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Parenting with automatic weights generates empty vertex groups
I created a character mesh using the manuel bastioni, and then wanted to use the rig created by rigify. I followed the steps as in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYiAd_08-0k
When I parent the character mesh to the rig, there are a bunch of vertex groups created. But, when I click on any of them and click "select" in edit mode, no vertices are selected. This also means that the rig is not really skinned - no vertex moves along with the rig. I have looked online for other's having a similar issue, and none of those apply to this case (for e.g., scale transform is applied before parenting).
Here is a google drive to the blend file, saved right after I did the parenting. The metarig is present but hidden, in case you want try regenerating the rigify rig. What is going wrong?
My .blend file can be found Here

I retraced my steps with a mesh created in makehuman, and the this is not a problem. I am not sure what is different about the mesh created with manuel bastioni mesh that this is not working.

It's not you, it is the ManuelBastioniLAB generated mesh that is an issue.
I haven't dug into how it works yet but the mesh from the LAB is generated and controlled even if the addon is disabled. If you select the mesh and go into edit mode you will find that you can't move any vertices but if you add or duplicate a vertex you can start editing with it all going back to how it was after you exit edit mode.
In the object properties, if you change the parent type from object to armature you can deform the mesh with the rigify armature but it won't look good.
There is a skeleton included with the generated model, if you keep that armature you can pose your character. This rig is a basic one without extras like IK. Maybe this can be improved or a rigify rig could be attached to this rig as a controller.

Thanks for this post. I really liked Manuel Bastioni characters, especially the anime ones, but wanted to add IK.

Hey I just got the same problem with the ManuelBastioniLAB Addon and what seems to work for me is the following:
So do you remember that you have to check your mesh, that had to be only close mesh with no additional objects like the eye balls and teeth... well after i spitted and isolated the body I deleted the double vertex by getting to edit mode, select all the vertices, press W+Remove double vertex BUT changing the "merge distance" to 0.0400 or any slightly higher value instead of the default one, for some reason double vertices used for the edge split to fix edges normals on a smooth surface are not as close as they have for the default "delete double vertex" function to do the job.
Hope that works for you! It took me a long time to find out!


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How can I bake this colorramp data to the model's texture?
As I said in the title for some reason I cant seem to bake the node to the texture. It just comes as a black texture.

Hello maybe pack your image and share your object (at least a part of it) so that we can try?

@moonboots Ive added the file. Im also trying to show up the black outline of the model in unity

Here Nathan says that you can't bake Shader-to RGB: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/258062/can-i-bake-toon-shader-shader-to-rbg-to-a-texture so it must be the problem here?

hmm I see thanks for the info

More like, you can bake it, but once baked it will not adapt to the lighting like the shader does.

so how can I bake it? I dont mind the adapting

nvm im dumb, it's an eevee only shader and you can't bake with eevee

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Radial boolean using Node set up
I want to create a node set up using black and white mask as a radial Boolean way to conceal and reveal object.

I have attached the file, (this method uses builder modifier).

Do you mean a  shader-node set up?

Sounds like XY problem. Why do you want to do that? What's the real goal?

Hi there Robin. I'd like to know the method of Shade node set up.

Hello Martynas.  The goal is learning another method rather than using modifier, to know how to also use Shader node set up. This will help me improve my node understanding. But also for other methods, how to unveil or conceal various objects.

At its simplest, you could just use the provided Gradient > Radial texture (0..1) through a threshold, to drive the alpha (or any other attribite) of a material..

... animating the threshold:

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Data Transfer Blend not smooth
I'm following a tutorial how to blend 2 object and get a smooth transition using the data transfer (after Shrinkwrapping my object), but I still seem to be getting the hard outline. Any ideas why this is not smooth?
Reference for the tutorial is at 4min to 5min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luFz5gzvM9s
And here is my result which I'm getting.

Just in case.. you've got Autosmooth switched on for the modified object? (Data transfer should warn you about that)

Hi Robin, thanks for your reply.
I have Autosmooth enabled, which was suggested in a warning by the modifier to be turned on. But I toggled it off and on, which didnt make a difference.
Can I upload my file so you can have a look?

Please. Go ahead... Blend  Exchange is the best place to do that for BSE.

Here is the Link:

Thank you.

Your reference video illustrates a way of applying 3D decals to curved surfaces, filleting and concealing the junctions between the decals and the surface.
The way I went with your example involved quite a bit of incremental adjustment - I'll just try to cover the main points:

Sanitize the mesh.  Your decal had a lot of duplicate faces and vertices, normals pointing the wrong way.. possibly from abandoned extrusions / solidifies? To locate errors, H hide some faces in Edit Mode to check for duplicate or internal faces, jiggle some vertices around.. Use Overlays in the 3D view to display normals, face orientation. Delete surplus faces and AltM merge vertices by distance to leave yourself with a single skin.
Consider the method. The reference method is well-suited to small decals, in the scale of the curvature of the substrate...

...asking the Shrinkwrap modifier to cover the gap at the extremes, here, is pushing it. The parts of the decal which you'd like to spread on the surface will wind up piled on top of one another. Fixes for this might be to model the decal with a curvature more similar to the substrate, or 'pre-bend' the whole decal with a Lattice modifier, (the lattice shrink-wrapped to the surface) before assigning the other modifiers... but I guess that's what the reference was trying to avoid.
The decal in the reference is modeled with a skirt, part of which will conform to the surface closely,and  become the fillet after deformation, so I added one to yours.

Adapt the method I found that with such a large decal, 2 vertex groups helped. One to deform the mesh with the shrink-wrap..

and a smaller one to pick up the normals from the sphere...

The vertex-groups can be edited 'live', under the influence of the modifiers by assigning edge-loops with weights in the decal's Data > Vertex Groups panel, so you can see what they are doing.
This result is sort of getting there..

.. but I think things would be easier if you bent the decal as a whole, preparatory to making the invisible fillet.

Thanks for the information Robert, I highly appreciate your time to point out all this helpful insight. Much is to be learnt within 2020, and lots of practise will be made.
Thank you.


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How to decode many words in a sequence?
I am trying to randomize some words from a list. The idea is that each letter of the word randomizes until it forms the word and then skips to the next word. Basically decoding the a list of words. Each one has an index and animating the index switches the element in the list. The problem is that it only works whenever the frame starts from zero again.
This is an example:

See node tree:

Any ideas? Thanks :D

Have you considered making a python script node for this?  Probably easier in the long run...

@Kirbinator, I don't have the technical knowledge to do that.

Here is an example that I did which hopefully is what you're looking to achieve:

Hi Damien, thanks for your help, much appreciated. :) Although what I am looking for is to first reveal a word and then the second substituting the first and so on rather than completing a phrase. I am trying to understand your file and couldn't, as it seems too complex, in order to maybe use it for inspiration. Cheers

I think I need a loop but haven't figured out how to do it... :/


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Is there a way to make procedural textures not go on infinitely?
I'm looking for a solution to a problem where I need to use just a part of a procedural texture, specifically a single ring from a Wave texture, instead of the infinitely outgoing rings.

There are solutions like using various masks to limit a procedural texture to a specific area, but I need something along the lines that sort of takes the type of texture I'm using into consideration. As in my example, to limit a Wave texture to a single ring or band, or a like a Voronoi texture which would use a single "shard", or a cluster of them, and to not go on forever.

if you would show us your procedural modifier ...we could help you. Best would be a blend file so we don't have to recreate all ourselves. Which you should do because you want our help, right? So make it easy for us to help.

Can you elaborate a little on why masks don't suffice in your situation?  What does success/failure look like?

Added a picture and a .blend.
Masks would be super finicky to set up in my case, but I'm open to ideas.

Radial mask is the same as a linear gradient mask, you have to know that the equation of a circle of radius r is x²+y² = r². Or even easier, use a Vector math node set to length and a math node set to compare

@Gorgious How could I make a radial mask? Feel free to write it as an answer. Vector length may just work though.

Is it necessary that you take the Wave texture or are you just going to make a ring?

I'm afraid it does come down to masking, on a case-by-case basis. As Gorgious comments, by the time you've masked a Wave texture, you may as well have rolled-your-own rings... maybe something like:

Voronoi gives you a handle to make a mask to cell boundaries, here, around an origin of your choice:

Hey, that Voronoi screenshot just changed my brain.

Thanks! That voronoi example may just be the most useful thing I've learnt about blender yet. I wish you could do that sort of thing with every procedural texture.

@Geri Thanks! The reason you can do it with Voronoi is that it's fundamentally based on points (random per cell)  in a grid, and it knows where those points are. The others tend to be continuous functions of the whole, undivided space. You can often assemble your own versions, for more control.

There is no common interface of texture nodes with "start at" and "end at" inputs. Therefore you need to limit the influence of each node with a method specific to that particular node. There's no general trick that I'm aware of, other than "masking".
In case of your particular problem:

Thanks! I really wish procedural textures had a "start at" and "end at" values. They could maybe even accept BW values, so it wouldn't a simple radial thing.

Since you need only one ring, maybe a "ring shader node" is the right solution for you:

https://i.imgur.com/9dtG65A.png

Thanks! It's a good solution, but I need the feathered edges as well.

@Geri Do min(0, -abs(sqrt(x**2+y**2)-ringradius)+ringthickness)/ringthickness instead then. It will give you a normalized linear feather, like the wave shader, to which you can also apply a root or exponent. …I don't think there's a "Min" option for the Math node, so you'll have to emulate it with "Greater Than" or a MixRGB/"Lighten" instead.

Thanks! .. Uhm.. could you show that with nodes? xD

@Geri just use the setup Robin Betts presented, if you don't like color ramps, you can use math>ping-pong instead.


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Configuring an object to ignore one light source
I would like to configure an object to ignore one particular light source (sun) in Cycles - to receive no light from the sun. Is this possible? I've looked online, but most posts I found were either 5+ years old, or were unanswered.
I have made a sample file with a cube and a sphere in two different collections. I would like the sun to cast light only on the sphere, not on the cube.
Sample

I see some answers that use Compositing, so I guess it still works in 2.8. Someone asked the same question in january: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/129575/light-linking-blender-2-8

That is true, but the answer in that question suggests using layers, which are no longer present in 2.8 - for example, the answer says "In the light's property at right, tick This Layer Only box.", but there's no checkbox like that in 2.8 anymore. I know about the concept of collections, but despite moving objects to different collections, they're all still lit by the sun.

