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Why is my texture atlas dark and messed up?
I have been messing with the texture atlas tool  a couple of times, and it has really helped me out and worked perfectly until today. When I tried baking the texture atlas, it didn't come out right. It is very dark and has some black spots that look like letters or numbers. Here is the product

and the image is as shown here

I made sure I selected all the objects I wanted to combine into a single image and that the combined object was the last/active one. I selected no unwrap because I had already dont that. My baking options are as follows:

I was able to tell that it didn't bake all the objects right as some were cut off or lost their aspect ratio so to say. Any ideas?

Uncheck both Direct and Indirect in pass baking options, they are including shadow information which you don't want in diffuse map. For some objects cut off try increasing Ray Distance to something like 0.1 (in Blender units)

@MrZak thank you, the lightning is fixed, but its still a bit messed up/distorted as you can see here link edit: it works great! thank you so much for your help! everything is perfect now


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Bleeding/Seams on AO Bake
The undershadow of the ruffle here is showing through the top. I get a lot of these black lines that show up.

Is there anything I can do to fix this when baking an AO?
(the unwrap on the left is.. ruffles at the top and shirt with shadows below it)

Looks like you have intersecting or non-manifold geometry and the problem are aliased edges. There is no way to bake the AO with anti-aliased intersecting edges, that is not yet supported.
There are 3 option:

get rid of the intersections (or non-manifold sections)
bake a much much higher resolution and then downscale the texture
go over those edges with paintbrush and fix them manually

Thanks, thats helpful. I think my best bet in this case is to go over with a paintbrush. Cheers!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How do I hide an object from the camera but keep the shadow in Blender Internal?
I can do it in Cycles but I don't know how to do it in Blender Internal. I'm using Blender 2.79 btw.

Well, there seems to be this 'Cast Only' in the object's material settings, which seems to do the trick:

But why use internal, I just wonder...

Thank you very much. I use an old laptop.  And the rendering in the blender internal runs quickly on my laptop.

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


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using makehuman how do i attach multiple bvh files to a make human character?
I need a good tutorial on attaching bvh to human mesh made with make human, I am using the game rig bones as skeleton in the figure. I have successfully rigged 1 bvh file to a model and animated it so that is cool!
I need to know, can many animations be put into one skeleton like old unreal PSK's or are many individual animated models each with single animation used to animate a player character's actions all kept in an invisble box attached to character etc...
any help is appreciated I have been using Blender3d for a week and like the results!

has this anything to do with the Blender game engine (as you tagged it as that)?

Yes it has anything to do with the game engine. I am using the game engine to build player character models and a game around them of course. do you know anything about this or are you just probing?

I'm asking as this is a pure Blender task. The BGE does not care about makehuman. As far as I know you need to import bvh and turn them into actions to be used within the BGE. To answer your question (indirectly) you can have several different actions played at a single skeleton as long as at least one bone name matches an animation channel name.

Thank you for responding, That gives me something to research. I am never sure how much info to blurt out and will write a wall of text if not careful, so I am glad you get what I was asking, thank you again.

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


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How to wrap a complex object with one continuous image?
I'm hoping I'm not repeating a previous thread but I'm having a really tough time finding the right solution. I'd like to wrap an image (like an entire photo) around the surface of an object so that there are no breaks in the image or seams.
This is an example of what I'd like to achieve:

But every tutorial I've seen I have to unwrap the object, which then creates all of these seams and breaks up the image. And when I tried texturing painting it the image gets distorted. How can I maintain a smooth wrap of the image?
Thanks, guys!

Hello and welcome to BSE. A question: do you want to paint on your model or do you want to use an existing image on wrap your model on it?

@lemon Sorry for the late response. I haven't had much time to play with my model recently. I want to use an existing image to wrap a model. the issue I'm having is that it is meant to look like a continuous, smooth, unbroken wrap around the model. @ Mentalist suggested using the "stencil brush mapping" which so far seems like what I'm looking for. Unless you have another suggestion?

@lemon perhaps to clarify a little better, the skull image with the flowers maybe isn't the best example. Let's say I had an image of a house that i wanted to wrap around the skull. I don't want the image to look like it was sliced up and kind of pasted back onto the skull. i want it to look like the entire house was simply wrapped onto the skull, like shrinkwrapping (but I believe in Blender shrinkwrapping means fitting a 3D object onto another 3D object?)

The idea can be to start from a planar surface with the image on it and to deform the plane to surround the skull, then project it. That can work or not as you wish and that will deform the image a bit

@lemon to clarify, are you suggesting to shrinkwrap the planar surface onto the skull or deform the planar surface to that it's kind of like a dome around the skull. If the latter is the case then you're saying to do like a "projection mapping" from the planar surface onto the skull? I actually have coming across that in my research so i just want to clarify. Thanks!

What you're describing is UV Mapping. You need to create seams and unwrap a map of the 3D object. That doesn't mean the seams need to be visible. You can texture paint right over the seams and they won't show.
Image files are 2D, and this is why we must do this.
In the following screen shot, notice how I have painted green over a seam in Texture Paint Mode and on the 3D model it appears to be seamless? The break in continuity occurs on the 2D image instead, which you can see below.

Here's a .blend file of the screen shot if you want to examine it further.

You might be thinking "that's fine if you're painting, but what about photo textures?" There's a solution for that too. You can use "Stencil" Brush Mapping to paint an image onto your mesh (onto its texture, really), and also use the Clone Brush to blend the image across the seams.
Here is an example of how stenciling and cloning can be used to paint photo textures onto your 3D objects:

This is the result of just a couple of minutes spent playing around, so you can imagine the possibilities.

thanks for the quick response. That seems like what I'm looking for. I guess the issue I'm having is with the complexity of my object. I'm using a skull like this link and it's been a struggle to cleanly unwrap it and understand how the pieces fit together. Perhaps I'm just being too impatient? I won't be able to try your solution for a couple days but i will definitely give it a go and report back!

I've been playing around with the stencil a bit and it seems like what I'm looking for. I guess I just need to work on finessing and fine-tuning my unwrapping and stencil'ing skills. Thanks for the help!

Nice, glad it's working out for you. :-) There's tons of info on both those subjects on Blender Stack Exchange, YouTube, etc. Keep exploring and practicing and you'll get comfortable with it.


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Is it possible to make a property update other nodes like a link update does?
I'm trying to make neural network in Blender nodes, and I'm currently stuck on getting the entire NodeTree to update after manually changing an input value.

Is it at all possible to manually update the entire tree without pulling on a socket/updating a link?

Hey cool project. Any way to get more info about that?

@Teck-freak I gave up on using Blender and started writing my own node-based language in C++ (https://github.com/LAK132/NetworkMaker). That said, the Blender version was nearly functional and I could upload it to GitHub if there is any interest in it

There is. Definitly. :-) And thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

@Teck-freak https://github.com/LAK132/BPy-NN

Looks like I forgot to add the update parameter in the custom property:
#Custom properties are basically a struct, you can have any number of built in (bpy) datatypes defined here:
weight= FloatProperty(default = 1.0) #no update triggered
value = FloatProperty(default = 1.0, update=uda) #update triggered

Additionally the node socket needed to have it's update callback initialised
def init(self, context):
    self.inputs.new("SynapseSocket", "Value 1").callback(self.name, "uda")

For anyone else that manages to stumble across this problem, see my previous question as well: Alternative update callback for PointerProperty?


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What is Node's socket_value_update function for?
I am attempting to create a custom node, but I can't figure out how to get it to call some kind of update callback when an input is updated. I would have expected the input sockets to trigger socket_value_update when they updated, but apparently they don't. What is socket_value_update for then? How do I get my inputs to trigger an update callback?

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


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How do you export a .blend group
I've built a model in one project and want to import it into another. I see .blend files with groups that other people made. You click in the .group, get the item and you're all good to go. .. There don't seem to be any instructions anywhere on how to get it to make a group.. I don't want to export to unity or cad or anything like that - just simply move a model from one blender file to another. This must be possible. Any idea on the settings?

So you just want to move one object from one file to another?

what you need is either File > Link (Ctrl + Alt + O) or File > Append (Shift + F1).
with Link, you can import anything from A.blend to B.blend: objects, materials, etc. - but you can't edit the imports inside B.blend. however, any changes made inside A.blend to whatever was Linked, will propagate through the Link and reflect on B.blend.
Append is the opposite of that. you import a COPY which you can edit and there's no edit-propagation from A.blend to B.blend. hope this helps :]

The ~.blend file you wish to import must first include a group, which you create in your original project file, by any of the normal means of creating a group: selecting the elements you want in the group, and selecting the menu item Object > Group > Make Group when the viewport is in object mode, or using the defined shortcut key for this, CTRL-G, or alternatively by using the "add to Group" options under the Group pane in the "object properties" tab of the properties editor. If a group is defined in the file you are wanting to append or link from, when you select the append or link option in the files menu, after selecting the file, you will see in the list of items you can append or link, a listing for "group". Select this, and select the desired group, just as you would another data type, e.g., object, mesh, or material.


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How to I make faces opaque on the inside?
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but whenever I make progress on buildings and other such things I'm designing in Blender, the view changes itself so that whenever I look at an object from the inside, everything becomes invisible, but whenever I see it from the outside, it's opaque. This is so irritating. Does anybody know how I can fix this annoying problem? Look at these two images that demonstrate it. I've switched between solid and texture, and that still doesn't fix the problem. enter image description here

Do a search for "Backface Culling" and also "Flip Normals".

.....-----.....-----

You can apply solidify modifier to the walls and give the thickness as required.

