Circle is instantiated, it is only the vertices and edges - it doesn't have an inner face yet.
First, starting with a 3 vert circle, you can select all the vertices and create a new face with F.

Then, when you extrude E up, a new face will be created on top as well, and you're left with a fully manifold shape.

You can then generate UVs or otherwise apply a material as normal.

Thank you, that was the fix!


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Why does my hair only grow on the edge? I can't solve this problem
Why does my hair only grow on the edge? I can't solve this problem

Hello, hard to say, maybe share your file (just the useful object): https://blend-exchange.com/

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How to set the axis of blender so that it is consistent with the rotation direction of the sensor？
I am a beginner in blender. I use the serial port to connect the posture sensor with the blender.  Now I have a problem: I rotate sensor around the Z axis, but in blender it rotates around the Y axis.  Let the sensor rotate around the Y axis, but in blender it rotates around the Z axis.  But rotate around the X axis is correct.  I am using quaternion to control the bones. So, what should I change?
This is a gif of rotating the sensor around the Z axis

This is a gif of rotating the sensor around the Y axis

This is a gif of rotating the sensor around the X axis

and this is my sensor:

Hello could you please show some screenshots?

You can create a duplicate of the bone, in pose mode hover over the W quaternion value of the original bone, right click and choose "Copy as new driver", then select the new bone, hover over its W Quat value, right click and choose "Paste driver.
Repeat for X values.
Repeat for Y and Z inverting the values (paste Y on Z and Z on Y).
Then you can hide the first bone and use the new one.

This method can solve the problem :D. But  this means that I will assign the value of the Y-axis to the Z-axis. Does this make sense?

I don't know.. would parenting to a reoriented Empty give you transforms in the Empty's space?

It's just about naming conventions in the information chain, but you will assign the Y values you want on Y axis. Names are just names. There may be some cases in which you will need inverted values: in this case just edit the driver as scripted expression and add a minus sign in front of the variable.

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


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Unwrap Curved Flat Stripe
How to unwrap this curved flat surface?
How to unwrap such mesh properly? I want to fix texture mapping on the curved part of the mesh. My plan is to make smth like river animation(U coordinate animation).
Wireframe and texture:

Thank you!

He wants to animate the UVs to look like a river. So the UV island after unwrapping have to be horizontal (as shown on a picture above), not curved. I think the 'project from view' is not a good solution here.

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


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How to set up an incline
I have a blender scene where I have a set of small steps. I also added two bounding boxes for each step.

But the problem is that when I build my game in babylon.js my player cannot ascend the steps.

My question is: is there an "incline" feature that I can add to either the steps or the player, or for both? If there is how do I do that? If not then what do I need to in order to have my player ascend the steps?

Blender Game Engine? Try Ctrl + B (Bevel), with the correct edges selected

You will need only one collision box for the entire set of stairs, don't bother with bounds for each step, it just makes stuff complicated.

The black line symbolizes the collision mesh. Set it to invisible. When the character goes up the stairs, there won't be any issues, and it looks real enough that no-one should notice this standard FPS nuance.
Also, if you use BGE there is a setting for step height under the character physics type.

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


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Make only a part of the mesh softbody
I've been following this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5JtP8AZKhU&t=5s It doesn't address, and I cannot find any documentation on how to make only a part of the mesh a softbody.
For example, what if I wanted only Suzanne's ears to be floppy? Not the rest of the head? I am using vertex groups to separate the soft/not soft parts of the mesh, but it's not working right.

to add to Blunder's answer, you can also use Cloth to make part of the body floppy

Well, this is not a partial soft body because the whole mesh is still a soft body. But if you want to make a Suzanne with floppy ears then set the Goal > Settings > Stiffness to 0.999, and define a Vertex Group for the head without the ears. Use this group for the Vertex Group value of the soft body settings. In the Object section increase Friction to 6.000, and decrease Mass to 0.2 kg.
Yay!


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Unwrap with Margins - Space out Islands
I'm unwrapping a deformed cube, so I've set all edges to be seams. When I unwrap, I get 6 polygons as expected, but I'd like there to be a gap between them on the UV map. Currently, they are all touching each other.
The blender manual mentions a margin setting, but I cannot for the life of me find it, even after googling it, and the manual glossed over it.
Using 2.71

Once you've unwrapped your model, you can adjust the margin at the bottom of the Tool Shelf (T):

Ah, I have to hit the + tab at the bottom. So strange. Why isn't it with the other tool shelf options...

The operator properties is a section at the bottom of the toolbar that can be hidden leaving the + to get it back. The same options are available in a floating dialog by pressing F6

@sambler - I'm on a mac, and the F3 to F7 keys do nothing. F8 does something, I get an hourglass icon, but I'm not sure what.

Tick the answer checkbox, dude.


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Rotate Models Incrementally
I have 35 objects, and I need to rotate them such that they complete a 180° rotation. Thus, I need each one to rotate n*5.14°.
Is there a way to do this easily in Blender?

Are the objects all identical?

should they be aligned , as if showing different angles of the same object

It's a little hard to tell exactly what you're asking, but if you're looking to form a bunch of objects into a 180° semicircle, you can use an Array Modifier:

Just use an Empty as the offset object of the modifier, and keep the origin of the object in the same place as the empty. Then you can rotate the empty by 180/(35-1) to get the right increments to fill up 180°.

http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ is now the preferred upload site because its uploads do not expire. See: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/630/announcing-blend-exchange-a-new-solution-to-blend-hosting


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"Adaptive Skin" in Blender
Zbrush has a feature where multiple objects are merged together into one smooth collective shape with decent topology, called adaptive skin.
I tried Googling a way to do this in Blender, but no luck. Asking here in case I missed a key word or such.
A modifier would be best if possible, since it would be useful for simulating a morphing blob.


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Decimate Selection down to a specific vertex count
I have a vertex loop that was produced from a boolean intersection. I was wondering if there's a way, in Edit mode, to decimate the loop from the 50 vertices it is to say, 12 or so. It's not very curvy, it won't lose much shape, just a lot of unnecessary vertices.

It's a good idea to show a screenshot of your mesh. The first thing to try is to use X > Limited Dissolve.

Decimate Geometry
As your question's title - Decimate Geometry is what you're looking for. Both can find in Blender 2.79b and Blender 2.80 beta.
It collapses those selected geometry by the determined parameters, you can always redo this operator in the invoked panel to see which parameter suit for your case.
Select your target geometry in edit mode and with the mesh dropdown > Clean Up > Decimate Geometry

What if I need a beautiful edge loop?
As another answer point out, you could create a circle with desired vertices. Move it to the edge loop you want to decimate, delete the complicated one and join the circle created. And choose both the edge loop of the opened edges, use Bridge Edge Loops operator to connect them.

I don't have a direct answer for your question but if you only want 12 vertices in a loop, create one, match it up with the original 50v loop (snap to vertices may help), delete your 50v loop, fill up faces to meet your need.


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Blender crashes when using video editor
I'm trying to add a movie to Blender's video editor; a mpeg video. It crashes every time regardless of the size of the video. The video is an animation rendered out by Blender; .mpeg with mpeg2 codec.
While trying to solve it, I realized I need video with transparent background; so what format should I re-render out in that supports transparent background that I can then import into the video editor without crashing?

Please ask only one question at a time. This question answers your file format question.


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Adjust camera according to the scale
After i had adjusted my 3d objects to real world standards, my camera was really hard to control, it was moving way to fast. To be clear, i am not talking about the camera that is an object inside of blender, but the camera you use to view your scene, to change objects,
I have 2 questions
How can i adjust the interface camera to the scale im using it for?
What do you call the thing i was reffering to here as 'Interface camera'?

If the navigation for some reason gets weird in 3d viewport you can usually select some object hit  Numpad .  to frame it in the viewport. The movement speed of navigation should adjust according to the scale of that object.
You can also adjust various settings like orbit sensitivity in the Preferences( F4  ->  P ), Navigation tab:

Note that you should not use ridiculous sizes like for example if you make your objects in sizes of kilometers while working with default unit of 1 meter you might start to get various problems in your scene like for example you would need to change viewport and camera clipping planes and you might eventually encounter 32bit float precision issues. Instead, set your scene unit scale to a value adequate to what you are working with:

So if the average object you work with is a few meters big, defaults are fine, if it's a few millimeters big, you might want to set the unit scale to 0.001, if you are making something like planetary system, and the distances are in hundreds of kilometers, you might want to set the scale to something like 100 000 or higher.
This scale setting is a multiplier for the actual stored values in Blender. So if you have a default cube that is 2x2x2 meters and set the Unit Scale to 0.001 the cube becomes 2x2x2 millimeters. The values remain the same and they are just displayed as another unit so you can avoid binary precision errors this way and all functionality like unit conversion in text inputs or in advanced numerical input for modal operators(when you hit  Numpad *  while in operation such as transform( G ) and then can type "5in" and it automatically gets converted to 0.127m) still works.


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Flickering and smoothing issue in Viewport and Render
i have a problem in Blender 4.0, where when i animate a camera to move, everything in the Render (EEVEE) gets smoother and also shadows and meshes start to flicker (and also lights appear out of the blue).
Here are two Videos, one screen capture and one render:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CxqpPmN1JA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2AHJMEN42E
I dont know, what changed in my system, that this occurs.
I even have a Render, where that didnt happen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdVq0UAyyes
changing Clip start and End didnt help, unchecking "Soft Shadows" helped just a little bit, but nothing seems to work definately.
I didnt try other Blender Versions yet, but i will try that now and report if that helped or not.
In the meantime, any help is welcome and thanks in advance.
EDIT: Okay, previous Versions dont work either.
Here the Blend Files:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1stx4L2JrLUneHQLBX1xPC_lbR0phGpj6?usp=drive_link

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

usually it hard to help if you don't provide a file, even better a minimal setup where this occurs

Okay, this can be closed ... the flickering was a "Clip Start" Issue ... Why in this scene, it did NOW help, when in other situations and projects AND THIS ONE, it didnt help before, i dont know, the 3d Vodoo Gods seemed now to help in this instance.
The Viewport Smoothing or Distorting was fixed with unchecking "Viewport denoising", calculating it froze the texture in place and therefore it was "smoothing it" but actually it was frozen ... why it rendered with it, and now doesnt, same 3d Vodoo Gods at play i think.
So this thread can be closed.


