text:
Rigify in Blender 2.79
I don´t like the rigify in Blender 2.79. I think it generates too much complicated controls and whenever I had to rig a character I have to open the file in an older version, play the rigify generator and then i re-open in 2.79 to continue the work. Especially for the fingers rigging, the old one is way better than this new version. Is there any other method to use the old friendly rigify in version 2.79? Thanks

Are you changing limbs.simple_tentacle to limbs.super_finger in Rigify Type properties? If not do that, and you'll have the good, nice finger controls.

Thank you and sorry for the 1 year old response...

The Rigify add-on still has the option to run in legacy mode (2.76b feature set) if you check the option under the User Preferences > Add-ons > Rigify. This also still rings true in the Blender 2.8 Beta.

Thank you! Sorry that it took forever to thank you..


text:
How to inset group of faces
Coming from 3ds Max I was wondering if it's possible to inset a group of faces. The result I would like to achieve (using 3ds Max):

This is the result I get using the inset tool in Blender:

Apply the scale to your object https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/14868/inset-in-blender-not-coming-out-even

Thanks, almost there. This fixes the dimensions of the new faces, but they are still disconnected at the corners.

You have duplicate geometry and zero sized faces. Cleanup your mesh by removing doubles before insetting

As pointed out in the comments first I had to apply the scale to the object (Ctrl+A> Scale) and then remove doubles (W> Remove Doubles) for the inset to work as expected.

thats because there where non selected zero faces that result in splits. You can see the points of that faces in your image

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How do you model a ground plane to match the height of a premade object?
I'm working on a minigolf course modeling project and have created a sample hole for testing purposes. Right now, the only ground  that I have is a flat plane on the axis.

The hole varies in height at some places, so the ground plane does not meet it except for the very bottom portion. How can I model the plane such that it matches the height of the hole?

just subdivide your plane and in edit mode activate proportional editing then just drag the vertices or faces to whatever height you want then in object mode shade it smooth for nicer look. Look at some modeling tutorials online it will help you a lot.

Yep. This, plus vertex snapping while constraining to the Z axis. Adjust the influence radius and experiment with various falloff curves to see which gives the most desirable result.

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


text:
Saving as STL File
my english is not so good, im from germany xD

for short: when I save this File https://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/83856
as STL file with Blender, it looks like she is wearing some kind of glasses.
How can I prevent that to happen ?

This looks like a rigged model, there are lots of dummy objects and controllers, remove them or unselect tgem before exporting

In the left panel when you save there are an option unchecked, select it, "Selection only" and then export to STL, but before select only the mesh of rabbit.

Thank You :D Problem solved i have deleted the eyes rig. Im so Noob xD https://i.sstatic.net/d7Kj3.jpg


text:
Hotkey (or other quick way) to insert a keyframe for only one component of a vector-valued property?
I want to keyframe only the x-value of the rotation while the y and z are being animated independently. (If you want to know why, I'm making the camera continuously revolve about the z-axis at the center of the scene and using the x rotation to change the polar angle at one part.)
I can achieve the effect using the dope sheet to delete the y and z keyframes after I use the I hotkey to create a keyframe for all three values, which is honestly not so bad, but it seems like there should be a Ctrl + I or some other way to have more fine control of keyframes without having to open the dope sheet.

One of those times when you discover the answer right after asking. Hopefully this helps others.
You just need to right-click the single value you want to add a keyframe to and select "Insert Single Keyframe".

A quick way to insert keys to only some channels is to create a Keying set. Right click the input, and select Add single to Keying Set. After this when you hit I in the 3D view or other editors, the keyframe is only added to the channels specified in the Keying Set. You can select which Keying Set to use in the Timeline editor's header.

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


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Normals not baking as expected
I am working with 2.79.5 and a Bevel node from this version.
I use the bevel node to bake fake bevels on a normal map, bu the baking didn't turn out as expected, I ended up with a messed up normal map that doesn't even have bevels on the edges
Here is my result :

Here is a normal map made with another Object
and the same method that turned out well :

and Here is my node setup (images textures being other shading maps) :

I still don't know why my normal map turned out so bad.
I also tried baking with high poly object and "Selected to Active" checked in the baking panel, but the result was the exact same. This kind of error happened only with a particular object that's on my model. Also made a quick try with 2.8, same result.

if it’s only one object that’s having issues then it’s likely something specific to that - eg, negative scale or flipped normals.

I checked, there is no flipped normals and the scale is 1

Smooth shading?

the smooth shading is applied as well, the only sharp edges are for the bevel to recognize them

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


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Are import/export scripts backward compatible?
I want to install an export script into blender 2.79. The last version of the script (iqm_export) is for blender 2.74.
Will this script still work in blender 2.79, and if so, are all blender scripts backwards compatible?

No, not all of the functionality is compatible, since the module Blender got replaced by bpy for example. Why don't you just try it?

@leander your thinking of 2.49, since 2.74 not a lot has changed. For a simple scene the addon seems to work.

@eeze - Note that if you enable export armature you need to have an armature selected. If you do have issues exporting, have a look at the dazkind fork, it has recent activity including a 2.8-alpha addon, they may also respond to issues reported on github.


text:
How to make blender confirm closing an unsaved file?
I know that this question has already been asked here, but it was 5 years ago, and I want to know if the answer has changed.
Can I make blender confirm closing an unsaved file? (I am using ubuntu linux)
Thanks!

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1232/is-it-possible-to-make-blender-prompt-to-save-on-exit. Probably so far that dialog is still is built using system dialog window so works for Windows only. Try using Ctrl+Q for exiting instead (a workaround of course).

Open File > User Preferences (Ctrl + Alt + U), under Interface tab on the lower left Prompt Quit

I dont have this option. I am on linux.

You are probably using a very old version of Blender

2.79b. Very new.


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Blender eats space on C drive
Yesterday I've had 2GB of free space on C and only after using Blender it has all gone. Can anyone help me?

I usually get a CUDA error at 1.3GB but now it is at around 400MB (if that is related with C space)

There are tools to visualise the sizes of anything on your harddisk. Please use one and give information on what kind of files eat the space.

Did you solve the problem in the end?

Your problem is not neccesarily related to Blender. Just because it's the only thing you used doesn't mean it's the only thing that happened on your PC. Yestarday I had 30GB of free space on C and after only using Blender it went down to 7GB. Well actually turns out Windows downloaded update files in the background.
The first thing I would do in your place (and did today to my PC) is run disk clean up:

It will scan your PC for any temporary old files that could be taking up space and let you choose to remove them.
If that doesn't solve your issue than your best bet is to just go over your C Drive manually and cleanit up your self, remove any unwanted files etc.
Remember that your Desktop and any files in the recycling bin are also a part of your C drive, so if you're saving a lot of things on your desktop it could be taking up a good amount of space.
I reccomend WinDirStat for browsing your drives and doing manual clean up, it will make it a lot easier to identify areas with large files or folders that take up a lot of space.

Have you done some work recently on blender ??
Try clearing the temp folder this will make a lot of space by clearing temporary files on C: drive.

Open run  Win  +  R
Type in %temp%
Select all files of temp folder (press  Ctrl  +  A  to select all)
Press ⇧ Shift⌦ Delete


text:
Ivy Generator Add-on Horizontal grow
How to make ivy grow horizontally with Ivy Gen add-on?

Increase the "branching probability". I'm trying to do the same here and it looks to be the answer. Still testing.


text:
Array along curve only arrays to a certain distance
I want to array along a curve, but the array modifier only works to a certain distance (really short).
I've played with different modifiers, but it doesn't seem to work. Also I changed the location and rotation of the elements (the cylinders), but it still arrays to the distance below.

Here is the increased distance between them... still not working.
https://we.tl/t-bQCNDR5D8n
I'm sending the file via WeTransfer.
Thanks!

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/65567/problems-with-curve-modifier

Apply the scale of your object:


text:
Export displacement texture from displace modifier
I used a displace modifier and created a texture for it. How do I export that texture? Thanks.

@BlenderMaster15, so you should write this as an answer

Here you go! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1__olo3hds Hope this helps!


text:
Eevee is rendering my model inside out
I have imported a model using xnaLara importer and when I try to render it in Eevee( viewport or F5) I can only see the inside of the the model.
If I switch to cycles it renders as I would expect it to, and it looks fine in solid draw mode. I have also tried different materials so I think it's a geometry problem. I have also checked that the normals are facing outside as well. Can anyone explain what I'm doing wrong?

So I think I have found a solution but I still can't explain what is actually going on( might be a bug in the model importer). When I import a model, it generates automatic materials. These materials work perfectly with cycles, but not with Eevee. Any changes made to the default material seem to produce the same z-fighting in the model. So I deleted the generated materials and manually remade them( with exactly the same node setup ) and BAM, no more glitchy renders.
I can only assume this is due to a bug in the generated material.

What happens when you zoom in ...
view >>>> clip start Reduce the size ....

Thanks for the suggestion but this didn't resolve the issue.

It seems to be a UV problem, try to Unwrap it again or just use texture coordinate node and use another method other than UV to see if it solves it...

I Tried using generated co-ordinates and then tried using a flat diffuse shader( no textures ), with the same results, so I don't think it's a UV issue.


text:
Expand box/UI/drop down in AddonPreferences to show more user preferences
This Code works fine CodeManx:- https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/19158/78916, but how would I get this work in  an AddonPreferences cutom boxex? I can get it to work but it references 'object' 'cube' I would like to have it reference a UI file! Not asking for a script but something I can read to get my head around building custom UI's for the AddonPreferences, driving me crazy to get anything other that this, reference wise. HardOps has a perfect example of what I want in a expand panel on the UI tab, those are perfect to what I want, but I've a hard time following the code in 'Hops' python! An Expand box/panel is what I want (I think) but I just cant get anything to work in AddonPreferences, where do I need to look and what to read?

