text:
Animation looping not seamless
I'm working on a looping character animation, but no matter what I try, the "seam" of the loop is always jerky and clearly visible. The keyframes are all set to vector and I made sure to make the animation 1 frame shorter, so the 1s.
Video to illustrate:
https://youtu.be/7yZ_QMZVdKQ

so the 1st keyframe is not the same as the last*

When you make looping animations, especially animations whose entire motion is procedural, you want to make sure that the first and last frames have the same keys, but also that the Handle Type for those keys is set to Vector. You can change these in the Curves window.
DO NOT TOUCH the vector handles;
Assuming that all handle types are Automatic and you did not adjust the bezier handles, when you convert them to Vector, they should already be flowing the same direction. (The tangents should be the same). If they are not (look at them, compare), you can manually adjust the vector handles or re-key the first and/or last keyframes.
Example of when to expect good results automatically:
A bobbing motion where cardinal (X,Y, and/or Z) position(s) is/are keyed. Suppose you key only one period. You will want 5 keys for the 4 distinguishable segments:
  x
 / \
x   x   x
     \ /
      x

the default interpolation ("Automatic") will create smooth bezier curves that work great in the middle but flatten out at the ends. Assuming this motion has its keys equally spaced and the average position is keyed, if you now select the first and last key and change the handle type to "Vector", their tangents will match and the motion will be seamless.
Also: Remember that the last frame needs to be excluded (since it is literally a copy of the first frame (yes, I see you do). This is done by setting the last frame value in the Timeline window to 1-less-than the frame the last key is on.

thanks so much for your reply! you're right on all counts, and i appreciate your help on this. I actually did set all keyframes to automatic, and first and last frames to vector, but there must be a bug in blender: clicking on individual bones and checking the first and last frames, not all of them where set to vector. I ended up adjusting every keyframe of every bone manually as a bezier, until the animation was looping perfectly. Thanks again!


text:
Help with doing face averaging with two Images
I have to do a little project. The task is to do an average face image with two face images. It is a part of face morphing.
I am little bit struggling with it. I put two images as a plane and then subdived first picture. Then I connected both images into a mesh and warped it.
After that I don't know what to do.
Left side: after tab mode, right side: edit mode.
Maybe you guys have an idea what I can do.

Does this help?

I watched this already. But he is morphing from one image into the other. I need an average face of both image.

In the tutorial he is playing an animation, at 12:00. Around 12:02 the animation is halfway and shows a blend of the two faces. How is the average you want different from that?

Yes you right, but i am trying without a video. I don't know if it is possible to create such an average face image. I haven't found until now other tutorials.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Keyframe seconds doesnt fit the animation

I have a running animation. I exported it from a very old game, but I have an issue with the animation. The markers don't fit the second. For this reason the animation is shaking little bit.
Can somebody help me?

Keyframes on your timeline should be in position of seconds? BTW your current timeline doesnt display seconds but frames. To switch press Control+T. Also to have 3 keyframes per frame is quite a lot, doesnt play animation too fast? It looks like you need to scale animation when import (if its BVH) or try to scale keyframes on timeline. Probably better to post part or simplified blend with issue via https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com and paste link into your Question.

thank you for your attention.As I said, the game is too old.Game company is bankrupt.And i have tool converts gr2 files do .dae file.i cant re scale the animation from tool that's all i can do. thanks

You are welcome, but I asked to place code (link) into your question not as Comment. Thank you for keeping thread clear for followers.

Wow nice and smooth, right shoulder not shaking anymore :)) this is perfect. Thank you sir.

Snap keyframes to frames
Imported animation seems to be scaled down in time, three keyframes in frame is not usual. So original was probably designed for higher FPS (frame per second).
First you need to scale keyframes up, but by default blender use Snap to Nearest Frame, that cause in your case deleting (merging) all keyframes in between frames.

To avoid that, change to No Auto-Snap

In Pose mode select all bones. Go to Dope Sheet, select all keyframes and scale S them up with Current frame at zero, in your case scale to 3.482 seems to fit most of the keyframes on frame position. (Hard to say why they are not set precisely.)

Now you can switch Snap to Nearest Frame back and with all selected press G to move, but you dont really want to move, just move a bit so keyframes jump on frame positions and hit enter. Now you should have all keyframes aligned to frames.

Run cycle duration 0.76666s
Your import in length of 19 frames fits approximately to 25 fps. If you want to scale keyframes to fit frames you would have to increase FPS (frame per second).
Scaling keyframes per frame gives 65 frames with first keyframe on frame 1 (that is common start for blender). Last keyframe generates jump in motion, so I delete them. Since you know you have like 64 frames that should takes 0.766666s you should change fps to (64/76.6666%*100%) 84 fps. I dont know if there are some standards for game cycles, but I expected 60 or 120 so it is a bit weird.

Note:
BTW I don't have any shake even with your blend. So if you are OK to keep 24 fps with just 19 frames that with merged all keyframes in between - just select all bones in pose mode and press G to move a bit with mouse over Dope Sheet and release, keyframes jumps to frame position.

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


text:
Why do my objects become transparent instead of being removed with UPBGE?
I add an object using addObject(), but when I put a time to be alive, when the time ends, the object does not delete, it becomes transparent. See:

Why?
Script:
from bge import *
from mathutils import *
from random import randint

class Component(types.KX_PythonComponent):

  args = {
    "speed" : 0.1
  }

  def start(self, args):
    self.speed = args["speed"]

    scene = logic.getCurrentScene()

    empty = scene.objects["Empty"]

    for object in range(11):
        torus = scene.addObject("Suzanne", empty, 33.0)

        torus.worldPosition = [randint(-20, 20), randint(-20, 20), 1]

  def update(self):
    pass

I am using UPBGE 0.3.0.
[I speak portuguese, sorry for english mistakes]


text:
I have been useing Archipack with 2.8 for a while. I mooved to 2.83 and it stopped working
After so long with 2.8 i decided to switch to 2.83 I treid to install Archipack and it game me this error.

Drop the screenshot of this error.

I think the data structures have changed, and an object created in an older version of Blender is liable to cause problems. Try creating some small object from scratch and see if it behaves better.

Huh. worked really good! I will go back to 2.8 tho. I just prefer not having to work with a smaller object


text:
How can i clean irregular few group of vertices in sculpting?

During sculpting, cause I use only a subdivided cube, it happens that few groups of vertices generate this type of irregularity so that I can't smooth, decrease or refill it. How I could remove this irregularity to continue to shape it? Thanks for helps

Nevermind, I resolved it by myself:
These irregularity are simply bad topology, or rather accumulated vertices that are stacked after an excessive rearrangement of an initial unique mesh. The result is the tangling of groups of vertices that create hollows, ridges and high density of vertices that are hard to handle, and they stay on the bottom.
The use of tools like flatten, smooth, inflate and draw are useless, and also the simplify tool is not helpful.
SOLUTION:
Finally, the direct solution is:

Use in edit mode the tool bisect and trim the piece that has irregularity;
Delete this;
Use a new mesh to sculpt;
End.


text:
My problem is with x-Axis Mirror
The option is already in use but, the second bone does not change.

Bone names could be an issue. X-Axis Mirror part (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.80/animation/armatures/bones/editing/bones.html)
Try renaming them to Bone.R and Bone.L

When you have pairs of bones of the same name with just a different “side suffix” (e.g. “.R”/”.L”, or “_right”/”_left” …), once this option is enabled, each time you transform (move/rotate/scale…) a bone, its “other side” counterpart will be transformed accordingly, through a symmetry along the armature local X axis.

Muito obrigado. Nossa nem acredito que era tão simples, tinha lido várias paginas do manual mas nem imaginava que o problema seria esse. Obrigado mesmo


text:
How to smooth a cone side without changing its shape?
I'm trying to smooth cone's side like I did for a cylinder using Edge Split and Subdivision Surface.
However, the cone (red one) is changing its shape at the top:

How can I prevent this?

You could try adding an edge loop very close to the top.

The easiest way is to actually use a cylinder. you can then shrink the top to a very small size in order to make it feel like a cone. Then add an edge split modifier and the SubSurf.
The reason a cylinder is better is that the edge split doesn't work really well for triangles, and the cone basemesh is made of triangles. (You can't add edge loops on a cone).

On the screenshot I made the cylinder top big so you can see it's actually a cylinder but feel free to shrink the size as you want.

I would like to note that I used Simple Deform -> Taper modifier to change the shape of a cylinder.

I didn't find the modifier you are talking about in the modifiers panel
edit oh sorry actually it is in the modifier panel just didn't understant you had to pick the simple deform modifier with taper option

I extrude the bottom ring just a tiny bit like you see on the
picture.
Then I took the original loop above and performed edge slide all the way up to where you see the tiny loop up top.
Then I extruded the bottom loop again a tiny bit like the first time.
And finally I made the bottom loop completely sharp.

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


text:
Boolean difference produces incorrect result
I'm carving letters on a cylinder with the Boolean difference operator.
This worked well for a while, but suddenly a strange result became to occur:

As you can see, a part of the letter made a pit in the cylinder (as intended), while outside part produced "walls" around the letter edge.
I already checked for broken normals and duplicate vertices.
Also, I can not see mesh geometry when I switch to wireframe shading (not sure if it's releated):

The file itself can be downloaded from here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8QGeF3SuAgTRXNyZ2xsZVV4Tk0
What do I need to fix to make this operation work correctly?