You want the wall be visible from both outside and inside? If yes, do what j.akshat suggested.
If you only want the wall be seen from inside, select those faces, CTRL+N and in the tool window (in the left) tick the box that says Inside

Deactive Backface culling under Shading settings in Properties panel


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Is it possible to place objects in hierarchies so that object names can be retained during copy?
Is it possible to create Blender objects into a group, so that the object names that are part of the group are contained within the hierarchy?
Perhaps another way to ask the question, is there some way to put object names into a hierarchy and not have all object names at the global scope?
Here is a small example of the question:

In the picture, the objects have the following parent-child relationships:
    Plane
      |-- Text.plane
      |-- Cube.A
      |     |-- Text.cubeA
      |
      |-- Cube.B
            |-- Text.cubeB

the desired outcome is be able to copy parent "Plane" as a top-level object, but its children are copy unchanged (inside the hierarchy) and we end up with object names like this:
Plane                     Plane.001
  |-- Text.plane             |-- Text.plane
  |                          |
  |-- Cube.A                 |-- Cube.A
  |     |-- Text.cubeA       |     |-- Text.cubeA
  |                          |
  |-- Cube.B                 |-- Cube.B
        |-- Text.cubeB       |     |-- Text.cubeB

Why would you want to do this "hierarchal copy"?
Well imagine that the original "Plane" object and its children were all fitted out with logic bricks that controlled color, animation, etc.  And, all of the control of these changes was activated by message sensors.  The messages are organized so that an outside controller makes changes by sending all change messages to the top-level object "Plane".  If the message is meant for a child, then "Plane" simply passes it on down.
If one is able to do the "hiearchy copy", then every child object and child object name, including logic bricks and their contents, can be copied unchanged, and the new "Plane.001" object can be controlled exactly like the original "Plane" object.
If one simply copies a parent object now, each object within the parent-child group is given a new object name at the global scope (by adding ".001"), like this:
    Plane                     Plane.001
      |-- Text.plane             |-- Text.plane.001
      |                          |
      |-- Cube.A                 |-- Cube.A.001
      |     |-- Text.cubeA       |     |-- Text.cubeA.001
      |                          |
      |-- Cube.B                 |-- Cube.B.001
            |-- Text.cubeB             |-- Text.cubeB.001

This requires that all logic bricks be updated manually with the new names, since the copied bricks will continue to point to the original object names.
The other type of group duplication I have found called "group instance" is also insufficent, since the copied group does not create new objects that can be independently controlled.
(Given the "Class" nature of Python, seems like "hierarchal copy" ought to be feasible.  Am I really asking how to create a "Plane" Class and then how to instantiate copies of "Plane"?)

I understand you want for this feature, but nope not possible. It is just how blender handles datablocks.


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GPU Compute crashes while rendering but rendered mode works fine
I am a 16 year old. I am new to this community as well as blender. When I was rendering today, I encountered a strange problem. When I try to render the below given scene using GPU COMPUTE it crashes, but GPU COMPUTE works absolutely fine in rendered mode. When I render using CPU, its all right. When I check my gpu stats in MSI AFTERBURNER,everything is fine. No temp throttling, No memory Bottleneck(only 2gb of vram was used out of 4gb).
My Computer Specifications are :-

CPU :- AMD RYZEN 1600
RAM :- Corsair 16gb ddr4 3000mhz
GPU :- RX 480 4gb(Crimson 17.7.2)
HDD :- Two 7200rpm drives
MOBO :- Gigabyte GA-AB350 Gaming 3(BIOS :- F7a)
MY Problem is clearly shown in this video

And also, I Found that the GPU COMPUTE works fine in very simple renders (like the startup file render)
Any help from this community will be deeply appreciated.

Maybe it is a bug with the GPU you are using. AMD graphics cards support on Blender cycles still quite new. It has been introduced a few versions back.

I've got the exact same issue with same symptoms but with a AMD R9 290, and YES there is something strange here.
Blender was crashing because some of my materials were using the NORMAL MAP node. I had to delete the normal map nodes from my materials so it wasn't crashing anymore. Detaching them didn't help. Also, even if the material was not assigned to any object, it was still crashing.
BTW, I'm using 2.78, before looking for the origin of my issue, I tried to render using Blender 2.79rc2 and the bleeding edge 2.80, it was still crashing (maybe for other reasons uh ? but still crashing)
So, if some of your materials use the normal map node, try to delete these nodes.
Someone have the same issue here in this post from blenderartists.org, it seems like other nodes make cycle crash when using openCL with AMD cards.

Why is my answer getting downvoted to death ? Please guys, if you downvote, leave a comment telling why.


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Finding out what makes your file size big?
Is there a way to see exactly which objects/textures/etc in my scene take up the most memory? My scenes often get rather big, bigger than I feel they should be, and rendering them obviously then tends to take quite some time.
So is there a way to see what uses the most data/memory?
Thanks.
(I'm not at liberty to share these files.)

Hi, your files are not needed, imho. Have you sen this https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/72098/is-there-an-easy-way-to-see-what-is-consuming-the-most-memory ?

Also https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/67630/blender-2-78-file-size-grows-and-does-never-shrink

A real answer to this question would be really nice.  So far the best I can find is to "delete randomly and check file size". https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/45665/33487

I second the comment from @SephReed about a "real answer."   "Delete objects and check again" isn't very helpful.


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Display hair thickness in solid view?
Is it possible to display the thickness of hair particles in solid view mode, for ease of work, or do I have to regularly switch to the rendered view to check? Thanks.

I don't think Blender supports drawing particle thickness in the viewport, as far as I know.


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Different hdri mapping values per camera
I was wondering if it's possible to create a connection between mapping values for an hdri and the different cameras in a scene.
For example: in a scene with a building I want to make a render of the front and one of the back. If the front camera is active the hdri would have a 0° rotation, and if the back camera is active it would have a 180° rotation.

You can keyframe HDRI position and render each camera at different points in time, you can also use a single camera and animate both its position and background mapping in sync. You may also setup different scenes with the same objects but different world shaders

Or use a driver for the coordinates of the HDR so that the position of the camera determines the rotation.


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Make arrayed object properly follow/fit curve
For my arch viz projects I regularly need to place curbstones in various ways along streets, driveways, etc. Right now I have to place them all by hand and can only use the array (and curve) modifier for straight stretches or very wide bends. You can see in the first image below how Blender handles arrayed objects on shorter stretches and smaller bends (afaik).
So my question is if there's a way/modifier/addon/etc for blender to handle this kind of operation smarter. I know increasing the geometry of the curbstone partly solves this, but it still results in weird shapes and corners etc because Blender insists on using the whole model (see image 2). Ideally I want to be able to draw 1 continuous path and then have blender "logically" place and cut the curbstones along it.
Thanks!


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How to make objects follow an elevated curve yet stand straight?
For a project I need to model a railing that follows a spiral staircase. I wanted to use a curve for this, but the poles always stand perpendicular to the curve. I want them to stand straight. (I used a random curve for the tests below.)

I had found a promising workaround using "instancing" (see: https://blenderartists.org/t/how-to-use-array-modifer-curve-to-create-landscape-and-fence/1202336). However, this seems to only work for perfectly symmetrical objects like round pillars because it doesn't seem to rotate the objects at all, making them all face the same way. I have to use a base model that requires alignment with the path in the Z-axis. (I realise I'm better off doing the handrail seperately)

Any help will be sincerely appreciated. If anyone knows of any solutions or addons please let me know, because the lack of options in Blender's array modifier is growing more and more frustrating..

if you're not afraid to get into Animation Nodes, they have an option to place objects along a path, you'll have complete control on what else to do with the objects.

@FrederikSteinmetz you're talking about the addon?

it was possible in 2.7 with Dupliframe and you could give a Limit Rotation constraint on the Z axis, but I'm not sure it's possible in 2.8

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/152476/how-can-i-make-the-railing-follow-the-curve-on-these-stairs?r=SearchResults

@ no-can-do, I'm not sure that's what TomTr wants, he wants the duplications to rotate on the Z axis along the curve, it doesn't seem to be the case with Lemon's solution

Vanilla Blender can do it perfectly fine!
I found a bug which we can abuse to get the wanted effect ;)
The setup is incredible simple as well. Just make your curve with your array and curve modifier like normal. Then it obviously is not looking like what we would want, but then notice what happens if you scale the curve object in object mode.
To get the wanted effect, just scale the curve in object mode along the z axis to 100 or 1000 of its height. Then go into edit mode and reduce the height by scaling with 0.01/0.001 respectively. This is the result:

EDIT:
In my first test Tilt needed to always be 0.0, but further testing showed, you sometimes need sligthly different Tilt values, but I'm not sure why. That will solve your deformation issue though.
If you only use flat bezier handles (scaled to 0 on the z axis) a tilt of 0.0 everywhere is perfectly fine.

I upvoted your reply because it is an interesting hack, but I won't accept it as an answer (yet) since this solution also drastically deforms the higher objects in the array.

I updated my answer so you should be able to make it work.

btw, the best answer might be to ditch Curves completely and go with array, vertex weight edit and displace, but as explicitly stated you want curves, this is as close as it gets.

This was done using vanilla Blender (vers 2.77a).
(Blend file below)

Hint - save EVERY stage of your work as a separate file until it's done.
Detail -
Add a tower. (vertical cylinder)
Make a spiral curve.  This will be the outer edge of the ramp so it's circumference has to be larger than the tower's.
Duplicate the curve and store it in layer 10 (?) for safety.
Add a curve -> circle and scale it to be the same diameter as the spiral.
Add a vertical cylinder (6 sides) and scale it down to the diameter needed for the vertical railing poles.
Scale it up high enough to span the tower's height, plus a few feet.
Array the pole around the curve so it also fills it.

Duplicate the spiral curve and bevel it with a curve->rectangle.  (A plane without a face and converted to a curve with ALT-C will do the same thing)
You should see square ducting spiraling around the tower with the arrayed poles protruding up through the ducting.