Just add a def draw(self, context): method to the class as usual. If you'd like to copy the hardops properties, right-click > edit source...

IMO would have it reference a property annotated to your AddonPreferences class. Eg toggle : BoolProperty()  in addon prefs draw would be layout.prop(self, "toggle")

Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19779/create-a-configuration-window-for-my-add-on and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/63504/addon-preferences-dont-show-consistently

Right guys, thanks for he pointers, batFINGER pointed me in the right direction, I did look at the link brockmann posted and have seen that link on my quest travels. I don't know if I've found the right direction as I've used WM for the toggle but had in my head that all when hovered would point back to preferences! BUT I've got the look that I was looking for, I was after changing the icons ref toggle state but cant get anything to work but happy as it is, achieved my goal, thanks for the help, here is my code/effort:-
import bpy

preference.py file that gets imported from _init.py
from bpy.props import ( StringProperty,
BoolProperty,
FloatProperty,
)
from bpy.types import (AddonPreferences,
)
class AddonPreferences use (bl_idname = package) if multiple file.
class PREFS_PT_MyPrefs(AddonPreferences):
bl_idname = package
# prop listings strings
some_folder = StringProperty(
    name="Assets Folder",
    subtype='DIR_PATH',
    )

# prop listings bools
bpy.types.WindowManager.prop_toggle1 = bpy.props.BoolProperty()
bpy.types.WindowManager.prop_toggle2 = bpy.props.BoolProperty()

# prop listings float
test_ing = bpy.props.FloatProperty(default=1.0)

# user prefs panel
def draw(self, context):
    layout = self.layout

    # prop 1
    wm = context.window_manager

    box = layout.box()
    box.prop(wm, 'prop_toggle1', icon='TEXTURE', text='HEADER', expand=False, emboss=True)

    if wm.prop_toggle1:
        box.prop(self, "test_ing", text='TESTING')

    # prop 2
    box = layout.box()
    box.prop(wm, 'prop_toggle2', icon='FILE' , text='HEADER', expand=False, emboss=True)

    if wm.prop_toggle2:
        box.prop(self, "some_folder", text='TESTING')

    # keep adding prop toggles!!!
    # Class registered on __init__.py file


text:
Flat shaded normals, have weird shading artifacts
I've been working in blender for the past 3 years and never encountered something like this. When I set the normal shading for this object to flat, it shows up like this.

I made sure the the faces all had the same normals. I tried shading them smoothly and adding sharp edges, that results in the strange smooth normal shading shown below.

Any help would be appreciated.

I know you said you checked, but could you double and triple check the vertex normals? idk what else it could be.

If object is imported try removing custom imported normals, https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/76513/strange-black-shading-cannot-fully-light-mesh-cycles

Its not imported and I checked the normals again, everything is fine Normals and this doesnt show up on the rest of the model Rest of Model

TL:DR press Set From Faces in the Shading tab of the Tool Shelf.
What's happened is your normals have got bent out of shape in a weird way that the usual Ctrl + N make normals consistent doesn't see as a problem.
They're all facing the right way vis-a-vis inside/outside, but they're all over the place in terms of direction. So you just tell Blender it needs to force all normals to be perpendicular to their corresponding face.
I still have no idea how this problem occurs in the first place, though. It foxed me for a good few days.


text:
Extend strip to current position (or marker) in VSE
What is the name of the action that allows you to extend a strip in the video sequence editor, that can be done by right clicking on the strip handle and dragging the mouse to the desired position?
Where would it be in a menu?
I am looking to create a keyboard shortcut that would allow me to extend a strip in the same way that Shift+S snaps the strip to the current position.

If you select start point of strip instead of full strip, Shift+S will do exactly what you want:


text:
How to deal with bad contiguous edges for 3d printing
I was trying to model my object for 3d-printing and faced this problem. I use 3D Printing Toolbox in Blender v2.79. And checking my object for manifoldness, it shows me that I have Bad Contiguous Edges. I don't know what to do with it.

On this picture, that edges are selected. And 28 Non Manifold Edges are because I haven't used Mirroring yet.

In Edit mode, I pressed A to select all, then Mesh->Normals->Recalculate Inside.
This fixed it for me as my problematic edges were inside a cylinder recess in my object.

Select the face, then in Face Menu / Face Data, click "Reverse UV". That generally happens when a face is made on the wrong side.
Additionally, you will need to use "Mesh / Normals / Recalculate Outside". Seen that with parts of bottom faces detected as top in STL exports (bad color seen in Cura for the example)

Just re-calculate normals(Ctrl+n with everything selected in edit mode). That fixed it for me.


text:
How to access image depth using python
I need to access the Z-Buffer contained in an Image, as well as all RGBA channels. The channels are acessible through image.pixels, but hot to get the Z-Buffer?


text:
How do I initiate a render from Python but still show progress bar and UI updates?
When I run bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True) from Python on large files, Blender goes into "(Not responding)" mode and the CPU spins like crazy for a few minutes. During this time, most users are confused as to what is going on in the application.
When you render manually from the GUI, it shows progress updates and gives the user a generally comfortable feeling that stuff is going on under the hood.
Is there any way to render from Python without freezing up the UI?

You might be interested in this: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/19431/28015.

Thanks but I don't think that will help. My addon already makes heavy use of these, and they don't seem to be relevant to the problem. Am I missing something?

Modal operators do not lock up the Blender UI...AFAIK they are the only way of doing this from a Python add-on.

Perhaps I should've been more clear. If you hit the F12 key, you will see an animation on screen of the scene rendering itself. If I could "hit the F12 key" from Blender Python, that would be great for me.
Modal operators are for more lightweight continuous calculations than rendering.

You are right, but I don't think that there is a way to do that from Python quite so easily. You could start a different process to do the heavy calculations (and avoid the GIL) and use the multiprocessing library in Python to send updates back to the Blender UI by way of a lightweight modal operator.

You can do this by passing the 'execution context'. By default the execute() function is run when calling an operator from a script. If you press the render button from within the UI the invoke() function is run. To do the same from a script you would pass 'INVOKE_DEFAULT' as execution context. So for example bpy.ops.render.render('INVOKE_DEFAULT', animation=False, write_still=True).
See also the Python API docs: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.ops.html#execution-context


text:
Help with understanding the addon enable process in blender
I’m trying to make our add-on work when its enabled from blender starting up (safe as enabled in user prefs). But for some reason this doesn’t work. It works fine when enabled after blender has started.
The add-on is comprised of a package with sub-packages. The parent package at the upper most level has its init file simply import and call register on the sub packages as required by the environment. We have binaries in our package and so the sub-packages contain different builds for different operating systems.
The issue is that the top level init file imports the sub package it needs when it is registered (not when its imported), it then calls the imported packages register method (see package structure and code below).
The problem comes when the package is being loaded at run time, its seems that the package is first imported and then register is run, then unregister is run. This causes an issue since the cr_platform object doesn’t seem to exist when the package is unregistered during the enabling of the add-on at load time of blender.
I wasn’t really expecting the enable process for an add-on to first load then unload and then load the add-on again. I really need to understand this whole process better to be able to either work around the issue or maybe redesign the package if its not compatible? I thought that what I had built didn’t violate anything in the python blender api as far as I can tell.
Help would be most appreciated!!
James
Package structure
top_level of package
    init.py
Darwin
    __init__.py
    bl_2_78
        lib
    bl_2_79
        lib
Linux
    __init__.py
    bl_2_78
        lib
    bl_2_79
        lib
Win64
    __init__.py
    bl_2_78
        lib
    bl_2_79
        lib

### contents of __init__.py at the top level

import bpy, imp, subprocess, sys, os

def select_platform():
    """ checks python/blender versions and sets import paths accordingly
    """

    global cr_platform

    if sys.platform.startswith('darwin'):
        from . import Darwin as cr_platform
    elif sys.platform.startswith('linux'):
        from . import Linux as cr_platform
    elif sys.platform.startswith('win'):
        from . import Win64 as cr_platform
    else:
        raise RuntimeError(" unsupported version of python, you have :"         +\ python_version +" supported versions are 3.5.2 and 3.5.3")

def register():

    select_platform()

    cr_platform.register()

def unregister():

    if 'cr_platform' in locals():

        cr_platform.unregister()

    else:
        raise RuntimeError("could not find the cr_platform while unregistering!")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    register()

As it is now, your code won't run. There is no bl_info dict, so your addon won't even show up to allow activation, and the global cr_platform statement will fail because there is no such variable.
Make sure you post code that actually shows the problem and that we can use to reenact your problem.

Hi Sybren, sorry for the late response, I understand I need to show the full code for troubleshooting. No problem, next time I'll post the entire example. Sorry, for that, a bit new to this.

Also, hitting return/enter seems to post rather than enter a new line, new to that too! ANyway, thanks for the offer of help, I've been in the dungeon working away at this and miraculously fixed it. I removed the call to raise an exception and now it works fine. Though if you can point me in the direction of any resources to learn more about blenders treatment of addons at startup vs after startup, that would ease my mind. For some reason it seems to do something different and I have no idea what that is! :D I like learning though, so feel free to send me in the right direction.

Sharing the full code isn't necessary. It's much better to show us a minimal example that shows your problem. Even creating such a minimal example can sometimes be enough to actually solve the problem.


text:
Why are some sculpt brush thumbnails grayed out?
I just noticed that in Sculpt mode, when you click on the big brush button in the tool shelf to select the brush type, some of the brushes are shown with color and some without color:

First I thought I had messed up my sculpt settings and tried to adjust them so that all brush types are shown with color. But then I saw that the thumbnails look exactly the same in the documentation.
Could it be that there's some deeper reason for the different coloring? Or is this really just some random UI inconsistency?