I have edited the question

Only one light source? Meaning other light should light the cube?

Yes, but the reason for my question is because I just need to selectively exclude an object from receiving light from a light source.

And the cube will cast shadow from the sun?

May or may not - not important, the key thing is whether it is receiving light or not.

Well so layers works.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

After some reading through documentation, which is currently not entirely precise on this particular topic, I have found out and proved in practice that the way to solve my problem is indeed using two view layers. My scene now includes two collections - one contains the first set of objects and their light source, the other one includes the object that is not to be receiving light from the first collection's light sources. The view layers then control the visibility of each collection and its contents. This means that during render, each view layer/collection is rendered separately, and both rendered outputs are then combined together in compositing.

How is this achieved precisely please? If I recreate your experiment as you describe it: two collections, each with an object and a dedicated light source, and then render, both objects are lit by both lights. Is there some way you have set this up in compositing so that on render it restricts the collection lights to the objects in that collection?


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Setting particle system to emit inside an object
I have a sphere with a particle system added to it: Add modifier - Particle system. In its preferences, I set it to Hair, with Render as Object (set to a cube object) and some other details like scale, rotation, etc.
As you can see below, this makes the cubes be distributed on the surface of the now transparent sphere. I would like to have the cubes emitted inside the sphere - not just below the surface, the sphere should be filled with cubes. Is this possible?
Just in case this would be possible with another modifier/approach: I need to have randomized sizes and rotation of the cubes and need to have 1 or 2 thousand of them.

you can move the cube's origin so that it's on its top face

Yes, but that will only move them right below the surface. I need the sphrere to be filled with cubes. Edited the question.

Ah, probably my lack of knowledge. No reason for a particle system.

oh ok didn't understand your question, I guess @bstnhnsl gave the answer

Just set the source of emission to „Volume“ instead of „Face/Verts“ in the particle settings:

Result:

Many thanks - exactly what I was looking for!


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Distorted normal map on smooth surface
Blender rookie here. I'm learning about baking normal maps in 2.80 with some pretty basic setup.
I'm getting strange results on a smooth metallic flat surface. You can see it on the following screenshot. I'd expect the surface to be completely smooth, but it looks sort of like alligator skin or something :). Any idea what can cause it?

Things I did (roughly):

Created a low-poly cube and UV unwrapped it (for this basic example I assumed "Smart UV project" is good enough) onto a 4K image (seems like overkill but I thought the problem originates from too low resolution - it doesn't seem to be the case though).
Created a high-poly copy with Bevel, Subsurf and a slight Displacement modifiers, which I then applied.
Set Smooth Shading on both objects.
Added material to low-poly cube (metallic) with Texture Image node (Color space: Non-Color).
Baked normals from hi-poly to low-poly.
Saved image, selected it in Texture Image node and connected the node to Normal Map and then to Principled BSDF's normal input.

Here's how the meshes look:

Normal map image:

Things I tried:
Adding more detail (loop cuts) to the hi-poly doesn't fix it. Setting resolution of normal image to 4K didn't help either.
Here's the complete .blend file with the normal map image: cube.zip
Thanks in advance.
Update
After attempting to UV unwrap the low-poly mesh according to hatinacat2000's answer below, I ended up with following normal map:

However, baking that in did not remove the weird effect. To be sure, I mean that the metallic cube looks like there's some transparent net spread over its sides, not the displacement which I applied intentionally on the hi-poly mesh, and it seems to work fine.

The distortion seems to be following a warped UV pattern. I'm not 100% sure what the issue is, but I feel like that's a clue.
Have you checked the baked render result for artifacts?

@AlexanderESmith thanks. Sorry, I'm not sure what exactly do you mean by baked render result? The final render is the the first photo above, the one with artifacts. If you mean the normal map image, it doesn't seem to have any problem. I'll add that one to the question as well. That aside, I also have a feeling I may be messing something about UV unwrapping, but no specific clue so far.

In such cases I'd rather use custom normals instead of normal map. It's simple to transfer normals from hipoly to lowpoly (1 segment beveled) mesh. Then it looks as the corners are smooth, but planes are flat. Cheap and clean. And Unity understands Blender's custom normals as well. There is a lot of tutorials about custom normals in the Net.

The problem is numerical error. 8 bits can't resolve the direction in  a surface so sensitive to minute changes in angle.

Set up a new 32-bit image.. you can do this in the Image Texture node itself
Set its color-space to Non-Color
Bake as before.

If you want to save the image out, 16-bit PNG will probably do.

That did the trick! Thanks :)

Cool, I never would have guessed that

@hatinacat2000. I just happen to have had a bit of trouble in this area, (which is why the 'N' properties panel is open in the picture) Not quite the same, but setting the color space has been a bit buggy. The devs seem to have ironed that out, now, in the release.

You used "Smart UV Unwrap" which, for this object, is not taking care of distortion on the beveled faces. This is [probably] happening because you have not marked any seams for the object. Go into Edit mode, Edge Select mode, select edges you want to mark seams and do Edge->Mark Seam. All of that shown here:

After you have marked the seams, select all the faces and do UV->Cube Projection. This will project from each of the cardinal planes, with each "plane" of the beveled cube overlapping every other. Now shift-select the face which is in the middle of the largest island (that is, NOT walled-off by your seams) and do UV->Follow Active Quads. This unfolds and aligns the edges of all the faces connected to the active face in your selection (which is why you want to do this from a face whose UV-mapping is already straightened). Finally, move the disconnected island aside. All of that shown here:

You can now scale the islands together, uniformly, in the UV Edit viewport and move them into position. (not shown). Some distortion is unavoidable but it should now be minimal, erring towards symmetry and uniform face areas. Your normal map will work normally now :P but you will have to re-bake it for the new texture coordinates.

Thanks! I suspected it had something to do with UV unwrapping. I'll give all this a closer look and try your suggestions later today, when I get to blend a bit after work ;).

No problem, I fixed some typos in the instructions too

I followed your instructions but it did not seem to have any effect. I unwrapped, scaled and re-baked. I uploaded updated blend file here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1V0kYcmgwf3wIEdneIwPkVHXzSw-qA3Ig. Any ideas what else I'm doing wrong?

I added the updated normals image in the question.


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How to rename objects with python?
I want to rename the number 1->picture (32) with python not the number 2->picture with the (3745), can someone help me with that ?

The item you tagged as (1) is the objects data block and can be changed via python with
bpy.data.objects['3745'].data.name = 'newName'

Instead of referring to an object directly by name you can access the active object's data block with
bpy.context.object.data.name = 'newName'

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Blender not exporting mesh properly
I have just started using blender 2.66a. I was trying to model a chair.
I used a cube to create the chair. I exported it as an .obj file. However when I tried to import it back in, it is just showing a cube instead of the chair which I had modeled.
blend file

Exact problem but for another format, http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5249/exported-dae-models-have-a-cube-embedded-in-them

I downloaded your file and tried it. It works fine for me, just make sure you exported the right cube (your scene has 2).

The reason you are seeing the cube instead of the chair is because there is a Cube on layer 1. Your chair is on layer 3. You only had layer 3 visible which is why you did not see the cube even though it is there.
There are two ways to avoid this problem in the future:
Method 1 - deleting the cube

Go to layer 1 by pressing 1 on your keyboard

Select the cube and delete it, X

Method 2 - only exporting the needed meshes

Select the chair and any other items you wish to export

In the export dialog check Selection Only

Once you do this you can import the chair and it will work like you expect it to.


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Camera doesnt follow ball in tube (Blender Game Engine)
I'm trying to make a game where a ball rolls in a tube and hits several obstacles that triggers sounds.
I vertex-parented my camera to the ball (so it doesnt spin as the ball does)
I have several problems :

The inside of the tube doesnt shows in play mode.
The camera always goes out of the tube when i move the ball (physics type is rigid body, it shouldnt)
The direction of the ball isnt fluid, it seems to block in the turns

Here's the file to understand more clearly.
If you could help... Thanks alot

I'll try to address at least something:
1) Your "tube" material has "backface" enabled, thus now you can't see it from the inside, because  tube's normals are pointing outside. Try to remove backface OR leave backface, but invert normals (in this way you can also see through the tube when looking the whole tube path from outside, to get a bird's eye view, which helps to spot how is working well and where not...
2) the current camera parenting isn't working well: moving the ball (pressing S) it goes behind it at the beginning, but then it goes around it (and something goes out of the tube), then also in front of the ball... I think you should somehow set the position  of the camera to be always behind the ball along the ball direction axis... I don't know how, unfortunately.

Thanks for the answer, it worked well for the material.
For the camera, I will eventually try with logic bricks, since I don't know how to do it differently.


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How do you add a bevel modifier to this head
I want to add bevel to the head in this rig(a minecraft rig).
Whenever I try to add the bevel it has texture glitches and crashes when I move the mouth. The mouth is a boolean mouth and that is where most of the glitches are.

Beveling it in edit mode worked fine for me.

@PGmath i want it to bevel the mouth as well and that is a boolean mouth

Is there a reason why you are using a boolean?  Why not just extrude the mouth inwards?

From my experience boolean operations, in theory, are a great tool.  But in reality they cause a lot of problems.  The biggest problem I have found is that, even if they work "properly", they create terrible topology.