Use the Boolean modifier on the poles, naming the 'ducting' as the object.  Experiment with all 3 options to see which cuts the poles so they form a spiraled guard-railing around the tower, albeit as yet, disconnected.  ("union" did it for me)
Duplicate the spiral curve again and bevel it with a circle this time. (6 sides)  This will make the horizontal cylindrical railing for the top and bottom of the poles.  Convert that to mesh and duplicate it, raise or lower the copy to sit at the other end of the poles.
The ramp -
Duplicate the spiral again and convert that to mesh (ALT-C).
In Edit mode select all vertices and extrude (E), scale the new vertices inward so they penetrate the tower.
Note - Disable the scaling Z axis with SH-Z so the ramp remains horizontal when scaled inward.
Adjust the ramp's height to match the bottom of the poles and lower railing.
When all is scaled and positioned correctly, the result should be as in the 1st pic above.
It would probably pay to parent all components to the tower, and after, disable their selection in the Outliner, so they don't get inadvertently selected.  Move the tower to drag it about as a single model.


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Kill hair particles that go over plane
I am using a hair particle system to scatter grass around. However, the models being used for the grass are already bunches of grass themselves, meaning they are considerably wider than the "original hairs" and which causes them to go over the edge of the plane where I'm using them.
My question is rather obvious: is there a way to mask or kill generated geometry that goes over the boundaries of the emitter, or when it collides with other geometry (like the grey border in my image)?
Thanks!


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Preserve background images when isolating object
In Blender 2.79 background images would remain visible when isolating a single object. Now that they are technically objects themselves, they also disappear when isolating a specific object or hiding everything apart from it (shift + H). This means I now have to go back to the Collections and make them visible again manually. This is rather annoying when I want to focus on modeling one object.
Is there a way in 2.8 to use "persistent" background images that won't be hidden along with everything else? Thanks.


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Railclone replacement for Blender?
I'm looking for a software package, addon, or possibly even an internal workflow for Blender 2.8 which will allow me to do in Blender what Railclone can do for 3DsMax. For example, filling a custom shape with custom made tiles.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks!

Do you have an example?

Does the Particle -> Distribution Grid fill with the Render set to Object work for you?

@rob I'm not familiar with that yet, I will look it up


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Different camera sizes in same file
I know render dimensions are tied to the render settings, but for my architecture scenes it would be very handy to have the option to assign different aspect ratios to different cameras, all in the same scene. Is there a way to do this? (without having to use the timeline)

For those interested: we now use the Photographer addon for this purpose. It is no longer free but still very cheap and I couldn't recommend it enough.
The main purpose of the addon is to provide artists with tools that resemble real life cameras a lot more. You can read more about al its functionalities on the addon's page (link below) but the part that is relevant for this specific issue is the Resolution settings. Basically all the addon's settings can be customized for each seperate camera, and this includes some options for the render's resolution. The settings of the active camera will override the resolution settings in the Scene tab.
I find that just this one function already makes the creative process of finding a good angle much easier.
Available at: https://blendermarket.com/products/photographer

(Don't worry, it has a "custom" resolution mode as well ;). )

Thanks for posting. Do you mind adding more detail and explain how do you use it and what's the real advantage in this case?

@brockmann I edited the post with more information

Would there be any other alternative to photographer (free) that would ONLY allow to add per camera resolution ? This is the only needed functionnality i need. Thanks.

I can't rule it out 100% but I would be very surprised if you could do this per camera. You can change the sensor width and height in the camera settings, but that should not change the aspect in the rendering.
The only solution that comes to mind is a script that hardcodes the desired resolution (and with that the aspect ratio) for each camera and set it up as a driver. Meaning when you hit render it will check which camera is active and assign the resolution that you referenced to that camera.
Let me know if that is an option, then I would try to work out that script. Also: untested, there might be one more step to that. Worst comes to worst we create a tiny script that acts as a render button but does the adaption to your scene before render (that one will work for sure).


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Placing a finished 3D model in a photograph: matching the camera (workflow)
I could really use some advice on this, I just can't seem to figure it out and may be missing something obvious.
At work I often have to make visualisations of street renovations, which need to be integrated into photographs. So I prepare the 3D model of the new street (or house) and go on location myself to take the photographs, so I also know where the real camera was positioned. So far so good, but when the time comes to put the 3D model into the photos the client has chosen things get annoying for me and I never can seem to get a good fit. Here's my workflow:

Put the camera in the scene at the position and height I took the photo.
Copy the right resolution, focal length and sensor size from the photograph.
Point the camera at the same spot that's in the middle of the photograph.

As far as I know this should provide a pretty good match in theory? But in practice I need to spend a LOT of time playing around with the focal length and location, often the initital result isn't even close..
Am I missing something, or does anyone have any good tips? I tried addons like BLAM and Fspy, but they often give very weird results and don't seem suited for scenes that are already finished. I'm also not particularly experienced with the technicals behind photography. We use this camera at work (https://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/AA290/AA290A.HTM), so i guess the important thing to copy from that is the sensor size of 23.7?
Thanks for any help guys!

In theory fspy is very well suited for this kind of scenes, in streets you often have very identifiable perspective lines. Where does the workflow fail ?

@Gorgious I might be missing something in fspy but I tend to get a camera that is focussed on something that's very close to the camera. Apart from that I often already find it hard to get the width of a street to match both near the camera and towards the "horizon".


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Can't properly snap in camera view through clipped object
I've got the scene below in Image 1 where Cam 1 is the active camera. It's ofcourse clipping through the wall in order to get the desired view (Image 2).
The problem is that when I'm in camera view and try snapping objects to others it doesn't properly work, except for a few random spots marked in red in Image 2.
If I remove the obstructing wall, extrude the wall so the camera is "inside", use Cam 2 which is closer, or work in wireframe mode etc the snapping works just fine, so I'm guessing this is an issue with the camera clipping through the wall but the tools still thinking something is obstructing the view?
It's not the biggest of problems, but I'm curious if anyone has any ideas about settings I can change to solve this, or maybe if it's just a bug?
Thanks!

At first glance I'd say, isn't Cam2 also outside and clipping? So it's probably not simply the clipping which causes problems, but I'm not sure about that - I cannot reproduce it with a clipped view. Maybe add a screenshot of your settings as well, for example is Backface Culling enabled in the Snapping options? A possible workaround depends on where you want to snap to, for example if you could hide the wall(s) in the viewport, they would have no influence on snapping.

@GordonBrinkmann Yes it is indeed also outside, which is why it feels a bit buggy to me (might be something with the distance). Backface Culling seems to make no difference.


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Copy rotation From child to parent without IK
I made a constraint on the shoulder bone of my character so that when the forearm bone moves, the shoulder follows the rotation with 50% influence. But it causes a dependency cycle and the movement won't update and cause some weird deformation on the mesh.
https://streamable.com/mtlcj
is there any way to accomplish that or something simmilar that causes no errors?


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Greasepencil Lineart accumulating strokes opacity (Greasepencil uniform opacity <100%)
Objective:

Achieve uniform lineart opacity below 100%.
(without overlapping strokes - creating accumulated higher opacity)

Non working methods tried:

Lineart opacity

Opacity modifier after Lineart modifier

Stroke material alpha

Chaining

Edge types

Working methods tried

Compositor separate layer opacity, obv.

Is there a method how to achieve lineart with uniform opacity <100% without using compositor?
Seems that "Opacity modifier->Uniform Opacity" is meant to do the trick, but it doesnt.

Is there a motivation for not using the compositor ? Some things are only possible with compositing.

Yup not sure it's possible without a post processing effect, the opacity is working like intended there, strokes overlap so opacity adds up

Have you tried the most basic Layer Opacity? That works fine on my end.

I didn't even have to turn on Compositor nodes to render stroke opacity.
In my case, I set my background to Transparent and gave my mesh with the line art modifier a Holdout mask.


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How can I smooth this face?
I have a face that does not follow suit I have tried everything I can come up with but for some reason this face does not have the same shading as the others.
Any help here would be great cause it is like a bad headache and rater be rid of it.
I already have edge split and tried to extrude the face from the previous one that does have correct shading.

did you check the normals ? maybe this face has an inverse normal compared to others ....

It's not easy to see the problem with only this screenshot. Please consider uploading your blend file.

I want to give credit to this post the answer to put the f2 add on was a bit weird but simply deleting the face only and removing doubles and after selecting the vertices and fill helped and is the solution for me.
Smooth shading is seemingly creating incorrect normals


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Hide handles that belongs to non-selected vertices in the bezier curve editor
I want to only see the handles for the vertex I have selected.
Can I do that?
I know how to hide all handles, but toggling them all the time is annoying.

As far as I know this isn't configurable at the moment.
One possible workaround is to tweak your current theme and dim the colors of unselected handles, or make them closer to say, the world color or viewport background, so they are less visible or intrusive, though they will still actually be visible and selectable.
It is only a workaround, and you have to manually tweak colors for every handle type manually, it would no longer really work once your background color changes, but if you always use the same theme or don't activate the World Background option often, this should not be a problem.


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Emulate three button mouse without occupying alt key
I want to emulate a three button mouse in the same time as I want alt key hotkeys to work. This has worked in earlier versions of blender but not anymore.
Why/how?

It seems I have to switch mouse buttons so that the old RMB gesture is in use for selection. (Then I can alt click an edge and have edge loop select working).


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Boolean modifier with complex object (hole punching) makes blender go on its knees
I am creating a hole pattern in this flattened cube using an object to subtract it with (boolean modifier) consisting of a lot of cylinders.

The cylinders uses two array modifiers, one that iterates in one width and one in another, creating a matrix of objects.
153 seconds after I added the boolean modifier, I got control back.
(When I have been running a similar scene on a macbook pro, blender crashed).
Applying the modifier takes the same amount of time. When the cylinders has been removed, the scene seems to be workable. Manipulating it will not cause wait time.
Is there an alternative method of achieving a hole pattern like this?
People have talked about faking the pattern with a shader.
Is that the way to do it? How would I do that?

That seems to be a nice workable solution unless you want some thickness in the hole punched object.

If the geometry to punch out is more complex than this flattened cube, a bent surface maybe, the operation could fail because the continous triangulation that blender does when applying a modifier creates really weird triangles, being in the way for smooth subtractions.