Not sure if you use Ngons here. Try to triangulate your meshes before you do boolean operations. Sometimes it also helps to give the objecs a slight offset when the first try doesn't work. But you will nearly always end in a result where you have to fix something. That's the nature of boolean :)

Make sure you apply the scale and rotation of the objects. In Object Mode select an object and press CTRL + "A" and select "Rotation and Scale" from the drop down menu.

@Dontwalk Thanks, that fixed it! Could you please convert your comment to an answer so I can accept it?

Make sure you apply the scale and rotation of the objects. In Object Mode select an object and press CTRL + "A" and select "Rotation and Scale" from the drop down menu.

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


text:
Creating Pixel texture
I want to create pixel texture in pixel art software(aseprite) for my blender model, is it possible I export uv map and create pixel art from it and then import my pixel texture to blender?
I'm new to modeling
Thank you

in the UV Editor, you can export the UV: UV > Export UV Layout. You can also prepare a rough draft image and Image > Save As

Thank you for your answer


text:
Default cube: Moving vertices up from the top face produces different geometry when translated in the same way
I must be missing something obvious here. Why do these two operations result in different geometry? Brand new project, simply grabbing a vertex and moving it straight up. Vertices on the diagonal mimic each other. Two of them work one way, two of them work the other way. I'm stumped.
Blender 2.93.4

It is an artifact of the difference between what quads look like to you at the user interface and how blender actually represents them internally.
Add a Triangulate modifier to your cube and it will look like this:

That's because a four sided polygon, (a quad) is represented as two triangles (tris) in blender.
Whether you see the line or not depends on whether you've raised one of the two vertices that do have the diagonal attached to them, or you raise one of the other two vertices.  In the first case, you see the diagonal, because you've actually moved it:

In the second case, you don't:


text:
Why are my particles starting off like this?
So I have an emitter that's spinning (its a cylinder inside the black sphere). I have my first particle system set to loop by starting it at -210-210 and the second one starting at 210-630 (420 frames, 30fps)
Any idea whats going on? :/
This is the issue...

This is what it's supposed to look like (taken after 100 frames)

Solved...
Had to start the cylinder rotation on a negative frame along with the start of the particle system.

Hi, thanks for the post. This site is not a regular forum, answers should be substantial and thoroughly explain the solution and required workflow. One liners and short tips rarely make for a good answer. If you can [edit] your post and provide some more details about the procedure and why it works feel free to restore it, otherwise it may be deleted or converted into a comment. Perhaps add a few images illustrating the workflow and final results. See How do I write a good answer?


text:
Simple deform does not bend the whole mesh
I'm trying to bend a rather simple mesh (originally a cube but stretched out and flattened) with simple deform - bend in a -45 degree angle using an empty in the z-axis as origin. Why does it only bend a face and not the whole mesh?
Best
Staffan
bend

hello, it looks like it bends the whole mesh, what is your initial mesh and what are you trying to achieve exactly?

My initial mesh was a cube. I stretched it so that it became an outstretched cuboid, like a "flat stick". I want that stick to bend in one of its ends.

it can only bend if it has enough topology to bend, does it? also, maybe rotate it 90° on Z

Yes, I added several loopcuts to the mesh.

also in Edit mode rotate it 90° on Z so it is aligned along X

Thanks for your suggestions. It did get better by using them. However it turned out it was not really what I wanted. I found this tutorial. The instructions at 3 min was very helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kNUkxg2b8E


text:
Rendered transparent RGBA png looks different when imported to Adobe
On the left hand of the image is a screen shot from my render in Blender. On the right hand is a screen shot of the same image when imported to After Effects. In AE the chin and throat disappears and the neck shines trough. The same happens when testing the image in Photoshop. I have used cycles.
Best
Staffan

Hello and welcome. What Bit Depth are you using ? and how are you saving the image?

Thanks! Now I notice that I am using color depth 8 instead of 16. That might be the problem. I am not sure I understand your other question though. I use render image.

Nope, the color depth did not help.

There's a difference in how the hair looks too. Blender might be rendering the transparency differently.

Is it possible that you have additional objects that aren't visible in the viewport but are being exported?  Also, might there be an issue with backface culling?

No additional objects. I have disabled them in the render. Backfaced culling sounded like a good idea. However I tried ticking backeface culling box in Materials - Viewport display - Settings. It didn't help.

@StaffanWesterlund I mean something like THIS way to save an image

I solved it! It was a very stupid and simple mistake. When I looked closely in the render viewport I could see that the chin was actually transparent. It could be seen more clearly though when moved to another background layer. The problem was I had a transparent BSDF in my shader. After disconnecting it, everything looks fine.
Thanks for you efforts trying to help me!


text:
How can I select and move only one primitive?
I have a model which currently consists of two basic primitives.  I want to select and move only one of the shapes, but while in object mode it seems to be treating them as one object.  Must I switch to edit mode and select every vertex of the one primitive or is there an easier way?
Edit:  I should note that my end goal is to carve one shape by doing a boolean difference between the two.

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/56153/why-cant-objects-in-edit-mode-have-their-own-name

do you have two objects? or one object with two primitives in it?

@David, therein lies the question.  I don't know how to distinguish that, but iowaqas and cegaton's advice below fixed the problem.

If you have joined 2 objects then you will need to access each one of them by going to Edit Mode
Once you are in Edit Mode, hover your mouse over the primitive you want to select and press L.
You will be able to select a single primitive of your choice.

Thank you.  This solves part of the problem.  I can now easily select only the one shape, but blender is still not treating them as separate objects in the scene.


text:
Retargeting Mocap Upside Down and Weird
I'm new to Blender (coming from Cinema 4D mainly). I can't figure out how to correctly retarget a mocap rig I got from Mixamo onto a simpler rig.
Before retargeting:

After retargeting:

Using a walking-while-holding-a-gun animation:

I would appreciate if someone could help me figure out the following:
1) Why it makes my rig upside down or perpedicular to the mocap animation
2) Why the animation is not correctly followed as seen in the provided GIF
Here is the blender file which I think should help in figuring this out:
https://files.fm/u/zxke6d27
EDIT:
I've gotten it to this point:

What I'm not sure about how the rigs have their joints point in the same direction yet correlate to the parts as if they were rotated 180 degrees. Here's the current file:
https://files.fm/u/nh88zr4j

Blender inludes an addon called "Motion Capture tools" which includes a "Fix bvh axis rotation". Generally blender uses z-up which often conflicts with other software, when importing bvh you have options to change the axis orientations.


text:
Can anyone tell me how is this Rocket Engine flame animation was made?
I just saw the rocket engine flame animation in the youtube, and it mentions that animation was made by blender. please see the pic below.
And I start to wonder is this animation was made by particle?? or smoke?? or maybe it was made by mesh. The youtube link: Rocket Engine Flame
If anyone knows, please tell me how to do it.
Thank you.

See https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2449/what-is-the-problem-with-posting-an-image-or-link-and-asking-how-do-i-do-this

Here is one example of rocket exhaust
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ThjQkN4oQc


text:
Open projects legal advice
Hello I was wondering if your able to use the assets that blender cloud lets you download when you have a subscription to make a profit with them if you remodel them or leave as is and include them in your project.
To make a profit with them as is or remodeled do you need to have an active sub if you used one of there assets as a base model?
addressing (insert name here) to who have problems with my ? I came to this site from a link on blender clouds site so didint think there would be a problem with asking about them im sure since you 's all have such good grammar and there for probably think it means you have a big brain and there for like to show how big your brain is go arond on forums makeing sure ppl stick to the all so important rules as if its how you make your self feel valued but any way I'm sure you can tell how it is someone would assume me asking what I asked would be ok and as for it not being about blender I don't see how you can really say that the site teachers about useing blender the assets are for blender and the remodeling was suggested to be done in blender but since there all was seems to be tight ass on forums that wine about tiney things as well as grammar and spelling im sure thoughs tight ass wil focus on them things. To the one who answered my ?though I thank you for answering with out doing any of that wineing helping instead of hindering thank you

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it seems to be about Blender Cloud licensing and legal advice, not Blender application itself.

and this is a nother resion I don't like forums theres all wase a tight ass

@someone ... what did your last comment mean?  It is difficult to understand.

@someone everything has rules, not only licensing, even sites like this. Why you are so interested in blender cloud rules, but asking about those here you can't understand this? and, insulting, too...

Basically, if it says BY you have to include the name of the artist it was by.
If it was SA (ShareAlike), your creation also has to be ShareAlike.
notes from  https://cloud.blender.org/blog/blender-cloud-v3
Everything you find in Blender Cloud is either GNU GPL compliant software, or creative content that’s licensed as Creative Commons. We use three CC licenses here:
CC-BY: A permissive license that allows any re-use for as long you give a fair credit. It’s the default license. If you don’t see an explicit license mention on a web page, you can assume the works is CC-BY.
CC-0: This is similar to Public Domain. We want to license low level assets (textures, props) as CC0 as much as possible.
CC-BY-SA: The copyleft license. Any re-use is fine for as long you share it under the same (compatible) license. We use this for works we want to remain part of Free Culture.
Excluded from any of the above licenses are: Logos and trademarks (Blender logo, but also the film title designs), privacy and personality rights (people in pictures or videos are not CC themselves).

ok thank you dose seem a bit deceptive by blender cloud thow if your not abil to use them how you like as that's how its read when you reed there big writing


text:
duplicate mesh along text?
Is it possible to duplicate a mesh over text? e.g. in courier new I write Hello, and i want to cover that space in spheres (edit:arbitrary 3D object) without placing each object individually.
I've seen examples of using dupliframes along curves, but is it possible to do it along text?
Edit: I also found out I can convert the text to a curve, but it seems the duplication only follows the outline of the text. Can I do a "fill" with my object?