@PGmath boolean mouth is a style of mouth for minecraft rigs which does not have texture deformation. plus i also forgot to mention, i have a driver to turn on and off the bevel. also the eyes have wired texture glitches as well


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Using Physic tab in 2.68 to make swinging linked-chain--problem with "weight" and chain-links that snap
How do i strengthen the bonds/material in a plain linked-loop chain, in a non-kinematic chain--ie using "hard body" setting in the physics tab!  these bonds behave strangely and break every time...  I'm attempting to replicate the tutorial listed here  one of Andrew Price's "Blender Guru" videos...
I'm trying to create a simple swinging "wrecking Ball" but setting the weights of the individual chain lengths to 2KG (24 chain lengths) and the ball on the end to 10KG doesn't work..
I'm told that scaling up the chain makes the physics work better, that "too small" objects don't behave well.
I've set everything in the scene to be "Cast Iron", and I would have thought that 2KG mass of a single link should not break, but it does, roughly into thirds, every time I hit the animation button
Does anybody have a list of "things to try" to fix this?

No need to type in all caps and I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, try rephrasing your question a bit.

If you don't want the constraints to "break", disable Breakable for each constraint (select them all and disable it, the right click on the check box and press Copy To Selected).

Andrew sets the ball mass to 10Kg and the links to 4Kg, as your chain is longer you may need to use a link mass higher than that to also support the weight of the extra links. How thick the chain links are also plays a part in their strength.


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Textures in cycles render becomes "spotty"
I am trying to render a scene in cycles. It looks fine in render preview (first picture). However, after rendering in cycles it comes out pretty awful (second picture). I have no idea why this happens and would appreciate any help.
It has been suggested that this could be due to displacement nodes, but I am not using displacement nodes.

Edit: added node setup and render settings

Can you share your node setup?

I think this is happening because of your normal map; try reducing the strenght to 1 or if that does't work try rendering ater removing the normal map.

Have you removed your normal map as a test? Because of the distortion, normal/displacement issue.


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Help to find IAP_SHADELESS
I am new in Blender. I am trying to modify the transparency of a plane as an image. And apparently this node is necesary. I hope you can help me. Thanks.

Hi Mariana! The node is a custom made node group. So you should tell us what it should do and/or where you did see it.

It's a custom Group created by the add-on "Import-Export: Import Images as Planes". (IAP = Images As Planes)
Go to Edit > Preferences > Add-ons, search for "Images" and tick the checkbox to enable the "Import-Export: Import Images as Planes" add-on.

Now you can use the add-on through File > Import > Images as Planes (or through the Add menu in the 3D View). Select an image to import and pick "Shadeless" under the Material Settings. Then hit import.

Your image will be imported as a quad. The material it uses will have the IAP_SHADELESS node.
After you've done this once in a file, you can add the group to any material you want by picking Add > Group > IAP_SHADELESS in the Shader Editor.

What version is this? Where is this group added? When I use Import > Images as Planes or otherwise in the 3D Viewport with Add > Image > Images as Planes, a material is created with an Image Texture node where the Color and Alpha outputs are plugged into Base Color and Alpha inputs of a Principled BSDF. I don't get a node group.

Did you pick "Shadeless" on the import screen?

Haha, sorry I'm stupid. Never used these options. :D

This custom node group created by the Images as Planes import tool is not necessary if you want to create a shadeless material that takes the image's alpha map into account.
First fo all, to make a texture shadeless you can just plug it directly into the Surface socket of the material output. It is shadeless then because there is no BSDF node telling the renderer how to shade it. Of course to get the transparency, you have to mix the Image Texture with a Transparent BSDF and use Alpha as the mix factor. This actually makes it emit light like it was an Emission shader:

If you don't want that, you could multiply the Alpha channel with the Is Camera Ray channel of a Light Paths node:

And if you now want to control/modify how transparent the image is, you can easily multiply the Alpha channel (or the already manipulated Alpha) by a value < 1 because it's a black and white mask and this makes the white darker i.e. more transparent. Or you can also use a Color Ramp to manipulate the black and white areas.

I know, this is getting a little more complex now, but playing around with nodes can help you make things maybe more understandable and you learn what you can do with them. The difference with my setup to the original IAP SHADELESS group is, my image doesn't throw a shadow now. To alter this, you could plug the Alpha of the image into a Invert node and then into the Transparency BSDF.

As aforementioned, to make the image more transparent you could multiply the Alpha with a value < 1. To make this work with a shadow, you put this Multiply node before the one that's bringing the Is Camera Ray in, otherwise the shadow won't show up.

But in this case the image will be not exactly as transparent as in the version without the shadow. To achieve this, it's better to control the overall Alpha with another Mix Shader and a second Transparent BSDF to modify or reduce the full opacity coming from the first Mix Shader. The difference might look subtle in these screenshots, but they are not the same and depending on the settings this might turn out more ore less visible / annoying.

I'm sorry this is quite a lot but as I said, you can always learn from mixing nodes and observing what they do. In the end you could even put them all in a group so that you have your own custom group for these kind of things.


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Lodify not working with farm. Scatter/Lodify to RenderStreet
I have a ticket with the render farm (RenderStreet) - but timing is a little tight and don't expect feedback from them until Monday so I'm giving the forum a shot.
The issue is basically the proxy portion of the Scatter add-on (Lodify is built into Scatter) renders well locally, but with the farm it is not switching the low poly object to the high poly object.

Curious if anyone has thoughts, there's a mention about baking on a thread but it seems to be more specific to location of the particles, not about the proxy working:
Why is my particle system rendering differently on my cloud rendering service?
thanks in advance,
Jay

Hey Jay,
We sent a reply to the ticket you sent to us on the farm. We can help get the addon to work, just write back and we'll assist.
Thanks!

Thanks Marius, I've been working with Sorin on it thank you so much!


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Anti Aliasing Issue with Wireframe modifier
New blender user here - loving it so far. I'm running into an anti aliasing issue on a wireframe modifier object during render. Here is a breakdown and what’s happening:

I added a wireframe modifier to a tetrahedron. I'm using Eevee and added bloom & motion blur. I was initially getting some serious antialiasing that would show up in some frames (particularly frames within a shrinkwrap animation of the tetrahedron morphing into another shape—see pic).

I played around with upping the Sampling but the thing that seemed to solve the issue was a. changing the Motion Blur to "Start on Frame" instead of "Center on Frame" and b. decreasing the Motion Blue shutter from .5 to .1

But I'm still noticing this sort of vibrating anti aliasing, particularly on the center line (it almost vibrates when animated—it's a 360 rotate animation):

Any thoughts on how to reduce this if possible would be hugely appreciated!

I don't think you have a chance to affect this "blocky" bloom. It's seems to be a price of eevee to be real-time. What can you see are bloom "samples" and there doesn't exist a way to increase this resolution (from what I know).
In general I would say it wasn't designed for such a strong effect. The same as for antialiasing - the issue is raising more clearly on lines with low angle where stepping is easier to see.

What I tried ... there isn't relationship with another parametr (like scene volumetric, sampling or what ever) that can increase stepping ... the only one panel that can affect the result is Bloom itself.
So try to tweak values there ... probably you can find some setup with better result.
And ... I don't think Motion blur can fix that ... in some situation it can reduce appearance thanks to blur direction, but make it worse in other situations.

Some kind of hack ... you can try Volume object with Mesh to Volume modifier + Bloom. The idea is to use volumetric where you can easily increase steps into very smooth result, and bloom use just as last soft touch to get glowing without high values.
Add Volume object and add Mesh to Volume modifier as source choose your tetrahedron. Decrease Exterior Band Width to 0.02 and switch to Voxel Size and decrease value to 0.01.
Volume object only ...

Material - Principled Volume shader with increased Emission Strength to 2

Volume object + original tetrahedron object + Bloom

Render Properties > Sampling - increase value to something like 256
... or all this is illusion and I was wrong :)

Thank you so much vklidu! I'll play around with the suggestions.


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Blender 3.4.1 Weight Paint Not Working

Object is supposed to turn blue, and all I get is this 'wireframe' look and cannot do absolutely anything. In viewport overlays, Weight Paint Opacity is set to 1, and it is selectable in the viewport. If I add another object weight paint works, but not for this cat model.

You are in "face masking" mode (button to the right of mode select) and it appears that you don't have any faces selected.  Disable face masking or select some faces.

@Nathan That was the issue! Thnx!


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Does anyone know how to make straws for a hawaiian style hut or stall?
I want to make a stall in 3d like this one:

...and I don't know how to make straws or strings to make it look like that. I tried with hair but I don't understand it too well. Any help would be appreciated.

I'd try hair particles, brush them a bit randomly and then use a 'particle instance' modifier to put another mesh on the hair particles, here's a rough attempt-

And here's the .blend to pull apart-
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5pljlpiel33jllt/StrawHairParticles.blend?dl=0
Use more emitters and more meshes to instance onto the hair, and go nuts 'combing' (particle edit mode) the hair, and you should be able to get way closer than my 5 minute attempt!


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How to do proportional beveling?
Sorry for the non descriptive title. I don't know what to call this. Basically I'd like to know if there is an easy and quick way to create bevels like this:

Essentially what are the good ways to create bevels along edges that smoothly go from one radius to another either linearly or expotentially like in the pic. I know I posted a simple cube but imagine that the surface is not flat and has many loop cuts in the middle so manually adjusting bevels is not really an option as it doesn't produce smooth results very easily or quickly.

It's not parametric, but bevels (tool or modifier) do have a 'Percent' width type, which will bevel the given proportion of the way along adjacent edges. So if you can arrange for adjacent edges to have appropriate lengths...

You might also want to look at all the possibilities offered by the Bridge Edge Loops tool, for connecting open edges.


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Skewed Grab or Scale in Edit Mode
Just learning blender here. One problem I stumbled upon is expanding length of an object in Edit Mode, when that object's rotation is not aligned to global axis (e.g. rotation has been applied).

Let's say I selected four vertices forming one side of a cube. How can I grab the loop and move it without affecting the angles? G-G to slide loop only works within dimensions of the cube (i.e. I can only "shrink" the object"). Assuming there's a face between those vertices I can select the face, use Transformation Orientation: Normal and move the face. But what if there's no face? Normals won't work for this, and none of the other orientations or pivot points seem to do the job either (understandably). Same problem applies to scaling but I suspect if there's a solution, it'll work for both cases.