There are a few techniques listed here https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/58811/how-to-create-a-circular-shaped-grid-similar-to-a-manhole-cover/58814#58814

It depends on the profile complexity but you could try using only several lines of cylinders, using Boolean on them and only then adding Array to achieve the pattern.

I am not sure what you mean. The "holes" are plugs that go through the box (all the way, its a flattened cube or a thick plane if you want), which maybe does not show well in the picture.

Wow, I can use this! Thanks! Can you make it an answer? @Edgel3D

Edit 7th Oct 2019 - replaced link at bottom.
Please note, the results below are only available when rendered using OpenGL.  (Top left of window --> 'Render')
When topology or even inconvenience becomes a nuisance factor or hurdle, the inviso effect in Blender can often save the day. (See below)
The project - several hundred holes are to be inserted into a slab of 'concrete'.

Make the slab, get it's texture etc settled.   Then make just one cylinder.  When there's a large number of cylinders, and the view isn't going to be up too close, reduce the walls to about 8.
Texture the sides to match the material they're to go through.
Assign the cylinder ends a separate material slot and set the opacity to 0.008, both speculars to 0. (main and transparency specular sliders.
Organise the ends to become inviso surfaces and make sure they don't render the cyl walls invisible.
If they do, it's bound to be both end and side geometry in the cylinder holding each other's material slot in the Outliner panel.  Get rid of any strips in there that don't belong.
When the cylinder can be peered through and still see it's sides, but not the slab of concrete, the inviso factor is working ok.
Insert the cylinder EXACTLY as required with the minimum amount protruding through the slab's surfaces.
Check that the cylinder has indeed become a 'hole' drilled right through the slab.
When all is ok, apply an array modifier to the cylinder.  Duplicate the result and patterns as required.
The slab's topography has been left alone, so whatever is down the track shouldn't mind the presence of inviso holes because slab modifiers etc, wouldn't see them.  Real holes however could pose a problem, particularly when they are large in number.
-=====-
Inviso
The full explanation has overwhelmed one at least, but in a nutshell set the surface's speculars to zero and the Opacity to 0.008.  Deslect all with A to see it working.  The Inviso's Transparency box (properties panel) in the "Display" tab may have to be ticked or unticked as explained in the "Thesis".  You may also have to temporarily parent the cube to the cylinder in order to get it to peer through the cube.  Unparent it again immediately and remove any strips in the Outliner panel that don't belong to the cube or cylinder. (Material links particularly)
How to put a mask into 3d space

I think you need to try out a specific add-on for your task. I have seen one called Box Cutter and its demoed on youtube, it probably has better code to handle the boolean operations than standard blender, lets hope.


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Weird shading transparent texture for grass
Im trying to make polygon grass using the addon images from plane to import a grass texture with transparent background and im using particles to place them all over a plane. When they are widely spread between each other the texture looks normal but if they are close they have some weird black shading/shadow. I upload a picture to show what i mean...

This could have something to do with your render settings. Try to increase the values under Light Paths -> Transparency.

Seems like that solved the problem, Thank you !


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Blender Bake Transparency
I have some problems in blender to bake transparency. It works fine in 2.79 but its not really working in 2.93, i think i got it to work before but then i forgot how i did it. I have tried all settings i can find that has something to do with transparency but it just wont work.
Here is a youtube video that shows my problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTyKy0mdeao

Have you tried to search ... there is a lot of links ... like here ... there is not a direct way. Only plug alpha directly to output and bake separately as black@white image.

I figured out how i did it before. I used Texture Paint with Clone Brush to paint from the the first texture on to a new texture. But i have always wondered if it was possible in the later versions of Blender. But thanks for letting me know that is no longer possible to do it by baking the texture. The reason i cannot use a separate texture as an alpha texture is because the model will be used for World of Warcraft and it is not possible to use Alpha Maps there. It needs real transparency in same image as diffuse texture.

sure :) ... btw you can use compositor to merge baked color with baked alpha into final texture (or image sequence).

Oh that sounds interesting. I have never really used the compositor. It makes me confused. It took my long time enough to learn how the normal Material Nodes work LoL


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Blender Tempered Glass Effect
Im wondering how i can make tempered glass in Blender 2.8. I'm looking for that "Rainbow Effect" in the glass that you may see on a camera lens for example. I wouldnt mind to share pics of what i have but i just have a principled shader for now and have no idea at all where to even start with node setup.

You should share both pictures of what you have, and reference pictures of the desired effect

Are you looking at diffraction effect in glass? Tempering just makes the glass stronger, it can have many looks.

@cegaton Yes. Thats correct. A similar result to that is what im looking for.


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Volume scatter object invisible
I'm trying to create a lightsaber sword in blender and im using Volume Scatter for the glowing part of the sword. But the object with volume scatter is completly black. You can still see the sword inside but you cant see the handle because the volume scatter object is too dark and the handle is black. So is there any way to make the volume scatter object invisible?
Here is an image to show what im talking about

First off, make sure that you have everything disconnected from the "Surface" node on material Output.

And as a side note, an easier on render time way to make an emission object glow is to do compositing.
In the render layers tab, you can check 'emission' under passes.

Then just overlay a blur of the emission pass like this:

Thank you, Good idea about the blur. I tested it and it worked. However, I was expecting the blur to showup in the 3d viewport but it only appears in render. It first renders the image without blur and when its finished rendering the image it adds the blur to it. It would be alot easyer to play with the different values if i could see it in the 3d viewport

Thats how compositing works. If you want to play with it, you can checkbox 'Use Backdrop', and plug the last node into a viewer node. (This can be added through the 'Shift + A' menu.


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How to Paint Geometry?
I would like to know how i can paint geometry in blender as shown in this maya tutorial
https://youtu.be/6Wi4-fdeYyM?t=703
I asked on blenderartists about 2 years ago but I didnt have any detailed reply for it. So i try ask here and see if someone here can guide me through the process of painting geometry in Blender

You might want to look into Andreas Esau's Asset Sketcher... It's not free, though.

Thanks for the recommendation but 30$ is a little expensive when i only want to know this one thing :)

In Blender, you can use particles and vertex groups to (weight) paint the hair with the wanted shape.

Yes. I know, But thats not same as shown in the video. if i weight paint i need to go out of weight paint to see the hair but in the video the hair appear as he paint on the model


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Blender: Advanced character rig problem
As the title says, I'm having an issue regarding my 3D-characters rig.
INFO: As you can see in the pictures below, my character has swords attached to his back. Each sword is connected to the hand using a child of constraint so I that I can make him grab the swords by setting the influence value to 1. In addition to that, both of the swords are parented to the upper-chest bone, so that they will follow the character as he moves.
PROBLEM: Now as I change the influence to 1 so that the hand is now controlling the sword, everything works as I want it to. I can move the hand to the wanted location, and the sword will follow it. However! When I move the chest, the sword will start to rotate around the upper-chests pivot point since that's where it's parented to from the beginning. Is there anyway I can get around this problem? If so, I'd be glad to know.
The problem is demonstrated in the pictures below.
PICTURE1: Both swords are parented to the upper chest bone, making them move togheter as I lean his upper chest forwards. Had to delete this picture since it didn't allow me to use more than 2 links/Pictures
PICTURE2: Set the child of constraint influence to 1 in order for the hand to fully controll the sword bone. I rotate the arm.
PICTURE3: As I rotate the chest, the swordbone starts to take another path compared to the hand! (problem)

You get double transformations:

1st from child_of
2nd from parent

When you enable the child_of for the hand, you need to disable the original parent. As this is not possible from pose mode, you need to make this relationship with child_of too, and switch between them in one frame when you need to change the parenting.


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Emit Smoke From Hair
Does anyone know of a way to set a smoke/fire's emitter be hair strands. The end goal of this is to have a horse's mane and tail to be on fire.

As far as I know you can't emit particle systems from othe particle systems. Make a dummy mesh roughly the shape of the mane, and emit from there.


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Child hairs not distributing correctly
I have drawn a bunch of hairs on a mesh with the grooming tools, and was planning to use them as guide hairs, but when I add children hairs, it completely changes the distribution of the hairs across the mesh. It is putting much fewer hairs in the areas where the hair is shorter. Is there a way I can make the child hairs have the same density as the guide hairs? Here is an example:

I think it may be related to your child clump settings. Being short, if they are clumped together at the root you won't see them.


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How to get the pivot center location
I would like to know if there is a easy way to get the location of  the current selection? (The one used by translate/rotate/scale, and depending on selected elements and the center options like median/active element/bbox/3d cursor.)
Or to put it differently is there a way to get the 4x4 matrix of the manipulator? So I can grab the current orientation and position in one go.
I'm aware of the set_cursor_to_selected() operator, which allows me to grab this location via the 3d_cursor location. but as I'm running it several times per second this locks away the 3d cursor and spams the info log. And it feels hacky and clunky...
So if there is a more elegant way than to recreate the blender behaviour, I would be very interested..

Yes, you can get it without moving the cursor.
    import bpy

o = bpy.context.object
vcos = [ o.matrix_world * v.co for v in o.data.vertices ]
findCenter = lambda l: ( max(l) + min(l) ) / 2

x,y,z  = [ [ v[i] for v in vcos ] for i in range(3) ]
center = [ findCenter(axis) for axis in [x,y,z] ]

print( center )

(That was not made by me)
Will print the location of the active object.
Note, in the image it shows
[5.960464477539063e-08, -1.1920928955078125e-07, 3.3469696044921875] instead of [0, 0, 3.3469696044921875]
 but it's a super tiny difference of at most 0.00000011920928955078125

Thanks, but this is not really what I had in mind, as this will result in replicating all the pivot modes... which I try to avoid. The code itself looks handy for implementing it :)

Glad I could help.


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Reseting blender gui in a loaded model
I have tried to model my first object in blender after watching online tutorials. But when I came to adding modifiers, it turn out, that I can#t find them at any sidepanel in blender. Is there are way to reset these panels to the point when you create a new object?