Please convert your text to MESH .... not curve.  Please show an image of your text converted to mesh.  You may have limited images and thus may need to delete older/less valuable images.

So are you having any improvements or success?  Do you want your meshes to appear all at once or slowly?

Thank you so much for the help. I think with a googling a few of the commands I'll get to exactly what I want.

A group of particles. Note the outliner windows shows a group of two spheres.
Press keyboard t to show information panel.  To create a group you may select both spheres and press keyboard Control G. The information panel allows you to type in name.
In the forces you may want  to turn off gravity, gravity = 0.  You may also want to emit all particles quickly.  Start = 1. End = 2.

Single Object Particle

Convert the text to mesh and use particles. Note the vertices of the mesh in edit mode are highlighted. The particle object will be a sphere.

Thank you for the reply but i should have been more generic. what if i want it to be any random 3D mesh?

Group example added.


text:
Lighting reversed on single object
2]2I'm making an animation by editing a previous created one.
I'm using version 2.73 on an old Dell laptop with Vista OS and the render engine is Blender Render.
There is a single light source (sun) above the 4 objects in the scene.  3 were newly created, one is from the older animation.  All objects are being rendered (Blender Render) as textures. The lighting appears correct (light on top, shaded below) except the old object which appears reversed (dark on top, light on bottom).  The camera view has been changed in the new animation.

It's the torpedo that appears lit from below instead of above.
If I open the blender file I started editing into the new one, then import an underwater mine I created in the second version, without changing the camera view or lighting, the problem is reversed. There the torpedo is lit correctly but the mine is backwards
.
I think I've narrowed the issue down to being related to using textures in the rendering.  The problem doesn't exist with view port shading set to materials. As you can see from this picture:

Unfortunately I need to render as textures for later objects appearing in the animation.  Hope this helps point to the possible problem.
Is there a legacy aspect of the old object (shading correct previously) overriding the new camera positioning, or as a relatively new user, am I overlooking something simple I don't know about? Open to any suggestions that point me in the right direction, but I currently can't include the file for inspection, sorry.  Much appreciation.
[![Fixed Object]
Followup:  I continue to have major system errors (runtime, display driver, etc. frequent crashes) computer/application wide.  Wanted to send a view (see pic 4) of the newly created mine object among the older version to illustrate that whatever the problem was, it was surely operator error on my part.  The new object renders correctly.

Correction.  Objects are rendered as textures, not materials as stated in my question.

Don't you think some pictures could help to understand what you are saying here?

In addition to what lemon said... which render engine? Complete and accurate information really matters, you know... ;-)

What additional information do you require?  I'll try to provide everything within my limited knowledge and experience with Blender. I'm open to just speculation or opinions that directs me toward a more productive search for a solution myself.  I haven't found any threads that address this anomaly specifically yet, and my general research about lighting, rendering, etc, has fallen short.  I am confident though, it is likely operator error on my part, and not a bug.  Thanks, I appreciate any input.

What are the Blender versions involved here (the old model and what you have now) ? (if you respond please use @lemon or I won't see any notification)

@lemon                                                                              I updated the original post with the information you requested.

@cegaton  Unfortunately, it's about 180 MB, which is why I was reluctant to upload files in my original post.

@cegaton  I'll try doing that, but it may take a while,

Have you checked the object's normals? This is a very weird problem... Try pressing Ctrl-N

@someonewithpc  Normals look OK as near as I can tell.

@cegaton  Having other trouble with my system, getting the file small enough, and getting Userscript installed to upload it.  I'll keep trying, but I'm getting frustrated.

@cegaton  Thanks, got that part taken care of, but the computer and internet connection are not cooperating.  I was able to determine (I think) that the problem exists with the newer created Mine object rather than the older Torpedo.  [ Both created on v. 273] Need to resolve that issue or upload both. I'm looking closer there while I try to solve the continuing system problem.  I'll flag you in a comment when it;s ready.

if that can help, there is a "compress" option if you "save as" your file.

@lemon    I apologize for my late responses to all.  This laptop may have reached it's useful lifetime. Now almost every program is crashing including Blender.   If Blender will run, I've realized that recreating the object from scratch until the lighting issue presents itself will be easier than troubleshooting the problem without the information you'd need to fix it.  Thanks to everyone who tried to help me.  I'll try to be better prepared before I ask for help next time.  Cheers

@lemon & others See follow-up edit to original post.  I can't seem to find the check mark to highlight to consider my question answered and close the post, but wanted to thank you and all the others for trying to help.


text:
Importing multi-skinned fbx
Here is the thing:

I am trying to import an FBX (binary) that was firstly exported from Maya.
The peculiarity is that multiple objects were skinned to the same armature, which works perfectly in Maya but as you can see in the picture doesn't seem to be supported in Blender(?).
Is there a way to solve this?


text:
Can we move particles along a mesh surface?
Can we animate particles to move along a surface of a mesh? Maybe using Geometry nodes or something?
Something like this maybe
https://youtu.be/SYz3Pz0m2XM .
And it would be nice if we could set a offset from the mesh like it will track the ups and downs of the mesh surface but we can set a distance between the particles and the mesh.

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.

you can use the raycast node for that. The raycast node is "shooting" in a direction you define and you can use the hit points to set the position as you like.
node setup:

result:


text:
Cell fracture not working on procedural texture
I'm trying to make a cell fracture on a mesh with a procedural texture. It works fine if I try it on a mesh without a procedural texture or with a procedural texture with less nodes. But on this mesh it doesn't. I tried lowering the source limit in the cell fracture window from 1200 to 10. It does not help. Finally I give up and make a force quit.
My guess is that the procedural texture on the mesh is too complicated for my computer RAM to add a cell fracture to it. Could that be correct?
Best
Staffan

Have you tried to link the material after all the fragments are created? (Start with a dummy material, then link the real material). If you want to share your blend file we can give it a try and give you feedback. Just with the text and screenshot, it's hard to tell what's the problem and if it's your computer.

I tried linking the real material to the fractured dummy. For some reason the fractures didn´t get the real material. Is it really possible to add a blender file 145 MB big here?

No, you can't upload over 20MB here. Do you have a google drive or drive one, dropbox? Looks like you can upload file to Wetransfer.com for a week, too

Ok! Here it isL https://drive.google.com/file/d/18NBo_yBp2s-L4UW_-e3JLACMmxTbEQYd/view?usp=sharing

The sphere (bumpy) has 600k vertices + 200k for the particles (red thing). That's a lot. Have you tried to reduce the number of vertices? You can bake a normal map to add the texture details to the low-poly version. The shader might look a bit different for bumpy if you remesh and decimate the mesh.


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Rendered object visible in eevee but black in cycles
The rusty pipes are visible in rendered view in eevee and if I make a rendered image. In cycles the pipes are black in both rendered view and rendered image. The rest of the image is visible in both render engines. Render properties - Film – Exposure is set to 1.00. I am not aware of any other setting that could change the outcome. My guess is that I have to change the shading nodes (attached).
Best
Staffan

Some nodes work differently in eevee than in cycles (or only work in one), I don't know enough about it for a solid answer.  If it were mine I'd troubleshoot by stripping the last Principled BSDF node of individual noodles (starting with the Base Color, put something obviously not-black in that spot) and checking which one's causing the problem, then working back through that branch.

Here's a list of the nodes that currently only work in eevee: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/eevee/materials/nodes_support.html
However, my problem turned out to have a much simpler solution. All I had to do was changing the last node – "Metal" – from eevee to cycles.

I don't understand your solution from that, but I'm glad to hear you've solved it.  And thanks for the link!

See screen shot above. After the BSDF node there's another node called Metal. It contains a drop down menu containing the render engines.

Huh,, is that a Material Output node renamed "Metal"?  I didn't spot that, I always leave it on the default "All".  Why did you change it from All earlier?

It was set to "eevee" before. "All" works fine too. This is a project I started half a year ago so I don't really remember why I had it set to Eevee.

The Material Output node is so much a default for me that I barely glanced at it to make sure the noodle was going into the Surface socket.  When you said “the last node – ‘Metal’ ” I was looking at the Metallic socket of the Principled BSDF (what seemed like “the last node” to me) and wondering what you were talking about.  Something to add to my troubleshooting checklist, thx!

You're obviously way beyond me in Blender. Being a novice, I am happy to contribute to your knowledge.

Not at all, I'm a perpetual noob myself.  Most of us focus on those parts of Blender suited to our own needs, you could spend years using it to make beautiful stuff, and still be completely ignorant of massive swaths of it that others spent the same years becoming expert in.


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Help needed with joining the two objects and baking
I am doing a project in blender and I would like to add the corrugated surface onto the surface of the gun and then bake the normals for the gun. The gun is the low poly model and I guess the item named cube is the high poly one. Preferably I would like to have the entire surface of the gun covered with this sort of structure of the "cube" item with all the rows aligned along the same axis.