Seems like it should be a pretty common thing to do when modelling complex objects, so what's the trick? For now my workaround is to create a temporary face between selected vertices and use Transformation Orientation: Normal, but I'm wondering if there's an easier or more "correct" way to do this (also it probably won't work if vertices are not forming a plane).
TIA

GG can actually extend edges beyond existing bounds.
Either: drag slightly inwards to establish the edges you're sliding along, and then hit C or hold Alt while dragging outwards along the (now displayed) extended edges,
Or Go into the 'Adjust Last Operation' panel, and uncheck 'Clamp'
It's always worth checking operator options displayed at the bottom of the 3D View when you're getting to know new tools.. I'm still picking stuff up from there, even after using Blender for quite a long time.

Thanks. The only situation where this requires extra work is when the other end of the object (the one I move away from) doesn't form 90° angles with edges I'm sliding on. E-F doesn't work for this and neither unchecking 'Clamp' (the latter deforms moved loop). But I can make a temporary extra loop cut in between, parallel to the loop I'm grabbing and then it's doing what I want.

@Caleb9, you can also create a custom orientation from an edge.. then Y is the direction along its length.

Cool! That's probably the fastest and best way to do that :). Thanks again.


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Linking multiple pivot points with object constraints
This seems quite simple but I just can't work it out. I essentially need to make the image attached function as a single object, so that if I grab either end and move or rotate it the entire structure moves whilst pivoting in the appropriate places (the small circles). I'm thinking that maybe empties are required but I just can't get them to link to each other correctly using object constraints.
Any help would be much appreciated. Many thanks.

Maybe parenting it to a 3-segment armature could work?

I was hoping to avoid armatures if possible. It seems unnecessary to use bones and rigging for such a simple setup. Or maybe I'm wrong — maybe it's only possible with armatures? But then I'd also imagine that I'd need to use inverse kinematics on the bones which seems over-complicated for this scenario. Would anyone know the simplest way to rig my example with just a basic armature? Many thanks.

You need to use armature. There is no simpler way. Empties are more complex and I don't think they'll allow you to grab a child object to move the whole thing.

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


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how do I change the settings of an actuator(python)
I want to change the time of a object that is added but I am new to python and don't know how to. I am trying to create randomly lasting smoke trails.

Since you seem to be familiar with Python already, you might wanna look into the time property for the actuator in the API. Alternatively, you could just use the addObject method. If I am right it does the same thing but saves you one element in the Logic Bricks.


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How do I bring this face up and snap to another face?

How do I move this selected faces up along the Z axis and snap it to the unselected faces? They were originally connected together, but I cut them out initially thinking I didn't need them. The vertices that are supposed to be connected together are on the same Z axis. I tried different settings in snapping but the selected faces seem to just jump all over the place. I need to keep the sizes of the selected faces the same, so I can't just select vertices and snap them up. I need to move everything up together.
Thank you.

What I use is the Bridge Edge Loops function. It's not perfect since it won't move all the faces but will connect the top edges cleanly.
Make sure you are either in Edge or Vertex Mode and select the two Edge loops you want to connect.

Press W and select Bridge Edge Loops.

In the operation settings, check Merge and set Merge Factor to 0. If 0 moves the wrong  Edge loop then set the value to 1.

Lastly you'll have to move the rest of the faces manually. It's not perfect but works well enough for my own usage. I believe this is what user277143 is referring to but as I can't add comments yet I instead created a new answer.

I think there is no magic bullet.
Either:

You select a pair of vertices and go to W > Merge > [Select the one you want].
You select the two edge loops in Edge selection mode and go Space > search for Bridge Gap (or Gaps, I am not sure off the wording.)

The first way merges the vertices, the second creates faces inbetween.

Face mode snapping isn't often useful since it deals with face middle points, you want to snap vertices here.
With faces selected switch to Vertex select mode. Hold Shift and right click RMB a vertex of your selection that you want to use for snapping to make it the active vertex. Set snap type to Vertex and from snap options dropdown select Active (closest would probably work too).
Now when you start moving this active vertex is going to be placed at a vertex you are pointing at. Of course you can still hit Z to restrict translation to Z-axis.
Afterwards you might want to merge the vertices. Easiest way is to select all vertices by hitting A and using CTRL + V (or W) vertex menu option Remove doubles.
Make sure the threshold is small enough to not to merge vertices elsewhere ie smaller than your smallest intended distance between vertices.
Finally you can verify the integrity of surface by selecting none in vertice mode (A) and hitting CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+M which selects any non-manifold vertices in the mesh.


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Offset Image Brightness
I would like to set up a node editor in the way, that the darkest pixel in a grayscale render result is set to black and the offset to the original value is subtracted from all the other pixels. While I am aware of the subtraction node I have difficulties finding the darkest pixel in the render results.

Did you tried with a "less than" math node ?

I think, the math node works per pixel, it does not sum over all pixels

@miceterminator I'm not sure what you mean, isn't that what you want? Another way to do this is with the brightness/contrast node. You could just slide the brightness down until some pixels are black.

I am looking for a way to automatically find the value to subtract, so that the darkest pixel is black. Like an global input to the subtract math node.

I don't think an automatic way currely exists. I'm afraid you have to code something to find the target pixel directly.
However, after playing this for quite a bit time, I find a tricky way to get the same result. As shown in the image below. Though it seems not quite effective on performance, but quite acceptable after my testing on a sort of 6000 x 6000 px image, so far.

Furthermore, suppose you want to target the brightest pixel, just add an Invert node right before the Nomalize node. Hope that helps.

Version 2:
I think this way is even better. FYI

OR:

Run the image, in this case a pointiness input for Suzanne through the following node setup. Keep in mind, the invert value was arbitrarily chosen but works quite well for almost any image. Out of the 'Normalizes' frame comes the image that is quite close to being valued from 0-1. If you further want a custom range placed on those values, run the output of that frame into the Custom Range frame. In the second frame, simply enter the minimum and maximum values you want as the range for your image. Run the output where ever you'd like.

Essentially, you'll normalize the texture across the values of 0 and 1.  For your case, leave the min at 0 (black) and select the upper most bound you want.  FYI, this works to invert the finished image too.  You can reverse the values of min and max to produce a limited range image, inverted, with 1 (white) as an upper most limit.


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Brightness dependent texture on mesh
Andrew Price showed in one of his tutorials how to use a white material node in the Blender internal render to get the brightness of a point and assign the texture accordingly.
In this case: Point is bright: assign daylight texture; Point is dark: assign night light texture
Is there anyway to reproduce that in cycles?

if you look through the comments on the tutorial you will see enthusiasts post screenshots of node setups for a cycles version.

I don't think it actually works with their node setup, it is usually based on the fact, that the emission from the night texture is so weak that you don't see it during the daytime. After Brechts answer I will probably use 3 render layers. (white sphere for indication, nighttime sphere, daytime sphere)

@zeffii Sadly these comments dont exist anymore. Do you know how to do this in Cycles?

No, it's not possible to do this in Cycles, it will first evaluate the material nodes entirely, and then compute the lighting.
Supporting this would be incompatible with progressive rendering and bidirectional lighting algorithms, and so physically based render engines usually can't do this.
For the earth example, a workaround would be to use a Normal node Dot output, with the Geometry node Normal output plugged into the Normal input. If you then set the direction to match the sun light it will give you a factor than can be used for blending.

I couldn't follow, could you please elaborate on that?


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Is there some way I can update the viewer node during background rendering to output the correct results?
I'm rendering several images from one blender file and I would like to manipulate the pixels of the render output directly. I implemented the workaround from https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/71264/245. Here the pixel values get extracted from the viewer node.
My problem is, that the viewer node does not get updated when running blender with the -b "background" command line argument.
Considering the following code to print the max value and the size of the viewer node pixels:
import bpy
import numpy as np
from mathutils import *
from math import *

bpy.context.scene.render.use_compositing = True
bpy.context.scene.use_nodes = True
tree = bpy.context.scene.node_tree
links = tree.links
for n in tree.nodes:
    tree.nodes.remove(n)
rl = tree.nodes.new('CompositorNodeRLayers')
vl = tree.nodes.new('CompositorNodeViewer')
vl.use_alpha = True
links.new(rl.outputs[0], vl.inputs[0])

bpy.ops.render.render()
rl.update()
vl.update()
print(max(np.array(bpy.data.images['Viewer Node'].pixels[:][::4])))
print(len(np.array(bpy.data.images['Viewer Node'].pixels[:][::4])))

when running in background it will print
0 #print(max(np.array(bpy.data.images['Viewer Node'].pixels[:][::4])))
65536 #print(len(np.array(bpy.data.images['Viewer Node'].pixels[:][::4])))

Instead of the correct values.
is there some way I can update the viewer node during background rendering to output the correct results?

It doesn't look like it's possible at this point, at least not directly through Python:
https://developer.blender.org/T54314


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Organic yet accurate modeling with the golden spiral
Foreword
First off, let me say that I am profoundly amazed at the orderliness in nature. If you haven't heard about the Fibonacci sequence (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ...), you should check it out.
This mathematical concept of the Fibonacci numbers can be shaped into a set of squares, where the lengths of the sides of the squares follow the Fibonacci sequence:

This is sometimes called a golden ratio. It can be formed into a (golden) spiral. (a.k.a. logarithmic spiral):

Application
I am looking for ways on how to utilize this concept in Blender. Primarily in organic modeling. The golden spiral is found all throughout nature. From flower seed heads, sea shells, and ram horns to hurricanes and spiral galaxies. See for yourself. My question is: how can I model based off of one or multiple golden spirals? Specifically, I'm interested in modeling a sunflower head like the one in the following image. I'm mostly interested in the point of origin of the individual seeds (not worried about the shape). Does Blender have any features related to this?

It would be good if you could link to a an image of a model that you aim to match - is duplicating smaller objects to make up a larger form acceptable? or are you wanting a continuous surface?

2d images can convey only limited information about these complex structures and shape-modulations, I recommend to study the physical objects up close too.