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Bolt mesh limits became super small in Blender 4.2.1
EDIT: I destroyed everything from Blender on my system and reinstalled it and it's still the same, even in default meters without any scaling... :o
I set my Blender to mm, since I do 3D printing stuff, based on this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI49VIcISaw
Everything worked fine, except recently the bolt factory became unusable - all sizes are now limited to 0.25mm, just look at this "supposedly" M8:

Any ideas how to fix that?

What do you mean "all sizes are now limited to 0.25mm" ? I don't see any 0.25mm in your screenshot. Also, if it's a bug on the add-on side, we won't be able to resolve it (contact the dev(s) instead).

Check the tiny sizes, I mean 0.0053mm :). Normally blender would round it to like 0.01 (or even 0.1). In any case I cannot go above 0.25, while normally it was like 100mm.

When working in Unit > Length >Millimetres don't change the Unit Scale to 0.001, leave it at 1. Instead, when exporting  as .stl, change the scale there to be 1000. Watch this video for a very good explanation for why scaling is necessary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUfPvHPdgR4  (at 10.25 is the scale in .stl export).

Just as @3fingeredfrog says, do not change the Unit Scale in Blender, change the STL export scale. In earlier Blender versions Bolt Factory was creating screws with a wrong scale - the presets produced screws where every measurement was in meters which should have been milimeters. Now it is not broken, but fixed really to use the actual sizes according to Blender units. Of course if you scale down the units with a Unit Scale factor of 0.001, everything becomes tiny. By the way, it wasn't 100 mm max before, but 250 mm (like it still is, scaled down by 0.001 this gives 0.25 mm).

Well, I'm using the 3D printing extension, which exports much easier, but doesn't have the scale... Also until now it was always working...

Ok so I thought I'd temporarily switch to meters to make the bolt and interesting thing happens - the bolt presets not only switch to meters automatically, but it generally doesn't matter - if I create a new project without millimeters and scales, the bolts are still tiny!

Not exactly a fix but a workaround I found.
I tried messing with the units and scaling but nothing worked for me (and it seems you've found the same). What DID work was going to the location of the Bolt Factory extension (in Linux this is .config/blender/4.2/extensions/blender_org/boltfactory/, presumably somewhere in AppData for Windows), and edit the createMesh.py file. Near the top of that file, look for the GLOBAL_SCALE constant, which is set to 0.001 by default; change this to 1. Restart Blender if you have it running, and now Bolt Factory should match whatever scaling you have set.
This is obviously not the correct way to fix this, but in lieu of something that actually works, this works for me and hopefully for you too. Until the plugin is updated again and it has to be done again at least.

For Windows, you have to first go to
C:\Users\(Username)\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\(Blender version)\extensions\blender_org\boltfactory and then do what Colonel Panic suggested


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Blender file from 2018 renders no shading in Blender 4.0.2
I've opened a blender file, I made in 2018 in Blender 4.0.2. It is some 3D text. But when I render it, there are not materials and no lighting apparently. Maybe it is just transparent background.
I've added a sphere to confirm, but it renders also with background blocks.
How do I get it to render materials.
Also, I don't see any settings to change light color and intensity. Where are those settings. (I haven't used blender since then and the tutorial video I just watched also did not explain it)
See screenshot of new render and original old render:
4.0.2 render

2018 render

UPDATE: I just opened a clean general scene and it renders the same:
The standard scene:

UPDATE: I installed blender 2.79B and everything works OK. Maybe it is just my 10 years old graphics card: Ati Radeon HD7770.

Blender versions from 2018 are very different to version 4 and the Blend files from that time are not guaranteed to open correctly in Blender 4.

It seems the alpha-rendering goes wrong. the image is transparent and the background is opaque. I just opened a clean general scene and it renders the same: See updated post.

Enabling Render->Film->Transparent, just makes the entire output render transparent!

That setting just renders any background image you may have (such as a HDRI image for lighting) as transparent. What render engine are you using and can you share your Blend file?  You can share it via https://blend-exchange.com/ following the instructions there to copy the link on that page. Then edit your question here and paste the link into it

Actually, I installed Blender 2.79B and everything worked normally.
Maybe the problem is my 10-years old graphics card: Ati Radeon HD7770.

Your graphics card was released in 2012 so it's very unlikely that it will be supported in Blender 4!


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Boolean Operation without New Vertices
This may sound strange, but I have need for a boolean operation that only cuts the edges of the target, and these are the only new vertices that are created.
Best explained with a picture:
First: Two objects || Second: Usual Behavior || Third: Desired Behavior

The base mesh shouldn't be that dense in this case. Result of Boolean will have the same topology as its input, so better redo base mesh (maybe Decimate mod) or use another mesh.

You can also have a look to 'knife project' in the tools panel of the edit mode (select the cutting mesh, shift select the mesh to cut, enter edit mode, place the 3D view in the wanted angle, and use 'knife project')


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Set vertex location to always be between two other vertices
Is it possible to set a vertex's location to be relative to another?
For example, A-B-C; I want B to always be exactly halfway between A and C, so that if I move A or C, B moves to stay halfway.
Ideally, I could then move B, and the delta between old/new is preserved, so that if I move A/C, then B moves to halfway + delta changes.

Okay, the first part is just about scaling a line with A or C as center of operation... right ?
Then I'm confused about the second part of the question; if it's supposed to stay in-between A and C then moving B should just move the whole line around.

Static or Dynamic situation?  Edit Mode operation or animation?  Have you used Proportional Editing or Simple Scaling?

The first part is doable via mutantbob's solution.  I'm pretty sure the second part is impossible to do exactly like that, though you could have another "fader-like" empty which controls the delta.

There is a way to achieve this using three empties and two contraints. However it is only possible to manipulate the vertex positions in Object Mode, in Edit Mode it won't be possible for reasons I'll try to explain at the end of this answer.
The basic setup can be tested in this Blend File here:

As you can see, there are three Emties and a subdivided plane in there. First I created the Empties and snapped them to the vertex locations. Then, I added two Copy Location Object Constraints on the Center Empty. One copies the location of Empty A, the other one empty B. To make the Center Empty really centered between the two, set the Influence Parameter of the second constraint to 0.5

Next, Hook the three vertices to the corresponding Empties. You can do this in Edit Mode using Hook to Selected. Now, if you change the value of the influence slider, the Empty Center slides towards Empty B or A, depending on the value:

If you move A or B, this happens, while the sliding value still works:

Making it dependant on Edit Mode position fails because of the way the Dependency Graph is evaluated. The current DepsGraph still works on an Object level, meaning if you move a vertex in Edit Mode, Blender is informed about a change of the Mesh object. Blender then would trigger an update cycle on it. Now, if that results in something, say an Empty, to be moved, and this Empty again had some kind of relationship via Drivers, Constraints, Vertex Parenting, whatnot, back to the Mesh object, this would mean that the Mesh object has to be updated AGAIN. This is not allowed, as that would trigger another evaluation cycle, and the game would go on forever. It's therefore called a 'Dependency Cycle' and has to be avoided at all cost.

My first instinct is to hook the point to an empty, and then let the empty's location have drivers that calculate the average of the coordinates of A and C.  Constructing that driver requires some knowledge of python.
A related question is:  What is causing A and C to move?  Depending on the answer, there may be simpler solutions.

Ideally A or C could be moved by anything, hooks, bones, edit mode, and B would recalculate.

authors: Марина Градусова


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Snap to alignment with other vertices (implicit grid)
I could not find anything like what I'm thinking, though it is hard to search for 'snapping' without getting a lot of mixed results.
What I'm looking for is an add-on or behavior where the vertices of your mesh form an implicit 3D grid system, so that you can snap to the closest grid planes automatically.
Example: Given a usual triangle, say you want to move the bottom right vertex to the top of the triangle (only z). You move that corner vertex upwards and once it aligns with the top vertex in the z-axis, it would snap to that z-value.
Most of the snapping I've seen is to the vertex/edge/face itself, this is more snap to align with closest.

I'm not completely sure if I understand your question, but this is how I would go about your example.

Example: Given a usual triangle, say you want to move the bottom right
  vertex to the top of the triangle (only z). You move that corner
  vertex upwards and once it aligns with the top vertex in the z-axis,
  it would snap to that z-value.

select the bottom right vertex of the triangle;
switch snapping mode to 'vertex, closest, move';
press g to move the vertex;
press z to lock the z axis;
hold control to enable snapping while moving;
move the cursor to the top vertex of the triangle.

For this simple example, that works, but I was looking for something that didn't require constraining the axis, since for example, I wouldn't be able to snap to 2 alignments this way. This should tide me over for now though.

@Karric if you want to move vertex along some direction which is not the standard world axis, you could create a custom transform orientation (this effectively creates a custom axis) and move vertex along it using the same technique. If you'd like, I can upload another gif for you. However, it would be better if you could set out another example which would answer your question in full.