What do you mean by "grayed out"? The gray color doesn't indicate that they are deactivated. It's just their normal appearance. See https://docs.blender.org/manual/ja/dev/sculpt_paint/sculpting/tools.html

@metaphor_set: "grayed out" may have been an unfortunate word choice. I just mean "without color".


text:
Lazy and right-to-left evaluation in the node tree
As someone with a programming background, here's a fundamental thing about the Cycles node tree I've been thinking about. Let's say you have a node setup like this:

Here we have two computationally intensive shaders, called "Gigantic Shader A" and "Gigantic Shader B", and a Mix Shader is used to switch between them using some black-and-white mask.
In programming terms, this setup can be thought of as an if-else construct, with shader A and B being the two execution branches of the if-else construct.
Now, in basically every sane programming language, the two if-else branches are evaluated "lazily", meaning that either only the first branch or only the second branch is evaluated, depending on whether the if condition evaluates to true or false.
So here are my questions:
(1) Does Cycles have this lazy evaluation optimization as well? More specifically, is Cycles smart enough to figure out that if Fac=0 or Fac=1 in the above Mix Shader, it can completely ignore either shader B or shader A?
(2) If Cycles does have this optimization, then is it also true that the node tree is actually evaluated from right to left, starting at the Material Output node, and not from left to right, as one would naively assume? Because I can't think of any other way to implement lazy evaluation than going from right to left.

When executing shaders, a special optimization is applied to Mix Shader nodes. If Factor evaluates to 0 or 1, any nodes that are only reachable via the unused branch of the mix are not evaluated.
Taken from this page:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/cycles/optimizations/nodes.html
This page also describes how the node tree is evaluated.

Hmm... the page only mentions the Mix Shader under Run-Time Optimizations. So I guess there's no such optimization for the MixRGB node, which can also be used for if-else branching? :-/

@Nam-QuangTran It works with MixRGB node the same. Pls read the link zzubnik provided.

@Jaroslav Jerryno Novotny: I've read the page, and the MixRGB node is indeed mentioned there, but only under "Node Optimizations". This means, in my interpretation, that the MixRGB node is only optimized during the compile-time tree simplication step, not during run-time, unlike the Mix Shader node. Either that, or the run-time section of the documentation is incomplete.

@Nam-QuangTran The tree is evaluated and optimized before every frame that renders. The MixRGB node would change values in single frame time-frame only when motion-blur sub-sampling. I'd have to check the source code or test to see if there is a difference in sub-sampling, I doubt it. Maybe it's only the documentation wording like you say.


text:
Why are some material nodes connected to themselves?
Here's a small thing I've been wondering about for a while: Occasionally, when I import models from other sources (e.g. 3ds Max -> FBX -> Blender), I see in the Node Editor some nodes which are apparently connected to themselves. Like so:

Can somebody explain what's up with that? How is this self-connection useful? How can I do it in Blender?

The node is not connected to itself, it is muted. You do that to a node by pressing M. The red line indicates a "pass-through" - the input goes straight to output and the node is disabled.
I would guess the script that creates the node network always makes the full tree and just mutes the nodes that are not used in the original material, like normal mapping in this case.

Wow, muting nodes is really useful :-D

Oh, that's right. A node connected to itself would show the connection line a bit differently. That would be wrong. Muted nodes make a lot more sense.


text:
Cycles Material + WeightPaint + Drawing
Is it possible to assign a shader or texture to certain parts on the mesh where the weightpaint was drawn? just like we would use it with particles + weight paint?

Nevermind!
This is typical, search for an answer, found nothing.
Post in stackexchange, found the answer immediately..
Here is it described what i was looking for!


text:
Playback in Video Sequencer is too fast
When I hit play animation (alt A) from the video sequencer, the video plays at about three times the normal speed (even though it says it's playing at 60 fps it's really playing much faster.  any ideas?

Sometimes a screen recording will have a variable frame rate and Blender cannot decompress it correctly. Try converting to a Blender friendly Codec.


text:
Pipe the render output via command line interface
How can I pipe the render output via command line interface? I mean normally we are rendering and saving the render output as a PNG image file with this command:
blender --background untitled.blend --render-output //test_ --render-format PNG --use-extension 1 --render-frame 1

But I want to pipe the output to a let's say imagehandler program like this:
blender --background untitled.blend --render-frame 1 | imagehandler

in reality, I'm aiming to create a command like this:
pqiv -c -i < blender --background untitled.blend --render-frame 1

pqiv is an image viewer, you can install it with apt-get install pqiv
It supports creating fully transparent window so this is why I'm trying to pipe the output to pqiv.
Eventually, my goal is displaying the rendered image on the screen as soon as it's rendered.
P.S. A solution with either piping or redirecting the output OR displaying the image directly using a feature of Blender is acceptable.

Would a solution that waits for blender to finish the render, then close it and launch pqiv, work? In a Unix shell it should be as easy as blender <options> && pqiv -c -i //test/<render_name>.png

@NicolaSap actually I want to stream the rendered outputs. File open/close process would slow down my program. I want to create a video like effect at the end of day. Do you have any idea?

No, sorry, I'm not aware of any way of taking the bitmap information directly from blender without writing/reading to hard drive


text:
Why do vertices sometimes not dissapear when I try to delete them?
I'm working on a simple mesh and I'm trying to delete a vertex.
I've selected in Edit & Wiremesh mode by right-clicking. then hitting X - V which is Delete -> Vertices.
When I select groups sometimes all but one vertex is deleted.
The vertex isn't covered by any other mesh or object in the scene; Hidden or visible.
Does anyone know why repeatedly attempting to delete a vertex would fail? I can select and attempt to delete it and then afterward it's still visually there in the mesh BUT I can no longer select it.

Can you share screenshots of this issue?


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How to bake light into a model?
I'm making a building and baking AO into the texture.
I wonder if it's possible to place lights into the model, and baking them also into the texture?

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/82140/bake-lights-lamps-to-vertex-color/82153#82153

Whatever you bake, is just a texture, an image.  Though, you can use that texture, apply it onto a mesh and set the shader to Emission, for a lighting effect.


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Modeling With Single Reference
My question is? how to model this kinda complex model with single reference? and its rotated about 20degrees that even more harder, any pro tip,advice, help will be highly appreciated

Hi. It might be useful to state what current problem you are having/think you will have using a single reference.

Its hard model this kinda complex stuff with rotated angle, not back, front ,left, right, so how to start modeling the right way this kind model? how to match right proportions?

Hello :). I'd break it down into separate objects first. Starting with the tiny simple lights where the proportions are clear... and then modeling more complex shapes. To get the right view angle, the FSpy addon might help.

First of all you have to guess how the back, bottom and part of the top look.
As far as proportions go, a box in orthographic projection at 20 degrees means that it projects about 93% of actual length of the front and 34% of the side. I asked a question here and got the answer for all the angles of a plane rotated in one axis.

As a note the vertical stays at actual length and only the horizontal is shrinking. From the lines I measured, the side distance distance between the points is 2.15 times greater the the front one. However, it’s necessary to understand the form. For example, the back of the side is occluded, and the limit of the back is closer then that of the contour.
If you are dealing with more complex angles, I gave an answer here about how to approach proportions. Hope this brief answer helps.


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Complex hierarchy - show selected object in outliner
I have a file with assets that we bought for some game. They are organized in "groups" - parented to empty objects. There are many many of these "groups" with another "groups" inside of them. How do I find where the object is?
Fastest way I found is to select all the elements by hand in viewport and then in outliner use Search - Selected, unparent objects so they're outside of groups.
Clicking all the elements by hand is the main issue though. I'd like to select a building for example, and have it automatically selected in outliner so it's easy to select other elements grouped with it in outliner instead of selecting in viewport.
Photoshop does what I like - when object I click is in group, Layers panel opens this group and focuses view on that object layer. It should be like that in Blender imo. :< Any plugin for that or simple workaround?

It is already selected in the Outliner when you select an object in the viewport. You can press Numpad . to show active while you hover your mouse over the Outliner.


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2.80 - Coordinates of child show as global
I can't find any solution to this problem online. It seems like everyone says children position should be displayed relative to parent. This is what I need.
Here's an example with cubes. Parent cube (bottom) is at 4,0,0. Left is at 2,0,0, Right is at 6,0,0. How do I make transform coords to display relative to parent (left -2,0,0; right 2,0,0)?
This is the most recent 2.80 build. I had same issue in some early April build.

I should add that if I grab parent cube and move it somewhere else, the child cubes still display 2,0,0 and 6,0,0, despite the fact that they're not at these global locations and not at these parent relative locations.

How did you create child cubes? Did you move them after parenting? What location were they located at when parented?

Try alt-p clear parent inverse.


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Selection not visible
I'm working on a project in Blender 2.8. Somehow after importing a few OBJ into the scene (not sure if it's related), my selection outlines etc disappeared. On the attached picture I'm in edit mode and the 2 stretched polygons are selected. They should be orange, but they're not. Selection outline also doesn't work in other modes. In viewport shading outline is set on. Is there any other place where I could've turned it off by mistake?

Visibility options are on the upper right corner, near the wireframe/solid/lookdev/render view icons. Look at them.

You disabled Display overlays.
To enable Overlays you can use Alt-Shift-Z by default.


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How to change hair color along absolute value of hair strand length?
I know what I can get using "Hair Info" node's "Intercept" value with "Color Ramp" node. The thing is, it's really unrealistic when I have hair of various length. I want melanin value to be affected by total hair length value, not it's % to simulate hair that are burned brighter with sun. Is there any trick to do that? Like somehow intercepting only the longest hair value and using it for every strand?

how to make this happen: you need Geometry node -> separate RGB -> Map Range -> ColorRamp -> output.

Sorry, but it's not. It's mapped to Z axis of the whole object and that's it, it's not mapped to hair length.