1 This is the surface structure that I want to give on the surface of the gun.
2 This is the gun.
3 This would be how the structure sits on the surface of the gun. the triangular shape faces
outside.
4 I have already tried the boolean modifier but as you can see it doesn't show a lot of the
pieces as well as it takes away some of the gun models.
I did try the blender guru video for normal baking and got the same artefacts as he did but I was not able to achieve the corrugated look in the normal. It looked flat. Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you.

You can try

Duplicate gun, create structure object
Select gun + structure + gun
Bake > Selected to active. Enable Cage with some parametr.


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How to create 2 different curves with a continuous holding loop
I have read that it is a best practice to try to keep continuous lines in a mesh, and doing so is leading me into some strange situations that seem incorrect.
In the example here, I have a holding loop that is being used to set 2 different edges. It remains continuous but now the overall mesh has a weird flow to what should be a straight/flat grill section.

Here is the result I need.

The reason this topology feels off to me is that the curve in the mesh facing the camera is on a flat surface that will be squared out into a vehicle grill. The grill itself should have squared up topology and this curve going through it seems like it will directly conflict.
The result I have achieved in the second image is correct, but I'm hoping to create the same curves with better topology.

Could you please expand a bit and tells us why it why it has a "weird flow"? It is also not very clear what end result you want to achieve or how it is different from what you have now. Please edit your question and provide more details.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos, I have updated by questions. Hopefully that helps clarify. Thanks for the tip.

You can, and probably should keep said grill as a separate object from the main body, or even in the same object, but as a separate chunk of mesh, disconnect from the rest, unless you specifically need a continuous surface

Ok, that makes sense. So you would suggest modeling the nose of the vehicle as I have and then adding the grill separately as to avoid conflicting with the mesh?

Yes, I don't know what the final purpose of the model will be, so I can't really give an informed advice. Unless this is for a game engine or anywhere where polycount is an issue, or this will be used for 3D printing or any purposed where a continuous mesh us required then I guess you could model it separately.


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duplicate the mesh in edit mode and flip normals using python script
I want to make my two sided (input model is collada). so, for that i want to duplicate all the faces in edit mode and then flip normals, and then export the model as fbx. i want to do this using python script.
my command to run the python script is
blender --background --python MeshDuplicate.py

Below is the .py file i am calling:
import bpy
import sys

object = bpy.ops.wm.collada_import(filepath="H:\\models\\armour.dae")
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')
bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='SELECT')
dup_object = bpy.data.objects.get("object")
object_d = dup_object.copy()
object_d.data = object.data.copy()
scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.objects.link(dup_object)
scene.update()
bpy.ops.export_scene.fbx(filepath="H:\\models\\armour.fbx", axis_forward='-Z', axis_up='Y')

i am getting this error.
Read new prefs: C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.76\config\userpref.blend
AL lib: (EE) UpdateDeviceParams: Failed to set 44100hz, got 96000hz instead
found bundled python: C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.76\python
Writing node id='node', name='node'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 2, in
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\MeshDuplicate_Flip.py", line 11, in
    object_d = dup_object.copy()
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'copy'

Operators return a set
Operators return a status in a set. If the operator has worked it returns {'FINISHED'} and if cancelled {'CANCELLED'}
Hence in this line
object = bpy.ops.wm.collada_import(filepath="H:\\models\\armour.dae")

if the import succeeded the return value is {'FINISHED'} Note object is a python built in, the basic python object type, and is best not used as a variable
As answered by @Crantisz the error occurs because your  dup_obj is None Unless there is an object in the blend named "object"... ..unlikely??
dup_object = bpy.data.objects.get("object")

Note: there is no correlation between having a variable named "object" and there being a blender object named "object".
Alternative method
After an import operator has run succesfully, most importers set the newly imported objects as selected and one as active. Test this by checking in UI for different importers, This is recommended default behaviour.
After a successful import the active object is
# straight after import operator
#active_newly_imported object_

ob = context.object
# list of all newly imported objects
imported_obs = context.selected_objects

Using bmesh to flip normals removes the need for edit mode toggling required to use the mesh operator.
Test script (untested). After import, Read each newly imported mesh object into a bmesh, flip the normals, write back to mesh... rinse repeat.
import bpy
import bmesh
context = bpy.context
bm = bmesh.new()
bpy.ops.wm.collada_import(filepath="H:\\models\\armour.dae")
meshobjs = [o for o in context.selected_objects if o.type=='MESH']
for ob in meshobjs:
    me = ob.data
    bm.from_mesh(me) # load bmesh
    for f in bm.faces:
        f.normal_flip()
    bm.normal_update() # not sure if req'd
    bm.to_mesh(me)
    me.update()
    bm.clear() #.. clear before load next

bpy.ops.export_scene.fbx(
        filepath="H:\\models\\armour.fbx",
        axis_forward='-Z',
        axis_up='Y')

Finally there could be a chance your axis transformation inverts scale which can also produce flipped normals.

is there any way to also flip custom normals using bmesh or any other technique? Since a few Blender versions there is bpy.context.object.data.flip_normals(), which produces the same result as your script above, but both approaches don't flip custom normals correctly. Only bpy.ops.mesh.flip_normals() gives the result I'd want.

Then you get this error
'NoneType' object has no attribute 'copy'

This means, that you try to get attribute from object 'NoneType'. NoneType is nothing.  So you want to get something from none. Why dup_object is None? You will get 'NoneType' when try to get object, that doesn't exists. I guess there is no object with name ""object"". Why name is "object"? - check this.


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Why doesnt the color not show on my character model?
Im new to blender and I first want to clarify that, because I wont be able to describe somethings properly, anyways heres the problem, I was trying to add one basic color to my character model using uv mapping just to start things off, I press "ALT Z" but the color wont show.

Have you defined a material for your model? Also please indicate which rendering engine you are using (Blender internal, Cycles) as the material setup depends on it.

Im using cycles, also yes I have defined a material im pretty sure.

You should upload your file using this link http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ so someone here can have a look and help for your issue

I confirm there is no material defined for your model.
Here is the way to create it and assign the texture:

Go to the material tab
Create a new material
Change the color, indicating you want an image texture
Choose the image
Then you can use ShiftZ to toggle the 3D view to rendering mode (you can also use material or texture modes).

The created material can also be defined using the Cycles nodes system (both UI does the same, but nodes is more clear if your material becomes complex):

Create the material
Open a node view
Choose material nodes: by default a simple diffuse setting is created
Add ShiftA an image texture node
Connect it to the diffuse color
Select the wanted image


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Translation snapping toggle - Specific dynamic snapping
[This is 1 question explained in several questions]
(And as notice asking several questions in separate threads is limited to 40 minutes)

Can you change the snapping target and element while snapping.
Or can you dynamically change the snapping target and element while snapping?

-)
Also know about toggling the snapping in general:
Is there a shortcut to change snapping type?
This is not what I mean.
-)
I know about the [ctrl] snapping feature. When translating an object you can toggle the snapping on and off. This is fine by itself but more specific toggle would be appreciated.
Can this method be used with specified snapping hotkeys:

Can this method be used with specified snapping hotkeys:

translate an object and toggle snap to 'closet' snapping option on or off?
translate an object and toggle snap to 'center' snapping option on or off?
translate an object and toggle snap to 'active' snapping option on or off?
translate an object and toggle snap to 'median' snapping option on or off?

translate an object and toggle between snap to 'edge' and snap to 'vertext' snapping options?
translate an object and toggle between snap to 'face' and snap to 'vertext' snapping options?
translate an object and toggle between snap to 'face' and snap to 'volume' snapping options?

Couldn't bind

wm.context_toggle

with

scene.tool_settings.snap_element

or

bpy.context.scene.tool_settings.snap_element='VERTEX'

or

toolsettings.snap_element

or
-bpy.context.scene.tool_settings.snap_target = 'CLOSEST'
or
...something similar

It's not so much that you can't change targets while snapping, its more that generally if you are snapping that usually means you are using some sort of  transform operator already.
Now transform operators are generally Modal operators, so that means while they run there is generally a predefined set of actions you can preform, limited by what Blender developers coded into that operator.
As far as I know you could not invoke wm.context_toggle while an operator is already running.
That being said some of the operators do provide some snapping options you can configure. Just go to File > User Preferences > Input search for a transform operator like Translate if you expand it you can control its specific sub-keymap, which includes some basic snapping options like Invert or toggling on and off.

Thanks for the input.
With the method mentioned some limited enhanced functionalities are possible. By assigning multiple translate hot keys with snapping option and specific target selected.
It's not the perfect solution (no toggle possible). It is a limited solution which is better than nothing.
(Although it seems with the translate and possibility with toggling the snapping the more specific snapping options would not seem too far away and might be possible with some (coding) additions/adjustments.)

If an answer helped you please consider upvoting, or if it solved your problem in a satisfying manner mark it as accepted answer.