Amazing list of interesting answers!

hi how was your project on this going? mind if i see your blender file for this project? :)

There is a simple mathematical model for florets in a sunflower, using the golden angle 137.5°. Here is an script that creates a mesh with vertices distributed in this pattern:
import bpy
import bmesh
import math

n = 1000 # number of points
c = 0.1 # scale factor

mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(name="Spiral")
bm = bmesh.new()

for i in range(0, n):
    theta = i * math.radians(137.5)
    r = c * math.sqrt(i)
    bm.verts.new((math.cos(theta) * r, math.sin(theta) * r, 0.0))

bm.to_mesh(mesh)
mesh.update()

from bpy_extras import object_utils
object_utils.object_data_add(bpy.context, mesh)

Note that this pattern does not consist of concentric circles like other answers. It would be interesting if you could generate something like this with existing modifiers or other tools, but I wouldn't know how.

A few modifications to the technique outline in my answer, results in the same pattern. ;)

Aha, very nice.

Stuff like this can be used to create displacement maps too: slightly modified from your code, this attempts to show how the spiral grows over time

Note that the angle of 137.5 is very sensitive to change. For a bigger number of points you probably want something like math.radians(137.5077641), otherwise the outer points start to align.

How about a fully math based approach, here's an interesting paper on scipress.org called Growth in Plants: A Study in Numbers by Jay Kappraff.
from the paper:

Keywords: Phyllotaxis, Fibonacci Numbers, Golden Mean, Continued Fractions, Farey
Series, Wythoff’s Game, Zeckendorf Notation

Blender Addon(s)
There is an addon called Add 3d Function Surface which can be coerced into producing many interesting shapes. It is included in the Extra Objects addon as "Math Functions"

If the purely function based approach fails you then you still have a variety of options. Some of which are a bit more interactive.
Modifiers and Scripting
You could model one part of the object and use a script to rotate it around and scale it up/down according to whatever algorithm you can imagine. For example a 2d version of a plant  on geometry daily, it's simplicity is deceptive. I tend to use live coding tools like tributary.io to figure out the math using .js with immediate feedback. Usually if I can figure something out in 2D, the move to Blender and adding a third dimension isn't that much extra work.
An Array Modifier and an empty can give very similar results to the broccoli.

This is a cone, tilted slightly and shifted away from its origin, then added an Array modifier and used a tilted (rotated) and slightly scaled empty as an array object.
The fractal nature of the brocolli calls for daisy-chained array modifiers, each building on the complexity of the previous.

Elaboration
perhaps a short walk-through script might better convey what otherwise would become a wordy explanation. This script is merely intended to show what daisy-chained Array Modifiers can do, and shouldn't be perceived as nice python or nice code. The script should result in something like the sunflower. Run the code in an empty blend file with the 3D cursor at the centre of the scene.
import bpy
import math
import mathutils
from mathutils import Euler
# make sure 3d cursor is at the center of the scene

num_items_in_spiral = 13
num_spiral_arms = 29
z_rotation = 2.0 * math.pi / num_spiral_arms

# add cone, modify the mesh,
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cone_add(vertices=12, radius1=0.354406, depth=0.901211)
obj = bpy.context.active_object
obj.data.transform(mathutils.Matrix.Translation((-0.5, 0, 0)))

# add empty for spiral arm
bpy.ops.object.empty_add()
obj = bpy.context.active_object
obj.name = "Empty_spiral"
obj.location = (-0.8, 0, 0)
obj.rotation_euler = Euler((0, 0, 0.179609), 'XYZ')

# add empty for radial array
bpy.ops.object.empty_add()
obj = bpy.context.active_object
obj.name = "Empty_radial_array"
obj.rotation_euler = Euler((0, 0, z_rotation), 'XYZ')

# add modifiers to the cone
obj = bpy.data.objects["Cone"]

mod = obj.modifiers.new(name="Array_1", type='ARRAY')
mod.use_relative_offset = False
mod.use_object_offset = True
mod.offset_object = bpy.data.objects["Empty_spiral"]
mod.count = num_items_in_spiral

mod = obj.modifiers.new(name="Array_2", type='ARRAY')
mod.use_relative_offset = False
mod.use_object_offset = True
mod.offset_object = bpy.data.objects["Empty_radial_array"]
mod.count = num_spiral_arms

The red cone is the primary object, the curve/spiral coming off it is the result of one array modifier on a translated and rotated Empty. The rest of the spirals are an extra array modifier on a different Empty (rotated around the scene origin by 2*math.pi / num_spiral_arms)
Whatever object/picture you choose to replicate, you can figure a lot out by drawing on top of the pictures and counting, but mostly experimenting. I think it's more accurate to consider these nice geometric objects as 3D fractals rather than the 3D embodiment of a golden ratio.

I'm inclined to consider the question off-topic as, while it is very interesting and the math can be satisfying, the techniques and information you seem to be looking for are rather generic math / graphics problems.

@zeffi I receive the impression that more questions get closed than upvoted I would strongly disagree to close this one.

I don't intend to vote for closing it, but it will never be up to one person to close a question unless it is blatantly left field.

@zeffii Could you give more detailed instructions about how you made the tilted cone model?

@ajwood Yes, i'll update this later with a script or two and modify my answer.

So many nice answers already. :) I'd like to share my tricky way. too. Steps are shown below:

Demo file is here (UPDATED Jun-30-2024, for Blender 4.x).

Even the human face is based on Phi and Golden Ratio proportions.
Fun stuff, anyway had to have a play:

Animated a circle's scale and rotation (used golden angle as mentions by brecht) and made cyclic.

Setting up a particle system to spawn the suzanne-flower seeds.
Disabled gravity and particle velocity so they'd stay in place.

I modified some of the above script to duplicate mesh objects around the golden radius in a sphere.
Trippy Faces:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPXOz7Xqf1g
Make sure one object is selected, then run the script.
Also make sure the objects rotation,scale and location have been applied.
GR_Generator_Script:
import bpy
import bmesh
import math
from mathutils import Vector

n = 400 # number of points
r = 3 #radius
ob = bpy.context.object
obs = []
sce = bpy.context.scene

for i in range(1, n):
    theta = i * math.radians(137.5)#degrees
    phi =  (math.radians(180)/n) * i
    x = r*math.sin(phi)*math.cos(theta)
    y = r*math.sin(phi)*math.sin(theta)
    z = r*math.cos(phi)

    if x<0:
        a = x*(-1)
    else:
        a = x

    if y < 0:
        b = y*(-1)
    else:
        b = y

    c = math.sqrt((a*a)+(b*b))
    size = 0.06+(c*0.09) #This can be messed about with to get the right size

    copy = ob.copy()
    copy.location = (x,y,z)
    copy.scale = (size,size,size)

    copy.rotation_euler=(phi,math.radians(0),theta+math.radians(90))

    copy.data = copy.data.copy()
    obs.append(copy)

for ob in obs:
    sce.objects.link(ob)

sce.update() # don't place this in either of the above loops!

Once mesh objects have been generated, select them all and make one object (Ctrl-J).
Then, making sure 3D Cursor is at 0,0,0 (Shift-C) click Object->Transform->Origin to 3D Cursor
Then you can run the
Key_Frame_Generator:
import bpy
import bmesh
import math
from mathutils import Vector

# prepare a scene
scn = bpy.context.scene
ob = bpy.context.object

#number of frames
n = 143
#degrees to rotate
d = 0 #Change to apply spin

for i in range(0, n):

    bpy.context.scene.frame_set(i)

    # do something with the object. A rotation, in this case
    ob.rotation_euler=(0.0,0.0,math.radians(d))

    d = (d + 137.5) #Change to subtract to change direction of appeared flow

    # create keyframe
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_insert_menu(type='Rotation')

Here is a comparison of 2 similar functions:

The functions are made to be run in a loop, with N providing the total number of dots, and k is the current iteration of the loop.  The first FCT is a phyllotaxis spiral formula, dont know how it works, perhaps it isnt meant for sunflowers with 10 000 seeds as it seems abit simple, the outer seeds might make straight lines, and the scond functiion uses phi, it is actually was originally from a code to make spheres with equally distributed dots, like disco balls, its on this website @ evenly-distributing-n-points-on-a-sphere. i just found these codes online in groups.
function sflo1 ( N:float,k:int):Vector3{//phi based pylospiral
//N=numpts  k=currentpt
k=k;
var inc =  Mathf.PI  * ( 3 - Mathf.Sqrt ( 5 ) );
var off = 2 / N;
var y = k * off - 1 + (off / 2);
var r = Mathf.Sqrt (Mathf.Abs(y))  ;
var phi = k * inc;
return Vector3(-Mathf.Cos(phi)*r, 0, -Mathf.Sin(phi)*r);

};

function sflo ( N:float,k:int):Vector3{//easy formula based on 137.5 pylospiral
var n = k;
var r=Mathf.Sqrt (n)*1/(Mathf.Sqrt (N));;
var t=137.5*pi/180*n;
return Vector3(r*Mathf.Cos(t),0, r*Mathf.Sin(t));
}

function sflosq ( N:float,k:int):Vector3{//my own version it's stupid!
//N=numpts  k=currentpt

var inc =  Mathf.PI  * ( 3 - Mathf.Sqrt ( 5 ) );
var off = 2 / N;
var y = k * off - 1 + (off / 2);
var r = Mathf.Sqrt (Mathf.Abs(y)) * Mathf.Sign(y) ;
var phi = k * inc;
return Vector3(Mathf.Asin(Mathf.Cos(phi))*r, 0, (-Mathf.Acos(Mathf.Sin(phi))+pi/2)*r);

};

This is certainly useful, but it's not exactly an answer. Can you post the functions with a short explanation as well?

Hi, The functions are made to be run in a loop, with N providing the total number of dots, and k is the current iteration of the loop.

No, Blender doesn't have any features specific to the modeling the golden-ratio, so I would suggest...

Take an image and use it as a reference, you can do this using a background image or an empty-image (empty object displaying an image).
If a reference image isn't accurate enough, you could write a small Python script which plots this shape, it wouldn't be so hard, and once you have this you might be able to further extend it to suit your purpose.

Your question is fairly vague as to how you intend to apply this shape to the objects you model, so for a more detailed answer you would need to ask a more specific question.