I figured it out. You gotta multiply the Intercept and Length from the Curves Info (and maybe multiply that value to change the scale of the values to be the right size), and plug that into the Color Ramp. Then the result should be able to be seen in Cycles rendering.


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Blender weird error
So recently in blender I've been getting this message anytime I use this s3py plugin to import an object to make poses for the sims 3 game. I know you might tell me to contact the creator of the plugin but they are no longer active anymore. Does anyone know what this error might mean? This randomly starting happening. I tried deleting the plugin and reinstalling it, but I get the same message. I tried to downgrade my blender  version since it was made for 2.67b (I'm currently running 2.79c) but my computer isn't compatible with it anymore (well it won't open anymore.) Again everything used to work fine and I've been running it on 2.79c for a while now, this is just something new

From where did you get the "2.79c"? There have never been such release

You are trying to install an old addon with a new Blender & Python version. Either use the old Blender & Python version, or contact the authors requesting an update of their addon.

The error happens because shutil.abspath(path) was deprecated in 2014. os.path.abspath(path) should be used instead. The script was apparently written for an older version of python that still included that function in shutil, which matches your description that the add-on was developed for Blender 2.67.

thanks for letting me know! its weird that it would be happening now since I've been using the plugin with blender 2.79 for quite a while now. Would there be a way for me to somehow edit the script to make it compatible with my version

@AGTvSeries you can edit the script, however there may be more to update than just that line. Perhaps this bug was in a code branch that wasn't usually executed?


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White and black lines on sculpt
I'm having an issue where these white and black lines are showing up along the edges of tris in my sculpt. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Thank you, that was exactly the fix!


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Python: to check if a point in space is exactly on the surface of any mesh
I am wondering if there is a way to check if a give point (x y z) in a scene lies on the surface of any mesh object in that scene using Python script?
I mean, the point should lie on the mesh surface, not inside (maybe not exactly should be close enough if exact accuracy is impossible). So if the scene contains 1 cylinder of radius 1 centered at the origin, then the origin is not counted, but the points (1, 0, 0) or (0, 1, 0) are.

I'd better make it clear, it is not inside but on a mesh...

It does indeed sound like a different problem, not a duplicate, though not sure if the same method may be used to solve this problem.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos, I think https://docs.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_74_5/bpy.types.Object.html?highlight=closest%20point#bpy.types.Object.closest_point_on_mesh given in the answer is a solution for this question also

For all purposes, this closest_point_on_mesh may be costly. So you can check objects' bounding before

Do you mean the ray_cast method on the given link? Thanks for your suggestion anyway

The solution for the dupe is effectively the same, the key is raycasting in both these cases. The first paragraph of the answer where it details the results of that method provide all the info needed (it returns the intersecting fact and point of intersection).


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Repetitive carvings/holes around a sphere
I'm doing a spherical electromagnetic motor and I need to design a main ball fully covered of circular holes (all of the same size) so I put the neodymium magnets inside them. The sphere is going to be made on a 3D printer.
I just started with Blender but I think I will manage to make the circular carving but I do not know how to make it all around the ball.

Have a look at http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/56542/15543 in reverse, ie extrude in instead of out.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/67334/how-to-turn-my-honeycomb-pattern-into-the-sphere

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5856/cutting-a-circular-hole-in-a-hollow-cylinder-without-distorting https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/28103/creating-a-truck-exhaust-mesh/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/226729/torus-pipe-joint-3d-printing https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/51233/perforated-plate/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/65395/repetitive-carving-holes-around-sphere https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/58811/grid-similar-to-a-manhole-cover https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/30996/is-there-an-easy-way-to-

You may do it by beveling the Ico Sphere and using the Solidify and Edge Split modifiers.

Add an Ico Sphere with 3 subdivisions.

Enable face selection mode, press A in Edit Mode to select the whole mesh. Now press Ctrl+B and drag the mouse outwards to bevel it. Select one of the hexagons, go to Select-->Select Similar-->Polygon Sides. Delete selected hexagons with X-->Only Faces.

Add Solidify Modifier and increase its Thickness value. Add the Subsurf Modifier below and give it some subdivisions. Apply the Solidify Modifier.

Add the Edge Split Modifier above Subsurf and set its split angle to 80 degrees (you may experiment with value for optimal result though).

Apply the modifiers and smooth the mesh in the Edit panel of the Tool Shelf (T).

EDIT: After @wchargin 's remark I experimented a bit and tried to solve it in another way.
Added an Ico Sphere with 3 subs, poked it with Alt+P and then beveled some vertices (Ctrl+B, V).

Now the holes have much more dense geometry, which I hope may let them create perfect circles after subdividing.

Yeah, good idea. Note, however, that these won't converge to perfect circles, in case that matters (e.g., if this is for a model to be 3D printed).

Your question is about subdividing a square. In this case it's hexagon, wich creates almost perfect circle after subdividing.

Closer, yes, but still not precise. At twelve subdivisions of a unit hexagon, the maximum radius is 0.83333, the mean radius is 0.83155, and the minimum radius is 0.82994. After this many iterations, I would be surprised if this were a convergence issue. Of course, these tolerances of ~0.5% are unlikely to matter for most hobbyist parts.

@wchargin Good point friend. I've added an edit to my answer, which shows another solution. Please check it out.


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How to spin vertex
Today I tried to make some ugly models. My choice fell on this tutorial.
At 5:10 the author spins the vertex. But in my case I got this

I tried to transform this vertex to mesh (don't ask me why, just i'm newbie) but it doesn't help.
All is fine if using Screw modifier but why I can't  produce moreover the same result with the Spin tool. It looks so mystically:

Here is my blender file
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_-tV3odolwlSVVWeXpGOGVZd0k

Welcome to Blender.SE! I think it's just a matter of setting the right parameter for the tool in the Tool Panel (in the bottom left, or press F6). Could you aupdate the first image showing them?

If I understand you right, it's done.

The Spin tool is view dependant.. you can notice that the tutorial author enters top ortho view before spinning. Another way to adjust the axis around which the spin happens is in the operator options as @Carlo mentioned.

Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/24496/how-can-i-create-a-profile-and-rotate-it-to-create-a-mesh-using-blender-2-72

Today with a fresh mind I got the point. The thing is that need stupidly select all points by pressing a and then use Spin Tool by Alt+r,  then all is fine. By the way, center of rotation determined by 3D cursor.
These thing's is simple, isn't it? But I faced with this problems, so I think that this information can be useful.

You could add an array-modifier and put the offset based on object, what should be an empty with set rotation and translation.
This is the hint: http://blender-tutorial.de/blender-tutorial-teil-21-der-array-modifier-5380/

I don't know what is exactly meaning of 'spin the vertices', but you can just simply rotate the vertices to press R.
If you want to rotate the object,

Select Object mode on bottom of the screen. (You can do this to press Tab too.)
Press A to select your object
Press R and rotate as you want it.

I hope this would be helpful to you.

You'have got me wrong, i trying to make a glass with spin tool

authors: ภควดี เตชพาหพงษ์


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Does Blender internal render have limited gains from using better hardware?
I have a plan to rent a powerful computer for an animation project to make Blender Internal rendering faster. But I heard that Internal won´t get significantly faster (at least not at the same scale as Cycles). Is it truth?
My computer: Intel Core i7-2600 CPU 3,40 GHz / 12GB Ram / NVIDIA GeForce GT 440


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Doubled image while projecting video on surface
I created plane, I did't modify it. Then created material, and texture, selected video as texture. And I got video forked into two parts by diagonal.

Please show your UV Map.

Perhaps you forgot to unwrap the mesh.
Tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tovu1A0LxeQ
In edit mode Unwrap your plane.  Select all vertices before you Unwrap.
Your UV Mapping appears incorrect.
Perform the UV Map again.  Have exactly 1 UV Map.
The time required for this is 88 seconds or less.
BSE and famous video websites have information on the topics of
Blender UV Map and Blender Unwrap.
By searching you can find a tutorial on those topics if necessary.

Post a new question please.  The video link is part of a series.  Search that series please for your topic tutorial.  And you can delete your comment immediately above.


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Take current rotation or coordinates as zero?
Let's say I have object rotated at 19 degrees and I want to keep current rotation, but I need to see 0 in rotation field.

You can use the 'Apply' function to apply the current location, rotation or scale to make that the new 'zero' by pressing Ctrl+A and selecting the element you want to apply.


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Why object doesn't emit light?
I followed this tutorial. Rechecked, but still no light on a surface from emitting object.
Here is properties of the emitting object and the world:

@Ashok you right, it works, thank you very much.

I created new project and it works now, seems to be just Blender's glitch.

Try unchecking Indirect lighting and set Gather to Raytrace.

Any reason for the downvote?

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review

@batFINGER: I made it simple for you. You happy?

And is batFINGER a human or some crude bot? It sounds like one. I DIDN'T ask for clarification.

The message above is generated by review.  I  didn't downvote.  Your answer came up as "Low Quality in the review" IMO it's borderline, I went the way of delete as it could be a comment, Try A or B... rather than A does this B does that to give the result you want.   Others need to vote for it to be a fate  de compli .. oh and is crude human an option.

Lukasz, I just tried what I was trying to do works now somehow, I created new project, probably it was Blender's glitch. Your solution gives emitting light on another object but it loses color of the emitter (just white light). (I didn't downvote either)


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Why puddles instead of water flow?
I was following this tutorial.
I created:

circle as water source,
pool,
domain.

I selected Cycles Render;
Objects have following settings:
water circle: fluid type - Inflow, Volume - Shell, y = 1;
pool: fluid type - Obstacle, Volume - Shell;
domain: fluid type - Domain;
I pressed Bake, waited till it finish and got shaking puddles during play.

Here is my project: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pFP8xoK48LCwkeW36FYCCsEpdY7qOjPH

Also make sure the face of the circle is oriented so that it matches the axis of the inflow velocity.