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Blender + Captivate - Transparent Flash Video
I'm creating a captivate training module, and it would simplify some work if I could just create an animation in blender, then import it into captivate. However, I will need the video to have background transparency.
I've played around with the animation output types in blender, and some do produce transparent background video, but that turns to black in Captivate.
Any advice on the output type or workflow would be appreciated.

Quicktime (mov) files generally support transparency. Are you sure that Captivate supports video files with transparency?

It seems as though Captivate plays nicely with FLV (flash video) format files to get the transparency to work. Blender can't export FLV natively. Do you have access to any tools that could convert a Quicktime file to FLV?

As you can see from my answer the most simple workflow would be rendering straight from render in mp4 and use Miro to convert to the right codec decoder as CP do not accept the straight MP4 codec rendered from Blender.

You cannot render with alpha straight from blender.
Follow the steps:
• Render the frames to PNG with alpha RGBA;
• Open the images with Adobe Flash or any software that you can import the sequence of images (Handbrake,VirtualDub-1.9.11, Quicktime Pro) ;
• Use the option inside flash:

• Save to MOV with compression type like PNG;
• Encode the MOV with Adobe Media Encoder mark the encode alpha channel;

• Import the FLV generated inside Captivate, naturally your output must be SWF not HTML5.
You cannot export sound of course cause your rendering images, that´s the only solution for now!
When I use videos inside CP and my output is HTML5 I usually use the same background on the motion graphic and the CP background to make the course seamless. Like this screenshot:

And this is are a few FLV´s done using the workflow above and published as SWF (Steve Jobs moves on the grave when the word is pronounced hahaha).


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Electromagnetism Simulation
I would like to create a basic electromagnetism simulation in blender; just two separate coils attracting each other (they slide and touch).
I'm good for modelling this, just not sure how to set up the physics.

This can be modeled using blender physics.
The animation was generated in Blender 2.76b from the attached .blend file. It uses the built-in physics. It shows attraction (blue-red), followed by repulsion (red-red).

Create a scene with a plane and two cylinders above the plane. Add two empties.
Parent an empty to each cylinder. The forces will be driven through the empties.
Select the plane and go to the physics tab. Enable rigid body physics for the the plane. Specify the plane will be animated. This will prevent movement of the plane, but give the cylinders something to slide on.

For each cylinder, on the physics tab, enable rigid body physics. This will let the cylinder collide with the plane and each other.

For each empty, enable forces in the physics tab. Set the forces to -100. You may need to adjust the forces depending on the spacing. The negative values indicate that the empties will attract each other. Positive values will cause the empties to push each other apart.

Run the animation to see the result.

A blender file illustrating this approach:
This solution is similar to the approach described in this question: How to have rigid-bodies and charge fields interact?

Thank you for be so thorough. Does this simulate the N/S poles of an em coil as well? As in, objects behind the coils are also affected.

This approach does not simulate N-S attraction. It emulates the effect of N/S attraction using forces. Another approach will be needed to simulate N/S.

I'd suggest using the Limit Distance Constraint. You can set it up reciprocally on both coils (each one set up with the other coil as the target object).
By animating the Distance value you can visualize magnetic attraction between the two objects.

If your unfamiliar with constraints, this is a good intro.
To add a Limit Distance constraint, select your object, then go to the Constraints (chain icon) tab in the Properties Window, then: Add Object Constraint > Transform > Limit Distance.


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Texture Channel animated, doesn't appear in viewport
I'm creating an educational video, and for efficiency, I'm using a Cyclic repeater to repeat an on-page/off-page effect.
Every loop, I have the texture channel switch to the next image, rather than duplicating all the objects/animations. This works properly and appears when rendering the animation, but does not appear in the viewport. It sticks to the original UV image that was mapped.
Is there a way to have this change appear in the viewport?

Short answer no, I don't think there currently is one unfortunately.
I think its a known limitation of the viewport system and a long time to-do list item as stated in the wiki, in this bug report and in this one too

Bummer. I guess I'll have to work around it.


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How can I limit frame count by counting a text list?
I have a list of names in a Text Block that are separated by line. There will be different amounts of names. I am using the list to generate titles but want to render one title per frame. I want to render each frame using the current name from the list.
So I need to :

Read the list for number of lines
Change the scene length to total number of lines
Copy and Enter the current name in the "file output" field
Render frame

I am using Animation Nodes to generate the changing text, perhaps I can get number of lines from Text Block List Length?
Also I could get the current "Name" from Split Text reader to enter in the File Output?

Can I send Values (frame total) and Strings (file names) from Animation Nodes to Blender?

You may use an Expression node. The two properties you want to edit a scene properties. You can know their path from their python tool-tip (Hover over the property). So the expression node can be as follows:

I thought about using an Expression node but doesn't it remain inside Animation Nodes? Will it be expressed in Blender itself? Hmmm Thanks I'll try it tomorrow ;-) Also I really appreciate your help Omar

@3pointedit You can edit anything in blender from an expression/script node. Except maybe the current context.

I just learned that to include the preferred path as a string I need to double the \ character ;-) so it's "C:\Folder"


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How extract an equivalent surface from a mesh after modify?
I have a mesh, lets call it Mesh1. I selected some faces on this mesh and extract them to create a new object. I'm interested on this surface (not a volume, just a surface), lets call this Mesh2.
Then I made a copy of Mesh1 and applied some modifiers (decimate, remesh, etc.). This will be Mesh3. Now, Mesh3 has a different topology compared to Mesh1 but both represent the same object with minimal differences in shape but with a (not so) different topology. Now, I want to use Mesh2 to find the equivalent area on Mesh3. I have tried different approaches but nothing works.
This process is part of a project with blender code in python, so I'm not interested on using a "manual" solution but something to be automatized. I was trying to use also shrinkwrap, but this only adapt mesh2 to the shape of mesh3. Any idea of how to do it?

What dos it mean to find the equivalent area on Mesh3? In what sense do you need to find it? How do you need to have it when it's found? Could you maybe describe the purpose of this so it's easier to understand the situation?

Could you use something like a Sample Nearest Surface node to interpolate a boolean from Mesh2 to Mesh3 ?

I added an image. I want to extract the faces in mesh 3 that fall on the red area (mesh 2)

What sort of project is it? Why does it need to be purely Python? Technically, you can create Geometry Nodes modifier and all the nodes for it with Python. Would that be acceptable? What's the context of the situation? You could probably do that with bmesh as well, but we now have geometry nodes to make life easier with stuff like this. I mean if only automation is the goal, then you could reuse premade geometry nodes asset.

I'm creating an addon with several functions to unify and simplify a process through the Blender interface, this is one of the last steps. I already wrote a script to do this with Python and Trimesh libraries. However, importing those libraries to Blender could be complicated for the users of my addon.

Try modifiers: Data Transfer, Vertex Weight Proximity, Geometry Proximity Node/Attribute Proximity for Geometry Nodes or python utils: mathutils.kdtree, mathutils.bvhtree.

The problem was solved by using Vertex groups. Vertex groups survived after some modifications, not after remeshing totally. But after decimate


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Make armature bend across multiple vertices
My file:

I'm very, very new to Blender and I'm trying to rig up a really simple low-poly character. I've got it rigged but no matter what I do, the joints are only pivoting across one vertex, even though I gave it more vertices to bend on. No matter how I adjust the weights it's not bending the way I want.
I want this armature to bend across all three of the circled vertices equally, but it's only choosing one vertex to bend along and the others stay straight, causing clipping when bent too far.

Here's how it's bending now:

Here's my weights:

I've tried painting the weights every which way but it doesn't seem to change anything at all.

Hello could you please share your file? https://blend-exchange.com/ (remove the parts of the character that you don't want to share)

@moonboots Posted at the top. Thank you.

As we can see if we select one of these vertices it is assigned to several vertex groups (not sure what are the 2 firsts) but the weight of arm.l is much higher than the weight of shoulder.l, so the influence of the forearm will be much higher when you'll bend the arm:

What you could do is remove all this edge loop from any group:

Then assign it to the groups called shoulder.l and arm.l with the same Weight (it can be 1, as long as the weight will be the same, both the 2 bones will have the same influence):

Also maybe check the adjacent edge loop, and enable the Preserve Volume option of the Armature modifier. Result:

Also you could try some alternative topologies:

Or:

If you want the vertices of solution 1 to merge so that you get solution 2, select all these vertices, assign them to a new vertex group that you'll call Weld for example:

Give your object a Weld modifier, select the Weld vertex group and increase the Distance until the vertices merge when the arm is bent:

Thank you! I actually like the new topology idea. I'm wondering now if it's possible to use a combination of those two topology suggestions. I'd like it to use the first one until those two inner edges touch, and then I want those edges to merge into one and then bend on a single edge like in your second pic. Is that possible?

See my edit and try the Weld modifier


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How to stop a rig from deforming the model?
I've been trying to animate something, so I imported a model from Roblox Studio and a Roblox Rig I found online to Blender and parented the two. For some reason, when I move the rig, the model gets deformed as if it were stuck on something. How can I stop this from happening?
What the rig is supposed to do
What the rig is doing to the model
Terribly sorry if I'm not able to describe much more clearly than that, I just started blender. I'll add the .blend file if anyone wants to take a crack at it; it'd be much appreciated

Rig used, if it helps: https://softgb.gumroad.com/l/robloxstarterrigs

it would be helpful, if you could add some informations what the armatures should do and how it should look like.

I updated the question with gifs in hopes to make it a little clearer on what the rigs are supposed to be doing and look like normally


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UVs not connecting when adding texture
First time posting here. Not sure what's going on with my model, but when unwrapping UVs I noticed the normals are somehow not touching? There are no modifiers or anything else applied to this model currently. I'm not sure how best to describe it. See attached screenshot. Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks!

You mean you obtain that just by UV unwrapping?