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Object wobbling and shaking while camera following a path
I have a cube object and I'm trying to move the camera in a spiral and then render the video. When seen from the camera view, the cube object seems to wobble a lot along the z axis. I have seen this question here but that option is not showing up in my Blender. I'm attaching my blend file here. I'm not sure if it is happening just to me or is it some problem with the camera path?

The problem is that the resolution of the path is too small. This results in the path being made up of a series of straight lines that are much longer than the steps of your animated 'follow path', resulting in the jitter.
You can re-create the curve with a higher resolution or you can edit your existing curve to add resolution by selecting the curve and enter Edit mode (Tab). Select all vertices (A), click 'Subdivide' in the tool shelf (T) - this will divide each section of the curve, although they will still form straight lines. Once you have enough additional points, click Smooth (again, in the toolshelf, just below Subdivide) a few times - this will round off the edges, effectively shaving the corners off the curve and making it smooth again.
The result should be a smoothed curve with higher resolution that should no longer cause the jittering.

Edit : Another way is to change the Spline Type of your curve - you currently have this set to 'Poly' (ie, lines). Changing it to Bezier or NURBS will produce a curved path without having to add additional control points. To achieve this, simply enter Edit mode and select all (as above) and then click Set Spline Type in the tool shelf (it's shown at the top of the above image). Select NURBS and your path should be smooth and track with no jitter.

Thanks man. It worked. I was trying to achieve the same thing by increasing preview U option under Resolution heading in the right side menu in Object mode. Edit mode was the key! awsome!

Late to the game but i just had this problem and tried to subdivide on the now blender 3.2.2 and it became even more jagged. Im a noob in blender so i guess mye scaling was off and what was supposed to be s smooth bezier became a jagged hell. Found out that you can increase the res on the active spline to max (64), and that solved it!


text:
Render simple lines in cycles
Here is the obj that I'm trying to render (they represent charged particles)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e3w87d38pqizjzr/event000000000-tracks.obj?dl=0
Edit: just to be clear, these aren't arbitrary curved lines - they represent the output of a physics simulation so I need to render EXACTLY these lines.
Using the internal renderer I can chose the 'wire' material and this looks great. However the detector itself looks very messy with 'internal' and so I would prefer to use cycles, and here I'm completely stuck. This is NOT the wireframe view of a solid object - it's really just a bunch of lines and I just cannot work out how to get them to appear. Any hints?
For reference, I want to produce something similar to :

https://cds.cern.ch/record/1406073/files/eeee-run167675-evt876658967-3d.jpg?subformat=icon-640

I think you want the BTrace addon, it takes your particles and draws lines connecting them.

I always get an error, when I try to import your .OBJ. Can you make sure, it is uploaded correctly? Can you import the OBJ without trouble or workarounds?

Hi @yann, Sorry, I think I uploaded an older version. I've updated the link, but it's: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e3w87d38pqizjzr/event000000000-tracks.obj?dl=0

I would suggest using the BTrace addon.

Make an object and add a particle system to it.
Add a turbulence field to get wavy lines.
Run the particle sim (be careful using over 250 particles, blender will freeze)
Once your particles are where you want them, open BTrace and click Particle Trace.

It will create all those lines for you, they will be too thick or thin, so go to your curve settings and hold ALT with all the lines selected and you can change the thickness of all of them at once.

Thanks very much for this - but the lines are built from a simulation, so I need to render exactly these. Not just arbitrary lines.

Although this thread is now wildly out of date, I was looking for an answer to the same question but for a different purpose and so thought I'd post my solution. What worked for me was as follows-
Build the lines you want rendered as a mesh containing just the wires, no faces. Select the object in object mode. Click on Object|Convert to Grease Pencil. The resulting grease pencil object will now render as a 3D object.


text:
How to shear a ellipse

I am working on a scientiic illustration and I need your help. :)
I want to make an ellipse with left end at (0, 0 , 0) and the right end at (1, 1, 1) where the middle point is at (0.5, 0.5, 0.5). All I have to do is to shear the ellipse shown in the figure in such a way that right end should be at (1,1,1) and the middle point at (0.5, 0.5, 0.5) and left end remain at zero.
How to shear it....?

I tried propotional editing by moving the right end vertice point but it gives non symmetrical ellipse.

have you tried the Shear tool (ctrl alt shift S), doesn't it give a good result? also, Mesh Deform modifier could help you

Here are two ways to do it: Shear tool or Mesh Deform modifier

Matrices and Scripting
Since it is for a "scientific visualization" I thought some maths and scripting wouldn't go astray.
Matrix.Shear(plane, size, factor)
For the example here the plane chosen is XY, The normal of the XY plane is the Z axis.  For this case, consider the two values of factor as the x and y component that make up the 2D shearing vector. (1, 1) (Top ortho view)
The unit diameter sphere is sitting on its base, the z axis passes thru both poles.  The Each ring of latitude has been "sheared" maintaining a constant z value  from (0, 0, 1) to  (1, 1, h)  Where h = 1 is the "height" (diameter) of the sphere.

Before and after shear
Test script. Adds a UV sphere at origin. Scales mesh to diameter one, and translates such that origin is on south pole.
Applies the XY plane shearing matrix along 1, 1.
import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix

# Add a diameter one sphere sitting on its base.

context = bpy.context
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(location=(0, 0, 0))
ob = context.object
me = ob.data
T = Matrix.Translation((0, 0, 1))

Sc = 0.5 * Matrix.Identity(4)
me.transform(T * Sc)

#  Shearing

Sh = Matrix.Shear('XY', 4, (1, 1))

me.transform(Sh)

Oops on re reading question see you wanted origin at (0.5, 0.5, 0.5), wont apply transform to me, will leave at origin and translate object.
Sh = Matrix.Shear('XY', 4, (1, 1))
Sc = 0.5 * Matrix.Identity(4)
me.transform(Sh * Sc)

ob.matrix_world.translation = (0.5, 0.5, 0.5)

Press SPACE type in "shear", click the search result and shear. Next time just use the hotkey given next to it.

wooohooo. It worked. Thankyou so much. It is exactly what I wanted. :)


text:
Aligning Vertices Diagonally
I'm trying to make a pistol with a hammer thingy on the back. I've been struggling to make the back perfectly aligned like the red line in the 3rd image. Any help would be appreciated.

I think the Shear tool should work:

Select all the vertices of your twisted face.
Press S Y 0 so that they all collapse on the same Y axis.
Switch to the right orthographic view, press Shift ctrl alt S and move your mouse to change the shear angle until the angle your need (press -1 for a 45° angle).
It should be good.

There is 1 solution to this that I could come up with.
Select all these back vertices and scale to 0 in the appropriate axis (it looks like it's the Y axis on your screenshot). That will align them perfectly. Then you could set the 3D cursor at the topmost vertex. Set the pivot point to 3D Cursor. Then having all these back vertices still selected go to Mesh > Transform > Shear or use Shift+Ctrl+Alt+S. And move your mouse to shear the desired amount. (You can hit X or Y while shearing to shear along the appropriate axis).
I should add that you need to be in the appropriate orthographic 3D view to shear it properly. If you shear in a perspective view it might get wonky.

You need to use:

custom orientation axes
3d cursor as pivot for rotation/scaling

Create (if you don't have it yet) a plane where you want all the points to be (It's the diagonal plane on which the red line lay).
Select that plane and press SHIFT+S, then select Cursor to Selected, now press CTRL+ALT+SPACEBAR to create a new set of orientation axes with the Z axis perpendicular to the plane.
Select the Cursor as the pivot for rotation/scaling (You can do it just pressing .).
Press S then Z and Z again to scale on the Z axis of your orientation axes, then press 0 to scale the points of 0 and put them on the plane.

You don't have to create a plane to make the custom orientation .. you can just select three vertices which define it... and while this method flattens the vertices nicely on to the right plane, it can throw the horizontal (Y direction) edges.

You're right! Your solution is better!

It looks as if you already have 2 parallel edges which define the plane you want to flatten to, so you can:

GX extend the vertices not on the plane out beyond it
KZ use the Knife tool (with Z to cut through) to cut between the good edges
GG slide the protruding vertices back on to the straightened ones (all in one move)
CtrlV > R Vertex Menu > Remove doubles.

(For ease of C circle selection, all in the front view, with 'Limit Selection to Visible' switched off.)


text:
Blender rendering: output to unexpected frame numbers
I'm correcting some frames in my Cycles render by having them re-rendered correctly and overwriting the originals from frame 135 to frame 144. But when I click animate the render starts at 269 and renders long over the last frame.
Even after I delete the previous incorrect frames and render again and disabling the overwrite option it still starts at frame 269.

Are you sure that you don't have "alternate start/end range" enabled?
Disable it and see if it fixes the issue


text:
How to visualize a vector field in Geometry Nodes?
At the beginning of this video you can see a math equation and vector arrows showing that force.
How can i achieve the same thing in Blender Geometry Nodes?
Can anyone guide me..

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.

could you provide at least a formula you wanna see? sorry, but just providing a link with "i want that" might make people think you are looking for a dumb to make your work. So please show us a) what you have tried and provide that blend file and b) provide the formula by which the arrows should turn because we have no idea what force field you mean. thx for your understanding.

Quite a flexible approach would be:
Create a Volume Cube covering the desired domain, convert it to a grid of points at the desired resolution, and instance an Arrow object on the points:

Orient your arrows in the direction of (X',Y',Z') = f(XYZ) (i.e. a function of the arrows' Position.) Scale as some function of the Length of f(XYZ)..

Here, the normalized length (min,max) -> (0,1) is stored as a factor for shading:

with this kind of result:

Thank you . Sorry if i sound rude but is there any way to make it animate as well . As it will help visualize better . Will be thankful if you share

Hi, mystery man .. that's not rude at all ...  What do you want to animate? if it's the flow of particles or somesuch along the directions indicated, then it's a simulation.. you would have to decide on a style of visualisation, I guess... I may have jumped with the edit of your title.. maybe you mean 'animate flow guided by a vector field'?