From your screenshot it appears that your 'inflow' object is just a plain circle with no faces. This will result in only a very small inflow of fluid since it is the faces (shell) or the volume that contribute to the flow.
The simplest solution will be to select your circle inflow object, go into Edit mode (Tab), select all (A) and press F to add a face. If you now bake your fluid simulation you should have a proper flow of fluid rather than just intermittent drips.

I had to set type=Inflow for circle, somehow it changed.

Adjust the inflow velocity on your water circle. That controls the waterflow. Moving from 0 to 0.4 increased from dripping to flow.

I had to set type=Inflow for circle, somehow it changed. Thanks.


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Artifacts after triangulation, while shading not affected
https://youtu.be/MzkKPdss7cw
Here's a video of the issue. As you can see, in Solid viewport mode everything works as expected. I'm using Fixed triangulation, which is what Blender seems to be doing by default. Shading is not affected whether triangulation is ON or OFF. As soon as I switch to Material Preview (or Render), my normal map becomes relevant and... Something breaks. You can see there's no custom split normals data. No double verts, only tris and quads. Does anyone have ideas what's going on? I need to triangulate before exporting, cause I use it in UE and triangulation method is different there. I can't bake normals AFTER triangulation either, cause I'm baking from Multires. Applying triangulation to multires'ed object messes it up.

Try the "Keep Normals" checkbox on the modifier.

I tried, forgot to mention, no difference.

I'm pretty sure the answer is simply that this is an expected behavior. The normal map was baked for quads, not for  tris. Despite both triangulated and base mesh looking the same in Solid shading, normal data is not identical between them.
The question now is how useful is baking from multires then. I don't expect many people to use multires AFTER triangulation. Working on a triangulated topology is not easily readable. And, as I said, triangulating multiresed object messes it up. It would probably be good enough if I didn't use creases in the multires, but there seems to be no way of applying creases as deformation.


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Is there a way to force a single frame update before rendering (as animation frame)?
I'm having issues with my complex armature. It's caused by some drivers being calculated before constraints, some after. There are no circular dependencies, but for example there are drivers depending on bone's Y scale, while the bone uses "Stretch To" constraint. When I change frame in viewport, some drivers only update a fraction of a second later, when the frame preview updates again. This is a no-issue for rendering stills, but when I render animations, some drivers lag 1 frame behind as frames get rendered before recalculating these drivers. A simple solution for it would be to force one more frame update before rendering it.

Does this happen if you save the animation as individual png files? If it's ok, you could then reassemble it from the png files in the video sequencer and save in the video format you need.

@JohnEason I always save it as png files. I don't see how it could make a difference anyway, Blender wouldn't just start updating frames more times before starting a render only because I changed the way it's saved.

Did you try writing a python script? Which simply renders still images in a loop for all frames?

@Chris No, I did not, I don't know python. Anyway, wouldn't that just be the same? Unless some additional frame update is coded in.


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Single sided materials - export to obj with backface culling
I'm creating a 3D-model of a traffic sign for a simulation software.
The problem is, that within the simulation I get some strange texture errors:

From the simulation-tool-support I got this response:

Your faces seem to be coplanar and double-sided. Make sure they have
  proper single-side modeling and that the normals point into the right
  direction.

In the screenshot you can see, that the normals look right, and the faces are not two sided:

How can I create a material, which is only visible from one side?
The model is exported using the obj format and is then converted to flt using osgconv.

This looks like Z-fighting. Make sure there aren't any mesh faces in the same spot as textured are before exporting. See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5441/cause-of-black-artifacts-in-render

Material properties are not exported, this is a modelling issue, the send to be overlapping faces in that area


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Retopology question
so I am new to this whole retopology thing and I don't know if this is a good topology for the underside of an octopus. It would be great to get some feedback from people! :)

Is it causing any issues? Are you satisfied with the result? If yes then it is a good topology for you. Unless you state a specific goal this is an opinion based question.

Your mesh has a lot of edge loops, is it necessary?
Actually it depends on what you want. If you want a lot of details like bumps and irregularities, you'll need this amount of edge loops, if you want something smooth, you don't need as many edge loops and you can delete a lot of them.
It will also depend on the armature that you'll put inside if it happens.
However, whatever you do, it looks like you could delete some edge loops in the centre. Also, perhaps some parts like the skin between the tentacles could be improved...
You can also keep a low poly version of your mesh, then create a high poly, sculpt the high poly (with the sculpt tools or just by pulling the vertices), then create a Normal map from the high poly that you'll use on the low poly material to artificially simulate bumps and details.

Yeah, I was going for more of smooth, I might do bumps later, but to get smooth curves of the tentacles, I wonder how many loops are required?

I guess you must try, delete some edge loops and look what happens, if it doesn't change your tentacle a way you don't want, it means that the edge is useless


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Slice surface mesh with polygon
I would like to cut a shape out of a surface mesh using a polygon.
The "Knife Project" function isn't working for me, as it changes the size of the polygon.  When it projects the polygon down onto the surface mesh, it increases the size of the polygon by some amount, depending on how far away my viewpoint is.
In this example, I want to project the polygon directly downwards, such that the polygon that is cut is exactly the same as the polygon that I started with.
I would also like to discard the outside of the cut, not the inside.  I.e. I'm not trying to cut a hole, I'm trying to trim off edges.
The surface mesh is a topography, and I want to trim off the edges according to a polygon that defines where the edges should be.

Have you tried the boolean modifier?

It is possible that the increase in size is due to perspective projection. Try going to orthographic mode before doing it.

Possible duplicate of Cut out surplus material Particularly point 4 of the answer

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/50538/how-to-cut-an-object-along-a-curve

Thank you!  Switching the view from perspective to orthographic solved my problem.

@OmarAhmad would you like to upgrade that to an answer (If not, I can)? I think that in terms of people using this site from a search engine, they would have a much better experience if this question were answered itself, with the answer focusing on the use of orthographic perspective, rather than just being closed as duplicate.

@GiantCowFilms Sure, will do.

The reason why your polygon cut is larger than that of the original polygon is that you are performing the Knife Projection in perspective view. To make sure it maintains its scale, switch to orthographic view.
This can be explained as follows. If one want to Kinfe Project a circle onto a plane, the perspective projection of the circle is related to the field angle or focal length and the position of the camera as shown in the figure below. On the other hand, orthogonal projection is performed regardless of the position of the camera or any other property, also shown in the figure below. So, the scale of the perspective projection is directly proportional to the field angle while it is always constant in orthogonal projection.


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Object animated early, before rigid body collision occurs
I am practicing my blender-fu by doing a (supposedly) simple animation of a bowling ball hitting some bowling pins. I have set up my objects. I have checked the settings and all the pins appear to have the same settings.
I have not baked anything yet. But I did try "Cache - Delete all bakes' as suggested in https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/208086/49849.
When I start the animation, the head pin starts to fly back as if it had been hit by something. Interestingly, the other pins behave as expected.
My current workspace, set on frame 2:

What is happening and how can I fix it?

Since your pins have holes at the bottom, I think you should not use mesh shape, it may cause some intersections in physics, which tells blender to throw pin away. Change it to Convex Hull, and remove collision.

After that, I noted that pin doesn't  throw  away, but gently falls down.
I found that it is because it sits directly over the edge, so I moved it a little bit, and the problem was gone. Not sure about what, maybe it is a bug.

Moving the line back half a foot did solve the problem. I had not intended to use the mesh and it was showing up as convex when I did my side by side comparison so there may have been a slight bug in the data too.

Your lead pin does not have the same settings.  It does not have rigid body physics; it has collision only (which doesn't interact with rigid body physics, by the way.)  It has, in some way, acquired a cache that makes it move.  Apparently, a few other pins have as well (pins with RB rather than collision.)  Something is bugged, but it's hard to say what from your file.
The easiest way to fix that pin is to delete it and then duplicate an existing pin and move it into place.
If you have any, you will probably have to delete your rigid body bake.  It's not necessary to rebake again until you render.  Deleting the lead pin appears to delete the hidden cache for any other objects acting according to that cache.

Funny, not sure how I missed the collision modifier. And the 'mesh setting' because I did direct comparisons - unless something did go buggy with the file at that point in time.


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Blender 4 not saving all rendered layers
I have created two layers (for light/shadow management), and enabled rendering in the Layers tab. each layer has Alpha background.
I am using the Compositor to add the images together before
When I render a frame (F12), the desired result is shown in the viewer (both as rendered image and the viewer image). However, the saved file (PNG) is missing the second layer - in other words it does not reflect the results from the viewer/composite nodes.
Saving as JPG works as intended. But does not allow a transparent background.
What is happening here?
Blender 4.0, Cycles, GPU Compute. This is my compositor node set:

pls provide blend file, thx

The problem here is the Mix Color node. The first Image input provides not only the colors, but also the alpha mask of the image. The second image input provides colors which are, in your case with the node set to Add, added on top of the other colors or whatever method you have chosen.
However, this operation does not add/merge the alpha channels. So basically your first image has the color black wherever it is transparent. Colors of the second image get added to this black, but in the result they are still transparent. The color is not lost in the PNG though, as the following example shows: a cube over a plane, with the cube being plugged in the first Image input. The second is the plane added to it. The PNG only shows the cube, but when I go into e.g. Photoshop and say "layer mask > from transparency" you can see in the screenshot below that the image has both cube and plane on a black background (just as it would look like when saved as JPG), but the mask is only showing the cube - i.e. the original alpha channel of the first layer.

So, first the more complicated way to get those two layers together:
If you want to combine two layers and for some reason have to add them together (maybe because you have overlapping parts and want to add the colors in that area), you have to use either a second Mix Color node or even better though, since the alpha channel is just float values from 0 to 1, a Math node to combine the alpha channels of both images. Then you need a Set Alpha node with Mode: > Replace Alpha to give the combined image a new alpha channel.
The way you combine them depends on what result you want to achieve or if the opaque parts are overlapping or not. For the Mix Color node you could for example use Add like you do for the images or maybe Lighten. For a Math node of course Add would work as well or Maximum for example.