While loading a scene unclick Load UI option:

If your file has already opened, you need to reload startup file first (File -> New)


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align reference image with orthographic camera
I've got my scene set up as shown below. The camera is set to orthographic and both camera and reference are rotated to [60, 0, 45] degrees. It seems not to line up with the 3D world, however. (note how the cube's y axis is not parralel with the lines in the reference image) How do I rotate the camera and reference image to line up with my 3D grid?

Rotation values should be [54,736; 0; 45]
The provided picture is showing an Isometric Graphic.
In this particular case, by measuring the ratio between the edges,

and the projected angles of what we can imagine as perpendicular extrusion (the bridges) of a quadrangular face, we can deduce that we are in front of an Isometric axonometry with 120°, 120° 120° angle between axis.
But as I marked in bold, 60° is the projected angle, that means that is the result of the transformation of the camera and should be not used straightfoward as input for the X rotation.
Relying instead on the the math that's describing the camera orientation for such type of projection, we discover that the real X rotation is give by the formula:
X rotation = 90°-arctan(sin 45°) = 90°-35,264°= 54,736°

excellent. For those wondering: you can display angles and other info in edit mode in the display section of 3d view properties: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/2334/44258


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How to transition from plane to cylinder
I'm trying to figure out the best way to have a cylinder that splits at its midpoint and and smoothly transitions/flattens out into a plane. So far I've kind of figured out one way of doing this by having a plane and cylinder joined together as a single mesh and connecting the edges of the plane to the edges of the cylinder. Turned out like this:   Thought's and suggestions appreciated!

Steps:

Enable LoopTools add-on.
Create Circle with chosen vertices count. Mine is 16.
Go to Edit Mode rotate Circle 90 degrees (X or Y axis).
Select top most vertex on the Circle and hit V to Rip selected vertex to two vertices. Now Circle has 17 vertices.
Create line with 17 vertices. I've done it by adding a Plane, deleted two vertices and CtrlR > 15 (15 cuts + 2 verts = 17).
Level line with Circle bottom. I've used snapping. And also scale it a bit.

Select All A than W > LoopTools > Bridge and set number of Segments and Strength of this bridge.
Extrude line to have a plane and extrude circle to have a tube.


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Problem with Snapping
So, I'm working on this house with oblique walls.
I can't properly make the vertex just move along the Y axys and snap to the lower line, as it snaps along the Y axys but doesn't stop exactly ON the line.
Any easy way of doing this? Since I'll have to do it a lot of times.

Blender allows you to set a custom orientation for transformations, but, unfortunately, does not provide custom orientations for snap projections.
However, if you enable the Mesh:TinyCAD add-on, (included in 2.78) it will do what you need, and some more.

Thanks man! It really did the trick. Still find it weird that Blender doesn't have a similar function though.


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How to properly light a scene that's both indoors and outdoors
I'm creating an architectural rendering and I would like the inside of the house to be visible, yet, I want the windows to be closed because that's what I was asked.
The problem is, with Sun strength set to 5 the insides look very dark if seen from the outside (see swimming pool area). If I want the inside to be illuminated like in the first picture, I have to set the sun strength lamp to 20.
The lamps on the inside have not been touched between renderings, but they don't seem to be enough.
I have clamp direct set to 0 and clamp indirect set to 4.
2000 samples.
Filter Glossy set to 1
The glass material is set like picture number 4
Background (enviroment) has a strenght of 1.2
Is there a way to achieve the same light from the inside and the outise in just one rendering?
(Also any advice on how to make the sky look better is higly appreciated)

This is also an issue with real world photography exposure. Either match indoor and outdoor lighting strength by pumping up interior lampas, and toning down the sun light, or render to a high bit depth and fix it in post production

you can animate exposure as well, on most places you can press i to animate something.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos which lamp do you suggest I use inside for brightening the whole room equally and not make it look too artificial?

I would not artificially brighten the interiors, unless utterly needed. Just use the existing lights. If you really must use large area lights to avoid too much noise. You can also override light decay to be linear, generally brightening the scene, at the expense of realism


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Blur Foreground
So, I made this outdoor project and I'm trying to blur the grass that peaks in the foreground, but controlling the depth of field and/or focus of the camera doesn't help me at all.

Change the viewport shading type from Material to Rendered to see the results.

The upper picture is the rendered image

The Size option is set to 0, which means no bluring afaik if using Radius mode for aperture. Either increase it or change it to F-Stop and decrease (by default 5.6)

Final:

Overview:
Focal point:
Use Empty object as a Focus to better control DOF. Just place it where you want to have sharp spot and it's done.
Matching Viewport Preview with Render:
To match both views you need to use F-stop values for both Aperture and Viewport also you need to check High Quality. And lastly turn on Depth Of Field under Shading tab (N to open/close Properties Region).
Notes:
Check your Focal Length and F-stop Values as they are crucial for DOF. Lower F-stop value will give you shallow DOF (more blur), higher Focal Length will also give you more blur but it will distort perspective.

It worked, thanks a lot!
Had problems with a simple empty, so had to create an empty cube, make the borders coincide with the shape of the building, excluding the grass, played a little with tweaking and obtained what I wanted.
Really really helpful! :)

@ChristianTriolo To add Empty press Shift+A > Empty > Plain Axes

@Lincoln are you using Cycles renderer and/or have active camera in the scene?


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change view of Batch-Generate Preview
Does a way exists to change the view of a batch render preview generated ? according to the documentation, It seems not but I missed maybe something ?

Especially I would like to change to an Orthographic representation with a different angle.
I'm previewing 2D Elements which are flat


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Arrays objects duplicated and positioned at different rates
I use a sphere and a cylinder, both relative offset of 3.
But they both are moving at different rates. And yes, both of them are scaled at 1.0.
How do I get them to both be duplicated at the same rate? All spheres should be on all cylinders.

Try using constant offset

It worked. Thank you for your help. The constant offset worked.


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Small moments when I can't seem to do anything
I am using Blender version 2.79. There are moments when I can't move or do anything. Just small moments when I can't do anything.
-The best way I can describe it, is no matter where I click or what button I press I can't move or do anything. It's like everything stays still because it want's me to do or not do something.
What would be the correct button to push? Where do I click?
What am I supposed to do?

if it happens while you're in Rendered viewport shading, you should decrease the preview sampling ratio, in my case I use a ratio of 3 and it's enough

I'll try just simple geometry, still had that issue.

You could try a right click. For example, using circle select needs a right click to accept the selection and escape back to normal.

That solved the problem. Right clicking. Thanks.


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Texture splatting 3 or more textures
I'm using "Cycles" render.  And I'm working on a landscape.
I know how to make sand and rock, with the black and white color map.
But how do I mask 3 textures?
-On this scene I need 3 textures, rock, dirt, and sand.  How do I do that?

Assuming your mask is greyscale, in theory you can map each of the 255 intermediate shades of grey to an individual land-class. In reality, you probably want more separation between the values so that texture compression doesn't mess up your mask. So assign 0 to rock, 32 to dirt, 64 to grass, ... 255 to sand, etc
Your mask will look like this, then it's up to you to setup the node materials to interpret this mask.

The only downside of this approach is that you have very little control over the blending of these terrains. Using the example above, it would be impossible to blend between sand and rock, since these values are not adjacent to each other on the mask. So with a typical bilinear interpolation, you might get 'rings' of landclass like this:

You can do 2 things: use a noise overlay on the mask to break up the pattern so it looks less obvious, or use a depth based terrain blending technique.
The node for this will be very similar to this: Cycles shader multiplexer node?

You could use more than one mask and then combine them in a more defined way.

What would the node layout look like?

It will be very similar to this: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/89557/cycles-shader-multiplexer-node


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Particles should be on ground

I need it to be on the ground. What am I doing wrong here?

can you add a sample blend file using https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/?, there is currently not enough info to determine what your problem is.

Alternatively, see if https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/63991/hair-particle-system-to-create-forest-some-trees-are-floating?rq=1 or https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/42922/hair-particles-are-not-fitting-my-fractal-ground?rq=1 or https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8918/why-are-the-objects-in-my-hair-particle-system-not-sitting-on-top-of-the-ground?rq=1 help.

Turn off Particle children

The solution is to make sure the object you want as your particle is facing straight up to the z axis. Then snap it or move it to the center of the grid in the cursor's world origin. That will draw everything in to the emitter to emit perfectly.


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When I blend PBR materials, where do I put AO & Displacement?

I'm trying to blend a realistic landscape material, that combing rocks, dirt, grass, etc. What do I do with the ambient occlusion textures? And how do I blend the displacement textures? Both don't seem to go anywhere.

Multiply each of the AO textures over their respective BaseColor textures using a MixRGB node. and mix the displacement textures using another MixRGB node, this time, use the same mask as a mix factor as you're using for your mix shader mix factor (for example, combine the first 2 displacements using the first colorramp as a factor, then mix that result with the next displacement using the second colorramp as a factor).

Thanks. Now I understand the part about combining the AO textures. Could I get a picture of what to do with the displacement textures?

If you mix multiple shaders, each with their own displacement, you can just mix the displacement vectors with the same fac that you mix the shaders. Displacement output is a vector, but it's fine to use a MixRGB (unclamped) to mix between vectors, since there isn't a "vector lerp" node:

You'll notice that every displacement map may demand different settings for midlevel and scale.
Cycles doesn't have a conception of ambient occlusion, because there is no ambient lighting in Cycles; it's all sourced, even if eventually to a world sphere, and it's all occluded by geometry, unlike game engines that use unoccluded ambient lighting.  Ambient occlusion is a technique to mimic the occlusion provided by high-poly local geometry on a low-poly proxy.  In this case, where you're using true displacement on high poly geometry (perhaps via adaptive subdivision), you don't need or want to use ambient occlusion textures in your materials.  Any technique you'd use to do so would be double dipping, occluding once via geometry and then again via your texture.
In Eevee, there is some limited support for ambient occlusion maps in the Specular BSDF node.  If using low poly, game-engine models with AO maps, it's often appropriate to build your materials around that BSDF rather than the principled BSDF.