(Where some solutions are really helpful, some are not but might give answer to the possibility. Or the answer is not a total solution but it is a good help in the direction.
Yours can be marked as the last type of answer.
*Upvoted (, although it would be more fitting if half or 0.75/75% vote was possible. Vote has been noted but is not show because of my fresh reputation)


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Disable or change rotate view (into 3d workspace) when in orthographic 2d view
In 3d workspace how to disable or change rotate view (into 3d workspace) when in orthographic 2d view ?
When you are in top, side, front, back, left, right or bottom view the view changes when you accidentally press the middle mouse button and move. It's not very helpful when the view changes. How can this mouse behavior be disabled only for the mentioned views, top, side, front, back, left, right or bottom view.
This solution is not completely OK because it does not allow for multiple 2d views.
Move forward in orthographic view?
(Although I have used it with a few downsides)
Don't know why but following solution doesn't seem to work for me. Maybe I did something wrong or overlooked something else. Using blender 2.78.
Why does Blender 2.70 not stay in Orthographic view when rotating from, say, Front Ortho view?
Maybe stored views add on is a solution (it hot-keys are available) but right now it doesn't seem to work. (It used to before)
https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/3D_interaction/stored_views

Quad view (Ctrl+Alt+Q) in the viewport will lock MMB from changing the ortho view (unless you uncheck Lock in the Properties shelf), however it doesn't provide you with back, left and bottom views and will be present inside of one window editor. I don't think the MMB behaviour can be changed only for the orthographic projection.

I don't know how often you "accidentally" bump the middle mouse button, but if you hold Shift while dragging the middle mouse you can pan a view without rotating it. Other than that, Quad view is really the only way. There is currently no direct solution to "lock" a view. Except perhaps you can try this: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/356/how-to-lock-the-view-to-prevent-rotation-of-the-view-camera

Thanks for the feedback.
This ...
https://gist.github.com/Fweeb/bb61c15139bff338cb17
... is some help, better than nothing.
What is preferred is a different kind of key bind when in 2d view but this seems only limited to quad view. (As seems this is asked a few times before I'm not the only one)

Further more if someone wants to mimic the quad view behavior event more they can also install the add on 'Lock all views to active'. When multiple custom views are open you can dynamic aligned the view of all view ports to the 'related' selected object. When the object is moved all view ports keep the object in the center. When another object is viewed the dynamic aligned view have to be activated again by the add on.(Works with hot key)
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/4923/can-i-lock-the-viewport-to-always-jump-to-what-is-currently-selected [mod. > call this thread closed]

Let me give some feedback:
Add on ´lockview'
https://gist.github.com/Fweeb/bb61c15139bff338cb17
Is not helpful for me because it resets the remapped view hot keys.
Now, with custom set of hot keys and addon lockview installed, it is not possible to change the viewing method from top to side or something else. With this setup situation is worse than before.


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Enhanced border select hotkey
Two border selecting questions:
1)
The proper method to add border select as the mouse point click drag and selection method with shift add or remove item capability.
Added an entry with selection to the mouse (as mentioned in the forum) but this doesn't work properly. When clicking an item it sometimes jumps to another nearby item.
2)
Is it possible to change the selection method when you are border selecting?
When your are border selecting an item:
How to at border select tweak scroll up to activate lasso select and scroll down to active circle select?

Please keep only one question per post, ask as many separate posts as necessary. Also see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/66231/border-select-how-to-disable-the-selection-of-closest-vertex-to-the-frame/66238#66238

Also related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/65248/comfortable-working-of-selection-tool/65252#65252 Border select is a modal operator, you can't change selection mode unless you end that operator first and then start a new one.

@ Duarte Farrajota Ramos - first message
As requested before this message is already a split up of several hot key questions. There  is a limit of posting a message. You can only post a message every 40 minutes. If I split it up even more it will take too long to post all the questions.
@ Duarte Farrajota Ramos - second message
Thanks, Clear answer. [You can call this threat closed.]

You are describing three different selection methods. Each method works independent of each other, you only use one at a time.
Border select - press B and then dragging with the  LMB will give you a selection rectangle that will select items within it. Holding ⇧ Shift when dragging will deselect items within the border. Dragging with the MMB will also deselect.  RMB or Esc will cancel the operation.
Circle select - press C and you are presented with a circle around the cursor, items within this circle when  LMB clicking will be selected. Holding ⇧ Shift while clicking or clicking with the MMB will deselect items. The  MW and the numpad +/- can be used to change the size of the selection circle. Circle select stays active until you cancel by clicking  RMB or Esc.
Lasso select - holding ⎈ Ctrl when dragging the non-selecting mouse button (that is left click by default but is right click if you are using select with left) will activate a lasso that will select items within the drawn region. Holding ⇧ Shift while dragging will cause items to be deselected.
Note that border and circle select always select with the left mouse button and cancel with the right, this does not change with the Select With Left/Right setting.
The border and lasso select are temporary and only last for one mouse click while the circle select stays active until canceled.
All three add/remove to the existing selection, they do not replace the selection. You can use them repeatedly to gradually increase the selected items. Press A to deselect all before starting one of the above to create a new selection.

Thanks for the explained answer. This does not answer my question/feature request directly. It is a nice overview and good explanation of selection methods and how to best use it. But this not always works for me. (That's why I asked) (In an effort to simplify it, combing some similar (selection) methods would make things easier, but this is another work-flow and approach)
Anyway thanks again.

The main point is you don't "combine" the selection methods, you use one at a time, even if each is only adding one vertex to the selection and you use each multiple times in any sequence. Even if you use box, lasso, box, box, lasso, circle to select the verts you want, you are using each in a sequence and not combining them.

The point of combining has nothing to do with the functionality of the specific methods. Although combining has more to do with similar methods. (Combining is the wrong word used => it's reconfiguring the hot key's/the HID (human input method)) It is more like an alternative work flow where hot keys are ´simplified'. (The approach like you mentioned, which i do understand, is multiple hot keys each for every specific method. The good side of this is that you have direct access to specific methods the negative side is that it might clutter/overload the amount of hot keys.) ...

... I prefer few main hot keys over a lot of different hot keys which has specific functionality and used once in a while. The one or the other does not always works best but combining hot keys shares both good aspects of both approaches.

Going a bit off topic * (In the same domain on a larger level)

(It is said that if you want to get the most benefit from blender you have to customize blender to your need/your work flow. < See the questions asked)
(On the other side it is also said (mostly for understanding quickly tutorials and learn blender) it is good to learn and keep the default input layout)


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BGE. Is it possible to create transparent plane with blur filter?
17 09 2015
here is blend to test: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/cwpyem6zve6r2u4/blur5.blend

I'm still trying to figure out how to add blur filter to plane to make under plane objects all blurred in BGE.
Here is very final result I want to see:

I just found old script to make portals. And it still works, but it seems to be buggy sometimes, it's look like a true(fake) glass.
All i need to do is to add gaussian blur filter to glass plane. (I marked this area blue color background - this area objects under plane needs to be blurred.)

Here is .blend to improve: blend file here
Need any suggestions and solutions...
Thanks for helping!!! :)

I think you mean frosted glass, maybe this video could help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvEC8UNlgJg :)

No not Blender cycles, I want to see it in BGE.

@cegaton why this site seeking for all users, and makes all feeling disscomforted? For ex: me. ?

I made a frosted glass in UPBGE 2.79

I never used BGE and you blend file link gives a 403, but here's how I'd implement that effect:
Normally in a game engine:
Render your scene to a texture. That's the first step you normally do for post-processing.
Render the glass pane to another texture. The glass pane should be white, the rest black. Disable material and light for faster rendering. If your glass pane is partially hidden by other objects, these parts should also be black in your rendering.
Blur your original rendering. Use the black/white texture as a mask so only the glass pane gets blurred. Alternatively, blur the whole image in a copy and use the texture to combine both.
In Blender:

Here's my node setup with an exaggerated version of the effect. On the right, the blur map. I used the object ID pass to generate it.

I believe you can use the post draw callbacks and pyopengl to draw onto the screen,
so I think*

you can grab the view of the plane using a camera render to
texture
then operate on the texture blur
use pyopengl to draw a plane over the old plane with the new texture?

authors: كورة لايت_TV


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How to make a transparent reflective surface with transparent film
I want to make a mirror surface that is invisible, but still shows reflections. I found this nearly identical question but the only answer didn't work for me. It works great normally, but when I set the film to be transparent, the reflections disappear along with it:

The weird thing is that it looks fine in the 3D view:

My materials set up is exactly the same as in the question I linked above, with a transparent and glossy shader added together:

So is it possible to have both a transparent background and a transparent reflective surface in cycles at the same time? Should I work around it with some compositing?

Check your rendering settings and your output image format. Make sure it's PNG with an alpha channel.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/36681/why-this-material-doesnt-render

Can confirm: it's a PNG with an alpha channel. Something else that might be worth mentioning is that when it's in the process of rendering a tile that has a bit of reflection, the reflection will show up, but it disappears by the time it finishes rendering the tile.

This is a known bug: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/32900/599

@Carlo So how do I get it to show up the same way rendered as it shows up in the 3D view? I can't use a mix shader and hijack the texture's alpha value because I'm not using a texture, and I'm not sure I understand the Greater Than trick he's using because it's not doing anything when I'm trying it.

Ended up using fancy node setups and compositing to take care of it. To be perfectly honest I have no idea what I did but it appears to be working. Pretty much sums up my whole experience with blender and computers in general lol.

In the end, I went with compositing an opaque background image underneath the transparent layer and that worked alright, but before that I used this node setup to set the alpha value based on the value of each pixel.