Now for the simple way:
The method above is just how you do it if you insist on adding the layers together. Usually to put a layer with transparent background over another (no matter if the underlying layer has transparency or not) you would use the Alpha Over node. This node respects the alpha channels of both inputs and combines them automatically. You have a Factor as well, there you could for example even plug in an alpha mask if the image you want to overlay has no transparent areas.

The reason the Mix Color works like this is quite simple: it mixes only the color channels. In almost all parts of Blender where you can set colors, setting the Alpha value to anything below 1 will have absolutely no effect.
But apart from your case this might well be desired. As you can see in the next example, I have rendered an image with transparency (the cube and plane now in one layer), the objects just have a neutral white/light grey. Then I add a colorful image to it and there is no need for masking the color image to preserve transprency, the color will not affect the transparent background (well, technically the colors are added to black, but they won't show in the PNG).

By the way, in your Viewer node the result might look correct (also in my example above where the color seems to be everywhere), but this is mostly due to the fact that the background is quite dark and it does not show a checker texture to indicate transparency. Looking at the Composite in the Image Editor you can see a checker texture through the colors:

FYI, I fixed it using the Alpha Over method.


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What's the difference between the Subdivision Surface modifier and the edit mode->RMB->Subdivide option?
Sorry for the newbie question.
I'm following the famous donut tutorial for blender 2.8.
When I press the apply button for the subdivision surface modifier to the torus it makes more vertices + faces for the donut. However, when I press the subdivide option after selecting all vertices of the donut in edit mode, it seems like it's also making more vertices + faces for the donut.
Are these two options interchangeable?
Thanks in advance!

Hello :). When the modifier is set to Simple, they are indeed interchangeable. The modifier also offers Catmull-Clark subdivision which works differently.

"Modifiers are automatic operations that affect an object’s geometry in a non-destructive way. With modifiers, you can perform many effects automatically that would otherwise be too tedious to do manually (such as subdivision surfaces) and without affecting the base geometry of your object."
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/modifiers/introduction.html
If you want to preserve the mesh for ease of use, Modifiers are the way to go. if you don't care about it they are not that different except more options before applying the modifier

Simple answer!
Subdividing is a destructive work flow. Which means u cannot undo what is done.
Whereas in subdivision surface modifier, it gives us liberty to undo, redo, increase or decrease subdivision.
I prefer using modifier. It makes the life lot simpler.


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How do I fix the shading

The cloth looks funky. I don't know how to fix that. Help! The more I subdivide the plane, the more I lag so Thats not an option here.

You may have a duplicate cloth or faces causing Z Fighting. Also, in your SubSurf Modifier the View is set to one and the Render to six. So you are not  previewing what the final render would be. In general 2 or maybe 3 would be adequate.

@dontwalk That  is the rendered version of it. How do i remove the duplicate?

If it is a duplicate Object in Object Mode select it and press "X" do delete it. If it has duplicate vertices/faces in Edit Mode try "Remove Doubles" or select one Vertex and press CTRL + L to select Linked Vertices and then press "X".

Does your 'cloth' mesh have thickness (a separate front and back surface)? Your overlapping geometry could be the result of two layers of cloth intersecting each other. This could be resolved by adding self-collision (but that would make the calculations more intensive and might not actually help). Alternatively, ensure your cloth is only a flat plane with no thickness. Also - as already mentioned - use the arrows in the Modifier stack to move the Cloth modifier above the subdivision; this way the cloth works on a simpler mesh and the result is sub-divided rather than the other way around.

You just might move cloth simulation over sur-sub modifier.


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Big white circle for point light
I am trying to add a point light inside a lamp. Here is a snap of my node editor (for the glass):

But everytime I put the point light inside of the glass material, a big white spot forms.

I tried removing the reflection node and the transparent node but the white circle still doesn't go away. When I try putting other lamps, like the sun or hemi, the white dot doesn't appear. I want to keep the point light though because it illuminates better.Please help!

The reason it's a big white dot is because the Point light size defaults to 10cm:

The only way to get "rid" of the dot is to make the point light smaller (which makes the dot smaller), but then you'll have to crank up the Strength to compensate.  If you crank it up too much you'll probably get a ton of fireflies.
The hard edges of the dot are because your glass has a roughness of 0.  If you set the roughness a little higher the edges of the dot will get softer.
What I would actually recommend is to model a light bulb (or candle flame) for your lamp, and set it to have an Emission texture.  I think that'll give you the best results in the end.

That's the Point Lamp. It is invisible but it has to be reflected in glossy surfaces and it is visible to transmission rays so you see it through glass as well. You could turn off visibility for glossy and transmission rays in object's properties:

however this will defeat the purpose of the lamp as it will no longer illuminate glossy surfaces.
You can also make it smaller by adjusting the size property:

Keep in mind that very small light sources cause fireflies and more noise in renders.
I would recommend simulating the actual light source that would actually be visible in reality - that way it will not look weird.

haha, we must've been typing at the same time.


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Light from hdri sky box not reflecting on object

Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Yes. There is something that you are doing wrong - that is certain. However without you providing more information and/or the .blend file it is impossble to say with certainty what exactly it is.

sorry about the small photo this was the biggest it could be that stack exchange would accept

The screenshot is fine. It is very difficult to understand your problem as you have not provided information about how you ended up in this situation. It seems as if the object's materials did not have anything connected to their material output nodes, however surely that would be the first thing you would check before asking the question, wouldn't it? There is a number of other possibilities that would be clear to most people who decided to try to help you in literally 5 to 10 seconds after opening the .blend file. That is if you shared it of course.


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How to create a solid stream of liquid?

I'm new to blender and I want to create more things with the fluid simulation but it's not coming out like a faucet, instead it comes out in these globs is there a way to change this?
P.S: I also noticed that whenever I increase the resolution of the final the amount of liquid that comes out of the inflow decreases is there also a way to fix this?

The resolution is too low. You could either scale up the inflow object or increase the resolution of the simulation.

It looks like your inflow Mesh is just a circle?
I think you maybe should use a Sphere. Another Way to achieve more water is to increase the "inicial Velocity" of your Inflow Object.


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How do I wrap my vertices to the mesh?
 I want to shrink these floating vertices to my mesh for superior editing accuracy but I can't figure out how. Any help would be appreciated.

Have you tried the Shrinkwrap modifier and did it work well? It often needs some vertice adjustements

I already have it applied in the picture and all it did was push down my jumpsuit mesh over the character I modeled but the other vertices stayed floating over it. Do I need to add a vertice group?

do you mean the shoulder vertices don't wrap well? perhaps share your file, it will be easier to understand what you want...

I found what I was looking for. The button I needed was "adjust edit cage." It bought down my "edit cage (which I couldn't figure the name of, making this question more confusing)" down to the jumpsuit mesh. See pic below for the button I used.

oh ok, The Adjust Edit Cage is just a Display option, but if that's what you wanted, great!   ;)

You have to uncheck the Invert Vertex Group Influence button so that the modifier can interact with the vertices. You must have enabled it by mistake. It allows to inverse the influence of the modifier when you choose a vertex group, and as you didn't choose any vertex group it considered the whole mesh as non active.

But that basically undoes the shrinkwrap and brings the mesh out to my vertices. I don't want to bring my mesh UP to my vertices I want my vertices to go DOWN to the mesh. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RmVJh-EK4CIh6M4OWF4h9mLDkMtDGy9n/view?usp=sharing

To elaborate here is an image.  https://postimg.cc/image/p97vl2xyj/ I want to retain the shrinkwrap without vertice group selected on the left but I want to flatten my vertices on the mesh like the right but without raising up my mesh. I hope that makes sense.

I don't understand what you want, shrinkwrap is made to bring your cloth mesh down to your character mesh, this is what happens with the basic settings of the modifier, sometimes you must make some adjustments or play with the Offset. If you click on  Invert Vertex Group Influence, while you haven't chosen any vertex group, nothing will happen.

I still don't understand, if you want a part of your cloth not to stick to the character, select this part, assign it a vertex group name in the Vertex Group menu, then go back to your modifier, select this group and click the Invert button: now all the mesh of your cloth will wrap around the body except this group. You can change its weight in Weight Paint mode or with the Weight factor under the Vertex Group menu


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How to move pole target without moving child?
I've been trying to move the elbow without moving the lower arm that it is connected to. I had to move it this far off to get the chain back to the starting position before I gave it the pole arm and it rotated.
Help?

You need to move it only in plane defined by 3 points of the pole, shoulder and the wrist - more on this here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19754/how-to-set-calculate-pole-angle-of-ik-constraint-so-the-chain-does-not-move

I have seen that answer, but didn't quite understand it. I was hoping for another solution or explanation.


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Make character and plane interact in pose mode?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fOs4cfkD9Pmj4wb4plDLNib-LdbA9WnN/view?usp=sharing
Attached is my file. I have my rigid body constraints set up so that when I press play it sort of... kind of interacts with it? The character clips through the plane until the calve legs, then collides, and that's one problem.
But what I want to figure out is, how do I make my character collide with the plane in pose mode? I'm trying to make a running cycle and want the feet to stop and bend at it when they touch instead of clipping through. Any help?

In pose mode you manually position a bone at a certain position at a specific frame. With physics simulations like rigid body, the simulation positions items over time.
You cannot use physics to control a bone while you are manually positioning it in pose mode. You need to visually position the bones while creating keyframes, this is often best done from the camera view to ensure the desired visual result.
You can bake a physics simulation into keyframes and then manually adjust some of the generated keyframes.
You cannot mix keyframe animation and simulations at the same time, you use one or the other. Some physics can be turned on and off at specific keyframes allowing you to use both at different times during the animation. This is commonly used to animate an initial velocity of an item at the time the physics begins.