Yes sir that's what i am looking into. Will really appreciate if you make a animate flow guided vector field

I've checked out the (excellently  illustrative) animations in your reference, and they are carefully  selected illustrative examples, geometrically simple, no simulation required. The animators never actually drive the motion with the entire vector field. If you drive  all  arrow-instances with the field, I think the result might be quite visually confusing.. That might be better visualized with simpler, thin flow-line curve-segments moving through the volume ? Else, you could make  life easier by isolating specific features to animate, like them. The reference solution is not general.

if possible just show me how to animate i want to visualize custom math equations to see how they look in 3D . Can you create any simple example with any math equation so that i can understand how to make on my own

@mysteryman happy to have a shot at it.. but will take a little while, and a style-guide would help, I think.

Please take your time . I will wait and thanks for helping


text:
Blender loses contact with NVIDIA drivers after update
Every time I update Linux (Debian 11) headers or drivers, Blender loses contact with my graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce 1060)
What gives?

It was a NVIDIA issue not syncing with Linux updates and disconnecting Blender's ability to find anything NVIDIA/CUDA related.
To fix:
Part I:

Uninstall NVIDIA & CUDA and start from scratch:
$ sudo apt purge nvidia*
$ sudo apt purge cuda*
Download proper NVIDIA drivers
Download proper CUDA toolkit for your system (I used "deb[local]")
Before installing any drivers, you must obtain the proper kernel headersReference Debian Wiki:
$ sudo apt search linux-headers-$(uname -r)
$ sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Part 2:

Now it gets tricky: Disable the default nouveau driver:
$ sudo echo blacklist nouveau > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia-nouveau.conf
$ sudo update-initramfs -u
Reboot to multi-user runlevel. #This will disable the GUI after reboot!!!
$ systemctl set-default multi-user.target
$ systemctl reboot

NOTE WELL: When you restart your computer, everything you do will be from the command line.

From command line (or Safe Mode), navigate to directory where you downloaded the NVIDIA run file:
$ sudo bash NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-your.version#.run
During installation, you'll be asked questions, say YES to everything and install NVIDIA driver. After reboot, SCREEN SHOULD START UP USING YOUR GRAPHICS CARD.
Remind your computer to use the GUI every time it starts up:
$ systemctl set-default graphical.target
sudo reboot

Part 3:
NVIDIA is good to go, but Blender still won't recognize your GPU because CUDA needs to be downloaded with nvidia-cuda-toolkit.

Download/Install CUDA Debian Installer from CUDA docs
Reboot the system to load the NVIDIA drivers
Set up the development environment by modifying the PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH variables.
From Debian Wiki, install nvidia-cuda-toolkit picking up any missing pieces:
$ apt install nvidia-cuda-dev nvidia-cuda-toolkit
Update everything with $ sudo apt update
Reboot computer: $ systemctl reboot
Open Blender, check Edit --> Preferences --> System, and it should now recognize your GPU.


text:
Renaming Animation Channels with a Script for dummies

Say I have a channel called:
pose.bones["mixamorig:LeftShoulder"].rotation_quaternion

But I need it to be:
pose.bones["mixamorig:Shoulder.L"].rotation_quaternion

I found this answer
for renaming channels, however I still don't get the desired result.

This should do the trick. Obviously, you will have to fill in the
complete dictionary of bone name mappings.

d = {"oldname1":"newname1","oldname2":"newname2", }
for action in bpy.data.actions:
    #these so called action groups are the bones, ie one group contains all fcurves of one bone
    for group in action.groups:
        if group.name in d:
            oldname = group.name
            group.name = d[oldname]
            for fcurve in group.channels:
                fcurve.data_path = fcurve.data_path.replace(oldname, d[oldname])

Could you please add an image as displayed in the linked question, to indicate if your action is split into groups, and perhaps your edited dictionary eg d = {"LeftShoulder" : "Shoulder.L", "RightShoulder" : "Shoulder.R"} etc.

Added an image and I tried that, but it didn't work for me.

No groups.
Going by screenshot.

The fcurves are not split into bone groups.

The bones have names "mixamorig:LeftShoulder" have renamed to "Shoulder.L" ie stripped out "mixamorig:" and then renamed.

Reinstated bone groups to new names. (optional)

Test script:. select rig, run script in object or pose mode. (As always back up first.)
import bpy

context = bpy.context
ob = context.object

def bonename(dp):
    #dp = fc.data_path
    if not dp.startswith("pose.bones"):
        return None
    start = dp.find('["') + 2
    end = dp.find('"]')
    return dp[start : end]

def rename(name):
    if name.startswith("mixamorig:"):
        name = name[10:]
    if name.startswith("Left"):
        name = f"{name[4:]}.L"
    elif name.startswith("Right"):
        name = f"{name[5:]}.R"
    return name
# test
x = 'pose.bones["mixamorig:RightShoulder"].location[0]'
print(rename(bonename(x)))

for pb in ob.pose.bones:
    pb.name = rename(pb.name)

action = ob.animation_data.action

for fc in action.fcurves:
    name = bonename(fc.data_path)
    if name:
        new_name = rename(name)
        fc.data_path.replace(name, new_name)
        if not fc.group:
            fc.group = (
                    action.groups.get(new_name)
                    or
                    action.groups.new(new_name)
                    )

Actually, I need "mixamorig:" to stay in. Because the new bone names are "mixamorig:Shoulder.L".
The script removes the "mixamorig:" from the channels I renamed manually, but does nothing for the channels that I didn't rename. I'll give you a new screenshot.

Basically all I need is to get rid of Left and Right after "mixamo:" and add .L at the end of the bone name. When I do this manually the channel works correctly. I just thought there ought to be a way to script this.

My brain was too smooth for the pyscript above (I'm sure it works but in the 30 seconds I attempted to type it in I got confused) so I found out how to do it the caveman way.

In the image above the channels/bones are incorrectly named. At this point, I had chosen another action (T_Pose) and selected the next action

I first rename the bones back to mixamorig so the bones are correctly named. When the error disappears, I rename them back to Terrific. This then changes the rest of the channel names to what the new name should be.

In your case, you could batch rename "mixamorig:LeftShoulder" to "mixamorig:Shoulder.L" for each action you have. You just have to rename the bones back to the original when you switch actions (this will still take a while if you have a lot of actions, I only had 8).


text:
Delete keyframes from locked channels (bone props or items tab)
I was wondering if there's a way to delete all keyframes on the locked channels in items panel or Bone Properties > Transform panel? As one can do with right mouse click and selecting delete kleyframes or delete single keyframe
The code that performs this operation is:
bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_delete_button(all=True)

or I guess if multiple keyframes:
bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_clear_button()

Whatever I tried I had 0 luck.
Basically I’d need the code to check if selected pose bone has any locked channels in these panels and if it does and if those channels are still  keyframed, to delete all the keyframes from those channels.
Is this possible?

I found a way to do it. I don't know if it's the best way or the right way but it works for what I need at the moment. Here's what I got.
def execute (self, context):
    pose_bone = bpy.context.active_pose_bone
    bone_name = pose_bone.name
    data_path_sca = "scale"

    start_frame = bpy.context.scene.frame_start
    end_frame = bpy.context.scene.frame_end
    frame_range = range(start_frame, end_frame + 1) # +1 to include the end frame

    if all(pose_bone.lock_scale):
        for frame in frame_range:
            pose_bone.keyframe_delete(data_path_sca, index=-1, frame=frame, group="{}".format(bone_name), options=set())
    if not all(pose_bone.lock_scale):
        if pose_bone.lock_scale[0] == True:
            for frame in frame_range:
                pose_bone.keyframe_delete(data_path_sca, index=0, frame=frame, group="{}".format(bone_name), options=set())
        if pose_bone.lock_scale[1] == True:
            for frame in frame_range:
                pose_bone.keyframe_delete(data_path_sca, index=1, frame=frame, group="{}".format(bone_name), options=set())
        if pose_bone.lock_scale[2] == True:
            for frame in frame_range:
                pose_bone.keyframe_delete(data_path_sca, index=2, frame=frame, group="{}".format(bone_name), options=set())


text:
Not rendering properly

hello. I am new to blender. I created this donut. I applied a creamy material to the donut. But in rendering it is not rendering correctly and the donut material is white+light blue instead of cream. Why is this?

Is it possible you have another (donut) object in the same location, but hidden? Objects hidden in the viewport will still be visible in renders.

since you gave us no screenshots of your settings/outliner....and since you are a beginner so you won't really know which screenshot to provide - i would recommend to provide your blend file. Use this link https://blend-exchange.com/ and follow instructions


text:
Cryptomatte & Render Layers: is it possible to recover Cryptomatte from a .PNG sequence?
I will try to explain my noob-problem a little deeper.
I have a 3-days-render just done as a PNG sequence. I enabled Cryptomatte pass before rendering, but I eventually realized that the png sequence doesn't have Cryptomatte pass.
In other words, I need the Cryptomatte pass, but I can't find a way to not to re-render the whole scene, possibly in another more compositing-oriented format like Open Exr Multilayer, making it possible to load the actual render in the compositor.
Another thing: I know that my render is stored somewhere in cache, where Render Layers load the actual render into the compositor. The problem is that this 3-day-render I've just done, has crashed 2 or 3 times during the whole process, so the Render Layer in my Blender project seems to be empty.
Is there a way to recover my Cryptomatte pass, without re-rendering again the whole scene?
Why is it, every time I close Blender, my Render Layer in the compositor seems empty, losing the Cryptomatte pass?
Thanks all
Guglielmo Ruben

Unfortunately there is no way to recover the Cryptomatte render passes, since .png isn't capable of storing them. For an explanation of the Cryptomatte format you can take a look at this answer. You will have to render it again and store the result in a Multi-layer OpenEXR.

Why is it, every time I close Blender, my Render Layer in the
  compositor seems empty, losing the Cryptomatte pass?

Blender caches the last rendered frame and its render passes for compositing, they're not stored in the .blend file though and therefore not persistently written to your hard drive. Once you close Blender that data is gone.