After playing around with it, this is more so with just applying the material. The issue is the material is applied to other objects without any issues, so I'm not sure what is causing this.

transparency in this material?

You should either share the blend file or copy a screen capture with the uvs over the texture

I figured it out... The displacement in the material was causing the issue. I unplugged it and the material looks normal again. Thanks!


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Need help: Creating Abstract, Parametric, Organic Forms Inspired by a Starting Model
I have searched the entire internet but I can't find what I'm looking for. It's either always these tessellate, tissue, decimate, voronoi approaches that all look somewhat the same and too uniform and unexciting, or it's completely abstract approaches that produce totally deformed shapes and don't really represent anything figurative. I want to create abstract, parametric, organic forms that are still based on a starting model, just like in the examples. Also, I don't just want a shell but an abstract object that is partially visible as in the examples but also filled with abstract volumes. I hope this is understandable... can anyone help? Thanks in advance.
enter image description here

Look in to using Geometry nodes - specifically Shortest Edge Path - there are some good videos about it (roots, trees, veins, cables) - this is one of them that might suit you - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yz_0tsTwwM - see if you can adapt the method to your needs.

Hi. Please use a title that matches the content of the question. It should be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the issue so that anyone searching for a similar problem is likely to find it. Remove anything superfluous, avoid using words like "this", "help with", "issue" or "question about", instead describe what "it" is. Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors see, answers you get depend heavily on how insightful it is. See What is the problem of asking “How do I do this?"

Sorry i changed the title. Hope it suits the purpose more now.


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Can't fully look around in cameraview - walk mode
When using walk mode in camera view i want to be able to look around inside my model. But when I use my mouse I get stuck being able to only "look up" in x direction (>180 degrees).I can rotate in z direction. But I can't look down in x direction, i.e. decrease rotation x.
Edit: I've  uploaded my blend file here

Maybe try setting your camera y-rotation to 0 instead of 180° ? Y-rotation corresponds to roll, the equivalent to tilting your head left/right. For most cases, you don't want to change y-rotation.

Setting the y-rotation to 0 results in the same problem. As soon as i look around with x-rotation, i can't look back to the origin

Maybe remove your keyframes ? Otherwise upload your file with https://blend-exchange.com/.

Thanks for the suggestions, but the removing the keyframes doesn't help either. I added my file to the post. However I have the same problem when starting a clean file, so maybe there's just an issue with (my) blender itself

Last idea, try reset rotation with Alt+R.


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After some of my additions, the fingers on the Rigify rig stopped bending
My fingers really stopped bending from scaling the controller.

Everything else works fine and even if I just rotate the controller with some finger, it rotates as it should. But not bending.

I compared the constraints on the hand bones (including the fingers) with the constraints of a newly created, pure and innocent rig. And everything seems to be identical. (Although the human factor is not excluded).
The only time I touched these bones was when I gave them a roll. In my past experience, this roll is correct and there were no problems with it.
List of what I generally touched in this rig:

I heavily edited the face rig. (I don’t see the point in going into more detail about this).
I gave the roll to my arms, fingers, and legs.
And I added two deform bones in the buttock area.

Source file
Blender Version: LTS 3.6

By the way, the drivers were deleted at the same time as I reflexively deleted Animation Data from the rig.

The bending of the fingers is controlled by some MCH- bones. They have a driver for the X rotation which accesses the scale of the master finger control. For some reason, the drivers are missing.
You can add the drivers manually to make it work again. It's two drivers for each finger (middle and end part of the finger). Generate a new default rig (e.g. rig.001) and look at Layer 31 (or collection MCH in Blender 4.x) for the MCH- bones. There is a normal-sized bone and a small one with the driver, e.g. MCH-f_index.02_drv.R .

Switch to Pose mode, open the side panel (N) and copy the driver with the context menu from the default rig (rig.001). Then paste it into your generated rig (context menu). Choose Edit Driver from the context menu and replace the rig.001 object so that it refers to your rig.


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How would you create a cd material in Cycles?
I know you can use the anisotropic BSDF shader to create the blurred effect but how would you make the weirdly reflected colours you get when you hold a CD to a light.
Here's an image example I found on Google Images:
I want it so that you could create the colours without just using an image texture of a CD

Here's the fake iridescence effect I achieved. Try to experiment with Mapping and Anisotropic nodes settings.

Here's an animated gif (click on a picture below to see a larger version).


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How to animate the start position object on the wave modifier?
So I have a scene where my object has the wave modifier and the start position object is an empty axis. Here's my wave modifier settings:

Here's what happens when drag the empty nearby:

but when the empty is animated as soon as it gets nearby, nothing happens:

Also if it helps I have a subdivision modifier above the wave one.
Do I have to apply the wave modifier? Is there something obvious I'm missing? Or can you simply not animate the start position object?
Thanks!

Continued this question over here https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/39301/how-to-make-a-wave-that-follows-empty

I tried reproducing what you have described and it seems to work fine.
Upon opening the file, press Alt+A to test the animation and try moving the non animated empty to see.

We can investigate more what is causing this but you shouldn't need to apply the modifier. In fact, applying it will remove the interaction between the empty and the mesh and just turn the sphere to the shape it is under the influence permanently.
Providing more details about how did you animate the empty would also help.

I tried your settings on my .blend and now it works, but it doesn't create my previous effect. I'll try to find out which of the settings are messing it up

turns out it waves only seem to happen when the lifetime is at zero.I'll follow up another question asking about how to animate the effect I'm trying to make


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How to get rid of the bonds between bones?
I'm not sure what to call them so I'm just going to call it a bond. I deleted a bone to hope that it'll separate a set of bones from another set of bones.
Now this is happening:

The dotted line is where the bones were but the bones still exist as one set of bones. So if I moved one bone further down, it would still affect the arms even though there are no bones connecting them.
How do I delete these 'bonds'?
Thanks in advance!

The dotted lines indicate the parent/child relationship. The child always follows the parent which is why the bone moves as it's parent moves.
The parent setting can be found in the bone's relations panel. Clicking the X will clear the parent linked to the bone.

You can also clear the parent in the 3Dview using ⎇ AltP ->Clear Parent

Select the bone you want disconnected.
Hit Alt+P, then select Clear Parent

I'll check to see if this works next time I'm on my computer

authors: Ярослав Ярославов


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How to apply a texture during an animation?
So I'm going to have a laser fire into a spot in the ground. I want it so that before it fires the ground is blank and when it stops there's a burn mark where the laser was. How could I do this?

You can animate the 'Fac' property of a 'MixRGB' node to switch between two different textures, one not burnt and one burnt:

Connect your unburnt texture to the top input of a 'MixRGB' node (Shift+A Colour> MixRGB).
Connect your burnt texture to the bottom input.
Go to the frame just before where you want the burn to appear.
Set the 'Fac' value of the 'MixRGB' node to '0'.
Press I when your cursor is over the 'Fac' value of the node to insert a keyframe.
Go to the next frame, change the 'Fac' value to '1' and insert another keyframe.

For a smoother fade between the textures simply insert the second keyframe a few frames after the first, the more frames, the slower the fade between the two textures.


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Plane to only reflect object?
So I'm using cycles and I would like the plane that my object is sitting on to be invisible apart from the reflection from the object. So all you see is empty space, the object and its reflection and no plane. Thanks in advance

Related, How do you create an infinite ground plane?

to make the plane invisible apart from reflection ,uncheck all the options in Ray Visibility except Glossy

this will make the object appear only as a reflection on objects with glossy shader

render :

Create a new renderlayer. The groundplane keeps the reflective material, but the object gets a white emission material. Hide all lights and environments. This gives you a black and white mask for the object and reflection that you can use with your beauty renderlayer.

Can you add some more detail? Where can I find render layers? How do I then use this render layer in an existing or new node setup?

Yeah I don't really understand. I'm not new to Blender itself but I'm new to render layers etc.

Sorry, I'm not in front of a computer right now. The wiki gives me an internal server error, and the new manual seems rather useless on that topic. Maybe later


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How do you copy things like rigidbody constraints and force fields to other objects?
How do you copy things like rigidbody constraints and force fields to other objects?
I made a cell fracture and I would like to give each cell the same constraints and force fields.
Thanks in advance

there is a copy physics settings in the physics tab "on the left" and you can copy constraints "type in space bar copy constraints" and if you enable "copy attribute menu" addon use Ctrl+C

@Chebhou yeah it works to search in space bar for it

does that solve the problem ?

@Chebhou it doesn't work. It changes the settings to existing rigid body constraints  but it doesn't add new ones. I need it to copy the setting but also add new ones to where there isn't rigidbody constraint

to add force field to all selected objects :
import bpy

for ob in bpy.context.selected_objects :
    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = ob
    bpy.ops.object.forcefield_toggle()

to run the script copy it and paste in the text editor and cick Run Script

to copy constraints from one object to others :

to copy rigid body constraints select the objects while the active object is the one with constraints and run this script :
 import bpy

 Type = bpy.context.active_object.rigid_body_constraint.type
 obj1 = bpy.context.active_object.rigid_body_constraint.object1
 obj2 = bpy.context.active_object.rigid_body_constraint.object2
 use_br = bpy.context.active_object.rigid_body_constraint.use_breaking
 over_itr = bpy.context.active_object.rigid_body_constraint.use_override_solver_iterations
 for ob in bpy.context.selected_objects :
     bpy.context.scene.objects.active = ob
     bpy.ops.rigidbody.constraint_add(type = Type)
     bpy.context.active_object.rigid_body_constraint.object1 = obj1
     bpy.context.active_object.rigid_body_constraint.object2 = obj2
     bpy.context.active_object.rigid_body_constraint.use_breaking = use_br
     bpy.context.active_object.rigid_body_constraint.use_override_solver_iterations = over_itr

Blender >2.8
Line 9 has to be changed to:
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = ob

sorry I don't understand how python works or how to add a script. And how would it work to add constraints to every object?

you can add constraints with the copy option that i gave you in the comment, this answer is to add forcefield only

i will edit to include the constraints

It's not working. I have the active object as the one with constraints but it still doesn't add constraints to the other object. It just only has the rigidbody setting in the physics tab and no rigid body constraint

ok , i'll edit to include the physics constraints

if there is a problem in the script just ask , because i struggled with the formatting of CODE in the answer


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Make a PNG into a mesh?
so I have a pattern as a PNG. I was wondering if Blender had a way of turning the PNG into a mesh. It's kinda like how if you put a transparent shader on a plane with an image texture you get a 2d picture/sprite thing. I was wondering if I could do something like that but extrude it so it's a 3d mesh. If any of that made sense, how could I do this/is there a way to do this without modelling it all over?
Thanks in advance

This is not possible without manually modelling it as far as I am aware. Would be a really cool addon though!