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Blender mesh transparent in UE4
Hi I'm having a problem with this mesh of mine. It's a relatively simple object, but it keeps appearing as transparent in UE4. I think it has something to do with normal but I'm not sure what exactly. I have already tried recalculating the normal and flipping the normals, but it just keeps appearing the same to no avail.

Game engines usually render only one side of the faces. Use the solidify modifier to add thickness to your mesh.

This worked. Thank you.


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Can't select a mesh
So I am making a character with two articles of "clothing" on him. In object mode I can select the clothing meshes but I can't select him unless I right click him on the outliner and select which is getting really old.
How do I fix this?

Does this answer your question? Blender won't select the object I want to select

I right clicked and scrolled down to "toggle selectable" and now I can select it.
Derp.


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How to lock the position of one of my bones?
I want to move some of my bones without moving the entire rig. Is there a way to do this without unparenting the bones?

Maybe you should explain more precisely what is your case. But for example, you could unparent your bone in Edit mode, then in Pose mode, give it a Child Of constraint (press the Set Inverse button to keep the bone at its original position). When you'll need the child bone to be unparented, you'll simply create 2 Influence value keyframes: at frame X-1 you'll keyframe an Influence of 1, and at frame X you'll keyframe an Influence of 0.


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X-Mirror on weight paint doesn't work
I've heard that x-mirror option is supposed to mirror the weight paint that I do on one side to the other. But it isn't working with my mesh for some reason, it still only paints on side at a time. Any help why?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1neePPk9PlKjhpp8AIbUOF94m1KHws7hX/view?usp=sharing

The mesh is not a perfect mirror so it can't find the opposite side. You could try to use the "Topology mirror" option and see it that helps.

Thank you. I presume its because of the book item on his back. Could it also be because the bones on the right side shoulder and arms are slightly rotated compared to the ones on the left? That's another problem I had when trying to duplicate to the other side

The bone rotation is probably unrelated but when rigging you need to take control over the bone roll and not leave that to chance. Use Recalculate Roll and make sure that your rotational axises match up. It will be horrible to animate if you don't.

You should also make sure that your origin is in the right position. Don't assume that centre of weight will get it right. The mesh object shouldn't have any scaling done to it when rigging.

Thank you for the help again. I found that the easier solution was to right click on all my left side selected bones, right click, then symmetrize. Must be a new option in 2.8, I don't remember it being in 2.79. However, no we're back to square 1. I removed the object that was making my mesh uneven, and everything I've worked on on the mesh was done in mirror, then applied. However I'm still not getting the proper x-mirror results.


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How do I start a second animation in the blend file?
so I know I can create an animation and save it with a fake user in the dope sheet, but how do I start a second animation so I can save that as well?

In the action editor click on the x near the action's name then click on new.

or simply click on new  ;)


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How to combine UVs?
I have finished unwrapping my mesh and have everything laid out in the UV editor. My mesh is identical on both sides so I'm trying to see if there's a way I can combine the identical UVs by 'laying them on top of' one another or something. I recall seeing a video where the person did this, but I can't find it now.

Delete one side of the mesh then add a Mirror modifier to recreate the deleted geometry.
Apply the modifier and you will find the UV islands of one side stacked perfectly above the UV islands of the other side.


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Boolean not working not sure why
I can't figure this out. My geometry is about as simple as it gets, a solidified cube with some extrusions to make a building. I have no doubles, my normals are all facing outward, I have no nonmanifold geometry. I placed the boolean modifier on a cube to have it cut through the building but it still isn't working, any help would be appreciated. Below is my file.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ni3dds2R7q9e4eNVVJBpxgr0tjf7Rck8/view?usp=sharing

The geometry of "Destructor Rrrr Cube" object is not cube, the bounds box is just displayed. Select Textured in the Display As pull down menu instead of Bounds.


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dissapearing geometry with scrolling
How do I remove or at least lesson the cutoff geometry problems arrizing with my camera and the geometry I'm currently working at scale of centimeters for exporting into unreal to keep proportions as my assets though are at 10' right now

It looks like you need to adjust your camera clipping distance.
Select your camera and change the clipping end until you can see the full geometry.

If that doesn't work it's likely that you changed your viewport clipping.
In the viewport press 'N' to open up the side bar. Under 'View' edit the clipping distance as shown above.
You can change the clipping based on centimeters by changing the unit preset to centimeter. This can be done under the 'Scene tab':


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why are my meshes looking the way they do
please help this is bugging me a ton it looks so weird and i need this for class tommorow.

there isnt any overlapping faces so i have no idea also its not in wireframe
it looks worse the farther i go out but even up close it looks really bad.

It may help to edit your .blend file into your question using http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/     It does look like overlapping faces though.

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1385/shadows-along-edges-of-mesh-in-3d-view and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/34245/edit-mode-transparent-objects. Looks like z-fighting

It looks like overlapping faces to me, I've had this a lot of times. Try going to the tools bar in Edit Mode and look for "Remove Doubles". If it doesn't help, I don't know what to do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


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Weird scaling constraint on 3d model in edit mode
so im in edit mode with my model however when I select a face and try to scale it it scales the model not just the face please help?

Make sure that proportional editing is turned off or disabled

ty this fixed the problem


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How can I make the materials for this toon fluid simulation?
While browsing through toon style shaders on youtube, I came across this cartoon fluid test. I am pretty sure it is an emission shader, but I don't know exactly how to make it. This was originally made in Blender. I could not find any tutorials on it, so I came here. I just want to know the material; I can make the fluid simulation.
Original Video: https://youtu.be/fzB70vwoJoM

Answers with an image of the node setup would be highly appreciated. Thx!

This material is actually very easy to setup with cycles. Blender has a layer weight node which has a facing output. This output will give a material that ranges from black to white, based on how much the point on the object is facing the camera. Black is facing the camera, white is facing away (at least perpendicular to the camera). The default output is a significant gradient though, but you can add a colorramp after to make it just black and white by using the constant interpolation mode. Then you just have to adjust the white slider until it looks right. Once you have that you can use it as the factor for a mix node that mixes two emission shaders.
Here is the node setup for reference:

I didn't have any good fluid simulations on hand to test the material on, but on a subdivided Suzanne model it looks like this:


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How to prevent Subdivision Surface from changing the size of a loop
I modelled this hole but when I turn SS on, it becomes too small. Adding geometry around it isnt an option, since I want everything to be as smooth as possible. Scaling it up doesnt work, because this destroys the "normal" geometry.

You can rotate the hole 45° or create an hexagon: the diamond shape generate a smaller hole than the square/hexagon ones.

add geometry around it but space it out properly. it'll be smooth as you want it with the right topology.

For me it still becomes that small, I even tried it with pure support loops, but this only resulted in a hard edge around the hole

screen shot of the unsmoothed? It should be the more geo you add, the more like the end shape it looks.

Additionally, for there to be a hard edge from your support loops means your support loops are going in the wrong direction.


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Switching ctrl and cmd on MacOs
Is there a way to switch the control and cmd keys while working with blender? The short-cuts bacome kind of inconvenient, because I am used to work on windows

You can change it in the user preferences in the left corner by clicking on File then User Preferences. From the window that opens choose the Input tab and then change the keyboard shortcut for the desired key. Then you are done.
You can get the pdf for keyboard shortcuts. It's a simple keyboard shortcut PDF and may help you in future.

if you got problems you can ask.


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Making a clean cut out of a sphere
I want to cut a specific (but not very complicated) shape out of a sphere like so:

But the result is always bad looking due to tris and close proximity vertices.  The best I can get is using Edge Split:

Is there a way to get a clean result?  I've looked elsewhere and saw some people mention that this needs some manual work - how do I put in the manual work to make it look better?  I don't mind since my shapes are generally quite simple.

You will need to use exactly same method: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/96342/how-to-save-curve-shape-of-cylinder-with-such-deform/96344#96344 Don't use boolean, just manually place vertices in any shape you want.

Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=salpctjEdAA

Relared https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/66942/how-would-you-model-a-sphere-with-a-shell-like-object

Also related: Best way to make smooth UV sphere with hole through it


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How to make a pear shaped setting for a stone
I found this ring online and I really want to build it in Blender.
I got the basic shape and the little diamond on top but I cannot manage to make the setting for the green pear shaped stone. :( I also tried taking the outer edge of the stone and extruding it but I cannot manage with those prongs.
If you have any advice please let me know :D I'm sure it would help me allot]1[]2

Your question isn't really clear. What do you have done so far?

@R.M's answer is good for the stone.  For the setting, here's an approach.

In Edit Mode, select a horizontal edge loop of that stone (Alt + Click), e.g. the bottom edge.
Duplicate it (Shift + D), then split it into a new object (P).
Go into Object Mode, select that new object, and convert it into a curve (Alt + C > Convert to Curve from Mesh/Text).
In Edit mode, in the Curve Data tab, set a bevel.  Under Fill in the Shape section, chose Full.  Under Bevel in the Geometry section, set a depth (e.g. .05) and a resolution (e.g. 2) you like.
Now go back into Object mode.  You can scale the curve along the Z axis to make it more "band" like (or do this after you've converted to mesh).  Next, convert the curve back into a mesh.  You now have a band you can further edit and duplicate to make the top part of the setting.  You might want to give it a subsurf.
To make the vertical prongs, go through a similar process.  Working with the gem object in Edit Mode, select three vertical edges that are in the positions you want, duplicate them, split into a new object.  Convert the new object to a curve, bevel it, then convert to mesh.
You will need to edit these posts to make the tips bend inwards and to fill the caps, that will need to be done with reference to the gem object so they touch appropriately.  Hopefully this part is something you can do without a step by step.