The Subtract node is used as a minimum threshhold. You might have to tweak that depending on your setup.
The first Multiply is just a messy way to get a definite 1 or 0 on whether or not the pixel should be visible or not.
The second Multiply is used to set the final alpha value for the partially transparent pixels.
The Add node at the end is just to make sure that no previously-opaque pixels become transparent.
In my case it ended up looking like this:


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How to create a "fluid/distortion" effect on a solid object (example inside)
I've been struggling to understand how I should approach the following effect in Blender:
Watch the YouTube Video The Node (at 1:37)

I've tried to solve this one through the displacement modifier (with vertex groups, custom displacement texture, etc), several cast modifiers with multiple points and more recently using shape keys to do it manually. None of these methods result in a "natural" enough look, like a fluid, and all of them take the animating process to an inefficient workflow.
I can't seem to solve this one by myself with the current knowledge I have with Blender, would you help me out please?
Thank you very much in advance!
Edit:
Ok so I tried the wave modifier with very simple settings, a vertex group limiting the effect of the modifier and I achieved this:

It's still not optimal, but that's the closest thing I've managed so far, some input would still be very helpful to look into this in a better way.
Edit 2:
This is what I got with the Warp modifier using a clouds texture, as suggested by @atomicbezierslinger:

Probably you could try something like Cloth Simulation, with object inside the main mesh. That could result in an adjustable result. You can then configure collision object scale, properties etc.

@MrZak Good idea! Why not rephrase this as an answer? Without affecting the lower half of the cube, the result should be more or less the same :)

@Mr Zak - I've made a few attempts with cloth, but I confess I'm not familiar enough with those tools to get a proper result in a short time, if I get something decent I'll post it.

Interesting work.   So many points.

Consider A Warp Modifier with the high vertex density mesh.

Below a rotating empty controls the two other empty targets of the modifier.

This is very helpful indeed, I have a lot of control over the effect it creates on the surface I can use the texture slot to create a displacement effect, it also gives me a lot of control over the animation. I have to test it further but this is probably the answer.


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Super Monkey Ball / Neverball level rotation system
Im making a sort of remake of Super Monkey Ball 2 (Gamecube) / Neverball (PC) is simillar too, but i have already encountred problems:
In SMB (Super Monkey Ball 2) or Neverball, you dont move the ball, you move all the level, and the ball just use gravity for roll.
But in SMB / Neverball, the Level rotation pivot point is allways placed on bottom of the ball, for get allways the same rotation force, and for not get catapulted.
This is my problem, i have already vertex parented an empty to my ball, but i dont know how to make my empty the rotation pivot for the Level (dont forget, the empty may move with the ball, but the level can only rotate):
I give you some pictures:

Here is my main scene, the level is actually just a plane for testing.
You can see the vertex parented empty at bottom of the ball (the empty is vertex parented to the center of the ball).
In the game, if my ball is here, the level must rotate like this:

If you have a idea for making this (a sort of rotation-only parent...) i will be verry happy.

Will this Python Constraint do it?: https://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_76_9/bge.constraints.html . I would like to see this working as well.

Found a live thread on this subject here: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?388958-How-to-rotate-object-around-a-dynamic-pivot-point Definitely involves using Python and math utilities to pull it off, but we are closer to a decent answer than ever.

Thank for your help, but the rotation angle must be defined by the joystick return value, in real time.

I actually trying to do the same in ue4, but seem to be hard as well.

Ha! Cool. I downloaded UE4 and played some demos on it yesterday. For the joy stick input, I imagine it moving an empty that sits under the ball, but rotates about the ball's center. The ground level will have to rotate with that empty to some degree, and your camera will also be affecting the joystick rotation right? I know this can be done, but it has to be properly defined with pseudo code and then made into Python with the right math libs etc.

I think I was wrong about the empty sitting under the ball... because the level will need to rotate around the ball's center. Also, we may need to figure something out for when the ball goes air-born because the level will rotate a lot more by leverage distance.


text:
Pointiness isn't working
I'm using cycles and I was following a tutorial on making a pumpkin but the pointiness didn't work for me. I restarted blender and tried it again with just a monkey and still nothing happened

You may be using cycles, but the shading tab (pictured above) uses material preview mode by default which uses a renderer more similar to eevee. Press z in the 3D viewport and select "rendered" from the pie menu to see your model rendered in cycles.

The pointiness works in a "specific" range. Just move the two slider closer together like this:

Note: this works only in "rendered" view

for a complete answer you should include the note from the comment (viewport shading = rendered)

@Blunder: Thank you! I added that to my answer


text:
How do I show all the UV maps on a single texture image?
I have a model consisting of several meshes. All of the textures are in a single image. When I unwrap a mesh I end up with a new UV map that I have to place somewhere on the image. This is something of a trial and error process, because at the moment I have an all white image and you can only she the outline of the UV map you're trying to place.
I can somewhat work around this by temporarily coloring the areas occupied by the other maps red or whatever, but it would be nice to have a way of displaying at least the outline of all the UV maps that apply to this image in the model. Does something like that exist?
(Note that this is probably mostly a result of me being a clueless noob with no sensible workflow, so I'm not going to be surprised if the answer is "don't do that!")

If I understand correctly this is what a UV checker texture would be used for - https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-m&biw=360&bih=612&tbm=isch&sxsrf=AOaemvJ7XmbnRc8pQGnmsZNZTMQzu7ALZg%3A1637349226895&sa=1&q=uv+test+graphic&oq=uv+test+graphic&aqs=mobile-gws-lite..#imgrc=2nnGdz9NFBI2UM

Are the meshes each separate objects, or are they all joined in one object?  If they are all separate objects, could you join them in one object?


text:
Multiple Materials created when appending
I am a new Blender Convert. I have spent years using 3D Studio Max. I couldn't spend the big bucks to continue my license many years ago so I use the last version I paid for back in the 90's Max 3.1. I am trying to update and move many of my projects to Blender. (no comparison to what Blender can do vs the old version of Max 3.1 but I'm unlearning the way Max did things)
Now for my question: I have some of my models that I edit fix and add materials. When I append them to a master scene, I always end up with duplicate copies of the materials. (Rusty Yellow.001, etc. in addition to the original material. Not sure how to make the appended object use the existing material instead of a duplicate. Makes for a very messy project.

Append creates copies completely independent of the original project. Therefore multiple appends create separate materials copies.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/91378/prevent-blender-to-add-numbers-behind-materials-when-importing-a-fbx

You can copy this code into the text editor, and it should replace all the .001 materials with the original materials in the scene.
import bpy

def replace_materials_with_original():
    for obj in bpy.data.objects:
        # Only consider mesh objects with materials
        if obj.type == 'MESH' and obj.material_slots:
            for slot in obj.material_slots:
                # If the material name ends in .001
                if slot.material.name.endswith(".001"):
                    # Try to get the original material (without .001)
                    original_material_name = slot.material.name[:-4]  # Remove .001 from the end
                    original_material = bpy.data.materials.get(original_material_name)

                    # If the original material exists, assign it to the slot
                    if original_material:
                        slot.material = original_material