@NoviceInDisguise just found it out! There's a type of pixture called .svg or something which can be turned into a mesh!

@Chickenator True, SVG files do that, however with PNG files (like you asked) there is no way to do that.

See the answer here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1609/tracing-a-monochrome-image-into-a-3d-extruded-object-with-a-script/1610#1610

Can you post an example of your image?

@ajwood no I can't because I haven't made it yet, it's just an idea

@Chickenator even a scribbled idea would be helpful. Something like this (http://img27.fansshare.com/pic19/w/seamless3d/1200/21569_seamless_texture_of_star_shape_with_complex_colorful_pattern.jpg) will probably need a different strategy from this (http://4vector.com/i/free-vector-beautiful-pattern-background-03-vector_015044_all-free-download.com_109363670.jpg)

@ajwood okay, here's an image if you need one http://imgur.com/prLCAAS

There is a possibility I have thought of:
Create a plane. Subdivide it a lot. Then add displacement modifier. Make sure the texture is black and white.
Apply the texture to the displacement modifier, this will raise 1 area of the plane while the other is lowered. Apply the displacement modifier.
Than you can go to side view in edit mode and select the lower faces using box select and delete them.

I guess that could work, if my computer can handle all the vertices


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Mirror + Subdivision Surface just breaks after i merge 2 objects
Well.. I was just modeling and ran into a problem that I couldn’t find a solution to on the Internet.
I have one object for a body and one for a hand.

When i join them using Ctrl+J everything seems normal. Next i add mirror modifier.

But when i add subdivision suface everything looks so broken. (look at picture)

And when I switch between object mode and edit mode the bug looks different every time

By the way, turning the palm normals out didn't help, although I would still do it in the future.

Source files (i hope it possible to download):

Before I did anything
After I did all the above (When I open it it looks like in the
screenshots. Let's see what it looks like for you.)

I will be grateful for your help (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

Hello could you please share your file?

Here. I've updated the post and added a link to the original file below.

That works fine here! The only thing I'd say is that when you join the hand to the body the normals on the hand part are inverted, but you can sort that by selecting All in Edit mode and using Shift-N to recalculate them. Please add a blend file which you took your images from so that we can see what's going on.

that's weird, I don't see any problem in the second file either, except you need to recalculate the normals because the hand faces are flipped

I think I've seen that here in the past... that was gpu issue (if I remember well). Which Blender version do you use?

I found one similar case on the forums.
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/172470/my-mesh-becomes-messed-up-when-i-join-different-mesh-why-is-this-happening
And apparently there’s just something wrong with my blender.

I use version 3.1.2

Can you try a 3.6 LTS ?

I tried updating to 3.6 LTS and yes, that fixed everything.

It was fine in 3.3 LTS too so it was obviously your version causing the problem. You should find that recalculating the normals works fine too now that you've updated.

Even though the normals of the palms were turned inside out after merging the objects, this was not the cause of the problem. The cause of the problem was my old version. I updated to 3.6 LTS and everything started working fine.
Thank you everyone


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How to do remove flat sides?
How get rid of the flat sides. Is this can be achieved?

What do you mean by falloff density? A smooth transition from no mesh to mesh? But that's not possible, there is no such thing as a "half-mesh", a mesh cannot have different or increasing densities like a volume. Sure, in real life wood and steel for example have different densities. But the surface is the surface, it's not like any of them start of with a transparent surface that's slowly getting more and more opaque.

The question doesn't make much sense. Falloff density? What is that? You should edit the question and clarify if you expect meaningful help. Could you maybe provide an image of some sort of example of what it should look like?

Hello, ShockWave.. I'm understanding this to mean fade the hard clamp which gives away the flat walls of the cube. Is that right? Please edit the post to make that clear, if it is.

i am assuming, that you just wanna get rid of the flat sides, so with this node setup:

you will get this:

basically the node setup decreases/limits the density to a sphere, hope that helps.

Yes, this is exactly what was needed! Thanks a lot!

you are welcome


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Blender 4 Donut Tutorial (Part 9): Black Spots on Icing
I've just finished part 9 of the Blender 4 donut tutorial, and when I render everything in Cycles, this weird thing happens. Does this have something to do with Subsurface Scattering? Even after turning Subsurface > Random walk down to 0 for both the icing and the sprinkles, I still get some weird black lines on the icing. I'm not sure I get what the issue is here exactly.
Here's a screenshot of the original problem:

And here's a screenshot after I had set Random walk to 0 for both the icing and sprinkles.

If any more information such as new images is needed, please let me know. Thank you in advance.


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Mesh will not move with the rig
I have been attempting to work on a custom Quake Live Player Model, but alas, the skeleton and the mesh generally do not co-operate. This is my second go at the project and it seems only the head works. The rig and model have been parented with automatic weight painting. Most of the mesh appears has been weight painted.
Currently I have tried resizing the model which doesn't seem to have helped with the automatic weight process. As of now the only way I have been somewhat capable of getting the legs to move is if I pair the rig a second time with automatic weights, and even that has some caveats. Once I completed the second pairing I decided to remove the previous attempt. But the mesh will only move with two armatures. Even then the movement is simply terrible even with reattempting the weight painting process. I am genuinely at a loss and am unsure about what I am over looking.
Currently only the head works, and the legs have been weight painted and house an armature.
*Edit
https://blend-exchange.com/b/pmw3o8QK

there are things, which can be described by words like paintings, but you can write 10 books about it and despite it - one image of it will say more. Same is true for for more complicated things like rigging. So i would recommend you provide your blend file so we can check it out, because you didn't provide any technical setting you made. Thx.

Uploaded the model to Blend-Exchange.
https://blend-exchange.com/b/pmw3o8QK
Hope this gives you a better idea of my issue.

An embedded illustration here.. a representative screen-grab .. might help folks decide whether they can help before committing to a download? Thanks.

As you see if you display the face orientation, the normals are flipped, you need to recalculate in Edit mode (ShiftN):

brother i will rig it perfectly give me time , in evening you will get nice rigged model

Upon fixing the normals, the armature won't move with the mesh. Still appreciate the information tho.

@Ginsai Your problem is too vague, the armature is not complete, you need to finish it:  join the head to the legs armature, create the arms, spine and so on, as for the mesh, join the legs and the head to the body, keep the cape apart for the moment, recalculate the normals, parent With Automatic Weights

brother i wish this could be the perfect platform to cuss blender software developer but unfortunately i can not

i have to take a day on it

Why do you want to cuss them?

some mistakes developed like first i cleared objects origin mistakes i aligned objects in center also rotation of upper body was weird which was the user mistake no problem later i cleared after skinning weight paint stuff later suddenly left leg mesh was not moving with bone clearly right one was fine i checked everything but it was not solved , it was an unknown error , also in beginning i symmetrized meshes + separated sheath , sword , pouches on waist and leg .


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Kinetic Rigging Question (Theo Jansen Style)
I'm trying to make kinetic mechanism, like link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=Hn93VdvYxKf5NsK_&v=NM4q-f68TlY&feature=youtu.be
Added armatures and IK constraints to the points that need to be anchored.
Some bones need to be attached and move organically, but that doesn't currently work.
Need your help! Here's blender file :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PJN6zWiGm-NeCs_m6qDm7fyTdPUk7nrK/view?usp=sharing
Thank you!

You can operate whole system adjusting geometry paramter [masterRot] of Obj [masterVar].

Can you give us an example of how you want it to behave?  Maybe a picture of the thing you're trying to rig?

@Nathan thank you for reply. I want to create a wireframe that moves organically like the attached YouTube link. I would like to attach an image, but It would be more accurate to watch  videocilp, please excuse me!

Sorry, I didn't even notice the link.  Hopefully the answer I provide below helps.