Sorry for the unclear question, basically I haven't done anything regarding the two stones. I just had too many problems, I just need the setting for it.
Thank you so much @risingfall! :D It's actually a genius method, I wouldn't have thought of turning it into a curve...

Here's how I would create the basic shape:
Create a cylinder:

Select a side edge. Enable proportional editin with falloff mode Sharp. Move the edge to get this:

Select the top face. Bevel it (ControlB) to get this:

Now, we need to add that triangular look. To do this, Poke the faces (AltP), and set a small Poke offset:

Here's my result (I used a simple glass shader):

Possible improvements:

You could create some embellishments on the sides to make them more detailed
The top face could have some "triangulation", too
You could make the shader more accurate by researching the properties of the stone you want to emulate (like the IOR and exact color). A volume absorption shader also would make it more accurate.

Thank you! But I just ended up using the jewelcraft add-on for the stone, since I couldn't make it as a real stone would look like using this method.


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How can I make this surface in blender...?

How can I make a surface like this....? I made this using nurbs in maya. Please Help. Thank You :)

There is basic support of NURBs surfaces in Blender. Basic is the keyword here. Check docs for detailed information about them: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/surfaces/introduction.html

In this example I've started with Surface NURBs Curve (marked as 1., red color) after moving and subdividing to achieve desired shape I've Duplicate it and made its reflection on X axis - S>X>-1. Than I've selected both Curves and made a segment - F. After some more tweaking individual vertices, subdividing surface and selecting Endpoint on V this is a result.
Also I've added Subdivision Surface Modifier.
In conclusion, it is possible, but it's really painful in Blender as it is lacking many mesh modeling tools. Read the docs and maybe you will be happy with them.


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How to remove lines from wireframe...?
I made a surface and added a wireframe modifier on top of that. I want to remove just horizontal lines from the mesh. How can I do that..? Please help. I have highlighted it in the picture below.

An option is to use Freestyle line rendering where you can mark the edges you want.

I think that the easiest solution would be to remove wireframe modifier from this mesh,duplicate and separate from it edges, that you want to be thicker and add the wireframe modifier to this new mesh.


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In Animation Nodes, is it possible to make a node to translate position of the UV's of an instance?
I've been trying to find if it is possible to, using some sort of code in animation nodes, translate the position of a texture or the UV mapping to create a bunch of objects with different textures to cut down the amount of work I have to do (at this point I probably would've been done by doing the copy object data method, but I would've had to manually make about 70 some odd materials and cut an object into the same number).
What I was hoping to do was create a list of textures (barring that, a list of coordinate offsets) that would change the texture inside of a shader node instance.
In newnodes' Shader Node Controller I can't seem to control the mapping node (getting the data path of the x/y position of texture comes back as not existing). I also can't control what the name of the texture going into the shader is either.

I got silly and tried to use Texture Input node to send color to a node that had color as an input in some form, but that just got a single color rather than the whole image.
I assume I would need to make my own script node for this?  Or is there anything else I may have missed.  And is there any documentation about setting up a script node?  I probably need to read more into coding in blender python in general to work with this.
I realize the brute force method to do this simply is to either make my 70+ materials and 70+ objects and copy object data over the instances or even use the mix shader method of setting up the texture mapping for each image in my atlas and use a boolean for all of the values.  I'm just trying to find out if there is any way to make this process simpler and easier to update as needed.
As far as I've read Animation Nodes and Sverchok aren't exactly meant for working with textures specifically, but it was something I got curious about while undertaking this small side project.

You can use Extra-Property option (in N-panel, which gives all nodes of a material) of Shader Controller Node to access "translation" input of mapping node and same with the Image Texture Node. Another thing is, you can read/write/translate/etc UVs with UV Map Data Input/Output nodes, I have recently added new nodes for them. Do you want to assign different textures to different objects or each object has unique texture?

@3DSinghVFX i'm trying to figure out any solution that will work really.  If I can use an individual texture that'd probably be an easier to update solution.  I was getting ready to try to place everything on a single texture and cut up a large polygon but if there is a way to avoid that I'm all for it.
Is there somewhere with more detailed info about these nodes?  I don't seem to see any documentation on how to use them properly.
I don't know how to use the Extra-Property option to access what I'm after.

Actually... where does Extra-Property give all the nodes of a material?  All I see in the N panel is the fact that it's there.  Connecting a viewer node only tells me it's a shader node tree with no additional information

I just noticed, the version of animation nodes that I had installed didn't have those UV nodes in them.  After doing a manual install of the nodes from the repository, I found that this works for what I was trying to set up before with making a large texture atlas and moving the UV.  I am still curious about the shader node controller situation though, as I still need to make instances of the materials per object instance to be able to change another property aside the texture (which fortunately I do have working).
Ideally I'd like to use the mapping node for a way to ignore the UVs

I think it is easier to control one texture for multiple materials just by offsetting the coordinates. You can learn more about Extra-Nodes from https://www.youtube.com/3DSinghVFX

Note: I have replaced the Shader Controller Node (no longer supported) by new Material Attribute Input/Output Nodes, so I have updated this answer.
=============================
Method-1: Offsetting the coordinate in Mapping Node of single texture for different materials:
Here, I have made a simple example to use Material Attribute Input/Output Nodes. These nodes are work similar to Object Attribute Input/Output Nodes,
A simple shader Node-tree:

AN Node-tree for one object:

Now, for multiple objects: I have instanced a cube (with deep copy) and a material then assign them to individual objects by using Object Material Output node in a Loop Node. Then use the same setup of Material Attribute Output Node (mentioned above) to offset coordinates of Mapping Node with Random float node. However, you can use own coordinate list to offset them:

Method-1 Blend File:

=============================
Method-2: Assigning different textures to different materials: In this method, we need a small script which loads a texture from the specified folder then assign to a material. Here is the script:
import bpy

try:
    bpy.data.materials[material.name].node_tree.nodes['Image Texture'].image = bpy.data.images[image]
except:
    filepath = path + image
    newImage = bpy.data.images.load(filepath)
    bpy.data.materials[material.name].node_tree.nodes['Image Texture'].image = newImage

and in AN, I have used Script Node to use the script,

This script needs three inputs: material, the path to the image folder, and name of the image. Because, we have multiple images, so we going to use Loop Node, here is the setup:

Now, for multiple objects: I have instanced a cube (with deep copy) and a material then assign them to individual objects by using Object Material Output node in a Loop Node. Then use the above setup to assign different textures for different materials,

Method-2 Blend File:

=============================

Thanks.  This is exactly what I needed.  I don't think the setup method for extra properties was in the video but I did watch it before.  The image does look familiar though.  Maybe I had seen another video about the node and missed the setup process.

Actually, this node is still in development due to some changes in Blender API. I'll refine the structure of this node for easy and better usage when the Blender API (mainly for shader nodes) finalized :)

Update on the situation, well - the method would have worked fine but the image I need to make for an atlas of all the images I'm using is causing some sort of error where sections of the image around the corners are not being loaded (the image is around 7k in size).  Not sure why it's happening.  Unfortunately it renders the mapping option out.
Problem 2:  accessing the image name of the shader node simply renames the image rather than loading a different one, so my other option is out.
Looks like I have to do this all manually.

I have tested with 4k image, offsetting the coordinates in mapping node is working. Maybe there is some other problem. I'll update the question for your second problem soon. I want to mention that I have replaced the Shader Controller Node by Material Attribute Input/Output Nodes which are more easy to use.

i think the problem was with blender as i was just setting up a UV map to move around at the time when I discovered the problem.  Not sure what the cause is as I've never come across it before.  Good to hear about material attribute nodes.  I think for now I can get by with cutting up the atlas and making 70 materials which I can offset with mapping.  I was trying to drive as much of the project as I could via a Text Block filled with all the information (file names, a struct for sorting which also gave me problems, offset amounts etc).

Okay. I'll include this in my answer.

@Haledire I have updated the answer with the use of new Material Attribute Nodes to offset the coordinates  (Method-1) and use of Script Node to assign different textures to different materials (Method-2). I have attached the blend files :)

Thanks, the script works perfectly!  I can finally deal with the more data driven parts of the project.  I had a feeling I was going to wind up needing a script node in the end, but I have no idea how to make such a script, so this helps me out a lot.

One last thing as i'm just covering bases - but is there any crash potential from rendering with this? I ask because for whatever reason when I try to render the project i'm doing, it immediately crashes and i'm not sure what the reason is (too many instances? i'm using about 70 * 7 or so elements but i'd done a project with smaller images of 108 x 4 and never experienced a problem)
Might try to grab 2.81 tomorrow and see if it's still seeing an issue, but just checking if there's anything I should know.  Could just be the render size for all I know.

Feel free to ask any question :) This a bug that may be related to Blender (you can read more about this https://github.com/JacquesLucke/animation_nodes/issues/1200).   However, with a script, you can render the animation as images sequence without any crash: https://blenderartists.org/t/animation-nodes/622676/3415, note, set the output path without any blank space :)


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My imported blender building in unity has loads with missing walls!
I have the frame of a building in blender, I imported it as a .fbx file and it comes out with missing walls! How do I fix this?!?!

The problem is probably that your normals are flipped the wrong way, Unity doesn't render normals that aren't facing a camera. In your blender file. In edit mode go to mesh Normals and it can flip and recalculate your object normals there. The face or faces have to be selected for the tool to work.
I hope that helps, others have had this problem too.


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Metaballs are different colors in sculpt mode
I created a few metaballs and used boolean to combine them with another mesh.

The dark purple is what were the metaballs. They are one object, but a different color from the fingers I connected to them. Already checked the normals, they're all flipped outside. And there are no materials.

Maybe it's a face sets color? Try header menu > Face Sets > Init Face Sets > By Loose Parts.

Do you have a question?

Your solution worked @moonbots, thanks.

I had the same issue, try turning on (Dyntopo) it worked for me.
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