# Execute the function
replace_materials_with_original()

```

Unfortunately you can't do this automatically.  There are (at least) three approaches to working around it:

Link rather than append, and use Library Overrides when you want the copy to be different than the original, or to use the copy to modify the original.

Manually find every object that uses the duplicate material and use the Browse Materials button in the shader properties panel to select the original.  If you click on the button it will bring up a list of materials.  Click on the original.

Write a python script to search your objects and replace all uses of material Foo.XXX with Foo.  This question contains some examples of how to do that.


text:
move lights with Move gizmo
Maybe I missed something or somehow changed a setting. I thought I could move lights with the move gizmo. Now I cannot move a point light or a camera with the move gizmo, all I can do is change the radius or the focal length. The gizmo does not allow the selection of the direction arrows. this is for any light type. I can move the lights with the G key but not the gizmo. If I changed a setting I have no idea what it was. Thanks for the help.

The direction arrows are the move gizmo.

Hello could you please show a screenshot of your whole interface?


text:
Fluid simulation not looking realistic: Fluid runs up the walls of the volume
I was running this for the third time and I am always getting a similiar result: A huge part of the fluid runs up the walls instead of filling the volume.
I have attached a picture showing the mesh and another showing my fluid settings.
Please can someone help me with this issue or give me some realistic looking settings?
Thanks in advance.

First thing - as with all simulations - is to check your scale. Make sure your meshes are at a realistic scale and that you have ‘Applied Scale’ on any that have been resized, then re-bake your simulation.

If you just want to fill the cup then make the liquid domain a lot smaller so it just fits the cup and the area above it. Then place the inflow object over the cup and inside the domain. The cup must be an effector (collision) to get filled.

we cannot see the size of your inflow/geometry...so might be a good help for us if you would provide your blend file so we can check it out

@RichSedman OK I've never tried it with 'Applied Scale' (you mean apply scale by pressing cntrl+A I assume?)

@fabmeyer Yes - that’s the one. It’s something you should always do for meshes that are interacting with simulations - otherwise it can behave as if it’s a different physical size. It’s hard to tell what’s going on in your screenshot. It would be good if you could add an animated gif showing the movement and describe the starting conditions and what you’re expecting it to do.

@RichSedman OK thanks I will rerun it again with applied scale... Then will post or answer here again. Does the inflow object also need applied scale?

You might get away without applying scale to everything - including the inflows - but, TBH, it’s not worth not applying scale to it just to rule it out as an issue. It could be that the simulation code uses the scale when determining the inflow velocity - in which case a wrong scale could potentially make the fluid get generated at a wildly different initial velocity. Apply scale on everything (inflow, outflow, effector, domain) just to be sure. It’s good practice to generally apply scale even when just modelling - so won’t cause any harm.


text:
objects not showing up in outliner
It's probably a problem of settings but I cannot figure out what I did.
Each time I add a new object in my scene, it shows up on the scene and it is rendered but it doesn't show up on the outliner list.
Which is a bit annoying, I like to keep things tidy.
If I reset to factory setting, and duplicate the starting cube, I finally have two cubes in my outliner. But even after reseting the setting, the problem is still here when loading my original scene.
Any hints?
Edit:
I added a screenshot, in the outliner menu, only the cylinder is displayed.

Loading factory defaults won't influence on other files if you haven't saved startup file with Ctrl+U. But before doing that, backup your original startup file (maybe problem fixes easily). Can you provide some screenshots of the problem in the Outliner ?

You have only one object in this scene, and all these shapes are part of that same object. You probably added each new mesh in Edit Mode, instead of Object Mode.
When you add a new mesh primitive while in edit mode, the new primitive is added into the same object you are in the process of editing.
Since the name of the object is "Cylinder", I assume you created the cylinder first, then added the other shapes while editing the cylinder.
You can see that this has happened since all 3 meshes are editable when you are in edit mode. Normally, when meshes are separated into different objects, you can only edit one at a time:

Indeed, when adding new object in Object mode, they appear in the tree structure. Any way to reverse it, to separate my objects? Edit: fount it, https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6184/splitting-pieces-of-a-mesh-into-a-new-object

In edit mode, select all (Shortcut: "A"), then press "P" (separate) --> By Loose Parts.

See this link for a detailed explanation of how to separate meshes: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/41205/how-can-i-unjoin-meshes

Make sure [All Scenes] is selected and no search text is present in the outliner, in the header.
There are multiple reasons to consider when an object is not [immediately visible] or [doesnt show up] in the outliner.  If one object is the parent of other child objects, then the parent may be visible with icons indicating children are subordinate.  Yet you may not see the names of the children.  By clicking the [+ or -] you will see more or less.  This is similar to file folder views on your computer OS.  This can be used as a feature. You have the control to view what you want to view.
Expanded view showing parent child hierarchy follows

If you have searched via text in the outliner such as "cube" and forgotten you searched you may have limited your view.   Clear any search text.
Search Text example follows.

I had a similar but different problem:
You also can have objects that just haven't been assigned to a collection yet.
In Object Mode: select objects -> press M -> move to collection
Now it will show in the outliner.


text:
How do I give multiple objects with different sizes the same texture resolution?
how do I give multiple objects with different sizes the same texture resolution?
If I simple unwrap the objects, I get the result that some objects have a sharp texture and some not.
thanks!

How are you texturing it, under what render engine, Cycles or Blender Internal? If you don't specifically need unwrapping you could use procedural texture coordinates like Object texture coordinates if they all have applied scale or with an additional Vector Transform node if they don't.

Can you post a screen capture of your material node setup? We can probably make some useful suggestions based on that.  ^_^

I added a picture!

authors: Віктор Орищак


text:
why does the origin move?
while making a character(but obviously with any mesh primitives as well), after the scale was applied, the origin of the character moves? why does blender does this? Is this just a bug or is there any logical explanation for this?
Here is the sample image showing the problem due to which rigging is taking a difficult step(my version of blender is 2.70):

Do you have to apply the scale multiple times? If not you can just move the cursor to the original origin and then after the apply move origin to 3D cursor (found in the toolbar). This is just a work around

I don't get this, I can't replicate. Can you show an example image?

I edited my question and posted the sample image above.

You applied all the transforms, including location, which makes current location of the object to be 0,0,0. Does the origin move when you apply only scale ? (Ctrl+A > Scale)

No, actually it doesn't. But when I took a rigging tutorial , it was said that the location has to be applied to generate rigify properly, but how can I do that when the origin keeps moving away? The generated armature doesn't fit properly to the mesh character.

Move the mesh to the scene center, so 0,0,0. The easiest way to do that is by clearing object location.

but that would mean the eyes and inner objects would also move to the origin, and if they were seperate meshes the whole would distort. Is there an alternative option?

The whole mesh shouldn't distort if you select everything together with armature and move. However I'm afraid this process should've been done before as it may be quite complex to repair it now (without deleting armature). Read more in this tutorial


text:
how to work it out in Gimp?
Here is a very easy node setup in blender:

when I apply it to a plane it results into:

suppose if we want to bring the result for a bump map, we could take it in gimp with the subtract mode set on the wave texture we get a result such as this:

the results are quite different because of the 'fac' value in the node in blender:

how can we do fix this in gimp so that I can get an image file to use it in blender as a bump map?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is asking how to achieve a result using Gimp as opposed to Blender.

I., too voted to close the question here because it is about GIMP instead of Blender. Upon further exploration, I'd suggest moving the question to the Computer Graphics Stack Exchange site, tagged "image processing".

sorry folks, couldn't get this to my graphics accound cuz' of less reputation but after I edited the links i was able to cut the question, so i already have posted it on graphics stack exchange, I'll try and fix this and edit my post.

If turning the layer opacity down doesn't fix it, make sure you have only the top layer (in Gimp) set to subtract. The bottom should be normal.
However, I don't think that's your problem. I think you are just using the musgrave and wave from Gimp, which has a different seed value (and maybe a different algorithm). Plug the texture directly into an emission shader set to strength of 1, and render that. Then do so for the other texture. Be sure to save both rendered images!
Now load them into Gimp as layers.
I hope this helps. Because I don't have the files, I can't think of anything else.

actually those were the rendered images in gimp that i loaded with a sample value of 10.

Okay, perhaps the image size is not the same between Gimp and Blender. Just another thought.


text:
How does the strandrender work?
I've been trying to work with particle hair using a very simple model. I had just set up a very simple material for the hair and when I render it(using internal engine), it turns out very odd:

so I hit the strand render checkbox and the hair seems to be fine but there's one another problem, the head pops up in the render:

no matter I turn up the alpha value of material, texture etc, I cannot fix it? How does the strandrender work and how can I fix this?
the settings are:

they're mostly left at default.

What exactly is wrong with the render?

we can see a big outline of the head through the hair(in the second render) which does look so weird. I'd like to know if there's any way to omit that.

I don't see anything wrong with it personally.

could you show the material settings you use for the strands ?

@Flaeon,The second render shows a big outline of the bald head underneath which is not shown in the first render.

@nantille, the third(hair texture) the settings that I used to bring out the texture for hair, I posted others if it would be useful.

In the settings of your hair, there is transparency in the gradient. So this means that at some point, your strand will be transparent and show what is below it – the skin and head outline. I guess this is the culprit behind that unwanted result. What happens if you remove transparency from your strand material ?

@nantille, suspecting the same thing, I actually turned on the alpha values of everything possible, but didn't work. Does strand rendering particle hair always behave like this?


text:
Why do textures stick around in the editor?
UV unwrapping a mesh with different object using some image textures has some issues. Specifically, in this case, I have created a table and UV unwrapped the main part(the one that is active below):

Even when I tab out of edit mode and select a different part of the mesh the texture sticks around in the editor:

As you can see, a different object is selected, the UV slot is empty BUT the texture stays. If I UV unwrap it anyway, the texture is automatically applied to the mesh portions as so:

If I hit the new button:

Blender only has options for generated textures:

And if I hit the cross button, there is no user for the texture:

And therefore, I cannot unwrap.
I haven't had much experience with UV unwrapping. What is this problem? Why does this arise? Is there a way to refresh the UV editor? How can I fix this?

You can unwrap when you are in edit mode :/ I'm not sure however what your problem is :/

@xlxs, I'm not getting the point why the texture sticks around even when we TAB out of edit mode. That would be even after selected a different mesh object, which would confuse during UV wrapping the second object.