Let's start by marking some points:

D and G are static.  We control by rotation of FG about G.  We can drive that rotation from a custom value if you want, but the only masterRot I see is the input to a GN modifier.  I guess we could drive it from the value of that input.
The structure isn't fully defined yet.  To define it, we need to create a bone from F to E, as the structure in your linked video uses.  We should also notice that ACD forms a triangle, where the angles can never change, so we don't really have to worry about AC.
Start with GFCDA:

FC and CD take part in an IK chain, targeting the free bone at D.  (This point will remain static; I have parented to "root.")  Both bones are IK locked in all but one axis.  FC has inherit rotation disabled so that rotation of its parent, GF, won't flip it out when it rotates too far.  DA is just parented to CD.  (Remember, CDA is a triangle, it can never change angles.)
We can do the same with GE and ED now-- it's just a 2-chain IK, targeting the same, static IK target:

Again, locked in all axes, and DE doesn't inherit rotation.
Now we've defined the position of A and E, there's only one place that B can be:

AB and BE form a 2-chain IK, targeting the head of ED because that's convenient.  Still locked in all but one axis, although that doesn't really matter; but here, we actually want AB to inherit rotation from its parent.
Now we can create the driver for the rotation of GF.  I'm pointing all bones' Z axis at my camera, so we'll change it to a ZXY Euler and drive its Z rotation from masterRot:

You can map that however you'd like. As is, that's the rotation in radians.
One more thing to do.  Let's fix those bones that aren't inheriting rotation so we can actually rotate the structure about.  We'll reparent them to root, re-enable inherit rotation, then give them a copy location constraint, world->world, targeting their old parent's tail-- that is, acquiring the position of F.  Any constraints we put on IK bones will be evaluated before the IK is evaluated.
And, I'll make a few copies with different master_rot inputs as proof that it's working:

Really impressed by document and getting closer to the world of IK. Happy to learn from you master. Thank you


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How to place beads evenly over another mesh?
I made a skirt and want to place beads over it. I need them to fill all surface of the skirt evenly, with the same distance between each bead, repeating the form of a skirt, if it makes sense. Is there any way to do it automatically? Thank you!

Did you deform the skirt  yourself, from a flat starting mesh? Can you show us the topology? Following a regular topology might be the easiest route.. another consideration.. if you have a regular UV map, might it be acceptable to create the illusion of beads in a shader, rather than geometry?

@RobinBetts Thank your for your reply. I added an image of topology. The skirt was made in Marvelous Designer and remeshed in Blender afterwards. As for the beads, I'd rather add them as a geometry (if I'll understand how) :)

Thanks. Is that black dot the size of a bead?

Yes, it's the size of a bead

If it was OK with you, you could  share the skirt, or a bit of it,  on https://blend-exchange.com, so folks can check out their methods.

Given the skirt topology, you could use Instancing, first activate the Object > Instancing > Faces option of the skirt:

Put the bead object at the same location as the skirt, parent it to the skirt, it will be instanced all over the skirt:

Result:

You could also bake the normals in order to fake the 3D relief.

Thank you so much!


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Animation gets messed up when adding multiple animations from Mixamo to the same object
I'm creating an animated character model for game development, and am using Adobe Mixamo as a source for animations. I auto-rigged my character and imported the animations, and the first one went fine(see video 1). However, after copying the second animation to it, the second animation had the arms crossing and clipping into each other(see video 2). Does anyone know how to fix this?

Videos: https://imgur.com/a/trdI6qQ

Edit: Tested with another animation, went fine. Is it that certain types interfere?

Blend File:

Is there anyone who knows how to fix this?

Hello, probably the bones are not rotated the same from an animation to anoter, you could fix that in the Graph Editor, could you please share your file, only keep 2 actions that don't match so that we can try: https://blend-exchange.com/

ok ill do that thxs

it won't upload to the site, and it says that the site gets all of the rights to anything i upload

just keep the armature, 2 actions (if it Mixamo it is free) and use another platform if necessary (like workupload)

got it one sec adding to post

The original armature that uses this action probably had its bones rotated slightly differently.
I guess you'll need to correct the bad actions manually: Switch to Pose mode, select the shoulder bone, open the Graph Editor, hide all the tracks except the X rotation ShiftH, zoom enough in the window so that you can precisely move the curve degree by degree on Y (keep pressing Ctrl to be precise) until it is correctly rotated, do the same for the upper arm and whatever limb that is not correctly rotated:

Worked! Thank you!


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Chiseled text - how to go from 2d quads to raised center
UPDATED: linked a new .blend with references packed. My apologies!
I'm very new to modeling, and I need to try to recreate a particular V (a client's logo, the Photoshop fake 3d chisel look), getting as close a match as I can.

I've googled many tuts on doing chiseled text in Blender. Two examples:
a popular one from here
and one on manually topologizing text
I have roughed out the 2d topology for the V, but I don't know if I've thought it out correctly (the top caps probably won't deform right), but Blender can simple subdiv, so the edge flow seems to kinda work?

Two questions:
1 - There are reference images in the attached Blender file. Have I got the basic shapes down for this to deform the way the reference image appears to?
2 - If I use this method, how would I go about raising the center? I've done a hard-chisel version by raising the center line on a simpler topology (below), but it's not quads, and I don't know how to umm...puff out the sides to get the rounded look of the reference.

I've tried proportional move, but either it's too complex a shape, or I don't understand the options well enough...the vertices are not equidistant, so I get odd bulges at the irregular areas. Part of it is my rough modeling, but...
Any help on either aspect of the question is appreciated.

the blend file does not contain the reference images.

It would be simpler to embed a reference image in your post? And/or: Image Editor > Header > Image > Pack the ref. image into your .blend

I've updated the blend file to one with references embedded - I didn't realize they were just linked.

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/72662/trying-to-make-glossy-volume-shapes/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/315370/chiseled-text-how-to-go-from-2d-quads-to-raised-center https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/134971/round-beveled-text https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/58457/how-to-make-a-bevel-on-text https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/64980/how-to-make-a-metal-emboss

You could create this topology that flows around the peak:

Move the edge loops:

Add some edge loops, move the edge loops to round the sides or sharpen the edges:

Result:

This is a much smarter topology! Well explained, and answers everything...thank you! Should I accept now, or is it considered good form to give others a chance to answer and gain rep?

You can wait a bit  ;)


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Editing armature in edit mode mess up pose mode
As the title says when I change the imported motion capture armature, and than I edit it in the Edit mode to fit to the model (eg. moving the arms), it mess up the original animation: twist the arms.
I made parenting to the arm bones.

Could you post the blend file?

Here you can find it: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23530152/armature.blend
I didn't apply anything to the armature.

Sorry, can't see what's wrong with it...

Is there any chance that the .bvh file is bad? I made it with iPi Soft.

I have no idea, I've never actually done such thing;   Looking at the website, it seems it supports Blender, so maybe try exporting directly to a blend file, but I doubt that works, if at all posible.

You should not edit the bones in edit mode after animating them, do that only if you want to modify the rest pose.
If you want to pose the bones than use Pose mode. Editing bones after posing will break the pose because you have modified the original rest pose and the transformation matrices of all the bones would evaluate a wrong pose. because poses are relative to the Rest_Pose.
you need to setup your rest pose while in edit mode (or in pose mode and use  Apply Pose as Restpose) and then proceed to posing the character, without modifying the rest pose.

I followed this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4Sh2ky7l7k
I have a motion capture armature imported, and I have to "apply" the pose just like the model. And as the tutorial shows I should do that in Edit mode. Or should I do it other way?

could it be that you have applied the armature modifier before making the armature fit your model? This could be one reason, any later edit breaks the poses.

No. First I always import the armature, than the model, than I "fit" the armature to the model in edit mode. Finally I make the parenting. But if the model is not imported (so just the armature is in the .blend project) and than I make changes to the armature it messes up. Here is az example project: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23530152/armature.blend Can you look at it?

Do you clear all transformations (Pose >> Clear Transformation >> All) before posing? (as he does in the video)... to bring the armature to the pivot point correctly?

Yes, I do that.

In the screenshot that you have above, the pivot point is by his feet... when i clear transformation, he goes down and the pivot point is located around his core... Make sure the pivot point is on the same place in edit and pose mode...?

Meanwhile I exported the .bvh from iPi Soft again, by new settings (no T-pose at the first frame, and resetting coordinate system). Now the pivot point is the same but no changes. I updated the project at dropbox with the new armature.

So did that fix it for you?

No, the distortion stays after the changes in edit mode. I'm starting to think that iPi Soft export the armature that way that I can't make changes to it.

Sorry, I am not sure what else could it be, if I come up with anything I will write.


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Display and set internal operator properties from custom Panel UI
I've been attempting to display operator property attributes from a Panel interface with the following code:
class MyPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    # ...
    props = row.operator("my.button")
    row.prop(props, "foo")
    row.prop(props, "bar")

class MY_BUTTON_OT_Button(bpy.types.Operator):
    # ...
    bl_idname = "my.button"
    foo = bpy.props.FloatProperty()
    bar = bpy.props.BoolProperty()

This does display the properties, but they appear to be static and I cannot set their values from the interface.
From what I gather, the operator-specific draw() function is only used when the operator is explicitly called from a menu. Is there any similar way to define an operator interface inside a panel?

The properties of an operator only exist for the duration of the operator being run. When placing a button in a panel you can include a single property value like this:
row.operator("my.operator").property = 271

When the operator is run by clicking the button it's property will be set to 271.
If you want to pass more than one argument assign the returned instance of OperatorProperties to a variable and modify its attributes:
operator_props = row.operator("my.operator")
operator_props.prop_name1 = 42
operator_props.prop_name2 = "foo"

Another way to have more than one value available that can be set in a panel and used by an operator is to move them to a location that can be accessed by both the panel and the operator.
These could be global module variables that are defined in your script but outside both the panel and operator classes.
You could create a property for the Window Manager. Items stored in the ID dictionary of the Window Manager are not saved to the blend file. You might use a PropertyGroup to easily pack your properties.
bpy.types.WindowManager.my_operator_props = \
    bpy.props.PropertyGroup(MyPropertyGroup)

bpy.context.window_manager.my_operator_props.prop = 42

The operator could retrieve these in its invoke method to initialize its own properties.
If you make your script an addon you could also create a bpy.types.AddonPreferences subclass to hold your settings that can be adjusted in the preferences and also displayed in a panel for easier access.

the instancing of OperatorProperties is really nice


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PyNodes API: transferring data between nodes with sockets
I'm developing a custom NodeTree using the PyNodes API (on Blender 2.70) for scientific analysis and am having trouble choosing the best way to transfer data between nodes via sockets.
Right now I can think of two options, neither of which seem satisfactory:

Accessing input socket links from the node itself on each update, for which purpose I'd have to create a dummy "input socket" with no associated properties which seems a little hacky (although I've seen similar dummy input sockets used in blendgraph)
Traversing the NodeTree links list, copying input socket data to their respective output sockets and updating nodes sequentially

Is there a specific method for transferring data between sockets that the API is intended for? I haven't managed to find any definitive examples so far.