Thanks sir exactly what I need. Now I'm trying to resolve my issue, overriding all the materials in the scene with a simple diffuse to render the whole thing in less than 2 hours, mantaining samples and quality of the cryptomatte. Cheers


text:
How to bake "CLAY DOH" nodes to make animation?
I bought a Clay Doh nodes shader at blender market. The result is very nice, but this shader is basic on nodes. So I can't use it for animation. I saw his page said I can bake it as a bump map, but I didn't see Bump map.

Since your shader is a commercial purchased one there is no way anyone here can see how your "Bump Map" output has been produced so I'm afraid we can't help you.

The documentation appears to be inaccurate, and is the responsibility of the author. You should contact them about this, not only for yourself, but for other customers. We can't help here, without stripping the product apart, so this question is off-topic. It does seem that plugging 'Displacement' into the height of a Bump node might be a good bet.

i think displacement map output is kinda close to bump map, so try baking it


text:
How do i make a endo like this?
I'm trying to make an endoskeleton for my Animatronics for my upcoming FNaF Fan game where the Animatronics are based off of memes of my choosing (Don't ask/Insult me).
I've been inspired by this Soft Metal-like FNaF Endo to make the metal of my Endo look soft, yet realistic:

but I don't know if it's materials, editing, sculpting, or multiple factors.
Any tips?

Hello :). What have you tried so far, and where exactly are you stuck? This looks like a metallic shader with high roughness. What exactly are you trying to recreate? :)

The soft almost plastic like material that the metal looks like


text:
How to make Higher bump
I'm trying to make this planet

in a blender with only 3 textures, Altimetry(Bump), Slope and biome, so I created this material(It's not done yet)
But the problem is that the result is this

My question is, is that possible to change bump intensity without changing distance ? Because distance just make the material look noisy. Also, here's the textures I am using https://i.sstatic.net/eSg81.jpg EDIT: I tried to edit the altimetry map and few settings but the best result I could get is this

there's are lakes at random place

You should use displacement if you can spare the polygons. Setup a subsurf and  displacement modifier or use the bumpmap texture with Cycles material displacement.

The picture of your node organization is too small to understand, so it's not easy to guess why you failed. If you want to fake the bumps, i.e. if you don't want to use real displacement, it seems like a simple node chain like this one works fine. If you don't want too many details, decrease the Noise Detail value. I put a ColorRamp to create the flat surface.

So simple for a node tree, yet it is worth a steal for a public scrapbook (study purpose only. Credit & link given, of course). If you object, I respectfully won't put it in. :)

yes no problem, sorry for my late answer


text:
Why is it rendering twice before I get the final rendering?

Is that normal? The last time I checked it, it was near 100% rendering, now it's at 4% as you can see. Why is it starting again?

The possible chances are that, either you might have clicked on render animation, which is present under the Render menu, or you might have multiple passes in view layers or in simply you are rendering passes.


text:
Where is the transform tool?
I just installed Blender v2.8 but I can't seem to find any Transform tool.
Has it been removed or do I have to show it?

Yes it has. As explained in April 15th's developer meeting notes:

Transform gizmos can now be enabled in the 3D viewport independent of
  active tools, from a popover menu in the header. The same popover also
  has controls for display of other gizmos. The Transform tool was
  removed as it is now redundant. (Campbell Barton)


text:
Making text more visible&noticeable on texture?
I made a model that is covered with a transparent glossy surface.
Under that surface I placed 2 bars that are emitting light, and a layer that has custom texture on it (which has numbers on it)

As you see the numbers are faded and not well lighted, even though I’ve placed the bars besides it.
How could I improve its look to be more outstanding and easier to see?
I made a normal map for the texture and it is a bit 3d-like now, but still isn’t the best.
Could someone help me out?

Maybe just fake the emission by texture?

Should be more easier than making the light actually penetrating the glass with less and simple light path.

Oh Hikariztw thank you very very much! You're awesome!


text:
What is the config to attach transparent face to object
I'm blender noob.
In the bottom picture, that selected face detached to the mesh.
Let me know the config to attach that transparent face to the mesh like the upper picture.
Thanks for helping me.

Could you please try to reformulate? Your face doesn't seem transparent, nor detached from the mesh.

I mean black square with dot detached to the mesh, It was squared on the mesh.. I add one more picture that I want

do you mean you want to attach the legs to the body?

Really thank you for your help, I might use wrong word "attach" or "detach" and no relation between pictures, those are just example./////// In bottom picture, there are many black square with dot. But these squares are not sticked(adjoin? idk what is right word;;) to the mesh like upper picture. Upper picture has curved square sticked to the mesh, there must be configuration to stick these squares to the mesh

I think you are asking about the edges that seemingly are not connected to your faces. See the selected edge in the images below.

This "floating clear face" problem will only show up in edit mode from objects with a Subdivision Surface Modifier. Reason being by default in edit mode you see the "cage mesh" (the vertices, edges, and faces without the modifier.) Blender also displays the modified mesh in edit mode. So in my top image you end up with the default cube (still visible as the cage) and a subdivided round ball in the center (the modified mesh.)
Notice the Show on cage button highlighted in red in the second image, that toggles the display of the cage to show on the modified mesh. (Shown in the second image.)
There is no problem with your mesh, no invisible faces, or unconnected parts, just a Subdivision Surface Modifier.

The little black square is always at the center of verts which creates the face. So if you have concave or non-flat ngons then the square won't be located on the surface, but this isn't a useful thing.


text:
display driver stopped working
While rendering I get a display driver stopped working error. Drivers are up to date, I got a 1060. Not too long ago I formatted my pc and I could render with no issues. Now I can't. It just happens when I make full renders at high quality (around 1000 samples). I was used to render more complex scenes even at 2000 samples. Any advice?
Lately I've been having issues with my hard disk, but I don't think it is related.

The issue is not with the driver per-se, but with Windows.
The operating system has a builtin timer for when the graphics card is busy. If the graphics card doesn't respond for more than a certain period it activates a count down. When exceeded it terminates the graphics drivers process to regain system responsiveness.
As Julian Herzog writes

The problem here is that Windows has a timeout detection and recovery
  (TDR) system that detects if a GPU computation takes longer than a
  given amount of time, the default value for that being two seconds,
  and then “reinitializes” the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM)
  driver and resets the GPU. This will stop the rendering process. You
  will also notice that any displays attached to the GPU you use for
  rendering will turn black for a short moment.
Normally, this system is great because it prevents permanent screen
  freezes for malfunctioning drivers or games. But in Cycles, one sample
  is considered one computation, which means that if your sample
  calculation takes longer than two seconds, Cycles (and the Blender UI,
  if you render with UI) will crash.

To prevent this you must change a key in Windows registry

Open the registry editor (REGEDIT)
Got to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/GraphicsDrivers
Set the TdrDelay DWORD
If it contains a kyword named TdrDelay edit its value
If there is no TdrDelay right-click into the empty space below the
values
Create a new “DWORD-Value". A DWORD (32-bit) -Values hould cut it
Set its name it “TdrDelay”
Change the value to 8 or 16 (value is interpreted in seconds)
Beware of the editing mode, make sure you save as decimal value, not hexadecimal (I found only 512 was enough to prevent most crashes).
Reboot your system for the changes to take effect.

it didn't solve the issue.. also I never had to deal with this before the format.. I wonder why this is an issue now..

what blender version? 2.79b or 2.8? I've have the ongoing problem as you described but only for 2.8.


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issues when baking normals in substance painter with a blender model
I've created a model in Blender that I want to texture in Substance Painter.
As you can see in the picture, I've marked those edges as sharp and auto-smoothed the model, and then I beveled them in the high poly version of the same model in order to bake a normal map in SP. Problem is that I get some artifacts when baking normals.

After searching in order to solve the issue, I've found that it's a good thing to mark as seams the sharp edges on the model, but I still get the same result, maybe slightly better.
I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Should I remove the sharp edges from the HP model?
EDIT:
This is what it looks like without sharp edges or autosmooth on

with autosmooth / sharp edges

what happens in Unity if I don't auto-smooth the model

At what resolution you are baking your maps usually if you dont have visible artifacts on the normal map, and everything seems to be even, without any artifacting it may be your resolution if you are texturing at lower resolution like 1k for a small object, try to use 2k up to 4k for a standard game model, maybe if its not a game model but for a commercial or animation try 8k or 16k as its going to be close to the camera.
Also, if you are using the creasing option of blender DONT! unless you want a really sharp  edge, dont use it or you can create artifacts, i. If you want a crease that is not as sharp in your lowpoly add a subsurface modifier and add loops were you want the crease. You may need to redo the UVS though, maybe.
And one last thing, if you have the lowpoly and the highpoly models coming from blender make sure their origin points, the 3 axis manipulator is exactly the same. A slight change of positioning in one mesh or the other can cause severe artifacting. if they are not position right, just put the mesh that is out of place were the other mesh is preferibly if you can both meshes at The world's origin point and export it again.
I hope it helps I had those kind of issues everytime, the struggle to bake perfect and beutiful normal maps...sigh.
Goodluck.

i'm using the sharp edge option, and that's probably what is causing the issue.. point is that, if I don't use the auto-smooth or the sharp edge option, the smoothing shade is way different..and as you can see, it affects the way the model looks in unity as well..I'll post a picture in the OP for that. if I use the subdivision surface modifier on my low poly, it goes way too high with the polygons and this must be used in a videogame.

Ok is this going to be a background object, and what type of game you are making like a shooter or something like 3rd person view, and the 3d model is going to be close to the camera?

in the end I've just worked a lil bit more on the geometry and added some, and it seems to be working.. in the end I could use some more polygons with no issues and went for it.Thanks

Good that you figure it out. :) Goodluck


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Are there any settings I can tweak to speed up blender?
I'm running blender on an older computer and it is a bit sluggish. Are there any settings I can change to get better performance out of the UI?
I'm using blender 2.8

Hello :). You can decrease viewport resolution in Render Tab > Performance> Viewport. That should help.

I'm having trouble finding this option. I should not that I'm using blender 2.8.

This answer https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/106217/56368 helps