Here - just posting so I can post the picture - I made a (simplified) facsimile of your setup and included the displacement mix - the displacement section is highlighted at the bottom. Make sure to test the mixes independently first, because sometimes top/bottom position of the input connection can be backwards depending on how you want your mix to be:

I also find the question interesting, but your answer, which I am convinced leads to the goal, I unfortunately do not understand at all because of the small colorful picture. I find it hard to see what is what and the color confuse me quite a bit. Can you please explain this in more detail?


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Got two connected BVerts, how to get the BEdge?
I've created a couple of BVerts:
v1 = self.bm.verts.new(vector1)
v2 = self.bm.verts.new(vector2)
I run some python functions on my mesh, and at sometime while doing python stuff on my mesh, a face is created that has these two BVerts as adjacent vertices. I don't have that face stored in a variable.
Based on that, I know there is an edge connecting the two vertices. Is there an easy way to get that Bedge only using v1 and v2? (I need to feed it into an operation that only takes edges).
Thanks!
Chris

Looks like I've figured it out:
edge = self.bm.edges.get([v1, v2])


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Planetary system simulation with real orbital datas
When making a planetary system, I'd like to respect the eccentiricity of orbits (elliptical orbits), using the facts supplied by astronomical data centers like here: http://www.icoproject.org/data.html ?
One of the focus of the ellipse can be set at the center of the planetary system; i.e.the center of the central star.
I have other parameters under control (e.g.speeds, orbits inclinations, period of rotation...).
Thanks in advance for your precious advices!

There is a question mark in your post but there is no query. Could you clarify what your question is?

relevant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_eccentricity

Orbital Eccentricity - Wikipedia
For elliptical orbits, a simple proof shows that arcsin(e)
yields the projection angle of a perfect circle
to an ellipse of eccentricity e. For example, to view the eccentricity
of the planet Mercury (e = 0.2056), one must simply calculate the
inverse sine to find the projection angle of 11.86 degrees. Next, tilt
any circular object (such as a coffee mug viewed from the top) by that
angle and the apparent ellipse projected to your eye will be of that
same eccentricity.

Via the UI, add a primitive circle mesh or curve, rotate about X RX 11.86, then scale in 0 in Z, S Z 0

Result of running test script
Quick test script, creates a circle, rotates by projection angle about X, projects onto XY plane by setting z to 0.
Could use bmesh, or make the projection matrix.
import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Matrix
from math import asin

def elliptic_orbit(name, e, context=bpy.context):
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_circle_add()
    R = Matrix.Rotation(asin(e), 4, 'X')
    ob = context.object

    me = context.object.data
    ob.name = me.name = "%s_orbit" % name
    me.transform(R)
    for v in me.vertices:
        v.co.z = 0
    me.update()

elliptic_orbit("Earth", 0.017)
elliptic_orbit("Mercury", 0.2056).scale *= 0.387
elliptic_orbit("Venus", 0.007).scale *= 0.723
elliptic_orbit("Mars", 0.093).scale *= 1.524
elliptic_orbit("Jupiter", 0.048).scale *= 5.203
elliptic_orbit("Saturn", 0.056).scale *= 9.555

Alternatively orbit as a curve. Here I've used a scale matrix to scale z component to zero, could do same in mesh version.
def elliptic_orbit(name, e, context=bpy.context):
    bpy.ops.curve.primitive_nurbs_circle_add()
    S = Matrix.Scale(0, 4, (0, 0, 1))
    R = Matrix.Rotation(asin(e), 4, 'X')
    ob = context.object

    cu = context.object.data
    ob.name = cu.name = "%s_orbit" % name
    cu.transform(R)
    cu.transform(S)

    return ob

For compatability sakes I've applied the transforms sequentially.  For 2.5 K= verson < 2.8  could use cu.transform(R * S) and for 2.8 cu.transform(R @ S)
Ellipse foci

Ellipse - Wikipedia
shape parameters: a: semi-major axis, b: semi-minor axis c: linear eccentricity, p: semi-latus rectum.
By Ag2gaeh - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

The semi-major axis will lie on the rotated axis X. c the linear eccentricity can be calculated thus
>>> ob = C.object
>>> ob.name
'Jupiter_orbit'

>>> ob.dimensions.xy.length
0.4994825301958152

The two foci are F1, F2 = (c, 0, 0), (-c, 0, 0)
May find the following post on barycentric orbits of interest.


text:
Mesh Replacement

Is there a way to replace a mesh with another one?. Like planes instead of leaves, so i can apply a masked material instead of a high poly mesh.

In blender, objects have an associated mesh, ad you can change it, like this:

if you have many objects using the hires mesh, you could create a script to mass change meshes...
another way, maybe is to link data from one sample mesh, like this:

here select all target objects, and leave the "sample" on as last.

Thank you! but what did you do to see that frame
"cube
sphere"

sorry my screen capture lost the cursor... look in the right panel, where you can change the dropdown (small triangle icon )

added another possible way...


text:
How well does Blender Rigid Body physics translate to real life
I am new to rigging and playing with rigid bodies physics in Blender. I use 2.76
As I failed to set up gears with large differences in diameter and the gears were impossible to make stop wobbling around while spinning with no restraints shown  by their own physic confinement (hole and axis) I wonder if indeed Blender can be used to simulate a mechanical real world transfer of rotating motion through a series of physical restraints such as holes, axles, bolts and nuts?
Is Blender good enough (and I simply failed to set it up in a proper way? I wouldn't ask this if I had found something useful on Youtube, but the person (blendersensei) presenting Rigid body constraints seemed to want to lock the rotating objects xyz positions as well as rotation in every other axis than the one set in motion. (I failed to do this as well, and only got a good laugh out of it.)

Unless you need something very specific Gears are often simulated with constraints or drivers instead. It is easier to achieve, more accurate and reliable and much more stable for the same visual result, at a fraction of the processing power.

Blender rigid body physics is great for flat surfaces or for single point of contact collisions (eg, a coin falling onto a surface or a cube bouncing) but struggles with curved sufaces in full contact with other curved surfaces - such as an axle through a close fitting hole in a wheel. This is mostly due to the way in which the meshes are modelled - instead of being defined at an atomic scale they are simplified into vertices and faces that result in no ‘exact fit’. Also, the simulation is broken down into a series of short ‘steps’, but nothing compared to the (potentially) infinitely small number of steps in the real world. This means that closely fitting meshes quickly become unstable with overlapping meshes that the rigid body engine being unable to find a solution - so they start to pass through each other and jostle about as it tries to find the best solution in a situation that could not exist in the real world (real objects never get to the point where they physically intersect).
Theoretically, if you could model the surfaces using a high enough precision (unfeasibly high) and set the ‘steps per second’ to a high enough value (unfeasibly high) then you could get a reasonable simulation - but it would take far more time and computing resources than would be available.
Using Rigid Body Constraints allows you to simplify this by enforcing any relationships (such as a wheel moving around its axis) without having to rely on the microscopic interactions of the surfaces. This can generally produce a ‘good enough’ simulation for your needs.

It's hard to find anything to add to Rich's answer. The rigid body sim isn't designed for complex, very precise interaction of surfaces. I tried to make tank treads that would react to uneven ground, so I know.
What I'll do instead is to show how to set up gears.
I have modeled the gears with the extra objects addon. One has 12 teeth, the other has 40.
The easiest way I found to rig them is to animate an object moving in a straight line. That's what the arrow is for.
But don't drive the gears with it, drive empties and parent the gears to the empties. Right click the Z rotaion of an Empty and add a single driver.
Go to the Graph Editor, driver mode and use the arrow as the target, Y location, world space. The formula I use is:
variable / teeth count * speed multiplier
for gear one and
- variable / teeth count * speed multiplier
for the other. Speed multiplier is the same for both drivers and makes the gears more responsive to the movement of the arrow.
Just copy and paste the driver to the other empty using the context menu and adjust the teeth count.
You'll probably find that the teeth don't match up. That's what the in between empties are for. Lining them up with the drivers is possible but a bit complex. Lining them up with in between empties just takes rotating one gear a bit.

Since gears are supposed to move in unison, a simulation is rarely needed.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/animation/drivers/index.html


text:
How to add a vertex to the plane of a triangle without changing this plane?
The "clean up" -> "make planar faces" function transforms the plane.
I like to add a vertex to a given triangle where the plane keeps uneffected. Manually one would just calculate the normal on the plane through the specific vertex and than move the vertex along the normal as long as it is within the given plane.
Is there any way to do this with build-in functions or with a plugin?

Mathutils.geometry
There are two methods in mathutils.geometry.  distance_point_to_plane returns the distance from the plane.  The plane is defined by a point on the plane and its normal.  intersect_point_tri takes 4 arguments, the point and the three points that define the triangle. If outside the triangle it returns None.
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector
from mathutils.geometry import (
        intersect_point_tri,
        distance_point_to_plane)

# define a plane by three points
# z=0 xy plane for simplicity
pt1 = Vector((0, 0, 0))
pt2 = Vector((1, 1, 0))
pt3 = Vector((1, -1, 0))
# define the plane
plane_co = pt1
plane_no = (pt3 - pt1).cross(pt2 - pt1).normalized()

pt = Vector((.4, .4, .4))
# find distance to plane
d = distance_point_to_plane(pt, plane_co, plane_no)
print("move", pt, d, "units to", pt + d * plane_no)
p = intersect_point_tri(pt, pt1, pt2, pt3)
if p:
    print("point on triangle", p)
else:
    print("point outside triangle")

Not sure if you were after a scripting answer.


text:
Hi, I'm having trouble with the mesh on this mug handle

I was following Blender Guru's tutorial on making a cup and I ran into this issue with the mesh. I deleted the interior faces and for some reason it still doesn't look good. I'm not sure what else would be wrong?

What you're seeing there are faces with the normals (the vectors orthogonal to the surfaces of the faces) pointing into the mesh as opposed to out of it. Unlike reality, 3D modeling is all smoke and mirrors. In many environments faces are only visible from one side. Blender lets you see backfaces, but they appear darker because they face away from the "light" for viewport shading.
To fix the problem, go into edit mode, select your whole mesh with A, and hit CTRL+N to recalculate normals. With a simple shape like that Blender will be able to figure out which way they need to be pointing.
Otherwise, you can select the affected faces, and W > Flip Normals to manually flip them the other way around.


text:
black cracks/ fragments across multiple objects in final render
In my render I have been working on there are multiple objects which have black "cracks" traveling through them, despite not being parented or part of the same mesh.
The normals are not inverted, the texture is procedural, and these "cracks" do not show up in preview render (despite subsurf modifiers having same viewport and render values). Here are some images of  the result:

The chassis has a subsurf modifier, followed by an edge split and a solidify. The tires (an entirely separate mesh being affected by seemingly the same fragmentation) have only a subsurf modifier. Both use smooth shading.
Final Note: These "cracks" only occured after I added keyframes as an attempt to render 4 different angles in a single sitting without having to start the render manually each time. These cracks now occur whether I render a single image without any keyframes on the dope sheet, or as an animation.
Any help in solving this issue would be much appreciated! Let me know if you need any additional information.

It looks like there is some hidden extra geometry being rendered. Make sure you don't have any geometry that is hidden, but with rendering enabled (Alt+H will do).


text:
How to automatically snap every vertices around a mesh?
I'm doing retopology on a mesh I sculpted, and sometimes certain vertices aren't placed correctly. Just moving them a tiny bit is enough for them to reposition correctly on the mesh. Is it possible to automatically 'resnap' all the vertices?


text:
Mesh Severely Corrupted After Sculpting Operations - Any Way to Recover?
I was working on a sculpt in Blender (version 4.2) when I encountered a significant issue. While sculpting, I started noticing that my mesh was losing its structure—certain parts were thinning out or even losing thickness entirely. It felt like trying to sculpt with a completely deflated balloon. In an attempt to resolve this, I tried selecting the clean parts of the mesh, inverting the selection, and deleting the rest, but this didn’t help. Instead, the mesh became heavily corrupted, with large portions missing or severely fragmented, as shown in the attached image.

Although I’m not a complete beginner I’ve never learned how to recover from a situation like this. Tools like Draw and Clay Strips only seem to make the problem worse, Smooth neither.
Is there any way to salvage this mesh, or do I need to start over? Are there specific tools or techniques for fixing this type of severe corruption during sculpting? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I understand this question might seem basic and could be a duplicate. I’ve searched but couldn’t find anything that addresses my specific issue.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The problem is that you were voxel remeshing at too low of a resolution for too thin of a mesh. It always does worse with meshes that have to little volume. By "low resolution" I mean too big. Too much space. Unfortunately you won't be able to recover past whatever undo step you have still in memory.


text:
Node Editor - Python - Expose listed Node Groups dynamically in Node shelf panel
Issue

Currently, node groups are only accessible in the Add menu then group sub-menu. You can't just click and drag them into use. You have to search, or go into sub-menus to use them.
Question
It would be great to be able to have these group nodes also exposed in the side panel with names dynamically, so it's easier to see what groups are available and to re-use them easily. How can I expose this enumerated list as a dynamic list of buttons in a panel in the shelf?

That's actually quite simple. bpy.data.node_groups returns a collection of all available node groups within the file. You just have to make sure that bl_idname is equal to ShaderNodeTree in this case:
>>> bpy.data.node_groups
<bpy_collection[10], BlendDataNodeTrees>

>>> [ng for ng in bpy.data.node_groups if ng.bl_idname == 'ShaderNodeTree']
[bpy.data.node_groups['My Node Group I'],
bpy.data.node_groups['My Node Group II'],
bpy.data.node_groups['My Node Group III']]

Further reading: How to get all types of nodes dynamically?

Based on that knowledge you would have to create a generic operator for a 'button' that adds a group node to the current node tree by passing the name of the node group. Declare a panel and iterate through the data collection in order to add the button per node group on the panel.

Demo code based on How to create a custom UI?
import bpy

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    Operators
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------

class NODE_OT_add_group_node(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_label = "Add Group Node by Name"
    bl_idname = "node.add_node_by_name"

    node_name : bpy.props.StringProperty()

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.space_data.tree_type == 'ShaderNodeTree'

    def execute(self, context):
        node_tree = context.space_data.node_tree
        node = node_tree.nodes.new(type='ShaderNodeGroup')
        node.node_tree = bpy.data.node_groups[self.node_name]
        return {'FINISHED'}

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    Panel in Shader Editor
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------

class NODE_PT_CustomPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Node Groups"
    bl_idname = "NODE_PT_add_node_groups"
    bl_space_type = 'NODE_EDITOR'
    bl_label = "Node Groups"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_category = "Node Groups"

    @classmethod
    def poll(self,context):
        return context.space_data.tree_type == 'ShaderNodeTree'

    def draw(self, context):

        node_groups = [ng for ng in bpy.data.node_groups if ng.bl_idname == 'ShaderNodeTree']
        for ng in node_groups:
            self.layout.operator(NODE_OT_add_group_node.bl_idname, text=ng.name).node_name = ng.name

        self.layout.separator()

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    Registration
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------

classes = (
    NODE_OT_add_group_node,
    NODE_PT_CustomPanel
)

def register():
    from bpy.utils import register_class
    for cls in classes:
        register_class(cls)

def unregister():
    from bpy.utils import unregister_class
    for cls in reversed(classes):
        unregister_class(cls)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Also read: Control Cycles material nodes and material properties in Python


text:
Same distance between two objects?
I am trying to add couple objects in blender and make the same distance between them without using the array modifier. Here is the picture where I want the same distance between objects. And I would also like to align the edges on the side with other objects.

Well, if you really don't want or can't use arrays, you could use a "spacer shape", of fixed width, to help you to snap adjacent objects (even if different in shapes), like this:

here I snap a third red shape keeping the same distance by snapping to the same, duplicated (or moved) blue spacer


text:
Merging two rigs with same bone structure?
I have a problem and I'm not sure how to go about fixing it. I've imported a valve qc rig and I need to merge what appears to be a meshless bone rig with a meshed rig. I thought about doing it in unity, but I thought I'd ask here first. Unity doesn't allow merging of non-human rigs

it look like you need to clarify wat exactly you need, from your image I only can assume that you want to attach the weapon to your Arms? or do you want to copy the animation from the unskinned Rig to the Skinned? What i can see from the picture is, that it looks like the importer didn't exactly create a blender armature object from your file, only meshes parented in a hirachy.

The model with the meshless armature has the same bone structure as the arms with a mesh. Valves software allow different hand models to be swapped in real time, but I'm incapable of doing that in unity without a lot of work


text:
Is there a way to repeat a set of actions on an object?
In blender you can press shift+R in edit mode and repeat the last action. What if I wanted to repeat a set of actions similar to a macro?

One way is the repeat history F3. You can select the other object and redo the steps in the list one at a time. It's a bit tricky since the actions aren't numbered and repeating one changes the order.
What you could do is open a text editor, create a new textblock and type
import bpy

Then pull the info editor on top of the screen down. The lonely header up there is actually a full window/editor. In ancient times, the preferences were hidden in it. There are all the actions you performed in python form.

Just do what you wanted to do once with any object.
Then right click the commands you want to use in the info editor. They should turn blue. CTRLCCTRLV them into the text editor below the import statement.
Now you can perform the copied list of actions, provided they're compatible, with any selected object simply by pressing ALTP in the script window or using 'Run Script'.
There might be an addon for macros, but this is one way of creating your own.

There are a few other ways to accomplish a repetitive task in Blender:

Shift+R to repeat the last command. This works on any tasks invoked as an operator. But actual usefulness depends on what you are trying to do.
Use multi-object editing by pressing the Alt key with multiple object selected as you are editing a value. You can use this to set the value for multiple objects at the same time.
Use the Copy Attribute addon to propagate settings to multiple objects.

An easy way to repeat the last e.g. four separate different steps (possibly on a different selected object) is to use the keys
F3, 4,
F3, 4,
F3, 4,
F3, 4
I.e. this is not restricted to always repeating the most recent action and it does not involve python code (for those out there who are afraid of it ;-).
This works because F3 opens the list of recent actions and normally allows to select one of them via mouse. But as with most menues, choosing one of them with a simple digit key is also possible.
So F3 4 will redo the fourth-last step, instead of the most recent.
Each time, the third-last step then becomes the new fourth-last step.
Altogether repeating F3 4 four times times will redo the last four different steps.
This way it is easy to for example duplicate the selected object, rotate it, translate it along its local axis and rotate it again. Do that several times with the standard cube and you get something of a stone-henge by just pressing two buttons alternatingly.

Select standard cube
Shift + D, Right-Click
R, Z, 2, 0
G, Y, Y, 4
R, Z, 2, 0
F3 4, repeat until stone-henge

This is not very elegent, just to demostrate the repetition of 4 steps.
A more elegent version, with more direct control over the center of the stone-henge, is the following. It just has the disadvantage of boringly only using two different steps repeatedly...

select standard cube
G, Y, Y, 5, Left-Click
Shift + Ctrl + Alt + C > To 3D cursor, with 3D cursor at $0,0,0$
Shift + D, Right-Click
R, Z, 4, 0
F3 2, repeat until stone-henge

(Done with Blender 2.79.)


text:
Python script issue
I made a script for Blender that plays a short clicking sound at certain points of the render(I am rendering a video). The render also has an audio track. This is what I used for the clicking sound:
    device = aud.device()
    factory = aud.Factory('sound.mp3')
    handle = device.play(factory)

The issue I am having is that the sound plays in the Blender UI, but not on the rendered video. What do I need to add to this code in order to have it appear on the audio track?

you would need to add that file to the VSE, then render that out. Which can be scripted, but it is by no means necessary.

... or add via a speaker object.

and then how would I command the speaker to have it play the sound on my triggers?


text:
Changing brush values while sculpting
I don't know much about Blender at all, but I am using it lately to work on head morphs for Poser.
I mostly work in the sculpting area but I am finding some difficulties changing the values of the brushes easily.
With Poser and Photoshop there is a dial that lets me control things, like size of the brush. But in Blender I seem to only be able to type in the value manually. This can be a pain because I don't have a desk for my tablet so I have to put it on my keyboard, which means I have to keep moving my tablet.
Is there something I'm missing here? Or can you only change the brush values by manually typing them in?

Similar answer here https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/100805/keyboard-shortcut-for-texture-paint-brush-strength


text:
Blender is undoing my progress for no reason and I don't know why
I'm sorry for all the questions I keep asking here but I don't often use it for what I'm doing...
I'm sculpting a figure right now and I notice blender keeps undoing my progress. And no, I am NOT hitting the undo button. I will reiterate again I don't really know what I'm doing, and if you tell me about a certain function, there's a good chance I'll have no idea what you're talking about or how to get to it, or do it.
I'm probably doing SOMETHING wrong, I'm sure. But I will go through what I have done exactly.
Recently it was just a simple issue with the head. I go to my sculpting brush. I turn on Dyntopo becuase idk why, it seems to help. For instance, I am trying to make ridges in a torus and as much as I try it seems like nothing happens until I use Dyntopo. I check off smooth shading. I have most of my stuff in smooth shading so I can see what it looks like. For the head it was simply using the subtract draw brush to put holes in ears. I would go back to smooth shading. I would finish what I was doing in smooth shading so I could see what I was doing. I would switch to another body part. They're all in pieces right now. It helps me. The head is fine, until I come back, and suddenly the ear holes are gone. No undoing. They're just gone and they're gone at random.
Now, it happened again only it set me back a lot farther. I did the same thing as above. I was using subtract draw on an object. It was fine, and all the other things I'd done the same on were fine too. When I copied it I suddenly realized it had erased all that progress. It was gone on both sides, not just the one I copied.
I don't know why this keeps happening. I read something about applying modifiers and how that causes issues but I haven't done that at all. I'm just sculpting, simply; that's it. So why does this keep happening?

Make sure you are using the latest stable release of Blender 2.8 and save often(use the plus sign while saving to increment a counter)

i am usig the latest version, but i don't understand what i'm doing wrong to make it randomly delete my progress

This has now crossed into really weird territory. I have never heard it affect users with an auto undo, but could you be running out of memory? Another weird one, but do you use a wireless keyboard, then update the batteries, had that my self many years ago. Is there any other software that could be running on the machine that could be causing interference? Could there be a Modifier i.e. SubSurf that is smoothing your sculpt to a high degree? or Auto Smooth? You can upload your file here https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/


text:
what is going on with this one side?
So I'm still having trouble with this hair, but now I've run into another problem.
I didn't have any particular texture for the shapes on Blender and after watching a tutorial instead of just winging it and googling things, I turned it to red and turned on AO.
I originally had three pieces. The middle, and then the side in which I copied and mirrored. Then I joined them all, and it looked kind of clunky but I didn't see this weirdness until I put on the red texture thing.
Also please ignore the ear I know it's off, I'm trying to fix it but it's not on my priority list rn

when i take the matcap off

Can your try using the recalculate normals tool and see if that fixes it?

I had no idea what that meant so I looked into how to fix this and it says to select the one that has the blue arrows pointing the wrong way. But it's all one object, and on  the side that's messed up they're pointing inwards. On the other side, outwards. So how do I select the messed up part when it's all one object?

Go to edit mode, select all and hit shift+n.

Try to keep the titles of your future questions informative. This one does not communicate anything unless you see the pictures and people browsing the questions see only the titles first. The title should be a clear question shortly describing the problem so it's clear what this is about, something like "How to fix incorrect shading on one side of a model?" would be a lot better.


text:
how do I smooth an object together?
Weird title, I'm sure, but I'm trying to sort of smooth some objects together... I started by making four pieces. Then I joined the four pieces into one, thinking I could use the smooth tool to make it look less...jointed.

As an example, I went and tried to smooth it, but instead of it making it look less segmented, this is what happened

please be gentle I don't use Blender a lot.

hello, if these are 4 distinct meshes, they will remain 4 meshes even if you try to smooth them, it will be hard to fake a welding. By the way you don't say what you tried. Anyway you have several solutions: you can use the boolean tool to make one object, then smooth with a brush, which must be the easiest solution, or you can join their vertices with some bridges and fill... Another trick is to use a welding node that will fake the welding, I don't know if it's already available...

It is one object, I think...I joined them all together and now I can pick it up and move it as I like. The other meshes are now gone, it is now just called 'sphere 7' instead of '3,4,5,6'.
I used the smoothing brush with sculpting and instead of smoothing those 4 objects together, it only made it thinner and wouldn't smooth them together.
Here's a pic showing it's only one object link

Actually you've joined several objects to make one object but it is still made of several separate meshes. As long as they are separate you won't be able to create any welding, except a fake one with this welding node but I don't know if it's already available. So the simplest is to use the Boolean tool: Go in Edit mode, select all your meshes except one (use L to select a mesh), go in the horizontal header menu > Face > Intersect (Boolean), and in the operator box (bottom left of the 3D View), choose Boolean > Union. Now your meshes are merged into one and you can create a welding effect, in sculpting mode if you want, or with bevels...

I can't seem to get to the selecting part. I'm pressing L but it is only bringing up the menu on what to make local? it isn't doing anything to select the parts

Go in Edit mode, put your cursor over a vertex and press L, it will select the mesh this vertex is part of

ok so i tried doing that. i did what you said. it selected everything. but it's still treating it as separate meshes, and for some reason there's like a sub mesh or something? it says sphere 4 but i ican expand it and it says sphere 6, but it won't let me sculpt on that.

as I said select all your meshes except one, then boolean them. What do you mean by sub mesh? Maybe share your file here: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

i'm sorry i'm an idiot, i clicked all of them instead of just one.
but i'm stil haivng some issue smoothing out the creases in the one mesh. it seems to sort of be working but the mesh looks kinda broken and lumpy when i do that. and it still is making it smaller on the head but I guess I can't fix that until I connect the hair to the head. I'll go ahead and upload the file anyway though


text:
how do i import a texture/uv map for my model?
I make morph targets for PoserPro, and  for a while one of the heads I was sculpting was allowing me to turn it on 'texture shaded' and let me see skin texture instead of just a white figure. But now when I do it, it just turns blue. I don't know why. Is it because the figure is now using a PSD file for textures?
So can someone tell me how I can get this working again? Is it because of the PSD file? I have it saved as a PSD in case I need to edit it again.
Forgive me if I'm not using the right terminology but I'm not great at the names of things used in 3D models

I'd just export the texture as a normal image format from Photoshop. Therefore the original .psd file can still be changed.
You should be able to keep the Texture coordinate - as long as you don't drastically change your texture, new exports will still fit onto your model


text:
Do I need to start with a cube to make a rigged model?
Right now I'm not worried about the rigging so much as I am the way it's being made.
I want to make some kind of nessie thing, but I am worried because I didn't start off with the cube, I started off with the UV sphere, because, it seemed easier to work with.
Anyway, it has all these weird angles on it. And when I render it alone they show up. So I'm wondering if I've made a mistake starting with the sphere, and if I should just give up at this point and use the cube?
I seriously don't know how any of this works.
The reason I started with the sphere is because I usually use the sculpt tool to shape things and I couldn't get that to work on the cube for some reason.

Nah you're doing fine, we all had a hard time at the beginning. I'd have several suggestions to get you started. 1) If your just starting with Blender (and your computer fulfills the minimum requirements) use Blender 2.8. This will help you because the UI is better and you don't have to relearn things later on 2) Watch lots of tutorials to learn the basics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF1qEhBSfq4&list=PLa1F2ddGya_-UvuAqHAksYnB0qL9yWDO6) 2) Do small projects, don't try to do a whole animated character from start to finish right away. This will only get you frustrated.

You don't have to start with the default cube. You currently have the following issues: 1) Body parts are separate objects. For animation you'd likely want them to be one mesh 2) Topology, the shape the mesh has isn't suitable for good animation. You'd likely need to watch animation tutorials to understand what I mean. 3) The mesh isn't set to smooth shading which is why you see these hard edges.

The reason why the sculpting doesn't work well on the cube is because you don't have dynamic topology (DynTopo) activated which would add more vertices in areas that require higher detail. Without it you're simply moving existing vertices around. Since a cube only has eight you can't create much of a different shape (without DynTopo).

you can separate body parts, right? right now the head and arms are separate. but i thought that you could like..select certain parts of the figure, and then separate them from the existing one? I did something similar once in Blender when I was editing meshes from The Sims, but I can't remember how I did it. What I had planned to do was sculpt it and then separate it. Is that possible? Thanks for the info regardless. I guess my comment on 'I've never used blender' is false. I've never made a FIGURE in blender. I do use it for morph targets/ the sims.

Yes you can separate objects. What I meant was, when you plan on animating a character (and aim for realism) you usually have body parts that would be connected IRL also connected in the model, because it makes the deformation more life like. For example in a human model arm and torso would be part of one mesh so that the shoulder can deform properly when raising the arm. An action figure model on the other hand could have them separated.

Oh, I read that totally wrong I'm sorry lol. What I thought about doing was like, idk HOW exactly to do it yet, but making all one mesh once I'm done working on the parts, smoothing it out and if I needed to, separating them into parts but keeping them looking like they're connected? Idk, I don't really have the best plan rn lol. But I guess I don't need to do that then. The reason they're currently separated rn is because I couldn't quite make it work using the grab tool with just one sphere.