The way I have found to get input values is
if self.inputs['inY'].is_linked and self.inputs['inY'].links[0].is_valid:
    iny = self.inputs['inY'].links[0].from_socket.default_value
else:
    iny = self.inputs['inY'].default_value

Add calculations in the middle here then pass on output values -
self.outputs['result'].default_value = res

The key point being read inputs from a connecting node socket default value and write to our output default value for other nodes to read.
You don't need dummy sockets to store values, sockets are for connecting other nodes to pass on values. You can use property definitions to add properties to your nodes. These can be shown on your node in it's draw() without having input connections available.
If your concern is that updates don't just happen, then you've found that pynodes don't just automatically update yet. The solution is manual updates, sverchok adds a panel with update buttons and has a 'Bake' button on some nodes to do the updating, it also implements a caching system. Another consideration is to register a function as a handler for frame changes so that animations aren't an issue.
def handler_node_update(scene):
    for n in node_tree.nodes:
        n.update()

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(handler_node_update)

There is also a nodes internal_links property to consider, it's for "Internal input-to-output connections for muting". It is a collection of NodeLinks and I guess we use something like -
self.internal_links[0].from_node = self
self.internal_links[0].from_socket = self.input['inY']
self.internal_links[0].to_node = self
self.internal_links[0].to_socket = self.outputs['result']

I have got this far from this pynodes tutorial and looking through some of the sverchok source (luxblend is another project using pynodes) with this blender wiki page about the only other helpful source of info so far.

there is no way for custom pynodes to get evaluated in cycles ?

No not yet(I haven't checked for a while), they were implemented to be used as a complete custom nodetree, support for integrating them with any built-in nodes has not been implemented. You can add nodes that can be added in cycles materials but they don't get updated properly.

as developer of sverchok recommend from beginning to separate UI and data - make data tree operated as combination of definitions respecting node tree. we made this mistake and now have to separate ui from data it is hard

I know old thread but... Could you explain this a bit more?

Just started writing PyNodes and remembered your comment. Do you still believe this was better than storing data in the nodes?

Yes, separate data and ui. just build data tree. Thank to Linus Yng, he implemented node tree exploiting mechanism for Sv

My Solution is so far (doing something with the inputs and push them to the output/next Node and update):
    def update(self):
    # Eingänge aufsummieren
    self.wertab=0.0
    for i in self.inputs:
        self.wertab=self.wertab+i.default_value

   if self.outputs[0].is_linked:
       for l in self.outputs[0].links:
            l.to_socket.default_value=self.wertab
            l.to_node.update()


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What are the benefits of modeling in one piece, or as separate parts?
Is there any benefit of creating model in one piece or I can create separate pieces and just overlap them to create a visually joint part.
For example, the below image were made from two parts
1. Blade
2. Spinner
Is there any benefit to model them (e.g. extrude from the spinner) or it is actually ok to have them separated since visually I can achieve the same effect (See picture 2)

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/3305/599

This is very subjective. If your 3D printing, then one part is the only way to go. otherwise, this is very debatable.

Thanks gandalf3 and GiantCowFilms. My aim is to export it as object and then import it and animate in After Effects using Element 3D. The animation will be a rotating propeller.

One reason is performance. Having a 50000 polygon single mesh is much quicker to work with in Object mode than 50000 single polygon objects (e.g. leaves)

The way I would go about that example, there would be separate objects for the hub and the blade. In the situation you described there is no reason to add vertices to the hub and extrude the blades out. In a real propeller there are separate pieces. There is no need to make modeling and texturing the propeller harder then it needs to be.
Another way to look at it, what do you gain by having the blades extruded from the hub? From modeling, texturing, rigging and animating in this case it is all easier with separate objects.

For a rendered result it's not necessary to connect everything, and as you mentioned the apparent difference is extremely negligible.
I tend to think about whether the parts would be connected in the real world (by connected I mean one solid piece, not bolted/fastened together). So far it's worked pretty well for me, with some occasional bending of the rule ;)


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Create an object that emits smoke only from specific faces
I would like to draw an object, e.g. a cube, that emits smoke from the top face only but not the rest of the faces. How can I do this?

Select the top face in Edit Mode and assign it to a Vertex Group

Select the Vertex group in the Smoke Flow Advanced section
Limit the distance of emitting from surface by setting Surface to 0.


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Since upgrading to 2.78 requires rekey objects that were not even moved when doing animation.
I upgraded to 2.78 and 2.78a. Since doing so every time I keyframe an object, let's say the left foot after moving it to position, if I don't also re-key the right foot even though it wasn't moved it will move when the left foot moves. Having to rekey objects that are not to be moved in the first place has had me pulling my hair out. Any suggestions on why this is happening? Is it a bug?

I couldn't recreate the problem in my files. Could you provide your .blend?

No I am making a complete animation. All I am doing is changing the position of the char's feet. If I move the left foot and key it then move the frames forward some for the right foot's next position and key that, during the scroll through the left leg moves when it shouldn't. My only work around so far is to rekey the left foot position when I get the right foot where I want it. It never did that before.

I wish I could help, but I don't get anything similar with my/rigify rigs and characters.Sorry.

Can you make a stick figure and see if you can recreate the situation, upload that Blender file - we might be able to help.  If you can't recreate the problem, your left and right foot might be linked somehow, i.e. when you do anything to one foot's Dope sheet strip, it's affecting the other's.


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Artifacts in shading do not understand how to fix

Artifacts in shading and render view, do not understand how to fix tried to throw to another document blend. But artifacts still remain

With this object selected, if you go to the object data tab in the properties panel (on the right side, the little green triangle) and then scroll down to Geometry Data, does it say "Clear Custom Split Normals Data"? If so click that and see if it fixes it.

Thanks, but the problem was solved in another way, I had zero minimum draw value, once I increased it, the problem was solved.


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export uv layout only edge select
enter image description hereI need to export only some selected edges not the faces of them.
The problem is that they are not visible even in the UV map and therefore cannot be exported.
Is there a way to export only selected edges?
I want to simply export only the black outlines on my transparency texture and then apply them on the texture and simulate a toon outline on my model, here's the reason
and I need to export only the contours I need
You can obtain this black outline effect on the model by exporting the transparency of only the black lines in UV by inserting absolute 00, then eliminating all the other black lines and adding the erosion effect in a Photoshop program.
the problem that always affects me is to manually delete all the areas of the mesh if I could export it, only the selected edges everything would be easier, that's the point.

tbh i have no idea what you want to achieve and what the sense of this might be...!? maybe you wanna explain a bit more why you wanna do that?

Please show us a simple  example.. and .. in what format do you want to export, and for what purpose?

I want to simply export only the black outlines on my transparency texture and then apply them on the texture and simulate a toon outline on my model, here's the reason
and I need to export only the contours I need


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Shape of my modelHead changing from edit mode to object mode
I managed to rig my model. It uses long chains with some constraints for both ik and fk kinematics. But now, I have faced another challenge. I have tried to fix this, but I'm missing something. In edit mode, the shape of my head is perfectly circular, but it changes to some weird shape. How do I fix this?

pls provide blend file, thx

A share on https://blend-exchange.com/ would probably clear this up more quickly than a blindfolded exchange of details in  the commentary :)

@chris I just did

@RobinBetts  I just did...

There are 2 things here: your neck is rotated in Pose mode, it makes the head deform because the top neck bone also influences the head mesh. You could remove the vertices from this neck vertex group, or keep it, and when you want the head to rotate, rotate this neck bone a little bit as well, this way . More generally, I'm not sure why you use so many faces and so many bones.

Oh, thank you...  I am not sure how to reduce the number of faces... I have tried all methods help me out here....


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bones auto wieght painting randomly on opposite side
auto weight painting randomly selects finger on opposite side

ive tried geting rid of all the weight info and bone modifiers on all the objects (every limb is a diferent object) and and re shuffled the bone placements mutiple times. lastly i tried weight painting by hand but shift ctrl LMB didnt select the bones for some reason. cant find resources for weight painting on multiple objects. any help would be apreciated
Here is the file

Hello please share your file

There is an error in the naming of the ring finger. I will provide a full answer shortly.

do you have a reason why you don't join all the parts together? Or if you don't want any deformation you can simply parent each part to each bone, without Armature Deform

The problem may have occurred because the mesh was parented before the mirror modifier was applied, causing the ring finger to follow the other hand.
To resolve the naming problem, delete half of the armature and symmetrize it.
Then, re-parent the mesh to the armature with new weights, either automatically or manually.


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When I move the liquid-filled container in the liquid simulation, the liquid decreases
I animated a liquid-filled container. During movement, the liquid does not overflow or spill, but there is an extreme decrease in the liquid level. I tried various settings but couldn't find a solution.enter video link description here


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Functionality like Photoshop's Smart Objects
In modern versions of photoshop, there's a feature called smart objects. The simplest way to describe it is a 'file within a file'. A smart object layer is effectively the final canvas state of this internal file, and you can 'open' it at anytime to modify it, then save it to update its final appearance. It's a very effective non-destructive feature.
I'm looking for something similar for blender, mainly to make working with complex objects easier.
For example, say I have a mesh that has booleans, shrinkwrap, and simple deform. All of these are position sensitive, so I can't just move the final object. I know I can parent everything to go with it, but that can cause issues with space evaluation in some cases, and the performance isn't great.
Is there a way I can non-destructively 'finalize' a mesh?