This is good how is it. Of course texture stay in UV/Image editor. You can use one texture for many materials. If you need add more textures, you need attach next one in material node editor and in UV/Image Editor you can switch them. PS: You don't assign texture to object in UV/Image Editor, you must do it in material (node) editor

The UV editor is merely acting differently than what you expect. As Shubol3D points out, you assign textures in the Materials editor, not the UV editor.

To get rid of unused textures, you have to save and then reload your file.
Either use "File - Open Recent - " or hit Shift+Ctrl+O and then hit Enter, since your latest save is usually in the first place of the list.
If you want to get rid of a texture despite having it assigned, press Shift and hit the X button beside the texture's name in the UV/image editor Texture dropdown.
Besides that, textures are kept around on purpose. This comes in handy when you are optimizing your workflow. And you are certainly able to unwrap a model without any texture at all.

After you remove the textures using the Shift key on the X button, you have to save and reload to really remove it from the file.

@AnthonyForwood - exactly as I mentioned in my first sentence.

Yeah, but you should have made it clear that this needs to be done afterwards. You mentioned the Shift key thing last. Kind of confusing for noobs.

@AnthonyForwood - nope. The Shift Key is optional. As is the information about why Textures are kept in the editor and also the info about the possibility to being able to unwrap objects without textures.

Without the shift key, you're not unlinking the texture from anything but the current object, so if it's still being used by another one, it won't be completely removed. I have no idea what you mean about "information about why textures are kept in the editor" being optional. You're confused and your information will just confuse others.

@AnthonyForwood - in this case you are clearly wrong. It's getting ridiculous

Yes, I agree you are.


text:
simulation nodes not updating the value of named attributes
I'm try to create a particle effect, and the nodes that I've made accordingly should capture the radius, and on each frame the value of the stored attribute should be subtracted by .001, but, the value of the lifetime named attribute field I've stored doesn't get updated on each frame from .020 it only goes to .019, which is I believe the update on the first frame. Is there something wrong with my node setup?:

There is effectively an issue in your file. I don't know why for now, but I've updated the answer with a working setting, so that you/we may understand why this is not working with you file.

I think something is "broken" in your file. Don't know why but all attribute assignment are weird. I propose you redo it using last Blender version. Please comment here for any input.

For the reasons indicated by Chris, named attribute node should be inside of the simulation, not pluged as a simulation input (or output).
Something around this:

Considering it has been initilize before you join new points. Something like this:

Example file (Blender 4.0):

The file you've uploaded works, simply change this:

To this:

Because the map range node inverts the values so that the less is the input, the more is the output and in consequence, subtracting the value by 0.001 never reaches 0.

I did try to bring the named attribute inside the zone as suggested( https://pasteboard.co/iCxWgwlTibuW.png ) , but, neither the geometry is being deleted nor the radii of any points are shrinking

In this setting, you should give an initial positive value to the named attribute. If not you should invert things: increment at each step and delete above a positive value.

Note that I've not copied the video tutorial, the effect can be done either decrementing (starting from a given value) or incrementing from a 0 value.

somehow worked in 3.6 with the fix mentioned above... thanks a lot :-)

this happens because simulation zone is looping inside. The value which go in the simulation output, come back with exactly the same values in the simulation input at the next frame.
Because you didn't change/connect the attribute (it is always 0) in simulation output, at the next frame the attribute in simulation input is 0 (always zero) except for the very first frame, where you input the lifetime value, but as you don't fill it, it is zero at the first frame as well.
The rest is math: 0 comes from Sim input, mapped gives 0.02, subtract 0.001 gives 0.019 and this will be store in lifetime forever.
Remember: the value which go INTO simulation input, are just for the very first frame. After that the values will be take from the simulation output.
So the solution is: you have to connect something to the attribute in the simulation output node.

Hi chris, thanks for replying. As you suggested, I connected the output of the subtract node in the simulation output and used that as input to my set radius node, but, it still didn't change anything. Also, in the linked video above, [4:46], he also doesn't input anything to the simulation output node but the radius does shrink. I also connected the attribute of the named attribute directly to the simulation output instead since that should change due to the subtract node, but it still doesn't change anything

ok, then pls provide blend file so we can check it out. thx.

I've attached the .blend in the question, although I've implemented @lemon 's version as I was also trying out his approach


text:
New BGE mouse look actuator causing camera shake
Bone-parenting the camera to an armature being rotated by a control object with the “mouse look” actuator on it causes the parented mesh shake all over the place, at least in my experience, I'm on 2.76.
The end result in my game is violently quivering player arms ‘holding’ a stationary object/weapon. I’ve also had the object itself do this (with the arms remaining still) under different parenting which I assume is because only siblings of the camera are affected (in my rig the arms, torso and head move together with the camera parented to the head independent of the lower body, this is a basic FPS setup)
I’ve greatly simplified my character setup to make it easier to exactly what’s going on clearly. The scene is as follows:

A single bone representing the body, “Copy Rotation”-constrained to a
control object
A single bone representing the hand/arm bone-parented to the body
A cube weight-parented to the hand bone representing the character
mesh (so you can see the effect)
A single vertex control object with “mouse look” logic (to which the
body is constrained to in order to rotate)
A camera parented to the upper body bone (the POV camera)

Is this a bug in Blender? Are you really unable to attach objects to a mouse actuator-controlled character armature without glitchiness? Or am I missing something?


text:
Attribute error - object attribute "activated" is read-only
I am very new at coding and I am doing a school project in Blender. I have a character created and some animations (walk, stand) done. I have a program that moves the character and now I want to make the animations play while I control it.
I have four if statements (if pressing W go forward and all that) and that works. I am trying now to make the “standing” animation play while NONE of the keys are pressed, so I put it in the “else” statement. The armature has an Action actuator in the logic bricks, an I called it with python like this:
else:
    actani.action = “ARMATUREAction.002”
    actani.frameStart = 1.0
    actani.frameEnd = 70
    actani.blendIn = 5
    actani.mode = 4
    actani.priority = 1
    co.activate = (“animacion”)

But when I run it it doesn’t work and it tells me this error:
Attribute error: “SCA_PythonController” object attribute “activate” is read-only

I have been looking for a solution but I found nothing. Could somebody help please?

Hi, welcome to the site! I don't know much about the BGE, unfortunately, but hopefully someone else can help you. I edited your question to improve the formatting -- Markdown can be a little tricky. (: If you don't agree with any change I made, please let me know!

activate is a function that you call, not a property that you assign a value to. Have a look at the example here.

@SilverWolf Everythi g is fine, thank you so much!!!!! This community is so kind!!!

@sambler Thank you very much!! I'll try to make It work and I'll post if I make It :)


text:
Issue with armature mirroring on bones
I have an issue with my armature attached to my character.  Basically when I put bones in one hand it keeps getting attached to my other hand as well, even if I delete the bones and start over.  What can I do?

Hi, welcome to the site! Good question, I'm just editing it slightly to make it a bit clearer. Hope you don't mind. (:

And that looks like a mirroring issue. Is mirroring turned on somewhere, like with a mirror modifier?

hey, I have mirror turned on with the body but this issue does not pop up with any other bone.

Weird, I would expect it to apply to all of the bones. I believe there is an option to mirror bones, but only if they have a specific naming scheme (Bone_L, Bone_R). Maybe that is doing something?

Hey, you actually helped me figure it out.  I have to do the flip name function when I mirror the bones.  Thank you.


text:
Why does my mask move when I zoom?
I created a mask in blender, but it moves around when I zoom in and out. For different zoom levels, the mask appears in a different location. Is this a bug in blender? Or is there some way to prevent this behavior?
Here is my mask at 2:1 zoom:

At 1:1 zoom (notice that the mask moved down and to the left):

At 1:2 zoom:

At 1:8 zoom (the mask is no longer surrounding the subject):

System Information
Arch Linux x86_64, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Also reproducible on OS X 10.11, NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M
Blender Version 2.78c
Minimal working example

Minimal working movie clip: GOPR1630.mov
On my machine, zooming out will cause the mask to move from its original position. Without the referenced GOPR1630.mov, unselecting and then selecting "Display Stabilization" in the movie clip editor will fix the problem. However, if the GOPR1630.mov file exists, zooming will cause the mask to move whenever "Display Stabilization" is selected.
The amount of mask movement when zooming seems proportional to how much the track point for image stabilization (Track.002) moves.

Thanks @cegaton , I've added a minimal working example to the question, but the behavior is a bit different with and without the my movie clip. Is there an easy way to attach my movie clip to the question?

While I doubt it is related to the video I do expect it is a bug. Does the mask actually move if you use it in the compositor? or is it only the mask display in the clip editor when zooming with stabilization on?

Thanks guys, I've added more information on what I'm intending to do into the question body. Suggestions on better ways to approach the problem are welcome. Also happy to break it out into a separate question if that would be more appropriate. @sambler the mask is not where I expect it to be in the compositor, but it could just be that the mask is not aligned properly with the time delayed footage.

I've rolled back the question to focus on the original problem and submitted a blender bug report (T51388).


text:
How to properly fill?
I'm just getting started at Blender - so far I've been making stuff by subdividing and extruding vertices, and then filling in the faces.
Unfortunately, when I load up these models, individual faces go missing:

If it matters, I'm using the OBJ file format.

With all the vertices of your mesh selected in edit mode, press T to open up the Tool Shelf and under the Shading/UVs tab, click Recalculate to recompute the proper direction of all your faces. However, I notice that you seem to have some faces that are just standing out on the model by themselves, and this can be a dangerous practice so I would recommend avoiding that. I'm not sure what you mean by "using the OBJ file format", but I would stick to saving your models as blend files unless you're exporting them to other programs.

Yes internal faces are discouraged and a bad practice, and most likely the source of your problems. Try to keep the mesh consistent and manifold, and avoid internal faces. The rue is one edge should only always belong to two faces, no more.

It's supposed to look like this - two faces per edge, always. @DuarteFarrajotaRamos

@LukeD added...

What you have:

Internal faces (pointed by Duarte Farrajota Ramos), loose edges, unconnected vertices, unnecessary faces...
You can try to clean it up by Recalculate Normals (suggested by CGEffex), Remove Doubles, cutting faces and connecting vertices to have mostly quad topology.
You should avoid creating ngons and tris (these could be useful sometimes).
But...
What you need:

In this particular case you can recreate this mesh fairly easy just by using Extrude and Snapping (to existing mesh).
I will not explain it step by step as this is kind a Blender 101 and you can find large number of tutorials about extruding basic shapes.
Final thoughts:
You have mentioned that you are using .OBJ files. I understand that you are importing them. If yes then it will not be easy to clean them up. I have fairly good experience with them (exported from various CAD-like software) and always it was nightmare to work with. I can't give you any more tips besides those from above. In my case I've recreated from scratch 70-80% of meshes just to save some time.
Blend file: