text:
Alpha transparency in Blender 2.90
I've been trying to learn from a tutorial where the author uses Blender 2.8. He uploads a reference picture and makes it 50% transparent by ticking "use alpha" box and setting "opacity" to 50%. When he does that, the sketch in his reference images is still visible, but a bit transparent.
However, I'm using Blender 2.90 where there's "transparency" setting. I enabled that and set the opacity to 50%. I was using the exact same pictures as reference pictures but the images became empty white sheets after enabling "transparency". How can I change my reference images so I can see through them while modeling? Here's a reference to the tutorial I'm talking about:  https://youtu.be/Hf2esGA7vCc (the relevant part starts from 5:47).

What do your reference images look like? Do they have actual transparency, or just black (or white) backgrounds?

i just tried with 2.90 and 2.91 and "transparency" works exactly like "use alpha" does in the tutorial, so dunno, maybe a bug with your setup (gpu?)

I asked a more detailed version of this question (with screenshots) here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/233517/how-can-i-set-reference-images-to-semi-transparent-in-blender-2-93-2 Hopefully the screenshots will help this question get a good answer.

I believe this is caused by an issue with Intel Graphics on Linux; are you using Intel Graphics on Linux? https://developer.blender.org/T77572

If you added it as a reference image, it should be under the Image Properties tab:

When I followed the procedure you did, it worked perfectly although it was very bright still so I had to turn the opacity to something more like 0.25 to really see through it very well. :)


text:
How to make an operator animatable, even with a workaround
I've some operators that will appear like buttons in the UI. I want to give the user the possibility to add keyframe to the operators.

Looking in the documentation it doesn't seem to be possible.
Is there an easy way to do it? Or can I try some workaround?

This sounds like the XY Problem. Operators are tools to change data they aren't animatable, unlike properties. They are functions you run instantaneously, you can't put keyframes on them. What are you trying to achieve?

For example I have one operator that toggle viewport visibility for a group of item (mixed between objects and modifiers).
I could use a simple Boolean Property but I can't figure out how to perform different operations if the user click on the property.

Then you should probably be looking for a way to easily keyframe multiple different properties at wonce

As pointed out by Duarte Farrajota Ramos it is not possible to animate operators.
I solved using a BoolProperty in the UI instead of an operator. Thanks to the 'update' function we can then specify the operation we need to perform.
Here is some example code.
class someClass(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):

   def viewport_toggle(self, context):

      #do what you want

   visibility : BoolProperty (default=True, update =viewport_toggle)

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Geometry Nodes Simulation: Make point cloud react to Objects moving at a certain velocity
I want the points to move away if certain objects are too close. But I want the points to change their velocity based on the objects velocity.
This is the complete node tree:

To reach my goal I thought to create instances of the real objects inside the simulation, change their position according to the real objects position, and then evaluate the position changes frame by frame to determinate their velocity. I made several tests through the spreadsheet and I believe this part is working well, storing a consistent velocity value in the instance:

The problem is when I try to apply the instance velocity to the points with the scale vector node (red arrow in the first screenshot), which always passes the value zero:

Here is the file:

"I want the points to move away if certain objects are too close. But I want the points to change their velocity based on the objects velocity." - in other words, you want points, within some range of the object, to follow that object? The closer a point is to the object, the more you want it to accelerate to the velocity of the object? "The problem is when I try to apply the instance velocity to the points with the scale vector node (red arrow in the first screenshot), which always passes the value zero: " - seems very easy to debug: either the vector input is 0, or the scalar input is 0

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


text:
Normal map is looking weird and showing bumps that are not sculpted in sculpt mode
I don't know if anyone can notice at the middle of the normal map, there are strange pumps that I had not sculpted, but clearly showing here, even when I apply my normal map to the low poly mesh, it shows bumps, I couldn't know what's going on here. I tried to reconstruct the low poly mesh, moving vertices away from each other. but the result is the same. my mirror is applied.
I couldn't find such case on youtube or other.

I think you forgot to add an image, right?

Do you mean image texture?  I did

I just found what was going on, the Extrusion was too high, 0.6, so it is baking lots of details, I think this includes the slight variations or errors found with the basic mesh geometry, like the close vertices, lines, and faces. anyway, I tried to lower it by 0.02 to 0.03 and this solved the problem properly.

No, I meant that you forgot to add a screenshot to your question. You wrote: "I don't know if anyone can notice at the middle of the normal map, there are strange pumps that I had not sculpted, ..." - No, we can't notice the strange bumps because we have no idea what you sculpted nor what bumps you are talking about ;-)


text:
my editing mode (x-ray activated) is not allowing me to see the reference behind. the edges are thick black and faces are white. any suggestion?
The mesh in edit mode with x-ray activated is colored white with black thick lines, which means, I cannot see the reference image behind. I was working normally until that happens, I didn't know how to fix it, I searched a lot for something that matches my case, but there aren't any.

If you see your mesh white while x-rays enabled means your shading mode may be in solid. Try to switch in wireframe shading with x-ray enabled.
Edit: If some faces look different in X-rays, you can also try to Recalculate normals (Ctrl+Shift+N).
You can quickly change shading with Z key, while Alt+Z will toggle x-ray

Thank you, I am in wireframe shading with x-ray enabled, but this part of the mesh is just acting different, other parts are still normal. I tried to insert my screenshot here, so you can understand the case more, but I couldn't know how.

@nora see the Edit in my answer...
You can insert a screenshot if you edit you question.

hmmm, I checked it, and I tried (ctrl+shift+n) and I uncheck the inside box, but I don't know what does that means lol.

If you could upload a screenshot or a blend file, it would be easier.

.  @loopkin

You could try and move the reference image to be IN FRONT of your mesh, then make the reference image semi-transparent by ticking the "alpha" box in "object data properties" and adjusting the opacity. If it bothers you that the reference gets in the way of selecting the stuff behind it, just make it non-selectable.

hey, thanks I tried this method, I will try it again, but these thick-lined edges and the white fills are really bothering. . here is whats going on.

now, this screenshot is when I put the reference image(half opacity) in front of the mesh.

 This one is more clear.

for some reason I can't see the last two files (the ones with the ref in front)...
in any case, have you tried opening a brand new file and appending the mesh? it's not common (blender used to be more unstable, back in the day) but sometimes files just get broken and we have to start over on a fresh canvas.

I saw the other picture.
That is really weird...
I never noticed that in wireframe mode the edges would stay the same color even with stuff in front of them (guess I don't use wireframe much), but still NOTHING I do to it even comes close to what you are experiencing. Those pure white faces and stark black edges are really odd, and they are annoying!
If the same thing keeps happening after you import the mesh into a fresh new file, it may have something to do with graphics card or drivers, but I wouldn't know how to fix that... Sorry for not helping much! Best of luck.

hey, I tried what you've suggested and it stills the same, yeah, you got me, these stark black edges and white faces are too annoying! and I have never found something on the internet that resembles my case even, but I better start over again as you said, I've stopped working on it since that happened, it might be some option I've applied to this part of mesh unconsciously. thanks anyway.

I just ran into this same issue (I think). In my case, I had two reference images: one front view (offset Y -1m), one back view (offset Y 1m). In X-Ray mode with Solid Viewport Shading, my object at Y 0m would sit properly in front of one image, but disappear behind the other like some insane optical illusion.
The trick to get this working was to change the images’ Depth and Side Object Data Properties.
I set both to Depth Back, Side Front.


text:
Is it necessary to join the mesh before adding bones?
I'm Modeling a Character for animation, but still, I'm not sure about the final result of its shape, so I'm trying to add bones, but still, my character isn't joined in one object, it is still objects parented to each other, and it has the eyelids are connected to lettuce and a controller's bones. so I'm Wondering if it Is necessary to join all the mesh parts together(In one selection) Before I add the final bone controllers. So the point is the body controllers are different from the eyelids controllers, If I joined it I would lose my work There. Plus The mesh is always losing its appearance when I add bones with automatic weights in it. so I think it's a cause of not joining everything in one mesh.

It is not necessary to have all meshes in one object to control it with a single armature. I’ve done multiple objects with one armature many times, Usually because I wanted to preserve two UV maps and did not know yet how to merge them.
Thus, I guess your rigging system and weight painting needs adjustment. There are answered questions to this elsewhere, or you can ask your own new question. As always, I recommend the Blender Manual at docs.blender.org
PS: basically, you create vertex groups that have the same names as bones, and the bones will drag around vertices in those groups. If the vertex is part of multiple vertex groups, it will be controlled by two bones, ending up somewhere between them. This is where weights come in: we can have the vertex have less weight in one group so it will follow the other bone more but not entirely.

aha, This is good, Thanks


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How to create this felt material effect?
How can I achieve this felt material effect and overall render using Blender?
Image taken from https://www.instagram.com/p/ChCqNdquqaC/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Try something like this - it's really just a couple of Noise Textures, one stretched into almost vertical lines and then mixed together. I used these as the basis for a Bump Node. The key to the "Velvet" is the subsurface scattering (I set all 3 radius values to .2) the main value is .05. I used a colorramp to grab some of the tiny thin slices from the stretched noise texture to use as the basis for the little "Reflective bits", (metallic factor) using its inverse (basically) as the roughness.
Here is an example file for anyone curious -

can you attach the blend file? :)

Sure thing - I added it - it's a bit more upgraded than the previous, but pretty much the same.

My bad too, in the new file, take the result of the 2 black ColorRamp mix and add that 100% to the basecolor (will make the "shiny" bits silver, instead of multicolor/shade)


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How to combine all textures in to a single texture (glb export)
I am a developer and recently picked up a WebXR project and where they're working with the .glb file format.
I received a textured model with a separate baked lightmap texture. I can combine the lightmap with the existing textures using a MixRGB node, however, the new texture doesn't export to the .glb export.
How can I combine multiple textures when exporting to glb?
Thanks in advance,
Mark


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How to create this mesh deformation animation?
I'd love to know how this mesh deform animation is done, any ideas? Thanks in advance!
Source: https://lusion.co

I think you'd should be asking that question at blenderartists.org rather than here!

I don't know how it's done on the website. In Blender, you could use a rectangle curve and hook the control points to empties to get a similar effect.


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What are these markings on my sculpting model?
I am using the mirror modifier to poly model and sculpt this head. These marks appear on the nose and the big one looks like a mouth :). How can I get rid of them? Adjusting them just makes a seam down the middle. Thank you.

Could be the order of the modifiers. Put the mirror modifier befor the subdiv modifier!
Also make sure to check the merge checkbox on the mirror modifier...

Turn on "Clipping" on the merge modifier as well


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Grease pencil file size
So I started working on a traditional 2d horse gallop. Each horse has 12 frames of 4 layers and i have 6 horses over a 400 frames animation.
However, my file size is 1.6gb ONE POINT SIX GIGABITES!!!!!  I have removed orphan data and cleared unused data, I have also used the compressed function which does not help.
The whole animation has become so slow even to preview. Is there a way to reduce my file size? apart from the methods I have already tried. Never knew grease pencil used so much data.
Really need help. Rendering is taking about 6sec per frame.

Have you try write your blend file in compressed format? When saving, check out RHS panel, there is a compress option. Default to not checked. If the file size didn't change much, then unfortunately the file size might not be able to deal w/o redesign the grease pencil system

I don't know much about grease pencil and file size but I imagine the size is dependent on the complexity of one 'frame' of your animation. It might help others (who know about these things) to determine whether 1.6Gb is reasonable in your situation if they can see an example of a typical frame - perhaps edit your question to include some screenshots/images.

@susu :: The problem might be easier to investigate with a sample dot-blend file.  The issue might be related to some unofficial add-on(s).

Another wasted bounty.


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How to avoid this artifacts in baking?
i have some problems with artifacts in baked textures. It is basically a very simple scene but cycles render beautiful artifacts in my images, at least in baking mode (see pictures). The source of the problem seems clear: if i bevel the edge, i will have these artifacts, but i dont know how to fix this. In my opinion this is a bug in blender but maybe somebody has an workaround.
What i have done is simple:

Create a cube
Delete some faces
Apply scale
Flip normals (because they were the inner faces of the cube)
Unwrap
Bake

If you think that's a bug, just report it (In Blender > Help > Report a Bug).

I will wait some days if somebody knows what is going on here, but i dont see any reason why there should be this kind of horizontal-edge-color-gradients across the texture. Edges should never be visible this way, not even in freestyle mode.


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I can't model sword handle and hand guard correctly
I have the handle and the blade but the hand guard is killing me.  I can't figure out how to get that shape while making it look like it fits onto the handle

It might be best to model it as separate objects, or even as separate chunks inside the same mesh object. Unless you specifically need a closed watertight continuous mesh, dealing with those intersection topology might be more trouble than it's worth.

yeah, that's what I was trying to do.  But even making it a separate object didn't help, the shape itself was just hard, I couldn't figure out how to do it while making it look like it fits on the handle neatly.

Check my answer bellow, see if it suits your needs.

This might be best to model it as as separate chunks inside the same mesh object, or even totally separate objects.
Unless you specifically need a closed watertight continuous mesh (like for 3D printing or fabrication), dealing with those intersection topologies might be more trouble than it's worth. Just let them intersect nicely inside the handle object, and save a lot of work and additional faces trying to solve the weld between the handle and the guard.
So if you don't mind a separate object, or like a more non destructive workflow, you can easily do it with a combination of Mirror + Array Modifier.
Just add a new cylinder object, and erase $3/4$ of it, so you can add a Mirror Modifier to it in X and Y axis.
Add a central loop cut, bevel it, then extrude one of the side faces. Don't forget to erase the inside faces along the mirror seam, or it will lead to bad shading artifacts.
Add a Subsurf modifier, subdivide the previously extruded face and add necessary control loops in both directions to control the shape of the spike.

Then just use an Array modifier to duplicate it along its length. Add an empty object, rotate in 90º about the Z axis, then assign it to Object Offset slot of the Array modifier, so each additional spike is rotated 90º in relation to the previous one.
Adjust the number of items and apply the modifiers if you need a static mesh.

That helps with the barbs but the main problem I'm having is creating that triangle that runs up the middle of the blade.  I can't get it to look good when connecting to the handle and also have those arms coming off of it.  I guess I'll have to make that one piece 3 different objects.

It is totally doable as a single connected mesh, but modeling it as a three piece separate object will save you a lot of headache. Connecting hard edge sharp objects with rounded ones is always troublesome

Yeah, I was able to make that triangle since I didn't have to worry about where I was going to extrude those arms.  Got it.

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


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SVG import not showing up,why?
I have a vector image that I want to animate in Blender. I imported the image from file but it does not show up on the Blender workspace. Do I have to tweak some settings in order for it to show up?

Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8016/imported-svg-files-does-not-show-up and http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/23105/why-wont-blender-let-me-import-svg-files

Usually when you import a SVG file it is extremely small (so small you cant see it). Draw a box select ("B", or choose it from the outliner) around the center of your screen and scale it up by a lot (You still may not see anything, scale it up again) after scaling two or even three times you will start to see it.
After you get it to the size you want dont forget to apply the scale (CTRL+A) "apply scale"

I added a box using the "line" tool but it can't be selected or scaled up, how do you do that?

Im sorry I should of made that more clear. Erase that box you made. Just zoom out until you can see your entire grid and press "B" and draw the box select to cover the grid. Then hit "S"  and keep dragging to scale it up until you can see it. You might have to do this a few times.

@Chuck Houck It could be more efficient to use the Outliner for that to find out if that object was actually imported; search for its name in the list of the objects. Once found click on its name to make it active and then proceed to scaling / etc.

@MrZak Good point, edited my original post.

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


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Basic normalmap material does not render smooth in Blender 2.93.1 eevee
I have this normalmap material that renders smooth in eevee in Blender 2.92.0 but doesn't in Blender 2.93.1
What is needed to do in order to make the material render smooth in Blender 2.93.1?
The .blend file (Saved in Blender2.93.1) is provided below, and some screenshots as well.

Google drive link for the .blend file (Saved in Blender2.93.1):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AfRX1_uSktKyhhep-o5AGKZ2eTi44gqn/view?usp=sharing

First thing I would try, is changing the Normal Map image texture's Color Space from sRGB to Non-Color. (This is proper convention for normal maps).

Any image texture that is not used as a color data should have its Color Space set to Non-Color:

This is required for its data to be interpreted correctly.


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Is there a way to make a node property value the default?
I'm making a Minecraft animation and the only way the render comes out with clean pixelated textures and not blurry textures is if I set the image interpolation in the shader node editor to Closest.
It seems that I have to do this for every kind of block. Is there a way I can just set closest to the default interpolation within a project (so whenever I have to append a new Minecraft object, it will have the right interpolation)?
If I can't set the interpolation to a default value, can I at least apply the Closest interpolation to everything in the scene?

I'll post another answer since this one will actually solve your problem (I hope). Use this script to set the interpolation of each and every one of your "Image Texture" nodes to "Closest" :
import bpy

for mat in bpy.data.materials:
    if not mat.node_tree:
        continue
    for node in mat.node_tree.nodes:
        if node.type == 'TEX_IMAGE':
            node.interpolation = 'Closest'

How to run a script

As far as I know you can't modify the default setting easily but you can use a simple node group to force the behaviour wherever you want to use your image texture node :

Related : https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/168033/86891

I realized by re-reading your question that this doesn't answer it...

It could function as a workaround. Instead of adding a new Image Texture node every time instead add a new Group Node with an image texture already set as Closest Interpolation, then ungroup the node before regular use.

The problem is that I import the model from mineways, so it automatically creates the textures and nodes. But everything is set to Linear, so I have to go back to every single type of block and change the interpolation to Closest. I don't have to create nodes, just edit them.

Does my other answer help you ?


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How do I turn an imported SVG into a sphere?
I am very new to blender and am making some models for use with Three.js.
The model I have created is a logo, as show below. I am quite happy with this but was curious if I could take it further.

How can i make this a sphere, instead of a disc? The resulting sphere would still have the white regions 'indented'.
The source shapes are SVG files. One file per colour region of the model.

Import SVG from Inkscape
Add materials.
Extrude all regions
Undo last extrude on white region.

Please see the example SVG file for the dark gray region.

Again, I am a bit of a noob, so please be as verbose as possible. Links to similar tutorials are most welcome.

so you want to bend, or warp your logo mesh in to the shape of a sphere? If so read this question http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/52904/2217

@David I would like a solid sphere. However, the while paths are indented. I am imagining two spheres, one smaller than the other.

@David, more like a materials sphere.... https://wiki.blender.org/uploads/3/36/LeatherMaterialSample.png but with the paths from my model instead of the blender logo.

There is no quick 'one-button-press' way to do what you want easily, especially not directly from the SVG imported Curve Objects. Curve objects are not very suited for modeling other than 'extrusion based shapes.
You can however quickly simulate an approximation of a 3D object by projection. It will yield very bad topology, and the resulting object will not be very suited for further modelling, but visually it may satisfy your needs.
Import your SVG curves, fix their center with the 3D cursor, and center them at the scene origin.

Add two sphere objects and scale one to fit the largest radius, the other to fit the smallest radius. Move the logos above your spheres

By this specific order select the matching curve > the select the corresponding sphere radius.
Enter Edit Mode, select all faces press the Spacebar Menu > search for Knife Project and then tick the option Cut Through.

Press Ctrl + I to invert selection and quickly remove the unwanted faces.

Repeat with the other curves for the corresponding spheres.

Assign materials to chunks of your mesh. Press L while hovering a part of the mesh to select all linked geometry

In the end add a Solidify modifier and an EdgeSplit modifier to your objects.

Have in mind that this is an approximation, and will not necessarily look good viewed from all angles.

The technique that shown in the first comment is suitable. In the curve section of that answer, click the Extrude option and insert the amount that you want. After that go to:
Object > Convert to > Mesh from curve
Next, change the point of origin by selecting:
Object > Transform > Origin to center of mass
Select the object and go into edit mode, if the mesh is selected, hit the E to extrude and then S for scale.
It's possible to do so in the original SVG format, but it's not always recommended for a uniform mesh. The SVG file may have too many points which translate into vertices, or they may not be evenly distributed throughout the object, thus giving the object a highly irregular mesh to work with.
If that's major concern however, it's probably best to create it all in Blender instead.


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Image generation not displaying collection
I'm trying to generate images with my different collections on it but only one collection displayed at a time but i don't understand why my code is not working :
import bpy

def traverse_tree(t):
    yield t
    for child in t.children:
        yield from traverse_tree(child)

def generateImage(name):
    coll = bpy.context.view_layer.layer_collection.collection
    collectionList = [col for col in bpy.data.collections]

    for coll in collectionList:
        if coll.name == "Base 2" or coll.name == name:
            print("not hiding")
        else:
            hideCollection(coll)
    exportImage("image_with_component")

def hideCollection(coll):
    for c in traverse_tree(coll):
        c.hide_render = True

def displayCollection(coll):
    for c in traverse_tree(coll):
        c.hide_render = False

def exportImage(name):
    w,h = 1700,1700
    bpy.context.scene.render.image_settings.file_format='JPEG'
    bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_x = w
    bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_y = h
    bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_percentage = 100
    bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = name + ".png"
    bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)

def resetCollectionRender():
    collectionList = [col for col in bpy.data.collections]
    for coll in collectionList:
        displayCollection(coll)

for _ in range(10):
    print("-------------------------------------------------------------------")
resetCollectionRender()
exportImage("full_image")
generateImage("R. Mine")

This script should generate two images the first one is what I expected  with all the collections displayed but now i want only the image with 1 collection on it (in this case it's the collection called R. Mine). I'm also adding the floor of the scene that is named "Base 2". But the image after the render is this second image but i don't understand why the collection called R. Mine is not displayed.

This would fail if "R. Mine" was already hidden for some reason, or if the name was spelled slightly differently in the collection than it is in the code.  I suggest you modify the two print statements for hiding/not hiding to include the name of the collection they are acting on and double check to see if this is the case.

Agreed, There is a flaw in your execution logic. Depending on your collection hierarchy this can't work if one of the collection that you want to render is a child of a collection you don't want to render. Also note that a collection's childs are automatically hidden from rendering if it is itself hidden from rendering. So instead of recursively setting the flag you can just do : for coll in bpy.data.collections: coll.hide_render = not(coll.name == "Base 2" or coll.name == name) but again this requires the desired collections not to be childs of the unwanted collections


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Particle System with Object Instance doesnt work properly (I want my caveman with a leaf skirt to dance)
My caveman's skirt doesnt seem to work properly.
The project: caveman dances, and his skirt should move along (not stationary).
What i did:   - Particle System with Object (Leaf) and Vertex Group (it was all weight 1) on Skirt (on frame 109)   - Particle Instance on Leaf with Particl sys on Skirt (it is a complete mess)  Problem:  -Skirt goes crazy when i play the animation, and even on frame 109 the front of the skirt doesnt go down as it should.  What would be cool:  -Leaf skirt with physics (the leafs can collide), that moves along with the caveman if he moves (collision on caveman, so it doesnt go through his skin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GahQXc8QQuc&list=LL&index=19&t=700s
According to this video, Particle sys + Particle Instance should work for this purpose   I have been trying for 2 days straight to solve the problem (Im still a beginner), and i have no idea how to do so.  Any Tips/Advice are welcome!!  Greetings, Bence

pls provide blend file

https://www.file-upload.net/download-14876038/hooman.blend.html

is this what you want? [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/nPAMt.gif. i just moved the belt a bit so you can see the animation

Yes!! How did you do it? and why doesnt it stay up on the front for you? :D

ok, here is what i did:

on Leafskirt i checked: use modifier stack

children set to None

i put off the particle instancing on leaf:

applied scale on leafskirt

result:

Super!! Thanks a lot, Chris!! I would upvote your comment, but i need 15 reps for that :D

no problem. Glad i could help! Thanks!


text:
Is it possible to apply a texture so that it looks like it is actually ON the mesh and not PROJECTED on?
So I'm working on a sci-fi piece and I have an object/mesh called "shell" which has two sides. The inside is to be textured with a wireframe texture so it looks like there is a protective mesh lining the inside of the shell.
My issue is as you see in the images. The way it unwraps the mesh the texture simply looks projected on from a particular angle instead of actually curving and following the contour of the object (as if it were really lining the surface).
Is there an unwrapping technique I am missing?
I've tried placing seams, etc, nothing looks good.
I've included two screenshots for reference.
Thanks in advance!

To make the texture follow your object's topology, you need a rectangular UV map.
Either for the whole mesh, or just part of it.
Since I don't know what 'flow' you're looking for, here are two basic examples:
Mesh with a projected UV map (what you have now) that keeps the texture undistorted...

...and with a rectangular UV map where the texture follows topology.

I guess you need a Hight Map node in your shader, I've seen people use the same image as both the hightmap and the texture itself, but they say it will not always work correctly.
You should and connect it to the displacement entry of the output, study a little about how to make height map images to use alongside the texture maybe.

Thanks for that info, but I do have a heightmap node. That isn't quiet the issue.
Perhaps my wording wasnt right.
the texture itself has a heightmap, diffuse, etc. It simply doesnt curve with the mesh as it would in real life.
See how the lines on the texture and the wireframe of the mesh dont curve together? As it would if the texture were REALLY lining the surface.. the straight lines of the mesh texture would become curved and not look straight.
I feel I'm not making sense. lol

@RobertMcNatt Please add this clarification to your original post. It makes it a lot more clear :).


text:
How do I seperate shared vertices when creating seams for UV unwrapping?
I have a square mesh, I create a seam along the top edges (like a lid) and I UV unwrap the whole thing.
The UV mesh looks correct, but when I select an edge, the corner vertice is shared by an edge that is not part of the seam as well. So the UV mesh becomes selected in multiple places.
How can I get a vertice on a seam to separate from a shared edge?
Does that makes sense?

Maybe switch the selection mode to Shared Location, it will take the seam into account:


text:
Possible to click on an object in the viewport and the object list hierarchy automatically goes to that object also?
I've used Blender for years but have never hopped on the forums. I am still new as I am very slow at this (all self-taught as I know many of us are).
I am sure this question has been asked elsewhere but I couldn't find it so is it possible to have blender respond so that when I click on an object in the viewport the object list hierarchy automatically goes to that object also?
Oh and also -- Seeing as how this is my first post I'll share an image of what I'm currently working on. I've only ever made 3 things before. A potato, a strawberry, and a sculpted demon looking thing that came out by pure mistake. This thing is getting so complex it is time consuming to keep going through the folders in the hierarchy to find the objects.
Anyway here is what I'm currently working on -- A starship hallway - Currently under red alert. I'm using it as a practice model to learn materials and textures. It will eventually have a door at the end of the hallway and you'll see the exterior of the ship and a planet out the port side windows.

Thank you everyone in advance.
I'll update everyone as this project goes along.

Hello and welcome :). Does this answer your question? Jump/Scroll to selected object in the outliner?

Yes! Thank you!


text:
Does changing your Compute Device, change all computes of Blender?
So, I have recently moved from using Blender, on my family's Nettop PC, to my personal, gaming PC. And with this move, came to option to use CUDA instead of CPU.
Which leaves the question, if I move to CUDA, does that change all computing, for like physics baking, or only for rendering?
Just a nooby question that I wanted to know, and yes, I know you can specify GPU rendering separately.

Also related:  http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8074/utilise-gpu-just-for-animation-physics-not-rendering

Only rendering process can use GPU acceleration, specifically rendering with Cycles Render Engine alone; even switching to Blender internal ignores all benefits of GPU acceleration.
CUDA acceleration is not supported anywhere else in Blender. The only remaining parts, other than the OpenGL Viewport and UI Drawing, that use GPU acceleration (like Open Subdivide evaluation and Compositor OpenCL compute), are unaffected by the CUDA computing device settings, and use their own different settings in specific places.


text:
Why doesn't my effector work like I want it to with the new Mantaflow (Blender 2.82)?
I want the plane highlighted in the picture to work as kind of a surface for the water simulation to run through, but when I go ahead and simulate it, it just goes through the object like if it was not there. Please help.

I found out was was the problem, the normals were in the wrong direction. Once I flipped them, it worked like a charm.


text:
My model is being controlled by only half its armature
I custom made a human make model and then made the armature to match. It has IK knees as well. To make the right half of the body, I copied the left and then scaled it so that the left armature flipped to be the right. After that, I tried to parent the armature and model using automatic weights. It worked, but when I go into pose mode, the right half does nothing and the left half warps the right half of the body.
What can I do to make my rig work?

If you made it with a mirror modifier you might need to apply it.

"it" as in the model or the armature?

Nvm, it worked! I just had to apply the mirror to my mesh. Thanks


text:
How do I bend a scanned .stl object with several complex features

I'm trying to make a cylinder out of this textured slab. One side is flat while the other side is textured with an intricate pattern.There are several triangles and vertices. I would like to temporarily simplify it while i curve the object into a cylinder and then return it to its full detail.
I have tried doing a loop cut, but i can't select a whole face, and it all keeps failing/crashing. Please advise.

the triangle topology will not help you to "bend" the object you need regular subdivisions that can conform to a cilyndrical shape. For such a simple object, create a new quad based mesh,  and re-apply the texture to it. Then use a curve modifer or a simple deform modifier in bend mode.

HI, welcome. I don't understand, perhaps, an .stl has no textures in itself, it's usually an highly subdivided shape so, what you mean by "textured slab", and by "trying to make a cylinder" out of it ? are you wishing to curve that flat panel as if it was rolled around a cylinder, around it? You would get a sort of cylinder with a cilindric hole inside... ?

Ok, not having your exact object, and having not well understood your question I should probably avoid inserting an answer here, but I wish to show an easy way you could "roll up" that plane to a "cylindrical" shape, since it could give you some ideas on how to proceed. Then maybe you can suggest if some variant could be better.
Note, I simulated a flat rectangular object with irregular vertices (I randomized them): I know it's not as your object, which seem far less easy to be deformed than mine, but if you could arrange your object, subdividing it a lot perhaps, the following could fit your case too. Maybe.
Here it goes:

Here is my "simulation" of your flat rectangular object, with its red twin I leave there for comparison

in the same "object center" I add a "curve circle", from top view

obtaining this

Then I select the grey rectangular object and insert a curve modifier, targeting the bezier circle just inserted before

...and I get this horrible shape! But don't worry, it's just the circle, too little. We're going to fix it.

Now, I zoomed a bit to show you better, but I selected (see the upper right outliner area) the bezier circle

Then I enter the edit mode with TAB and select all control points

Then I scale it outwards, perhaps too much in the picture below, but at least now I can see where my curved surface ends are, which should probably stick together

...and I can make then stick together just by scaling a bit less (some snapping to grid could help while scaling)

Exiting edit mode, this is what I get.

As said above your object could not follow the curve so easily, and it could need to be subdivided, maybe with subsurf modifier applied in advance. Or, you could give us hints on how exactly you need it to be.
You could share your object, also, preferably using this dedicated hosting service and then pasting in your question the provided link:
http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/


text:
Regarding Alternatives To OpenCL Support
Proud user for over 10 years--
I recently attempted to upgrade from 2.93 to 3.2 and realized openCL support is no longer offered for Cycles.
I'm using an Acer Nitro AN515-43 Laptop which is about 3 years old with AMD Ryzen 5 3550H with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx, and a Radeon RX 560X series display adapter.
I am not an expert on GPUs or display, but I'd like to be able to use my GPU for Cycles renders.
Does the Blender Foundation or AMD have any plans to make my processor(s) compatible with Cycles in the future? Again, please excuse my ignorance of these things.
Thanks,
Kenn Toomey


text:
When using the quick smoke effect the bake option is not showing
I used Eevee. I only changed the Border Collision and Vorticity (followed YouTube tutorial).


text:
Where is the new 3.2 Add::Curves::Hair menu?
In a 3.2 intro video about the new Add::Curves::Hair feature I see the menu items:

But when I looked in my own 3.2 install I don't see this:

Did the devs go hide it somewhere else or does it need to be enabled?  It is supposed to show in Object Mode, but I tried selecting an object and set to Edit and Sculpt mode but still no love.

Yes, the new hair system is still experimental and hidden in the development options. You need an Alpha version of Blender (3.2a or 3.3a) and enable it in preferences.

I’m voting to close this question as off topic because it is about troubleshooting temporary issues with unfinished under development experimental versions of software, which are expected to be working properly upon stable release. This produces a question unlikely to be useful for future users, rendering its long term value low, making it unsuited for this site.

Edit: This feature is ready to use in Blender 3.3.
An archive of the original answer is below:
The Blender team is still actively developing the new curves datatype, an integral part of the new hair workflow. That's likely going to be a feature of Blender 3.3.
Feature tracker: https://developer.blender.org/T68981
Release notes: https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/3.3/Nodes_Physics
Official video: The Future of Hair Grooming in Blender
Experimental versions: https://builder.blender.org/download/daily/
To enable the options in the Preferences:

select Interface and enable Display > Developer Extras

go to the Experimental tab that has appeared, and select New Curve Tools

Now you can add the new Hair Curve object and edit it in Sculpt mode.

Thanks so still a beta/alpha enabled feature.  I didn't see it in the 3.2 official release Experimental.

I'm on 3.2.1 stable and even if I enable Developer Extras, the Experimental tab only shows Debugging, no prototypes or new features.


text:
liboverride_troubleshoot_operation() proper context sought
If I try to invoke the bpy.ops.outliner.liboverride_troubleshoot_operation(...) from a script I get an improper context error, although I've set_select(True) the armature that is linked.
I'm wondering if that is because troubleshoot is trying to verify that it is being invoked from the outliner, making it impossible to call from a script?
I am trying to call this from a script, because I have a linked armature that always has misplaced bones when the blend file is loaded, making it impossible to render from command line without the re-sync.

I submitted a bug report and was given the following code that works:
import bpy
from bpy import context

for window in bpy.context.window_manager.windows:
    screen = window.screen

    for area in screen.areas:
        if area.type == 'OUTLINER':
            with context.temp_override(window=window, area=area):
                bpy.ops.outliner.liboverride_troubleshoot_operation( type='OVERRIDE_LIBRARY_RESYNC_HIERARCHY', selection_set='SELECTED')
            break;


text:
Apply Copy Location/Rotation Constraints does nothing?
If I have an Object that has a Copy Location (or Rotation) from another animated object, and then I Apply the constraint, the object/VG/bone remains un-animated.   Is this expected?  Should it not "bake its animation" based on the object is was copying?

Similarly, if I used the menu "Object >> Animation >> Bake Animation"  should not the same thing occur?

Is this expected?

Yes.
Applying a constraint applies the constraint to the object or bone transform, on the current frame only.  It does not apply the constraint on all frames, and it does not keyframe the applied transform.  It is useful only for a one-time manipulation-- say, pointing Suzanne at the current location of the camera.
There are a number of reasons for this, but one significant reason is performance.  Applying the constraint on all frames takes a lot of time.  If you don't want to do it for all frames, then applying a constraint does what you want.  (Similar options here are "apply visual transform", which applies all constraints to the transform of the bone or object, and keyframing a "visual" keyframe, which also creates a keyframe for that new transform.)

Should it not "bake its animation" based on the object is was copying?

If you want it to bake the animation, you can use a "bake action" operation instead; there's no need to apply the constraints.  As far as I'm concerned, that's the raison d'etre for the bake action operation.  See below...

if I used the menu "Object >> Animation >> Bake Animation" should not the same thing occur?

If you bake action with "visual keying", then all constraints on all baked frames will be applied, for each of those frames, and keyframed.  (If you do not enable "clear constraints", they may be overridden by those exact same constraints however-- applying a full-influence copy location without clearing the constraint won't do much so long as that constraint exists.)  If you do not enable visual keying, then the constraints will not be applied to the action that you bake.


text:
Dependency cycle frustrations
I often see Dependency cycle detected console errors, but have innocently ignored them as I feel there is an arcane technical language behind the references such as:
Dependency cycle detected:
  OBMBLab_skeleton_face_rig.MBlab_YoungMale/DRIVER(pose.bones["Expressions_eyeClosedL_max.L"].location) depends on
  OBMBLab_skeleton_face_rig.MBlab_YoungMale/Expressions_eyeClosedL_max.L/BONE_LOCAL() via 'RNA Target -> Driver'
  OBMBLab_skeleton_face_rig.MBlab_YoungMale/DRIVER(pose.bones["Expressions_eyeClosedL_max.L"].location) via 'Driver -> Driven Property'

...okay: location is location, but is RNA like DNA?  This information is probably useful to the more-experienced blend python programmer.
I look at the driver editor and I don't see my location driver dependent on it's location:

so I cannot comprehend and unfortunately am not finding sufficient answers in this forum.
I'm including a simple blend file, where I'm trying to drive a characters blinking of each eye by a single animated custom property.
While this error doesn't seem to affect a working solution I had to back out a dependency cycle in another file yesterday where the program kept crashing (again I could not figure out the longer list of circular reference.

The problem isn't with the custom property, but with the variable referencing the constraint parameters, a constraint which exists on the same bone.
Constraints are evaluated on top of-- after-- the driver providing the location of the bone.  The precise action of a limit location constraint depends on the location of the bone going into the constraint.  In general terms, we can't drive the transform of a bone from details of its constraints, because its constraints depend on the transform of the bone.
Now, in this case, the minimum Z parameter of the constraint isn't technically dependent on the transform of the bone-- it's just an arbitrary, user-provided field.  But Blender isn't perfectly granular in its treatment of dependencies.  To Blender, it's part of the action of a constraint, and some parts of a constraint depend on bone location, so all parts of a constraint depend on bone location.
Since this isn't a true dependency loop, just a failing of Blender's division of dependencies, we can work around it.  We'll make a new custom property for the bone and drive both our existing driver and our Limit Location's min Z from this custom property:

RNA and DNA are just terms used internally in Blender to refer to different types of data.  The RNA here refers to the details of your constraint, which is being accessed by a "single property" type variable.  Notice the double helix icon for the driver variable.  (Which is kinda weird, RNA doesn't do double helix, and drivers don't reference DNA, the blueprint for individual RNA objects.)  I wouldn't worry too hard about the precise messages given for the dependency cycle warnings, and focus instead on trying to just trace through the properties that Blender thinks are dependent on each other.  But yes, that can be difficult at times.

Ah! Thank you for that concise and clear explanation!  That worked for me.


text:
How do I add a UI Button to change view layer to a specific view layer
I'd like to be able to change the view layer of my scene via UI buttons. I currently have rendering of different layers working on different buttons, but I keep running into errors or having it simply not work while trying to change the view layer via buttons.

#Skeleton View Layer Button (This doesn't work)
    row = layout.row()
    row.scale_y = 1.0
    row.operator("scene.viewlayer", text="View Skeleton", icon="FILE_IMAGE") = "SkeleLayer"
#Skeleton Render Layer Button
    row = layout.row()
    row.scale_y = 2.0
    row.operator("render.render", text="Render Skeleton", icon="FILE_IMAGE").layer="SkeleLayer"

As the error states, you have made a syntax error: Your code is attempting to assign a string value to a function call when it is not possible. To simplify, here is some simple code with the same problem: print(“Cheese”) = 42

I'm aware of that, a simple googling lets me know the syntax problem, but I don't know the correct way to create and assign the function to the button in blender and that's what I'm asking for help with.


text:
Creating a holding hand animation?

What are some approaches to creating an animation where the bone from Armature A controls the bone from Armature B?
I tried Child Of constraint, but the hand is always out of sync when I move the parent's hand around.

Id say probably consider animating at the same keyframe
One 3D model is reaching for a hand at a keyframe then select the other 3D model do the same at that exact keyframe!

Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.


text:
capturing a frame simulation of cloth, particle as initial state
I want to be able to simulate a cloth or fluid for a while and then capture a frame and set it as an initial state/frame to a future simulation.   Example use cases:

winding a cloth thread on a spool, to render the UN-spooling of the thread
priming a water fountain, to render frames starting with a steady state of the fountain.

While I could include the first N frames to simulate to the desired initial rendering state in the file, or set up a negative timeline that eventually gets to the desired state by frame #1, I would like to clean up all the setup baggage to reduce file size or disk cache clutter, but to allow for many changes in the simulation from the captured state.
3ds Max gives a simple property-based panel "Capture States" to accomplish this snap and cleanup productively:

Is there a similar, convenient technique in blender?
I have tried "apply modifier", but it resets the simulation if I first SaveAs a renamed file (it doesn't copy all of the cache to the new copy).   And if I go behind blender and copy all cache files to the SaveAs cache, the Apply doesn't clean up the many cache file.  I'm also left with re-applying the (cloth/fluid) modifier and recreating all of the parameters to continue the simulation.
If I try "Mesh Cache Modifier" or Import mdd, I seem to have scaling problems,

and the exp/imp creates for every frame so I'd have to delete most frames and shift the last to frame #1.  Inconvienent.  If I import with start=end=FrameOfInterest, I get a weird decrease only in frame_0000 Shape Key as I progress along the timeline:

I get nothing better from the Mesh Cache modifier
It seems that in blender I could hunt with blender-external tools to find and clean up, but might then have to redo the initial state simulation if I want to change some parameters (like add a wind force) on the rendering part of the simulation.  So "tricking blender" techniques could backfire.

Ah, how-to-extract-a-particular-frame-of-cloth-simulation seems to answer this question.
Apply as Shape at whatever frame you want to extract, then at the initial frame dial up the shape.


text:
python script to bake two fluid domains aborting (cmd line)
I am trying to script the baking of two fluid domains.   If I manually bake these in the UI: no problem.  If I try to run a script from the UI, the application aborts and I cannot read the console in time to get information.
I have the following script.py, which works with no problems if I feed line by line into the UI Python Console, but crashes if I Alt-P Run Script:
import bpy

domain =  bpy.data.objects['Smoke Domain Purple']
domain.select_set(True)
print("free Purple")
bpy.ops.fluid.free_all()
print("bake Purple")
bpy.ops.fluid.bake_data()
domain.select_set(False)
domain =  bpy.data.objects['Smoke Domain Blue']
domain.select_set(True)
print("free Blue")
bpy.ops.fluid.free_all()
print("bake Blue")
bpy.ops.fluid.bake_data()
domain.select_set(False)

If I run from cmd line (Win-10) started as admin:
blender -b "dual smoke.blend" --python script.py
I get the following output in three scenarios.

no existing fluid directories:

free Purple
bake Purple
Unable to remove directory
Unable to remove directory

Yet only the second (!) "blue" directory (cache_smoke_blue) is created empty.

manually bake both fluids, and a re-run from cmd line shows:

free Purple
bake Purple
Unable to remove directory
Unable to delete file
... <one per frame baked>
Unable to delete file
Unable to remove directory
Unable to delete file
... <one per frame baked>
Unable to delete file
Info: Fluid: Bake Data complete! (0.31)
free Blue
bake Blue
Info: Fluid: Bake Data complete! (0.13)
Info: Fluid: Free All complete! (0.62)
addon_utils.disable: space_view3d_copy_attributes not loaded
Unregistered Animation Nodes

(only the last frame of "purple" domain remains, Blue domain now contains no files).

another re-run from cmd line shows:

free Purple
bake Purple
Unable to remove directory
Unable to delete file
Unable to remove directory
Unable to delete file
Error   : EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION
Address : 0x00007FF7BD310A56
Module  : blender.exe
Thread  : 00004b40
Writing: C:\Users\James\AppData\Local\Temp\dual smoke.crash.txt

where the crash.txt is your typical stack trace eye chart with perhaps the significant lines:
Stack trace:
blender.exe         :0x00007FF7BD310A30  std::_Hash<std::_Umap_traits<std::basic_string<char,std::char_traits<char>,std::allocator<char> >,v
blender.exe         :0x00007FF7BFE3C220  MANTA::parseLine
blender.exe         :0x00007FF7BFE3C7E0  MANTA::parseScript
blender.exe         :0x00007FF7BFE314C0  MANTA::initHeat
blender.exe         :0x00007FF7BFE251B0  MANTA::MANTA
blender.exe         :0x00007FF7BC478A60  BKE_fluid_modifier_init
blender.exe         :0x00007FF7BC478CD0  BKE_fluid_modifier_processDomain
blender.exe         :0x00007FF7BC478530  BKE_fluid_modifier_do

some sort of malloc() problem?
blender 2.92 file that contains the script in the Text panel:

It turns out that it is the invocation of free_all() that is causing the crash.   I will report this as a bug.

According to the developer bug tracker at blender.org, it is a bug.


text:
How Can I Erase the Strength of a Grease Pencil Stroke With a Solid--NOT Softened--Brush Effect?
If I use the Strength feature to erase a Grease Pencil stroke, even with a full brush strength of 1.0, I get the softening effect shown in the red square. I want a hard-edged erase effect, one that matches the look of the stroke ends as they appear in the green square.
I'm aware that there is some trickery involved in producing this softening effect, because we aren't working with rasters here, but vectors (or, perhaps more precisely, geometry). Still, if there's trickery at work in producing the softening, it should be possible to create the appearance of a sharp "cut"--even where the underlying geometry wouldn't properly allow a cut--by recourse to the same trickery.

Moving a point with zero strenght close to the last point of strenght 1.0 can avoid the fade out effect, but if you want the rounded cap you have to delete the zero strenght vertices.

That's interesting that we can change the strength of individual points. It didn't occur to me to make strength changes on a point-level basis. But though that's a creative solution, it's still a tedious workaround that indicates there's no built-in solution to the problem. Also, I'd prefer the rounded tips, but the problem with deleting any stroke points is that I have fills which need to be preserved, and they will get hosed if I start deleting stroke points.

I generally make a duplicate of the stroke, and use one of them for the stroke and the other for the fill, to avoid conflicts of this kind.

Okay, but how do you keep those strokes together during deformations or sculpts?

As they share the same points locations, they get edited and deformed together (give it a try).

So they do. What isn't clear is how you're achieving the separation, since the material must be different on the stroke-only object than on the fill-only object for them to appear differently. Unlinking the material doesn't allow me to create a completely new one because evidently, material linking happens at the object level, and at that level we only have the grease pencil object, which contains these stroke elements and layers. I'm assuming you aren't using separate grease pencil objects because you wouldn't be able to sculpt them at the same time. So how are you organizing your materials?


text:
Is there a Way to Set Up the Transform Minimums/Maximums of Constraints by Merely Moving the Owner and then Pressing Some Button?
I find it counterintuitive to try to set the minimum/maximum transform limits of constraints by directly entering minimum/maximum values into the text fields for the owner of those constraints. It's as if Blender expects us to always know what the hard numbers are with regard to our object positions, whether in global space, local space or what have you. But it would be much less of a headache if I could merely move the owner of the constraint in the 3D Viewport, and then tag the new position as a minimum or maximum transformation value during constraint setup, without even necessarily knowing WHAT coordinate value that owner's visual position in space corresponds to. When setting up constraints, all I care about is the apparent range of motion for any owner. I don't care about the actual coordinates. Constraint setup always requires me to be directly conscious of the hard numbers of those coordinates. Now, maybe it's a good practice to be aware of them. But it would still be nice, for convenience's sake, if the UI allowed me to set the minimum/maximum transform values for a constraint instantly upon moving the owner in space. Is there an addon that provides this functionality?

You can see an object's or bone's existing transform by looking on sidebar item; you can copy text/number fields by hovering mouse and ctrl-c; you can paste fields by hovering mouse and ctrl-v.

Where exactly? Post an answer with a picture.


text:
Can the Playhead in Animation Editors be Moved with Script?
Ideally, what I would like to see is a feature that lets me float the cursor over an animation editor window, such as the Dope Sheet, and then immediately press a sequence of number keys to instantly move the playhead to whatever frame corresponds to the number entered. I do not believe having this option would lead to any input conflicts, since normally, you would begin with keys other than numbers to initiate various functions within these editors, such as beginning with "g" to grab a keyframe, followed by a letter defining an axis, and then finally a number defining a destination frame. By starting with a number, instead of finishing with one, you would be telling Blender that you simply want to move the playhead by itself. I think this would be really handy.
Could this be done through scripting? Or is the playhead positioning so ingrained in the Blender API that script can't target it?

Script can definitely target it, but I'm not sure how you'd set up the shortcuts via scripting. You can access the current frame using bpy.context.scene.frame_current. You can set it using bpy.context.scene.frame_set(desired_frame_here).


text:
How can I Toggle "Autolocking of Layers" without accessing "Layer Specials" Menu (Blender 2.92.0)?
I'm experiencing a lot of tedium while animating with Blender Grease Pencil because I do not yet have an efficient workflow. I'm wondering if there is a hotkey, or if not, a way to easily create one, to instantly access the "Autolock Inactive Layers" menu item under the "Layer Specials" dropdown which can be found under the Object Data tab in the Properties Panel. It is a toggle behavior, so only one key would be needed. I get the impression that this Layer Specials menu might not exist in previous versions of Blender, so please take note of the version I'm using (2.92.0).

An alternative solution might be to have a faster way to instantly turn on or off the editability of every single channel in the Grease Pencil Dope Sheet. I find it rather insufferable that I must currently scrub with the mouse to get the entire list of channels to be made editable or not editable. It seems there should be a single master toggle icon at the very top of this list that would effect all channels at once.

I never felt the need for a solution to this problem until working with Grease Pencil in earnest. One is often needing to switch the behavior between having the editability of non-active layers on or off. This is especially the case because of the need to sometimes have strokes and fills from the same object on different layers, where manipulating the two elements at the same time will require inactive layer editability to be on, while manipulating them separately will require it to be off. I find it tedious to access the "Layer Specials" menu by mouse, especially when it will often be the case that the Object Data tab is not the one currently open in the Properties Panel.
Thanks for any suggestions on this. My progress will depend on finding a better way.

While I was just about to post this question, a possible answer dawned on me. If you right-click the "Autolock Inactive Layers" option from the "Layer Specials" menu, you can add the function to Quick Favorites. I completely forgot about that option! This is great for getting me through at the moment. But I'd still like to know if there is another solution.


text:
child mesh jumps and scales when reparenting
I have to first un-parent (clear parent) and then again re-parent sub-objects otherwise they get scaled and moved.   Is there a sensible use for this unexpected reaction or something I'm missing when I want to change the parent hierarchy of several objects?
I will attach an example file.

When un-parent (Alt+P) choose "Clear and keep Transformation"

Aside from what @vklidu suggested, it is usually much simpler (to me anyway) to use empties as controller objects rather than to use object/ sub-object hierarchies in most scenes.

"Clear and keep Transformation" often doesn't work.  The object can still become completely resized.


text:
finding a link or material pointing to a missing file or path
In packing a blend file I get a report of 3 missing files (actually, only paths) from an FBX imported from a 3dsMax export:
Error: Unable to pack file, source path 'C:\Users\James\Documents\3dsMax\projects\architecture\scenes' not found

(aside: this path actually exists)
I am not getting any console output in 2.90 for "List Missing Files".   Is there some way I can discover what material or other file pointer are causing these errors so that I can correct them?

In the outliner choose the Orphan Data display mode

To fix the path for broken links or missing items use the Data Api mode

Data API
Lists every data-block along with any properties that they might have.
Orphan Data
Lists data-blocks which are unused and/or will be lost when the file is reloaded. It includes data-blocks which have only a fake user. You can add/remove Fake User by clicking on cross/tick icon in the right side of the Outliner editor.

(from the blender manual)


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outliner doesn't show selected object if Viewport Display is disabled
If I disable an objects "Viewport Display" and then select it in an outliner that filters on "All" Objects, it will not be listed in an outliner that filters on "Selected" Objects.  This can make it difficult to build a list of selected objects to operate on that I don't want to display (for reasons like performance and View-> Frame-All).
As I click on each object, I am able to operate on its properties and do see a selection highlight (grayed highlight in outlier with All Objects).
Is there a way around this?   Doesn't this seem like unexpected behavior?

Hello :). This is perhaps a bit unintuitive behavior of Blender. Objects disabled in viewport cannot be 'selected' (you can't add modifiers, physics, etc...). It doesn't make much sense imho, but it is intended behavior :).


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Array modifier for light
I want to create an array of lights contained within a space.
There appears to be no way to apply an Array Modifier to a light object -- why not?
Is there a non-Python way perhaps to create and space light objects without Python?

Fairly obscure, but it works


text:
Graph Editor & F-Curve Modifiers for Material animation
How does one access animation data in Materials in the Graph Editor, so as to better observe Interpolations and use F-Curve Modifiers ?

hello, could you please share you example? for example I've tried to keyframe a Principled BSDF color or a Mix Shader and it seems to work (I can see the keyframes in the Dope Sheet and in the Graph Editor)

Ah you are correct @moonboots, I had "Only Show Selected" filtered !   I will delete this posting in a bit, perhaps.


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blender particle cache impediments to farm rendering
I have been working with SheepIt farm rendering for a while and see others commenting on some impediments that an enhancement to blender could help solve.  I'm not sure of a better place to post this as I don't know if there is a product management team to submit enhancement requests.
If one creates long particle or cloth or fluid simulations, there are folder collections of many small cache files, one per frame.
A farm often has a file size limit, in this use case the blender file plus the simulation cache folders enclosed in a zip file that could easily exceed this limit.  And a farm often sends one or a small subset of frames to each helper (client) host.   So a rendering project goes through "gyrations" of dividing up the farm rendering project into subsets of frame groups to overcome this restriction.   Not a simple task, although scripting does help.   But this effort detracts from farm rending just when a farm is ideal (large rendering tasks).
It could be useful if I were able to include a read-only, read-back cache reference to these that used URLs (ftp: or http:, etc).   If the primary (read/write) cache exists (my local project machine), that would be used during render.  If the primary (read/write) cache does not exist, but the URL reference was valid (i.e., I uploaded the cache to a publicly accessible server), that cache would be used.   Call this the "alternative cache".   So when I submit such a vast job to a farm, all rendering hosts would end up accessing the alternative cache on my publicly accessible server (perhaps even on my Dropbox/Public folder), for the few small cache files they need for the frame they were assigned to render.


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Blender 3.1 Combining Two Bone's Tails Together
So, I've seen a lot of info on how to combine two HEADS of bones together, but what I need is two TAILS.  I'm assuming that I would need another bone where the two tails are to combine them, but I can't seem to find a way to combine them there.  This is what I'm working on, a hood to a jacket where I want the hood to be rigged:
Here it is with no Bones

Here is my current Armature:

And this is how I think it should work in my head, but it seems like you can't connect one bone to two bones:

Any ideas?  I tried making the top bone a child of the other two bones, but that didn't seem to work, as it would only be affected by the first child of constraint in the list.  Any help would be appreciated!

Hello, could you please explain what you're trying to achieve with these bones?

I'm using the armature to more accurately shape the coat and hood, as cloth simulations just weren't cutting it.  As for the reason I want to combine the tails of the bones at the top, since the bone chains meet at the same vertexes on the top, it just made sense to me to attach them together.  I might also use the extra bone on the top (the third picture) to do some IK to make the hood fold forward and back.

yes I was thinking about giving an IK constraint to the bones, then the top one is the controller

YES!  This was exactly what I needed.  I'll post an answer.

I put an IK modifier on both of the top bones, which were Hood Left Edge.002 and Hood Right Edge.002, and used the one I wanted to attach them to as the controller/Target Bone, which was Hood Tip.
Here's what that looked like, with Hood Tip being the new bone on top:

it's not modifier but constraint  ;)

Oops!  Thanks.  Updated the answer.


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Vertices NOT scuplting at center of OBJ
sorry I'm still new to blender and I've ran into an issue I can't seem to fix.
I was practicing making characters in blender and was able to sculpt and everything without any issues on the first character. However on the second character, it would not let me sculpt the Vertices that were in the center of my object (Where the mirrored object snaps together) It will only move those vertices in edit mode (like in the picture)
You can see at the center top of my object it is coming to a point, that is because the brush was affecting everything but the center vertices when smoothing.
When I switch back over to my first character (both are in the same project), it allows me to sculpt just fine, even at the center of the object.
So this leads me to believe that there is some option that I've looked over or something. Any advice on my situation would be really appreciated as it's a total pain to have to position the vertices manually in edit mode!! Thank you!

The issue seems to have been related to the Mirror modifier I was using. When I removed the Mirror modifier and used Symmetrize instead, the issue was fixed and I am now able to sculpt without any vertices refusing to move.


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deceptively simple bevel issue
I made a flap for a backpack a few months ago. I cannot for the life of me figure out how I did it. I did an extrude to create the raised perimeter and increased it's scale which explains the elongated mesh near the perimeter. I used a simple deform bend to accomplish the bend. I just can't figure out how I beveled the corners with such clean uniform subdivision on the mesh. I think I did a face insert to define the perimeter, so starting from a single face it's gotta be some combination of face insert, subdivide, bevel and solidify(or extrude) but no matter what I try I can't replicate this. pls halp

best I could do was starting from a single face -> extrude -> percent bevel -> proportional scale down (to increase perimeter width) -> loop subdivide x2. But as you can see it's just not the same


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Files Context Menu too limited
Is there a way to incorporate Windows file context menu into the blender context menu?
For example, when I use 3dsMax, I am able to right-click on a file use use something like OpenWith to launch my installation of GIMP to graphically edit and refine an image.  Whereas with blender I need to copy the location, and then open up file manager, search for the file (perhaps a folder with many files), and then OpenWith.
when using a more File-Explorer-like interface, I can also highlight/find the file in a large folder by replacing the last letter the '*' end hit enter to narrow/filter the file list.  Again a great convenience that I don't have with blender File View.
Am I over-looking a way to regain this productivity in blender?

where's is the suggestions, feedback. For blender the devtalk.blender.org is confusing and immature, for a product that's been around for years. sad.

Yes, the blender file browser is limited, but there are some workarounds for both of the things you mentioned.

Editing images. Blender has an option in the image editor to “edit externally,“ which can be set in user preferences to open images in whatever your favorite image editor program is (GIMP in my case), and then you can reload the image from the source to update it when you’re done.
Filtering. The file browser itself has search box in the header at the top that does not look in subdirectories. Try this for quick filtering of large directories.

Okay, bravo for the filtering, but I think external editor (already had it set to GIMP) gives no love withing the file browser:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/qsi9qzuzcyxan65/externalGraphicsEditor.png?dl=0 ... is only for images I render.  I want to jump into GIMP to edit an Image Texture node in Shader.

Interestingly enough (off-topic) Edit (rendered) Image Externally is throwing an error: "image path '.' is not found", even though I have a full output path set up in Output Properties!  groan!

"file browser is limited":  where's is the suggestions, feedback.  For blender the https://devtalk.blender.org/ is confusing and immature, for a product that's been around for years.  sad.

No, the file browser does not allow you to live and external image. That might be useful in some cases. You cannot edit an image from the texture node, but you can select that same image in the blender image editor, then use the “edit externally“ option. It’s the same image data block.


text:
Background Shaders Compilation for Material Preview
When I switch from Solid to Material Preview, my view can lock up for many seconds while the Shaders Compile.  Is there some way to have blender load these in the background, when I first load a file that is in Solid shading mode, so as to get better response time on this?


text:
unpack/relocate textures to a folder other than ./texture
If I unpack a blender file, it creates a folder called "texture", that is within the current folder.  Instead I'd like to default the unpack to a folder the is common across many 3d applications that I use (example: Documents/3d/textures).  I might be overlooking a Preferences setting.
This could also help me migrate previous blend files that might have used some other folder structure (pack and then unpack to my new structure).

As useful as that would be, I'm afraid this functionality isn't in yet :)

Thanks, Jachym Michal, I'm off to https://devtalk.blender.org to waste my time, LOL

Did anyone get anywhere with this question?  I'd also like to add that if you have files with duplicate filenames, Blender will effectively delete all but one of them.  Worse, those will still show up fine in the viewport until you revert or reload the file.  If that's months later, those files are now gone and you are S.O.L.

@ZachExchange -- i recently saw a developer post a comment at https://devtalk.blender.org/t/unpack-relocate-textures-to-a-folder-other-than-texture/18379/2 which is an exact copy of the above.   Comment was "wrong website" for suggestions


text:
mesh hair cloth: how to find root vertices to pin
I have imported a character that has "mesh hair" and would like to animate it with Cloth.  To Pin the roots of this complicated mesh to the scalp, I need to find and Group the "root" vertices of each segment, of which there appear to be many, even after using Mesh Clean Decimate to reduce vertices.  Is there some (python?) method to find and group these?

I have found a python solution to effectively find vertexes to pin.
I the base/complete mesh, I first defined a Vertex Group called "pinned".
The hair was a series of meshes, so I first separated each into its own with the Edit Mode Mesh "Separate" "By Loose Parts":

I created a "pin.target" object near the crown of the scalp, to calc distance of each vertex I visit I then created a python script that did a select pattern to find all of the "strand" objects, and for all strand objects, for each vertex...
import bpy
import bmesh
from math import sqrt

pinTargetLoc = bpy.data.objects['pin.target'].location
print("pinTargetLoc=",pinTargetLoc)

bpy.ops.object.select_pattern(pattern="ToulouseHR*")
hairParts = bpy.context.selected_objects

cnt=0
bpy.ops.object.select_all( action='DESELECT' ) # Deselect all objects
for hairPart in hairParts:
#    if cnt>0:
#        continue
    print( hairPart, hairPart.location )
    hairPart.select_set(True)
    bm = bmesh.new()   # create an empty BMesh
    bm.from_mesh(hairPart.data)   # fill it in from a Mesh
    verts=hairPart.data.vertices
    #verts.ensure_lookup_table()
    cnt+=1
    print( len(verts)," vertices" )
    # find the vertex closest to the "pin target" object location
    closestVertex = None
    distanceOld = 9999999.0
    selected_verts=0
    for v in verts:
        distanceNew = sqrt(
            (pinTargetLoc.x - (hairPart.location.x + v.co.x))**2 +
            (pinTargetLoc.y - (hairPart.location.y + v.co.y))**2 +
            (pinTargetLoc.z - (hairPart.location.z + v.co.z))**2)
        print( distanceNew )
        if ( distanceOld > distanceNew ):
            if ( closestVertex is not None ):
                closestVertex.select = False
            closestVertex = v
            print( closestVertex, "@", closestVertex.co )
            distanceOld = distanceNew

    # add 'closestVertex' to pinned group
    indexList = [ closestVertex.index ]  # vertex index list  of single closet item
    print( "closestVertex.index=", closestVertex.index )
    hairPart.vertex_groups.active_index=1
    pinnedGroup=hairPart.vertex_groups.get("pinned")
    pinnedGroup.add( indexList, 1.0, "ADD" )

    print("v count",selected_verts)
    print( "closestVertex.co=",closestVertex.co )
# end of script

I then selected all strands, and then Joined them into the Scalp, where I could then Select the "pinned" Vertex Group and see the result:

I can now use this Vertex Group as the Cloth -- Pin group to keep hair strands from flying away.


text:
why are rigify's IK pole targets Hidden in pose mode
I have a character parented to a rigify Armature.  I want to stop my character from contorting (e.g., elbow twisted into torso area) as I set the Hand_IK.  I would assume that I could use the IK pole or pole target.  I see that these exist but are not accessible in the Pose Mode and are Hidden based on a Driver:

with the function:
pose.bones["upper_arm_parent.R"]["pole_vector"]

How can I gain access to the Pole Target?   In fact I don't even see any bones (e.g., "Hand_fk.L") that have a IK constraint listing either it's "Hand_IK.L" IK or Pole -- how to even discover these?!

The properties to control the Rigify rig are in the N-panel.
(You need to confirm the script security warning if you open the file the first time after Blender started because it runs some initialization script. Be careful if you have downloaded the model from the internet. The included script may be harmful.)
Depending on which control bone you select you will get different options. There is a "gear" bone at the shoulder that displays all options for the arm and hand if you select it.
In the tab Item, section Item > Rig Main Properties, there is the Toggle Pole switch. Set it to 1 to show the pole for the elbow.
Hand_fk.L is the FK control bone. It's on bone layer 9 and looks like a green circle (like the legs in the screenshot). With the Rig Layer buttons in the N-panel you can show & hide them. There are also IK->FK buttons to make the IK snap the FK bones and vice versa. And IK-FK (bone name) (0.000-1.000) to set the influence between the IK and FK bones.


text:
Colors won't appear in Material Preview?

I've tried adding materials and changing colors to both the whole model and parts of it but my model remains like this. what am I doing wrong?

it happens with the latest drivers for AMD graphic card, is it what you have? in that case switch to a previous version, or try Render panel > Performance > High Quality Normals

The preview window is also black.  It should at least show the checkerboard base.  I agree with @moonboots, it looks like you have a driver problem.

If it is not a problem with the hardware or something similar, it is also possible that the settings under "Color Management" are set incorrectly. You also get a black image if, for example, the exposure is set incorrectly.


text:
Textures getting messed up when exporting fbx
I'm working on my very first character model, and decided to texture paint the hair in its own file to keep things tidy. Inside its file it looks fine...

But when I import it as an fbx into the file that contains the body, the textures don't seem to be loading properly, and also inexplicably have a glassy, transparent look to them.

Any idea as to why this is happening, and what I can do to fix it?

This can happen when having multiple UV maps on your objects because some software just used the first UV map, not the UV map specified in your material. So try and delete any unused UV maps if you have any.

It doesn't look like there are any extras? There's only one uv map per object as far as I can tell.

Hello did you ever figure this out? I'm having the same issue and I only have one UV as well. granted the UV has updated about 10 or so times through the editing process, there is still only 1 UV being used. Maybe I'm missing something?


text:
Multi gpu rendering on cycle - low speed
We render nft collection on cycle (video, 180 frames, cozy studio plugin)
On RTX 3060 - 1 frame takes 8s.
On 6*3080 - 1 frame takes 5.5s.
Cuda, all videocards enabled, samples around 250, and in TASK MANAGER there is 1-14% usage of each cideocard.
Same thins on 4*3090 pc.
Tell pls what we do weong or what’s probleb?

@TheLabCat can you explain why this happenes

@Nikita no, I can’t. I think it’s been asked before, though.

@thelabcat [this Twitter thread] (https://twitter.com/andrewpprice/status/1510111512324898819?s=21&t=2eEMr7pi6I4fuE-_94Zrfg) says otherwise. maybe  I should have said “is broken “ instead

I’m sorry Nikita I don’t know anything beyond the Twitter thread


text:
Can I use Blender to CREATE an iOS app?
I'm just a beginner in both Blender and Xcode, but I wanted to know if I make something in Blender, could I eventually TRANSFER it over to Swift to make an iOS app or is this not possible?
My ultimate goal is creating an iOS app but I know I'll need 3D components so I'm not sure if these two are compatible or if I should just stick to learning one over the other.

Personally, I think Unity and Unreal Engine are much more suited to be used to create iOS apps and other types of system applications.

The short answer is that no, there is no way to create an application in Blender that can be exported.
What you can do is create scenes in Blender than can be exported in a file format that Apple's software understands like Universal Scene Description and manipulate that data in a Swift program; or as BlendMaster15 suggested in a comment on the question, you can also export the assets to a cross development system such as Unity or Unreal Engine


text:
How to get an object to be reactive to animation/change it's shape (like 'damped transfom' in unity)
I want my objects to have a delayed reaction / change their shape as they react to an animation they're parented to...or alternatively to their own animation.
I found out about the 'damped transform' function that exists in unity:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.animation.rigging@0.2/manual/constraints/DampedTransform.html
Is there an equivalent function in blender?


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retro pattern shading for UV sphere
I started working on a project for a friend and it involve shading for a sphere

I already got the outline done but i have no idea how to do the wavy center. I tried messing around and searching if it had been already done but i must have the wrong wordding because i can't find anything.
Could you please help me with this ?

Here's the outline shader if you need it.

The thing on the right is already an image, isn't it? I would just use that as a texture. Is there a reason you cannot do this?

the object on the left is a UV sphere. Does it work with a square texture like that ?

What's the expectation for the 3d object?  Should it be able to rotate? (Kickair's answer is great, btw)

@DieuDuFeu Yes. The Shape of the Texture doesnt matter. I would have suggested something similar to KickAir8p's solution. Does that work for your usecase?

Since there's a comment from the asker indicating that a solution using an image texture could be acceptable, this uses a drip mask that I made in Inkscape (packed into the blend, link below).  It also uses both a UV Sphere and a spherized Cube:

Below the Texture Coordinate node's UV output is used, through the Mapping node, as the Vector input of the Image Texture node.  Note the distortion is different on each sphere due to the different topology and UV mapping.  Although this can be alleviated somewhat by adjusting the image, an image texture (always flat) UV wrapped around a sphere will always have some distortion:

Below the Texture Coordinate node's Camera output is used, through the Mapping node, as the Vector input of the Image Texture node.  Note that the Location info in the Mapping node positions the image correctly for only one of the spheres -- if multiple objects are to be shown, a different material with different Mapping info will need to be used for each:

Trying to crunch this down to the minimum number of nodes, for a procedural version.

This way:

Takes the basic function y < (sin(x) + sin(y)) to give the wave on the left, above.
Uses floor(x)to quantize 1D noise into [random 0-1] stripes, that will be used to shift the Y coordinate, per cycle.
Multiplies the quantized noise by the sign(sin(x)) to ensure positive cycles are sent up, and negative cycles are sent down.
Adds the noise it to Y, before sending it to the function.

Here's a material which uses the radial angle of a sphere as X and the sphere's Z as Y:

It also uses Layer Weight to put the fixed colour rim on the sphere..

If you want the strictly flat, graphical look of your illustration, you could put this mask into the XY of Camera Space, as suggested by KickAir


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How Can I Subdivide Only Part of a Grease Pencil Stroke (Ver. 2.92.0)?
When in Edit Mode for a Grease Pencil object, I can go to the Stroke menu at the top of the screen and select Subdivide. But this will always subdivide the entire Grease Pencil object. How can I subdivide only part of one stroke within the Grease Pencil object, specifically between two particular vertices? In the included picture, there are not enough vertices between the circled ones, but I can't figure out how to add vertices only to this area. What's worse, even if I give up and simply opt to use the blanket Subdivide option (hoping to get more vertices where I need them even as I'm forced to add more of them where I don't), it seems that vertices are still not being added in this specific region. Why is this? What am I failing to understand about how Grease Pencil geometry behaves?

Select only two points where you want to subdivide, and select Stroke > Subdivide.

Or just right click on the context menu and select subdivide.

Note that you can modify the settings for the tools and the post processing for the draw tools to get better detail and optimize how control points are distributed on the drawn lines.

For more information read the manual https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/grease_pencil/modes/draw/tools/draw.html#tool-grease-pencil-draw-draw

Your post is straightforward, but it doesn't completely address my confusion, because it worked at first, but then later did not work. What appears to be happening is that ONLY SOMETIMES can I subdivide the space between two points. In my latest scenario, some edges within an object can be subdivided by selecting two neighboring points, and other edges can't be. This, in a shape that is completely enclosed, and originally created as a drawn ellipse with both a stroke and a fill. What could possibly explain this?

Please update your question and explain clearly what is not working there. Show a concrete example. It is hard to help you otherwise.

Done. Thanks for being such a trooper.

One thing I think is missing from this answer is the advice to switch the selection mode to Points. In the question and the OP's associated answer - it looks like the OP is using Stroke selection mode.

After some experimentation, it turns out that enclosed grease pencil objects, such as those which can be created with either the ellipse or the box tools while in Draw mode, have some curious quirk which prevents the Subdivide option from working properly on every edge of the stroke. Subdivide works for all but ONE edge. I'm assuming that this one edge, which cannot be subdivided by any conceivable means, is the edge that defines both the beginning and the end point of the stroke. Still, the behavior is curious and unexpected. To repeat the steps needed to see this problem, create a Grease Pencil Object and add to it an ellipse or a box. Go into Edit Mode and then select all vertices. Then, from the Stroke menu at the top of the screen, select Subdivide multiple times in a row. You will see that subdivisions happen to all edges except for one.

This explains why it is that sometimes I was able to subdivide an edge within a stroke, and other times I was not. What was happening was, in the course of continuing to edit my stroke and move it around in Sculpt mode, this single stubborn impossible-to-subdivide edge would eventually end up in any random location within the stroke, but without me knowing it even had this strange behavior. Occasionally settling on this one stroke as being the one that I would like to subdivide is what revealed the curious behavior, and also what made that behavior appear seemingly random. I still don't know why there is always one edge which can't be subdivided. But at least I now know why I couldn't subdivide Grease Pencil edges when I thought for sure I already knew how to do it.

The question was originally asked without full knowledge of the problem, which I later explained in more detail with an answer, in an effort to update it (as you requested), because that struck me as a more appropriate approach than rewording the entire question and, in so doing, making your response less relevant to the wording. Had I known you'd balk at my effort to edit it regardless, then I probably would have just left it as it was without committing any further work to it.


text:
How to Change Timeline Division Markers to Match Chosen Frame Rate?
I can change the frame rate of an animation easily enough. What I can't do is reflect this change on the timeline. The timeline division markers are displayed in an interval that is different depending on the editor window's current zoom level. At first glance, it looks as if they appear in increments based on multiples of ten. But in actuality, there is a pattern: 1, 2, 5. So as you zoom out, divisions which once appeared as multiples of 10, become multiples of 20, then 50, then 100, then 200, then 500, etc. What I want is for them to always appear in multiples of the current frame rate. So, any time a new frame rate is chosen, the division markers will update to reflect what timeline divisions will look like at the newly chosen frame rate. Below is what this might look like. On the left is how it is now, and on the right, how I'd like it.

Is there a way to display the timeline division markers as multiples of the chosen frame rate instead of in multiples of arbitrary numbers?

AFAIK there is no way to stop this, however, Asked this question re doing something similar back in 2.7x.  ie draw your "own thing" above  space background and below timelines, cursor etc_ See also re getting the coordinates


text:
Python- problem with "bpy.data.objects['anyobject'].select=True "
What happens exactly, is that after duplicating an object, then deselecting all selected objects, using:
bpy.ops.object.duplicate()
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

then running:
bpy.data.objects['anyobject'].select=True

object is selected in red outline, not orange as usual, as a result, when editing object in edit mode, also in python, it doesn't work either
however, before running bpy.ops.object.duplicate(), everything works properly.
I stumbled at this weird problem for a long while, i wonder how to fix it

Could you please accept and upvote the answer if it was helpful?

Does this answer your question? Set active object with python

You need to set the object to be the active object as well as selected
The below code works for me, I just added a Cube at origin (0, 0, 0) selected it then run this script from the text editor (or you can run it from the console as well):
import bpy
C = bpy.context
scene = C.scene
bpy.ops.object.duplicate()
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
bpy.data.objects['Cube'].select=True
scene.objects.active = bpy.data.objects['Cube']

This is what happens after running the script:


text:
Cycles mixed material
I have a problem with setting up a mixed material for a bottle label I need.
The label will need some different surfaces;
- Diffuse (the base paper) preferably with a normal map for adding the paper feel to it.
- Glossy (the golden text and details), preferably with a normal map for adding a bevelled feeling.
I have all parts isolated in different PNGs/TIFFs.
Now, is it possible or even a good idea to set this up in the same material? Or should I go for different materials on the same object (and if so, please guide me)?

Very nice results with your setup @bstnhnsl! I think it produces exactly what I need. (sorry for answering my own question, but I didn't know how to post an image sample otherwise).

One question, though: You mentioned that one can use an unlimited amount of material this way, and I've tried but I don't think I get it; should I use one more Mix shader to add for instance one more texture image?

Since there even seems to be a slight bump to the surface of logo I'd go with a full modelling, solution if you brother to trace the logo. It seems relatively simple in terms of geometry anyway. That way you don't have to bother with lots of textures and complex material setups, just make a separate material for each part

Thank you Duarte! Well, sometimes it can be quite complex logos and fonts, which would add quite some faces to the scene if you made models/meshes out of them...

DON'T model that. It's a pain in the arse if you want to change the logo or the text or whatever. With the texture-method you are absolute flexible in absolute everything... And imho it's way easier if you got the hang of it.

I do a lot of similar things (book mockups with different finishings for presentations etc.). The way to go is definitely a setup in the same material. The idea is for each material to have its own shader and mix them together with a mix-shader-node and a bw-image (the white parts of the image represent one material, the black parts the other material).
If the logo changes you can simply swap the image for the mix-nodes.
This is the image I used for the mix-node:

This is the general node setup:

the blue part defines which parts are gold and which are bricks
yellow and red are the different materials (you can add normal maps, bump-maps, albedo etc...)

and the final result:
(I just grabbed a brick-texture for demonstration-purposes)

A few tips: to add realism you can use the mix-node-image as a bump-map for your gold-ink-material and mix the normal maps of the different materials.
you are also not limited to 2 materials, just add another material and another mix-node with a mask... unlimited materials. yay

Wonderful! Thank you for your answer, @bstnhnsl! Very explanatory and thorough, top notch!

Very nice results with your setup @bstnhnsl! I think it produces exactly what I need.


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Getting rid of the little (+) buttons for a clean window
I wanted to have a second window (with a 3D View) totally clean for projection.
Anyone have any idea how to get rid of the little (+) buttons on the side, the ones that show up when you press T or N key to hide the side toolbars?
Editing the code and compiling Blender again, I guess.
Could some one help me or point me the way.

You mean the Toggle Window Fullscreen in the menu.

You still can not get rid of the (+) at the side

Your totally right .

I was trying in blender 2.8 and did't do anything.

In 2.8 is Ctrl-Alt-Spacebar. Many thanks

2.79

Duplicate the area into a new window.
View ‣ Duplicate Area into new Window
OR
Duplicate a window with ⎈ Ctrl⎇ AltW
Info area ‣ Window ‣ Duplicate Window
Then, Toggle Area Fullscreen ⎇ AltF10. View ‣ Toggle Fullscreen Area
Eliminiate additional 3D View icons in the User Preferences ⎈ Ctrl⎇ AltU under Interface ‣ Display (on the left)

2.8
Although the manual says the same as in 2.79. The Toggle Fullscreen Area is somewhere else in 2.8 (2018-10-12).
3D View Menu: View ‣ Area ‣ Toggle Fullscreen Area. ⎈ Ctrl⎇ AltSpace

The hotkey tooltip says something about ActionZone, which I don't understand though.

in 2.8 still not totally clean, on the bottom left, the Last Operator thing is still there.

@Joao Selection doesn't toggle the Last Operator thing. A simple A keyboard press will remove it.