Possible duplicate of How can I reuse existing materials, objects, etc from an existing .blend? It's maybe not as straightforward as in Photoshop because you will need to create object in other file, not in the same one.

It depends on what you mean with 'finalize' and what you want to be able to do with the object. Blender's objects have way more functionality than Photoshop's layers. You could group your objects and then use a group instance(shift+a menu) if you only need to change transforms of the group.

@MartinZ - If you post your comment as a reply, I'll mark it as the answer; instancing is close enough to what I need. Thanks.


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Soft Body - Preserve Volume when deformed
I'm not seeing a way to preserve volume when deforming a soft-body object. All I can find is the constraint modifier by the same name, but that is not relevant.
Surely this feature is supported? It would be difficult to accomplish a lot of effects without this.

Meshes are typically created 'hollow', as an outer surface only. This means that the soft body simulation normally treats the object as an outer shell and this means it can easily be deformed into its own volume.
In order to prevent this can can add internal structure (just like a 'real' object) which can oppose any crushing forces to retain the object's volume.
For example, for a cylinder you can add internal structure as shown :

The soft body forces for the internal edges will act to prevent the mesh from being crushed. In order to further increase the internal forces you can enable Soft Body Self Collision in order to prevent those internal vertices from being pushed closer together, thereby retaining the volume.
Note : The above mesh was created by the following steps :

Add a Circle
In Edit mode, select all and Grid Fill
Select all and delete 'Only Faces'
Extrude to create a 'section'
Optionally remove internal faces (only faces)
Use Array modifier to replicate into a cylinder
Apply modifier and Remove Doubles to ensure joined together

Note that the additional internal vertices and edges (and especially the self-collision) will significantly affect the soft body simulation time.

EDIT : For an alternative method of creating internal geometry, see Create internal mesh for object


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Apply *Relative* Shape Key to another mesh?
I haven't started yet, but I'm asking now in case it affects my workflow.
I plan to rig a male/female character, and use shape-keys to deal with the problem joints (shoulders/hips).
I understand that to copy a shape-key to another mesh, the topology has to be the same and that can be done. But the shape of the male/female shoulder is different.
Is it possible that the relative transformation of the male's shoulder shape-key could be applied to the female's shoulder? For example, a vertex in the male's shoulder is moved -2(x) via shape-key. Would the female's shoulder also move -2(x) from its unique location, or do shape-keys use absolute co-ordinates?

Shapekeys save relative movements. You can test this by adding a shapekey then altering the mesh and seeing how the shapekey effects the mesh.
A simple shapekey movement - up four across five

After moving the original corner the shapekey moves up four and across five from the new starting position.

alright, thanks, that will save me a lot of work.


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ShrinkWrap - Keep Original Edge Lengths
Is it possible to tell the shrinkwrap modifier to not shrink the lengths of certain edges? I'm having a bunching issue where it collapses the topology, if there was a 'keep original length' option I could apply to a vertex group, that would be amazing.

I don't think so, this would make the shrinkwrap algorithm much more complex... Perhaps if you rephrase your question to visualize your problem, we can suggest another technique instead.

@MarkusvonBroady I'm trying to apply a skin-tight uniform to multiple characters with different body types. I tried cloth and softbody, but they had other issues. I think the issue is my shrinkwrap mesh is too high poly, I will try low poly with mesh deform.


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Is it possible to interpolate missing frames in video editing?
Sometimes it is useful to render a complete video even though some (possibly random) frames are still missing.
Is there any way to interpolate the missing frames with Blender?
In the case that it is not possible, I would be happy for any suggestion on that problem.

Blender does not currently support inter frame effects that allow information from one frame to inform a later one. What you need is Optical Flow technology.  There are a number of software solutions available and even some free ones, depending on your OS.
This would be a neat trick for blender however, allowing you to render at half frame rate then interpolate the rest.

it would be great for footage which needs to be slowed down a lot.

Thanks, I ended up using proprietary software for this task. But as you said, such a feature could be very helpful!

It would be nice to work around cache limitations after building a big physic sim, you cannot slow those down without rebaking.


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How to achieve screen tearing effect or video glitches

I do not know at all what this effect is called, therefore I cannot search for the answer on the web. I am referring to the thing where the RGB color will shift individually when the camera jitters/move
So, how can I achieve this sort of effect in blender? and for future reference, what is this effect called?

That looks like intentional screen tearing combined with momentary conversion to something like a cyan/magenta anaglyph.

Somewhat related: realtime viewport anaglyphs

@catlover2 ah! its so obvious once you hear it. thanks

And that style of effect is called a 'glitch' or 'glitch art', however I don't know if there are specific names for individual effects :)

oh really? never heard of it lol. I guess you learn something new everyday, thankx

This can be done in compositing with a displace node driven by a texture.
1st, let's see the basics.
In the node editor, select compositing and backdrop.

Now add a displace node (shift+A to open the menu or click "add")

link it to the image and to a viewer node (Ctrl+Shift+Click on the displace node) and you can move the image on X and/or Y with the X/Y scale values. Nothing really interesting yet.
Now we want to control where this effect will affect the image. This can be done with a texture.
In the properties panel, go to texture tab and click "new"

change the type to blend

and the blend to vertical

Now back in compositing, add an input/texture node and choose your blend texture

The outputs are Value and Color. Value is the alpha, color is...the color :)
Now plug the color output to displace's X Scale intput. You'll se a very small effect.

We now need to control the power of the effect.
Add a Converter/math node and change it to multiply. Connect the Texture-Color output to the 1st math input and the math output to Diplace-X Scale. Change the math value to 20 and you'll see something like that.

Some explainations :
The texture is black in the bottom, white in the top. Black means no effect, white means full effect (from 0 to 1). AFAIK, 1 is a 1 pixel displacement so the math node multiplies this by 20, what means 20 pixels.
Now let's play with the texture.
go back to the properties panel in texture tab. In color, check Ramp.

also chage the interpolation to constant (allows TV line/pixel effect).

We won't use alpha, all we will change here is the BW value of the colors and add/move color stops (with the "+" above the ramp). Let's do something like this :

and see the effect

This is what we want : we can displace some parts of the image (controled by the texture) and change the power of the effect with the math node (0=no effect, can also be negative). The the value in the math node can be animated.
This is the basic. We can do something more interesting.
1st, let's correct the hole created with the displace.
Add a Color/mix node, click use alpha and plug the displace output to the 2nd color input of the mix node. The 1st color input can be any color you want, or a texture/image and will replace the holes alpha.

As this is a bit long and the basics are covered and (hopefully) understood, let's see how we can achieve the effect on RGB. We could use 3 different textures but we'll do this with 1, controling the displacement of each color.
Go back to the properties/texture tab. The texture will now use RGB values to control the image RGB displacement.

Add as many color stops as you want, change their R G B values. I'll use this :

Back in compositing, we need to separate RGB colors from the image AND the texture, use the texture's RGB to control displace of each image channel and combine them back. This is the complete node setup :

The math value can be changed/animated separately or you can plug an Input/value node to control them all.
You can also use 2 (or more) textures with separate displaces and animate a color mix node to control wich one is used.
You can use the texture's alpha to control another displace plugged to Y Scale.


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Issue of create low poly model with decimate modifier
I'm new in blender, here I try to convert a high poly model to a low poly model, the UV outline, the polygons look good, but when I put a texture on it, that show the UV inside is distorted ,not accurate to the source model in some place.
At below image, the left hand side is the original model and right side decimated low poly model.
Do this issue have any solution?

Here is another image that show the comparison between c4d poly reducer, orginal and blender decimate modifier.

Maybe unwrap again? Try the basic Unwrap option, or the Project from View?

I can't easily unwrap again, the model is a clothing model created from marvelous designer, that's complex and have many drapping, here just show a easy example for better look

I face this exact issue with cloth imported from MD often. Unwrapping is the answer. You can set UV seams from UV islands and also pin those boundary UVs to keep the shape. There is no actual problem that would arise because of mesh complexity here, that's irrelevant.

Sad, that's mean this one don't have a blender side solution.


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Interference in the baked normal map
My first experience in baking normals map, so what went wrong, I can't say. The only difference between the high-poly and low-poly models is the recess in the middle (which, for some reason, was baked perfectly)

Hello, hard to understand, could you please share your file?

Instructions for sharing your blendfile.

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

Assuming you are using overlapping geometry, there might be issues with faces intersecting between the mesh you cast the normal map from and the mesh you are baking onto. It's hard to tell without seeing both meshes. It might be (my assumption) that you need to use cage baking, or something else is off about the vertex data of your low poly mesh. If the normal map is having regular errors it might be something other than "mesh sticking out". You can try to see if baking to a different mesh looks like this as well. Please provide additional screenshots, too.


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How should I scale these faces facing each direction towards the center?
I am trying to scale the faces marked in Pic01 towards the center by using the Scale tool; however, as you may see from Pic02, the circled piece doesn't work as expected.

I would much appricate if anyone could explain this to me or tell me how should I deal with it!

You're trying to scale them with the Move tool? What direction are you expecting them to move?

I mean Scale tool (press s); wanna move them towards the center.

Set your transform pivot point to 3D Cursor.

Then, scale those faces excluding the Z-axis.S, SHIFT + Z, 0.

Thank you, but didnt work

Perhaps I misunderstood you.  Are you trying to seal the hole, or just slightly move everything in?

And what is the face you have circled not doing that you want it to?